did mizumoto finally realize it's mc he's been hearing?
won's backstory made me cry... look at that cute little baby, how can you call him "a thing"?
that hamster's big fucking knuts was the most surprising part of this story
i'll say, schuman is much more interesting of a character than either kay or that jackass duke. but if him getting paired with this blue haired dude means he becomes more submissive i'm going to be so bored.
i'm only on ch 5 but seeing ray put the dick that was inside his asshole directly inside his vagina afterwards made me cringe so hard
ok so here's my thoughts:
good things about this manhwa: 1. the art is very beautiful. reminds me of DMMD's art at times. 2. the creepy parts are genuinely creepy, the artist should draw more horror stuff.
bad things about this manhwa: the ml sucks ass. he rapes the mc - threatening to kill him if he doesn't have sex with the ml - which leads to the mc passing out and the wizard (?) character having to heal him with a gem/potion. every time the mc says he's scared or he's in pain, ml gets turned on even more.
when they reach edor(? i forgot the name rip) village, that's the most interesting part of the story to me. there's a creepy vibe to the whole village, and mc begins to hallucinate - his hallucinations are very creepy and disturbing and i loved these sequences a lot. however, every time he hallucinates he gets scared & unfortunately trauma bonds with the jackass duke ml. ml saves his life multiple times through the story as well, all this causes the moron mc to forget and forgive the duke for raping him and threatening his life.
mc and co find the family they're supposed to take the flower of aloshya from. one of the members of this family raped and tortured a girl named Belle, causing her to get pregnant and eventually take her own life. mc 'experiences' this - her rape and trauma by seeing her memories from her pov when they find her body. i mention this bc i think it's important for my point.
after they find the flower, mc asks ml if he liked the mc. ml asks him "what if i say i do" and the mc goes "idk.." which doesn't satisfy the duke. he puts the flower in a soup, feeds it to mc and rapes him again - causing mc to get pregnant without his knowledge or consent. after mc wakes up in the castle, he tries to run away again, almost dies and gets saved by the ml again. ml essentially says that since he saved mc's life so many times, it belongs to ml now, to which mc hesitantly agrees.
skip to childbirth. mc hates being pregnant. he wants the baby out of him asap and doesn't even recognize the child as a possible human (he says "something's moving inside me!" , to which the ml replies "that's the baby"). he goes into labour, which lasts for i think 8-12 hours before the baby is finally born. this is actually the first story i've seen where the bottom prays that their baby DOESN'T look like the top, that's how much he's not in love with the ml (despite the author trying to make it look like he likes the ml lol).
anyway, parent ml SUCKSSSSS. seriously, there's this part where the baby is crying for attention and he really hates the baby for requiring so much attention. it turns out mc is using the baby as an excuse to not have to sleep with ml as well. ml takes the baby bassinet, and stumbles in on a girl asking the mc "is it true that the duke forcefed you the flower and got you pregnant without your consent?" (which is the truth) but mc goes "no... not exactly..." which again pisses the duke off (bc he wanted mc to go " noo!!! he didn't force me!!!") and he stomps off. mc runs after him and finds ml in his room, where ml goes (and i shit you not): "it's a good thing you ran here... otherwise you would've come across our (ml and baby) bodies", which is so fucking insane??
there is genuinely no love between ml and mc. ml finds him mc hot so he rapes him multiple times through the story, babytraps mc so he can't run away, then after the baby us born HATES his own child for requiring so much attention. all this is especially crazy to me considering the horror pregnancy stuff we saw with Belle. we know Belle got raped and pregnant, which was horrifying. but when the mc gets raped and pregnant, we're supposed to find that romantic??? this tone shift gave me such a whiplash.
i would say this mahwa is actually a great portrayal of pregnancy horror. if you're interested in that, read it. don't read this expecting it to be wholesome mpreg stuff (which is what i thought it was going into it). this is a horror story, not a romance.
Damn, that’s a really good take!
Another layer is how mad Zigril gets when he hears that Kay had to experience Belle’s memories (which are eerily similar to his future, pregnancy resulting from rape and betrayal). So it only enforces the idea that rape not done by the ML is unforgivable and disgusting, but if it’s a handsome and powerful guy who saved his life soooo many times…then oh well.
I’m in it for the fucked-up stuff, so I didn’t really connect the idea of pregnancy horror upon first read (now that I did I wish the author leaned into it harder instead of it just being coincidental), but I always notice when the abusive elements of a relationship are ignored/romanticized. You get used to seeing it, but I never stop thinking that it’s weird and a bit unrealistic.
I think it’s because the trauma-bonding Kay goes through with Zigril isn’t really explored too much, it just happens. He also has nobody safe to talk to about his feelings or anyone truly concerned for his state of mind, so it’s not unreasonable that he falls for someone toxic. Because if he never noticed it, who would convince him otherwise? Schuman got kinda close, but he’s only in it for monetary gain and doing what Zigril wants so he won’t be a nuisance.
He’s completely trapped with Zigril for, presumably, the rest of his life. Given that if Kay refused to become ‘Empress’ he’d be assassinated for escaping execution as a previous noble.
So…good luck with your man Kay. Hope he never kills your kid!
i also really wish the author leaned into the pregnancy horror - and i thought that was where it was actually going for a bit - it would've been genuinely so interesting. did the author change their mind midway about going that route then? because you would think the stoy line with Belle was intentional, but then the author tries to make it romantic at the end when kay is left raped and pregnant...? i don't understand.
the part about kay not having a support system to process or accept his rape and trauma is true! he's stuck with two deranged, selfish people - one of who has two moods: kill or rape. the other one is money obsessed prick who doesn't really care about anything else. no wonder kay is just like "this is normal! :D" to the most insane shit that the duke does to him.
10 dollars says the kid will last for another couple months before the duke just throws him off the castle to kill him. that or he feeds him to the zombies.
god i hate that stupid fucking selfish twerp of a brother