Way to blame the victim. So all the conflict is Martin’s fault for resisting being used as a sex slave and breeding stock?! I bet redhead would feel different if it was him or his daughter being told to endure the same
This reads like one of those delusional male fantasies… the progression, the dialogue, just ridiculous (●￣(ｴ)￣●)
I’m out of this one. I’m so sick of comics that try to justify abusive, controlling, harmful, and quite literally criminal behaviors towards the bottom, but then has the universe magically align so no matter what bullshit “consequences” the top receives they still get everything they wanted in the end. I’m just sick of it. There are so many ways to write conflict or problems in a relationship without crossing the line.
Kind of over the premise tbh. If he was being altruistic he didn’t have to force her to marry him, and if he just wanted to use her, he could have made a mutually beneficial deal that was advantageous to him. I’m just tired of the abused puppy fl imprinting on the first person to show “kindness” trope, and the “he’s actually really kind if you ignore his unkind behavior” trope
Brother: hires Hakyung to pretend to be a girl to ingratiate himself into the family, act as his brother’s fiancée, and scam his grandfather into giving a more favorable inheritance to him (the brother)
Hakyung: literally just does the job he was hired to do, but ends up feeling guilty, catching feels, and getting into a real relationship
Grandfather: literally dying
Brother: forces Hakyung to leave while he’s barely out of a hospital bed and tells his brother he DIED after the car accident (where his brother was the driver)
Also brother to Hakyung: I can’t believe you’re so shameless, everything is your fault. My brother got depression and tried to commit suicide because you followed my orders and di$ what I said, but it’s clearly not my fault for orchestrating everything!
And it’s going to be impossible to really get meaningful understanding because he has no way of explaining anything without looking like a liar or crazy
Has anyone else noticed that in the common naive x manipulative dynamic, the “cuteness” of the character is used as a distraction from the reality of how problematic the manipulative character is? Manipulators are often considered cowards who don’t have the courage to actually shoot their shot, but that’s not it at all. This type of character does not acknowledge or respect the autonomy of their love interest.
They lie to, manipulate, gaslight, harm, and isolate their love interest rather than directly confess their feelings or ask them out because they don’t care about their opinion or emotions. Kiel has no interest in forming a genuine relationship. He only cares about facilitating Asha’s cooperation in providing him the personal gratification he wants. If Asha said no for any reason, it would be irrelevant to Kiel who would continue with trying to force the relationship.
They don’t ask because they don’t actually care about the answer, he knows that forcing a relationship on an unwilling person will be problematic and cause Asha and others to have animosity towards him, which he does not want to deal with.
It’s even worse in this case because of the age gap, power balance, and very obvious grooming. Even if they were both kids at the time, Kiel was several years older, so the imbalance is real. It’s also very clear that Kiel lied about rules and the norms of social interactions to get Asha closer to him.
I’m just very sick of seeing horrible stuff like this romanticized.
Sick of gilded trashcan love interests. Mediocre at best
Eh, kind of a letdown. Another series where the fl randomly falls in love with the ml and devote her life to him for no reason. There has to be at least something in the plot or character dynamics to justify the level of commitment she is giving. She was fully planning to leave him after he told her she could, but suddenly she’s all in because he passed out from hunger on the training ground. Prince dumbass has access to food, so he’s only got himself to blame. ML has stereotypical abused backstory to broody pessimist personality, and FL is a classic smart, capable character who randomly does dumb, out of character things that are obviously designed to manufacture an opportunity for the ML to ingratiate himself.
I really like this story! Definitely a top contender in the “misunderstood/mistreated villainess gets revenge” trope. I really appreciated that she used her own abilities to accomplish everything instead of immediately leaning on a man like is so common for this trope. I think she’s a really interesting character who is a unique blend of loyalty, selflessness, and avarice. All in all, a great read.
It was a decent story overall, but I kind of disliked how Wellmy was built up as a stoic loner mastermind only to have the wind taken out of the sails when it was revealed that everyone around her knew everything the whole time and just let her struggle alone because reasons.
Everyone basically celebrates how smart and amazing she was for putting on an act and spinning so many schemes for so long, but they could have actually stepped in to help her before everything came to light.
I just thought it was weird how all these people who claim to care for, respect, and support her let her think she was alone and despised for so long when it really wasn’t necessary. She legitimately believed she was completely alone and thought she would be convicted at worst, or thrown penniless onto the streets at best
His brother is pissing me tf off. He’s basically telling him to get over it, because they’re all his parents’s problems. Yeah, and they’re issues that defined his childhood and identity. The brother basically left him in the dark to struggle alone for years knowing that Seongwon would never achieve anything he sacrificed his life to accomplish.
He has been poisoning himself basically since puberty to become an alpha that would be accepted by his father and approved of by his mother. Every single person in his family knew the secret, but told him nothing as he worked tirelessly to gain their approval.
So no, it’s not just “parental problems”. He was raised as an object whose sole purpose was to obtain the approval of his father, take control of the company, and bring his mother back into power/a relationship with his “father”.
Now an opportunistic sadist is trying to tear down his life for shits and giggles and the man he loves is in danger. The brother is part of the abuse. He stood by and didn’t give him info he needed as he watched him abuse himself to the point of illness all while knowing it was all for nothing. The father did the same thing, watching him bust his ass to prove himself knowing full well he would never be allowed into the true family or to earn any power within the company
As far as I’m concerned, all three of them are rotten peas in a pod, just as bad as each other
“Don’t take it out, it’ll dirty the seats” Piljoo is such a legend for that
True to form, even after a serious misunderstanding that left their entire relationship at risk, Jaehyuk is still more focused on the validation he feels from Garam’s distress/betrayal when he thought he’d been cheated on than actually comforting and alleviating Garam’s distress.
Jaehyuk is a major player, has been mostly straight, and has made degrading comments to Garam about his sexuality in the past. Under those circumstances it’s entirely reasonable for Garam to assume he’s cheating. And even when his relationship is imploding and his partner is in severe distress, he’s still only thinking about himself.
Even the original fight was about him being offended that Garam was not progressing in the relationship (thus providing higher levels of emotional gratification) fast enough. Any jerk can say “I love you”, but it takes time for someone to be ready to feel and say it.
Ugh I’m sick of guys who are annoyingly jealous even before being in an actual relationship. Man had to basically strong arm Jiheon to get him near him, which basically forced him to be in an involuntary work position that forces Jeheon to be around and cater to Jaekyung. That goes beyond a crush, very pushy and not in a good way. Zero boundaries respected. Rather than actually trying to win him over, Jaekyung went straight to the forced proximity trope. Also, if they’re this insecure, jealous, and possessive even before being friendly, much less dating, the whole story is just going to be a rehash of stale, toxic relationship tropes where Jiheon gets dragged around at Jaekyung’s whims, but the relationship magically still works because feelings and plot. Not saying he’s a horrible person, just saying that he objectively does not respect Jiheon’s boundaries because he views his desires to be more important than anything else. Jiheon will probably end up just bending to whatever he wants because that’s the only way a relationship with that type of personality can function. It’s a really common dynamic, but I’m over it.
But seriously, she hated him so much on a personal level she slapped him at their first meeting, and his family is always mooching off of, taking advantage of, and sabotaging her. Even if she did (*barf at the thought*) want to marry him, no fucking way that engagement slips part dad and big bro. He’s living in delulu land
Ritter is really out here sampling all the delulu lemons
And cue the trust issues. Kynel is comically terrible at communicating like an actual human, even considering his trauma. If he found out that Tia realized his trusted butler had been secretly drugging him, but decided to keep it a secret so “his feelings wouldn’t be hurt or his trust be betrayed” how do you think he would react? Not well. He infantilizes and tries to bubble wrap her instead of treating her like a true partner to go through the trials of life with. She put in so much effort to improve understanding and communication between them, only to be disrespected in return. Of course she’s upset and withdrawn. She literally has no one else to turn to. Even if she didn’t have pregnancy hormones, she would still be acting reasonably considering the whole situation. Kynel just loves pouring gas on the fire, and when he’s not doing that, he just watches it burn while choosing not to douse it with water