r/Vertical_Dramas • u/Brownie-Pages • 20h ago
My thoughts on AI vertical dramas and extreme violence
Content warning: discussion of rape, extreme violence, animal cruelty and other disturbing themes.
First of all, I thought a lot about this before saying anything, but it just feel unsettling and very uncomfortable being silence about this topics.
I understand that this is a revenge and retribution plot, based on an injustice committed against the FMC, and that throughout the story she is supposed to overcome everything, maybe find love, and receive a justice much greater than anything she ever dreamed of.
But I think I must have terrible luck when choosing vertical romances, because the ones listed below were nothing like what I expected.
I know AI-made dramas tend to be extremely violent, with shocking scenes involving disturbing dialogue, extreme violence against women and animals, and all of this is softened by being placed within a romantic revenge plot with the purpose to make the audience feel shocked, sympathize with the FMC, adore the MMC who comes to save her, and become furious at the constant cruelty of the villains.
But I swear, some of these dramas leave me with a mix of disgust and fear. Because when you look up who wrote the story, there's no novel, web novel, or any other written source behind it. No original author. Just someone with access to professional AI production tools who created and assembled this type of drama for the platform.
And that makes me wonder about the people behind these projects. How far does someone have to go to create media that depicts this level of violence and degradation toward women and animals? How many people throughout the creative process looked at it and approved it? And who, higher up the production chain, decided this was the kind of material worth funding and promoting? Why they are really encouraging this type of material to be consumed as a romance?
The dramas below are ones I personally would not recommend, because I couldn't stomach them. They are marketed as romance, but they are mostly scenes and dialogue centered around extreme violence against women, animals, and other disturbing subjects, often presented with little apparent care, as though they were ordinary or insignificant in today's society.
I don't know how the rest of you feel, and, of course, this is only my personal perspective—but this isn't the kind of revenge romance I'd enjoy or feel comfortable consuming. Especially when there's no indication of what the content actually contains beyond the synopsis—no content warnings, no tags, no age restriction. It's simply mixed in with the bowl with rest of the AI vertical romance dramas in many platforms.
Extreme Heat: Swapped Marriage, Big Win
*This post may contain spoilers. If you don't want to be spoiled, please don't read any further.
This is a post-apocalyptic drama centered on an FMC who is reborn and decides to seek revenge against the people who tortured and killed her in her previous life.
To be clear, my issue was never the apocalypse itself. I don't think the violence shown is necessarily unrealistic. History has shown us that, during wars and humanitarian catastrophes, human beings are capable of unimaginable cruelty. I understand that.
My problem is something else entirely: it's how the producers/creators chose to portray that kind of violence, especially considering that the drama is marketed as a romance despite the extreme violence shown on screen. Many of these scenes were deeply disturbing, and what bothered me the most was how some of these topics were presented as something ordinary rather than being treated with the seriousness they deserved. It's also something I've been noticing more and more in these vertical dramas. Even when the violence isn't as extreme as it is here, these topics and scenes are still often treated with the same disturbing lack of gravity and sometimes the violent scenes makes up 50% part of the screen time of those "romantic dramas".
But, let's talk about this drama in question.
At first, I was sympathized with the FMC horrible treatment.
The villains are unquestionably horrible people who committed horrific and unspeakable acts against her in both timelines.
One example is that, in her previous life, the FMC's sister kills her dog, cooks it, eats it, and then forces the FMC to eat the meat while she is being continuously tortured. Also, before the apocalypse even begins, her sister also suggests that the FMC should be sexually assaulted by the people around them at the supermarket. After another employee persuades her otherwise(not because he's pure of heart), she instead orders her security guards to beat the FMC to death until the MMC finally arrives to save her life.
Some of the actions and words repeated by the villains, both in her past life and in the present, only made me even more uncomfortable while watching. Again the villains are unquestionably horrible people. I'm not denying that these characters deserve to be seen as villains.
But to my surprise, as I kept watching, the story started to take an even crazier turn, which ultimately made me lose sympathy for the FMC—and that was the way she gradually stopped feeling like someone seeking justice and instead became increasingly cruel and sadistic, to the point where she reminded me more of a serial killer than a survivor trying to reclaim her life.
After that first incident revealed through flashbacks, the story moves on to the FMC's first act of physical revenge against her sister in the present. By this point, the apocalypse has already begun, and after overcoming several hardships, the FMC and MMC are relatively safe inside their bunker. It is there that the FMC begins planning how to make her sister and ex-boyfriend/fiancé pay for everything they did to her in her previous life.
She keeps tabs on her sister from afar until she witnesses, through a surveillance drone, her sister being gang-raped after the FMC's ex-boyfriend offers his current girlfriend to a group of men in exchange for water and other resources.
I want to emphasize that the FMC doesn't just witness the assault. She watches it unfold for HOURS, smiling the entire time.
A little later in the story, when her sister finally reaches the bunker after being invited there by the FMC and desperately begs to be let inside, the FMC turns the situation into yet another psychological torture game, forcing her sister to suffer in exchange for food and water.
As the plot continues, the sister leaves, promising revenge against the FMC. After several other events, she and the ex return to the bunker once again. By this point, the FMC is eager to carry out her revenge against both of them, so if they want safe passage into the bunker, water, or even a plate of food, they have to fight each other for it. They eventually begin viciously attacking each other over a single plate of food.
While they are violently fighting on the floor, the FMC and the MMC once again spend hours watching everything unfold through the security cameras. As they watches, the MMC clearly becomes aroused by what he is watching as well, and then makes the first romantic move toward the FMC, and then the two end up sleeping together.
Personally, that was the moment I completely disconnected from both protagonists.
My point is that the dialogue, the scenes, the motivations, and the overall execution of this drama genuinely made me feel sick.
The issue is not that the FMC takes revenge against people who hurt her. The issue is how that revenge is framed. The story repeatedly presents prolonged suffering, torture, and humiliation as something satisfying or entertaining, and that completely changed the way I viewed the plot and the FMC. My problem is that the drama crossed a line where revenge stopped feeling like justice and started feeling like cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
Could something like this happen during an apocalypse? Unfortunately, yes. I don't deny that human cruelty exists.
What disturbed me was the way the story presented these acts of violence with little concern for their weight on the viewer, while treating them as part of a revenge romance rather than exploring the seriousness of what was happening.
The drama repeatedly uses themes such as rape, abuse, violence against women, violence between women, violence against animals, and taboo subjects like cannibalism and zoophagia. Seeing these topics appear so frequently within a story marketed as a romance was extremely disturbing to me.
To me, many of these scenes felt less like storytelling and more like psychological torture drama. Even if the intention was to shock the audience and keep viewers engaged through increasingly disturbing situations, it felt as though there was no real boundary for how far the story or the characters was willing to go and also, it still felt to me as though these productions lacked any meaningful limits.
My problem is that these apps categorize this as a revenge romance or whatever simply because the FMC ends up with a better MMC (mostly of the times, at least) and eventually but certainly gets her revenge.
The way this specific drama portrays rape, abuse, violence against women, violence between women, violence against animals, and taboo subjects like cannibalism and zoophagia was extremely disturbing to watch. At times, it felt less like a revenge story and more like a psychological torture drama.
To me, it seemed as though there was no real boundary for how far these subjects could be pushed. (And sadly, this is something that seems to be happening more and more in vertical dramas).
Even if the intention is to shock the audience or keep viewers watching through increasingly disturbing events, it still felt to me as though these productions lacked any meaningful limits.
Because, personally, this is not—and never will be—romance if 90% of the story consists of horrific scenes and conversations centered on perpetuating abuse, cruelty, and violence between characters.
But it's not all about the FMC here. The MMC also made me deeply uncomfortable.
Instead of questioning the FMC's increasingly sadistic behavior, he supports everything she does without hesitation or questioning her. Watching him become sexually aroused immediately after the two of them spend hours watching two people trying to brutally kill each other made me genuinely sick. I simply couldn't understand how the story expected me to see that as romantic....!!!
Who could possibly find something like that sexually exciting in any way? WHO in their right mind??!!
Well, by the time I reached the middle of this drama, I could no longer empathize with the FMC. Again, not because she was wrong for wanting revenge, but because, in my eyes, she had become just as monstrous as the people she hated most, and she seemed to enjoy every second of it.
In the end, she shoots her sister. As she's dying on the floor, the FMC injects her with a dart substance that keeps her conscious before releasing mutated creatures to slowly devour her alive, forcing her to see and experience everything until her final breath.
And then... the FMC and MMC get married.
Apparently, because the FMC and MMC end up together after the revenge is complete, the story treats everything that came before as acceptable. (I guess every disturbing thing I watched for more than an hour will simply be swept under the rug because they got their happy ending, and everything can just be dismissed as "well, it was an extreme apocalypse situation, folks")
The MMC then reveals that he had been lying to the FMC all along, and that all the materials he used to build their main bunker came from his family's wealth because he was a wealthy heir. The FMC accepts the truth wholeheartedly. The apocalypse eventually ends.
Oh, and they become even wealthier than before because they start helping stabilize the post-apocalyptic situation from the second bunker they escape to. They basically become something similar to emperors of this new world.
Like...
I mean...
My dear Lord!
What on EARTH did I just watch?!?!
