It's not literary masterpiece, but it's not bad either. At least there's no rape....
The story really just seems to lack depth that would grab you and reel you in, but that doesn't mean it's a bad one. It's a sweet and rather short couple of stories.
Not that I've read them all to be fair, but I've attempted to read a few others and have really just hated them. Their glaring plot holes always piss me off, or the fact that in so many to give guidance means you MUST have sex. (Where are all the kids from all this sexing in those universes?) Or just plain terrible/abusive characters that we're supposed to somehow sympathize with.
This guideverse is much more believable. The world building imo is just better than the others I've tried to read. The characters have depth and are actually likeable. I'm so happy that this was the first guideverse I stumbled upon, and it really set the bar for the others.
What is with this trope of the MLs killing someone, the MCs being like "OMG he killed someone?!" -almost immediately after- MC: "Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all."
WHAT?!
He touches high school kids. The nurse definitely sexually assaulted minors. This is all very ikk. I don't really get how this one is so highly rated.
He clarified that he never touched kids or anything, he just said those because he wanted the attention of mc
The kid himself says he touched him. (He also immediately knew what the marks on the MCs wrists were and what the training was). The teacher says he touched him. They're just trying to claim he didn't sexually harass him, which we all know is utter bullshit since the teacher is an adult and the student a minor. It can be nothing else BUT sexual harassment/rape of a minor. A CHILD.
100% is a pedophile
which panel or chapter was it?
Chapter 1 and 2. The nurse just draws the line at emotions
Very first chapter and the MC gets plastic surgery to attract the other guy. Just, ew.
There's no real development of the characters. Taego, the main character, seems to be an idiot for story's sake. No way a 40 year old semi-experienced gay man is this plain dumb and naive. First he was naive and a pick-me-up with the love interest, and then he's naive and a moron with his competitor.
None of the characters develop (if anything Taego just seems to regress mentally as the story goes on), we don't really know anyone's backstory or who they are. The plot just jumps from one point to the next to the next without telling you who anyone is, motivations, personalities, etc. We don't know jack about the competitor except he maybe knew the love interest since childhood (maybe? It doesn't say, he just makes a claim or two), he appears to have money but we don't know how, we don't know what sort of life he leads, we don't know jack. It isn't until the last chapter that the love interest just says, "His family is too influencial" What? How do? Who is his family? What is his family?
Taego has a sibling you don't hear about until halfway into the story, he's there for a couple of chapters and then never see him again.
Taeho watches his competitor leave his man's hotel room after clearly having sex, watches him kiss his man, witnesses how he's trying to take his man away from him and is like, "This guy cares for me so much, I feel bad for being jealous of him." WHAT?!
Taeho almost gets raped. Like 5 chapters later, gets almost raped again in pretty much the same exact scenario, by the same people.
It's dumb. It really feels like the writer just wanted to brush against a lot of tropes but not actually write anything too long.
Artwork is meh. Story is meh. Characters are all extremely meh. Just....... Meh
This trope is so overly done that attempting to read it again is just proving to be exhausting.
Typical one sided power trope. Seme has been holding all the cards the entire time as the uke just danced in the palm of his hand.
Are you surprised?!?!?!?!
No, cuz everyone has done this freaking trope. They've run it into the ground. Milked this cow for all its work. Beat this horse until it was dead and stiff. Hell, some originality please.
Let's save everyone a little bit of time.
Now we've entered the imprisonment arch. Then we'll probably have the chase/remorse arch. Then the redemption arch. The uke won't actually ever have any sort of real tangible power. The Seme will almost certainly just fold to the uke simply because of **feelings**. The Seme won't face any real repercussions for their actions. Hell, he might even be excused for them! And then they'll all live happily ever after.
:exhausted eye roll:
I'm at chapter 55 so far
I'm not sure if the writer put in planning for this story before they started it or just winged it throughout. It feels like the latter. It seemed like they wanted to try and tell 3-4 stories in one which frankly ruined the quality and pacing of the story. There hasn't been any real development of the two main characters in about 20 or so chapters. And there seems to be forgotten things and reworked things thrown in.
Like for instance, who was blowing up the MLs phone before the redhead found him again and got his number from the MC?
The artist seems really uncomfortable with human bodies now too. Seems they changed artists after the first few chapters and it was a rather serious downgrade. (No offense, you're better than a lot out there, keep practicing, you're on a good path). Too much use of 3D assets and not taking the few simple editing steps to make them less glaringly obvious. (Also why does the main couple have all the same toys as the side dude? Seems like the artist used up all their 3d assets early on and then just kept refusing them)
As far as story telling, the second couple couldn't be less important. They really didn't need to be in this story at all.
The car accident would have been perfectly fine as it was early on. The brother could go through all of the same exact personal growth without the sudden murder mystery plot forcefully shoved in halfway through the story with characters who feel like afterthoughts, or are simply needed for convenience.
The glove design for the redhead is just distracting. Who would actually wear something like that? Stop trying to make him look cool/sexy/important with weird outlandish clothing that serves literally no purpose. (This isn't really the genre for it)
Overall I think the story to could have really done better with proper planning and pacing, and a healthy dose of trimming. The bait and switch with the bdsm is nothing new, but is exhausting to experience again and again. I hope the second artist keeps up their practicing and gets human bodies feeling more real and organic instead of thick and blocky. They show promise.
It's not a bad story, it's just not all that good either. I agree with the criticisms others have written before me here as well.
Truthfully the story hasn't been bad so far. At the very least there's no rape.... The bar is so low.
It's not a particularly great story imo, but then again in only 36 chapters in.
Yet here is where we are introduced to an overly used sign of poor writing skills. The introduction of a new character just to info dump on the MLs "tragic" past.
Wish the authors would stop using this gimmick.
It just really drove home that so far, the story isn't that
compelling. Just the same as the reason for someone having any type of unusual kink (in this case a form of exhibitionism) is always caused by some type trauma. Lord forbid anyone just naturally have non-vanilla kinks. Nooo, those can ONLY happen because of something bad happened in their past ....
It's not bad, but so far can't really understand the 9.1 rating.