Witchery's Topics (351)

I like this series and it’s fluffiness a lot, but I really dislike the webcomic trope of a child being used to force their parent(s) to reconcile with a former abuser. This is really common in straight comics. The FL leaves/flees the relationship with the toxic, abusive, and/or negligent ML, turns out they’re pregnant. Years later there’s more bs when they reunite for whatever reason, and the kid just cannot bear the thought of living without him. The father puts in the bare minimum effort to interact with the kid, sometimes without even revealing that he’s their father, yet the kid is so attached they practically beg their mom to stay.
Just because there’s a cute grandkid doesn’t mean they can erase the horrific abuse they inflicted on their child. Having the audacity to show up in your grandchild’s life after abusing your kid to the point they had to cut you off without even trying to apologize is insane

I’m actually really interested in how a lot of subconscious patriarchal expectations are brought to the surface in this dumpster fire smut comic. The priest and emperor expect free and easy sex from her because it is her “duty” as saintess in varying capacities. In particular, the priest expects her to comply with whatever is requested of her, but is also aware that she’s not in a situation where she can walk away if she didn’t want to comply with any specific act or instance of sex (the only reason this isn’t SA is because MC is an exceptionally horny super freak).
When she actually enjoys the sex she is required to have, he degrades her for being “vulgar” and “corrupted” despite the fact that this is a job requirement she is unable to opt out of even if she desperately wanted to. He somehow wants her to possess the unchanging persona of an embarrassed, hesitant virgin despite having tons of marathon and/or kinky sex all of the time. He wants a perpetual virgin that f#cks like a pornstar, essentially traits that cannot functionally coexist in a single person.
However, she is damned either way. If she possessed the persona he supposedly desired, sex would be physically unpleasant and mentally traumatic for her, not that those factors would be an issue for him. But there’s no doubt that if she was a dead fish, she would be criticized for not doing her job properly.
When she does react “too positively” to sex, ie actually enjoying it and experiencing the physiological responses that go along with that, it’s merely an excuse to act out a different, more violent and degrading type of sex. That’s his distorted desire projected as a product of her flaws so he doesn’t have to question the nature of those impulses. She has absolutely no control of her environment, who she has sex with, when she has sex, and what that sex will entail, but he still manages to come up with faults to blame her for anything and everything that goes “wrong”. The reality is that he finds reasons to punish her because he wants to punish her. She will never be successful or flawless or well behaved enough to avoid it because he will always find a reason, and if there is none, he’ll make one of his own so that he gets to do what he wants with her.
I’ve never encountered another character that so flawlessly personifies the patriarchal view of women and sex.

Still can’t get over the guy who thought he could impress military talent scouts while physically dragging around a weaker teammate to blatantly use as a meat shield

Wow this is definitely a standout in time reversal revenge stories. It really feels like Jaina earns her achievements through growth and cleverness, rather than just having everything easily go right since she knows the future. She is still the same person as in her first life, just changed, and struggling through her trauma for justice and survival. Her development makes sense.

Spoilers as of chapter 138





At first I kind of felt bad for the second prince being given the love potion. He might not have been a great person, but other than being a playboy, he wasn’t such a degenerate that he deserved to be destroyed like that. In the first life he genuinely believed their house were traitors and merely acted accordingly. However, it all came down to his mother the queen’s malicious greed. She plotted to annihilate house Belcheter even though they had no inclination of being her (or the second prince’s) rival or enemy. They were neutral in a succession that had no other qualified competitors. That decision sealed her son’s fate as soon as it became life or death to deal with her. If not for that, she and her son may have been left unscathed. Angela was always the primary target, but her actions were nothing short of attempted murder.

I do feel really bad for Cassel. He was enchanted and helpless in his first life. There’s nothing he could have done to protect himself or maintain his sense of morality. The potion destroyed him, but Jaina’s trauma is far too great to overcome the memories of it even though she knows it wasn’t his fault. It’s just such a sad situation because he is such a kind person who genuinely loves Jaina and doesn’t understand why she suddenly looks at him like that.

I think the easiest way to dispose of Angela will be to give the king the recording between her and Rona. He has the resources to find or train a Laurelian translator. It proves what she planned to do to the prince from the beginning, the fact that she had the means to wield such magic, and would give a lot of context to the prince’s sudden shift in behavior. It also exonerates Jaina of potential wrongdoing because they admit to drugging her with a different mind altering potion. She can make an excuse for why she made the recording and just say it slipped her mind and she didn’t realize the recording’s significance until she learned Laurelian much later. That would seal Angela’s fate in the most dramatic way possible. Even if they were eventually able to find a cure, it would be difficult for the second prince to repair his broken faction or recoup his reputation.

Talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. So there is a vague prophecy that Estio could “bring ruin” to the kingdom of Haedong. Estio the baby dragon beloved by the notoriously homicidal powerhouse, the gold dragon Shuhanan….
The same Shuhanan who has been obliterating anyone involved in his wife’s (Estio’s mother) death or trafficking of her organs.
And their solution to avoid being destroyed by Estio, a well established pacifist (at least compared to his father) is to try to kill him.
Bro just dug his own damn grave that Shuhanan is going to be thrilled to fill once he finds out what Haedong tried to do to his kid

The father is a genuine shitpile. As the top ranked hunter, he values people by their Hunter abilities (at least that’s how he comes off to everyone). MC is somewhat weak, so he didn’t want him to be a Hunter, so he sabotaged him at every step. By not letting him get certified, he knew MC wouldn’t be able to formally learn about his class/skills or prepare for Hunter combat. He basically watched his son constantly going the least efficient route with a lot of important skills/knowledge missing for ten years, then always made him feel like his ineffectiveness was his fault for being weak.
On top of all that he then sent his son off to the academy knowing he didn’t have the most basic information and would be way behind, but still set near impossible conditions. He would rather watch his son destroy himself physically and emotionally than just support him in his dream to see how well he could do

This is an obvious case of absent parenting, societal bias, and personality issues.

The prince has been abusing and torturing people for shits and gigs since he was a young child, apparently with no consequence. He’s so blatant that the parents either knew and excused it, or were so uninvolved in their children’s lives and palace affairs that they were never aware of it. Either way, they’re at fault for the gross negligence that could permit such behavior or allow it to go unnoticed. It’s clear that the prince has been violent and coercive for a long time, putting a lot of effort into harming and diminishing his sister, so it’s not surprising that she would develop an aggressive and hostile personality as a survival mechanism. If he’s that bad when they’re both powerless children, it’s pretty obvious what he would do to his only rival if he took the throne. Sitting aside while one child torments the other isn’t creating an equal playing field, it just creates a toxic dynamic

MC may have had an arrogant and abrasive personality and mannerism, but it’s nothing compared to the actual abuses committed by the prince. It seems that she is judged more harshly for superficial flaws than the prince is for sadistic and violent behaviors. There’s no way his behaviors are completely concealed seeing as how openly he says and does vile things. He is a bit better politically and the male heir, but definitely hasn’t demonstrated a better ability to lead, though her reputation doesn’t inspire much faith. Then again, it’s not like she’s had much parental guidance, and had to fight a psychopath tooth and nail for every little thing she wants to keep since she was a child.

The way the poisoning accusation went down actually makes the prince look more suspicious and it’s frankly ridiculous that everyone was fine with how it “resolved”. Sacred beasts are so sacred that they are revered as gods, so any threat or harm against them is treated with great severity. Martina was punished with stripping of her title, life imprisonment, and 100 lashes for failing to properly incubate her divine beast. That was the punishment for accidental/unintentional harm. She was never accused of deliberately hurting her divine beast, and there really wouldn’t be any motive for her to.

In this life, there was a deliberate attempt to poison a divine beast by the prince’s subordinate. A divine beast whose safe hatching is a test to determine the heir, and who happened to belong to his employers only political rival. The mage confessed, but how convenient that he immediately immolated himself. Now he can’t be questioned to investigate who else may have been involved. It makes the prince even more suspicious to anyone observing the situation objectively. The fact that not a single person raised an issue or requested a more thorough investigation shows that Martina’s original punishment had less to do with the severity of her perceived failure than it did her lack of popularity, the bias of the nobles and her parents, and the prince’s schemes to dispose of her.

Diona just blows me away with her shortsightedness. I’m not sure if she is just that blinded by jealousy or sheltered from the harsh realities of Tarkan’s position since birth.

1. Aristine is intertwined with Tarkan’s political power: He and Aristide are a political unit. Any harm to Ari’s reputation/power will also harm Tarkan’s. Any hit to their reputation is going to affect the other in kind.

2. Divorce is not an option: Tarkan entered an extremely important political marriage with the princess of an enemy state as part of a historic peace treaty. Any controversy related to Ari and her marriage could have serious political consequences between the countries. Divorce is just not possible. Like it or not, til death do they part.

3. Diona cannot replace the political power Ari provides: Diona may be from a respected and well established noble family, but she is nowhere near enough of a powerhouse to replace a foreign princess who happens to be a lynchpin of international peace. Even if she slanders and isolates Ari, it will only harm Tarkan’s likelihood of being king. Ironically, the only way she could feasibly be with him other than as a mistress is if he took the throne since only kings are allowed multiple wives. Even then, she wouldn’t be the queen, just a concubine.

4. Tarkan’s life depends on becoming king: Failure to become king will likely mean death for Tarkan once his father is no longer keeping the queen in check. it’s clear that Hamir is either unable or unwilling to prevent or hinder his mother’s schemes, so though he doesn’t show much independent hostility, it’s likely that the queen would continue to plot against him. She almost had Ari executed for a crime that never occurred. The reason the king chose Tarkan instead of Hamir to marry Aristine was to shore up his political position and create a more level playing field for the throne.

She’s just exceptionally shortsighted. She throws mud on Ari’s palace without considering the fact that it also belongs to Tarkan. Diona does/attempts to do a tremendous amount of damage just to get back at Ari for being with Tarkan which actively harms his political position and reputation. She puts an enormous degree of thought and effort into finding convoluted ways to attack Ari, but puts a fraction of that energy into wooing the man she supposedly loves to such excess. Tarkan has never loved her or been receptive to her overtures, but she is only aware of it subconsciously because her ego can’t handle it, so she makes sure nobody else can possess what she wants but can’t obtain.

While Hamir seems to have developed some feelings for her, they’re rooted in novel curiosity and desire to possess her. She was the first to befriend him in such an open and uncalculating way. Her behavior and actions are uniquely intelligent and resilient, attractive qualities. He’s only focused on his own benefit though. He let her build a friendship knowing full well she would be in an awkward position if anyone found out, and humiliated/betrayed once she found out. And once that scenario played out, his regret was not using the crisis to his benefit, not preventing the crisis in the first place.

I’m just so over having the FL do all of the emotional processing for every single significant male character in the series. I have read so many stories where the FL literally has to teach the ML, her brothers, father, and any other relevant male the concepts of emotional awareness, thinking about other people’s feelings, being considerate, not being selfish, communicating the most basic things, and regulating emotions.
It’s such a common, tired trope. I’m sick of authors treating FLs like therapists. There’s a difference between making the FL carry the entire emotional burden of leading someone else through their entire cycle of self awareness/growth/healing, and making her a supportive friend/partner/family member.
I like the story, but I find developments like this really frustrating.