I will never understand why authors drag out their webtoons, because if it's for monetary reasons, then people are going to lose interest, which will make you lose engagement; then you'll eventually stop getting money from the loss of said engagement, and if you just don't know how to wrap up your story, people will still lose interest and stop reading. Like, either way, you're gonna lose engagement, so just end it??
Like your best bet is you get lucky and garner a small, dedicated fanbase that worships you and will love anything you give them, and even then, that'll only last for so long. Even if said fanbase is full of preteens, they're gonna grow up eventually and realise that they can do better and leave.
And all that aside, dragging your story out can severely damage your reputation as an author, like if I was reading something that ended up going off the rails because the author dragged it out and then they decided to make another webtoon, that would make me highly skeptical about getting into it cause i can't be sure they'll just end up doing the same thing they did with their last webtoon!
So to reiterate my point, dragging out your story benefits you so much less as an author than just ending your story when you should've.
The kiss bet I'm complaining about you AGAIN. Holy shit, this webtoon has gone on for so long I genuinely don't even care whether the characters live or die; Sara has nothing going on for her other than her love life, we haven't seen oliver deal with any of his family/internal issues, and everyone else is just...there. And the author's been on hiatus for like three years or something. Reading this story without fast pass genuinely makes you feel insane cause a new episode will come out and then you'll get radio silence for like six months before the next one comes out. Like??? I don't even think this counts as a slow burn because they've BEEN having feelings for each other; they were just being annoying and beating around the bush. It also gets to a point where you can tell even the author doesn't give a fuck anymore, so like why are we here? Like genuinely, what are we doing?? Can we wrap this up??? Let's all go homeeee!!
And if I said aside from pre-nerfed Oliver, Sky was lowkey the most interesting character in the story (in the beginning, before they nerfed her for Olivara), everyone would shoot me. Heck, even Rose is more interesting than Sara, and I don't even gaf about her 😭
Operation true love: Everyone and their MOTHER all know that Suae is ending up with Eunhyuk so HURRY THE FUCK UP ALREADY. The only people who think otherwise are delusional Dohwa/Soohwa stans😭. Like there's building up a story and then there's whatever the fuck the author's doing. Suae, Eunhyuk AND Dohwa are not interesting enough characters to drag the story out this much like nobody is here for their seperate plotlines people only give a fuck about the romance like im sorry but it's true, like if they were people i knew irl, i'd find them boring as absolute SHIT; Suae's annoying and doesn't know to function as a human being, Eunhyuk can't communicate for SHIT and Dohwa's BORING nothingburger ass needs to get a fucking life and find someone who's actually capable of developing romantic feelings for him and stop fucking crying about the ONE girl in a sea of women that doesn't want him like that becuase I DONT GIVE A FUCK. There's 51 MILLION people in South Korea right now PLEASE GO MEET SOMEBODY ELSE. These grown-ass people bro. YOU'RE PUSHING 30. ACT LIKE IT.
It's not even the time skip that I have a problem with; it's that it isn't being utilised well AT ALL. What's the point of making them so much older if you're not gonna make them act realistically for that age??? How are they all LESS mature at 29 than they were at 17/18??? Just give them all the white truck of doom atp.
Unlovable replacement: so you made a webtoon, people loved it, nobody was complaining, and then you STILL DECIDED TO CHARACTER ASSASSINATE YOUR MAIN LEADS??? FOR WHAT?? You added a 7-year time skip for NO REASON (seriously, what is with authors and adding unnecessary time skips like if I had a nickel for every time this happened, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice).
Chiko suddenly became an asshole overnight, so November would break up with him and cut him off. He broke the ONE dealbreaker she had, like a week after she told him about it. Mind you, all this happened because his EX, who's also November's EX-BEST FRIEND, Millie, FAINTED after hearing the news that November's brother DIED. For context, Millie was in love with him and was using Chiko to get over him, and the way she treated him because of that was awful.
So after ALL THIS, neither Millie nor the brother is ever mentioned or shown post time skip, so what was even the point? We don't even get to see November mourn or handle the costs/planning the funeral. Does Millie show up? Do they make amends? Does Chiko show up? Does Millie explain the situation? I guess we'll never find out because the webtoon just consists of the most useless, boring office drama with a new nothingburger one-dimensional cast nobody cares about, ALONGSIDE Chiko acting like a creep every chance he gets and November being grossed out/annoyed by him but also finding him attractive???
YOU CAN'T JUST INTRODUCE A MAJOR FAMILY DEATH AND THEN TREAT IT LIKE BACKGROUND LORE?? This motherfucker has been haunting the narrative in his coma for like ten years and now he just doesn't matter anymore??
You don't necessarily need to show every detail of funeral planning or every stage of grief, but the death should have some meaningful impact on November's character and the story. And the Chiko situation makes it worse because the story apparently wants us to be interested in him romantically again despite the damage done to his character. Who are these people?? Were they cloned?? Did the author decide she wanted to make a really awful AU to spice things up?? I guess we'll never know. No, like actually, I guess we'll never know because the author updates like thrice a year.
Maybe meant to be: Well, this one's finished, but I still wanna rant about it because what the hell was season 2?? Having the season start out with them on a deserted island was an...odd choice, but then everything after that was so...? Like it was such a nothingburger; there's nothing wrong with a bit of drama, but the drama was so...boring. Every chapter felt like a drag; I genuinely couldn't bring myself to care about the best friend writing drama, sorry. And then the author gave them the most generic ending ever and just slapped them with kids like...ok.
This is an "old" one, but Edith and Philip from 'Edith' with the will they won't they drama and then...they didn't LMAO.
And if I said Jackson's diary is also dragged out now?...like I'm sorry, but the author doesn't know how to incorporate the side characters well and flesh them out. Like, how am I supposed to care about all these ships when I barely know/care about the characters within them? Jackson and Pamela barely have screentime/moments as a couple; Exer and David are low-key boring now. I never liked Ron, so I don't care for him and Timothy and Ken and Brenda literally came out of nowhere, also none of the couples (aside from Exer and David and season 1 Jackson and Pam) have chemistry THERE I SAID IT. The only character I care about is Jackson (Jackson, they could NEVER make me hate you idc like that's my son), and he's just getting tortured every episode. Exer used to be interesting, but all he does now is worry about David. Also, why are all the female characters so one dimensional?...#noticing...
I'm just gonna wait until the finale comes out so I can just skip to the end.
ALso can someone update me on Castle Swimmer? I lowkey dropped it and couldn't find where I left off...