halfcactus

I've been catching up on my journaling and updating my cnovel log and looking at everything, I'm beginning to suspect I don't actually like books. (Or movies.) 🤔

Personal cnovel + manhua log:


Recent/current reads:
公爵小姐不想被寵壞 The Daughter of Duke Doesn't Want to be Spoiled
Coming-of-age/slice-of-life comedy about the peerless beauty Yvette Winchworth, a sheltered duke's daughter with a lot of status privilege AND pretty privilege. The duke is, of course, Yvette's mom (screencap), who is sending Yvette off to stay with a mercenary group for two years while she (the duke) joins the political fray. The rest of the manhua is about Yvette adjusting to life outside her mansion and learning to fit in with the ML's motley crew.

This was a nice, light read. Yvette is super cute and she loves her mom so much she does everything to learn and be less of a burden. It gets a bit rushed in the end but I didn't mind because I wasn't interested in prolonging the storyline with Yvette’s dad or seeing the imperial power struggle plot lol. There's a (het) romance with the captain of the mercenary army, but Yvette cares most about her mom, her new friends/home, and the sheep. I enjoyed it a lot! Especially since it's only around 54 chapters total and has a clear destination.

The English translation is okay at first but gets progressively worse, to the point of feeling like MTL... Tapas and Manta appear to be using the same translation so there is no escape for me. >:(


她的山，她的海 Her Mountain, Her Sea by 扶華 Fu Hua
Loaded this up on my phone mostly bc I miss having something to read when I'm stuck in a bank queue. This is quite perfect for that! The reading difficulty is easy (it's a campus romance), the writing style is very clear, and the chapters are short. It's very easy to pick up and put down. Cons: there's a bullying storyline and I find bullying storylines much more annoying in novel form than in manhua or TV form. It's somewhat funny that that they deployed "and then they were roommates" as early as chapter one, though.


風之咒 The Wind Spell by Rrrrrrice
Plot as of chapter 1: Rosie is the deaf daughter of the last sea witch and a fisherman. She tries to supplement her father's income by selling oysters so he spends less time working and straining his bad leg, but one day he doesn't return. Rosie joins the search team and there, out in the deep dark ocean, she meets a siren.

Image

This is such a struggle for me to read but the art is just so beautiful and sensual and it's fun, encountering all sorts of new words. I'm wondering if this comic is going to be three chapters, one for every spell that Rosie holds on to in memory of her mother. I'm personally on team "let the wind obliterate the village and its churches while Rosie and her loved ones live happily ever after". (The last public update was part 1 of chapter 3, posted Aug 31, but it's going to take me a while to get there.)

Shamelessly just copy/pasting the stuff I wrote on comment sections. I subbed to Manta for a month because you get a discounted price + gems on your first month (Manta's system is now a hybrid model of subscription access and purchase through in-app gems) and I wanted the gems for the orca BL which just started serializing in English and is gem-only.

Killer Whale Protocol (ongoing): Modern-day m/m romance by the creator of my favorite manhwa, Goldiluck the Black Kitten. Spoiler: I don't like it as much as Goldiluck, but I guess that's to be expected.

The vibes are a bit like Shape of the Water but with standard BL tropes (I think! I confess I have never actually seen Shape of the Water). The MC is a new hire in a research facility that deals with aquatic animals that don't seem quite right. He is a lover of killer whales and starts visiting and feeding the neglected killer whale that lives in a deserted tank as part of his destressing ritual. The killer whale likes to hang out with the MC and snack on the MC's bullies when the MC isn't looking. One of the bullies is his rapist from high school, so while this arc was painful to get through, at least we know there is cold-blooded comeuppance.

CW: Rape (past), attempted rape (present)

The Iron Inside: f/f dystopia set in post-apocalyptic Seoul where everyone lives in an underground base. The story beats reminded me of a mix of Wandering Earth, Little Mushroom, and Snowpiercer, but with more eugenics since all the survivors are handpicked "elites". Inexplicably men went extinct so the only way to repopulate was to wake up cryogenically frozen humans as needed. I found the characters and relationships interesting (the FL is rightfully resented by the community since she's sleeping with the director and getting special treatment) but the worldbuilding and timeline confused me and made me curious about the novel. It was really short (> 40 chapters) and the art was great so for all its strangeness I don't regret reading it!

Semantic Error: m/m modern-day campus enemies-to-lovers romance between a computer science major and his visual design major sunbae. Loved the first two (out of three) seasons a lot but I struggle to continue things when I've paused them, however brief. The graphic design parts (exhibit A, exhibit B) had me cackling.

When Fate Finds Us: m/f romantasy where the FL has been marked as the bride of the god and is destined to be sacrificed to him imminently. She has the ability to see fragments of the future when she touches people, so she's regarded as a prized prophet when she's in fact treated as a prisoner in the temple. The ML helps her break out of the temple in exchange for her help in locating a family heirloom. The vibes so far are part Tangled, part fantasy anime, mostly enjoyable, but again, I paused it momentarily so idk when to get back.

风之咒 The Wind Spell: f/f (fish/fucker) dark fantasy set in the 17th century. It appears that the MC is some sort of witch (whose medium is a rope) and the FL is a vicious mermaid? I have only read like 2 pages so I can't really talk about the story but omg I am obsesseeeeeeeeed with this artist's art (their other comic appears to be a baihe about a lady and her maid). Vibes-wise, reminds me of Your Eternal Lies.

Because it was that sort of week.

错撩 Love by Mistake (ongoing, DNF)

Modern-day miscommunication romance between a financial journalist and the CEO that she thinks is her ex-boyfriend's girlfriend's uncle (...). I stopped after the get-together but right before the CEO finds out about the FL's initial ulterior motives because why subject myself to stress lol.

The art style is attractive, all aesthetic, sometimes empty, sometimes hot. I can't tell if it's disproportionate to how dumb the plot is, or appropriately superficial. I read the official translation that's on Webcomics App, where all the names are anglicized to an extent that I actually find them hard to remember! I only know the FL is named Sylvie Jaine... Everyone else has illogical and unmemorable names.

The pop culture callbacks were basic but fun—Pride and Prejudice 2005 and not!Nakashima Mika.

The Villainess Makes Amends (ongoing)

Shoujo fantasy comedy about a magical engineer who, with the help of her unhinged Saintess cousin, goes back one year in time to prevent her family's death. She leaves behind the corrupt system of academia and goes back to make amends with her estranged family with the goal of averting disaster and death. (In spite of its title, she's not really a villainess.)

The family stuff and the poking fun at isekai/regression tropes are super fun! Everyone in the family is a Character and in possession of the tsundere gene. The MC and her diva of a second brother have a believable sibling relationship in which their love language is bickering and insulting each other.

It gets a little less fun when the focus is on MC and the ML (especially when they're surrounded by one-bit villains), but still funny since the MC has nothing but derision over the ML's (the crown prince in disguise) shadiness in spite of all his effort to be as charming as possible. (The dynamic is somewhat similar to Maomao and Jinshi in Apothecary Diaries.)

I wish the running gag of the MC being a math-obsessed engineer were less elementary (as cute as it is that the MC loves wearing checkered print, I want her to discover more geometric patterns!) but, well, this is a shoujo. XD

Some great reaction images, like this one:

Couple Breaker (complete, ~80 chapters)

Modern-day petty revenge + breakup + fake dating romance about a couple who get revenge on their cheating exes by joining a reality/game show called Couple Breaker. I thought it sounded dumb... and then I binged the whole thing overnight. The MC, Taerin, is a popular and charismatic fashion design student whose goal is to set up a store where all the clothes are unisex/non-gendered. Her dream wedding fit for herself is a wedding suit. The ML is the neighbor who irrationally hates her.

I found the first half more fun because it was petty revenge and delightful mind games and breakup tension. Towards the later half, I kind of lost sight of the plot? The drama was brief but extraneous, the MC's "ploys" didn't make sense, and I was getting bored of the trash men. I wish we knew more about the ML's inner life—as amusing it is to have a ML who's defined solely by his relationships with women (his past GF, and his present one), it's not very satisfying. And I wish we had an extra chapter about the MC's shop because it felt so perfunctory for them to set her up to be this cool character with cool ambitions but to not give us any closure on it, as if all these interesting character things were written solely in service of the romance.

Overall: fun MC, fake dating, decent romantic chemistry, good breakup arc for the ML, great jealousy arc, but lacking in closure. The character writing is mostly simplistic, but with touches of complexity.

CW: dysmorphia + surgery, eating disorder + disordered eating—all of which are treated as insecurity and lack of confidence, though the manhwa is sympathetic to it

Till Debt Do Us Part (complete, ~80 chapters)

Modern-day contract marriage romance. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND. This manhwa doesn't live up to the drama of its English title! It's disappointingly generic and even worse, the FL's role is to fix the ML and his family. Dropped it when the FL got pregnant, which was at least pretty much near the end, but was still too much for me to deal with lol.

Plot: The FL owes the ML money. For nonsensical inheritance reasons, the ML needs to be married for a year, so he offers to write off her debt in exchange for a one-year contract marriage. The ML has abuse and abandonment issues which cause him to be a jerk to the FL (he cares for her, but goes hot and cold and is sometimes just mean); his stepfamily is equally dysfunctional and emotionally constipated. Naturally the FL fixes everything and becomes the heart of the family... long before the year is over.

The FL's own situation with her parents (loving and healthy but struggling with bills and medical issues) and a long-term past relationship that turned violent are only written as plot devices and left unexplored, as the focus is all on the ML and his family, because the FL is, idk, built different and overcomes everything with her light or something. An ironic line of messaging because the manhwa started with some sort of social commentary about patriarchal expectations.

Swimming Lessons for a Mermaid

SUPER cute and wholesome (and complete!) modern-day youth + straight romance manhwa that's kind of like a reverse Little Mermaid AU? The MC is a mermaid who is unable to swim. Her doting older sisters trade their hair for a pair of legs so the MC can live on land with their human dad instead. In the present day, the MC lives a regular high school life but avoids emotional connections until a boy from the swim team discovers her secret and offers to teach her how to swim.

This is so charming and funny and effusively warm. The characters are all very normal people and their interactions with their families (especially among the humans) are laughably real. The manhwa makes it a point to build up multiple relationships and set up the dynamics in what eventually becomes a long-term reconfigured friend group. There's some drama towards the end but it's very low-stakes because it's not like the MC can drown. The ending is moving and emotionally satisfying (and not even centered on the leads!). There's a kind of "pair the spares" situation in the bonus chapters but they're as easily read as gen. It does hurt me that

spoilers

the comic-relief friend never finds out that the MC is a mermaid, in spite of the rest of the group already knowing. ;____; I'm sure that specific character is okay with being out of the loop since he's gone on the record about being okay with his friends keeping secrets, but the fact that they have to go out of their way to hide it from him hurts me. There's even a point where the MC suddenly disappears for months(?) and while everyone else has been assured that she's safe with her mermaid family, all he's told is that she's sick, which must be incredibly worrying!!!!

Anyway, this was a 9/10 read and a 100% match to my preferences.

Guiding the Eccentric Tyrant
Space + military danmei with omegaverse elements, except that instead of alpha and omega you get "espers" and "guides"... which I discovered is known as guideverse ahaha. Anyway I mostly checked this out for the translator's notes, which are intriguingly passionate, and made it to chapter 5... The MC is an F-class guide and the ML is, by the looks of it, an eccentric tyrant who likes bedazzling everything he owns (from his phone to his spaceship):


妃为九卿- 神医小娇妃 The Goddess of Healing
I noped out right after the first chapter because I was finding the dialogue annoying and the translated names distracting: 婉兒 was Waner which is at least reasonable, but 子然 was Zion, which was baffling. (I was reading the official Tapas translation.)

The Tale of Goldiluck, the Black Kitten


This is the first time I've encountered anything I thought of as a hidden gem, because this sure is a gem, and it's on Pocket Comics (which never seemed to offer anything that I'd enjoy unironically and isn’t on the other platforms... until now)... It's a sweet slice-of-life series set in the Joseon dynasty about a sad black kitten, a sickly scholar, and family. There are some magical elements, ie. the cat turning human every night and forest creatures helping him find his way home, but otherwise, it's pretty mundane and fatally adorable. If you're a pet owner, this might make you cry.

How to Get My Husband on My Side
Checked this out because the novel was written by Spice & Kitty, who wrote A Stepmother's Märchen, but unfortunately this did not hit the same—maybe because the central relationship is romance and the character writing revolves around it, or maybe because the artist/team for this one isn't as good at adapting a novel. I guess it's recommendable if you like arranged marriage with hurt/comfort (where the MC, a victim of physical abuse and a creepy incestuous brother, has developed an eating disorder and a knack for masking), but the fantastical aspects (magical creatures that the MC can bond with) just didn't work for me. And outside of the MC's journey of healing, none of the characters are interesting.

Raising My Fiancé with Money
There's a glut of generic romance-fantasies with vaguely European settings saturating the manhwa scene, and though this series doesn't stand out as particularly unique, it's still better than average. It's a contract dating story where the MC and ML are trying to break off their current engagements. The MC has just recovered from the brainfog of being in a VERY ill-advised relationship (to the point of distancing herself from her loving family), and now she wants her life back. She's incredibly lucky with money and has the enviable problem of being incapable of spending more than she earns. Meanwhile ML is a high-ranking but functionally powerless pushover with social anxiety. He hides behind his RBF and wartime reputation and learns, with the MC's help, how to socialize and say no to things.

This is one of those canons where I'm not really sold on the romance but I want them to get married anyway because the ML deserves to be adopted by the MC and her chaotically protective family. And everyone (except maybe the MC's dad, who's... built different) is memorably hot.

PS. This manhwa has no transmigration or regression.

A little annoyed because I've been reading WIPs that haven't even finished serializing the first season (at least for the English versions).

Divorcing the Emperor by Legendary Cat (story) and Hara (art)
Ongoing, < 30 chapters on Tapas.

The English title is so difficult to distinguish from other generic transmigration rofans, but the content is completely different. For one thing, there's no transmigration (or regression, for that matter). For another, it's an ensemble-cast adventure/comedy set in a fantasy world where the romance is secondary to the characters' shenanigans, and the style and pacing are very anime-like.

PLOT: The main character, Krisha, is the daughter of a soldier who grew up in a battlefield before they settled in a province outside the capital. One day she is informed that she is married to the emperor in an accident of paperwork with neither of them having met each other. Thus begins Krisha's quest to go to the capital to file for divorce—and in her travels she sees the true state of her country.

Krisha is: 1) very strong, and 2) the founding member of ANRA (The Archuke of the North Research Association), which leads to some very funny developments. AND she has a magical meat-eating horse called Creampuff.

The plot is moved by comedy, hijinks, and likeable characters, and a sort of reverse harem format, except so far only Archduke#1 has fallen in love with Krisha and even then he's been manipulating her for his own political/revenge motivations. Everyone is so eccentric and interesting it's actually hard to tell who the ML is (I'm going to guess the emperor, if only because the Krisha's trajectory seems to be her learning how to be empress), and Krisha herself is a force of nature who is the perfect balance of smart and dumb. There's enough genre awareness in the story to subvert some tropes (eg. slave auction / desert kingdom character trope) while parodying others magnificently.

Enjoying this so much I'm not sure I'll have the willpower to let more chapters accumulate before continuing. ;___;

As the Heart Leads ny TILDA, CHT, Octopuschu
Ongoing, < 30 chapters on Tapas

Romantasy where the MC was originally the granddaughter of a shaman in modern-day Korea, born with the ability to see spirits, preternaturally bad luck, and a poor affinity with water. She transmigrates into the body of a woman in a western fantasy world who drowns herself before her marriage to the king, an otherwise good-natured man who's driven to insomnia and fits of mania by the spirits that are attracted to him and his accumulation of negative karma. In spite of her commitment to avoid any entanglement with the supernatural at all costs, the MC takes to surreptitiously punching spirits, creating talismans and totems, and massaging the king's energy points to help him sleep.

So far not much is happening but I'm invested enough to subscribe to it, though I am as usual expecting the quality to drop after S1.


The One within the Villainess by Makiburo (story), Shiraume Nazuna(Art)
Ongoing fantranslation

Reverse revenge isekai with fantasy/adventure elements. Rather than being a transmigrator who takes over an otome game villainess's life, the MC is the original villainess who gets her body back after it's taken over by a well-meaning transmigrator. The transmigrator, Emi, is a modern-day Japanese girl who empathizes with the villains and wishes for the villainess's happiness, so she spends the MC's formative years improving the villainess's life and relationships while the MC is unable to do anything but watch until Emi detaches from the body.

The plot begins when the original protagonist—also possessed by a transmigrator—enters the story and completely undoes all the goodwill Emi has worked so hard to build. After the system turns on her, Emi breaks down and disappears from the body. Remi repossesses her body and vows to avenge Emi and pay her back for her kindness. Outwardly she uses Emi's gentle personality and moral compass to win people over and keep the memory of Emi alive, but inwardly she embraces her true villainess nature, only going through the motions of saving the world so the original protagonist is unable to progress in the game and is eventually cornered.

The story moves quite fast: there are only 26 full chapters out, but by chapter 7 Remi is already fighting a god for the sake of her lost love.


While it's technically not yuri, the vibes are very gay, and there's a lot of focus on how much Remi loves Emi. There is only ONE eligible ML (the demon king route), but that character and one-sided romance mostly exist to show that Remi will never be interested in anyone else because Emi is her entire world.


She regards the ML's confession as a confession to Emi and approves of him for sharing the same impeccable taste in women.



Cons: The villains—the original protagonist (or at least the transmigrator who takes her place) especially, but also the two other guys in her harem—are stereotypically a cartoonish level of evil AND stupid, and the manga seems to believe that it should keep layering on revelations of how bad these people are for the revenge to be satisfying. This unfortunately leads to a weird puritanical slant in the ~final showdown~ where the original protagonist is revealed to be a sexual deviant (in society standards) and all of high society basically watches revenge porn.

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PS. Blind Go (Hikaru no Go fan event) is back this year! The AO3 collection is open for submissions, and submissions are due on May 4. I believe this year's event is open for all mediums (not just fic.)

Links: AO3 collection (open) / Bluesky / Tumblr

TV/Movies:

Ballerina

Link Click OVA (Bridon Arc)

I love that this is a prequel AND a sequel and I love alllll the Lu Guang feelings (especially in the first half of episode 1... and the OP...), but this series really has a gendered violence issue and I've never truly liked anything that came out after S1... They do have some truly emotionally charged bangers so I suspect that in spite of my grumbling I'll watch S3 as long as daisydiversions wants to watch it lol.

Plot-wise it feels like nothing really happened here, other than establishing some backstory with Cheng Xiaoshi's parents? I didn't care for any of the new characters.

Nuer Hong

Comics:

MANGA:

Though I Am an Inept Villainess: Tale of the Butterfly-Rat Swap in the Maiden Court (ongoing)

Bodyswap court politics manga about a talented, good-natured, and universally beloved but chronically ill heroine who trades places with a reviled and spiteful villainess. It is surprisingly gen! There's one male character who seems like he could be the love interest, but the manga doesn't really give any indication that romance is in the horizon. Rather, it's focused on the women in the palace, framed in the PoVs of the protagonist and antagonist who learn more about each other's plights, and consequently, the systems and structures around them. I put it on hold at around 15 chapters in, but both the manga and the novel it's based on are still ongoing.

When I Became a Commoner, They Broke Off Our Engagement! (ongoing)

Another "trading places" manga, this time playing with the concept of changelings: A commoner and a noble are swapped at birth by the hand of a mischievous fairy, their circumstances to be revealed when they come of age. This takes a more thoughtful approach about class differences and social change than expected. Although I'm not sold on any of the relationships involving men (be it siblingly or romantic), it's really interesting to see two women connect with each other without ever interacting directly, and motivated to improve the lives of ordinary people through their shared perspectives.

MANHWA: I started a lot (and also dropped a lot) so I'll just limit this post to the ones I either finished or read at least one season of, with a note that some of these comics are much better than the titles make them sound. Of this list, I'd put The Fantasie of a Stepmother / A Stepmother's Märchen and Your Eternal Lies on top in terms of overall writing.

Being Loved for the First Time (ongoing)

Reincarnation + childcare manhwa where:

the MC is on her 100th life and on her first good reincarnation (she always has awful family circumstances and dies at 20 to save the world)

the MC's mom is ALIVE and not evil

the MC has a brother AND a sister

the dad has pink hair, and the mom and the MC have black hair and red eyes (usually it is the other way around, so this is a cute subversion)

Father, I Don't Want This Marriage

Miscommunication: The Manhwa.

True to its character-inclusive title, the FL's dad and the ML have an equal ratio of scenes, which is hilarious. This is part regression romcom (the ML, contractually dating the FL behind a different identity, is trying to convince the FL that the crown prince isn't that bad, actually!), part self-sacrificial tsundere father-daughter angst. Both parts are super tropey and the chapter endings are simply THE BEST and are in fact the reason why I keep reading.

The Fantasie of a Stepmother (also known as A Stepmother's Märchen) (ongoing)

I've only read S1 and I love it so much but where do I begin? The MC enters a non-sexual/non-romantic marriage as a prodigious teenager, groomed by her dying husband to become the acting matriarch until the eldest son comes of age. All of the kids act their age, initially resenting her but eventually forming different flavors of ride-or-die for her, and any woman who supports the MC does it through her own motivations and is liable to withdraw her support when their interests are no longer aligned.


In this manhwa: angst, family of convenience to family of choice, gorgeous art, competent MC, loyalty kink, fealty, complex women, politics

Flirting with the Villain's Dad

VERY CUTE (romcom / Bellecourt chapters) until it wasn't (plot). The main pairing was highly shippable and the FL kept accidentally calling the ML "dad" which I thought was fun! But to my disappointment, the comic completely neglected to develop the FL's other close relationships, and the plot was meh. And the politics made no! Sense! At! All! I would happily reread S1 though.

For Better or For Worse

Regency romance with isekai/regression elements and a tenuous stance about "fate". This was a nice little romance story focusing on the leads' romantic chemistry, but it falls off from the moment the ML realizes his feelings because characters start behaving in unrecognizably irrational ways. There's a weird Raeliana and the Duke-esque twist at the end that renders the plot completely nonsensical and undercuts all of its themes, which is a shame because it was otherwise very enjoyable! There's a cast of women with distinct, interesting personalities and protagonist energy, ie. cute tsundere remarried MiL, introvert BFF, and the "original" FL who in this version of the story is no longer in love with the ML now that she's in a healthier state of mind.

Ginger and the Cursed Prince

Non-isekai fantasy-romance where the FL receives a book that foretells her future as the antagonist, and the ML is a mindreader who's endeared by the FL's stupidity. IDK, it works! But the secondhand embarrassment is kind of strong in the first few chapters... Still, it's a self-contained story with no transmigration OR regression, which is a plus for me. XD

I Married the Male Lead's Dad (ongoing)

Interesting case of bait-and-switch: Gets you with the trashy transmigration romance premise and animated prologue, but S1 ends with a genre shift that reveals that it's all just an artifice. I dropped it after S1 because I didn't feel invested enough in the characters, but the "real" story has the potential to push my buttons with messy reincarnation drama.

I'm Unmarried with a Time-Limited Lover (ongoing)

Contract dating with reincarnation elements and a talking sword. The FL is a self-made businesswoman who can foresee misfortunes through touch, while the ML is the world's unluckiest human being, knowing no joy, doomed to die early, and just trying to tick off his bucket list. Following this for now because I like how the ML's character design makes him feel like a more unique flavor of black-hair-red-eyed protagonist (his eyes, for instance, are a different shade of red).

My In-Laws Are Obsessed with Me (ongoing)

I'm not sure I love this, but the art is great and I really like it when webtoons get to take their time telling the story (...as long as I'm in the position to binge instead of waiting for weekly chapters). S1 was a nice slow burn where the regression storyline folds into the plot in interesting ways and is bound to the magical worldbuilding and mystery. You have to get to the end of the season to see what it does with the tropes, and I think it spins an interesting story out of them, I just can’t talk about the good parts without spoiling. ^^; The supernatural elements (regression, magical poison, the MC's multiple actual DEATHS) are considered factors for the FL's worsening cramps too, which was nice to see in fiction! Planning to continue this for sure.

The Perks of Being a Villainess (ongoing)

Isekai rofan that's quite focused on the leads' business partnership. The FL wins the ML over with her competence and capitalistic villainy (eg. tax evasion and predatory subscription schemes) and everyone else with her innovations and math genius (as math is an integral part of magic). SO far, it's a relaxing take on "business genius" protagonists, with identity porn comedy as the ML has dual identities as noble and overworked information broker.

The Perks of Being an S-Class Heroine (ongoing)

Plot: Korea is suffering a transmigration epidemic, and the MC is the first to avail of the transmigration insurance package...

S1 was fun, up to a point. S2 was mostly skippable until the last few chapters where tutorial mode ends, the regular difficulty is restored, and the time loop plot starts moving forward. Will probably pick up S3 if I'm still into manhwa when it ends! IDK how long this canon is supposed to be.

Your Eternal Lies

Pseudo-historical post-war romance about two people who exist at opposite ends of state propaganda--the decorated war hero, and the infamous witch from his hometown. The parallels are beautiful, each finding solace in the other’s image as renowned savior and notorious survivor in the time before they met. It does start out a bit rocky with the veterans' inflated sense of self-importance and confusing flashbacks in the earlier parts, but once it gets going it proceeds beautifully and reaches an ending that feels satisfying because prices have been paid. The FL is a lying liar who lies and is very consistent about putting herself first for an endgame known only to herself, and the ML is a bundle of unaddressed trauma and self-deceptions.

In this manhwa: domestic abuse, social critique, PTSD, witches, propaganda, and found family

Spent weeks and weeks burying my face in trash like a raccoon, only to circle back to reading decent comics!?

The Tyrant's Only Perfumer by Fairydragon; art by Team Dead Shell
A fantasy romance webtoon where the FL’s skill is magical perfume-making, which is the kind of garbage I live for lmfao.

The first 40% was fun nonsense with over-the-top visualizations of what the scent profiles were like, and then the other 60% devolved into bland nonsense… But the art was pretty, and one has to respect the earnest Attempt to subvert genre tropes… It was just so loving! The writing was a mess but the heart was in the right place. And I feel like they could have made merch of this comic—dolls, real-life versions of the perfumes the FL makes, or maybe charms of the cute perfume bottles (since the FL apparently also has the magical ability to produce custom bottles at will)...

My favorite storyline was when the rival perfumer basically starts selling drugs (to monopolize the market by making everyone so addicted to her perfume!). The FL then concocts a perfume mixed with holy magic that instantly neutralizes the effects of drugs and cures addiction when you spritz it on people… the manhwa was never the same after that…

Saving My Sweetheart (also known as A Way to Protect the Lovable You) by Han Yujeong; webtoon adapted by Hound with art by Kim Jiei

In spite of the triteness of its title, this is actually a pretty solid and fast-paced ensemble-cast shoujo fantasy canon with regression plot + loyalty kink.

Plot: Leticia has lived her whole life abused and villainized by her mother, the revered divine ruler St. Josephine. She is put under a curse and married off to a king who hates her, but they end up falling in love before the curse leads to their tragic deaths. The goddess Danyta makes a wager and returns Leticia to the point before her marriage and after she is cursed—she has a six-month deadline to kill her husband or the curse will take her life.

The story takes place in the "fix-it" timeline where Leticia has her Goddess's promise that she will be happy this time round. But first, she has to awaken as the true Saint, gather nine loyal sorcerers who will bind themselves to her, and defeat her mother. She and her husband also have to practice honesty and have a proper relationship instead of being martyrs for each other. MOST IMPORTANTLY, the good guys (including Leticia herself) have no qualms about killing and torturing people, which is really nice... And even though the happy ending is assured, there's still a lot of tension in the plot... And some great knives... And interesting developments where the Wings are completely devoted to Leticia, in good terms with each other, but politically at odds with each other. I enjoyed the side characters and their interactions so much I can't pick a favorite.

The last act doesn't wrap up very neatly (I still don't understand how Julius' death was this big Canon Event when it seemed he just went out of the way to antagonize Josephine; and the awakening of the eighth Wing felt phoned-in), but it's still emotionally satisfying. And while the webtoons have finished adapting the main story, there are still upcoming extras.


CW: Multiple domestic abuse storylines; the comics have warnings at the beginnings of the relevant chapters.

Like Wind on a Dry Branch by Dalsaeowl; art by Hwaeum
This is ongoing and free to read on Webtoons.Com and I'm so invested in this I'm taking my time reading it so I don't run out of chapters. It's a pretty hard one to sell, though, since it opens with a very bleak scene: Our FL, Rieta, has lost her husband to plague, her daughter to slave traders, and is presently drugged out of her mind, about to buried alive with the corpse of an evil count. Killian, the exiled prince and archduke of Axias, finds the practice distasteful and pays off the family so that Rieta can retire at his castle. But against expectations, Rieta proves to be a clever, competent, and recklessly loyal mage with layers and layers of grief, trauma, and survivor's guilt that Killian has to learn to navigate on top of the power imbalance in between them. Also there's this whole thing where Rieta's daughter issues remind Killian of his mom issues... they're both so traumatized and I love that for them.

Came here for the hurt/comfort, stayed for the ladies of the bedchamber. This comic has so! Many! Women! And it's definitely one where I find all of the characters interesting and the dialogue riveting, especially from the point where Killian first interacts with the Empress. I'd actually be interested in physicals of this because there are so many parts I want to reread and the art is great.

(Am liveblogging this here.)

CW: Themes of grief and loss (of husband, child, and mother); implied past sexual abuse during Rieta's time with the count, and implied abuse in her time in the convent—but the story and the characters are more focused on the mental and emotional repercussions and healing from them.