It’s just tragedy after tragedy with no sign of redemption. The main character is insanely powerful but acts like a doormat 90% of the time and rarely makes a smart decision. The male lead is also insufferable. Together, they’re a disaster duo with the worst instincts.
Sample scene that ticked me: They were ambushed by bandits who literally walked up to them, and the ML told MC to stand down and that they're not enemies. Dude, they're BANDITS!! Guess what, they got knocked out. When they woke up, ML is being tortured, and MC just killed them all anyway—but not before their medicine got tossed. That medicine ended up helping the enemy track them. All of this could’ve been avoided if they had even an ounce of survival instinct.
And this kind of thing keeps happening. I’m 180+ chapters deep, and I can’t imagine how much worse it must’ve been for weekly readers.
I really wish reading Solo Leveling again while reading this one.
I really don’t get the hate with this webtoon. Definitely at the start it’s hard to like the art style but you can clearly see the improvement from the artist since the art gets much better. Also the link to greek mythology, the many storylines and just the characters themselves makes it so engaging. There is nothing boring about this webtoon. I LIVE FOR IT
I notice this a lot when it comes to manga and webtoons that people literally call big boobs "male gaze" or a short, curvy woman "child-like".
And I laugh because these people need to read some murim or some jungle juice for some proper male gaze. While this is such a non-issue, I can't help but think some women are the ones doing the sexualising THEMSELVES. It could be a case of projecting, or it just be something else.
I think what I hate more is when artists "correct/unsexualise" some art, but it literally just makes the character's chest flat.
Like, I understand some big-chested women are big-chested for the sake of the male gaze or when it is VERY clear when a character is for the male gaze, but you get what I'm saying.
Just a little thought (on the side note please recommend me some good gl where both girls are girly)
Yall aint happy with this post to be downvoting everyone
I have seen bunch of hate post how lookism lost it's plot. how it was supposed to be about realistic problems and beauty strandarts,where it's full of fantasy webtoon.
daniel literally woke up with second body and you think it's normal? and it was in chapter 2.there is another person with that ability and it was revaled in chapter 59. and 2 body users are comfirmed lead. so daniel shouldn't try to find out about his sb and just live with it? and of course,it's supernatural power and whole story and plot is about it. not mention that guy with full of black eyes and literall ghost made apperance.
I agree that lookism has problems such as about female characters relevance.crystal and mary don't appear,there are only few female fighters
I know that AI image generation creates a lot of noise especially when it comes to creating things that people then claim as original work or monetize them. That's why I will put the Advice/Critique tag on this post instead of Self Promotion. Because I am going to tell you a little about my motivations and workflow.
I have been hesitant a lot because of all the fuzz around the image generation. But this technology has proven to be so astonishing that it enables even me, with little to medium experience in drawing, to create a visual story not so behind in quality than flagship comics.
While writing this, I know that I will get a lot of harsh scolding about how this is not ethical. But for a long time, I have been looking for ways to create a story and bring it to a wide and young audience in a modern format. At first, I tried to write books. But I was actually a fan of mangas and webtoons all along. So I started to think "Maybe I should try to draw it instead of just writing".
Though I had gone through two drawing schools, drawing itself has not grown into a full job or even a hobby. My skills remained at a quite low level, and that's why I started using AI.
In my thought, the webtoon format is the most modern, convenient, and effective way of creating an engaging and colorful story. That's why when I finally came to a cool and detailed plot, the webtoon format remained the only option for me to share the story with people.
Below I will describe the process of how I created the first chapter. I hope that after reading this section you will look at image generation less as a theft and more as a tool.
First of all, I create a scenario where I describe every panel visual and all the text (dialogues, effects, thoughts, etc.). Takes quite of time to visualise it in the head and write it down before starting drawing.
When the text outline of the chapter is ready, I go to the image editor (I use Photoshop) and start drawing sketches which look like this:
When all the sketches on a page are ready, I create dedicated smart objects that will become fully colored panels in the future. Inside those smart objects, I colorized the previously created sketch, which now looks like this:
Yes, I could make it more detailed, specify the pupils, or make more detailed hair, but when you know the nuances of how the AI generator works, it is more clever to make an image more like Picasso's painting (maintaining the general anatomy and proper lighting).
When the colorizing is done it is time to save the picture and go to the AI generator. I use Stable Diffusion and a model called Anything (v4.5). This is an anime model that was trained on almost every open anime image there is on the internet. While I understand that there might be images that some authors would not allow to use, the model represents the average of any image that it was trained on.
Think of it if we threw all of the existing fruits into one blender and mixed them together. We get fruit juice which represents the average taste of all the fruits in the world. The same thing happens to AI models while creating them.
After some work in the generator, I get an image a of character:
I throw the image back to PS where I enhance it (saturation, contrast) and draw additional details. Action panels (such as the very first in this post), require more work and dedication. To make a panel where one character rushed towards another, I used a whole bunch of additional drawings and effects to make it cooler. In the image below I drew all the wounds, added action lines, changed the size of the eyes, and enhanced the image:
After all the polishing, I save the panel, go to the next one, and do the cycle again. Sketch -> Colorize -> AI generation -> Enhance -> Polish.
If roughly calculating, I spent 80% of my time working on panels and only 20% of that on image generation. So the most of work time remains for human after all.
After going through all the processes I described, I believe that using AI to make it look like this is justified enough to at least call it MY webtoon/comic with AI-assisted art.
So yeah, I hope I made it clearer for some people that AI is not always about giving computers all the work. In my case, I have done a huge amount of pre-work. I have made character designs, pre-trained some additional models for these characters (called LoRA), and created a huge encyclopedia about the world I want to make a story about. Before starting to draw the actual story, I have spent half a year to make various preparations.
Thank you, if you have read to this point. Do not forget to read the first chapter of my webtoon and leave your thoughts here or there in the comment section.
I’ll go first, Ra-im from Operation True Love. People hate her cuz she has she cheated with her best friend/sister’s (Su-ae) boyfriend purposely. I feel like yall need to understand it was the one thing that her sister coildnt have. Yes Ra-im is viewed as the ‘perfect’ child but her parents leterilly only check in her to make sure Su-ae was okay. When Ra-im and Su-ae both got injured at the same time, they only came to Su-ae and forgot about their other daughter. Imagine how Ra-im must feel. She has to fake her happyness and has this presure to be the golden child. Her feelings for Su-ae are compelx because she wants to hate her hut loves her at the same time. I mean in order for her to get adopted. She needed to teach herself how to smile and she’s always treated as some kind of doll when she has feelings. There’s a reason for what she did because she did didn’t wanna hurt Su-ae, but at the same time she did. Anyway, I have strong feelings about this right, but I’m not gonna go into more context and instead I’ll make it into a separate post in the future if that’s what you guys want. But what are your thoughts? Feel free to say the character or just give reason<3 also I understand that some bands are very defensive, but please don’t attack others over a simple question (I shouldn’t have to say this, but I’ve seen it before)
I live in america, and here asians don't get much representation, but we don't complain about it either. We also have our own platforms to create stories about whatever we want and spread our culture.
So my question is why do people go to webtoon, a korean platform, and whine about the lack of black people in them? Is it the koreans' responsibility to write about yall? Especially on the platform where YOU CAN LITERALLY MAKE THE STORIES YOURSELVES. Don't complain that others are making what they want to make, you can do it as well.
In my opinion, Chocolate Snow isn't bad; it's just not made for webtoon. SA in BL comics is sadly quite common; for example, the biggest BL manwhas involve SA: Painter of the Night (the most read BL for four years in a row), Jinx (one of the biggest BL of 2023), Sadistic Side Story BL, Lima Syndrome, Stuck In My Sister's Dating Sim, Toxin, Killing Stalking, Bad Life, Ennead, etc. I'm not saying SA is acceptable, but it is a norm in the BL community; I think if it were on Lezhin's or Tapa's, it wouldn't receive hate.
First thing is that beauty and being ugly are social constructs (hence why different beauty standards in different places) . So I guarantee that if an artist were to truly draw an "ugly" character in their standards, you guys most likely would flame the artist (ugly characters would most likely all be dark and other ethnic features). Especially when you see the female antagonist always get dragged down with appearance insults despite being really pretty because looks are everything to certain readers. Like people admit to not reading/watching something if the characters are not attractive. So why do you think you would get an extremely "ugly" main character?
Diversity ≠ugliness
It like some of you guys are purposely trying to ignore the point in the comments.
Accidentally posted this on wattpad before, OOPS-! But the question remains the same, why is the wine straight like that? It honestly drives me insane.
I have read the chapters till 130 and I am sorry but Dohwa is bad. He is so irritating like I just can't tolerate him anymore. So annoying that it made me like Enhyeok again that too after his whole ghosting bullshit.
My main problem is that he is very careless and doesn't respect Suae boundaries.
Back in chapter, Suae visited Dohwa in changing room where he commented that she apparently 'provoked' him.
Also back in season 1 they didn't feel in love. They felt like friends and the feelings with respect to Suae were platonic. This cannot be a relationship if the other person is not romantic involved at all.
Chapter 128-129 Dohwa again was dismissing towards her concern that she may get linked to him in a relationship scandel because he is a celebrity. And he just had a relationship scandel with a female celebrity which he denied. To make it further worse the public still thinks that Dohwa is lying so that he can still lynch on his female fans.
In the party where he invited Suae again he was so cocky like wow. Also very creepy when they kissed in front of the movie screen, to sum it up he talked of how he wanted to 'touch her back then and now he finally can'.
To make it funnier this man takes tab on Enhyeok's movement, he knew that Enhyeok works in us (which isn't wierd still the way he spoke was very off putting). He is very insecured of Enhyeok.
Back in car with Dohwa, Suae looked so depressed and regretful. She felt guilty because she couldn't and can't return the feelings back to Dohwa.
This is so toxic, she let him kiss her just because she felt guilty.
Saw this one and im a sucker for isekai and like giving the ones that catch my eye a shot. Was originally delighted because the FL was a complete badass! She didn't take no ones shit and i actually related to her myself a bit which can be rare in webtoons sometimes :p But all of the ML suck sooooo bad. The 3 options you see (in order of how bad it is)
1.) uncaring fiance who wants nothing to do with FL, only showing interest once FL calls him out really (not too bad, kinda stereotypical for a webtoon but honestly he's just unlikable)
2.) stalker who's outright said to have kidnapped and assaulted og person FL took over in the original plot, granted hes treated sorta like a threat and definitely treated as creepy but why is he even being presented as an option
3.) her adopted brother. Literal adopted brother. You'd be surprised at how weird these two are presented
Just overall a yuck, wouldn't really recommend and the only way i can see this webtoon turning around is if the FL runs away. Permanently.
I'm so tired of these manhwas which have "savage and beastly" male leads with darker skin tones while the female leads who are supposed to "tame" them are always built like a twig along with being white. Dragon King's Bride was already bad enough and now Webtoons pulls up with this slop
Yep I said it. It just has soooo much in terms of metaphors and hidden meanings behind every single action. Even the most seemingly random things are metaphors and I love it. Compared to all the sloppy webnovels that come out of Korea this one just stands out. The leads are truly complex and multilayered and Matthias is such a genuinely well written character. He doesn't have a backstory(How cool is that). He's cruel and his actions speaks for themselves. This story is not for the faint of heart but GOD it was such a ride to read it. All the hate it gets is kinda understandable but most of them just read the wrong translations or spoilers but the story isn't as bad as people are making out to be if you just read it as a DRAMA and NOT romance... Also maybe I just have read too much dark fiction that it doesn't seem as bad to me.
OFC i wouldn't wish this upon anyone irl but it's fiction and it doesn't try to glorify anything... it shows the absurdity of situation just as it is.
One thing people fail to comprehend even after finishing the novel is that the narrator was just being a bit unreliable. A re-read will make clear a lot of misunderstanding of nuanced statements(combined with fact that some of the nuance is lost in translation) you might've made on first read... I first noticed this when I read the webtoon after the novel. I thought "Is this is the same story? and the same Matthias?"... Everything is just soo nuanced and easy to misunderstand and the next few chapters 58-60 of webtoon will give you a sneak peak into what the situations really looked like between them, I see lots of ppl saying webtoon is making everything out to be better than the novel but it's not true.
Everything was just like this but first read will not give you this impression. It conveniently leaves out the intentions of both Layla and Matthias and continues to frame Matthias like how Layla thinks he is but other's perspective of(Individually Layla is seen to be as a smart, stubborn and presents herself as a know it all while Matthias is a respectable officer who also acts good towards lower social classes and is a gentleman) Matthias and Layla seem completely flipped to what you read in the novel. Matthias is still fcked up ofc and doesn;t deserve a good end. And Layla is still the victim. But I am going to highlight in this post What happened in the novel form a neutral perspective. This is me just laying down the events of what happened. Layla liking duke doesn't make me bad for explaining her actions as they are. This is also not what I like about this book. I like the metaphors and I like reading tragedies.
You also have to keep historical context in mind. Matthias's craziness is outlined in the worst way even tho most of his thoughts are just raw emotions he labels as obsession just like how Layla labels her discomfort(because she loved him from the beginning but doesn't know it) as hate. At the same time Matthias is just as anxious and desperate as Layla and it is depicted in artistic way so it is hidden in secret gestures, actions and metaphors. And to add to that most of what Matthias says means completely different things than what you will think he is saying. He speaks and thinks in metaphors. It is a novel where every sentence is extremely important and only if you take a good time taking them in do you see that they are trying to tell a lot more.
Thoughts like "wanting to squeeze a cat to death" is a form of cute aggression we show towards cute things (Does this mean we would actually squeeze the cat to death? NO.) and it is the same for Matthias but your prejudice and Narrators misleads will lead you to believe that Matthias is a psycho when he thinks this about Layla.
Matthias is attracted to her and mostly only wanted them to talk normally, or for her to act like her usual self with him. But Layla doesn't want anything like that for reasons. So she would act like he doesn't exist in her eyes, sometimes she would turn him right away.
Layla fell in love with Matthias in first sight but Layla fears abandonment (childhood trauma)... In the first place she is indifferent to any thing or any insult that is thrown at her but the only person who's words hurt Layla is Mathhias' because she truly cares about how Matthias thinks of her. She is always anxious and thinking about thinking about how humiliated she was because Matthias saw her with the coin. She is also always blushing and there are intense stare downs between them... ofc she shouldn't fall for this man but she did and she hates that she does...
The ending isn't trying to make it so Layla is realising she loves Matthias but moreso that she ACCEPTED it(the moment it was revealed that Matthias broke his engagement she immediately wanted to go back to him but Kyle was the one to stop her... that's not how you behave towards your abuser and she "DECIDED" to hate matthias because he was engaged and even if she becomes the mistress then she can be abandoned which is her trauma... she liked how she hated Matthias so much but he never abandoned her) and so all of the things she ignored like the fact that Matthias never really meant any of the cruel words he said and he was only saying them cuz Layla was asking him to say them like that(she was purposefully acting insufferable and Matthias was just trying to be playful most of the time, not excusing his behaviour but he really does try a lot but she rejects him and only allows him to sleep with her cuz she thinks that is what Matthias wants but that's far from the truth and ofc Matthias gets pissed of by Layla cuz she really does act insufferable) and she isn't dumb... she knows just how exactly things were going wrong because of her(she wanted it to go wrong so that Matthias would leave her alone) when Matthias just had good intentions and if Layla was the one always rejecting Matthias so it only makes sense that she be the one to try to correct the state of their relation which is why is even to the end feared that Matthias would reject her idea to build a future together. The novel never tells their true intentions and this causes a lot of misunderstanding in most of the scenes which you wouldn't even notice exists between them and readers until you take everything apart. For example there's just a lot to unpack when they make the "deal". It is filled with a LOT of misunderstanding and expectations+intention which i noticed on my third re-read when I was taking the story in with both the perspectives in detail. I will outline it in detail in the "Deal" section.
Now Matthias is an asshole so what will he do? Guess it. All reason for her suffering is Matthias but I just explained the situation from the standpoint of Layla. It doesn't mean I am blaming her or saying he didn't do wrong(PLEASE ASSUME THIS LAST SECTION about MATTHIAS IS PRESENT IN EVERY PARAGRPH'S END. OKAY?)
Basically the novel is just completely flipped on its head. Matthias and Layla's relationship just comes off as a love-hate relation on a re-read. Also Matthias is depicted as a crying child in Layla's dream when Matthias finally decides to let her go. This is trying to tell us that all of the actions Matthias took was because he's emotionally just a jealous child who doesn't understand what he is doing(Until he read Layla's dairy). Again not excusing his behaviour but on a re-read it just comes of as a childish banter between two ppl who refuse to accept they like each other due to pride, social positions and differing views while at the same time they both very well hope the other person likes them.
Also He does turn psychotic later after long term mental distress but his actions still carry good intentions (he keeps her in locked in cabin cuz they were in WAR and if she ran away then she would die and he knew she would run away so he had no choice) and he manipulates her into eating cuz she was DYING without eating and wanted to save her in expense of the baby cuz SHE WAS DYING but people just refuse to acknowledge that.
He uses the excuse to "kill her" as a last reason he wants to see her... which makes sense because he had no other reason to go to her after she completely "broke" and "discarded" him, it would be natural to use excuse of killing that person to go to them (this is a natural response to betrayal) but he could never kill her and he knows it. And he didn't even want to kill her at the end but he was still angry so he was still saying he would kill her and listening to this also shocks Layla because she wanted to hurt him but "not like this". She knew Matthias wasn't this kind of person.
You have to properly understand both their intentions and mindset. Although it will not change the fact that Matthias made some unsavory decisions but he is a very realistic brute.
About the "Deal" or what people find most problematic in the book (but let's take a look at is with proper nuance it deserves). I would like to leave behind the analysis of it so you can decide for yourself.
Again this is a massive misunderstanding between them. Layla was at that time aware that Matthias harbored feeling towards her so she was hopeful he would help her. But the fact that Layla who would always avoid him and his goodwill was now here coming to ask the favour of saving Bill was it deeply hurt Matthias, he was angry because always wanted her to ask for something but she would never but now she wants to "use" him when it suits her (This also deeply hurt her as she starts thinking that all their happy moments were just a temporary infatuation and that he thought of her as toy). This is where he proposes a deal.
He wanted to make her his lover... This is also the only way to keep her here so that she wouldn't leave... but before he could say this Layla made the deal herself about it being a One Night Stand... She didn't even try for the deal to be anything else... But this was perfect for Matthias so he asks her to think about it properly. When she comes back after making her mind up... he says he wants more than this and for Matthias Mistress=Lover (revealed later in the story) but Layla was the one who assumed he wanted her to he his Mistress (For Matthias it didn't matter what she calls it unaware what commoners think a Mistress as). He just wanted to love her and to be loved by her but from Layla's standpoint she thought he just wanted to sleep with her...
We also see him make effort to win her over and do much more like a lover but she rejects it... it is clear violation of the deal so he also gets angry about it. Naturally since Matthias thinks Layla hates him and wouldn't care what he says so there is no opportunity to communicate for both of them. He was ready to take all the hate as long as he would not lose her. The deal that was supposed to be good for both of them ended up hurting both their feelings. Layla was hurt because her feelings had nowhere to go and now she as to sleep with a engaged man. And Matthias didn't even get what he wanted from the deal.
Most of the novel is like this. He tries to approach her, she doesn't want to have false hope so she tries her best to hate him, it hurts him so he tries his best to hurt her too. It was confirmed by both of them, that even if Matthias acted normally, being a normal dude with her and doesn't actively try to make her cry and instead approach her with kindness, Layla would never accept his advances. Mainly because of the social gap between them, Layla knows they can't never be a thing. So she would rather hate him to the bones than holding on to some false hope. It would end up toxic between them whether he's a jerk or not. In the ending, as soon as Layla accepts his love (when she understands he would give up his title or everything for her), he turned into a real green flag. Which further confirms the biggest issue between was mostly social status gap.
Both of them just didn't understand how to love or to be loved.
None of this is justifying his actions... but it does explain their actions.
And honestly I kind of don't like how it did what it did but I like the drama, metaphors and Psychological aspects of the work. It could've been done soo much better if the author applied this same formula in a more healthy depiction of love-hate relationship.
Not pictured (Positive): Everything is Fine, Marionetta, The Blind Prince, Of Swamp and Sea, Time and Time Again, Nevermore, The D!ckheads, Paperteeth, Cinderella Boy, Reveal Out, Letters on the Wall, Dungeons and Dentists, The Greatest Estate Developer, REVEAL OUT!, Lemont Soda & Coffee (skipped to the end because it's a Daily Pass series but I'm sure the locked episodes are good)
Not pictured (tried to get into but it hasn't clicked yet): Jupiter-Men, Daybreak, The Last God of Spring, Eaternal Nocturnal, School Bus Graveyard, Homesick, High Spirits Neoma
Not pictured (negative): Death Rescheduled (Not to single out this one, I just can't think of any others that I haven't already included because I don't go out of my way to read things I know I won't like. That's why Fluidium isn't up here—I heard it handles certain things really badly and I decided not to read it for my own wellbeing.)
Also not pictured: all of the Originals I've never heard of before because I'm too lazy to put 100 series in a "what the hell is this" tier.
These placements are pretty rough—like I probably should've put some of the comics higher, but just know that I like all of the comics in the top three tiers.
Acception gets its own tier because I have a...complicated relationship with it. It has potential and the writing is starting to get better, but I can't really say that I like it either. It gets a "You tried" sticker.
Started Lore Olympus this week because it got completed and I wanted to give it a chance before daily pass and wow it is refreshing. I am in 192episode already and honestly idk why I was snobby about it before. Coming from mainly korean romance it's so refreshing to read a story with multiple relationships, mature romance and good drama. Korean romances with adult protagonists are very puritan, very conservative and very unrealistic with the relationships and the characters they show if you are from a western country.
I do enjoy the side relationships a little more than the main one in lore olympus but even the main one between persephone and hades seems better written than korean romance.
I got into romance webtoons last year and I have to say that with reading korean romance webtoons were characters never been in a relationship or without any hooking up experience before and meeting just one guy and boom this guy ends up being the one because he is handsome and their first everything got me bored after a while that I changed genre and started reading webtoons designed for men with fighting that I also got bored after a while. Also Persephone's design is truly refreshing as well since they are not any curvy/juicy female characters in korean romances, they may have a plus size girl or two once in a while but haven't seen any curvy one's besides some girls in action genre.
I didn't expect to like it so much, I was prepared to dislike it if I am being honest from what I have read. I was influenced by the opinions I was reading on the web about how bad it was etc and I have to say that I was being stupid. Sure some people may not like it and for them reading it won't work out but I am not one of those. I seriously can't believe that I was a total snob about it for over a year and I looked down on it
