A Painter Behind the Curtain

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Masterpiece! This is one of the best stories I have ever read! Everything was so perfect, the way it keeps me on edge since the beginning til the end, always at the edge of my seat thinking what will happen next, and that perfect ending. I loved this story so much that whatever high praise I give it won't do it too much justice. The plot was solid with all the twist and turns, scheming left and right, to that bombing conclusion that you would just not expect. And the last few chapters showing their humble lives was just so beautiful and heartwarming that I ... want them to keep being that lovey-dovey, respectful couple all the time. One of my favorite highlights of the story was the part where Ian holds his own exhibition and the family of the little girl he painted came to see it. That part really touched my heart so deeply on how wonderful that moment was for Ian that I cried. Almost every heartwarming, gut-wrenching scenes was just so well thought of and carefully laid out that made this story so wonderful beyond words. I will always love this story, Raymond and Ian, and their beautiful lives together.

I started reading it without knowing anything, more than many people it was a good story, it is very well told and makes you want to continue reading to find out what happens. In this story, both main characters go through different traumas, but Raymond is never seen as someone entirely good. I won't say that the romantic relationship of the protagonists is enviable because it really isn't. I would say that his actions are understandable given the situation and the time. where it is written. The last part where they talk about the coup d'état before the wedding did miss me a little since ... I felt it was too loaded with text, but in general I really liked this manwha and I'm glad for its ending. Since Raymond was able to understand that more than taking revenge to be happy he needed to live a common life and Ian was finally able to continue doing what he loves after so much suffering.

Romance is hard to write. In fact, more often than not, romance is the worst aspect of a fiction. More often than not, romance will be so bad it will actively lower the quality of a piece. And this is the kind of manhwa undergoing this.

The writer isn't incompetent, be it in art or storytelling, if it wasn't for the romance, I'd have rated it an 8. The problem is that it has romance, and that the romance becomes the core of all of this.

So what is the problem with the romance ? Well, it is essentially blissfully unaware that it is writing an abusive ... relationship. I have no problems reading romanticized toxic relationships, it can be very entertaining. On the condition that there is self-awareness by the creators that there is toxicity at play. And for every word spouted by a character to point out there's something wrong going on, thousands other words will be used to essentially make you understand that all of the abuse "is ok as long as there's love involved". Which is...you know...101 abuser/abusee at play. Now, I won't spoil what happens for me to say that, but just to give some documented behaviours about abuse victims that love interest presents:

-isolates you, or encourages to stay at home
-controls where you go, who you interact with
-reduce at maximum the time you spend with other people if the abuser isn't around
-possessiveness
-emotional manipulation
-makes you feel guilty
-exploits past (real or not) traumas as the scapegoat for their bad behaviour
-removes your agency
-molds you into being dependent on them
-no is commonly an invalid answer
-uses money and gifts to 'make up' instead of actively changing
-apologizes yet doesn't change
-uses past trauma against you, for example, by turning a less extreme abuse as acceptable, or other minimizing the abuse tactics
-sabotages your platonic relationships
and of course:
-but I'm doing all of this because I love you :( (insert sad violins)

The saddest thing is that all I noted could have made this a great piece about abuse and how hard getting out of it can be, be it because you aren't able to pick on the red flags as there's so much emotional and psychological damage at play, and that, yes, an abusive relationship isn't exclusively made of abuse, there is, very commonly, moments of tenderness too, which also plays into why it's such a hard situation to be in...but it's not the case. This manhwa was just a frustration of missed opportunities.

Now a lot of romance readers won't particularly be disturbed by unaware toxic relationships, BL is hardly the sole sub-genre to suffer from it. So if you're one of them, you'll most probably really enjoy reading this. If you aren't however, your enjoyment of this will probably sour the more you read it.

To be honest, there are other aspects I could have brought up in this review, even on the topic of romance still, but they're so minors in comparison that it'd just make this unnecessarily longer. All I can hope for is for the writer to someday realize what they were writing and improve, even if the odds are slim.