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Ian is a complex character and the only complex character in the story, tj is a useless one dimensional character, can't believe he is a male lead. But you are trying to make them look like they were equally toxic to each other. Ian being a complex character doesn't erase his victimhood, and doesn't erase that their relationship was unbalanced and built on lies and manipulation.
It's canon that ian was manipulated by tj to join the gang, ian never wanted to be there, and was always thinking of leaving from the beginning but TJ always told him "i need you don't have any ideas of straying"
And mind you, the last thing ian did for useless tj was building him a house, and he only did it bcs tj manipulated him into it, tj literally used the same words he told ian when he picked him up from David Kim's house "let's go home" he deliberately reminded ian that there was a time he took him home, so ian felt responsible to do the same for him, and ended up building him a house bcs TJ asked for it.
Ian is way more complex than TJ, his character had many layers, tj can only dream to be complex like that. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a victim of tj's manipulation. He barely had any agency throughout the story, bcs he was never allowed to develop beyond his guilt and responsibility toward tj. Even the last act he did for tj was more about responsibility than a great gesture of love bcs tj made him feel like he is the problem (im scared of you youngwoo), that's why ian had the sudden decision to leave to heal himself.
You are the one that's making ian one dimensional who is only thirsty for tj's musty dick. You erase his victimhood and you erase the complexity of his feelings and his decisions that are driven by many reasons. And you only reduce whatever decision he makes to "bcs he loves tj's dick so much" lmao
girl stop yapping and spamming comment section go back replying to your original thread you are giving nicki on cokerant stop psychoanalysing tj when you goon to toxic characters you look like a dumb ass bitch
LMAOOO that loser blocked me. And I goon to toxic characters that are well written, tj is just a useless loser. Calling someone a dumb bitch over a useless frog like tj is childish. Get off tj's musty dick hoe
why don't you block her back instead of spamming you loose ass hoe? the only one who is here jumping on tj's big dick is you you are literally on a cokerant about him instead of talking about the white rat you ship with ian .
"Tj's big dick" lmao he is korean and an incel, he can't have a big dick
I was about to call you a loose hole then I remembered you can't get one from riding tj's small musty dick
this racial microaggression is very on brand of your side anyway if you are done riding tj's dick then you should go back sucking the dildo attached to jo's human sized sex doll
Can brain-dead idiots stop offering opinions on this story when you clearly failed to understand what you were reading?
Just because Jang is dead doesn’t mean you get to erase his role from the story. Whose gang was Ian in before TJ even met him? Who followed Ian into Jang’s gang? TJ did. The fact that you’re confidently rewriting that history tells me everything I need to know about how little you actually understood the story.
And “going home” was never just about TJ taking Ian away from David’s house.
Go back to Chapter 68. During their early days in K35, Jason talked about wanting to make enough money to buy land and build houses for the members. He said how nice it would be for guys like them, who had no family, to be able to rely on each other. They may have been gang members, but they were also each other’s found family and that matters when you’re talking about two orphaned kids who grew up without stable families. Jason never fulfilled that dream. He fell in love, started prioritizing his wife and child, and ultimately built a home with his own family instead.
TJ, however never forgot that promise. He secretly built a house for Ian in Malibu, complete with a motorcycle garage so Ian could return to something he loved. He wasn’t simply buying Ian an expensive house. He was creating a place where Ian could belong. A place Ian could come home to. That is why “home” matters so much in their story. A home isn’t merely four walls and a roof. For these characters, home represents belonging, family, safety, and choosing someone to walk through life with.
You constantly rant about how “complex” Ian is, yet your interpretation reduces every single thing he does to TJ’s guilt and manipulation. Do you realize how contradictory that is? You cannot call Ian complex while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge his agency.
The last person who truly stripped Ian of his bodily autonomy and choices was David Kim. What you’re doing now is different, but the result is strangely similar: you’re taking Ian’s own decisions away from him because you don’t like or understand what he chose for himself.
Ian wanted to get clean. He got clean. Ian wanted to leave the gang. He left. TJ was ordered to kill Jang. Ian didn’t need anyone to tell him to do confront and kill his own abuser. He paid off his debt. He had a fake ID made. He made plans to leave for several years so both he and TJ could have time apart and pursue their own goals. And in the end he did exactly what he planned to do. He left. He healed. And while he was healing, he prepared a home for TJ to come back to.
So again, where exactly is this helpless victim you’re constantly describing?
The Ian I read is strong-willed, resilient, and capable of making decisions for himself. He isn’t a damsel in distress waiting for Jo to rescue him from the big bad TJ.
You are looking at Ian through Jo’s lens.
Jo initially sees Ian as someone who needs saving. But eventually, Jo has to confront the fact that Ian is not the person Jo imagined him to be. Ian has his own history, his own desires, his own attachments, and his own choices.
Jo was wrong about Ian. And you’re wrong about him too. Ian knows himself better than any reader does. Ian was a willing participant in his relationship with TJ. That doesn’t mean TJ never manipulated him or that their relationship was healthy in every respect. It means Ian’s feelings cannot be reduced to guilt, obligation, or trauma. Ian feels guilt. Ian feels responsibility. And Ian loves TJ. All of those things can exist simultaneously.
Ian also knew that he wasn’t capable of returning to TJ in the state he was in. So he made the decision to leave, heal, and become someone capable of fully choosing his future. And that is AGENCY. You don’t have to agree with Ian’s choice. You don’t have to like TJ. But what you’re NOT going to do is erase Ian’s autonomy simply because his choices don’t support your understanding of the story.
Because once you start rewriting Ian’s decisions as something TJ “made” him do every single time, you’re no longer analyzing Ian. You’re stripping Ian of his agency. And refusing to see Ian as a complete human being capable of making his own choices.
GTFOH
Well, Doyak confirmed twice at the signing event that Ian did love Jo. Someone asked her if Ian loved Jo a lot, and she said, “Of course.” She also told another fan that Ian and Jo truly loved each other.
At first, I didn’t really want to believe that Ian had genuinely fallen for Jo. Even though he did admit that he loved him in chapter 98, Doyak also said that she cried while working on that chapter. Because aside from chapter 98, the story didn’t really convince us enough that Ian had genuinely fallen for Jo. But I can understand why it couldn’t be that evident, since he still loved TJ.
Anyway, my point is that since Jo wasn’t endgame, a lot of people would disregard Ian’s romantic feelings for Jo and cope by saying that he only cared about him and liked the idea of an ordinary life that Jo introduced him to. But according to Doyak, Ian truly did love Jo romantically. She herself has said before that she doesn’t believe in “the one and only,” and Jo had too much of an impact on Ian’s life for his feelings to be dismissed like that. The life he’s living now is also heavily shaped by what he learned from Jo. Jo will always be in the back of his head.
fucking hell you jo stans must have miserable lives
do you people only ever experience love for one thing? have you never experience loving your friends, family, past lovers, animals, hobbies?
LMAOOO pathetic tbum stans are always so insecure bcs of their nothing burger end game. The author confirmed twice that ian loved jo romantically in chapter 98 and the in the fan sign, get over it losers, stop attacking anyone who says ian loved jo when the author herself confirmed that. But I can understand the insults and anger you feel when ppl point that out, bcs your end game was a nothingburger
ok but again how loveless is your life? is love reserved for only one person? is romantic love the only form that exists? have you never been loved by or loved your friends, family, past relationships? do you not have hobbies you love? do you not have passions you love?
like you do realise youngwoo probably loves toby, yet she stayed in his life and jo didn't.
love doesn't just exist in the form of romance, nor is it stagnant. thats my point. so if anything, it goes to show how wonderful of a character YOUNGWOO is to have lived a life so troublesome yet still have the capacity to care for others so deeply.
You got to be stupid to believe a 34yo has only fell in love once and will love only one person for the rest of his life. It seems like you don't understand basic human psychology at all. No human ever loved only one person their whole life. Ppl fall in love with different ppl, when they are 15, when they're 22, when they're 27, when they're 34... every human falls in love with different ppl, throughout different stages of their lives. No one falls in love only once, that's just a cringe and unrealistic concept for fiction made for teenagers. You're the one that seems to be loveless and never experienced what love is. You are stupid to believe he only ever loved tj, ian himself described what he had for tj as "lingering feelings" not "intense love" that's why he was able to fall for jo, but ofc there are other factors that made him choose tj, and his decision was never driven by love only, their history, guilt, responsibility and tj's lies that ian never had to know the truth played a role for Ian's decision.
i didn't claim he only ever loved tj. are you being purposefully obtuse?
i am telling you that his "love" for jo is insignificant and completely irrelevant to tjyw's relationship because human's have the capacity to love plenty of things, and in many different ways. the love he may have shared for jo means nothing to the love he has for tj.
and it's also so irrelevant to yw because he completely abandoned jo. whereas toby is still in his life, a person who he also loves.
why are u so disrespectful? Iooks like someone else is the insecure one.
Ian not keeping jo in his life the way he did with Toby is proof that he loved jo romantically, he didn’t see jo just as a friend hr cared for the way he feels about Toby. You don't keep your ex around when you're dating someone else.