ahahaha oh mannn this upcoming bit is the part of the novel i wasn’t looking forward to lol
Aw this poor guy, I love a good ‘oh fuck, this stupid straight(?) man is going to break my heart isn’t he’ story
I always end up thinking this but this is just a very -solid- manhwa. Like the art is solid, story is solid, pacing is solid, dialogue is solid, it’s not groundbreaking different but it’s a really good delivery of the classic tropes. I appreciate it for how airtight and well crafted it is.
Everybody is 12 theory is strong in this webtoon
Whats that?
Cuz they’re all childish
I see based on the replies that this is a much more contentious manhwa than i realised lol.
I haven’t read much beyond what’s here now (c30~) but I can already tell that this manhwa has some pretty clear-cut themes about class and power that aren’t really addressed in the criticism i’m reading. Which is a shame because I think this is probably one the most accurate depictions of landed gentry and nobility from a commoners perspective.
Something I like about this comic is how human the common people are compared to the nobles, from a narrative perspective. The commoners life is warm, lush, harsh, but they have actual friends and relationships. The nobility in comparison is sterile, jaded, deeply stagnant and manipulative. They’re not free, they’re stuck in their ways, and you’d almost feel bad for them if they weren’t so blood-chillingly unempathetic.
The male lead is the pinnacle of nobility, but the comic doesn’t go out of its way to paint him as having some throughline of deeply repressed empathy or tragic backstory. Instead, he’s unsympathetic, he’s never been truly tested by the world so his confidence and arrogance is clearly based on nothing but his own title. He extends a gentlemanly hand to his fiancé and then pulls the wings off the butterfly MC and never once thinks of what this means of his character because he believes he is above criticism.
I’m not surprised he resorts to (novel spoilers) sexual exploitation, it’s part of his character in the text to assume the MC isnt a person but rather an extension of his garden. Something he owns, that lives in his backyard to visit when he comes home for Summer. Something cultivated and cared for by someone else that he can enjoy at his leisure, it’s only natural for him to assume he can exploit her body as he desires.
I find him repellant and i’m not looking forward to the SA, but I appreciate where this story is going 100x more than any of the glossy, romantic stories that smooth down the unpleasant edges of aristocracy in order to make it more palatable (or god forbid, outright espouse propaganda like Enlightened Guidance). I deeply appreciate a critique of class systems in romance, and considering how much the nobility show up in rofan they get through it depressingly unscathed.
YEESH. It was good, like obviously excellent in writing and pacing and their story is excruciatingly sad and thoughtful and captivating in its tragedy. But. Oh my god, I feel exhausted like Ive been treading water, I won’t be able to give this one a second read because it was just that sad in places.
I’m neutral on the assault at the moment. It’s not… ideal, and frankly I think they could have built up that tension for another 5 chapters before getting nasty at all, but the authors earned themselves the benefit of the doubt imo.
Candy had great moments of reflection on comparatively minor issues of consent towards the end, and while this scene was extremely brutal I almost appreciate it for that, it’s way more insidiously icky when it’s actually hot. Ain’t nothing titillating about him puking and staying soft; it’s hard to watch and I think that’s the point, because the author knows what the ml is doing here sucks.
I don’t blame anyone for tapping out or being shocked though. I personally have a somewhat strong stomach for non/dubious consent in stories about complicated sexual dynamics, but I wasn’t expecting to need it for this one.
That said I’m tenuously still on board, but the playing field needs to be significantly levelled for the mc soon. For this dynamic and love interest to work and be fun he has to be able to trade blows with the ml in a battle of matched wits, but the violence and dominance of these chapters feels like a really bad starting point for them :(
Will these scanners be shot if they don’t upload first or what? What is done well once is done forever