The emperor pisses me tf off. He has always been a deadbeat to Etienne. He left his kid under the control of a morally bankrupt rapist (he did not want to marry or sleep with her, so she overpowered him with drugs and pheromones). That’s why she lost her shit about Etienne being an omega, because it was her only chance to conceive.
But he’s also at fault for leaving a child to the mercy of someone like that. He never even tried to teach or mold Etienne into a good son or ruler, just tried to tear him down and replace him with Rishar every chance he got.
Their relationship recently improved, but it was only because Etienne started to conform to what he wanted, and was useful in countering house Herace. He still doesn’t give af about Etienne and is more than happy to abandon/condemn him the second his secret gets out.
This is a really interesting example of how patriarchal constructs dehumanizes everyone. The very first plot point of the story involves the teammates deeming women attracted to an attractive bachelor as “nuisances” and then banning them from the premises without asking the subject. Then they are irritated by the inconvenience of not being allowed to have women over and basically scheme to set up DeMarcus with a girl that THEY deem is ideal, without asking his opinion, but their main goal isn’t really to help DeMarcus, but “get him laid to end the ban”, so they can all get laid.
Women who are trying to meet up with them are either a nuisance or a commodity, and it flips as convenient. DeMarcus is treated in a similar way. Just like they make assumptions about the intent and behavior of women, they don’t even bother to ask what kind of girl he wants, or if he even wants to meet someone that way.
I actually appreciate the subtlety and how it drives the plot without bashing the reader over the head.
I’m just tired of authors coming up with a self centered top and literally bending over backwards to create a selfless, devoted bottom who will rearrange their lives and take on insane burdens just to avoid inconveniencing or requiring the top to take any emotional or actual responsibility for situations of their own creation.
It just feels that in some moments Geonwu doesn’t react like a person or his own character, but an accessory to Taejun. As such, he will always end up prioritizing Taejun’s convenience and preference over all else. I just want real characters that feel like real, autonomous people, not designed to cater to an asshole mc and make sure they always look better than they are
Seriously. Even in fiction it's too much.
Have you read Dash? I think it's a good read if you want a more balanced relationship.
CLOCK ITTT
I don't go here but I feel this so much! (๑•ㅂ•)و✧
yes, every story is a set of contrivances, characters and their traits included, but those things should work in tandem and synergize. too many stories feel like they've put the cart before the horse and feel flat and/or forced because the author is leading with the tropes, scenes, and story beats they want to include and not properly supporting them with characters with enough depth or detail to give them impact.
This is also why it’s so hard to find decent straight romance because patriarchy and misogyny have a death grip on common tropes, developments, and dynamics used prevalently in like 95% of them
It’s interesting that this is the moment the author chooses to show a more innocent and human side to Grayson. Up until now, he constantly behaves and thinks like a selfish asshole on the borderline of having antisocial personality disorder.
Now he’s about to get some karma, but we’re being set up to feel bad for him, like all the people he wronged are sniffing out some precious glimmer of empathy, as if he didn’t have an entire lifetime to start seeing others as human.
It's actually author's first story in the entire series even before kiss me liar and kiss me if u can so if you read and understand the different novels, they are actually showing how Grayson keeps wanting to help people. He did help yeonwoo not get gangraped but with chase, his solutions came out horribly and hurting. Author is hinting from the start this complex character by putting him on several stories. Grayson and Dane are the main characters in this universe. So she is not making us readers pity him or forget his wrongdoings. She is showing us the real Grayson from his and Dane's unbiased perspective.
This focuses on the mc's (grayson) mental disorder, his genes and upbringing (+his search for love to understand emotions) and ml's (Dane)healing from a trauma with grayson appearing in his life. While in the other stories, you can see how Grayson's condition affected the people around him.
Any shift in perspective will bias the tone towards the selected mc, but I guess my point was that this development doesn’t actually justify or explain his constant pattern of negative behavior. It’s essentially a guilt bomb set go off on people he has antagonized to the point that they made it their life’s mission to get back at him.
It’s not reframing these actions, but rather setting the stage to make the readers and the narratives choice in love interest, Dane, feel bad for him. Point being that him being excited about a few normal events in a normal way does nothing to negate decades of harmful actions which he has still not acknowledged or taken responsibility for.
The timing is just too obvious. Authors will bend over to protect a toxic top/ml from the consequences of their actions, and this just seems to be the setup for a shallow guilt trip.
Yes, Grayson will be justified in feeling hurt and angry about this, but if he had refrained from antagonizing and hurting others constantly, it never would have gotten to this point.
"Any shift in perspective will bias the tone towards the selected mc". You said it yourself. Kmyic and kml was seen from the perspective of the people who hated him and who don't know him well, so those are biased. Being told from his and other people's perspectives make this the closest one we'll ever get to know the real Grayson.
Read my reply again.
I think if this story was made to "guilt bomb", there wouldn't be other novels who support the narrative of this one.
We have, 1. Eat me up if you can (the grandfather's story, he who was said to resemble Grayson as per Ashley's initial opinions)
2. Lick me if you can (the side stories showing the parenting)
3. Kiss me if you can (side stories which told graysons reason for lying. actually, you wouldnt need the side stories to realize that he has good intentions behind the hurtful actions toward chase, that is when readers aren't clouded with judgement)
4. Deflower me if you can (talked about grayson caring for chase bc his brother was in danger of becoming insane. If I remember correctly, they also showed here how grayson chose chase over bliss in a certain situation)
5. Kiss me liar (included this bc desire was before this also. grayson helped yeonwoo here and if you're observant, his character being unique was already introduced by that scene)
I couldnt add Run away if you can because I haven't started the novel yet.
"The timing is just too obvious." What timing when this was literally the foundation of the other stories? It was planned and created first a decade ago.
It wasn't made to redeem, to gain sympathy, or to justify anything. It's to essentially learn information about a character who was only portrayed as villain from others' eyes. If you are still not seeing what I'm talking about even after reading the starting chapters, you are not getting the purpose of the story. It was already hinted from 15 chapters or so that he's showing symptoms of alexithymia. Or if you haven't read the novel yet, then these few chapters of the manhwa aren't enough for you to comprehend that it wasn't a 'setup to guilt trip'.
Like the other readers of this series, I also think zig went to intentionally chose the worst possible situations in Grayson's actions in kmiyc. To show the severity of thinking from a person affected by combined dominant genes from birth (brain defect since young), a personality disorder, and bad parenting. It also pushes readers to check the other novels if they want to gain new info or have explanation for each perspective they read.
I got carried away, I hope you read this with open mind. Also understood you would think that way with how this manhwa was adapted after kmiyc. Novels adapted are chosen by illustrators, not the author's decision. But really, dmiyc novel was created first like author said. So I don't see this made to bend up anything because this narrative is the truth.
*by the truth I meant the real Grayson
This story is such a great example of how abuse victims become abusers. Talia knows who is truly responsible for her misery, but everyone else in her life also participates or contributes to it. She doesn’t see a way to escape the abuse, so she’s at a precipice. She doesn’t really want to kill Ayla, but it’s the only measure of control that she feels she can exert, a more extreme version of her keeping the servants in line through violence. She wants to be free, she wants to be happy, she wants to be with her love, but it just won’t happen.
She is simultaneously incredibly jealous of Ayla for her loving family, her lack of abuse, and her betrothal to Varcas, but also completely self loathing. She hates her life, she hates how powerless she is, she hates that her mother only uses her, she hates the way she acts, she hates herself as a person.
At the end of the day, she isn’t lashing out at the person she resents the most, the person whose death would actually benefit her, or the primary architects of her misery, she’s trying to attack someone who appears weak enough for her to harm.
i love your analysis, honestly it just touches on how complex this story is and how people are a product of their environment not just that they are inherently evil
This man is holding onto his last shred of sanity trying to change the future lmao.
So basically Iheon never learned anything. He felt bad about the effects of his actions, but not the actual harm they caused, which is why he is still controlling and possessive even after his second chance. He is still trying to pressure, coerce, and entrap Huiwon into a relationship, but just more self aware about it. I don’t get why he’s getting a gold star, for…not being physically abusive. Just because he doesn’t hit Huiwon doesn’t make him a decent partner or person. If we got an intro of him from the last part of the story he would still be a red flag.
The only reason the relationship has any semblance of functionality is because Huiwon’s feelings somehow override literally all trauma, even from the first life. And in the second one, Huiwon is just magically fine with all of the controlling, manipulative, and abusive behavior. It just feels like he’s built around making Iheon look less bad, because if he reacted like a normal person it would be more obvious that Iheon was and still is the villain.
mind you it was also mention many times that iheon raped and forced huimin. If huimin didn't have that steel mindset, this would've been a tragic ending.
It still is. The only reason Iheon is “playing nice” is that he found out that being violent didn’t get the result he wanted. He would still act that way if he came to believe it would yield his preferred results.
I think that the original Huiwon knew he would never be able to escape Iheon, so MC Huiwon was created to be a version of him who wouldn’t be damaged or harmed by Iheon’s treatment, someone who could thrive on his mistreatment.
No normal person could endure in that situation without serious damage. The only reason MC can is due to his memories of the og story, and innate personality, both gifted to him by the original Huiwon
Just bland in general. I’m a bit tired of stories where the fl mindlessly devotes her mind, body, and soul to a ml who she’s not even that attached to. It feels artificial and cheap because nothing that’s happened has actually shown their relationship deepening to that degree.
Despite him not warning her about his sleep murdering (risking her life in general, but even worse for not giving her a heads up), her development seems to be husband = love, therefore like husband.
His development is the usual possessiveness over love trope, so he’ll treat her ok as long as she’s doing what he wants, but doesn’t really respect her as a person, which is why he basically imprisons/posts watchers on her.
As usual, author needs to make sure she acts like a docile doormat to avoid showcasing how problematic and undesirable the ml is.
She was basically hyped up with a cool backstory of a noble fighting on the frontlines and then immediately morphed into a Bella Swan cardboard cutout.
I’ve read the novel and it’s better than you think. Each to their own but both of the main characters grow a lot throughout the story so keep reading if you can, she’s such a powerful MC
This shit fucked me up ╥﹏╥
It’s so beautiful in its exploration of sentience, emotion, and humanity. The gems seem somewhat apathetic to each other beyond matters of their defense against Lunarians. They have these intense, long lasting attachments after a loss, but even that seems to fade over time and they don’t have a particularly supportive social structure. That might make sense since they’re not biologically designed to be social.
We see over and over that Phos has the best of intentions to start with, but we all know where those can lead. They want to help Cinnabar, they want to retrieve their lost comrades, they want to end the lunarian invasion. They are slowly corrupted by memory loss, trauma, and all of the changes to their body. And the whole time, an entire society of ancient beings, including their Sensei have been slowly leading them to an inevitable end of destruction and loneliness. Phos just got such a raw deal. They were essentially raised as a sacrificial lamb.
1. They’re born weak and considered useless, to a species is in a constant war of attrition due to Lunarians trying to torture Sensei into praying (which he can’t do even if he wanted to)
2. they gain enough power to be helpful after several traumatic fights, but all of the people around them that they care about keep dying
3.everyone treats them like they’re nuts for being suspicious of Sensei
4. They are slowly losing their mind between all of this while losing memories and continuing to fight to protect their comrades
5. eventually gets damaged, which causes a head transplant combining them with another gem’s personality, further destabilizing/altering their mind
6. Gets awkward looks for being crazy again
7.labeled a traitor for going to the moon to find the lost comrades
8. Finds out the lost comrades have been turned to dust and can’t be fixed
9. Slowly loses sight of their goals because the lunarians and sensei have been manipulating their entire life to traumatize them enough to become human
10. Finds out that even though lost comrades can be restored, their memories will never return, so it won’t be the same beings
11. Tries to return and talk to Sensei to beg for a peaceful resolution, gets obliterated without hesitation by every gem left on the island, taken apart, and hidden in pieces for 200+ years
12. Gets messed up from being so damaged, then reformed (twice, once by Sensei, once by Aechma, who is implied to have focused on restoring more of their negative memories to cultivate the human emotion, vengeance)
13. Basically destroys Sensei by trying to force him to pray, then is forced to become god in his place
14. Left in complete isolation on Earth for 10,000 years to force them to properly absorb the power of god, even new gems are taken away to prevent them from having anyone to interact with. All of the other gems and sensei are basically partying without a care on the moon this entire time
15. Fulfills the wish and sends all sentient life into the afterlife, being left completely alone for millennia
16. Sentient life finally develops and they are able to interact with them, then the sun explodes and instead of taking the escape capsule with them, they are afraid of the corruption in their human parts and choose to die with the planet