sottovoce's Topics (31)

what a brutal mood reversal... it's especially devious because you'd think that them getting intimate for the first/last time is the calm before the storm of the horrors of whatever happened/will happen on the island, something to hold on to in the future, but no, they're just dropped right into it with no warning. I'm in shock and dismay at the chapter ending like that, but it sure is effective for emotional impact.
I did wonder if the creator was going to explore hypersexuality as a trauma response again with seong su unexpectedly screwing another man, but there's the more sinister explanation that they were being followed for longer than they thought and that the cultists would be so depraved/indoctrinated that they would just assault seong su on sight. still out of pocket though.

taejae sucks a bit less than suah when it comes to juhyeok, but he's also clearly using his status to take advantage of people in general, so there's a red flag for him, too. and that's on top of the whole "let's get this vulnerable young person drunk to take advantage of him sexually" thing. burnable trash vs non-recyclable trash.
presumably the author made juhyeok's mom a pharmaceutical company CEO so that this cum-dependency plot can be resolved later, but I need that resolution to move along expeditiously. I can guess that juhyeok would be standoffish towards even his mom when it comes to dealing with omega things, so why don't we get into that? if they're not talking, why?
honestly, both suah and juhyeok's relationships to their parents and their secondary genders are more interesting (worth screentime) than their forced sexual connection.

this will be worthwhile if it doesn't shy away from inverting the title from suah's belief that juhyeok is his world in a "he's awesome! he lights my path", worshipful follower kind of way to juhyeok believing suah is his world in a "he's all I have, I can't live without him" dependent reliance kind of way. it would be an interesting switch up from the way they expected to present when they were kids and how they defined themselves and their roles within their relationship according to how alphas and omegas are generally expected to behave and move in the world, where alphas have all this freedom and potential control over others while omegas are very clearly limited by their bodies and other people. in the early chapters, people got on juhyeok's case about his prejudice against omegas, and thus being an omega himself, but all of suah's behavior so far has justified juhyeok's negativity towards and rejection of his presentation.
it would be a very hard sell on making this a lovey-dovey happy relationship from how things have played out so far, so I'm rooting for a bad ending (by romance standards) where they don't get together (vanishingly rare chance) or a "good" ending where they get together and it's miserable, particularly for juhyeok in a 50s housewife kind of way. maybe he does accomplish his judo dreams, but it's only because he was at suah's beck and call and obligated to start a family with him after. or, to make it more cruel, that's the agreement they make, but juhyeok is never able to compete at the highest levels because he gets pregnant. you could spin the resulting child(ren) into being juhyeok's world/reason for living after having his worldview and dreams crushed. it'd be very tradwife-y and appropriately unsettling for a bad end that's not the ended-in-death kind of tragic.
instead, I bet it'll go along the same lines where juhyeok goes along with suah's BS so he can compete but he seriously gives him a chance and returns his feelings over the course of things and "can finally be honest about how he feels ~~" and then babies ever after.
alternatively, a timeskip after they've bonded, not out of mutual love but so that juhyeok can have some semblance of independence, and they've been living their separate lives and suah's been successful with art because heartbreak made his work compelling and juhyeok's been competing and they reconnect and build a relationship after time has healed some wounds. would still be obnoxious for the whole "falling-in-love -with-your-rapist thing, but a bit more believable.
all that said, I don't trust this author to make good on any of that character/setting build-up based on how suah has been made out sympathetically so far due to unrequited love/obsession while juhyeok's totally reasonable reactions and negative feelings towards having his autonomy and freedom taken away from him have been sidelined and underplayed, as if those two things (having your feelings returned and body autonomy) are remotely equivalent. maybe juhyeok's more of a dick to suah than he strictly has to be, but I don't give a rat's ass about that considering his overall situation.
(this is just my read after dropping pretty early on and then lurking, so it's not attuned to the details)

if you made it this far, here's a gold star!

my guess is that seong su's dad got involved with the cult and brought/forced him in, his sexuality was discovered, and then the cult forced seong su into conversion therapy, which can sometimes involve drugs. maybe they declared him "cured" because/after he was able to father children. I could see that being the root of some of his reactions in the present.
it's too early to tell where things will go, but I'm very intrigued by the dichotomies/contrasts between seong su and hyeondo (Christian vs shamanism, only has his dad vs only has women in his life growing up, suppressed his sexuality and feelings vs living life out and proud)

I'm waiting to catch up with the official chapters, but even as someone who kind of preferred a jo+Ian endgame, I'm not upset with ian+tj endgame because as far as I can tell, that would never have happened without jo. Ian and tj couldn't be together if tj stayed enmeshed in and ascending the ranks of the gang, and if I'm interpreting the spoiler I just glanced at correctly, it seems like he lost that - the gang is either defunct or undergoing massive restructuring in TJ's favor?
it's one thing to be upset that the character you liked didn't "win", especially if the "other side" makes for poor "winners" (that's totally fair and warranted), but I don't think it's bad writing. undercooked in some ways/for some characters, yeah. I'd say the creator overextended theirself. but it seems to me that TJ and Ian ending up together in this particular way, in this particular circumstance makes sense as a resolution to their respective character conflicts. and it doesn't happen without jo! (even though it sucks for him to be sucked into all that with evidently nothing to show for it) （/TДT)/
at least he's still alive and not in prison?

seong su is as cute as he is suspicious and concerning.
reread because I'm obsessed and noticed that this is set in 1999, so I imagine y2k or the new millennium will be plot relevant + tie into the title. if seong su is in a cult, he's possibly a suicide risk (cult = group suicide to commemorate some pivotal moment trope) and him reconnecting with hyeondo and possibly letting himself go/indulging sexually with him is all part of his bucket list or last hurrah before the end. or a ploy to recruit hyeondo?
decent chance he has sexual trauma from past SA and/or mistreatment from his dad or whatever religious entity is in his life, cult or not. or he's severely repressed due to any of the above. or both.
I'm so curious about him!

you know, maybe it would alleviate inseo's neediness if yihyeok topped him once or a couple times...

I wonder how long this is meant to be, because things move pretty fast between the mains, physically. but there could be a nice emotional arc, so here's to hoping. (and I hope this creator can put out more along these lines)

it's understated, but pretty straightforward to figure out that siwon is dealing with a possible/likely career-ending injury and all the weirdness is how he's coping. last chapter is making me wonder if the injury has a traumatic source and he lost a lover or SO. if not death, then estrangement. he's open with his affections and it seems that he doesn't want to be alone. that lingering panel of the sink only seems noteworthy bc he's got two of each dish, apart from the mug that woojoon used, and maybe it's significant that it's the first time in a while that someone else has left evidence of their existence in his living space.

looks like some people don't know what a seal is and why it was important here. I knew about seals/hanko from manga, but I didn't know they were also used in S. Korea, so TIL. it's something you use to stamp documents (and other stuff) and it works like a signature, so it's used on official documents like contracts. there's more to it if you check this link ( https://thesoulofseoul.net/korean-dojang-get-a-korean-name-stamp/), but that's the gist.
incheol was responsible for getting people to sell their houses so their areas could be redeveloped, and it looks like pyeonghwa's family fell victim to incheol's "by any means" approach, since he either stole the seal outright or got pyeonghwa's mom to stamp a selling agreement under false pretenses. and given that she wasn't in good health, it looks like that eventually snowballed into her death.
that also means that pyeonghwa's not just some random guy who got obsessed with incheol, he's also got some personal beef to take out on him. incheol's shady past came back to bite him (in the ass) and his boss and colleague left him to do a downright impossible task with no warning of the fallout from his past actions (betrayal! demotion!).