Responses
awesome commentary. ngl, before the author stated it was a personality disorder, i assumed that Dojae has autism. sometimes, authors don’t know best. ╮(￣▽￣)╭ can we just pretend he’s autistic? the fight scenes were great though; wish more stories have arguments after the couple gets together (that aren’t caused by misunderstandings). i need issues to be brought up. also, seconding on Willful Negligence. The Beast Must Die seems interesting, but i don’t think i have the willpower to read it. there were a lot of good reviews on it though.
I'm pretty sure the author is trying to characterize Dojae as having antisocial personality disorder (aka sociopathy). But in a diet coke sort of way. I'm gonna be honest here, but his personality type is that of almost every high-octane top, who doesn't care much about others (aside from their usefulness as tools), except for his chosen bottom (which he is obsessed with). Look at most any serious Yakuza-type story. I find this to be pretty lazy. Both Willful Negligence and The Beast Must Die had semes who also seem to have ASPD, but better characterized. I find that The Beast Must Die does it the best, and is generally very well-written. Meanwhile, Willful Negligence is a guilty pleasure where the top is VERY problematic and the bottom is such a doormat he just puts up with it, but somehow I still like it.
The author also leaned really hard into stereotypes in this comic (euntak = crybaby bottom; dojae = high-octane top; hyobin = slutty bottom; hyuk = puppydog seme). It also irks me that there is arguing over topping, and that none of the characters are actually self-professed bottoms, yet 50% of them are forced to be just because. Euntak is forced into the bottom role even though he self-describes as a top in the comic. Hyobin is actually a versatile bisexual, but because hyuk is a puppydog seme, I guess that means hyobin is a bottom now. This seems a little lazy too. The author could've gone in a different direction with this to at least somewhat break from the stereotype, but no. If I was Euntak, when Dojae came crawling back to me begging to date, I would've made him agree to switch sometimes.
I think removing all the smut from this comic and making it ambiguous as to how they go about getting it on (while still getting it on) would've done this comic a lot of good favors. This comic is at its best when the characters are dealing with problems in their lives and just living their lives. Their relationship interactions would've been better if there wasn't so much focus on sex as a substitute for personal connection.