Sorami's Topics (77)

I DON"T KNOW!! I hope not!! I hope his power is just the trick of the light..

Sweetheart you just took the words right out of my mouth.

While I won't be sad if those two are dead, I do think these two characters have potential to better themselves if they are only half dead.

I hope he regrets this so f*cking bad.

Me too. I hope John becomes king and sends those three to the hospital.

There is no official English release on this one yet, sorry! Just Korean and Indonesian. That's why Cheesycheese is translating it for us!

Aww, I love this manga so much and I don't want to wait. But I guess I have to.

Well, Cheesycheese has been super fast with the translating, and has translated through Chapter 21 (officially titled Part 20) and I was behind with the proofreading because I had to be hospitalized...sorry! But I'm out, and I've proofread through Chapter 20 and I'm about to do Chapter 21, so you should be getting quite a few new chapters here really soon! Sorry for the delay!

Pfft it's because I was so bored and I'm not doing anything but translating all day maybe that's why I'm so fast but seriously your proofread is worth the wait you do your work so good!! Thanks (づ￣ ³￣)づ

thanks cheesycheese and DaisiesAndLilies for translating and proof reading this manhwa :)

Say what you want, but you're amazing! Translating that much would fry my brain! And thank you for the ultra-sweet compliment!

You're very welcome! It's fun to do!

You're welcome!!! ⁄(⁄ ⁄·⁄ω⁄·⁄ ⁄)⁄

IKR. It's been great. I've been posting and replying to people all damn day. I love to have discussion (granted they are civilized) and the people on here have just been great. The respect they show others even while disagreeing with them is just phenomenal.

This is kind of why I'm glad Warehouse isn't as popular as KS. >.>

Same! I've read debates in the past too and people are always so civilized and smart. I'm so amazed by the community here! I'm feeling a lot of love for ya'll!

Agreed. I did expect him to be less of a douchebag about it too. Especially after that warning Isen gave him. I thought Arlo was smarter than this.

P.S.

Seraphim a has a pic of John with her hair on her phone.

They are so more than friends.

Yes I saw that picture too! Although I kinda want Seraphina to think more of him than he does of her. I'm not a big fan of her character.

I'm not sure the implied "have sex with me or our fuckbuddy relationship is over" legally qualifies as coercion. Particularly in Korea. But the law doesn't decide what's right or wrong.

Coercion is ore than simply using someone. It involves a threat to the person or someone else. It is more than pressure. Simply leaving is not a threat in this sense. He's a n asshole, but we did not see rape.

Whether it technically counts as "rape" or not, I still think this is rape (or at the least it's sexual abuse).

Just because Dohyun was smart enough to trick Sungho into participating without physically holding him down, doesn't mean it wasn't rape. Sungho was never doing it because he WANTED to.

Threatening to not be his friend is still a form of coercion if it works. Just because other people wouldn't let that be enough to coerce them, doesn't mean it didn't coerce Sungho. It's easy to say "just do this or that" about someone else's life.

I think it's best to consider it in a court setting. Would the court consider it rape? And I think it's not. Dohyun wants to break up their sexbuddy relationship if there's no sex. That's not rape. Sungho verbally consented.

I really don't know the laws of Korea to say for certain how this would be handled there but where I am, Sungho and Dohyun's teenage relationship would have a good chance as being deemed rape in a court of law. Rape isn't just about force but it's also about who has power and how it's being used.

It seems like Dohyun became Sungho's only friend in high school. The need for companionship is one the strongest needs we have as human beings because we're social creatures. When people spend time alone unwillingly because they can't form relationships, when they finally do form them, they can become clingy and desperate to keep the relationships, even when they're bad. Through that desperation, whoever becomes a friend or lover or family to that person, gains power. So it's a misuse of power to threaten to renege the relationship when sex isn't provided.

I think you're wrong about how it happened. Dohyun didn't "threaten to renege the relationship". When Sungho didn't want to do it anymore, he just lost interest and walked away. And Sungho wanted to keep Dohyun's interest. He wanted him to stay and agreed to do it. Dohyun didn't do the power play thing that you speak of. Dohyun wasn't obligated to be friends with someone he didn't like. It was a fuckbuddy relationship and if there was no sex, he wanted to move on.

I agree. I don't know much about the legal definition of rape, but Dohyun has obviously suffered from what happened to him.

If a sex relationship with Dohyun was something Sungho had wanted in High School, he would be more focused on getting Dohyun back than he would about making Dohyun experience the same abuse. (Of course it's not exactly the same, because Dohyun personality isn't one that can be coerced in the same way. Dohyun "doesn't need anyone" to be friends with him.)

You need to look up the legal definition of threat because you used that word deliberately to accuse Dohyun. Walking away like Dohyun did was not a threat by definition. Dohyun did not threaten Sungho verbally or physically. There's no basis to accuse him

What you're saying is basically exactly what i was saying, just in a different way.

I agree that to Dohyun it was a "fuckbuddy relationship and if there was no sex, he wanted to move on." But this just means that that Dohyun was truly the one with power in the relationship. They say that when you haggle for something, you have to be prepared to walk away without buying, and this is what Dohyun was doing. He had nothing to lose if he walked away, and if Sungho did what he wanted then that was just an extra perk.

But Dohyun knew that Sungho wanted to be friends (he badly needed a friend), and ONLY friends. Dohyun could have let their relationship stay as friends - or if he really didn't want to be friends with Sungho, he could have just broken it off. He's the one who instigated the "fuckbuddy" part of the relationship.

Ultimately, the relationship meant almost nothing to Dohyun. He was the one with the power, and he used it to his advantage.

They weren't fuck buddies. If they were it would have been reciprocal. Af far as I can see for the chapters that have been released, never once did Dohyun pleasure or offer to pleasure Sungho which is why Sungho called him selfish.

Without spoiling too much, you'll see in the later on in the chapters that Dohyun really used Sungho and he wasn't the only person Dohyun used. I'm not saying Dohyun deserves what he's getting but he really is an asshole. He threw away people all the time when he got tired of them.

From the way things are drawn, you can see the naitivity on Sungho. He genuinely thought they were friends and their friendship would grow if he did what Dohyun asked. Those two were really on two different pages but Dohyun was wrong simply because you don't do those things to people. While it was never explicitly established that their were friends, who let's someone for no reason without asking for anything in return? It wasn't mutual. Sungho liked doing what he was doing, Dohyun knew that and never offered anything in return or even established that it was just sex.

Depending on where you live in the real world, that could get you in some serious trouble. It's always good to have a definite yes and establish and define what exactly a relationship is.

Eh but Dohyun did want to break off. Sungho was the one who didn't want it to end. They were on different pages what the relationship was. It was a sex buddy relationship to Dohyun and he would break off otherwise. He didn't force Sungho into it. Sungho knew this. He wanted friendship and since he couldn't, he agreed to be sex buddies hoping it would become platonic friends. I don't see how that's considered Dohyun raping Sungho. He never threatened Sungho in any way. Note that a lot of stuff was just internal dialogs going on inside Sungho's head. When you look at their meetings, actual conversations and behaviors, Dohyun didn't do anything illegal.

I don't want to go too extreme because I'm not a lawyer and I promise you that I'm not an SJW but there are legally times when yes means no and an imbalance of power can create one of those situations.

For example, a spouse threatening divorce if sex is withhold.

Spousal rape is a legit thing isn the western world. One isn't entitled to sex simply because one is married so if a spouse says no then no means no. But if one spouse tells the other "sleep with me or I'm leaving you" and then they do have sex, it can be considered rape because ultimately, that person didn't want to do it. They did it because they valued their marriage and loved that person enough to not just throw them away and a whole host of other reasons why they'd do something they didn't want to do. They might have children or mutual debts they can't handle on their own, for example. Whatever the reason, they did chose to sleep with their spouse, the point is, they didn't want to and they did it because the marriage was threatened. In a court of law where marital rape is legitimized, that's against such the law.

Another example that happens a lot in the real world is boss-coworker relationship. If a boss tells a coworker that they need to sleep with them for whatever reason (gain or loss; they'll lose their job or they'll get a promotion, for example). If the coworker then proceeds to sleep with the boss it is rape because it is an abuse of power.

I think the difference is in the intent.

Certainly Sungho appears to have "agreed" to it because he knew he'd lose his only friend if he didn't. But this isn't the same as agreeing to a sex relationship out mutual respect and desire.

It's Dohyun's intent that makes this rape. He knew what Sungho did and didn't want. Dohyun cared more about getting what he wanted out of Sungho, than what Sungho wanted - short term or long term.

Dohyun can't claim innocence just because he "didn't want the relationship". There was no one who gave Dohyun the two options "if you can't get Sungho to break off the relationship, then you have to have sex with him".
It was Dohyun who gave Sungho the options, "have sex with me, or have nothing with me." "have sex with me, or I'll have nothing to do with you." It was up to Sungho to take the bait, but Dohyun was the instigator and set the terms.

Dohyun was toying with Sungho, and never had to step across a legal line to do it.

The spouse telling the other, "Sleep with me or I'm leaving you" and the coworker saying stuff about the coworker losing their job if no sex. All of those examples you described indicate a 'threat', which is illegal in court. It's not the same in the manhwa at all because Dohyun did not threaten Sungho to withdraw the relationship. That was the stuff going on inside Sungho's mind. During their encounter, Dohyun just stood up and left him. That doesn't constitute 'a threat'

Think of it this way.

Let's say you had a friend who constantly fought with his girlfriend. Let's say every time your friend didn't agree with his girlfriend she threatened to leave him. Let's say it started off with small things like her threatening to leave him if he didn't buy her flowers or take her out to now the big thing. Let's say she asked for him to sleep with her and he said no because he wasn't ready and she said "If you don't come over tonight, don't talk to me ever again."

Let's say later on your friend revealed that he did go to his girlfriends house and slept with her. And when you asked, why, he said he didn't want to lose his girl.

Would you not consider that rape or at the very lease emotional abuse?
Do you think the very same argument you just use can apply and be seen as fair? Should the girlfriend be allowed to carry on without any kind of repercussion for her actions? Technically the girlfriend did ask to break things off so after that, according to your logic, it's the boyfriend who wanted to keep things going so it's his fault he got hurt.

It may not legally constitute a threat (I wouldn't know), but whether Sungho could ever bring this to court and win or not, this was still rape.

Sungho may have only thought these things in his mind, but Dohyun knew what he(Dohyun) was doing. And while Sungho DID tell him, "I don't want to do those things anymore", Sungho NEVER told him "ok, I do want sex with you. I want sex because I want the sex, not because I just want to stay friends with you."

Sungho never verbally agreed to the sex, just as Dohyun never verbally threatened him.

Whether there are legal grounds to say "Dohyun raped Sungho", mentally for Sungho it was still rape.

Exactly!

I'm saying that depending on where you live in the world, if a legal claim were to be filed and this situation were to go to court, Dohyun would have a good chance of going to prison for his actions.

The practical and financial consequences of what you describe are different than merely losing a friend. In the case of someone who is married or capitulating to sexual harassment, there is already a legally binding relationship in place (spouse or employment). Such relationships impact income, financial security, and possibly the quality of life depending on the situation. I understand emotions can be strong, but they are not the same as threatening someone's livelihood or ability to care for their children. A person has much more choice when it is just emotions on the line (though I understand feelings can be serious).

I don't agree. If all evidence of rape has been legally proven as false, I don't understand any of your basis for claiming that it's rape other than sheer stubbornness or the desire to win an argument. Just because you think something is true, it doesn't make it so. When you have sex with someone, you don't ask and wait for the other person to say, "ok, I do want to have sex with you" to do it every time. Consent is generally implied and Sungho did consent via his actions. He made choices to take his own clothes off and do other stuff. Dohyun didn't handcuff him, physically push him down whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm tired. I really have no more desire to discuss this further with you.

Different situations. Girl threatened the friend. Dohyun did not. He walked out of Sungho once.

yeah, I'll admit to being stubborn.

it's just that i'm more interested in how this has mentally affected Sungho than whether he could legally win in court. To me it's just a given that Dohyun knew Sungho didn't want sex, but Dohyun never physically forced anything. That's pretty much it.

I'll (try to) leave it alone now too

I don't want to take this to the extreme because I do agree with what you said earlier. There are times when consent is implied and nstural sex tends to happen that way.

Maybe if this were an anime or an actual live action drama it'd be more evident but when I watch the drawings, you can clearly see reluctance in Sungho's body language. This relationship honestly doesn't look mutual to me. There are parts where Sungho shows he doesn't want to or like doing what he does with Dohyun and he vocalizes and thst doubt creates a grey area where Dohyun could be put in the wrong.

I kinda get Sungho, you know. Its like you agreed to have sex with someone but regretted it afterward 'cause you didn't like it. So you felt used but you likes the other person so much and you don't want to break off. That's probably how Sungho felt. I believe that Sungho didn't consider it rape either. He just felt used and he thought Dohyun was selfish. I think that feeling happens to a lot of ppl in real life actually, especially women since more than a few of them don't get any enjoyment out of sex. And the bedroom thing is messy and dirty if you don't like it. It's easy to feel terrible afterward

Hmm. I see what you mean. I don't think Sungho saw it as rape either and though what he is doing to Dohyun is rape, he did say he wish he didn't have to get what he wanted by tying up Dohyun in the beginning of the story.

In the real world, there aren't many laws that clearly defines and distinguishes rape from just using someone and taking advantage of them. For me what makes Sungho/Dohyun's high school situation rape and not just a simple misunderstanding or Dohyun just being a regular asshole is the fact that Sungho did express his discomfort. While Dohyun didn't explicitly tell Sungho it's sex or nothing, with his words and actions, Dohyun did put Sungho in that position to feel and think that that was the only way they could be with one another. On top of that he was aware that Sungho had no other friends and knew how Sungho felt about him. Dohyun accepted sexual acts from Sungho knowing of Sungho's feelings and expectations, knowing that Sungho didn't enjoy doing any of the things he was asking Sungho to do, knowing that Sungho was vunerable, knowing that he [Dohyun] never intended to reciprocate in anyway (whether with friendship or sex). Dohyun took advantage of Sungho and callously wrecked his psyche.

I know in the real world this is a really grey area and cases like these can go anyway but I don't feel like it's wrong to view what is happening as rape.

If a sex worker doesn't like having sex but agrees to have sex with a customer in exchange for money because the customer is going to walk away otherwise, do you call that rape?

They have a choice and they chose to do it, just like Sungho.

There's a fault in your analogy. A sex worker is not taken advantage of by having sex with a customer. A sex worker provides a service for payment because it's their profession, they are not manipulated into making that decision.

If a legal sex worker is legal working of her/her own volition then no, it isn't rape because she's getting paid to do it and both parties have a mutual understanding. She/he understands that they will have to sleep people they might not be attracted to but they will get paid no the John understands that they aren't being done a favour, they are receiving a service, so they have to pay for it. If they don't pay, its stealing.

It's kind of like if a vegan was working at McDonalds. They might not want to serve meat and think it's bad but it's not illegal to eat meat and they are getting paid to serve it so they do it anyways. If someone were to eat a burger without paying for it, that would be stealing.

Imagine if there was an unspoken contract between a child and a parent that stated if the child cleaned his room, he would be taken out for ice cream. Imagine if one day the room was dirty and the mom said, "I guess you don't like ice cream anymore." The mom isn't explicitly saying, "If you don't clean your room you won't get any ice cream." but that is what she's implying. She's implying that the privilege of getting ice cream would be lost if child can't fulfill his end of the bargain.

Whether or not it's good practice to bribe a child into doing something they should be doing anyways is debatable but it would be a shitty thing if the parents promised ice cream every time they wanted their child to clean their room or anything else and then didn't deliver the ice cream when the kid did hold up their end of the bargain.

Clarifying the metaphor, Dohyun is the parent, Sungho is the child, cleaning is sex and ice cream is Dohyun's companionship. This metaphor is kind of sloppy and loaded since bribing one's children into doing chores isn't illegal but bribing people into having sex could be. Hopefully you get my point. Dohyun dangled a carrot in from of Sungho.

The two cases aren't the same. In your example, you had the mother saying, "I guess you don't like ice cream anymore." The verbal statement is a kind of emotional manipulation. Dohyun didn't say, "Oh, I guess you don't want to be my friend anymore." He was just walking away. So for the two examples to be similar, that would be the mother seeing the room dirty and deciding to leave the room and not buying ice cream for the kid anymore. I don't know how you can't tell the difference.

It's the same. Dohyun did not manipulate Sungho into making that decision either. Sungho had choices and he knew he had choices. He just didn't want to take the other one. Not wanting to do something but agreeing to do it by your own free will is not the same as the other person forcing you into doing it. Doyun did not verbally or physically forced him in any way.

In chapter seven, Sungho gave Dohyun a bj and then said it was 'gross' afterward. So he didn't like it but he did it anyway. Do you consider that Dohyun raping him? Obviously not. I'm amazed by all the SJWs who scream rape at every chance.

I can tell the difference between legal and illegal and now you're just arguing semantics.

No, Dohyun doesn't have to say the exact words. I wasn't giving a parallel, it was a metaphor and like I said it was somewhat loaded.

What you seem to keep missing the part where I acknowledge that Dohyun never explicitly withdrew his "friendship".

Let's say you're having an argument with your friend and you bring up a point and clearly your friend doesn't have a response to give you that would win the argument. Regardless of whether your friend changes the topic, starts calling you names, flat out ignores you or physically walks off on you, the message sent is all the same and becomes clear, your friend doesn't have another point to argue. The argument is over.

Regardless of whether Dohyun were to have flat out told Sungho "I only want sex from you so if we can't fuck I don't want to talk to you." or ignored him or feigned boredom the same message gets sent. Dohyun was only interested in Sungho for sex and didn't care anything about Sungho's wants or feelings.

Removing rape from the table for a moment. Can you at least see how this situation is mentally abusive?

"Sungho gave Dohyun a bj and then said it was 'gross' afterward. So he didn't like it but he did it anyway"

actually, i do consider that raping him, because the situation wasn't that simple. Dohyun clearly understood that Sungho didn't want sex. But Dohyun also new that he could manipulate Sungho into it anyway, as long as Dohyun showed it was what HE wanted. He know that Sungho was desperate to have a friend and was willing to anything Dohyun asked in order to "stay friends". Songhu even tried to back out by saying "this isn't what friends do."

Dohyun never planned to stay friends with Sungho. He was just leading Sungho on in order to get what he wanted. If that isn't manipulation, then what is?

You made a lot of assumptions and wrong conclusions. There's no where in the manhwa that said Dohyun was Sungho's only friend, or that Dohyun was aware of how much Sungho wanted to be his friend. It read to me like Sungho was infatuated with Dohyun and wanted him to be around at all cost. Dohyun never wanted to be friends and he made it clear what the relationship was. Sungho knew it too. Dohyun wasn't leading Sungho on, lying or misguiding Sungho into thinking the relationship was something deeper or more meaningful like you said. I saw no manipulation in what he did.

If you know someone and they tell you, "This is a sex-based relationship. If you don't want it, we got nothing to do with each other," that is not manipulation. That's the condition of the relationship.

Also, something is wrong with you because how can you consider that Dohyun raped Sungho in chapter 7????? Like what????????????? Dohyun was handcuffed and thrown down. He didn't want to be the recipient of the bj, didn't ask Sungho to do what he did.

I agree that it's mentally abusive.
In legal terms, it's another matter... It's tricky. Anyway, what follows are my own personal ramblings, so don't read unless you're interested.
From what I understand, I think in order to prove the rape, you would first have tobe able to prove there was coercion...Bbut you can't prove coercion unless you prove the culprit threatened the victim with taking away something they had a right to have or keep (for example: a right to their life, to their physical sustenance and wellbeing, to an employment and an education...). Children have additional rights like for example the right to be cared for and to be provided with food, shelter, education, etc., etc, by their legal caregivers... So do incapacitated, disabled, or similarly vulnerable people who need others to care for them in order to survive.... But there's no such right as the right to keep a lover, or a friendship, or a romantic relationship. ...The only way it would work is if they proved the culprit systematically manipulated the victim into believing they wouldn't survive without them, or without their love, or whatever... But that's pretty hard to prove.

While it could be wrong to assume Dohyun was Sungho's only friend in chapter 30 you will see a bit of how the classroom work. While no one can be certain until the mangaka confirm's it, it's still a safe bet to assume Sungho was a loner.

Also, Dohyun started the "relationship" and it could possibly even be skewed that he was the one who was infatuated first but I don't think I can say anything else without giving out spoilers.

If Dohyun had straight up said he only wants to fuck and nothing else from the beginning this would have been a different conversation but that didn't happen. By the time Sungho said he didn't want to blow Dohyun they had already been messing around and even after Sungho expressed his discomfort, they continued to mess around so while one could give Dohyun the benefit of the doubt in the beginning, once Sungho expressed his discomfort, it ventured into the realm of non-consensual.

oh, is that the bj you're talking about?

anyway, I think it's pretty obvious that Dohyun isn't innocent here. if he really wanted to "make it clear" he should have just broken it off with Sungho. It seems to me that he was so good at manipulation that he had Sungho eating out of the palm of his hand and begging to spend time with him in sport warehouse. It was like a code-phrase. Dohyun completely ignored him until Sungho mentioned the warehouse.

If Dohyun really cared about Sungho he would have STOPPED Sungho from doing "sexual favors" for someone who didn't care about him, but instead Dohyun was the instigator. Dohyun acted like he came there only to study english, but then he immediately started making sexual advances on Sungho

"once Sungho expressed his discomfort, it ventured into the realm of non-consensual."
Hm, probably... Really, with all the crap I see happening around underage sex, in real life alone, I'm starting to believe teens are just unqualified to have sex...
(￣∇￣")
Anyway, have you guys seen that popular video about tea consent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGoWLWS4-kU
Even if you have, here's a parody that really got me thinking...:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX6va9glqgA

I do agree that Sungho didn't have a right to friendship and I can see why people who view things like you do would see manipulation but not rape. I can see how someone could read this and see nothing else but emotional abuse going on.

However I'm not arguing about rights but needs.

One does not have the right to be accepted but the need to be accept is one of our most basic needs. If a parent were to feed, clothe and shelter their child but never praise or encourage them or acknowledge them outside of what is legally required of them, they would still be neglectful parents. That child would grow up wanting their approval, wanting a bond. Constantly being denied would harm them psychologically and affect how they see the world and who they are as a person.

Likewise, Sungho isn't entitled to Dohyun's friendship and Dohyun doesn't have an obligation to give it but we do live in a world were sex isn't just sex for most people. Most people don't just hook up and move on. There is a whole bunch of unspoken contracts that happen when people have sex and one of them is reciprocation. It's not unnatural to expect some level of emotional intimacy after sex. "Just sex" is actually what is abnormal which is why being explicit is important.

Both Dohyun and Sungho were responsible to defining the relationship but neither did. Like I said in my other post, the grey area comes from what happens after Sungho says no.

I agree with you. Teens should definitely not be having sex. There is just so much to think of besides STDs and pregnancies.

In this day and age there is so much talk about rape and where consent begins and ends, it's already hard for an adult, I wouldn't advise teens to do it. Especially since more of them are being punished like adults.

It might dim the mood but the best thing is to always have a definite use and stop any time there's a hint of doubt.

I'll have to watch those vids in the morning. I can't believe it's already 2:30am.