mochidays's Topics (89)

this is a story i read years ago when it was still unfinished, and i finally came back to finish it—i’m so glad i did. it’s just as heartfelt and fluffy as i remembered, maybe even more. there’s no dramatic twists or huge conflicts, just a gentle, touching story about a deaf man falling in love with someone who sees him for who he is, without pity. i’ve always had a soft spot for stories about characters who are hard of hearing, especially because my mom is hard of hearing, and i feel like they carry such a unique warmth and kindness. this one really hit home for me. the art style isn’t totally my favorite, but the story itself? absolutely adorable. i knew i’d love it, and i totally did.

the relationship between ilay and tay is so complex—it’s built on a trauma-based dynamic where tay is constantly fighting with himself, unsure if he truly feels anything for ilay at all. meanwhile, ilay keeps expressing his feelings without directly admitting them. every time he says something like “you’re mine,” it feels like his subconscious is screaming that he’s in love with tay.

i think this taps into a common misconception about love. when i think of love, i don’t see something pure-hearted or well-intended. i see something cruel, obsessive, and sometimes dangerous. love, at its core, can create some of the nastiest people. as much as it can be kind and wonderful, it doesn’t have to be. love can lead to obsession. love can lead to jealousy, corruption, even violence. the line between love and obsession—between love and possession—is so, so thin. honestly, i’d even say love often works in tandem with possession.

i know that sounds harsh. we don’t want to think of relationships that way, especially not ones as complicated as ilay and tay’s. their dynamic is clearly abusive, but that doesn’t make it any less real or emotionally charged. and when i think of my own relationship—yes, i love my boyfriend in a wholesome way—but there are still parts of that love that feel obsessive, possessive, even subconsciously controlling. it’s hard to admit, but it’s there.

so when we think of love, we tend to infantilize it—idolize it, even—but love often comes bundled with those aggressive, messy emotions. and ilay feels those emotions. he just doesn’t know how to process them. he enters every conversation about “like” or “love” acting detached, like he’s saying it for tay’s sake. but he’s not. he’s saying it to communicate, even if it’s subconscious—he’s begging tay to acknowledge his feelings.

that’s why, when tay doesn’t immediately say he likes him back, we see ilay’s reaction shift. he pretends to be indifferent, but the lack of reciprocation sets him off. he becomes upset and aggressive, because the love ilay feels is inherently flawed and rooted in trauma.

we don’t know everything about ilay’s childhood, or what exactly made his concept of love so isolating and suffocating—but we do know why tay can’t bring himself to hate him. and it has nothing to do with ilay’s actions—it has everything to do with tay’s upbringing. tay has always been needed, not wanted. whether it was as a symbol of luck or a support system for his twin, he’s never had someone like ilay—someone who has everything—choose him. so when ilay instinctively started paying attention to him, tay was drawn in.

but ilay is also the one who destroyed that fragile connection. by raping tay, he turned the relationship into a deeply traumatic one.

and it’s painfully obvious that tay now has no real understanding of how ilay feels. he keeps saying things like “he just doesn’t like me” or “he doesn’t care about how i feel,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. if tay took even a moment to reflect, he might realize it—but he’s so blinded by the trauma he’s endured from ilay that he can’t.

if everything that’s happened between them had occurred earlier in the timeline, before the worst of it, tay might’ve been able to interpret ilay’s silence for what it is. but after experiencing trauma—after being raped—his mind doesn’t register the very clear signs that ilay does care. and any person not weighed down by that kind of trauma would immediately recognize it. the anger in ilay’s voice, the way his expression drops when he sees tay crying—those are not signs of indifference. those are signs of someone who feels everything but doesn’t know how to say it.

what makes it even sadder is that tay is usually really good at reading people—especially when it comes to how they react to him. that’s always been one of his strengths. even with his complicated past, he’s always known how to connect. but now? it’s like that part of him is just… gone. dulled by the pain.

and then there’s that one moment—when ilay takes care of himself in the bathroom instead of putting that responsibility on tay after seeing him break down—that moment is the clearest show of empathy we’ve ever seen from him. and tay can’t even recognize it, not because he’s ungrateful, but because he’s hurt. deeply. and understandably.

honestly, if ilay had any grasp on his own emotions, i think he’d be kicking himself for how badly he’s damaged what they had. it’s hard to watch—two people so lost in their own pain, trapped in their own heads, neither able to figure out what they really feel because of the trauma they’ve endured and the trauma they’ve inflicted.

i just hope, someday, they get clarity. and if they stay together, i hope it becomes somewhat healthy. right now, it’s a trauma bond that’s not doing either of them any good. ilay is obsessive and possessive over someone who doesn’t want to be possessed, and tay is searching for someone who will love him for him, not for what he provides.

but if they ever figure themselves out, i think they could actually make a great match. like, weirdly meant for each other. but as they are now? it’s not sustainable.

all that to say—having a possessive side to love isn’t inherently toxic. but the person on the receiving end has to want to be loved that way. otherwise, it’s not love. it’s control.

this is so peak. the characters are both super endearing and the twist is phenomenal

the plot line is pretty confusing ngl (⊙…⊙ ) i have no idea how that ending even occurred?? but hey.. happy-ish ending i guess? i am very confused by it all but the art was very nice!!

this has sooo much smut and usually i read yaoi for the plot but DAMN these scenes lowkey did something for me idk this was rlly good (=・ω・=)

when i first read this, it was incomplete, and i had only read it because i thought the male lead was well put together (visually appealing lol). i read it not knowing that the story would be so complex. and i started reading it, and i never finished. years later, i have come back, and i’ve read the entire thing, and let me say—this is a masterpiece. i clearly have a soft spot in my heart for repeating timelines and the struggle against fate. the male lead at one point says something along the lines of how he doesn’t know if what he’s feeling is love, because it is such a disgusting obsession that he has, and so he doesn’t even know if he can categorize it as love. but this really stood out to me because i think that is love in its pierced form. i think we often idolize what love is and see it as a blooming emotion full of innocence, but the reality is, love is an emotion that is disgusting at its core, as it can cause people to lose all sense of humanity—which is exactly what happens in the story. he lost himself time and time again because he was obsessed with changing fate and changing the timeline. if he had just let everything play out sufficiently, then they probably would’ve gotten this ending a lot sooner. i am very satisfied with the ending. i know there’s a lot of people out there that would’ve wished for an even happier ending, but i honestly feel like this ending was ideal. even when i thought the ending was just an ending where they were both together in the afterlife, i was satisfied with that—but knowing that they get to repeat this hopefully final life, or never-ending lifetimes with each other, is very heartwarming. it makes the title being “my reason to die” even more heartbreaking. i knew that when she was talking about him seeing the movies and him trying the ice cream, she was only saying “you,” and she wasn’t saying “we.” as much as she says she doesn’t intend for herself to die, she went into that fight knowing that she would sacrifice herself for him, as he had sacrificed himself for her hundreds of times, i’m sure. there was one point where we saw a calendar, and it looked like he had almost lived 4000 times—so i don’t know how many times, how many lifetimes they went through, but i am flabbergasted. i am really satisfied with the ending, and this is a manhwa that i believe deserves a drama adaptation. i feel like it would be really successful. beautifully done, amazing character arcs—i have genuinely no complaints. the art was beautiful through and through.

i just reread, but when i first read this manhwa years ago, it was the first BL i had ever read (well, the first manhwa including 2 men was killing stalking, but that is def not a BL lol ⚆ _ ⚆). reading it again now feels kinda nostalgic (｡•‿•｡)♡ — it reminded me of how new and exciting the genre felt back then ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ even if i didn’t fully understand the tropes or dynamics yet ✧₊˚⊹(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

im gonna say that the pretty boy most likely was ed by the bottom

so this series starts off with us following an omega who’s apparently lost his memories. it’s pretty obvious from the beginning that he’s the one misremembering what’s actually going on. a lot of the stuff he says doesn’t really line up with the situation he’s in, so it becomes clear he’s a super unreliable narrator. then as the story progresses and hits a major turning point, we finally get a flashback that shows what really happened before he got amnesia. honestly, that setup was necessary to keep readers interested, otherwise the whole thing would’ve just been insanely frustrating to get through.

i did feel like it dragged, though. it’s only 40 chapters, but whenever i start reading something, i’m always hoping for at least 80 because i love longer stories. that being said, this series somehow managed to cram a ton of content into those 40 chapters and made it feel way longer—whether that’s a good thing or not, i’m not totally sure. both of the main characters frustrated me in different ways, and honestly, i don’t think they were taking care of their son properly at all. like, be so for real. overall, the story was fine. not amazing, not terrible, just… fine. nothing to write home about.

also, a lot of people have issues with the fact that the two main characters are in a romantic relationship, and it’s between an uncle and his nephew. that part definitely confused me at first, and i feel like that might be due to translation. at the very start of the story, it’s mentioned that they’re not blood-related—it’s because of a remarriage, so technically it’s not incest. but that only gets clearly confirmed way later in the story, so if you missed that detail early on, the whole thing feels super uncomfortable.

as much as their dynamic is a little… questionable, there’s only a 10-year age gap and again, no actual incest, just a weird step-family situation. plus, the nephew never even had a relationship with his mother, who’s the step-sibling of the male lead/uncle.

overall, the story was just… meh. the topics were really heavy, which i can appreciate, but some of the main characters were just not my vibe. like, i’m glad they worked through everything, but i feel like there are better ways to handle characters with mental health struggles than how this story did. at times, it felt like the idea of suicide was treated way too lightly—and if it wasn’t being taken lightly, it was being used more as a manipulation tactic than shown as a real struggle people face. i don’t know, it just wasn’t for me. honestly, i kinda wish i hadn’t read it at all, but i still gave it a 4 out of 5 because i don’t think it’s bad—i’m sure some people really enjoy it. it just… wasn’t my cup of tea.

i never cry when i read stuff like this but especially the scene where his friends tell him that they’re happy he lived on… made me sob tbh. like… NO DUH! of COURSE they’re happy you lived!!! survivors guilt is such a horrible thing. i’m so glad he was able to heal.