even with the side stories i can’t help but feel that this was not given a proper ending. the side stories feel more like a time-skip than a direct continuation from the main story. so rather than feeling like a ‘happy ending’ per say, it honestly just feels sort of disjointed. id say the main story probably needed at least another 10-15 chapters for the whole chasing arc to have been properly satisfied imo
at first i was like mmh itsuomi x oushi as a joke
but bro … i don’t think it’s a joke anymore LMAO
skin cleared, depression cured, no longer wanna kms
literally if i was sooae and eunhyeok ignored me like that, best believe i would’ve been screaming crying throwing up cos what in the actual hell happened to him
word vomited my thoughts on this one…
when ayesha returns back to the house after sylvia killed aida, it seems like this is the start of ayesha’s pseudo-revenge against the family. we later learn that ayesha in some ways premeditated aida’s death by encouraging her to mention the lawyer to sylvia, knowing full well that sylvia was capable of murder. regardless, ayesha was a bystander to the whole ordeal and could’ve saved aida if she really had wanted to. so in actuality, ayesha does this for a more self-motivated reason, as sean states, that she no longer wants to live half a life in the shadow of her sister. and that’s why she lets her sister be killed. and then uses her sister’s death to drive sylvia to suicide. by letting her own sister die, ayesha is able to start regaining her own identity.
what i don’t get is why sean somehow is above the rest of the family in ayesha’s eyes. we’re led to believe that sean is somehow better than his brothers despite his partaking in the bullying back in their childhood firstly because he never fell in love with aida like carlo and nemo. the second reason we’re given is that sean was never truly party to the bullying because one way or another he was also just trying to survive in that household. what seems to tie both sean and ayesha together is their simultaneous tragic childhoods and their capacity for murder. sean murders his stepfather and ayesha, although never by her own hand, provokes the murder of aida and sylvia (sean technically kills carlo).
either way, i can’t really say sean did anything to garner ayesha’s love. like unless she loved him all along for whatever reason, she could’ve gotten rid of him too. it’s like he gets some mid redemption arc because all of a sudden his tragic backstory absolves him of the past and his interest in ayesha isn’t entirely self-seeking like his brothers with aida. and ig he helps her in the whole post-aida vitriol. but if that’s the reason, i don’t know how that put him above aida? because ayesha loved him? i mean was ayesha’s envy towards her sister so fundamental that it was worth aida dying when all she had ever tried to do was protect them both? aida’s childhood was equally as tragic.
if the whole point of the story was for ayesha to reclaim her sense of space and autonomy, then what followed was necessary. however, if what differentiates sean is some romantic factor, then frankly it feels trivial and falls short.
don’t get me wrong, i think the plot is great, it has qualities of both the horror and psychological genre. all i’ll say is i wasn’t really sold on ayesha and sean ending up together. will have to read the remastered version at some point !
i was kinda reading this over again and one thing i still sort of struggle to get behind is why kou had to carry the burden of his mother on his own. ik the author poorly explains it as his brother having his own financial and work obligations. call it just a difference in culture but kou is literally a child. he should’ve never been in the position of basically having to act as his mother’s legal guardian and having a whole oncologist give him the news of her end of life diagnosis. like i’m sry but both his parents and brother were selfish for that. it’s not like they couldn’t have known kou was suffering too. and i find it hard to believe that they couldn’t have done more to be with a dying wife and mother. like she was on her deathbed and it was just kou there with her, so ur saying other things took precedence? kou has more grace than i could for holding little to no resentment to his remaining family because i call that negligence.
omg y’all eunhyuk is back next chapter AHHHHH i tried guys i really did but i’m still team eunhyuk
can't wait for girlie to work up the courage and ditch that ginger parasite (☆▽☆)
lowkey could be really interesting if the author were to pit jeoh and seongrok against each other, given the psychological aspects of this manhwa and seongrok's unpredictable position as a murderer. makes u wonder how sustainable their 'relationship' really is. but if the author is not gonna treat this scene for what it is, which is rape, then it is honestly just poor writing on the author's part to characterise jeoh as an ex-prostitute with sexual trauma and have seongrok sexually assault him, then romanticise it.
how to telepathically tell the author ain’t nobody
give one fuck about chung
author conveniently forgets she wrote this set in the modern era. yh the modern era where characters own phones and are capable of using said phones to communicate to their literal significant other. i get that eunhyeok might not have been ready to confide in sooae but seriously 8 years mf
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
i don’t think jiho is entirely wrong here. yes he should’ve communicated with inwoo first but i think it was always inevitable that inwoo needed to speak with his mother. not to forgive her, but for inwoo to forgive himself. it is very much clear that his trauma is rooted deeply not only from the abuse he suffered from his father, but from his mother abandoning him in that abusive household. his mother is selfish and unforgivable not only for leaving her child then but never even bothering to seek him out now, if not for jiho.
his illness started from his mother’s abandonment. even in his adulthood, inwoo is still filled with resentment and has never truly been able to move on. rightfully so. his mother’s indifference during this meeting only further confirms that. previously, everything was sort of unconfirmed about why his mother did what she did but now we know that really she’s just a pos. inwoo did nothing to deserve that and hopefully he can take that information and not be further entrapped by his past. and i think outsiders like jiho needed to see that too, that family is not the same for everyone and reconciliation is not always the answer.
girl idk how the author finna do it but dowha better get his own happy ending too
i can’t help coming back to this manhwa. there’s a hint of realism to it where neither inwoo or jiho are entirely perfect beings but it’s done in such a tasteful way. even the sex scene in ch 64 just feels so intimate and relevant to inwoo’s current prognosis and how his partner is trying to respond to that, so far as to go seek out inwoo’s mother himself. characters are guided by their own morals and it feels very authentic. regardless of the outcome with his mother, as the reader, i can’t help but root for inwoo.
some higher being saw me in my time of need and bore me the news of the next season. if there’s one thing i need to see in this lifetime, it’s acejun cooking in the seidou vs ichidai game animated