To start off, I live in a country where alnst merch in UNAVAILABLE. So, the only option is to buy them from overpriced resellers, and I do not have the money. I do have a printer, pinterest and free will though.
So yeah, I suppose😭
The only problem is that now, I have NO WHERE to put my 'merch'. Gotta start working on that🫃
[On The Way To Meet Mom]
I've seen a lot of people calling them 'he', and I was someone who did that too early on, only to actually FOCUS on the dialogue and realise that Ryder's always referred to without gender specific pronouns. Just wanted to put that out there.
New favourite trope added to the list.
Androgynous looking swindler with a sharp tongue and burly hammer wielding man with family trauma, (lovingly) forced to co-parent a child who's looking for her dad 7 years in the past.
I am so bewildred and for the life of me I can't figure out what is happening anymore, and I also have a very strong gut feeling as to this is simply the begining of it.
S1 was 'coherent' in simple terms, and sure it had its odd moments but it was a fairly sensible and eerie mystery.
babe i tell you this I can NOT say the same for this season, and im only on episode 1. I was weirded the fuck out with that old guy just coming back again and winking and showing off a thumbs up. And then this bald dude pops tf outta nowhere like its a Courage the Cowardly Dog episode. Genuinely feels like the best way to describe it. And then Leland's bursting into a song along with Audrey's dad and brother and they're dancing on tables GNG WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK AM I WATCHING.
It lwk feels like I'm the one who's starting to spiral and its been just 20 minutes into the episode.
The art is whimsical. The characters are very well fleshed out. The world building is solid. It is GL though, so if that's not what you're into then TOO BAD SUCKER YOU MISSED OUT ON PEAK
...yeah it's really cool.
​
I'm sorry but Maddie literally fucking threatening her was the end of the line for me. Lexi was undoubtedly in the right. All of the people around her are MAJORLY screwed up in one way or the other, and she's someone who's trying her hardest to make it without selling herself out, and is doing a pretty good job at it.
Her 'friends' do NOT give a shit about her, anyone except Rue, and well she has her head already down the pit trying to survive whatever fucked up shit she's gotten into so. Everyone else is screwing her over or has the potential and the empty moral consciousness TO screw her over. All in all, she very much so has the right to protect her future, espeially seeing how the stunt with her trying help Jules out backfired.
THE PROBLEM however, is that Lexi is as of now unable to exercise that right. Lwk why her character also hits so close to home for me, I was someone who didn't have the best people around me during a period in my life, and I was unable to say 'no'. Got over it, and thats what Lexi needs. I'm sorry, but Maddie's threat is mostly empty. She's not in any way, in a position of power. The only reason she gets Cassie's leash is curtosy Cassie's own character.
My girl Lexi needs to get away from these people smh.
And if I haven't read it, I have definitely known about it. Most likely even been through atleast the first chapter. There high key isn't anything left for me to read now.
I've been through all the good and slightly original stories of the Otome Isekai genre. I've dipped my toes into the pond of regression slop, so much so that I'm very much so sick of reading the same plot again and again and again.
There literally isn't anything new. Anything new that's good, I'm already reading it but it ends up being the Same plot at the end of the day, despite a brilliant starting.
Manhwas like how to ride the Hero's coattails have actually pretty amazing promise, but again, I am already reading them and the one in question is on hiatus as of now.
I just really want something new to read. Even OI novels don't offer respite considering they too are, the same damn thing all over again.
Maybe this one's just on me, maybe I've read through everything WAY too fast and need to slow down. I don't know. I just want something to read and have nothing.
Oooh boy oh boy.
Let me start off here. Kahu. You beautiful man.
And now let me jump right into here. Kahu was a character who when initially introduced, was not to put it frankly, 'all that'. The same generic second male lead, the same unrequited yearning, the same kind soul who unfortunately can't live upto the standards of the yandre ML.
But then, we get to know about his character and past, >!especially in the first Timeline. !< And the whole thing just felt so fresh to me. It was the first time a character that wasn't simply an archetype was introduced to me in an OI. Mind you though, I read this one a few years back. I've found a few more unique characters in other works by now, but the number is very low.
Anyways, yeah. Kahu's POV added a whole new dimension and perspective to the story. And it wasn't just that. His character traits themselves were something that made me admire him. Despite his longing for Charlize, and him >!having to face an ending of being tortured just to find her!< Kahu made it clear that he won't stand for the Tyrannical path Charlize and Dylan were going on.
Huh. A male character who is in live with the FL but has his own rationality and brains with him?
Wow.
Even his entire dilemma with struggling to recognize the new version of Charlize was an interesting read. However, that's where I think the author should have branched out his story instead of trying to box him up into the oh so puppy dog second male lead submissive archetype. Because as a character Kahu deserved as much Sympathy granted to him by the narrative as Charlize was.
And maybe that's why I was very 'off put' >!with the whole Dulan forcing Kahu to remember his painful torture.!< I understand that was maybe in character for Dylan, but I believe that the story should have handled it differently or with more tact. I believe Kahu and Charlize to be parallels in some strange sort of a way. >!Both Destined to the same gruesome fate in the first timeline, albeit Charlize's was much more dragged on.!<
Hence by this point I felt like the story stopped treating Kahu like a separate character and instead treated him like a plot device. And as for the ending, I actually liked it as one for Charlize and Dylan. I do understand that they're the main characters, and so I was cool with it.
But then came the side stories.
Someone tell me why the author thought it'd be a good idea to, now referring to the tittle, CUCK KAHU AND TURN HIM INTO A SIMP IN THEM? Gng. The story is done. GIVE MY MAN SOME CLOSURE. BUT NOOOO💔💔💔💔
so yeah lol.
And before someone comes at me saying "OH but we NEED to understand Mincheol's POV" or "OH no but Taeha and Haesoo showed progress in their relationship because Haesoo openly asked him for what she wants"
GANG. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK HAVE WE BEEN DOING THE PAST 30-40 SMTH CHAPTERS OTHER THAN THIS😭
There's like a formula to this now. Make the Chapter really short, half of it needs to be Haesoo and Tae Ha, where Haesoo shows vulnerability but we still don't see jack and Jill from Tae Ha's part, and by that I'm referring to the fact that Haesoo still knows nothing about Tae Ha.
Then we switch to Minshit or sometimes Ari. And omfg I'm so, so sick of this. Mincheol either is manipulating her and she's got no clue or the more occurring instance happens where we get those goddamn fucking flashbacks.
Flashbacks which have added nothing to the characters or the story for the past 30 chapters mind you. It's just this constant agonizing loop of Mincheol being delusional and justifying himself, we seeing his narcissistic behaviour through his mistreatment of Haesoo, him being absolutely up in his heads about Haesoo, and that. Is. It.
I think this time I'm finally going to stop reading this till I know for a fact that somethings happening. All of you guys enjoy, ill check this sub after 2-3 months now.
Adios🙏
Before jumping me, really think about it. REALLY hard.
Do we know anything of Na Haesoo other than her past with Kang Mincheol and her present with Tae Ha? Every single element of her personality is a broad adjective, maybe something like 'quiet' 'tired' and you can add on to that. None of it is an actual personality or a character.
We know nothing of her hobbies. Nothing of her quirks, her likes and dislikes, nothing. For a brief period after the episode where Tae Ha got her out of the shady club, I was so excited because we finally got a hint of how her mind really works as she told us she already knew from the start her interactions with Tae Ha were shady and she was okay with it. It showed her vigilance she had to develop as someone in a situation as shitty as hers. Genuinely busted out of my seat to do a small 'Yippee'.
...and you're telling me that same woman buys into the 'lottery phone' 'haunted apartment' and all that? She does not. No.
See, at the start of the story I actually was really into this aspect of her character. A 'withered flower' who's youth had been drained by a deadbeat husband. Of course she'd be mellow, she's lost everything that defined her as a person. So I was really into unraveling Haesoo as a character as the story progressed.
I do not think that's going to happen anymore. Yeah.
100 chapters in and like I said, we still don't see who Na Haesoo is as a person. Nothing. At this point, her story is entirely established by the two male characters in her life. Which, really sucks, because her character was really unique when we started off. A mature woman who wasn't playing into the virginity kink and was not some gullible and naive twirling chick? Hell yeah im into that.
And, when you really think about it, even in the flashbacks we never really see anything concrete about Na Haesoo other than her abuse. Which I was hoping would be something else that the story would touch on as it went on (because it did in the start, with the Mincheol and her father parallel), but seemingly it only exists as a plot point of the past nothing more.
I so wish there was more to her than Mincheol and Tae Ha. Even Ari has more personality than her Which is diabolical to say in the context of the story, but it is what it is. I really want Haesoo to evolve as a character more than a female reader insert fantasy, and yeah those were my two cents.