Luha

And that is precisely the least realistic part for me, of the whole story. I respect your opinion, but I don't buy it. No one magically falls in love with you at first sight like Sungji does shortly after meeting Sumin. No matter how self-sacrificing and sweet or rather noble your partner is, they can't ignore your personality flaws or any conflict you've created. If you cheated on your partner too early in the relationship, it would be pretty hard for them to forgive you as easily as Sungji did and jump into wild sex.

I could never get myself to like their relationship, it always felt so shallow and unrealistic. It's like I know if they skip the whole getting to know phase, the confusion or the connection that you're supposed to have when you start dating someone. In fact, the fact that Sungji is 10 years younger makes the situation even more absurd, having no experience, you can't explain how he becomes so attached to Sumin considering the treatment she gave him. The message of the story I consider more double standards than anything else. That mentality that new is always better is boring, Sumin and Sungji had it too easy, I couldn't get that magic or feeling in them, everything was too much sex, sex, reconciliation and sex.

Love is not a rational action to begin with, so the message of the story falls short, because it ends up being simplistic. However, you can never be objective as a reader of stories, everyone will defend their position and perception of it.

username_vik

The problem that this TG work always had was how unrealistic the main couple was and that fault is heavily burdened by the poor development of Sungji.

Seju was quite realistic if you ask me, someone who made a mistake and wants with all her might to correct it and I think she does it until the end when she makes the decision to leave, when she admits that everything was useless and that Sumin's ego always was above love.

We all learn from our mistakes and if we have the motivation we can change and be better people, I think that applies much more to Seju but not to Sumin, therefore many things were wasted in the development and that is why the story after chapter 50 is a disaster.

https://twitter.com/team_gaji/status/1417455793935249413
Seju's new official art
please retweet and favorite this beautiful boss

I think TG should stop milking WDTFS. Seju looks good, but I feel her much more beautiful in the main story.
It's ironic that Seju is currently more popular than her fantasy duo, if you ask me, it's kind of pathetic.

last edited at Aug 31, 2021 7:32PM

In my opinion Sungji is someone who was put in the wrong place and in the wrong story. Everything in their relationship was resolved with sex, did Sumin ever really open up to her or did Sungji make an effort to learn more about his life? Her presence was overshadowed because the story was always about Sumin and Seju.

Here's where we disagree--the story was not "always about Sumin and Seju." Seju doesn't even show up until a number of chapters into the series, and of course the conclusion is "about" Sungji and Sumin.

Talking about these fictional constructs as if they were real people with personal agency in terms of the story's construction is an analytical dead end--Sungji had no choice as to whether she learned more about Sumin's life, nor did Sumin have the option to open up to Sungji because the characters can only do what the authors allow them to do.

The failure of the characters to behave as you describe is a creative failure on the part of the creators, not a personal failure of the characters.

Of course we don't have to agree on everything. Each reader has their own perception of the work. When I point out that Sungji always seems out of place it is because most of the time she always seems in the background even though she is the main character.

His healing qualities for his love interest really what they were about? Chapter 7 is the only thing we have to know a little about her and it really is disappointing. They tell us that she feels uncomfortable around others because they watch her for being beautiful. As the story progresses there is nothing else about her that makes me care or feel attracted and know more about her.

Certainly later you realize that she is not as naive as she seems, but then many things begin to feel bad with the construction of her character and she begins to have behaviors that move away from that wonderful and perfect angel that the chargers think she is. That is why I think that many things with her sit for another story, not for a dark drama that has absolutely nothing to do with healing. Even her sex scenes with Sumin were exaggerated and awkward, maybe except for the first time they had sex, yet she still looked very expressionless.

I'm not even worried about the shipments, my observations are more connected with the story than the love interest of x character.

last edited at Mar 24, 2021 11:10AM

You know, out of all the sites I've been, this is the most prominent one where readers actually call out Sumin for her shitty behavior and asked the really hard questions. Anywhere else, you criticise their favorite character and you would have these snowflakes jumping down your throat, lol

Even after the story has ended, I never got the impression she learnt her life lesson and has changed for the better. She's still an incredibly selfish person as evident of Will. The only difference compared to the past, she now has an extreme doormat for a girlfriend who will let her do whatever she wishes without being challenged. I mean damn her, I wish I had a partner who lets me take her for granted all the time :D

I think it's because the followers of Sumin love her for her bad girl and womanizing look, they insert themselves into her.
And I agree that she never stopped being her selfish self. But she now she has an angelic girlfriend who forgives a cheating after three weeks and they reconcile with rough sex. Even that scene has quite a misplaced connotation for Sungji's character, that would be called reconnection sex. That's why Sungji tells her that he wants to mark her name on hers, a kind of erasing Seju's traces from her. And as you can see, Sumin didn't even seem to enjoy it.

Remember that the attraction of the angelic blonde begins with Sumin's face, that's why she always wants to see his face during sex.

Hence why I consider Sumin and Sungji relationship to be so shallow. Let's be honest, the blondie didn't exactly fall for her precious team leader because she had the most charming personality ever (that girl has zero charisma). It was as she admitted in the early chapters, because of her good looks. In other words, if she wasn't physically attractive, Sungji wouldn't have bothered giving her a second look lol.

And she admits it herself, for something she is obsessed with her face. I remember that in a flashback after cheating on her, Sumin herself is disappointed that Sungji only sees her as her ideal type, purely superficial.

In my opinion Sungji is someone who was put in the wrong place and in the wrong story. Everything in their relationship was resolved with sex, did Sumin ever really open up to her or did Sungji make an effort to learn more about his life? Her presence was overshadowed because the story was always about Sumin and Seju.

It’s a profound error on the part of the author that anyone in the world is talking in positive terms about the possibility of Sumin and Seju “saving their relationship.” That was not, and was never going to be, Seju’s role in this story. The story where Sumin and Seju get back together is a completely different story than the author was ever telling in this series.

Whatever the reason the creators spent far too much time and space developing Seju’s character and backstory (whether Seju was just more interesting to write about, or if they got off on the sex scenes, or whatever), they doomed the series to an unsatisfactory ending for one or more big segments of the audience—Seju fans are still bemoaning her fate, and fans of the OTP know the MCs got shortchanged in their characterization by the excessive attention given to what is, in the end, a secondary character.

You are right, and so I emphasized that this would have happened in a different setting.

For example the character of Sungji. The love that she gave to Sumin didn't leave as strong a mark as Seju did on the development of the story (probably because she didn't have the 10-year agonized wait for forgiveness.

The problem does not come from how readers interpret a work, it is the author's fault as he develops it. It would be as if the reader embarrassed the artist / author.

I just wanted someone to tell Sumin that life doesn't revolve around her and that she needed some real help to address her cavalcade of emotional issues, because all she did throughout was hide behind casual sex and retained her (irrational) consuming hatred of a woman who loved her. I realise these are two complex women with deep emotional ties, and that's why people think they shouldn't be together ("they're toxic"). I've said this before, but I just wish that there was more of an attempt as opposed to their circuitous merry-go-round: I hate you, let's have sex, I'm seeing someone new. And Seju accepts it, because she thinks she needs Sumin for love.

Because they needed to please fans with the cliché ending. Where Sumin did not learn from his mistakes of 10 years, his toxic behavior and psychological abuse towards Seju. In a slightly more realistic setting and a different direction in the story, they could have saved their relationship.

However, when I was reading the story, I wanted a more lonely ending for the tattoo girl. Reflecting and working on her emotional problems and maybe reuniting with Seju and starting as friends, getting to know each other again.

The message was

As long as you get something, everything will be fine.

Forget about solving problems. Sex is key.

You know, out of all the sites I've been, this is the most prominent one where readers actually call out Sumin for her shitty behavior and asked the really hard questions. Anywhere else, you criticise their favorite character and you would have these snowflakes jumping down your throat, lol

Even after the story has ended, I never got the impression she learnt her life lesson and has changed for the better. She's still an incredibly selfish person as evident of Will. The only difference compared to the past, she now has an extreme doormat for a girlfriend who will let her do whatever she wishes without being challenged. I mean damn her, I wish I had a partner who lets me take her for granted all the time :D

I think it's because the followers of Sumin love her for her bad girl and womanizing look, they insert themselves into her.
And I agree that she never stopped being her selfish self. But she now she has an angelic girlfriend who forgives a cheating after three weeks and they reconcile with rough sex. Even that scene has quite a misplaced connotation for Sungji's character, that would be called reconnection sex. That's why Sungji tells her that he wants to mark her name on hers, a kind of erasing Seju's traces from her. And as you can see, Sumin didn't even seem to enjoy it.

Remember that the attraction of the angelic blonde begins with Sumin's face, that's why she always wants to see his face during sex.

shimchong
I agree with your opinion. Sumin does not have the ability to love in the same way as in the past, she has dried up. And she admits it to Sungji herself before betraying her with Seju, for that very reason she decides to leave the company and get away from Seju. Remember when she goes to complain to Seju if she had sex with her friend.
I agree that she sees in Sungji the opportunity to have a normal relationship without too much baggage. My problem is that the story wants us all the time to feel sorry for poor Sumin full of broken relationships, and turned into a nympho and obviously Seju's fault.

They never realistically address that we are our own enemies, that the problems that Sumin suffered in the past were a denotation of his horrible behavior in the future, and even if there were no cheating in their relationship, they had serious problems that would have fractured their relationship. sometime. But we can also think that if two people love each other and are as connected as they were, they could have overcome any difficult event that life throws at them. If you can't deal with a breakup, how could you cope with the challenges and things that life brings every day?

Seju broke free, we don't know if she still has feelings for Sumin, but at least now she seems to love herself. Sumin doesn't show the same liberation, maybe it's her karma.

My analysis of Sumin's behavior is that he is a person with a very large inferiority complex but at the same time he is very egocentric. I never understood why she suffered this metamorphosis after the infidelity and the death of her parents.

I can understand her grief at the loss, she was attached to her parents, however, blaming Seju for her death and also yelling at him because she had removed the ring. The rings were the symbol of her promises, of her dreams, it is something unforgivable. Her breakup stems from that discussion, we already know what Seju does afterward, though it's never clear to me how she agrees to sleep with the bartender. Imagine calling your ex to listen to you while you have sex with someone else, accepting her gifts even though she had money to live comfortably, mentally abusing someone for a long time, going back to her when her superficial relationships weren't working, and it was because always I was looking for Seju in those relationships.

You believe that in real life you can live with a clear conscience knowing that for so many years you intentionally hurt a person you loved deeply and then magically jump into another relationship while still having your ex close to you.
And remember that it was Sumin who returned to Seju, he even made an excuse that he had left a girlfriend because she was bad in bed. Excuses and more excuses for his selfish and cruel behavior. Another example. Sumin is the one who returns over and over to Seju, because there must have been times when he missed it, those short moments or long periods of time when they meant everything to each other, chapter27.

Seju is a wonderful and painfully human character, Except for her blind love for Sumin. That is why I think that the followers of Sumin are teenagers or people who do not understand the real nature of her behavior and like her because of her tattoo and personality of bad girl and womanizer.

Xavier:
It is true that Sungji and Sumin were the main couple from the beginning; in fact, the story is about a girl who falls in love with her boss 10 years her senior. Seju's character comes a little later. The real problem comes when the partner from the past has a deeper history, there is more connection and an emotional language that the main partner could never show. That's a big problem at the writing level.

In fact, young Sungji fans adore her because she is a pure angel who came to rescue Sumin from her miserable life of 31 failed relationships, drunkenness, and mindless sex. The thing is, Sungji isn't as naive as some fans think she is. In reality, she is quite intelligent and calculating when the situation calls for it, as well as having many insecurities. An example, chapter 27 where she finds out about Seju's true relationship with Sumin, even though she had lied to him about the nature of her relationship. It is from that revelation that Sungji begins to despair of having sex with her.

There are many layers to analyze Xavier, so it is good to review the stories a few times to understand certain points that escape on a first reading.

That's why I defend my position so much, that the story seemed to go a certain way but everything starts to fall apart after the second arc. There was perhaps favoritism at stake with the main couple, I have no doubt so, but why create such an emotional and heartbreaking story between Seju and Sumin, if you weren't going to do anything with her. Where is there healing? Where is there forgiveness? How to move forward when your conflicts are still not resolved and you are not working to fix them? What was the real change in Sumin at the end of the story, she remained the same, her insecurities came from when she was young and she hardly dated Seju.

Xavier:

The topic of Seju's infidelity was discussed in this forum by two users, especially one, nora89. She highlighted several points that the plot seemed to imply that perhaps things did not turn out exactly as shown in the story. One thing that if she makes it clear to me is that Seju didn't like men, we can't call her bisexual for that. Remember chapter 10 when she is having sex with her beloved girlfriend, she says that she hurts despite her that she only uses one finger. I wonder if even if she was drunk, we don't know how much alcohol was in her blood, not feeling discomfort or pain knowing that she had never had sex with a man.

There are many story points that were discussed here in a very orderly and eloquent way, but everyone is free to choose their favorite ending. For my part I like to look at all sides and I cannot say that this story is perfect, it has several inconsistencies and its fall was from chapter 50. Unfortunately the authors were carried away by very young fans, because the love story of the Blonde and Sumin was more for teenagers, when it was supposed to be an adult drama story.

Cassandra, I didn't mean to direct my final remark towards you specifically! I just meant things can get very passionate on the forum as people get very combative in terms of who they ship and stan. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by saying I like Seju and would have preferred her to end up with Sumin, but we've already established this. lol.

I like what you're saying about the ending and giving up the past for brighter futures. But there are examples where there are toxic couples who work past their muddiness. Is a relationship so toxic that it can't work out? If it were the case that Sumin or Seju were being physically or sexually violent to each other (I'm not counting their rough sex, since it was consensual), then I would think they need to depart from each other.

I believe that as well about Sumin behaving like a man. It's very strange. It's like she's trying to desensitise herself to feel emotion because she's afraid of feeling love?? Does that even make sense?! Lol. And I agree with you - I liked the young Sumin as well! I thought she was a sweet young woman, unfortunately all that brightness died due to her circumstances.

I've mentioned this earlier, but Seju, I think, behaves desperate, because she wants love and she comes from a place where she did not have love to give or get it from anyone. On the surface, it does seem outwardly ridiculous, but I think when you analyse her situation, it's entirely plausible. Psychologically, she wanted this person to give love to her and get love back. However, I don't want to defend her completely: while I think she is the best character in this manga, I thought she was pretty pathetic continuing to have sex with a woman who constantly went out with other women instead of actually addressing the problems in this relationship. There could have been real progress made. I don't want to suggest something like counselling or therapy, but simply talking or pushing through the pain together would have helped. Just my two cents.

I'm totally agree and happy to share with you. Seju is the best character but there are so many just hate her and think that she deserves that punishment from Sumin. I mean I can't imagine Seju gotta suffer for 10 years and it's becomes a habit and numb. For me, I can't accept the person I love to have sex with others consistently. I think Sumin did that to let Seju suffer and to eventually let go of her volunteering at first because she knows Seju's toxic brother will hurt her if Seju is miserable. But I can't belive a smart woman like Seju is willing to let Sumin to sexually and verbally abuse her for so many years. There are sex scenes between them that I feel really irritated and can't believe Seju can tolerate to that extend. I think not many toxic relationship can be work out and it depends on the level of hurt and individuals perception. The scar in Sumin's heart and body is too deep and I can understand even she forgive Seju but she will never forget the incidents that happened to her. Instead of getting back with Seju and work for their future. She chose to start a new relationship with clean and pure love, That's why she fall in love with Sungji and ultimately let go of Seju easily. I mean if Sungji is not pretty, I don't think Sumin will fall in love with her. Lol. In Sumin's mind she is happy that she finally found someone who is younger and prettier than Seju and heal her. She wanna create happy moments with Sungji in the future rather than drilling down to the past memories. If Seju has realised and truly understand Sumin, she should let go of Sumin earlier and suffered less. Perhaps she may meet someone earlier and has her own family. Seju has urged for family love since young and I think if she has a daughter, her daughter will be as beautiful as her. Anyway, Do Won is a good person and fit Seju. Seju eventually move on and they are going to create happy moments for their future. The creator did mention that, Seju will start love and be able to love many things in her life.

The pain and humiliation that Seju endured for 10 years courtesy of Sumin has no name, it is simply something of a dehumanized person with a person that I supposedly love deeply. An infidelity, a mental scar that was not Seju's fault, is it the motives to turn someone into such a despicable being? And someone dares to defend and make excuses for her behavior?
My reading of history is very different, due to my moral values and I don't even care who has stayed with whom. But I would have liked a more realistic ending, each reflecting separately and meeting again as good friends, I speak of Seju and Sumin.
However I am glad that Seju is happy away from that toxic that never learned about true forgiveness and respect.

Each person draws their own conclusion from the story. I advise you to read the whole thread, although it is long but some users dissected the whole plot very well and you can perceive the amount of changes and traps that the story had until the end.
I already said what I had to say, the story was never about healing, because I did not perceive it, it is a story with double standards, written by someone who lacks much sensitivity to really understand forgiveness and move on. examine the problems especially the horrible behavior of Sumin. However, they tell you that moving forward is getting a partner who does not point out your flaws, who does not ask, who says yes to all of your shit.

Just FYI there is a follow up story that is about Seju and her life and the people she meets after the events in the first story. She doesn't stay lonely.

Thanks for the info. But from the manga, there's a chapter said she won't marry anyone except Sumin but Sumin married to Sungji, that means Seju will remain single for the rest of her life because she promised that to Sumin. Seju will never marry anyone!

They are not married because there is no equal marriage in Korea. In any case, their relationship was always boring and the healing was due to having lustful sex. Our blonde was so incredibly hot and horny that his own girlfriend couldn't keep up with her. Another misplaced feature of her personality.

Even if I was a little late to the discussion, I just finished this story this year LOL

I liked some arguments without too much bias or favoritism and pointing out the problems of configuration and continuity of the story. Seju is by far the best character, Sumin the worst, the blonde never felt her as a main character, there was a lot about her that confused me and sometimes her behavior left me analyzing what was real and what was not with her personality.

And I agree that the story began its descent into shit from chapter 50. I felt cheated because I really came to think that this was really a story about understanding, addressing your insecurities, working on them, and seeking forgiveness. Seju and Sumin's relationship had all the potential to have gone in the right direction because there were subtle hints that they loved each other despite all the accumulation of contempt, revenge, and obsession with the past. One of the many problems the story had was that the realistic narrative became eccentrically exaggerated.