#solche

-Cheats on his fiancé with his abuse victim.

-Allowed a happy ending because the torturous life of a Duke had suppressed his ability to feel love and he only needed time to realize that Claudine was not for him, Layla was the only one who accepted him when he was struggling

-Had a baby with another man before she married.

Cry or Better Yet Beg could work as PROPER "Dark" Romance IF—

—It was NOT RELEASED on that green comic platform, but I will make long ahh post to explain:

1. Why the manhwa can't be called as proper Dark Romance because of the platform

2. What's resulting to the manhwa adaptation to fit with the platform's "widely used by minor" app (short answer: sugarcoat)

3. W*btoo* "predatory" marketing toward younger reader of that green comic platform app

erna accepts bjorn's proposal because she feels indebted to him for helping her family. then she tries her level best to make that marraige work because she believes she "owes" it to her grandmother to be happy like she promised rather than "wanting" to be happy herself???

a lot of people say erna expected more from the marriage than what bjorn wanted to give but i honestly think erna's "love" for bjorn was more of a survival mechanism than anything else. she had no idea how badly she would be ostracized and villified because of gladys and believed "loving" bjorn would help her "endure."

Yeah I know, I can't believe I'm praising Solche either. Don't get me wrong, the bar is in hell and the only reason I consider the problematic prince to be "good" is because its not throwing rape around for shock value, even when you take away the obvious romanticized abuse scenes, the use of rape in cry or better yet beg goes from trying to tell an actual story to "lets just put this here because theres no other way to show the reader that Matthias is a psychopath even though we already established that he kills animals" its like this in Bastian as well, rape is used only because Solche for some reason thought there was no other way to get the point across that Bastian is a disturbed individual other than him violently assaulting Odette.

Admittedly, I originally hated this book the same way I hate cry or better yet beg simply because of my personal bias against Solche, but after I spent the time rereading it, I've come to the conclusion that... I still don't like it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is without a doubt a terrible read for everyone. Its hard to explain but I do like how Solche actually took the time with this one to keep this it dark without going into a direction that was shock value. The only reason I don't want to gush about it is because knowing Solche, I do think that problematic prince is still designed in the end to be part of their weird abuse fetish, only they did a better job at hiding it this time.

Bjorn is the only male lead written by Solche I can appreciate as a character because he has proven time and time again that he is a terrible person and husband (as the title would imply) without resorting to assault to do so. I don't even think he's on par with Matthias or Bastian, he's not sociopath coded or a deeply disturbed individual, he's more or less just a frustrating asshole with previous relationship trauma.

A friend of mine made a post like this before me and it really shows that webtoon doesnt seem to really give a damn.

Im not against terrible fictional characters being simped for. I know I use the term "fan girl" a lot when it comes to problematic characters but allow me to specify.

I consider being attracted to a problematic character in any piece of media to be a guilty pleasure and we can't help if we feel attracted to them, that's just what your mind says is hot if the character in question happens to be your type but here's the difference between this and being a full blown defender: if you are aware that the character is a terrible human being or even hate that your attracted to them then that's fine, you aren't actively defending their actions, they just happen to meet your tastes whenever that be physical or mental.

So what makes the "if evil why hot" arguement bad if simping for bad people in general isn't wrong? Well you probably already guessed it but it's DEFENDING the characters actions. For example there's a lot of Matthias defenders in the cry or better yet beg fandom who not only drool over Matthias for being a hot possessive freak but they also believe that Laylas assault wasn't actually assault because she loved him in the end or that his behavior is excusable because he "made up" for it. Some even go as far as to drag Layla because she's not immediately reciprocating.

The same goes to Leon Winston from try begging who while having less fans then Matthias, he is still romantized for being obsessed (which isn't even a good personality trait) Ergi from remarried empress is a manipulative POS but there are many people who claim it's okay because it's against the villainess, never mind the fact that he later gets with Evalie who is 16 by the way and finally the entirety of Jinx in general (not even sure myself on HOW or WHY anyone can read that and think it's a good piece of literature just because it's BL)

In short: finding problematic characters attractive is okay, but defending their behavior because they have a sad past is frankly not just idiotic but honestly disgusting if you think grape is totally fine just because the grapist is hot.