#we all know that's the real problem on Webtoons

[nayru-s-clay-tablet]

Stories and age appropriateness

Recently Webtoons decided that all comics on there have to be age-rated by creators. Age-rating comics is tricky business, mostly because there's no room for context.

Triforce of Power wound up being Young Adult (16 and up), and what bumped it up were the violence and the alcohol. In fairness, I might have over-reported the violence -- buuuut there is going to be more blood before the story is over. So I didn't want them coming after me for under-reporting it.

But the alcohol issues were unavoidable.

It doesn't matter that getting drunk is portrayed as negative, it doesn't matter that it's kind of accidental the first time it happens and entirely accidental in the second case... I can't really convey that context in the parameters that they've given me to rate my comic. The alcohol is there, it's visible, and it's consumed. So screw context, that makes it evil! (Would it be considered mild consumption since it isn't a large focus/not present in many panels? Or would it be considered moderate to excessive since people are technically getting drunk? Who knows!)

Stories are weird. Discussion of age appropriateness is weird. Not bad weird, just tricky. And I don't think a ratings system is inherently a bad idea! But the execution... could be better.

C'est la vie!

[genericpuff]

Why is the art so unappealing in lore Olympus now Persephone looks like a highlighter and maybe it’s just me but the proportions like the fingers in arms are soul over the place I don’t think they used to be this bad. Am I just looking at it with nostalgia or am I crazy ?

Honestly, nostalgia does play a huge part in it, even to this day there are times I look back on old S1 panels and go-

Actually here's a great example that literally just happened yesterday in the ULO Discord that nearly had me on the floor LOL This is from Episode 70:

Like I didn't even believe that that was real until I was told what episode it was from and I was just. Astounded and flabbergasted. The over-shading of the blanket that just makes it look like a really bad edit. Insane.

And yeah, there are a lot of old panels that hit different now that the rose-colored glasses have been removed, crushed, and thrown into the trash compactor.

I think that's why it makes it all the more amusing when people come into my inbox and ask me "wait, why did you like LO to begin with?? It's always been ugly as shit, I think you're just romanticizing it" because like... there's something to be said about art and subjectivity, even if something is ugly to one person doesn't mean it isn't beautiful to someone else. It's why I try not to be too mean towards the fans of this comic for still enjoying it, because while I definitely have strong opinions about how "LO has gotten worse" and what kind of following Rachel has cultivated (cough cough), there are also just as equally valid arguments that LO has never begin good to begin with that I can't necessarily disagree with now that I'm looking back on it with a more critical eye.

That said, there's tons of media that I enjoy that is objectively awful. Like y'all, you don't need to take my opinions about a dumb pink x blue fantasy romance comic seriously, I like Starfox Adventures-

Like yeah it's a badly made rushed piece of shit that was developed right on the ass end of Rare's glory days and was really an original IP (Dinosaur Planet) that got Frankenstein'd into a Starfox game so it could "sell better" for Nintendo, but I don't give a fuck, I love Starfox Adventures and some day I wanna be in the top 10 speedrunner leaderboards for it, which I know doesn't mean much because no one is speedrunning Starfox, but I do and no one can take that away from me dammit-

Anyways. Lore Olympus has, in many regards, always had "bad art". But "bad art" can and should still be enjoyed by those who find joy in it.

And in LO's case, the world it existed in when it launched was a lot smaller than it is now - more specifically, the world of Webtoons. We can look back and see how 'bad' LO looks and reads now because there are genuinely way better comics surrounding it. It was unique and refreshing and experimental back then... now it's just "that stupid blue and pink comic for horny teenagers".

In most cases I would consider that "cringing in hindsight" feeling a good thing because normally it means something has grown and that it seeming "bad" in hindsight would mean that it's outgrown itself and moved onto bigger things. But LO has the more unique problem of "its current stuff is shit and it's making us want the old stuff more, even if the old stuff wasn't good either". In that regard, LO is closer to being like Harry Potter. Remember when The Cursed Child came out at the height of Rowling being exposed for being a TERF and even people who liked Harry Potter didn't like The Cursed Child because it was just objectively worse overall (with or without Rowling's bullshit attached)? It made a lot of people go back and re-read / rewatch Harry Potter with a more objective lens and go "wait a minute guys, I think we only adored these books so much because we were 12 when we read them". Often times it's the good memories we have surrounding certain things that make us have the opinion about them that we do.

Of course, LO is definitely not as politically weaponized as Harry Potter is, so that's where that comparison ends. But my point is that LO is definitely in a situation where it's been riding off the same privileges it had back in 2018 - having an 'experimental' art style while also utilizing tropes and characters that were VERY popular at the time (remember that 2017-18 was when Tumblr was at its height of H x P "Hades was a chill accountant guy who wore socks and sandals and didn't cheat on his wife like Zeus did" fantasizing) - and thinks that those same tricks and tropes will still work today.

Because of this, the art in LO really, really hasn't aged well, even the stuff that we look back on fondly. But I think it's the panels that we specifically think of when remembering "old LO" - the ones that stuck in our memories the most - that are the ones that make us miss or just not care about the panels that don't look good (the panels that make people question why we ever liked it to begin with).

We liked it because of how it made us feel to look at panels like these-

Those genuinely wonderful panels that we think back on the most don't exist separately from the bad panels, they exist in spite of them. Even if we can look back on panels like these and pick out problems in the lineart or the proportions or the color travelling outside of the lines, that can't and shouldn't change how those panels made us feel at some point or another. And that's why when people ask me "why were you even into LO in the first place" I don't have any one answer, because I can't fully explain how something made me feel to justify why it's good to someone who can see from the outside - without rose-colored glasses - that it evidently isn't. It's very much a "you had to be there" type of thing.

Unfortunately, nowadays even the 'best' LO panels in S3 still don't come close to what the S1 panels accomplished - because for many of us, the rose-colored glasses are gone, we can't appreciate the good among the bad because we know now how bad it truly is and so the good just feels like wasted attempts at trying to recreate something it can no longer be. It "came back wrong" so to speak.

LO came back just regular. But our journey to resurrecting it changed us to such a degree that even its closest intimacies are now foreign to us. Sorry dude.

This is still probably one of my favorite panels out of the entirety of S3 for being as close to "old LO" as I've seen since S2, and even it feels like a mistake, an accident, how could a panel like this exist in S3 when so much of it is a dumpster fire? It's like a flower growing in the ruins of an apocalyptic wasteland.

But wasn't that always the case? Isn't that 'always' what LO has been, since the very beginning? A poorly cobbled together mess of writing and panels that, every now and then, manages to leave an impression that makes you feel something? Did we ever truly know LO? Or have we just been relying entirely on an idea of it that we've built up in our heads that when it does do exactly what it's evidently always done (even if not made apparent until looking back on it in hindsight) we think it "came back wrong"?

[phntxm]

love tropes ideas I have in mind (1/2)

Forbidden love with Shigaraki Tomura (& friends to lovers) (gremlin era)

Prohero!y/n who is in love with their childhood best friend, Shimura Tenko. y/n was assigned to work as a spy, become traitor at LOV, and found out that Shigaraki Tomura, the villainous boss, was a childhood friend. Though the feelings never fade away, how can I decide between justice and love when justice must always win out, am I right? although it seems like he's not Shimura Tenko, the on I'm in love with.

Secret identity with Shigaraki Tomura/Shimura Tenko (& enemies to lovers?) (college au)

Colleague!Tomura/Tenko, who likes to be in his own world in class and acts as though he hates everyone, even you. Then, one day, he finds out that his best friend, a gamer who he loves to gab to about his life, is actually his colleague. Maybe he'll give a chance to start making friends in real life, who knows?

Wedding fever with Todoroki Touya/Dabi (fake relationship & runaway brides/ I got inspiration from @theartofsimpatry corpse bride au!)

Bride!y/n and Groom!Touya wasn't fond with the fiance that their parents suggested. Touya don't wanna marry someone for their quirk just like his dad. He met y/n and they both agree to fake their relationship and since he's son of a great hero, who would deny it? The only problem at hand is that it looks like this fraud is true now...

(in gothic setting!!) Bride!y/n don't want to get arranged marriage. she running away from the chaotic wedding ceremony to old abandoned castle which have a legend of the living corpse who'd curses and tortures anyone who get into his castle by burning them, but some say that if he likes them he can fulfill their one desire, yet there comes with a price to pay...

Blackmail with Todoroki Touya (Narcissistic/Nepo Baby/Bully!Touya) (& force relationship/ inspiration from webtoon 'Girl Under Trial')

Colleague!Touya always like to bragging about his superior quirk and his dad. He's full of himself that he has bad reputation and a lot of enemies, yet no one can defeat him. Then it all ends for this man when I find out about his secret. So I decided to make him to be my boyfriend, but how long this secret will be useful?

I have more detailed for some of them I could write it as headcanons but let me know if anyone wants me to write or you can send through the trope you like and we sharing idea about it!

[lynn-tged-posting]

tged webtoon ep 155 spoilers n thoughts below cut etc u know the drill

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bug when u lift a rock

i love when he has lil soft smileys like this theyre his best look heehee

THIS IS WHAT MY BRAIN WAS MELTING OVER EARLIER TODAY BTW. IM GOING INSANE

THIS HAD ME SHIVERING . TREMBLING LIKE A WET CAT. "when someone really misses another person... they might meet again here." GHH . HGGGGG AAAAAHHH

ok sorry uh. i dont have much insight this time around im just going insane over it,,, a place that represents happy memories and promises to stay together and yet suho has returned here, unable to hold onto both without the ache of loss bc his parents r gone AAAGGHHHG AA

how cruel how cruel how cruel,,, cruel reminders of what he can never return to,,, WHICH MAKES HIM SAYING "i already met my family." SOOO HEARTACHE TO ME

ok sorry im jumping ahead a bit but yeah suho feeling at home as a frontera and moving forward, beyond the memories and the past,,, im gonna THROW UP what the FUCK

ok bouncing back to some sillies this ep LOL

A MAN ON A FUCKING MISSION 😭 LLOYD U MONSTER HAHAA javier being happy that lloyds back to his motivated self tho makes me so happy WEEHEEHEE

ALSO JAVIER IMMEDIATELY BECOMING SOCMED FAMOUS IS SO FUNNY HAHAHAHA honestly the ppl who r taking pics. so real. me too. i can only imagine how insanely pretty javier would b if he was in our world,,, his protagonist-level good looks are dimensional constants .

i am a little bit confused as to why javier said this considering he was so ready to bring lloyd back at all costs when they first got here? mmm maybe his worries were quelled when they were taking the mountain trail to the tower? im not quite sure,,, maybe i missed smth

ALSO HIS FRIEND OMGGG

IM SO GLAD WE GOT TO SEE HIM AGAIN hes working construction now too!!! wahoo!!! hes still got that face tho lol

OH OH AND THE COP CHASE RIGHT

javier folding the clothes is so silly hes such a good lil guy 😭 vs lloyd just leaving them scattered LMAOOO it was nice of them to leave a note n the gold for the cop guys tho!!

i also liked that the cops kept fucking posing thru out the whole ep HAHAHA ive never seen jjba but its like jjba level posing theyre so silly

AND FINALLY YAA THEY GOT ALL THE MATERIALS SECURED

i rlly liked javiers lil "!!" at the bottom here HEHEHE

so so happy they got the stuff!!!! restoration of fate can SUCK AN EGG THEYRE GONNA BEAT IT!!!! hopefully

afaik theres no telling what the jewel of truth is gonna actually say abt fighting fate,,, or whether or not the jewel will give the answer that easily,,, hopefully it goes smoothly lloyd deserves a break atp 😭😭😭

also how r they gonna put the thing together havent they been flying over the ocean w draggy recently . werent the mermaids tryna figure out who was commanding draggy so that they could sic em for opening that portal to hell 😭 WILL THAT B A PROBLEM? (dont actually answer that)

man oh man milestone achieved but still so much to do for these guys,,,, i wanna put them in a box and contain them and let them have a break they deserve it

ok thats it for now,,, if i start brainrotting again ill prolly post abt it here or on twitter,,, see yall next week!!!!

[lavina-arts]

I don't know why I'm doing this, but I just wanted to give my honest review of this webtoon called "Boyfriends" because why not... (also, I think this is something that needs clarification urgently.)

First of all, I was reading this webtoon once too. But I couldn't read it until the end... maybe I read 20 chapters at most (this wasn't because I don't like webtoons, I just can't focus for a long time) And I want to say that the only thing I like about this webtoon is that the drawing style and the characters look cute, other than that, the author thinks gay and queer people are really disgusting is showing! And it's definitely not nice, I think people should absolutely be respectful to the last drop of their opinions, lifestyles, zest and so on, no matter what.

What I don't really understand is why people think that the characters are the reason why the webtoon is disgusting and make disgusting posts about them. Instead, I think we should talk about what mistakes the author made. Maybe if the author realizes these, he can correct his mistakes (if he doesn't, it's his fault). Apart from that, I think it's ridiculous that you criticize characters who are not real, but let me also say that the posts are completely justified. Considering the webtoon's drawing style, they could actually do better, but the plot in it is truly disgusting! (Also, I want to ask this specifically, why would you draw an asexual person constantly talking about sexuality!?) I'm not defending this webtoon at all, I think it's a disgusting webtoon. If there's one thing I like about this webtoon, it's the designs of the characters and the drawing style, other than that, it's not just shit because of a writer with a problem.

In my opinion, this webtoon can be considered as talents that have fallen victim to problematic writers.

I'm telling you these right now because sometimes I think about making fanart of the characters in this webtoon, but don't worry, you can be sure that they will look more normal and nice here.

Yes, I am a fan of this webtoon, but I repeat, I am not a supporter of the disgusting events in this webtoon, I just like the characters (except for their overly sexual styles...)

And here I want to say this to the author....

Take that damn sexual mentality and go to hell, otherwise one of us will have to become a murderer....

These are my own thoughts, if there is anyone who thinks differently or notices a point I missed, you can tell me in the comments, I would definitely respect it.

As I said, I don't support this webtoon, I just like the character designs, other than that, it's a really disgusting webtoon. I hope you can understand me, that's all I want to say for now. As I said, I may sometimes draw the drawings of that webtoon, but it will definitely be in a way that will make gays and queers look more welcoming and will not make anyone feel bad. I hope you understand.

[lej222]

Hi. What's your thoughts on today's chapter of aslfua?

ASLFUA 151 spoilers

Hi! To be honest, I kind of have mixed feelings, and it's by no means criticism towards Soonkki, just my personal opinion.

To clarify, I loved the scenes between Cheol and Miae. They were cute and the academy scenes were also fun.

Now, for the things that made me a little confused - I don't like how Miae feels like walking on eggshells whenever she hangs out with Jisu. There's nothing wrong with being friends with a boy but Cheol is always angry when she mentions him, the academy kids were also not happy, and it just made me sad??? Like Miae has every right to do what she wants and it just feels like she has to hide the fact that she enjoys Jisu's company and I hope this will be addressed because it's not a healthy dynamic.

I was also talking to my Korean friend, and she said some people are tired of Miae being detached from reality too much. And I agree that in the long run this could be a problem but I have hope it will be a plot point - we saw that after Miae's mom watched the news about the importance of creating healthy views on sexuality, Miae had absolutely no idea what it meant. She was telling Cheol how they have to wait to date until high school. Miae is not aware what a romantic relationship means. Now, she even told Cheol she wanted to sleep at his house. That's why I cannot really imagine her dating anyone in the close future, because she's clearly not ready for it. My friend also mentioned how some readers pointed out Miae's blank expression when she insisted on her future together with Cheol and Cheol felt like she was not listening to his words. And to me it also seems like Miae has this dream world and she refuses to step out of it, but isn't that the point of growing up? Like, if she was a real person, I would be worried for her when the time comes she has to experience disappointments in life and she doesn't know how to deal with them. But obviously this is a webtoon so I'm not sure we're supposed to go into such analysis, I would be however pleasantly surprised if all these things were to be addressed.

I also talked to my friend about Jisu's role in the future and we agreed that Jisu might get hurt. Because so far we have a few consistent sideplots - Cheol being afraid of the bullies coming back, Miae being naive and Jisu trying to help Miae. Jisu's attempts to be Miae's "grateful magpie" couldn't come true so far, but one of his goals is definitely to protect Miae. If the bullies target her, he might get into trouble, and I would feel bad for Cheol as well. Btw, I kind of like that all these kids have flaws, it makes the story more interesting, and I think the only problem is that international readers only pay attention to Jisu's.

[66sharkteeth]

NUH UH MR./MS./MX.SHARK, YOU GON TAKE THAT BREAK IF YOU NEED IT AND IF PEOPLE LEAVE, WHATEVER SCREW THEM THEYRE MISSING OUT ON A DAMN GOOD WEBTOON! IF YOU NEED TIME, TAKE THAT TIME!

That was probably a little too aggressive sorry-

But what I'm saying is that you need to take breaks, I get burnt out working on small little procreate drawings so I definitely understand how you'd get burnt out making CoB (my now fave webtoon on the platform) I'm also a silent reader so I don't comment and I try to like all the episodes. But still, your mental and physical health should come before your comic, if anything take like a 2 month break, I'd sure as hell wait and most of the other anons would too! Your doing amazing and your comic is great, I just wish I could help you out on patreon but I can't due to underage.

i appreciate the gesture!! unfortunately it's just not that easy... 😭

like trust me, if there were no consequences to breaks, i'd definitely take more and longer ones! but unfortunately there are Very Much Consequences. I only get paid per episode I turn in, so 2 months of not turning episodes is 2 months of no income. But honestly, that's not even my real problem. I have enough saved up to survive a month or two of no real income. The real issue is reader retention.

I know every time talks of breaks come up, creators get tons of encouraging messages promising that they'll stick around or that their "true fans" won't drop it, but unfortunately, the people that applies to is only really a very small percent of our readership. :( The sad fact is, every time we take a break more than like...a week, it does a huge hit to our numbers and performance, and that directly correlates to our income, eligibility for raises, and sometimes even renewing our contracts.

So while I assure you every creator, including myself, couldn't be more grateful for readers like you who stick around no matter how long the break is, the sad fact is, 90% of our audience are very casual, not even seeing posts like this, and very likely to just forget or drop our comics during an extended break. We know you loyal readers will stick around and we love you for that, but unfortunately, we really rely heavily on that much more casual majority that is way less avid.

[ben-talks-art]

Trapped and Dreaming Freedom

So I've been reading these two webtoons lately about female leads stuck in very toxic and unhealthy relationships (while being aware of it), and I'm loving every second of it!

If you know me, you know I just love a badass cool female lead and I also love seeing characters stuck in very difficult situations and watching how they use their brains and/or skills to get out of it, and both comics excel at these aspects!

First series is "Trapped", a comic about this taxi driver who got tangled by accident with a vampire who develops an obsession with both her and her blood after she manages to outsmart him a couple of times, something that hasn't happened to him in years.

It feels very "Tom and Jerry" with both characters trying to get the upper hand on their relationship, and you would think it would be super one-sided but vampires actually have quite a bit of annoying rules on how they work that severely limit their freedom and our female lead exploits as many of them as she can to make him eat sh*t! It's just glorious!

"Dreaming Freedom" is... somehow less dark, and at the same time way darker of a series.

It's not as violent or gory but it deals with more realistic problems that hit closer to home for some like school bullying, abandonment, harassment, family abuse, and so on.

The premise is that our female lead teams up with a guy that has the power to use dreams to affect people in the real world, and they use this ability to get revenge on all the girl's classmates that harassed her, but the more our female lead does that, more the male lead gets obsessed with her and we later find out that he has some serious anger issues making him extremely dangerous.

Our lead basically goes from "I can use him to get payback!" to "Oh my God, I'm the only thing that's keeping this dude under control and away from people!"

It feels like you're being handed a living knife that you just pray won't run out of control or turn itself against you. It's so uncomfortable but at the same time so thrilling!

While I really don't like when unhealthy relationships are glamorized and used to send some kind of "Oh, he's kinda dangerous... But at least he loves you, so it's okay, right?" message, I do like it when the unhealthiness of the relationship is the focus AND is painted as a problem that needs to be fixed.

I like how both female leads always call the male leads on their bs and keep them in check whenever they start going too far, and it's fun to see how they use them whenever they're backed into a corner by the antagonists of the stories.

Also like the themes these series explore, about how when you keep dealing with people that act like monsters you see yourself slowly turning into a monster yourself and start to attract other monsters as well, eventually making you question how far can you go? How far should you go? Can you get back from it? And so on.

But most of all, I like that both series make sure to show that these "bad boys" were their last freaking options. Not the first, not the second, but the very bottom of the barrel. They went to them only after they felt they had no other choices and were sure that nobody else would take their side.

This isn't just "Oh, I went to him because he's a hot bad boy", this is "The world turned its back on me so I'm gonna use the only cards that I have left."

They basically made a deal with their devils and now the fun is watching to see how/if they're gonna get out of it.

This is how I like to see problematic relationships. You don't paint them as something normal or something good, you paint them as a hardship that needs to be dealt with and use it to do clever commentary on the worst aspects of humanity so we can learn how to be better and as a source for good and intense drama to make us worried for the main characters and invested in seeing them get out okay.

[kiingfluffybuns]

in another episode of Burns talking about TGED without reading the novel and only focusing on the webtoon as source material

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can we talk for a moment about Kim Suho and his Best Friend whose name I do not know (if it was mentioned before, pls lemme know)??

Now, I tend to focus a lot on the imagery of the narrative, like I mentioned before, since in the webtoon we do not have literal text to describe actual scenes, it has pushed to take its liberties on how it develops.

We have seen it on the mayor differences between N!Javier and W!Javier. (I was told.)

With that being said, my current theory in the matter is that Kim Suho is NOT a reliable narrator.

What do I mean with that?

SPOILERS,

(I will not post screenshots bc of spoilers)

In today's CH, we begin with a flashback of Kim Suho meeting w his rich Best Friend who he invites to the bath-house.

Now, Suho mentioned before on a previous flashback that his Best Friend invites him to eat out a lot just for the mere satisfaction of showing off his money. And while it's absolutely hilarious to think so, I do believe it wasn't the case.

In this new memory, Best Friend offers him the service for free, shaking Suho a lot, he questions him and the replies he gets are pretty simple, 'my mom owns the place', 'I'm helping her today', but all of that while he's making a very wicked smile.

This gave me the realization that all of this sequence is strictly within Suho's POV, which we can interpret the whole interaction was actually twisted to fit his narrative.

There's a high chance that Best Friend is doing all of these things out of real kindness and bc he does care for Suho.

But bc he refuses to believe ppl does things out of nowhere (like himself), he is convinced that he's being mocked.

For Suho, it has to be that way, he can only receive any kind of help as long as there's a 'catch', just the same way he gives help.

It also makes him upset to understand that his Best Friend knows his schedule well enough to show up at the proper time to ask him to hang out. Which in retrospect, is not that weird.

With time we all get to know when friends/family get off and on to work. It's not rocket science. But bc Suho is not making that same effort for his Best Friend, he assumes that that's the norm.

Why is he doing all of these things? Why does he know when he's free? How does he know he needs to relax?

Bc those are normal things to know of ppl one's close to.

But for Suho, he doesn't take that as relevant to give effort to. So much that he doesn't understand the simpler answers to those questions because he, himself, wouldn't answer them normally. They have to be negative.

Now, this made me believe that he's not being properly truthful with these memories, since he's convinced that all of these 'kind' actions were made w the idea of being mocked by.

After all, regardless of what was the memory, it's extremely normal that ppl will retell a story to fit their narrative.

In this case, that Best Friend just wanted to be entertained with Suho's struggles.

Now, this doesn't seems to happen when it comes to Javier, and the answer I came up for that might be a bit painful. Unconsciously, Suho probably still sees Javier as a fictional character and not a real person. So to give him effort doesn't seems wasteful since he's not 'real'

After all, this story falls into the same gender as Isekai, 'escapism'. So Suho wouldn't have a problem to blend and care for the new ppl around him bc they are not real. They are part of his escapism. Ofc I'm sure that is changing bc he's now seeing the family and home as his. It's just matter of time when he understands that he's actually building proper interpersonal relationships.

That's all I have for now, good night.

ps, if you don't agree, just block me and move on LMFAO.

[alloveydovey]

Mid month dramaaaas, 2024 is giving quality content 🙌🏽

Lovely Runner, 2024 (kdrama) 8.5

FL is a fangirl who goes back in time to save her idol who ended his own life. (very shortly put lol)

I have thoughts!!! It's gonna be long because my expectations with this one were really high. Don't torch me please lol. If I have to be 100%, this drama wasn't what I expected at all. That being said, loser boy Byeon Woo Seok and cutie patootie Kim Hye Yoon were the real deal here. I came for the premise (okay, and because Byeon Wook Seok is fiiiiine) and stayed because of them.

Here's my deal with Lovely Runner. I didn’t read the webtoon or anything, so in my mind, I assumed they would explore what took Sun Jae to make such a decision in the first episode before Sol went back in time to try and fix everything. The drama starts pretty heavy with both main characters attempting in some way to take their own lives. So to go from that to absurd comedy was a bit extreme for me at first. I thought we would do a little mental health introspection here, a bit of commentary about being an idol and all. Then because the first episodes also focused a lot on Sun Jae's dream to be a professional swimmer and the doomed reality that it would not happen, I thought they would center around that as well. I guess I was picturing some sort of mix between 2521 and Twinkling Watermelon. Plus the whole aspect of Im Sol being disabled. But they didn’t really give any more thoughts to these aspects of the characters.

Moving on from my own expectations and a little disappointment that the drama headed in a different direction, I overall enjoyed watching most of it. To be honest, this is the type of drama you just have to go with it, no heavy thoughts included. It gives major classic rom-com kdrama vibes. The cast absolutely takes the cake, the adorable moments are overflowing, comedy hits and the OST is a 10/10.

I don’t mind time travel plot holes but there are still some thing that bugged me, though. One: The whole taxi guy story. I will admit I was extremely disappointed the moment he was introduced. It’s probably when I started lowering my rating. Why do writers (or webtoon authors) feel the need to just randomly pull out these guys? And this drama being so cute and funny... It didn’t need that at all. Specially, since he seemed really poorly written. Two: I might not get over the fact that these two characters both start in really dark places but it’s never really acknowledged in any meaningful way and instead the drama just does a 180° on that. If these subjects hadn’t been introduced then it would have been fine. But in comparison with what happens next, the rest of the drama felt a little superficial to me. Three: it ended up becoming really repetitive. Sol once again ignoring Sun Jae “for his own good”, Sun Jae going after Sol because he doesn’t really care, Sol ending up crying. All this mixed between cute and silly scenes.

Happy ending did make me the happiest, though 🥹

Will Love in Spring, 2024 (cdrama) 9

When they were kids and FL became disabled due to a car accident, ML’s words made her change her whole perspective. He goes on to become the town's mortician, and she becomes a successful saleswoman in the city. And you know the rest, sparks fly when they meet again.

Oof. Cdramas aren’t supposed to be this good, bro. Like… everything about it is just a chef kiss. Characters and their complexities, OST, cinematography, chemistry!! (It's crazy, for real) It presents the same problem as Meet Yourself, even with Li Xian back as the ML. But whereas Meet Yourself is a little lighter and deals with this problem in a respectful and thoughtful way, ML and FL here are filled with angst and tension. The drama itself is a lot heavier, which is not bad, but it's not always nice, and sometimes very frustrating. I saw comments saying that they found the characters to be rather toxic, and that is such a childish way of seeing their relationship. Not everything is red and green flags. This is not that type of drama. People throw the word toxic around everything nowadays. I’d say they were realistic. Both FL and ML make mistakes (because they both have issues) and the drama makes sure the audience knows they were wrong. Because, you know, humans fuck up and stuff. I liked that. But because I can't help but compare it to Meet Yourself, I gotta admit that even though I liked the pace, the OST, and the cinematography more here. MY remains superior, and therefore, I don't feel like I can give it a proper 10. I will say, though, last two episodes gave a bit ot a bittersweet ending even though it's supposed to be a happy one, and I didn't like that much.

Queen of Tears, 2024 (kdrama) 8.5/9

A lawyer from the countryside marries the top heiress of a leading conglomerate. They marry very much in love, but find themselves almost not communicating or holding much feelings for one another three years later.

I completely get why this got everyone hooked. Overall it’s a great story, and very well produced, but at the same time I gotta admit I was hoping for something a little more… exciting. Specially because it was written by the same screenwriter that did Crash Landing on You and The Legend of the Blue Sea and those two were a 10 for me. It might also be personal taste. Some people are into chaebol family dramas that focus on business with their villains cartoonishly evil. Me, personally, I get a bit bored and this is sort of what happened. Even though Kim Ji Won and Kim Soo Hyun got me hooked with their marriage story and the romance of it all, the rest was a bit 💤. Although both families living together was really cute and I loved those scenes. I’d say that’s where the magic of this drama was. The last episodes after her memory gets erased are a bit messy, but the ending still made me sob dramatically lol.

A Good Day to be a Dog, 2023 (kdrama) 7.5/8 (girl what are you doing still here?)

Because of a family curse if FL kisses someone she turns into a dog at midnight… which she does after accidentally kissing a fellow teacher. She can only break the curse if he kisses her again in dog form. The only problem is he’s scared of dogs and doesn’t seem to like her that much.

This is the first time I put on hold a drama and actually go back to finish it lol. I’m proud. This starts off very very cute. Cha Eun Woo but specially Park Gyu Young are really funny and both have great chemistry. The problem here for me is, once again, the past life storyline. I know this is based off a webtoon, but I swear that whole thing is what ruined it for me. I wasn’t into it at all and so the last 4/5 episodes I spent them skipping scenes. Howeveeer, if someone were to ask me if they should watch, I’d say yes. Because romance wins lol.

[larebiscornue]

(EDIT: This is getting visibility so reminder to do your daily clicks in arab.org (not only for the Palestine tab) and check this list of vetted palestinian gofundmes)

So, per typical Friday, we had a new page of La Grande Vague, but (at least when I checked), for the first time, the comments were... Pretty negative! And it's no wonder, we only have 2 more chapters episodes til this wraps up and, if you have read it, you know exactly how lackluster of an ending for the Wakfu story if this were the ending. (Sure, we'd have the upcoming Flo and Mad comic to cover one part of the cast, but LGV IS advertised as the great finale for the main story.) I really get the disappointed feeling, especially because whether you get the cheap or expensive pack, reading LGV at full is NOT free. And I'm not even touching, of course, the issue with season 5 being a webcomic.

But, if what other commenters said is true, Tot said LGV is actually going to have a hundred episodes or so! (I haven't been able to find the source. Maybe twitter? Feel free to send it to me. I'd be doubtful on authenticity but with many people saying it.. It sounds too specific)

However, I do still think some degree of criticism to how LGV is handled is still warranted for sure.

Like. The way it was marketed... Were we told there would be more than 10 chapters? Correct me if we have, but there being a bit of an ammount of fans in the comments not knowing tells me it was not well expressed.

The webtoon/webcomic(?) issue would be the pacing, I do agree.. Webcomics can have quite an iffy pacing to get used to as they do obviously need to be spread in time, often in short bits like lgv (though, at least it isn't as this one comic I read as a teen that was only a page per week. We were fine with it because it was a one person team but geez, it made action full high plot point chapters/episodes/(gah I find the names confusing..) tough to read with unchanging hype... (I'm not saying any webcomic author or even company should be pressured to upload even more than a page per *insert period of time * but we cannot deny the medium has its limitations. Idk if this also happens with comic books, since while they come in issues, they're longer book releases) For full transparency I'll say I'm not that much of a webcomic bluff at all aside from wakfu and the other one, so take it with a pinch of salt.

I think the problem is, we as a wakfu audience are used to get meaty 20 minute episodes, and while each lgv episode has content, because of the medium and the way it's structured, it definitely lasts less. Does this have any solution? I dunno. Webcomic was the only compromise to s5 not being able to be animated. And not to mention how passionate we are about this series.

On one hand, I feel some of the uproar should be saved til we see how does this progress and how Ankama handles the situation, cause if lgv is really gonna be 100 episodes long, we have to see how stuff plays out. On the other, I feel we as fans have the right to freely critique, (like the "ammount of chapters wasn't well advertised") healthily!

This isn't intended to be a proper essay, sorry if some of the wording doesn't make sense, and as you can see I have NOT touched on the plot itself cause I don't feel its that relevant for this post. Feel free to share your opinions with me!

EDIT: @/julith-jurgen and @/cocogum shared me a link to Tot and Cathiane (LGV's artist)'s statement in the replies, the 100 episodes/chapters (Again I still struggle with proper webcomic terminology lol) thing is real:

https://x.com/Totankama/status/1781321831263424875 https://x.com/Cathianedraws/status/1781379849606529479)

[genericpuff]

You should watch Jack vs. Webtoons video on Lore Olympus before it gets wrongfully taken down.

His video pointed out something I wasn’t able to put into words until now. Lore Olympus has a real bad dialect problem. One second the characters are talking like they’re in a Shakespeare play which makes sense, sense they’re gods or what not. The next second you’ll have characters saying shit like “blue balls” “clout chaser” and “you’ve got a young wife with a fat ass”. It probably wouldn’t bother me if certain people talked a certain way like how Hera doesn’t use any slang and how Hermes uses some but all the characters vocabulary are the exact same.

Honestly I can look past the art and it’s inconsistencies but having dialect jump from regal to tiktok facebook slang makes my brain hurt more than glossy lipped Hades and bug eyed Persephone.

I checked it out, it's pretty great haha and yesss this is something that's been discussed before but I haven't really ever made a post about, the dialogue is CONSTANTLY flip-flopping between royal talk and "hello fellow teens" quipping. Sometimes it feels like it's trying to be like Marvel and then other times it feels like it's trying to be Bridgerton. I can think of no better example than all of the "pedigree" talk, it makes me squirm every time I read it because in the modern context of LO, it SCREAMS eugenics. The whole B-grade goddess thing made sense, until they started talking about Persephone like a poodle:

But then you ALSO get INCREDIBLY stiff dialogue that makes it seem like the comic is either being written by AI or Rachel is actually a real life version of Michael Afton post-scoop:

And yes, there is a tinfoil hat theory that LO is being written by bots at this point because I don't know how a single person could write something so tonally confused. That said, I do think the more reasonable explanation is that Rachel is likely copying dialogue from shows and movies she's watching and just tweaking it slightly before slapping it into LO. She's not observing why the dialogue works in the media she likes, she just knows she likes it and slaps it in there without any regard for context, tone of voice, or personality.

And that leads to, as you said, all the characters sounding the exact same, and that metric by which they all sound the same changes all the time. I think at this point the only reason we haven't seen Hera dropping TikTok language is because she hasn't been onscreen long enough for her to get the chance LMAO That said, we've definitely gotten some weird inconsistent dialogue with Hera as well:

(like she's essentially saying the exact same thing across both of these panels but one is being said by an adult and the other is being said by a teenager lmao)

I think the dialogue is definitely one of the most glaring issues with LO, among all of its other problems. It just never feels like it's being written by a human, there are problems with this even as far back as S1 but it's become especially apparent in S2 onwards.

To finish off this ask, here's one of my favorite dialogue mishaps in the entire series, from S1, in which Apollo literally adopts an askew English accent:

[cpcwiki]

⚠ WIKI AD INCOMING ⚠

Hi, everyone! @mechanical-clown here on a new blog! That's right, it's the Real Official CPC Wiki Social Media Account here!! B) Unfortunately I do not have good news to deliver

It's been a hot minute since my last ad and I do want you all to know I'm still sorry for doing this. Unfortunately, again, how bad I feel making another ad is outweighed by how much the wiki needs more help. I've been feeling especially desperate lately because of the fact that CPC is ending soon, and there are many tasks that will be made harder if it's put on daily pass. So, in my cry for effort to get help, here's an explanation of what I believe is our biggest issue and a rundown of things that currently need to be done! Again I am sorry. This could take a while

If you were fortunate enough to not have seen this post last time, the Cursed Princess (Club) Wiki needs help if it wants to be complete any time soon. Kind of a lot of it. As we all know, cpcblr's very active and prolific in content and the wiki's typically... not. To seriously get into this, the only three active editors in the past month or two have been me, @the-neighbors-kid (aka cursed-princess-club), and Ama (not sure if she wants to be tagged but we all know her!). Shoutout to you two because you are actually the best thank you I love you /pl <3

Anyways, there are already a lot of things we need to do to fix up the wiki. Thankfully, accessing any episode for any information you'd like is easy! And it will continue to be that easy after CPC ends, because Webtoon doesn't feel the need to limit how many episodes a person can view, right? Right? ...Yeah, so, uh, daily pass exists.

As of the time I'm writing this, there are ~10 episodes left in CPC (forgot the exact number lol). Assuming there are no hiatuses, that's only 10 more weeks, or 2 and a half months - and that's pretty soon! While there is a chance that CPC might not have daily pass after it ends, it's a small one. And, to me, that sounds like a huge problem!! If CPC is put on daily pass, accessing episodes will become much more difficult. Looking for a certain character's appearances, adding images, even just finding a single reference - it'll take a day to unlock the needed episode, and that episode will be gone in 2 weeks. The best solution to this problem would probably be to just use physical copies of CPC to find things, but those aren't available to everyone.

And adding images with daily pass episodes? As a reminder, screenshotting while viewing an episode on daily pass is taken as a sign of piracy. Screenshotting, the way we get images for the wiki. I've tried poring through Webtoon's terms of use to find some answer about whether publicly posting such screenshotted images would be illegal, but there's no mention of daily pass, and the text is so dense it's hard for me to tell. (I want to say I'll take a second look at it sometime, but that's probably just going to go into my list of permanently-unfinished priorities. I doubt the physical copies would be a good alternative to screenshots, either.) Regardless, I don't want to take any chances with the law, or see however Webtoon would punish us on the chance they find our frightening screenshots. Thus, another top priority of mine is to add more images and complete more galleries before CPC ends.

Oh, yeah, and that's barely even scratching the surface! Here's more stuff we need to do, presented in an appealing (classic Mocha iykyk) bulleted list:

A major thing is filling in episode pages. Episodes 40-around 110 are basically blank - no synopsis, character list, summary, or extra information. This is the task that would likely be least burdened by the addition of daily pass, but in my opinion, it's still of the absolute highest priority.

Galleries, which display images of characters, locations, or episodes. While not generally that important, I do think it'd be a good idea to fill out mostly empty ones now - you know, since taking screenshots of CPC may become illegal in the future! Most characters have a good amount of images on their pages, thankfully (the pastel sisters have so many they were the first to get separate gallery pages); some, including Jack and Leland, have very few. Episode pages and locations often have way less, though those aren’t as important

Relationship sections for a number of characters. These involve write about characters’ relationships, though in a way that mainly describes their interactions throughout the episodes without expressing any specific opinions. Some major sections that need to be written/updated include Jamie and Leopold; Jolie and Nell; Leland and really everyone on his page but especially Jack; Jack and Lilyth; Suzanna and Lance/Lorena; the Plaid Princes with each other; and more! Many more!

History sections for a number of characters. In a similar vein to relationship sections, these just detail a character’s appearances in the story, as well as their past or other mentions of them. Examples of (mostly - Isolde's isn't fully updated yet) completed history sections include Whitney’s, Isolde’s, and Monika’s! Examples of incomplete sections include virtually everyone else’s.

You might be wondering why I, a wiki admin (in case I haven't said it enough) am not doing any of these things! That’s because I'm neglectful and pretty bad at my job. I will not sugarcoat that part anymore. As much as I love the wiki (it's where I met my best friend after all, and while I'm writing this they just went offline so he can get fucked /j) I don't have motivation to work on it very often. Really, I don't have motivation to work on much nowadays! Ama's been doing the virtually thankless job of keeping the wiki up for the past couple months, and I've been mostly absent. The wiki is only remotely as active as cpcblr because of her. I feel terrible about it, but I'd rather be writing this 9-paragraph cry for help than editing, so, uh... yeah this is a public apology to Ama. I am so sorry. I know this isn't very professional but I'm incapable of being professional about the wiki tbh

TL;DR: As CPC is ending soon, the impending threat of daily pass could take away the ability to look at episodes whenever you want, which would make wiki editing much harder. We seriously need editors to join us in finishing the wiki. Please at least consider helping us!! Any way you can is appreciated - even if you can only make very few edits, I'll be immensely grateful for your support :)

If you have any questions about anything wiki-related, contact me!! My Discord's at musicitself, and you can also always DM me on here! And here's an invite to our wiki Discord server, too!! Of course, you don't have to become a wiki editor to join, but (as was the point of this entire post) I would really really REALLY love if you did. Thank you so much for reading this long, and have a great day!

[winns-stuff]

LO RANT:

Genuinely believe the fans don’t know what Lore Olympus is even supposed to be anymore. It’s sad going into their comment sections and seeing so many fans be poisoned with utter hypocrisy and be so blinded that they don’t even read what they’re saying. This is why having just one positive opinion isn’t always the best way to go, it’s okay to say that Lore Olympus is not doing the best this is not going to kill Rachel. It’s fine if you’re getting tired of the plot stories, it’s more than fine if you can’t read anymore because of the bad character designs etc. Every time I see a fan it’s like they’re under some mind control and it truly does make me wanna shake my head especially when arguing with a critic, their points will always never make any sense or they’ll just be horrible takes.

For one I’ve noticed a lot of fans love to use the whole “this is how the myth goes!!!!” statement whenever someone has a problem with either the story or the characters in that episode that day. You guys please stop saying that shit, it’s getting old and it doesn’t even make sense. You can’t say that Lore Olympus is exactly like the myths and in the same breath defend Rachel’s abstract artistic choices by saying “she can do whatever she wants!! it’s a retelling!!” which one is it damnit? Is she following the myths or putting a massive spin on it? Pick one you can’t have both at the same damn time.

That’s the backwards thinking of this entire fandom that really trips me out though, the fans want two very opposite and different things to exist all at once but in reality it never will. Your webtoon is plagued with so much hypocrisy that even defending it or trying to make a point will make you a huge hypocrite. Lore Olympus does too much of “yes we can do this but no we cannot at the same time”, it’s never standing clear on beliefs, personalities, morals, relationships, etc. Everything always has to be both at the same time and I’m thinking the reason for that is because Rachel probably thought this would help her case more, like is pedophilia inside of the story? In a way yes but also no. Is feminism in the story? In a way yes but also no. Is mental health in the story? In a ways yes but also no. Are y’all seeing the pattern? Someone from outside of this fandom with zero knowledge about Lore Olympus cannot outright say that “Lore Olympus doesn’t talk about sexual traumas” because it does but it doesn’t at the same time. They just use both sides of every topic they decide to throw into the story that day so theirs never a person who can genuinely be upset that something isn’t there because it is, it’s just not being handled well or written with any decency.

Also last thing, I wish that a lot of the fans would stop the blatant sexualization of the characters it’s so uncomfortable to sit through and a lot of the comments are dehumanizing. There’s a difference between saying that the characters are hot and begging for them to literally scramble your insides and headcanoning how they fuck each other. Genuinely it’s getting out of control with how you guys treat this story like it’s some kind of kinky fanfic (which I can’t even blame you for because that’s what this is to Rachel at this point) mainly because there’s serious topics being discussed in your beloved comic that your amazing author decided to write into this series. So no, it’s never been about watching these random characters fuck each other it’s always been so much “deeper” than that sadly and even though I’ll never stop explaining how Lore Olympus never should’ve put those very real and serious conversations in her story if she was not going to shed any positive or even respectful light on those themes because it’s giving the readers a horrible depiction of all of them I will say that you all need to settle the fuck down and start realizing that this comic is more than seeing Persephone and Hades get naked (fucking barely, you don’t even see anything yet everyone still wants more detailed and graphic scenes).

[nysus-temple]

We need to talk about the downgrade of Apollo in Lore Olympus because Rachel did him so dirty, like his character has been mistreated do much 😭

Don't take this personal, anon, you've done nothing wrong ! i'll just use this ask as a way to, somehow, dumps my violent thoughts about this... Thingy.

Rant below.

What Lore Olympus did to Apollo isn't even a downgrade, it's plain disrespectful, an insult to an important figure and symbol. Not only him, but also the rest of the gods that appear in that nonsense that dares to call itself a """comic""", which is also an insult to writers and artists. Lore Olympus did a culture wrong, did a comic wrong in general, but it did to Apollo has no words to describe it. If every time someone talks about Apollo, they need to EXPLAIN why he's not the LO one, we have a problem. When we are talking about Apollo, we're talking about APOLLO and that's it. Why the fuck do we need to specify? Because of this piece of shit that had the audacity to even come out in physical format. As someone who has been writing since she was a child, who also studies literature and took courses regarding how to write a fucking decent story, i don't even know where to begin with this horrible piece of... """Media""" that Webtoon keeps promoting as if it wasn't something that wasn't of a big deal. My ass.

Gotta love seeing a bunch of teens who educated themselves with Tiktok reading that AND not only throwing bullshit at Apollo, a figure who i love with my entire being and who has brought me comfort in numerous ways, but also thinking that rape victims just "get over it" after meeting a handsome man or whatever. As if Hades wasn't fucking awful in that comic. That's not how it works. Don't write about dangerous topics if you know shit about them.

Gotta love how i always associated Persephone with dark-pink, due to the pomegranate seeds being of that color, BUT NOW i can't see her with anything with that color anymore because of the ugly ass """character""" LO made. What even is WRONG with the teens reading it that they go and change wiki articles to make the myths accurate to this bullshit that has the balls to call itself a comic ????

I won't even go "sure, you like it, fine" NO. NO I CANNOT. WHAT DO YOU EVEN SEE THAT IS APPEALING? I've seen people who knew nothing about Greek Folklore say it was boring as hell. Some kind of Twilight 2.0 but even worse. For fuck's sake, i'm the first person who likes characters that in real life wouldn't be nice to be with, because NONE OF THEM ARE HUMAN, all of those are monsters or invented creatures. What do those teens even SEE in LO when the designs are all fucking awful.

And after what they did to ALL of the gods, SPECIALLY to Apollo, if they have the fucking audacity to touch Dionysus too, i truly apologize for the person i will become.

If they fucking dare to mistreat Dionysus just like the damn Hades Game did and make him a pice of scum just like that one, i do apologize for the things i'm capable of doing.

[marshmallowprotection]

What do you think about June from The Ssum? Are you interested in that game or maybe decided not to play?

Let's slap out the first statement that needs to be said about the Ssum. I do not support the use of AI. I am disappointed in Cheritz. Someone suggested, and I agree, that they should've utilized the programs that many webtoon artists use to make backgrounds on time crunches if that was a concern; Or, they could've continued to do what they've been doing over the years by using stock images in the game that are royalty free. They did it in Mystic Messenger and the Sssum at the start. There is no ethical or morally correct reason to use AI.

I want that shit to die out like NFTs steadily are because I hate seeing artists, actors, writers, voice actors, etc robbed by these AIs. It leaves a damn sour taste in my mouth to think about the people being hurt by AI right now, and I can't believe Cheritz would ever think it would be okay to do that. I'm very disappointed in them as a company that prides itself on the happiness of others but they stooped to using AI in their game. That's not okay nor will it ever be okay. I pray they stop and listen to their fanbase about this shit.

But, as far as my interest in the Ssum goes outside of that fact?

Ever since it first came out, I simply did not enjoy the gameplay. It didn't take me long to realize that the Sssum wasn't a game for me, personally.

I felt overwhelmed by the amount of options placed in front of me, and while it is a learning curve to pick up a new game, the more that stood in front of me to do, the less I felt I understood and the more I wanted to pull my hair out. The interface was super busy, there was a lot to do! However, I attempted to give it a try for a few days with Teo because sometimes you have to try something to see if you can learn how to do everything and then enjoy it after better understanding the setup of the game. So, I tried to look past the amount of things to do and focus on the story.

Teo didn’t do anything for me interest wise. He didn't have anything interesting about him that worked for me romantically. So, it was hard for me to become invested when I was put in a situation where I didn't have a choice but to romance one character and he didn’t fit my type. That’s not a knock to Teo as a character, either, he just isn’t my type and therefore I had a hard time feeling drawn him to talk to him. 

I don't think Harry is my type, either, so had I tried again when his route came out, I would've inevitably quit again. This is not a knock to the characters. This is personal preference thing! Just because they are not interesting to me doesn't mean that they're not interesting characters, it just means I don't feel interested in them enough to care about their stories. 

If I'm going to be spending all my time focusing on having a major relationship with these characters, I need to be invested in them. I need a hook and something that excites me about them from the beginning. There was no draw for me and I felt no need to continue playing when there was no interest for me to keep doing so. I didn't feel an incentive to learn more about them because they weren’t my type. 

Microtransactions are a real problem these days. The Ssum has a lot of them in its game package. Listen, it is important that companies get money to be able to continue to create their games and do more, and I understand that for some games, microtransactions are always going to be there and there's nothing we can do about that. I miss when you could pay for videos games with a one-time purchase. But, unfortunately, those days are gone and I don't know if they will ever come back. 

People deserve to be paid for their time and energy they put into a game, regardless of what they did for that game, and this is one of the ways that people get paid. Microtransactions help pay for the things that keep these mobile games alive. The servers will always cost them a hefty penny, writers, programmers, artists, etc need to get their money as well. 

However, when you are playing a game that offers itself to you as something that you can play for free, then your enjoyment of that game should not be limited by the fact that you don't want to pay. A lot of major story elements are locked behind a paywall, and that takes away a lot of the enjoyment a player can have in this game. I do think it's complicated to figure out where to place the paid options in a game, but having them lock away key parts of the story that let you enjoy yourself just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. 

Maybe I was spoiled by just how free Mystic Messenger is. My enjoyment of a chat room is not locked behind my ability to pay for a better answer. I can say anything I want to say in the chat room and I can find out what happens in every replay. I don't have to spend money on batteries to be able to pick a better answer to learn more about the character. 

Now, about June as a character.

I do not appreciate his connection to Jumin Han. Because, to me, he is the family man and if he had a sibling, half-related or not, he would be there for them no matter what. If he knew about them, he would be there, and he would do everything within his power to make sure that they had a connection that nobody could break apart. Out of all the characters to make a family connection to, I don't know why the hell they thought it was a good idea to give Jumin Han one when he would've never gone a day without mentioning that he had a brother.

The only way I can reasonably think about this connection is if he was not informed that he had a brother at all until recently. Now, I'm not playing that game, but I do not think that's the way they're angling it. I think it was established that they already know about each other in this universe and they aren't close. That's not how Jumin Han would handle his life.

You mean to tell me that the character who wants nothing more than to have a family is not close to his half sibling? You want to tell me... that he's had a half-sibling this entire time, one that he knows about, and he's not close to him at all? That's not in character for him. All he has ever wanted was a family.

But, he didn't get that in his life.

He was an only child who was neglected by his parents, left to fend for himself emotionally all the time. He spent his childhood alone in every sense of the word when he wasn't with Jihyun Kim, and when he wasn't alone, he was either being sexually harassed by his father's partners or being threatened by people who wanted to hold him for ransom if he was caught by himself for just a moment away from his home. Before that, when he was left with his mother, she would lock him away in the basement and demand he stay there until he learned how to be "normal".

God, I think about that sometimes, and I think about the fact that he diminishes his trauma because he feels as though his trauma needs to be diminished because he grew up privileged. He understands his privilege as a child of a wealthy man but he discounts his own trauma in doing so. Anyone can suffer, regardless of status, and it's hard to see him knock himself down. 

The only thing this man has ever wanted was to experience what it felt like to grow up with a normal family. That's why he cherishes the idea of family so much. That's why he is filled with so much love for the RFA and his MC, friends. Because they become the family he's always wanted. They become what he always deserved. So, to think about him having a sibling that he's always known about and he has nothing to do with feels wrong. 

He is the kind of person who pushes for families to talk to each other and be there for one another, so why isn't he there for his brother? The only way you could play that off would be to say that he had no idea he had a little brother until recently.

I think they could take that somewhere if it was written that way, because it would devastate his worldview. He would be beside himself to think that he had a connection out there that he was never allowed to get close to. To think that he was never allowed to get close to his brother because his mother hated him so much. I don't like his mother in any sense of the word. I could see her doing that to him.

She is a materialistic and greedy woman who only cares about her wants and needs, and it's already hard enough for me to imagine her having another child because she does not seem like the kind of person who wants to have children. She seems like the kind of person who would only have a child to ensure her comfort in life. She does not seem like a person who would view a child as their own person, instead seeing them as a money ticket. I don't know anything about June and the way his life has shaped up with Carolyn as a mother. I don't know how that dynamic works with them, but I sure know how horrible of a parent she is to Jumin.

It can't be much better for June.

I can't rationalize anything about the connection between him and Jumin. 

At the end of the day, I want Mystic Messenger and the Ssum to exist as their own games. It is one thing to have Easter eggs in your game that tie back to the things that that company has done before. Like, I think we all love a little callback! Nameless and Dandelion had some references all over Mystic Messenger and there was nothing wrong with that. Those were fun little homages and call back to things that you might have played before.

But, when you tie your new game so inherently to the last game, it cannot stand by itself. People don't play because they want to learn more about the new and exciting characters that are in your new game, they are playing because they want more content about the characters from the other game. I know many people feel the same way about that because I have seen a lot of conversations about what it means to tie these characters together.

It does a major disservice to characters like Teo, Harry, and June.

It was one thing when they did little tie-ins like Jaehee picking up Teo’s phone for a day or Zen being a host at a television show! I had nothing wrong with those instances because it was nice to see them. But, now that they are so inherently tied together and it changes so much canon we thought we knew from the start, I don’t know how to feel. I don't like it. June's story changes Jumin's story and now, when you're playing Mystic Messenger, you're going to have to live with the fact that Jumin has a brother who is never mentioned.

You know, had they established the fact that he had a half brother he knew nothing about in that bad ending dlc, maybe this wouldn't have been such an issue, because then, there would have been something to play with narratively that made sense, but I don't know, I'm losing my mind over here. I have nothing but critiques all day for this shit.