medeva's Topics (94)

This story would’ve been more interesting to me, if it depicted Sarah the maid and Kael’s story. I mean two villains working together sounds more nuanced and intriguing than this.
It’s nothing against Enrica but she is just another reason why the beautiful cutie airhead archetype can run its course in stories that are hinged on a huge miscommunication. It becomes incredibly unrealistic and laughable when the FL shows confidence, skill, intelligence and cunningness for other scenarios that require logic but can’t seem to connect the dots on the man she is marrying because the plot refuses for her to find out until the wedding.

That’s just ridiculous, I’m sorry, a lot of these shoujo ahistorical manhwas really do think their readers just shut their brain off while interacting with their stories so they will half ass the writing if they know all the facets of the story suffice for people. Sad. Anyway, I love Sarah she seemed really interesting and I think her being a dark mage would’ve tied nicely into Kael’s background of being used by one. A sort of enemies to lovers vibe. In fact, when the story first started I loved the relationship between her and Enrica. She could’ve been a lesbian with a one sided or mutual crush on her. Alas, we’re not reading her story though so we’ll never know.

But yeah that’s all I had to say. Will probably keep skimming but my critiques will definitely be a personal crutch to ranking this story any higher.

Is there a clause in this artist works that requires them to design all their male characters the same? Because it’s getting boring and repetitive now. You could rotate the men in Kinks 101, Elegant Desire, and here with no one being able to tell the difference half the time.

And while the story is amusing to me there really is something so laughably backward and almost … immature? Of how a webtoon can come out in the 2020s decade and have a premise like this and still somehow pull off queerbaiting. Where an author in this day and age can have a couple that is emotionally/affectionately queer yet physically/sexually heterosexual.

Not even having ONE instance where the two explore each other in a way that breaks binaries despite making so much effort to have its FL be conflicted about her newfound sexual identity, well— again, maybe Romantic because there is nothing sexual enough that goes on between Girl Minicat and her besides deep kissing and petting.

That’s such a level of dedication to make the story and the hot parts so straight as possible that I can’t even begin to address it without laughing. I don’t know why I expected anything else maybe I was just too #Wokepilled and I should’ve understood that this was not the place to make things #GayerThanEver but then my god don’t walk and talk like a duck yet swear you’re a goose.

This was a very weak execution, in my opinion, when he should’ve been built up to us as readers who have been having questions about the powers that be that permeate this story. So many webtoons do this too and it looks so rushed to me but that’s just my opinion

alicia is an awful woman but oscar is an evil man and i find the dynamic between them playing into niceties and façades with while knowing the true depravity or ambition they both share interesting. i know people would hate to see more of them but not me! would love to see this bowl of contempt either flourish or spoil. i also do love evil women so i’ve grown to like alicia’s nefarious but subtle nature, even the way she’s drawn to be less appealing endears her to me. it would be interesting to see if she grows to be a major obstacle for ines or not but it’d be nice for me to get her introspection or inner conflicts.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course, but I’ve read far more worse stories ‘contractual marriage’ stories than this, with not nearly the same quality of art. So a lot of these complaints just sound like complete nitpicking to me, this is a fun premise and the FL is lovely. The ML kind of had a boring design to me but I’ve really warmed up to his character and personality.

I think it would’ve been a really interesting tango between the two of trying to kill the other and outsmarting the other. However, if the ML was the killer the FL wouldn’t have been making such brutish and impulsive decisions at times. She’s interesting but she’s not as pragmatic as the webtoon would like to have you believe, it’s her stoic Rei-expy demeanor that leads you to the impression of being more observant than she is, tbh. The ML is really fun too, I like the pairing and dynamic between them so far.

I also think the killer is either Ditor(?) or is in close connections with him.

The way Micheol mocked and goaded her when he asked Na Haesoo if she really thought she could leave him. I told y’all he treats her like she’s his property to abuse and misuse that’s why he seriously thinks she can’t leave him. That debt they have binds them together and he knows it. Too bad for him that she’s “friends” with a walking piggy bank, lol!

Even the ML yandere specifically choosing to play poor instead of white-knighting the FL from her shitty life is on purpose to display the correlations and understanding between characters about socioeconomic class they live in. For me, this was the strongest appeal to reading another manhwa about a torrid affair and revenge fantasy because of how important poverty was to the characters complexity and dynamics.

Mincheol is a titular character emblematic of South Korea’s uber-misogyny that’s been accelerating against women but also a clear example of how socioeconomic standards also drive huge influence into how family members can abuse others within the unit. Sure, he loved her at some point— deep down probably still does— but he despises her now because he associates her with poverty, his poverty to be exact, the poverty HE dragged her into. He also simultaneously sees her as his property to debase and humiliate because she is also still his poverty. Because there’s nothing left that a poor person will have besides the fact they’re poor. And Na Haesoo has assimilated into that poverty class with such diligence and attention that it disgusts him now. Seeing as he’s a character who goes out of his way everyday to play into appearances, to not let others be aware of how poor he actually is.

This is why I also feel a sense of frustration when I see comments get mad at Na Haesoo for not behaving in a certain way, especially because the misconception to many might be that she’s behaving this way to fit into a certain shy-girl archetype that you see in many stories. I understand because I tire of those too. But what I think what makes Na Haesoo different is because her character and behavior is not driven by being raised ‘right’ or that she’s a ‘maiden’ but an intentional depiction of what society deems a poor person should behave. She embodies their idealized version of poverty. The embodiment of poverty.

Just as there is an unspoken idea of a ‘perfect victim’ there is unspoken idea of the ‘perfect poor person’. The type of individual that is hard-working, not loud, doesn’t beg, doesn’t complain about their situation even though it gets worse. The world hates poverty and hates the poor, the homeless, while simultaneously behaving as if they have their best interests in heart— the rich do nothing but drive a stronger poverty gap worldwide all while blaming the poor for not being hardworking enough. Capitalism needs to incentivize the idea that your circumstances are created by you, and you alone— and that only you can save yourself. Ignoring the countless of evidence and studies, showing that poverty is systemic, abusive, generational, and parasitic.

The poor cannot complain about their lives, they have no right to. They also should not go out showing themselves as poor, which is why the surge of anti-homeless infrastructure is everywhere in major cities. The poor cannot indulge themselves in luxury, because that would show they’re frivolous and unfocused on getting out of poverty. The poor shouldn’t have children, because they are forcibly ruining their lives by doing that— despite the fact that they actively block the fundings poor people need to support their kids or block access to planned parenthood to have them avoid bringing children into the picture in the first place. They also cannot be poor anymore or else that’s criminalized (yes, in certain states in America (for example) homeless is now criminalized.)

See what I’m getting at? The poor cannot live and they cannot live at peace with being poor either, but you cannot sell them a dream that poverty can be eradicted (even though it very much could). The ideal impoverished is given the message “Stay poor, stay hidden, and die quietly.” — Tara Colon.

And this is the energy Na Haesoo exudes to the bottom of the bottle. It’s not an archetype of a maiden who is too lovesick to leave her man. It’s a thirty year old women who is trauma bonded to a man that uses and abuses her financially to make a feasible living for himself while she chucks away at their debt little by little all because he is the man she has been with for years, has not experienced or been involved in anything else but his orbit for years, and has nothing to her identity or herself outside of him because she dedicated her whole life to him. It’s more akin to a 1950’s housewife story, really.

I just need them to figure out the translations here because it’s a hot mess rn