those panels of the mom seeing and interacting with seo-in for the first time make me feel...

those panels of the mom seeing and interacting with seo-in for the first time make me feel SICK. you can tell it struck her really deep as she was instantly seeing her deceased son in him.

all she cared about was filling the void created by the loss of one of her twin babies, at the expense of both her surviving biological son (jaewon) AND seo-in, by neglecting their needs during those crucial formative years

jaewon seemed like he lacked affection and wanted to remain an only child because being the center of attention is something that at least gave him a sense of security. bringing in another child threatened that and made him jealous and insecure. maybe he had other issues, but the fact is that seo-in was served to him on a silver platter to be an emotional outlet to crash out on.

seo-in was still innocent and only needed to be cared for. but instead of being welcomed into a family and finally having a support system to call his own, he was vehemently rejected and bullied by his adopted brother.

he could sense he was being used as a stand-in replacement rather than accepted as a new part of the family. and it probably hurt that much more to come to that realization after being made to feel like it’d be different.

even when the mom realized everything was falling apart, that jaewon was struggling and seo-in was suffering, she ignored it until it reached a medical emergency.

instead of addressing the root of the problem, she begged seo-in to keep up the facade, as she needed the appearance of a happy family to feel better.

she allowed her unwell biological son to hurt seo-in because his well being mattered less to her than her own need to act like she had twin sons.

i understand that her life was difficult: the pressure of being an objectified model in the spotlight, the trauma of losing a child and the panic disorder she developed. but using real children as emotional support tools to fill a void is not just selfish, it’s abusive… with terrible lasting consequences.

she destroyed so many lives when with a little effort to preserve what she already had, she could’ve had a happy family instead of trying to rewrite fate by using others

it’s a miracle that seo-in was able to find a star like yeongwoon in the middle of all that darkness.

but it seems she’s against them being together and has tried to separate them before.

will she redeem herself by helping them or will she be one of those characters who stay on the same awful track from beginning to end?