☆Healthy~Addictions☆'s manga / #stalker(4)

Alright, I think it is now time to write my review on this manhwa. Given this is actually my first ever manhwa on mangago so I completed it in about 2020 and re-read it about 4 times. So, I don’t know where to BEGIN with this manhwa.. I can say though, it was a pretty good manhwa but that’s also coming from a murder mystery lover myself. Now the plot was pretty interesting and the twists and turns kept me reading. Now I was about 12 or 13 when O first read this so I couldn’t quite understand some of the themes featured in this story. This manhwa was actually my first introduction to “stockholm syndrome”. I think if the reader knows of the existence of such condition, they will better understand the characters. For example, being, Yoonbum. He is basically the mc of this whole story and he suffered stockholm syndrome. Ever since he got into the hands of Sangwoo he was doomed to the condition. Now I need to elaborate more on my view of Yoonbum instead of doing it later. So I had empathy and pity for Yoonbum but at the same time, he was a stalker. I sort of hate how the KS fandom portayed Yoonbum as a “sweet baby” or “smol bean” that had to be protected at all costs. He is a grown man, who stalked the man he knew from the military. But I still didn’t let that aspect of him to entirely distort my view of his character. Yoonbum was really just a victim though out his whole life, from childhood, all the way to adulthood. From the moment he was put into the custody of his grand parents, he was abused physically, mentally, and sexually. He was always picked on and judged from his appearance and behaviors. His BPD didn’t help either. He was always hurt through relationships and treated as if he were nothing. Sangwoo didn’t treat him any better than the other people did. That’s another thing that upset me is how people in the KS community was always shipping the two characters and fangirling/fanboying over their relationship. There was absolutely nothing healthy about the relationship they shared, it was purely, abusive, vile, and manipulative. People would always pull out the “Sangwoo loves Yoonbum” card when he never would’ve kept Yoonbum in his life if he didn’t look like his mother. It feels like people weren’t paying attention to the story at all and only seeing the fantasy story they wanted to see. Sangwoo has trauma from his mother and all the things she did. Forced him into a crime, raped him, attempted murder, psychological abuse, and more. I don’t know the story quite well but I think despite being afraid and disgusted by his mother, he still wanted to hold onto that mother figure, the mother figure that once treated him when he was sick, protected him from harm, and stayed by him when his father didn’t. He wanted his mother back and that explains the kidnaping of yoonbum and of all the acts he made him do, like washing the dishes and cooking dinner like his mother once did. If the hallucinations of his mother while looking at yoonbum weren’t enough, then I don’t know how else to make the viewers understand. Even when the series ended, in the author’s note, she had answered a question from a fan, “is sangwoo gay?” And she answered “no, he is not” (not verbatim but quite literally paraphrasing her response). That also proves that he only saw yoonbum as his mother and nothing else. Then again I think most of the viewers were underage like I am but I think they are just ignorant about psychology and the signs shown in the story. I know I’m no psychologist, but I just understood and came to my conclusions based on what I already know. Moving on, I don’t quite know why sangwoo went from a damaged, hurt, child to a full on manipulative, insane, serial killer, but I think the intense trauma his mother and his father pressed on him is a big reason for his out come. I mean, we’re talking attempted murder, his mother tried to suffocate him with a pillow when he was only 6 years old, and tried again when he was in high school with rat poison. I have some pity for Sangwoo but also not really. I truly think the things done to him in his childhood are not excused and that he was a victim but that doesn’t mean that it’s okay for him to just be a serial killer just because he was abused as a child. I mean, the disgusting things he did not only to all his victims but, yoonbum. Once he hung him by a rope and gave himself sexual pleasure as yoonbum as there struggling and he had no guilt or sympathy or anything for yoonbum and that continued. At some point they had fun and when to an amusement park but so??? When people say they fell in love they always mentioned the good parts of the story of their relationship later on but that does not, I repeat, does not excuse his abuse towards yoonbum in the past. One thing I also forgot to mention is how people looked at Sangwoo as “hot” and “handsome” and how he could just kidnap them. First of all, he is a serial killer who is extremely mentally deranged. But That doesn’t matter to the fangirls and people do this even in real life, like with Ted Bundy, he was handsome so girls fell for him dispite him being a killer. I just think that it was so stupid how he had so many fangirls despite the horrible things he did. Now for Seungbae, the cop of the story. I think Seungbae was my favorite character of the whole series. He was one of the best characters in my opinion. Seungbae was the true hero in this story and really the only rational and good person in this story. I loved his determination to get evidence to help Yoonbum. Even if it was illegal he knew it would be nearly impossible to collect good and enough evidence against Sangwoo in a legal way. I did feel bad about his problems from the previous police station he used to work at because it really hit him hard later. It sucked how his previous mistakes held him back even after he was able to drag Sangwoo and Yoonbum into the police station. It was also unfortunate how Sangwoo was able to convience everyone he was innocent but the way he did it was pretty smart I will give him that. You know I was also rooting for both parties because I wanted to see what would happen. Like if Sangwoo was able to get away and what he had to do and with Seungbae, what evidence he would collect in order to put Sangwoo behind bars. It was also unfortunate how the police were able to find Sangwoo guilty when he has already done so much and he got injured so badly that they couldn’t lock him up. Honestly I feel like him dying was the easy way out so that he wouldn’t have to go to prison for his whole life. Not like he wanted to die, really, a fucking pillow killed him. The ending also made me sad when Yoonbum got hit by Seungbae because he was still running after Sangwoo in the end even after Sangwoo died and Yoonbum was free. The Stockholm Syndrome was real strong in the end. Even though Yoonbum had his problems AND he murdered someone, I still felt bad for him considering his past and his mental state. This story really had me feeling bad and hating some of the characters like Sangwoo was a piece of shit but I also feel bad for him. Then it strikes me again about what he did to others and Yoonbum then I hate him again. But then again, even if he had a bad childhood and horrible parents, it doesn’t excuse his behavior. Although I really want to stick by that statement, another side of me says that it isn’t exactly his fault for having some of his problems due to trauma. But then again he could have reached out for help plus I don’t think that his trauma would really influence his murderer tendencies. Yes, his father abused his mother, his mother abused and attempted to kill him many times, but that doesn’t mean he just suddenly starts to kill people? Then again I feel like I might be wrong because I don’t know much about killers and psychology and this is just my ignorant opinion. I think that’s all I wanted to say about this book. I’ve read it currently, about 4 times because it is such an interesting read. I’m looking forward to another series by this author because I would love to see another series similar to this or if not, just another manhwa, any genre, from this author. But, considering the author spent her early 20s on this series (she said this in the author’s note) she will probably not make another series for quite a while because she deserves to live her life and have a break since she spent so much time and hard work making this comic. That’s all I have to say, my review on my first yaoi manhwa.

Alright, I’m going to be honest, I saw the tag “Psychological” and I added it to “Want to read” CAUSE YOU KNOW I LIKE ME SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIT

Alrighty, I have some mixed feelings here. So basically I was pretty disappointed with the ending but it does kinda make sense. The whole idea of “the one who caused you most pain can be your medicine” makes sense with the mc and the author introduced a new ending. As in new ending I mean that the author didn’t do something predictable. Still, I wanted the mc to get away from the stalker but that didn’t happen. I just don’t like that it had a happy ending of both of them staying together after everything the mc went through. They’re both pretty messed up so I guess it fit but the mc was the victim. The mc knew from the start that he was the victim but just didn’t confront him about it. Well the mc said he couldn’t confront the problem but it didn’t mean he did try. But there’s another part is that he kinda just let it happen to him and that made me feel upset. It basically sat there and took it but I am not trying to blame the mc (aka victim blame). I think that there’s more to it and that he just felt powerless so he didn’t do anything. I tried to take that into consideration since he obviously did not want it but I’m just used to hearing about victims of rape fighting back as much as they can. But in the situations that the victim doesn’t fight back, they usually have a weapon close to them that threatens their life 10 times more. Again I’m not invalidating the mc’s experience, inside and out, what happened to him was still horrible. The stalker, I didn’t feel much pity for him, he was obsessive and sick. I don’t know what else I want to say about the stalker but that’s it, for now. I think I got all my thoughts out and the sentences stopped forming in my head. That is all, the end of my many reviews.

The plot twists in this were really good.