
If you believe what's happening in the story rn is fucked up, you won't like what's gonna happen later. It's intriguing but if you're looking for a fluffy GL this is not for you. If you wanna know how it ends, here ya go.
Spoiler
Basically the main leads don't end up together, Hyang ends up marrying (happily) some dude and Soon ok becomes a very.... questionable person and queen dowager.

I stopped reading at around ch 80 and while I'm 100% suryeon is endgame I've bern wondering how much attention saharah gets in this. Like, does he have a lot of romantic scenes / kisses with suu or is it not do much? Is there any affection towards him from suu? I absolutely hate love triangles and don't wanna get back into this if that's the case...

Saharah and Suu sleep together but Suu doesn’t appear to have the same feelings for Saharah as he does for Suryeon. Honestly if you don’t like love triangles I would hold off for a while. It’s not an annoying love triangle and it’s very well done, but Saharah is getting an actual chance so it’s not just “Suryeon is definitely endgame” anymore.

This is kinda racist tbh
Why? This is appropriation of middle eastern culture. They're taking the concept of sultans amd harems, calling the guy Kainer and making the FL the whitest possible. She's portrayed like the good and pure girl while the non whites are evil and only care about superficial stuff. And being in a harem isn't nice. You're just a sex slave in pretty clothes after all. If Saye didn't like him this would be straight up rape. Icky icky. Anyway, you can tell the author just thinks it's sexy to be a concubine

i completely agree. while i do enjoy the manhwa, this should be addressed. ur point about saye being the whitest as possible is so obvious. it irritates me that this is a poc manhwa, yet the mc is whiter than anyone else. i get the theme of her being like the moon or that some middle easterns have pale skin, but the way this is portrayed is just as u said. it’s incredibly obvious

while i dont disagree with ur main point about appropraition and underlying racism (and colorism)....harems were not sex slaves. thats not how harems worked. thats a pretty racist misconception in and of itself (not saying ur racist! just that its a lie that white colonialists from the 1800s perpetrated cause men were legit not allowed in the harem quarters so they never knew what they looked like and then made up all kinds of shit in their travelogues and paintings and "first hand" accounts. its sad that even to this day people have all kinds of wild ideas of what harems were like not based on actual historical evidence from like middle eastern scholars or people who studied ottoman empire specifically.)

The women in the harem were educated and cultured. They had many talents and were treated with the outmost respect. Of course they were obligated to please the sultan but with that came a lot of power. The mother of the sultan herself lived in the harem. She and the most favored harem girls had the power to control from matters within the palace to the kingdom itself. The misconception of "the maidens who suffer under the lust of the sultan" was created by the imagination of Europeans who at the time suffered from a serious God complex and were very very much into exoticism and exaggeration. They hadn't access to even see the harem girls, much less see their the real everyday lives.

thank you! yes! i mentioned that part about the europeans but i didnt mention the other parts u brought up. i encourage anyone who is genuinely interested in what harems were like to research it (wikipedia is good for a first dip into the topic) and u can also check out the turkish dramas Magnificent Century which arent documentaries lol but will def give a better perspective on harems being that they are made by turks for turks than some bullshit some white man from britain pulled out of his ass out of spite (and yah the europeans were BIG into orientalism back then.)

Should I read the OG before this?

u wont be confused if u skip all of SB but u can also just read the chpts gyerin appears in. they are Sadistic Beauty chpts:
chpt 14 (her first appearance, where u see she works in a sex shop and has her own kinky tastes, also involves brief interaction with doona about sex toys etc), chpt 22 (mostly just her and haesol content, no sex, skippable),
chpt 23 (brief appearance in the first few panels where she bickers with Doochi the MC's older brother, skippable),
chpt 24 (another brief appearance, this time in the last 4-5 panels where she has a sex dream about Doona the mc, if u like sexy gyerin its worth it),
chpt 25 (she appears in a good chunk of this chpt but not right away, this is set in the sex shop again and involves her having an adorable inner monologue about her crush on Doona and imagining various erotic situations involve her and the toys in the store. its solid Gyerin content!)
chpt 26 (all gyerin content! features: gyerin chatting, hanging out and then flirting with doona in various locations lol)
chpt 27 (doona and gyerin have Kinky sex well foreplay? that's the whole chpt lol)
chpt 28 (more kinky full on sex with gyerin and doona. also some pretty intense spanking)
chpt 29 (final part of doona/gyerin sex arc, this time involving some uh bodily fluids but also some aftercare so thats nice!)
chpt 33 (super brief appearance in the middle of the chpt, can be skipped tbh)
chpt 34 (a different series of kinky gyerin/doona sex chpts begins here. this time hot candle wax is introduced as well cuz why not lol)
chpt 35 (some hot sex but then haesol arrives and throws things into disarray and chpt ends with doona being confronted by her two subs, worth reading imo but if u want WLW content only then def skip the next chpt)
chpt 36 (so the start of the chpt is p tense has alot of dialogue between doona, haesol and gyerin. 2 subs wanting doona's attention and doona being all "i cant with u two and ur FEELINGSS go home" and needless to say no one goes home and gyerin seeing how haesol managed to get doona's attention, INSISTS on staying. she's the one who initiates the idea of a threesome. so she was never "forced" to participate in one which ive seen some comments in SB thread saying that, its not true.)
chp 37 (threesome time. no actual fucking happens yet, doona orders haesol to tie up gyerin Shibari Style and then suck gyerin's toes and meanwhile gyerin is having her own internal monologue over this strange situation)
chpt 38 (more threesome Stuff, no fucking still, very short chpt, involves some spanking tho)
chpt 39 (final part of threesome arc, doona fingers haesol and haesol at doona's command eats out gyerin until both have an orgasm. gyerin and doona smooch a bit. thats p much it for gyerin for a WHILE)

ok part 2 of gyerin's appearances in sadistic beauty (the translated chpts, i wont be posting which chpts she appears in that arent on tappytoon yet but there's so very few that it doesnt rly matter tbh)
chpt 60 (gyerin is back! but this chpt is mostly haesol moping with some cute interaction between him and gyerin just being buddies)
61 (gyerin is front and center again, she's determined to make Doona her main lady and hatches an adorable sexy plan that involves roleplay and costumes lol)
62 (play time! doona is a bad cop and gyerin is a pitiful widow being taken advantage of by said cop. thats the whole chpt!)
63 (more play time/roleplay sex. with bonus squirting)
64 (final part of roleplay sex with gyerin/doona. then some more lovin via oral sex in a hotel bed. but the chpt ends wiht gyerin in tears cause she "got dumped" im sry gyerin baby! u'll find ur loving dom queen one day! before that part tho its a great chpt full of sexy WLW stuff and flirty dialogue)
65 + 66 (very brief appearances of gyerin. in the last part of 65 she sees haesol passed out on the street and takes him to the hospital and first part of 66 she has a nice daydream about being saved at the club by a busty tough blonde and then going back to a hotel with her. becuz gyerin has a Type haha)
aaaand that's it for gyerin in the english chpts. she appears again in the main series on a few occasions near the 100s where she's mainly there chatting with haesol and his roomie/doona's bro Doochi. but her final big major appearance is in chpt 115 which is also the first and only time in main SB that we meet Juyeon aka the noisy blonde woman that Gyerin will date in the side stories) i hope this helped someone! lol
I CANT WAIT FOR AN UPDATE AHHHHHH