beta
Don't read this if you liked this story, probably.
But yeah this was not well written imo. I went into it thinking it was going to be a psychological type of story given El's first life and all the rape. But in actuality all of the trauma and rape was just glossed over and suddenly they're living a happy family life? I get that El wanted to be loved and now he suddenly has three husbands, but two of them were the cause of his misery in his past life even if he never blamed the husband he married in his first life.
Basically my problem is this entire story lacks substance. We can GUESS the motivations for some of the characters' motivations in the first life but we never actually get to see them. And then in the side stories we suddenly get to see why the three husbands are in love with El, but he literally has no reason to be in love with any of them except his knight maybe.
His first life husband? Talked a couple of hours and decided to get married? Or at least that's what the timing of the comic made it seem like. Oof.
The black market owner? Apparently fixated so hard on El after meeting when they were children that he then tried to sabotage El's marriage in the first life (from what I can deduct, since that's never openly stated), and El doesn't even seem to remember him? Yikes.
Both of these men literally contributed to him taking his own life even if it was the first husband's father that was the driving force behind everything.
The knight is literally the only one who stayed faithful to him throughout both lives, but even he is an unrealistic choice given that he also raped El even if he wasn't aware of El's identity at the start of it.
Basically all of these could have been interesting storylines if they were more believable and were more fleshed out, but El falls in love with all three of them for no reason except they're now his baby daddies and he's dependent on their pheromones to be stable?
The kids are adorable but the whole going from misery, trauma and rape to a happy family life without any of the processing required is kind of nauseating. Like, I don't believe that sort of trauma even could lead to a happy family life with the very people who hurt you in the first place, for the most part. But IF it's going to be that plotline, at least try to make it somewhat believable and include all the ugly emotions you need to process to make it work, and the fights and forgiveness at the end of it.
And then their kid's story? At least his partner had a reason to love him and an interesting story, but damn if Lionel didn't trust too easily after finding that letter. Also how old is Lionel at that point?? From what I remember his siblings were born when he was still a small kid, but THEY'RE still small kids by the time this relationship happens, which makes the age implications uncomfy to think about.
Listen I'm saying all of this fully appreciating that it's fictional, and I do believe in people's right to write what they want even if it's bad/not to my taste. So I respect this story's right to exist. BUT I also do want a discussion around works like this because more impressionable people need to understand that these behaviours are not normal or ok. This trivialises rape to an uncomfortable degree.