as others are saying this really is mature in how it handles its storytelling and i think the situation with the ex is a really good example of that. characters get demonised for being afraid of stepping out of the closet so much in storytelling and kimura went out of his way to acknowledge that he understood why his boyfriend balked, even if it hurt him and in the end it didn’t work with him. even to the degree of wondering if things could have been different if he was more accepting of his boyfriend than he felt he’d been and expressing regret for how he drifted away because of the situation…. being closeted is hard, and being with someone who’s closeted is also hard. it’s never easy, and some people aren’t able to handle that kind of situation and kimura understood he wasn’t someone who could (ans lamented that he wasn’t someone who could) and stepped away, while not holding it against his boyfriend. that’s a very mature outlook and i appreciate it.
it’s a bummer the manhwa isn’t adapting the timeskip side story because that’s my favourite one & i think seeing the two of them (+ seungjin and eunoh still there as their friends) after several years would have been a perfect ender but this was still very sweet…….. they’re so sweet. best of luck going forward jiwon & jungwoo there’s textual evidence out there you’ll last forever and you’ll manage well…. and jiwon will be able to heal enough from his history of trauma to say as much…….. you can do it….
i don’t like leaving reviews on things unless they’re a 5* to me because i only want to display my favs in my Have Read so this is getting a topic. yes this is an essay on a goofy mpreg story i read because it sounded funny and liked the art style and i will read anything for the sake of good art references. it IS funny. i’m not one for this genre in any capacity i don’t care about pregnancy in any form but like it IS funny. However,
well first of all i don’t really think sunwoo and eungyo have any romantic chemistry. physical, certainly, but absolutely no romantic chemistry. sunwoo’s interest in eungyo is entirely based on a teenage puppy love that stems from his scientific interest in him & a physical attraction that’s lasted. eungyo’s interest in sunwoo is entirely and wholly physical. even if he has a soft spot for him that’s been highlighted it manifests thru him specifically thinking about sunwoo physically atp. there’s nothing sticking them together as a lasting romantic couple aside from their child and i worry for that kid’s future a tad. also i think the story taking a turn in s2 into eungyo deciding he’s liked sunwoo since they met is Very Weird!! like that is not a romantic backstory he was 17 and you were 24. Hello? Hello? Eungyo? Hello?
but this isn’t what i wanted to focus on i mostly wanted to comment on what the setting unintentionally sets up. this isn’t the manhwa itself’s fault as this is an adaptation, but i will say that it paints an…. interesting view of the world and of korea on the author’s end, where they live in a world where effectively eugenics via genetic tampering is not only legal but is widely encouraged (even though it doesn’t even seem to actually work because all of the people around sunwoo who allegedly had their DNA modified to improve them as people are just as rash temperamentally despite this), but same sex marriage is still illegal. (especially considering that no one in sunwoo or eungyo’s circles have issues with sunwoo’s interest in A Man?). it just creates an interesting picture esp when combined with the eugenics adjacence when you know how infamously bad south korea’s birth rate is and the why it continues to drop. sunwoo’s research into fertility issues would not be improving the birth rate to the degree they do because the birth rate is tanking in heavy part due to societal structure (work culture, financial struggles, and horrific patriarchal / misogynistic culture.) and certainly this is a fantasy what if, but it’s a fantasy what if story rooted in reality to the point where it’s like. i wonder how the author sees the world because none of the setting really builds anything solid lol
and you may read this essay thinking “it’s really not that deep they just wanted an excuse for pregnancy” or “just read the story and be quiet” and i will say maybe it’s not that deep! but art does not exist in a vacuum and due to the topic it is enough to bug me enough to comment on how the author’s worldview bleeds into the setting. i don’t care if i get downvoted either i just wanted to comment on all this LOL i hauve a lot to say. Unfortunately.
Thank you for your opinion I liked reading it. I like to read somebody that it’s similar but different to mine.
For the thing about their social climate I just don’t think it matters not just because it’s a fantasy like you said, but also because of how the setting is, I don’t think it has to blend in with anything specifically with real life. I don’t think that’s a thing that has to happen. This manga is specifically some futuristic with the view that a lot of those social issues aren’t a thing they just aren’t it’s very clear from all the machines I make for pregnant women and all that stuff it’s showing that none of this is an issue here and everything is OK. In that regard, people are still assholes. People are probably still corrupt, but there’s mostly has to do with their own family issues and this is more of a rich people issue anyway,
I know what you’re getting at like why wasn’t that change to make sure that this doesn’t happen but I think this is kind of showing that at the end of the day you are your own person regardless of what they tried to change and sometimes they can’t change everything because they don’t know that that’s a chance. Also, it seems to point at the fact that you can only change something between the couple to make sure that they don’t have those issues so they took the Mom‘s looks. They took a lot of her intelligence. They took a lot of things from her, but they couldn’t take everything out from the Dad or all the bad things from her. It looks like when they talk about the eugenics, they only Specifically take things from both partners. If they just don’t have it they don’t have it. Maybe they give them immunity to always be healthy and shit, but I don’t think they tweaked them in that form out of something that the parents don’t have. I think this is what this manga is showing and the way they want to portray eugenics
regarding the traits, eungyo and seoyoon both actually highlight this, but it’s less about taking and more about erasing! eungyo refers to himself as having “all irrational impulses removed,” and seoyoon mentions pretty early on that natural births are more likely to be criminals because their negative personality traits can’t be freely altered. and this kind of genetic manipulation is what toes the line of eugenics, effectively, because the idea of eugenics is about abolishing “undesirable” traits (often in real-world linked to heavy racism and ableism). the premise of this story just gets kind of close to that and even if it’s not how they intentionally want to portray this i do think it comes across in the concept of the story and setting, especially since the setting isn’t…. super detailedly fleshed out for what it is. and again, there are also issues like sunwoo’s fertility research being a pipe dream but in a real setting they wouldn’t cover any of the actual issues that are causing a declining birth rate lol
i’m not really sure what the point you’re trying to make regarding my criticism of gay marriage being illegal is either i apologise ^^;; like my issue is that they live in a futuristic setting and societally it seems to be accepted without prejudice (past eungyo’s dad), but genetic alteration is more acceptable than two men or two women getting married to the point where it hasn’t been legalised in any capacity i don’t think that’s a rich people issue haha overall my issues are just with how the story presents itself and the author’s worldview bleeding into it whether they realise it or not because it makes for a bit of a clunky concept. but that’s just me! thank you for taking the time to read it.
man rereading this now hits different bc in the time since it last updated i went through my own breakup for kind of similar reasons (irreconcilable differences contributed to heavy by communication issues on both ends LMAO) but i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: this author is really good at articulating communication struggles in their work. i think it ended perhaps a little too neatly for the struggles they’ve faced (although maybe that’s kind of the point since a lot of it is that their struggles DID have a pretty simple solution in this case—while “just communicate” doesn’t always work as a solution…. in this case they both wanted to continue the relationship and needed to express themselves properly to each other so once they did after reflecting upon themselves and what they’ve done wrong, things evened out), but it’s clear haruka & kousei are putting the effort into trying to communicate and understand each at least somewhat better now that they’re aware of the gaps in their relationship and i wish them well going forward. i liked this one a lot ultimately
they end up leaning way more into the IRL side of things as the story goes by btw.
i will note that the later section of the story is actually surprisingly heavy! the tonal whiplash is immense. yoochae has some severe mental health issues (he gets into the history of why) and a heavy attachment to jihan due to it and he goes to some crazy lengths to try and hide his being yoochae Because he thinks jihan doesn’t care about his game self & he just wants to know him as his IRL self. he does show some impressive self awareness as well because when he catches himself dipping into obsessive territory he shuts himself down, but he’s definitely attached in a way that gets concerning and would not in any capacity make for a healthy long term relationship
anyways instead of rolling with it or normalising his attachment problems jihan tells him flat out they can’t continue to see each other unless he improves because their relationship would be severely unhealthy due to his inability to trust yoochae at this point and yoochae’s dependence on him to be happy. and cuts him off. and quite a bit of time goes by and yoochae does put in the effort to work on things and his mental health and attachment issues significantly improve and they end up getting together after about an entire year or so of no contact at the very end of the main story.
i was very surprised in a good way by how it was handled & respect the story quite a bit for the direction in which it handled things i just want to note that it gets wayyy heavier than you might expect it to lmao so keep that in mind if you’re interested in following the story to the end!
how long does it take for their irl lives to become the main focus? like when in the story do they meet irl for the first time?
that’s actually kind of a complicated answer because it varies depending on who you ask LMAO
but for story purposes the answer is at their mutual acquaintance (jihan’s friend & yoochae’s teammate)’s wedding. they trade numbers there and the irl stuff starts to come more into focus bit by bit as they start to interact as people outside the game. let me go back and check the chapters for a proper sense of the when
okay they meet irl in chapter 62! so about halfwayish through the main story because it’s 117 chapters. it starts becoming more irl focused as jihan suspects yoochae and yoochae’s irl self are the same person (he keeps it a secret) and yoochae tries to push for an irl friendship with him to replace their online one so it starts shifting after that point
i see, guess ill have to let this marinate for a while then lol
this is one where i’ve checked out the raws because i like the novel and was curious about its manhwa adaptation once i was made aware of it… i will say its not a bad manhwa but its pacing is crazy fast so i kind of gave up on it but now that theres an actual tl it’s perhaps time to try again…
the main reason i like the novel by the way is that there are like. actual consequences for actions. this isn’t some cutesy romcom as the cover and art style might suggest it’s ultimately about a duo of childhood friends cracking apart horribly because of how one reacts to the other’s feelings for him and the ML has to take a LOT of time to try and make up for how much of an asshole he was being to the point where it actually bleeds into their relationship once they get together. he hurt his friend very badly and no amount of wanting to be close with him or apologising is not going to fix it on its own and i thought it was impressive how well the novel stuck to its guns like that.
since i stepped away from the manhwa before their fallout hit i’m curious to see how it’s portrayed!
Can u share where u read the novel from? I can't find it
i don’t share links publicly so hold on let me dm it to you if you’re having trouble finding it! ^^ it goes by a different name for the novelisation (simmering heat) so that might be why it’s hard to locate
I’m having trouble finding it, may you please dm me the link?
sure! hold on
Can you dm me too
sure! hold on
btw for anyone going forward past this you can find the novel by searching for “simmering heat” on novelupdates and going forward with looking up the translator / site from there!
it was TLed before the manhwa came out so there’s a name mismatch, so try “simmering heat” instead of low temp burn ^^
could you give me spoilers? like does the ML treat him worse than this after this second confession? does he get jealous later when MC meets that sunbae? does ML get more girlfriends or hurt the mc sleeping with anyone else now? pls give me all the details you can to see if i read the novel or not (i love spoilers)
camping here as well :3
he says more harsh words for sure. He doesn't wanna hurt mc but he is an idiot. But dont worry, no other future gfs for the ml. He realizes his feelings and acts pathetic soon enough. We all want a loser ML who chases mc. I'm in 2/3 into finishing the novel and this adaptation is very lacking after I read one chapter.
i haven’t been keeping up with anything on mgg in months so i don’t know if the manhwa has covered any of this atp yet lol but the ML treats the MC VERY badly after confession point, they have a very nasty fight about it that pretty much destroys their relationship for a good chunk of the novel. no girlfriends are involved because he’s too busy sorting through his own feelings and issues. he does get very very jealous of the MC’s relationship with the sunbae as well and he is very put off by (what he correctly pinpoints as) the sunbae having feelings for the MC. which i agree with him on considering the implications the sunbae developed his crush when he was the MC’s teaching assistant in high school and he was like 22 when the MC was 17. yuck. personally i recommend the novel i like it a lot and i think it does a very good job of showcasing the lasting effects cruel behaviours can have on a person even if you didn’t intend for the consequences that occurred. like the ML has to work Very Very hard to make up for his fuckups and even after they become an item he still has to keep making up for it because in his repression + misplaced resentment towards the MC for developing feelings and “ruining” what he felt was a perfect friendship (little did he know…), he said some very cruel things. i don’t think the manhwa would be able to cover the nuance of that at the pacing i remember it going haha
thanks!!! last question: what cruel behavior and nasty things does ML do the MC?
Ohhh you just made me want to read this. Because the ML is actually trash. And I was thinking the story was going to treat it as if he was in the right for getting mad at a person he hurt avoiding him all those years. That kind of cliche pmo.
i recommend it!!! i read the novel over a year ago at this point so i’m definitely due for a refresher lol but i did sincerely quite like it. i remember it doing a good job of highlighting how badly the ML messed up and impacted their relationship for the worse, and how he took the friendship he tried to cling to as “perfect” for granted & in trying to shut down the MC’s feelings to keep that friendship he destroyed something that was cracked from the start. and then he realised he had feelings for the MC anyway so he fucked things up for himself for no reason and had to start from lower than 0 due to his own mistakes. the novel doesn’t ever, to my memory, do anything to justify him or his behaviour LOL
Think from a straight guy’s perspective. The thought of being attracted to a guy never crossed your mind but your life changed just because your best friend since childhood ghosted you and even told you he likes you. Imagine the betrayal because he was living his life just fine until his expectations got shattered by the person he considered his precious friend then ghosted him. Of course he wouldn’t understand the MC’s unrequited feelings because he was straight. But the MC, he just doesn’t take the hint. He thought he fix him, that overconfidence lead to a painful outcome due to his naïveté. I wouldnt blame the ML for the things he’s done to MC because in reality, you can’t force someone else’s sexuality to change. But we’re talking about fiction, so it’s not surprising they got together after their messy situation
Except the MC simply having feelings and confessing them (yes, keeping them to yourself is a far better option but it doesn't even fulfill the most basic criteria to make it a betrayal. But there's a reason to that as well why the MC confessed no?) is not betrayal. Dismissing them as if they're trivial however and expecting someone to remain your friend despite that is , because now the MC has to not ONLY suppress his feelings but also pretend that the ML hurting him doesn't hurt in order to keep the precious ML's feelings from being hurt. Which, according to the ML, is the only thing that actually hurts. So no I have no sympathy for the ML.
Imagine your friend who you cherished for years started ghosting you for a long time then suddenly they wanna get closer to you and wants to act like nothing happened? How would you feel if you were in the ML’s shoes? Right after that they’d confessed to you and told you the reason why he ghosted you was because he liked you? You’d be dumbfounded. The friend who you felt you platonic says they want to date you? That’s coming from a straight person who was never exposed to same sex relationships. Imagine the feeling of being that person, of course he’d refused to have romantic relationship with him, and the way he thought that relationships only work out temporarily because of his experiences and the way he thinks the MC wanted to ruin their friendship and become “temporary” lovers and then separate was absurd and he couldn’t believe the idea, so to him it was betrayal. Imagine seeing the person who you don’t see that way relieve himself in your own space, id be disgusted cuz its absurd.
You have to understand why he couldn’t process the feelings of his friend and the feeling of destroying his current relationship with him because the MC either wants to date him, or become strangers. In real life, you wouldnt want to cut ties with your one and only best friend because they started like you, but it’s also unfair to the other person so I understand both characters’ feelings.
The ML is cruel (yes) with the way he played along with MC making bold moves (kissing) even though he’s gonna reject him later. But the MC was too naive, that falling for a straight guy and declaring he’s gonna attempt to seduce him but he just doesn’t realize it’s not gonna yield results which is why he got his heart broken but I think he doesn’t deserve this. To me both characters have their own flaws and I dont think either should be blamed for getting into this kind of setup.
I forgot to say im only saying this about the MC chasing ML arc era, since people have commented badly about ML up that point but I dont blame them. I believe ML is an ass past the point
listen. i am very willing to acknowledge the MC has flaws and he did very much mess up early on. the root of his ghosting is from the other perspective unfair and he does push boundaries at first in ways that i can and did sympathise with re: the ML and i even went back and re-read the novel after an entire year to make sure i was remembering things right. the ML's perspective at one point early on even says that the MC's feelings don't justify his behaviour, which i agree with regarding this early on. but all of my references to the guy being cruel are in how he handles it after finding out, moreso due to his feelings on love and romance and his desire to cling to their friendship knowing what he now knows than anything else. especially also with the background context of how flippantly he treated their friendship during their younger years despite his own (at the time perceived platonic) desires to possess the MC and hold their relationship as unending and special forever. i can understand how overwhelming it is, but he also chooses to be cruel at every chance he takes because of his own belief system.
the MC wanting to end their friendship is because he feels like the seven years he's loved the ML are being stomped on and, which they ARE through the ML's dismissal of them as "fleeting" and his later attempts to end them. sure, he has his own perspectives on love and romance, but they’re his own to dissect. he literally asks the MC to "try and seduce him and see if it works," thinking it'll fail. he wants him to try so he can break his heart and hope things "can go back to normal" from there. he presses on the line he tried to draw himself constantly, asking things like if the MC moved on from him solely because he got jealous witnessing the MC interacting on a friendly level with another gay man, and doing shit like lashing out because you're upset that your friend has other people he talks about fondly, and kicking the back of his seat on the bus to vent because he's sitting next to that guy and speaking to him warmly (and then getting genuinely upset when the two of them end up switching seats because of you kicking your friend's), and tripping your friend because he was discussing going drinking with this guy, and challenging your friend who is in love with you to find you a guy to hook up with and then telling him that the idea of gay sex is disgusting because you resent your own budding attraction to him and you self-admittedly want to hurt him for acting so warmly with other men in your line of sight is cruel behaviour even if your desire for things to return back to how you remember them as is understandable, and it makes the MC genuinely self conscious and hesitant about having sex with him down the line after they get together. a large chunk of the novel is him trying to repent for how badly he handled things during the early-mid arc (chapters 9-13 or so?), and while the MC did not handle things particularly well himself at first and things did start off quite badly through his missteps, the ML handled things much worse and the story not pulling any punches about how badly he messed up in his pursuit to keep their friendship as how he remembered it is why i liked it. he is very much at fault for a lot in the narrative and the narrative acknowledges this. there is nuance to the beginning of their tale, but the entire middle and the ending of it circles back to him, and it takes so long for the MC to accept his feelings during the ML's pursuit because his own were shredded so cruelly and dismissively during HIS attempts prior. "keep being an asshole," he'd said once, early on in the chasing arc. "it's easier [for me to move on] this way."
Taeun may be naive, yes, but naïveté and cruelty are two very different things with very different weights to them (discounting the nuance of when naïveté spins cruel). Jinhyun actively encourages his desperate naïveté at multiple points and then lashes out in his own turmoil over responding to it because he can’t accept he’s attracted to him, because he think love is fleeting. the novel pretty much spells this out and paints him as the person with far more to make up for multiple times.
art style is good the mmorpg is well-enough designed to make a story that so far 90% takes place in it work smoothly and the cast is funny as hell. all i can ask for rn is a melodychord yuri side plot please thank you amen
congratulations to jihan on the bisexuality also. despite his not being aware of it
in some of the only wise words ever spoken by semi famous game dev kotaro uchikoshi: jiwon, i’m always on your side.
i will not stop periodically popping up to advertise the novel but i genuinely do sincerely recommend it especially to those who keep complaining about jiwon’s anxiety but otherwise like the story specifically because it gets more into it. the manhwa, while certainly quite cute, doesn’t get into the meat of things and it can’t really be overstated just how much jiwon’s history of physical & mental / emotional child abuse has affected him in the longterm and it’s a very important aspect of
his character and very important background context for his anxiety and tendency to self-sabotage. the novel imo does a better job of emphasising that. as i’ve said before—of course his anxiety is exhausting, there’s a very long history of why. i’m not saying it’s a good thing he acts the way he does, and i do think jungwoo is certainly stronger than many for trying to work with him, but i’m saying it’s an understandable thing considering his history and that does need to be taken into more consideration when reading this story and when criticising his behaviour and personality. especially for readers of later chapters who’ve gotten past that point and still talk about how jiwon needs to get over it or stop overthinking or whatever. you can’t undo years of abuse with one good relationship at the beginning of it! he’s working on it. and does eventually get to the point where he considers himself past his traumas, but it’s genuinely important to remember and i rec the novel for getting more into it. ^^;;
this is interesting, ill definitely check out the novel soon. im ngl i found the manhwa a little underwhelming in a way
i hope you like the novel if you plan on cracking into it! i think the manhwa is cute but it just cuts out and rearranges so much and doesn’t really get into the meat of jiwon’s psyche to the degree it needs to be showcased, so i def agree with it being kind of underwhelming lol
if there is one thing these two will do. it is put in the effort to communicate in the end even if they struggle at times due to their personalities, relationship histories (or lack thereof on jiwon’s end), and jiwon’s mental health issues. as jungwoo said, love is filled with anxiety! and by god do they both have a lot of it because of how much they care about each other
and i’ve said this before but god jiwon really is interpretable as having BPD. my quiet BPD legend jiwon im always on your side even when you’re in the wrong
popped in to advertise the novel again because i will truly never stop doing that, skimmed the comments and as always am disheartened by how people discuss jiwon. is it truly so hard for readers in droves to apply a modicum of nuance and understanding towards the child abuse victim and how that affects his behaviour even and especially if it makes him hard to deal with sometimes ╥﹏╥
anyways: as always for anyone who likes this, or wants to like this, i forever recommend the novel because it’s entirely from jiwon’s perspective and so gets more into his psyche and mindset and better portrays his internal struggles, it has some very nice scenes the manhwa cut out, and it even has a very sweet timeskip story several years in the future that also did not make the cut for the adaptation. good novel. do rec
Hey! Do you know where I could read the novel? I’ve been curious about it after a couple people, including you, mentioned it
i don’t publicly give out links / websites to respect the wishes of TLers who don’t want things spread too far, but i can dm it to you! alternatively you should be able to find it yourself by heading to novelupdates & searching “ballboy tactics” up there, it’ll pop up with its translator & site listed and you can search it further from there. (๑•ㅂ•)و✧
Thank you so much! I’ll do that
I know right... Like I hate how people are hating on him because of how he acts. For me, he acts exactly how I would imagine when reading the novel. Like I get how frustrating he is and honestly, there are some things in the novel that has been cut out in this manhwa. But they're treating his abuse and trauma like it's a child's play.
The fact that some people are like "I wouldn't act like that if I was in his situation." Then good for you. For someone like me, who has the exact level of anxiety like him. I would 100% act like that. Overthink and worry a lot.