Some of y’all about to be real mad at me, however I think it’s important to point out the reason behind Raymond’s behavior is the shitty ass emperor. Like everybody says that him and his adopted brother had the same love from the emperor, but that’s clearly not true. The emperor clearly has a favorite and it’s not him. Like he told Raymond he would have to marry who he says he has to marry however, his favorite could marry for love. And you can say that’s because he’s younger however, if that was all Raymond needed, he would’ve been crown prince soon after his marriage to MC. But that wasn’t enough for the emperor. He wanted them to be in love. He literally tried to force people to be in love for his own reason and got mad when Raymond tried to push back. And now that he found out that Raymond doesn’t have any magic he’s willing to throw him away. There is no way the emperor ever genuinely cared for Raymond and that makes sense, especially when you see his behavior as an adult because he can’t regulate his emotions which is a sign of emotional abuse by the way, not diagnosing anyone with anything fyi and it’s not like this isn’t a common thing in these types of stories but it’s always crazy to see. Like I don’t go as far to say that the emperor is Raymond’s abuser however, I will say that if Raymond ever died there would be no love loss and the emperor wouldn’t skip a beat.
Now I don’t mean all this to say that Raymond is a saint either. He’s clearly awful but how much of that awfulness is a trauma response then you get into the murky lines between a victim and an abuser and that’s too much for the scope of this conversation. Because he did get forced into a marriage he clearly didn’t want and while he didn’t physically abuse his wife (such a low bar), he did emotionally abuse her (aka cycle of abuse) and let his mistress harass her. I don’t think it’s ultimately crazy that Raymond fed up with this behavior for almost 2 1/2 decades go to let’s get rid of him. I just think it’s so interesting they keep poking at him until he breaks and then blames him for all of it. It’s just very telling
I’m kind of excited to see Erica’s big crash out like I hope they make it as big as it needs to be
He doesn’t seem too bad actually just more fragile than he wants to appear. He didn’t want to be alone but in doing so he hurt one of his closest friends. I feel like he’s going to be a side couple probably with MC’s friend or something I think he just needs someone
They didn’t need a side story, they needed a sequel. This author is really good at slow burn and ehh at fast moving stuff and they should have moved even slower then the main couple not juts because the brother didn’t like him but because he is secretive with his feelings due to his feelings of lack of control and this would also allow the ginger to be more fleshed out since I don’t believe he is so far
I’m kinda sad their relationship went to shit like but I don’t blame either of them for the actions they took.
What happen??
Wait nvm I understand what you mean
Sometimes I come back and think about the story because like her brother was really being abused in biblical proportions. I think it’s a damn miracle he just didn’t kill himself. Like he was being physically verbally emotionally abused at home as well as neglected while keeping up a façade for his younger sister. He was being physically and verbally bullied at school and no one really seems to care. Other than one bystander who like helped once, but didn’t really do anything else which like no hate to her, but like not good. Then he finds out that both his parents died in a car accident and then their last minute they are arguing about what an awful son he is. Like that’s so much. Genuinely that’s so much. I think it’s really weird that people can wave away his trauma when he is by far the character with the most trauma in the entire story. Like his sister went through something bad he went through something worse. I don’t like comparing trauma even situation, but I think it’s really weird. A lot of people are repenting to his sins and don’t care about his trauma when it is unarguably the worst in this entire story. I do think while being a great story it does lose a few points for the way character seems to interact with his trauma specifically because they go while you went through a lot that doesn’t justify anything you done and I completely get that however I feel like you just don’t take a story like that and completely push it to the side and I feel like a lot of them do that. Like it doesn’t justify his treatment of his younger sister, but after hearing all that I can understand him a lot more and I want him to get better not just for the sake of his younger sister because he is a victim who has no one? like has his younger sister, but I don’t think she’s gonna help him as much as people think because she is like a child. I genuinely think this story would’ve been everything if it had one more volume where it focused on him trying to get better with the help of the brother for rent. Because I don’t think he needs to be his older brother, but I think him just being there for him in a way no one ever has been would have done a lot like the firm believe he should adjust moved in with them because they cannot be trusted to be alone as the brother might hurt the sister again because healing isn’t linear, but also because the brother might kill himself, they both needed help and only the sister was able to receive it and I mean like yeah the brother eventually got better but like it would’ve been good to see that journey, even if it’s for a little.
I feel like a lot of people here either doesn’t have reading comprehension or empathy or both because I see a lot of people saying I don’t see how her being neglected makes her homophobic when that’s not what happened. Her being abused made her incredibly lonely and suicidal to the point where she had to move in with someone who cared about her or who knows what would happen. Took her to that she feels like she doesn’t want to experience it again, but she doesn’t want the people she cares about to experience it. She want someone she enjoy her life to be as lonely and suicidal as she was. She equates feeling like this because she was outside of the morm in this case were active in their children’s life. She doesn’t want ML To experiences because she cares for him and he’s already gone through so much she doesn’t want him to experience Homophobia because at the end of day, this is a small town. I imagine she thinks it’s even worse because it’s not like they are gay. They both have clearly dated women before See things they are opening up the gateway to homophobia that they don’t necessarily need to.
People are calling her selfish well yeah she’s using her story colors her vision of the world to see the situation. It’s the basis of empathy but she’s ending up at the wrong conclusion. She understands she’s wrong and she says she’ll stop, but she cannot in good faith support the option where they open themselves up to homophobia. Only problem with her way of thinking is, she doesn’t understand that there is benefits from them, opening themselves up this way because even though they will have to face homophobia, they can do it together and that’s clearly more important. It makes sense that she does not see the benefits of community in this way because like she said, she’s incredibly lonely. The only people we see her interacting with are two grown men double her age or a kid half her age. And the fact that she hurt one of the few people who seemingly care about her is probably eating away at her. Odds are she’ll come around to this viewpoint with the help of MC and probably go back to college or basically be adopted due to the over arching theme of parenthood in this story.
I feel like the situation needs to be handled with more empathy and understanding going into it because even though she is a fictional character, this is a very real viewpoint and this is a very real situation she found herself in the topic of neglect.
well said :)
He should’ve just gave him backshots. I wanted to see it. Snow has been such a forgotten character until this moment he deserved some good backshots.