I’m only on chapter 4, but I’m kind of over it. The (probably) ml who appears on the cover was introduced, and I am thoroughly underwhelmed. I dislike the common narrative where the main male love interest completely transgresses the fl’s boundaries, inconveniences them, potentially or actually puts them in danger, and acts like a nonchalant asshole. In the very first scene, he interrupts her hunt, grabs her and refuses to let go despite multiple protests, ignores her obvious and voiced anger and irritation, and then leaves without so much as an apology.
And of course the powerful confident girl boss just rolls over because wow a few minutes of protest didn’t get him to adjust his behavior so she guesses it’s just her life now. Never mind her being an S rank mercenary, who apparently can’t/won’t try to fight off an armed stranger who started manhandling her out of nowhere. It’s just lazy writing. I’m tired of authors pretending to write strong female leads, only to use them as accessories to the male lead.
It’s an insidious trope that glosses over a lot of toxic behavior on the male lead’s part, and dehumanizes the female lead by overriding her personality and character by forcing her to tolerate the ml for the sake of pushing an incompatible romance with a self centered, arrogant, toxic, disrespectful and/or abusive partner.
The premise of these stories never makes sense. A vital political marriage is arranged to another nation, either for support/resources necessary for survival, or to ally with a potential invader to spare the kingdom. The princess is promised. Extremely delicate political dealings with major consequences for both success and failure. The princess runs away or elopes or refuses to go, so they send the bastard/younger prince pretending to be her.
It’s completely insane, tf do they think is going to happen on the marriage night, or if the groom tries to get with his bride before the wedding?! The logic that it will be less scandalous for the powerful king to find out he’s been scammed with a male bride than to try to make up an excuse to delay the marriage. And in this scenario, they’re basically throwing their prince to the wolves.
I just wish authors would put a little more work into figuring out a genuine premise for this trope. I read one where it was reversed, and the princess actually transformed into a man to impersonate her brother. There either need to be solid mechanisms in place to hide their identity or a truly ruthless family that are discarding them for profit.
This is so insanely risky for Kiran and it doesn’t really make sense for his supposedly loving family to so readily endanger him in that way.
I really want to point out how great chapter 99 was. In most cases, the mental trauma and resulting misfortune of the “abandoned” half of the main couple is used as narrative or in universe justification to get them back together while sidestepping the other issues that led up to it.
Doha states in no uncertain terms that his health and mental state are his responsibility only, and not Juheon’s. He acknowledges the breakup and how distressing it was, but takes responsibility for his reaction and part in the lead up to that event.
He reaffirms his feelings while acknowledging that the way he behaved made it impossible for Juheon to truly trust him, and let’s him know that he will work to regain that trust until he can feel comfortable being with him.
This story is an interesting case study in how relationships, sex, and consent are considered differently depending on gender. If DeMarcus was a woman who refused to sleep with any men, and her friends decided to try to get her drunk so she would agree to sleep with a guy, the narrative would justifiably treat them as villains
Ok comedy aside, I think this chapter encapsulates the difference in psychology really well. Yejin was raised normally, away from crime and violence, and had only had superficial interactions with the gangsters he owed the debt to until he joined up. Trauma, loss, rage, and desperation have really put him in an altered mental state.
His loose cannon, crazy behavior sort of gets treated as a quirky personality trait, but it’s really all a trauma response. He’s trying very hard to adapt to a very extreme environment and really doesn’t understand what is normal/reasonable anymore. Nothing we see of his personality before the betrayal indicates that he was prone to such risky behavior.
Taekmu did something extreme (according to the status quo of gangster conduct) to scare him into putting more distance between them, but Yejin wasn’t aware, and thought it was just a normal aspect of that life, and therefore did the same without understanding the inevitable fallout.
Yejin is someone with nothing to lose, whose judgement is badly compromised by his trauma, so even by gangster standards he is prone to risky and erratic behaviors so long as it serves his revenge and/or helps him stabilize his new place int the world.
His wildcard, Devil may care attitude is only because he has nothing to hold back for. He has nothing and no one else to protect, and he considers his safety of minor importance compared to the relative gains of doing well in the gang and getting closer to revenge.
His disregard for his own life is due to his trauma and I don’t think anyone around him has fully recognized the root of that behavior. Even Taekmu has been assuming it’s an over enthusiasm and recklessness, but it’s rooted in an anger and despair that has completely engulfed Yejin’s sense of self.
I think Taekmu is starting to realize the mental state that Yejin is in, and that he is not dealing with someone capable of thinking and reacting “rationally” to the situations he has, and will continue to be placed in.
Lmfao, he’s so salty that she’s not hot for him. Bro is in denial ╮(￣▽￣)╭
Bro is like a dog that brings a live snake into the house, so excited he caught something for his pack, but zero concept of long term consequences ╮(￣▽￣)╭ Bro just turned a Cold War into a civil war ╥﹏╥
I was disappointed about chapter 58. It just doesn’t feel like it makes sense for someone with severe depression and suicidal ideation from the age of 10 to magically realize that everything is fine because someone told them that life was actually good.
That level of depression doesn’t work like that. It just sort of cheapened his character because he was someone who was still experiencing that ideation his entire life and after building happiness with a partner, but all it took was him basically saying “life isn’t as bad as you think” for all of that to go away. If it was that easy, it would have happened before the story started.It would have been better for him to choose to live while fighting his depression than have it magically poof
I felt bad for both of them. Obviously Ruan shouldn’t have done that and needed to pay the price for it. It felt like Ruan was constantly getting pushed and molded into place, power he never wanted, a lifetime of work he never asked for. Shein was a precious golden child who got away with shirking his duties over a minor illness. Ruan is only treated well when he is performing well. The second he steps out of line, his emotions are treated as a joke and his distress as an inconvenience.
This story would be smooth sailing if not for the adults in Ruan’s life. His parents never bothered to understand or get to know him, and just pushed everything onto Herdic. They let a 9 year old do whatever he wanted and then were surprised and disappointed that he didn’t choose to study every day, then set him to another continent for 10+ years because he was so clearly unfocused.
They let Shein get away with slacking off and force his role onto their young child. It’s clear that Shein is not that ill and it’s strange that the parents (who are pretty sharp) seemingly never picked up on it. Despite knowing how his laziness forced Ruan to give up his childhood, at no point does Shein show so much as a shred of concern for Ruan even when he is genuinely distressed.
They see him as an heir, not a child or brother. Their only concern is that he performs his role without inconveniencing them. Even though Herdic is the only one who really provides emotional support, he ends up using Ruan’s feelings to convince him to agree to study abroad, but then he concealed all of Cloden’s letters to “avoid distracting” him. It was so unnecessary, and would have allowed them to stay connected.
Later on, the count absolutely knew what would happen when Ruan started his search and how much it was going to hurt him, but he let it happen anyway to teach him a lesson and change his mind. Again, he prioritized “teaching” his heir how to wield authority and breaking him of his first love over his actual well being.
It’s still his fault for snapping, but there were so many opportunities for everyone around him to have unknowingly prevented it if they had actually prioritized him as a person instead of trying to manipulate him into the path/behavior they wanted. That was his boiling point in a place nobody had ever prioritized him. Part of the reason he built up such a fixation on Cloden was that he has always been the only person in his life that genuinely cared for him without any conditions.
He almost lost that because of the people around him
Ok I was actually upset that she basically got worn down into marrying him, but then I was pleasantly surprised when she died again lmfao
Interesting how Grayson got so indignant and surprised when Dane took control of the situation. His entire plan was to trap Dane underground until his heat came and he would have no choice but to sleep with him, thus allowing him to verify whether he was a dominant.
His plan works, Dane goes into heat and loses his mind, but Grayson wasn’t ready for it and tries to shut it down when Dane tries to sleep with him. Only Dane is too altered by that time for rational thought, and forces Grayson’s rut.
I just found it interesting that the second Grayson is on the receiving end of the treatment he gave to his previous partners and tried to give to Dane, he’s panicking and trying to regain control.
He suddenly cares a lot about consent (specifically his own), but doesn’t reflect on what that means for all of his past interaction where he was the one acting that way, except for Grayson it was a conscious choice, while for Dane it was a situation beyond his control that Grayson forced him into
Of course, the narrative will protect Grayson’s status as ml over maintaining Dane’s personality or a rational course of relationship for a relationship. I’m just here to watch the trainwreck at this point, but will probably drop soon since it seems the author will pigeonhole Dane into a classic forgiving doormat partner rather than giving Grayson any character development or progressing a realistic relationship
I’m dropping this. It had some of the standard overdone trope in addition to arranging the entire story and personality of the mc around making the ml not look as entitled or shitty as he actually is. Ml essentially assaults mc as he continuously tells him to stop throughout the encounter, to the point where he starts trying to bargain with him. The narrative definitely won’t hold him accountable for that, but I’m so over this bs. Don’t waste your time
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
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
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.