A Tale of Two Webtoons
Apr. 28th, 2022 03:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI was having a high pain, low brain day so decided to just scroll through the top rated romance webcomics on a random scanlation site. I ended up half-reading two Korean m/f comics, giving up on one because it didn't inspire enough feelings, and on the other because it inspired too many. But they filled in the time until I felt better!
Thirsty Thirty: A career-focussed woman on the verge of hitting thirty feels listless and depressed after her boyfriend cheats on her. But then it turns out her quiet, competent manager has recognised how hard working and talented she is and they grow closer. I don't mind boss/employee romance if it wallows in the Forbidden-ness but this was just kinda bland wish fulfilment, and while it hit some standard romance beats and they weren't totally shallow or unlikeable I didn't care about either of them enough to get much of a kick out of them getting together, or care enough to see what obstacles the story would throw in their way to keep reading past that point. The story did seem to support her right to care about her career, but also uncritically supported overwork, and while I believed she was excited about creating pretty lighting setups for people, I was not.
The Blood of Madam Giselle: A Victorian noblewoman decides to spite her abusive husband by exploring the Forbidden Basement, where she encounters and bonds with a weird sad pretty vampire boy locked half-naked and starving in a cage. Definitely not bland wish-fulfilment and I absolutely cared about the main couple enough to keep going past the point where they got together, but the story is the kind of porny romantic melodrama that wallows in Angst and Sex and Shock where there's a good chance they not only won't end up happily but might be the cause of each other's downfall due to mutual violent obsession etc. Plus it hit some other buttons for me and I eventually listened to my brain's STOP READING messages. Not until I'd encountered an unexpected but definitely not unwelcome sexy f/f topless blood drinking scene involving two side characters, if I could just read about whatever is going on with those two I'd have kept going a while longer.
More thoughts and content notes under the cut, I kinda feel like I need a vague content note for the content notes. Note: There's sure some CONTENT.
Asides from the sense that it might end in slow, disquieting tragedy, I found some scenes with the abusive husband triggering, and the love interest is the kind of beautiful, innocent, violent, yandere boy made childlike by trauma that always almost works for me as a het love interest but in the end makes me feel kinda gross. Especially since, while older than her, he turns into a LITERAL CHILD when hungry. But if you're into sad half-naked waifs covered in the blood of their victims, sexy tender blood-drinking, interestingly fucked up romance, etc, and can cope better than me with the other content, you may have a good time.
Content notes: explicit sex (the genitals are whited out, but you can clearly see what they are), onscreen explicit rape, physical and emotional abuse, dubcon between the main couple (he's into it but pretty innocent and she pushes past and kinks on his confusion), a pedophile briefly shows up then gets eaten
Thirsty Thirty: A career-focussed woman on the verge of hitting thirty feels listless and depressed after her boyfriend cheats on her. But then it turns out her quiet, competent manager has recognised how hard working and talented she is and they grow closer. I don't mind boss/employee romance if it wallows in the Forbidden-ness but this was just kinda bland wish fulfilment, and while it hit some standard romance beats and they weren't totally shallow or unlikeable I didn't care about either of them enough to get much of a kick out of them getting together, or care enough to see what obstacles the story would throw in their way to keep reading past that point. The story did seem to support her right to care about her career, but also uncritically supported overwork, and while I believed she was excited about creating pretty lighting setups for people, I was not.
The Blood of Madam Giselle: A Victorian noblewoman decides to spite her abusive husband by exploring the Forbidden Basement, where she encounters and bonds with a weird sad pretty vampire boy locked half-naked and starving in a cage. Definitely not bland wish-fulfilment and I absolutely cared about the main couple enough to keep going past the point where they got together, but the story is the kind of porny romantic melodrama that wallows in Angst and Sex and Shock where there's a good chance they not only won't end up happily but might be the cause of each other's downfall due to mutual violent obsession etc. Plus it hit some other buttons for me and I eventually listened to my brain's STOP READING messages. Not until I'd encountered an unexpected but definitely not unwelcome sexy f/f topless blood drinking scene involving two side characters, if I could just read about whatever is going on with those two I'd have kept going a while longer.
More thoughts and content notes under the cut, I kinda feel like I need a vague content note for the content notes. Note: There's sure some CONTENT.
Asides from the sense that it might end in slow, disquieting tragedy, I found some scenes with the abusive husband triggering, and the love interest is the kind of beautiful, innocent, violent, yandere boy made childlike by trauma that always almost works for me as a het love interest but in the end makes me feel kinda gross. Especially since, while older than her, he turns into a LITERAL CHILD when hungry. But if you're into sad half-naked waifs covered in the blood of their victims, sexy tender blood-drinking, interestingly fucked up romance, etc, and can cope better than me with the other content, you may have a good time.
Content notes: explicit sex (the genitals are whited out, but you can clearly see what they are), onscreen explicit rape, physical and emotional abuse, dubcon between the main couple (he's into it but pretty innocent and she pushes past and kinks on his confusion), a pedophile briefly shows up then gets eaten
