The Soulless Duchess

[Chuepomi]

How does that make the author homophobic? Are we supposed to treat all gay characters like they can’t possibly have anything but the purest of intentions? I’ve never read any of their other work, if they even have any, so there could be a pattern I’m missing...but from one manga alone, gay villains aren’t problematic in the slightest.

Edit: omg, yes bloochan. Preach.

 

[Prominis]

LGBTQ+ people are human too—they can have flaws, desires, wants, etc. This also applies to their potential to take on antagonistic positions. It isn't inherently racist or sexist or homophobic to have a person of any race, sex, or sexuality be a villain, because those traits do not define their entire being or personality. It's an aspect of them, but does not wholly define them.

In this instance, they aren't antagonists because of their sexuality, but rather because of their ambitions, which run contrary to the main character's interests. If you swapped the MC's cousin to be female, you'd get a fairly common story. I don't see how changing the villains to be homosexual makes this homophobic; it's just a cliche plot. Without more information, or more emphasis on that detail in particular (of which there hasn't been that much tbh, and we've only had 6 chapters) I would not rush to conclusions on the author's personal opinions.

 

[newman4189]

Nice b8 but no cigar

 

[Elllethy]

Thanks for the update guys! Keep it up! The grammar was not bothersome, you're doing a awesome job!

 

[Berdy]

@PrinceTenjou The reach is quite strong with you.

You seem to be the only one looking at sexuality in this story in the wrong way. Whether he was homosexual, heterosexual, or anything else. He’s an antagonist because he sucks as a person. Her cousin is an antagonist because he sucks as a person. Not because of their sexuality. It’s their character from the onset that was the issue. Before you even write this off as some sort hate expression, you should at least stick around before you start spewing nonsense or find the raws and you’d see for yourself what actually makes them terrible people.

 

[JAPisawesome]

Keep up the good work translators! Don't listen to the hate, your English is actually pretty good!

 

[Casxss]

Thank you for the hard work! I really love this manga <3 and I agree with JAP your translations/English is really good :3

 

[toomanywords]

This is like a birthday cake timbit. It's got the dough, the sprinkles, the sugar, the colour, and the calories all rolled up in a cute ball. And no way can i just have one.

Thanks for the translations!! Looking forward to more.

Also....a water darkness bunny? That's new. And so cute!

 

[Meybi]

I dont get why people rate shit so highly, this is a hard 5.

 

[yurigasaki]

@Prominis @Berdy @bloochan @PrinceTenjou

There isn't anything inherently wrong with a story having an antagonist who happens to be queer – I think the real problem (if you even can call it that) with this story is that the antagonists are, as far as we currently know, the *only* queer characters in the story and both of them are kind of cartoonishly evil. On top of that, their poor treatment of the MC is more or less entirely motivated by their love for each other, which ties back to their sexuality. If you have a story full of characters who happen to be queer then it's not really notable if you have antagonists who are also queer, but when the good guys are all straight and cis and the bad guys are all either queer-coded or outright queer, then it definitely raises a red flag. It's *not*, however, a reason to flag the story as being The Most Homophobic without any other context. We're only a handful of chapters in and still getting wordbuilding spoonfed to us, so it's entirely possible that sympathetic queer characters will be introduced later though I kind of doubt it – the fact that the antagonists are male lovers kind of just feels like a twist the author added to spice up a rather bland tropey story and I don't think they really have much interest in exploring the idea of queer characters in a deeply heteronormative fantasy society like this.

Which is kind of a shame because right now, uh, Gaspal and Tristain are way more interesting and compelling than Ivona. She's kind of falling into the trap of being an all-knowing, hypercompetent woman of steel who comes out on top in every situation because the author asspulls a reason for her to have information or resources she should have no way of obtaining and justifies it by saying "this totally happened before, offscreen somewhere where the audience didn't see!" and it just comes across as flat av uninteresting. Obviously the story could still pick up from here but I have my doubts.

ANYWAY THAT'S JUST MY ONION

 

[Ayametachibanasan]

And an honest review about the story:

Its good that a shoujo webtoon is trying to take on gender queer themes, but do hope that its not going to keep on going down the path where the queer people are "evil". The story is good, kind of reminds me of Lucia, only the FL is leaning towards the angsty-cunning type of girl (imagine Adelaide's wit with Lucia's charm and a dash of a villainess' need for revenge). Here's to hoping it gets better, cuz if not, Im about 30% en route to dropping this 😢

 

[BraveDude8]

Stop spamming "Claude Forever" here, thanks. Keep it in the chapter comments.

 

[pizzapicante27]

How is this "Historical"?

 

[bloochan]

@yurigasaki Oh come on, we have only 7 chapters and don’t even know more than 5 characters and you’re saying they are the only ones queer. The thing I’m trying to say is people who think they are defending LGBTQ+ are actually excluding these people. If villains were heterosexual, no one would even talk about their sexuality. People can’t be defined by their sexuality only. Why are we even talking about them being gay? Does it even matter? Why should we care when they just happen to have that type of a sexuality ?And it’s very normal for villains to be cartoonishly evil since this is a webtoon, not a carefully written literary masterpiece.

 

[Poisondilu]

People, please, can you comment that "claude forever" thing IN THE CHAPTER instead of here? Is getting really spamy. Thank you

 

[jumbowlshrimp]

Thank you for scanalating!

 

[Mary_2000]

@pizzapicante27 can’t you tell by the clothes and setting??

 

[Tigerchan]

Thanks for all the hard work!

 

[Dreamy_109]

Please continue translating this!!! It’s such a nice story and thank you for taking the time to translate this!!! 🤗🤗

 

[Kctta]

Home girl get it!!! the story is progressing so welll <3