YES! lol when the were describing Seunghyun I could help but to think they were describing Woojin…it just feels like he went back to the same person but in a different form. Like how would Woojin act if MC persistently rejected him?
I know multiple people who have been in DV situations like that and yeah it's not one of those things you can just like forget and move on from, Woojin would be hella triggering, first love or not
so apparently these people exist in a world where PTSD doesn't exist, like half of BL stories lmao
and like even if they didn't have Woojin change his ways or whatever it would have been a SUPER interesting psychological twist to have Woojin be consistently manipulating MC and MC's situation to make him happier/feel more secure
and we know despite his obsessive tendencies Woojin is pretty self-aware and has some decent self-control bc he multiple times says to himself "no he (MC) wouldn't like that, I shouldn't do that"
just seems like a lost opportunity to lean into that
I honestly kinda find these toxic BLs interesting but SO many BLs have this premise and too many twist the narrative to make the toxic guy seem like ‘oh he’s so manipulative and abusive but it’s okay because he’s just protective!’ I just wish I could find more BLs where the guy is protective but not a flat out abuser/rapist
sigh
why did I read this
(disclaimer: only read the officials so I don't know how it ends, not really sure I care)
this story is deeply unserious from its very premise so I'm not going to be too critical, but there were some things that irked me more than my already-stretched suspension of disbelief could handle
particularly the deal with how they just sort of offhandedly mentioned 50+ chapters in that MC had been in a severely controlling, extremely abusive relationship while MC himself hadn't so much as thought about it or had any kind of reaction relating to the scars that would have left on him for said 50 chapters, which left me fucking baffled
okay sure he'd been essentially conditioned by ML from a young age to accept insanity as affection. I can 100% see him seeking out a similar dynamic to his fucked up first love bc that's what people do
but he and ML separated for all those years and he went through all that and then when ML came back, it would be to someone completely different. It would have actually been a really cool story if ML had come back to MC having been completely traumatized by the abuse rather than this stupid kiss thing and them having to navigate through the fact that ML would be triggering MC with literally everything he did. Even if that doesn't lead to ML changing his ways, it would have been a more interesting dynamic to explore than whatever the hell this was. This whole yelling and calling him a crazy bastard but blushing and letting him do whatever thing was like it was written about two different characters. it's just sloppy.
and the reactions from the friends literally watching MC being with someone extremely extremely similar to his abuser, even taking punches from the dude, and smiling and being like "oh good he's happy" plus ML hearing all this and then **literally the next chapter 15 minutes later** telling MC to his face that he shouldn't talk to anyone else or see anyone else
it's like they're trying to assert that if it's not hitting, it's not abuse
the author was **very clearly** trying to use this retconned abusive relationship as a way to go "oh look this is what real abuse is, ML isn't abusive" is...really really fucking gross tbh
I did think it was funny but kind of cool how even the side and background characters had main character designs lol