HowDoesOneNot's Topics (18)

I read the raws and he does get better very soon and they have a more cliched relationship of becoming closer I think, but mainly because- SPOILERS












He finds out that she has a chronic illness and basically he feels bad that he treated her so terribly with the lack of firewood and all. To be completely honest they do kind of look like they're going to gloss over the first ten chapters of him being terrible and her literally knowing everything about his past without consent.

Uhhh, I don't hate Helena? I'm excited to see what she'll do.

Of course, I don't like her (yet), but I don't hate her or dislike her, she's more interesting than anything else to me, maybe even a little relatable?

A lot of people were telling her that she has no reason to act like the "dumb heroine" but I think that if you thought about it, her entire job at this point is just to please the prince.
Officially, she's a maid but unofficially, she's basically a sugar baby.

The reason that I don't hate her, is actually because she genuinely doesn't have a choice.

If she stands up to the crown prince, she runs the risk of being executed or having her social position lowered even more than it already is. The prince is essentially her only way of support and even if she tries to cut ties with them, she'll always have that shadow and people won't want to be associated with her either way. At least if she acts dumb and pretends to ignore things, she won't get fired and she'll have a relatively stable job. I also doubt the prince would give up on her that easily. It's just easier to act like a doll for her because that's what she's been doing her entire life.

In the end, her moral compass is less geared towards compassion and more wanting to survive in a decent environment. I can respect that to a certain level. She can look over the small things because if she doesn't she can have stuff happen to her. She has little to no control over what she does, she's only presented with a choice of a short term bad decision and a long term bad decision. They're both bad decisions and it's really unlikely that anyone would actually have the courage to go against figures of authority when your entire life could be upended or destroyed with one wrong move.

And are we really ignoring the fact that her mother essentially abused her kid? She threated to kill a child and that child was fine with it. Don't you think that there's some stuff that's been going on behind the scenes if a child is okay with having a knife against their face, by their parent??

I don't find this makes her likeable, or charming, but it makes her interesting and more morally grey than anything else. She's not weak or anything that people keep saying she is just because she wants to live and be comfortable.

I don't think she was meant to be a good person, but just a girl who's trying to survive in a world that's being controlled by men who want her. She seems to be in a good social position, but if you look at the way she thinks she never actually says that she wants anything for herself. She just can't seem to think of anything she wants at all, just for herself. She's not selfish, to the point where she's self-sacrificing and I think that's the main problem and the reason people don't like her. Not because she's the "heroine" or anything like that, but because she never acts selfish. She never wants anything, has no agency of her own and only seems to exist to serve other people's storylines.

Sounds like the classic girl character in every badly written romance novel, right?

But honestly, this chapter might be the turning point. It shows that she might change, because despite the fact that the prince doesn't like Elise, she still tries to make amends. It's not big, but I doubt that anyone in real life immediately make a big gesture when not actively thinking about changing. This however, also plays into the "self sacrificing heroine" persona, since a good heroine would want to make friends with everyone, even the villainess, so I don't know how to take it.

But I do not know the future. I don't know if she decides to be a bad person later or what, but this is only just a few thoughts from what I've seen so far.

Extra note, I think it would just be strange if the author did write an empty, boring character. All their women characters are interesting and complex, (although we've only really seen two, so I suppose I can't make a judgement about that) But because Helena started in such a low place in terms of character, I think she could develop to be interesting and more likable than people expect her to be. I think that's where the author plans on taking Helena, but again, I don't know the future. I haven't read the novel, I haven't seen the raws, I don't know what happens. All I'm saying is that I think it's a good idea to have your mind open to see what will happen with her.

I'm just realising that he probably crashed his car because he was talking to Zhaomu (our resident MC) and was caught off guard by his question of "what type of person do you think you'll date?"

Don't text and drive, kids

I don't really know what to say without upsetting people on the situation with the MC's dad?

Like I am absolutely furious that he's irresponsible as a father.

I know that a lot of people like him because he's pretty and no, I will not take the excuse "he's trying" because he's not trying hard enough. And I just don't care for him at all. If he somehow gets forgiven without crying and truly regretting how he treated her, then I will throw a fit. Nothing less than outright crying and admission of regret will get me to not hate him as a parent.

And I think the confusion is that he's a good person but an absolutely terrible father. He cares, but what's the use of caring if you can't show it in a way that matters. You might as well not care. He's worried but never shows or tells her that he is, and honestly he's just a problematic parent. You cannot give negative reinforcement without positive reinforcement. Children are impressionable and hopeful. You can't just screw around with them.

And I don't want to upset those who excuse him, and children are traumatised easily, and it's difficult not to screw them up especially if it's your first time, I will concede that.

But it's also ridiculously easy to be a decent parent.
Just set healthy boundaries and be as supportive of them as you can as long as they aren't hurting themselves. That's it. Those are all the rules. Also treat them like a person, but that goes without saying.

I hate the "bad at communicating emotions dad" archetype because they excuse neglectful/bad parents overall on the basis that they care about you. But no matter how much you care about someone, if you can't provide the things they need, you aren't good enough. If you put your job over your child, you need to sort yourself out or do something about it so you can make a compromise. Does he carry literally one braincell geared towards fighting? No? Then he can be a decent dad.

His entire demeanour leads the one who died (before the MC took over) to believe that her father hates her and wishes for her death at the very last minute, making her believe that she's nothing to him otherwise. Tell me that doing that to a person isn't anywhere near despicable.

He might be trying, but that doesn't erase the things he did/didn't do.

I just realised that Duke Dwello is literally just a himbo.

He's just- he's just a himbo.

It's basically a slice of life/soft romance story about two people who have insomnia with a theme of astronomy.

It's good if you like light romance and slice of life, but imo it's not as gripping or interesting as it could be, especially if you like action/mystery types of stories. It's a relaxing, low-key romance between two high schoolers I think and it's actually pretty good, just not to my taste.

Sir??? Maam??? God??? Please, just make them poly, I beg of you, please. It would be adorable, and great and I will thank you, please make them poly

He's really not. Quite frankly, he's really mild in terms of "fetishising" and I think it's not as bad as people think? Maybe a bit ignorant/insensitive, but not outwardly malicious.

Like, obviously all fetishising is terrible, but at the very least, his isn't sexual but romantic and he gives off the vibe of that really enthusiastic friend who wants you to be with your crush? And quite frankly, there are more women in the BL/GL fandoms that fetishise gay men sexually than men in GL fandoms.

In my humble opinion, if you're going to criticise Cui Xin for fetishising, then you should be far harsher on a bunch of people/characters in stories. Like, if you're going to be offended, have the decency to be thorough in your taking offence, and not just notice it when someone brings it up, but then not care for the most other parts.

Also, tHAT'S A WHOLE CHILD WHY ARE YOU BULLYING HER SHE'S LESS THAN HALF YOUR HEIGHT???

okay, cool

the saying is "the boys throw the stone in jest but the frogs die in earnest" which means that a joke that someone stronger made (or someone in general I suppose) can still harm someone.

Now, my problem here is that there seems to be no rape warnings/rape trigger warnings. Nowadays, people put that stuff in manga (usually BL) to warm people of something like that or they put the tag 'Bullying/abusive lover' to let people know generally what they're in for. That's not here. And it may not seem like much, but for people who have been sexually assaulted, that's really important because a lot of things can trigger them into a panic attack.
A lot of the discourse seems to be that people don't think this is an unhealthy relationship. It is. It most certainly is. Havi has no patience when in a relationship, it's supposed to be equal and she pushes Yul to answer her question as to why his chastity was so important, but that's HIS reason. She claims that she has a right to know about it, but she really doesn't. Them dating has nothing to do with his trust in her and he repeatedly tells her that he doesn't trust her. For good reason, and he really shouldn't.
Also, she doesn't care enough to prod when Yul was kicked out of his house (I've only read up to chapter 13. That was it for me.)

Her entire thing is 'Oh, I'm sexually active and impulsive etc.' but that's not a personality I would enjoy in both women or men, fiction or real. That's just immaturity and so their relationship isn't going to last (hopefully) and neither should it last at all. Their entire relationship feels more like affectionate sex acquaintances- people who don't know each other at all and have vaguely sexual relations. The difference is that Havi doesn't ask for consent from Yul and in a relationship where you don't know each other that well, active consent (which means 'no' until they say 'yes) is important and passive consent (which is implicit consent where it means yes until the word 'no') is more acceptable.

As well as that, their relationship does have a very 'ex-' feeling to it, as if this is the prologue and set up and Havi will meet someone new after growing into a better person through this relationship as will Yul afterwards.

My point is, is that it doesn't feel like it was written to last. Their relationship isn't healthy in the best of ways but that's because the characters are flawed. This feels like them learning how to be in a relationship then leaving to find someone else. (specifically Havi because lets be honest, Yul already has the concepts of a relationship down. Havi's the one who's sexually assaulting her partner and blurring the lines).

Anyway, this isn't a healthy relationship, it's actively abusive and what she's doing to Yul is sexual harassment.

Yes. Men can get sexually harassed and be the victim of an abusive relationship too. In fact, one of his lines are: "I didn't want to hurt you in case that wasn't going to legally be considered self-defence" (I'm paraphrasing) and that is something that men in actual abusive relationships say. "I didn't want to hit her because she loved me.", "I didn't want to hit her in case I abused her", "I didn't want to hit her because it wouldn't be counted as self-defence even though she was sexually assaulting me or hitting me".
That's why men don't "just push them off".

Because it can be considered assault.

Some people will disagree and at this point, I don't care. To an extent, this isn't about "just fiction" because I'm not dealing with fiction characters. I'm dealing with real people who think this relationship is okay.

And as always, there will be those who go: "But I'm not thinking this relationship is good, I just find their dynamic interesting!"

And you know what? I don't care! That has nothing to do with what I'm saying, you just feel defensive of something that wasn't even directed to you and if you really did "just think it was interesting", then you should still be able to say that it is a bad relationship, it was just fascinating, like how people can look at violence and not be able to take their eyes away.

If you think it was okay, please, tell me why. I would genuinely like to know why you think her continuously assaulting her partner and not asking for consent is okay.

I don't care for the cute moments between them, abusive relationships also have that. It's why people go back to their abusive partners. Because they crave the honeymoon phase where everything was good. That doesn't mean that it was okay.

(I'm just trying to bat down every argument before they're spoken so I have to do less work later on.)