When you get sued by your toddler who you didn’t know existed Σ(っ°Д °;)っ
It’s giving woman written by a man in a big way. Very much catered to male fantasies and patriarchal ideals. He basically exploits her in her time of need while pretending to help. He capitalizes on her kidnapping, financial hardship, and family medical crisis to get her to agree to be his baby factory/sex doll for embryos made with his deceased wife, but his obvious selfishness and lack of genuine care for her well being are fine because he lets her live in luxury, and she caught feelings, thinks he’s hot, and is happy to alleviate his sadness “even a little bit” by acting as his live in sex doll and selfless tradwife…
The King is too obsessed with power, to the degree that it’s destroying his country. Honestly the king is a shitty, yet interesting character. He obsessively clings to power even as his actions continuously destabilize the ruling forces of his country, thus ensuring that he will still have to keep fighting. He feels threatened by both Lawrence and Cedric and constantly tries to play them off one another, always dangling the prize of the crown prince title.
Lawrence has never been an ideal prince, but he is useful to his father. The king never raised him or taught him how to be a person or a ruler. Lawrence’s mother wasn’t a paragon of virtue, so it’s not exactly shocking that he would grow up with character flaws. The king was always more interested in using his child’s behavior than correcting it, and then when he grew up into an opportunistic adult capable of seizing power, he felt threatened.
He named Lawrence as Crown Prince, but then he needed a counterbalance to hamper him and essentially used Cedric, whose family he has exploited and discarded before, as a rival. Then when Lawrence screwed up, was politically harmed by his mother’s actions, and demonstrated poor/threatening character, he pivoted to Cedric.
Even with Cedric, who is generally honorable, who married his stepdaughter, who is a father to a child blessed by god as a Crown prince, he still can’t let go of his paranoia. He tries to bring back Lawrence, who he now knows to be power hungry and duplicitous.
He sees the position of successor as a lever to be pulled to manipulate potential usurpers, but can’t tolerate the idea of an actual successor to hand off power to.
I think people are being overly harsh on MC. Even if he had dodged the needle, it wouldn’t have ended there. He essentially snuck into a drug party, and the people there would be extremely suspicious of anyone who refused to take any. It would have been like announcing he’s a cop. In actuality, undercover agents may have to do drugs to maintain their cover or avoid losing the trust of criminals depending on the situation. In the US it gets reported to your superiors and then the agent goes to the hospital ASAP to detox and get some care.
If anyone is at fault, it’s MC’s superior’s for running such a trainwreck of an operation. They sent a brand new agent into an incredibly dangerous mission alone, with no weapons or resources, and without any guidance or oversight.
It’s clear they offer no support, so MC is now in desperation mode, trying to close the case before the criminals get suspicious of him or his bosses find out what they did to him.
He also now knows that he likely won’t be able to get in without taking drugs again, so he’s trying to get it all done in one shot. He’s basically been backed into a corner by both the criminals and his bosses even though he followed protocol
Actually I think the bosses are more at fault than MC
1. This is his very first assignment, so he is completely inexperienced, which is an important part of properly gauging and reacting to potentially dangerous situations. He has never been in the field before or gotten the chance to learn from more experienced agents (idk about Korea but that’s usually how it’s done in the US)
2. He has literally nobody watching his back, no partner, no handler, no coworkers. Nobody monitoring cameras or audio to make sure he’s safe, give advice, or exchange intel. If he had died the first time he got in, literally nobody would have known where he was or even where to look.
3. He doesn’t seem to have any weapons or digital resources usually utilized by agents (this isn’t uncommon for undercover agents, but combined with all his other disadvantages, makes for a bad situation).
4. His assignment is to not only locate, but infiltrate and gather evidence from a drug den/ring of indeterminate origin and danger…alone….with no weapons
5. When he first got in, he was doing everything right, but just didn’t expect someone to forcibly inject him with drugs. After that, he was essentially helpless, but even if he had physically stopped the guy, that might have made them suspicious as to why he wasn’t partaking, potentially putting him in even worse danger (undercover agents sometimes have to do drugs to maintain their cover, but in the US, they immediately report it in and go to the hospital ASAP to detox afterwards)
6. The department he works for must be unsupportive and unreasonable if being forcibly administered drugs by a criminal would be an immediate firing offense. Of course it’s not a great fit of confidence in MC’s skills, but not really his fault either. Now he has to hide that event, meaning that he likely won’t seek medical care
7. Now he’s in a sunk cost fallacy because he’s desperate to close the case as fast as possible without being further compromised, either with his bosses or the criminals
The structure of this investigation is so horrible, minimizes chances of evidence collection, and makes it so that if a single thing goes wrong, MC will be screwed with nothing or no one to help him. They put a green agent on a difficult and dangerous assignment with absolutely no margin for error
Sorry, but Dionel is an exceptionally mediocre ml. He’s entirely self centered and doesn’t give any thought as to how his actions might affect the people around him. He used and strung along Rosephine for almost two years and tossed her aside once she (understandably) got expectations. Her political and personal reputation took a serious hit from that, not to mention the emotional trauma. He was never serious, but she always made it obvious that she was.
And did he expect Daisey to wait for 10+ years at the pond, just waiting for him to visit? He was butthurt that she left, but it was ridiculous to expect her to live alone, doing nothing until it was convenient for him to visit or take her with him. I’m not saying he’s a villain, but in terms of relationships, he puts very little thought or effort into the other person.
If this wasn’t a fantasy, he would be the first boyfriend that dumps her for dumb reasons before she meets a better guy, after which he would come crawling back to no avail.
This is a classic development that really shows that Minchan is sexualizing and objectifying Taewook, but isn’t really seeing him as a full human. It’s very common in romance stories that the man (if it’s a straight relationship) or top demonstrate strong possessiveness despite a disinterest in relationships and unwillingness to commit to a casual partner. These characters consciously or subconsciously consider their partners to be their property., and apply a lot of double standards.
In many cases it’s the possessiveness itself that leads to the formation of a relationship rather than legitimate affection, because the person on the receiving end is irritated and a line gets drawn. You don’t get the privileges of being in a monogamous relationship without committing to the obligations of one. It’s a very entitled mindset very common in groups deemed to be most powerful socially. In this sense, alphas take the masculine role of entitled oppressor, while omegas take historically feminine role of oppressed, even within relationship dynamics
I have to say, Qian is a true ride or die. He was only dating Rui for a couple months and he is all in. He’s now been taking care of Rui in his catatonic state for longer than they’ve known each other. That’s true love
IDK, the tree is giving off major colonizer vibes now. He moved to another continent and got attacked by the natives, but somehow it’s their fault for being “warlike barbarians”. Yikes
I’m fine with an acid trip plotline, but mc is a fucking rapist. Don’t waste your time
So ML:
1. Left her in the forest
2. Told her to wait for him but didn’t comeback for her
3. Got a publicly known fiancée for 2 years (and led her on)
4. Didn’t recognize her when they met again
And he has a self esteem issue? More like a common sense, awareness of cause and effect issue.
“Why did you forget me”? Did Itae forget the part where she lost all her memories before her mother’s death?! Dumbass
I didn’t even read this because the comments tell me all I’ll need to know. WHY CANT I HAVE FEMDOM WITHOUT DEGENERACY AND LITERAL CRIMES!!!!!!!!!
(╯°Д °)╯╧╧
And another mediocre Korean author who seems to be allergic to consent (╯°Д °)╯╧╧
So the woman you supposedly care about is critically wounded and in urgent need of medical attention, but instead of focusing on that, you get jealous that the senior priest (who is a man) needs to look at and touch her body to treat her effectively, so you waste time by preventing him from working on her and make his subordinate (a woman) who is likely less experienced or knowledgeable do it. Sure, she might get delayed, subpar treatment as a result, but thank god another man didn’t get to touch your property!
This was a really telling moment that showed how self centered he is. He wants to keep her safe..because he gets satisfaction/gratification/support from having her around, but when it came down to it, his first priority was possessiveness, not her safety.
Another mediocre “romance” that basically consists of the ml being pushy and demanding, and the fl doing a personality 180 just rolling over and going along. Took 50+ chapters to devolve, but definitely don’t bother unless you like insipid relationships generated by shallow characters and obvious plot forcing
It’s just become obvious that the ml feels entitled to her. He didn’t ask, he told her how it was going to be. He didn’t stop to think about her dreams (the ones she excitedly told him about which involved freedom away from the duties of Empress). If he truly respected her, he wouldn’t be able to act like that. He sees how miserable and exhausted she is with her current marriage and the job of empress, and he just suckered her into it again. She talked his ear off about everything she wanted to do once she was free while he acted so supportive, and I guess that just didn’t matter to him in the end. He wants what he wants and decided that he would get it.
And she would have the extra stigma of:
1. Getting married immediately after a divorce
2. Getting married to your ex husband’s sibling, which is considered weird/tacky in most cultures, but even incestuous/scandalous in some
I feel kind of weird about the regression thing. So ml just gets to start over since Yan conveniently forgot about all the abuse and neglect in their past? It’s great that ml finally realized how horrible he was, but that doesn’t erase Yan’s trauma and I feel like the amnesia development is a cop out that lets l start over and show “character development” without actually atoning for any of his previous action
I hate it when the ml infantilizes the emotional responses of the fl. It’s such a common trope where a massive secret gets suddenly revealed about the ml’s origins, intentions, or actions, and the fl had a reasonable confused, angry, upset, or betrayed response. And the reaction from the ml is usually dismissive and condescending like “well I did this for us so don’t be so dramatic with your silly little feelings”.
Louise found out he was secretly the crown prince AND that she will likely be expected to marry him as soon as her divorce is finalized. Those are big betrayals from a supposed friend, and she didn’t even get that angry about, just a bit upset and wanted time to process, but his reaction to her hesitance was basically “lol you’re so cute with those hissy feeling, but you should really get over it because this is great (for me lol)”. She is struggling to escape a lopsided marriage and regain her freedom outside of the duties of empress, and now someone she had trusted has now publicly entrapped her into another one, where she will still have to fulfill the role as empress.
I also think the princess carry trope is infantilizing unless the fl is sick, tired, injuries, or there is a legitimate reason. It just looks ridiculous since she’s perfectly capable of walking on her own, and it was really more of a mechanism for preventing her from exiting the conversation as she wants. He blatantly ignores her when she tells him to put her down and just keeps talking to her. It just shows a certain degree of disrespect for her autonomy within their personal interactions.
Like Taylor Swift said “women are expected to absorb male behavior” without rejecting it, and that mentality definitely carries over into how a lot of fls and straight relationship dynamics are written. It really does cheapen the depth and quality of the relationship and story as well.
The “friend/acquaintance suddenly gets jealous and starts pursuing the mc after they get into a relationship” trope really annoys me. It sucks when you miss your chance to be with the person you like, but in most cases, the rival has been around the mc for years without making any moves. You snooze you lose, but jealousy isn’t a justification for trying to break up your crush’s happy relationship. I see it as a betrayal of their friendship that illustrates that the rival cares more about getting the mc to themself than they do about the mc’s personal happiness