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There Were Times When I Wished You Were Dead
i haven’t written a review this long in YEARS, i believe. brace yourselves. first of all: i thoroughly appreciate the emotional complexity, gorgeous art and character growth—which was EXTENSIVE for respective individual. there was nothing typically ‘black or white’ about this story. it’s different from all the things i’ve seen and read in the past… so beautifully haunting. second of all: this is just… a tragedy. a truly devastating tragedy, if i ever saw one. evonne (or lillian rue, as her true name was) ultimately lost everything she held dear because of other people’s blind greed & selfish choices. she had no voice, no free will, no way out—NOTHING. she was stuck, miserable & in pain, yet there was absolutely nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it. she suffered in silence, and her husband—whom she was so viciously protecting behind his back—never managed to understand her pure intentions until it was too late. instead, he doubted her. mistreated her. insulted her. karl was a poor excuse of a husband towards a genuinely good person who was barely surviving as it was. [P.S. i DO understand his behavior, though—knowing 1) how suspicious her behavior would’ve looked from his point of view, and 2) fully knowing that her father was a disgusting, monstrous piece of fucking shit with OPENLY bad intentions; a man who’d properly ruined karl’s (and so many other people’s) lives soooo, so many times in the past. that’s all i wanted to say. i’m not justifying or condoning his behavior—just clarifying it!!!] anyway. meanwhile all THAT was going on, karloi was in a constant state of existential crisis and depression; trapped within himself, always stuck in the past—the very past he agonized over, every single day without rest, for over a decade… and even more so after he married rue. karl drove himself mad. it was inevitable, though… not being able to save his savior, rue—the very person who’d so selflessly given him his life back 14 years prior—was probably the catalyst. he’d spent so many years looking for rue, only to then be told that she’d been dead all along… the one who’d given him his sense of purpose. then there was his ‘unwelcomed’ wife who constantly reminded him of the very purpose he thought he’d lost. he was just… broken. manipulated. puzzled. she was, too. they were both forcibly placed & stuck in their roles—albeit fundamentally differently. their miserable fates were always overlapped, but they were either magically silenced & unable to speak up, or they didn’t even know there was anything ‘there’ in the first place—fated to be left in the dark, delirious & confused. which one’s worse, hmm? imagine finally realizing, after suffering for so long, that your sole reason to keep on living was right in front of you the entire time… and you never knew. you never even DARED to dream of such a thing. instead, you felt so pathetic and guilty for falling in love with the very person you were meant to despise… and execute. but imagine putting your faith in that person anyway, despite the odds betting against you, and then experiencing feelings of such intense betrayal because of something that was completely out of either one’s knowledge & control… and imagine being unable to realize (due to magical coercion form a relevant third party) the true nature of your wife—who’s also, unbeknownst to you, a pitiful puppet who was forced to sacrifice everything for an ambiguous & ominous future; fated to lead a life worse than death… just imagine. i mean… i genuinely can’t. all i know is that i could FEEL the devastation & frustration though the screen. ughhh… talk about twisted a relationship!!! i just feel so bad for them. i’m feeling all kinds of things for these characters. it just wasn’t fair to either of them. they were ROBBED. brutally, emotionally and thoroughly stripped of their inner identities... ripped away from anything & everything that could’ve left a real positive mark on their lives. it’s just tragic. all i want for these two is a real shot at being genuinely happy with their lives by the time we reach the end. i don’t care how, when (preferably as soon as humanly possible ‘cause this whole thing’s just fucking brutal) or with who. just allow them be CONTENT, if nothing else… just content. that’s it. i seriously don’t know how much more i can take of this desolation… 80+ chapters of sheer misery, man. this can’t be ideal for my clinically depressed brain. sheesh… anyway. despite my melancholic, strange (?) & uncharacteristically extensive summary of the whole goddamn plot: I. LOVE. THIS. MANHWA. i love the dynamics. i love the dark ambiance. i love the not-so-subtle somberness & twistedness of the characters… and, in a sense, i love that devastatingly beautiful depiction of lifelong travesty and trauma. it was well-executed. (for BOTH parties.) the pain & negativity kept getting worse and worse the more i read—well, obviously. it’s definitely nothing like the wholesome, loving, sweet vibes i’m used to getting with comics within this genre… …but before i go: i just can’t seem to understand how or why the ratings are so low…? i’m genuinely baffled. however dysphoric the content may be, it’s still amazing, captivating writing. the quality kept improving by the chapter, goddammit... fuck, i really don’t get it. ughhh.
Plaything
dude, this is SERIOUSLY. FUCKED. UP. then stockholm syndrome vibes be strooong. extremely fucking hot nonetheless, though… but since i’m trash, it should be alright, so there’s that. the smut’s just… chef’s kiss, i won’t lie. now i’m just hopelessly waiting for a switch-session to come up at some point in the side story, ughhh. there haven’t been any indications for it thus far, but omfgggg, how vividly i can imagine it. THAT’D. BE. SO. HOT. doubt i’ll ever get to see it with these two, however… given their ‘societal positions’ and all that aristocratic-means-superior-always mentality bullshit. it’s just, um, well… knowing how freakin’ OBSESSED (or ‘in love’, as he says) our ethereal-looking duke is with our brutal mercenary, i’d imagine he wouldn’t mind ‘claiming’ him that way… or something of the like. i could even see him thinking of it as ‘embracing’ him with his insides—even more so now that we’re getting some insight to what his mind looks like. (mood, lmfao.) i’m actually kinda surprised that said ‘notion’ hasn’t enticed him yet; even though it seems highly unlikely he’d ever even IMAGINE being a bottom… but emotionally, it’d make sense. and it’d be a nice twist. genuinely speaking, it seems like something he’d love to do if the thought ever entered his head. he’d top and still be the dom!!! he could tie him down (like he usually does anyway, sheesh), ride him or whatever and make it super fucking sexyyyy and pleasurable for both parties. our lovely mercenary would surely love it, too. <33 anyway. what a useless fucking rant that was, lol. i have issues—sue me!!! (i’d generally prefer if you didn’t, though.) edit: LMFAO WHY ARE THEY LIKE THIS
Pearl Boy
ohhh, my god. oh my god. OH. MY. GOD. this is fucking VICIOUS. brutal and violent and bloody and i don’t even know where to start. i didn’t even read the manhwa in full (i browsed through some chapters all over the place to figure out which genre to put it in and ended up kinda sticking around for a bit), but i can already tell this one’s gonna consume me wholly once i truly immerse myself in the story. i couldn’t possible even BEGIN to imagine the kind of pain and torture these two would’ve had to suffer through. i’m getting anxious just from the small parts i’ve managed to see thus far. INSANE.
Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple