yapping moment

very long rant and heavy spoilers up until chapter 92 incoming

i am so mad at this story because it started genuinely so good and was extremely interesting, like there was clearly some idea behind it, and i loved it more and more with each chapter up until chapter 50 or so. after that, there was plot twist after plot twist after plot twist to the point where the later plot consisted of nothing more than plot twists that kept getting more and more ridiculous. like the author was just throwing some stupid and unreasonable shit at the reader and tried to make it logical and consistent with the story they set up in the first chapters. i actually liked jeoboom (was that the eye bags guy’s name?) at first and i thought he would a nice, kind of opposite force to ilmo/ah-in. but when he was supposed to die for the 10th time and was still alive, it just became boring. he started out as a really interesting character, clearly unhinged and obsessed with ilmo but that’s it, i don’t think there was anything else to him besides that and his growing obsession with ilmo, which served as nothing more than a plot device. like they had only 2-3 reasonable interactions and then the guy became nuts and wanted to kill ah-in and later ilmo as well. he was so on and off in the story, it was honestly so annoying. don’t even let me start on myeongjun because he was done so dirty, especially in these last side story chapters. like i’d just rather take it as it ended with the main story - he went after the boar and that’s it. why did the author feel the need to torment him so much more and ultimately kill him for ah-in (who didn’t give a shit about him at that point)? it just feels like done for the sake of pure shock value and yet another “plot twist”. the detective who fell for ah-in… why? they barely had any meaningful interactions? like i’d get it if he only wanted to bang ah-in (who wouldn’t) at that one moment when ah-in was staying at his place, i was kinda hoping for some steam between them but without any attachments, but bro then waited a whole fucking year just to tell ah-in that he feels something more for him and can wait for him even longer. like bro, get it over with, why do you even care about him so much?

like i feel there were so many side characters that had so much potential and yet at the later parts of the story they were used only when it was convenient for the plot, like props. it just felt so bland and got me so angry, because they really could’ve been utilized in better ways.

while reading this webtoon, i had really high hopes that the relationship between ah-in and ilmo would be something akin to will and hannibal’s - the killing duo, the murder husbands - and that i could enjoy them being fucked up together and having this twisted definition of love. but man, this didn’t feel like love at all, it was just stockholm syndrome from the very beginning. and i won’t hear a word from anyone saying that “oh but ah-in had a choice, ilmo always told him he could leave if he wanted” mf do you know what manipulation and playing mind games mean? ah-in feared for his life at first, thinking that ilmo knew he pretended to be blind and could kill him at any moment. later he was scared for the life of that piece of shit that pretended to be his boyfriend (the one with glasses at the very beginning, i don’t remember his name tho). and ilmo had been playing a game with ah-in from the very start, carefully conditioning him to think that he had a choice while in reality getting into his head so much that ah-in believed it was best to stay with ilmo so that no one he cared about would get hurt. if that’s not manipulation then idk what is. and don’t get me wrong, i absolutely loved this premise and was hoping to see more of it. but i just don’t think ah-in has ever been anything more than a victim here - he and ilmo were never equals, he was never in a position of power to pose any real danger to ilmo and even when he thought he finally was, it turned out that ilmo still had the upper hand all along (i’m thinking about the boat scene at the end of the main story and the poisoned wine). ilmo’d been obsessing over ah-in since his childhood and he had some pretty twisted idea of ah-in and his life in general, and that i liked too. but i never ever got even the slightest feeling that ilmo had treated him as more than what he’d been obsessing over for these many years - i felt as if ah-in was nothing more than just a concept from him, and not a real person. it’s quite understandable considering how ilmo is a textbook example of a psychopath, but this is why i don’t understand why it was ah-in and not anybody else. i get that he could start preying upon ah-in because of his infatuation with him at first, but i don’t think there was ever anything more than that coming from ah-in (except for him believing he actually loves ilmo and in a result kind of reciprocating ilmo’s “feelings”) to keep ilmo so obsessed with him. idk, i just think that considering how ilmo treated other people in his life (especially his victims), he would’ve become bored with ah-in pretty quickly without the latter taking some more initiative, and thus becoming more “interesting” to ilmo. idk, maybe i was expecting something more like will and hannibal’s relationship, and that’s why i got disappointed. but it just doesn’t feel like a real love to me, especially with ah-in genuinely wanting to turn his life around multiple times; he’s never actually actively and willingly killed another person, never was in favor of any murders, never wanted to willingly take part in any of it and was very much against ilmo’s killings, and as the story progressed he became more and more like that, and thus becoming more and more like a true victim of everything that happened to him, especially at the very end. idk, for me it just screams stockholm syndrome and i’m kind of disappointed because it’s really not what i was hoping for when i was still reading the story. i don’t have that much to say about ilmo because for the most part of the story, i absolutely loved how unapologetically unhinged and just insane the author made him. it was a breath of fresh air and a really interesting character that i don’t see often in webtoons, considering how so many authors want to make a psycho character who is also supposed to be actually good deep down inside, a combo that i absolutely despise. ilmo was just insane from the very beginning and he never tried to cosplay as a “normal” human being, and i loved this transparency. but that’s why i can’t help but hate how meaningless his actions get at the end of the story, like there isn’t much thought put behind them (but that’s just how it is with all of the characters in the later chapters). he’s just killing for the sake of killing and that wouldn’t be so bad but the author kind of forgot to add a little bit more plot (or a closure of it) to it. especially these side stories feel so forced and rushed, like it’d be so much better if we ended with ilmo getting ah-in back from his villa and meyongjun chasing after that boar. everything after that felt really unnecessary. and the story about ilmo’s father and younger brother was just ass, it did nothing but add more ridiculousness to ilmo’s character and show how cruel and insane he is (something that has already been shown well enough throughout these past ~70 chapters of the story). like it genuinely added nothing of substance, or at least nothing that was worth getting a whole side story to it.

again, i’m actually angry at this story because it seemed so, so promising to me and i actually thought that there were some ideas for it and interesting plot behind it, but in later chapters i just felt like the author threw everything they got inside their head and tried to make some sense of it (it didn’t work out tho). i’m not going to even mention how utterly goofy it felt to see every single character being gay, like what was the point of it? there wasn’t a single meaningful female character (except for the mother but she was offed pretty quickly) and at this point i just can’t think of any other reason besides having more opportunities for the male characters to fuck, even if they fucking doesn’t make any sense story-wise. but like, really, why everyone had to be gay???

anyway, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.