r/webtoons • u/Routine-Project-6575 • 21h ago
Advice/Critique/Help Would you read a webtoon about a king and queen who regress, but want oposite things to the life they had before???
Hey everyone! I have a fantasy romance story concept and I want to know if this dynamic would work as a webtoon. Let me lay it out.
The Setup:
A prince and a noblewoman marry in a political alliance. As part of the ceremony, they exchange an amulet that both the king and queen hold during their rule.
The prince becomes king and spends his time loving and revering the queen. But the queen spends most of her time ignoring or mistreating him, because the marriage was one of political alliance and she had to lose the love of her life to marry him.
Later, a coup happens. The king spent too much time thinking about his queen, so he didn't see the cracks in his rule.
They flee and go live in a secluded place. In this secluded place, their dynamic stays the same. The queen now has an extra resentment toward the king because she believes the coup happened because of him. The king is holding on to the only thing he has left after losing everything he worked for his entire life.
One day, they are found and killed by assassins sent to track the previous king and queen. The amulet they both held glows from their dead bodies.
The Dreamscape:
Each of them goes to a separate dreamscape, where the amulet talks to them separately and asks:
"What was your biggest regret?"
The King states:
"Making the queen my wife and consequently neglecting my kingdom, as I made her resent me during our entire marriage for I took her from the love of her life. I realized way too late that the love that she could harbor could never be towards me, and putting her in such a position for so many years has made her hate me. If I get the chance, I want to make sure that she lives a happy life, even if she must live away from me, and dedicate the rest of my life to making sure I run a perfect kingdom."
The Queen states:
"Treating the king as I did. I spent most of my life dreaming of marrying another, the same one that was taken from me because of a marriage that was planned eons before our birth and that was outside of the control of each of us. Yet despite the arrangement, he spent his entire rule making me his first priority, even to the detriment of his rule. Even when everything was lost, he believed it was okay because he had me by his side. I want to repay him and become a good wife to the man that gave everything to me even as everything fell apart."
The Regression:
They finally get an opportunity to turn back in time to before the coup or anything else happens. They meet each other in what each of them believes to be a pivotal moment in their story, one that they remember very well, too well:
The King's Coronation.
They both look into each other's eyes in shock, but they make completely different decisions from that moment onwards.
The New Dynamic:
The King becomes suspicious. He sees every single person that comes across him as a potential orchestrator for the coup. And as he sees the queen's behavior having changed severely, he believes even she could have been part of the coup, as well as the reason why they were assassinated later.
The Queen becomes surprised and suspicious as well. She sees the king look at her with dead eyes and do every possible measure to distance himself from her, giving her leeway, freedoms, independence, and responsibilities that intentionally push them further and further away from each other. She starts suspecting that he could have been regressed too, as the amulets are identical to one another. But the reveal of such magic within their amulets could make it coveted by the same people that organized the coup.
The Irony:
So you have a story of:
- A king who is resentful of the queen and the way that he was treated in his past life. He wants to distance himself as much as possible from her, as he believes that the love he held for her meant nothing and that the best he can possibly do is let her go and allow her to be happy, far away from him.
- A queen who mistreated probably the only person who truly loved her over the years and stuck by her till death did them part. She is trying to finally love that person and treat them correctly after years of mistreatment and abuse from her part. But she sees that same person treat them marginally differently to how they did in their past life.
Why I think it could work as a webtoon:
- Regression trope with a twist: both go back, but they don't know the other did too.
- Dramatic irony: the readers know both sides, but the characters don't.
- Two opposing arcs happening simultaneously (him pulling away, her reaching out).
- High emotional stakes with political tension in the background (the coup is still coming).
- Visual potential: the coronation flashback, the amulet glowing, dead-eyed stares vs. desperate longing.
My questions for you:
- Would you read this? Why or why not?
- How long would you want the "they don't know the other regressed" tension to last before the reveal?
- What art style would suit this best? Darker and moody, or brighter with sharp emotional contrast?
- Any tropes you'd want to see avoided?
Thanks for reading! Let me know your honest thoughts.