@gladiatorua
@G-P
@CrusadeDan
I'm not here to hate on
The Apothecary. Giba-chan's art is gorgeous, and I enjoyed the story. The poor, ragged elf is as alluring as she is pitiful, and only the most hardened sadist would be unmoved by her plight. But this series is creepy as fuck.
It belongs to a niche genre of helplessness fetish romance aimed at male readers. In such stories, the female lead is reduced to the most pathetic state possible. This enhances her dependence on and, consequently, her devotion to the male lead - a situation from which love eventually grows.
The question, then, is this: To what horrors do we, as male readers, want to imagine the female love/lust-object has been subjected in
bringing her to the desired state of dependent helplessness?
Here, we get to imagine that her body and spirit have been all but annihilated by years of sexual abuse. Elf-chan has no memory or sense of independent self. Sustained trauma has left her blind, quadriplegic, and near-catatonic at death's door. To drive the point home, we are told and reminded that she was raped and tortured to the point that her genitals were literally destroyed.
Personally, I found that this story provided more helplessness and origin trauma than I typically need or want in a romantic fantasy. It's great that the apothecary found and healed the elf. It's great that they can now live happily ever after. But the shadow of what the author (fictionally) put the character through - in order to enhance our (the reader's) romantic investment - hangs a dark cloud over the tale, undermining its superficially "wholesome" charm.
8/10 despite the creep factor. The art's wonderful, the story's short but feels complete (if a bit rushed at the end), and I always appreciate a happy ending.