Rae D.'s manga / #ratchet bottoms(11)

I am giving this a 9.3 (but more like a 9.29). I can take a good guess as to why it is rated a 9.1 though. There is a specific list of things that the BL readers on this site do not like whatsoever, and one of those things is cheating. It's extremely weird to me and always has been that a group pf people who are okay with/desire things like rape, incest, pedophilia, and you name it.... decide to draw the line at cheating?? Like, why is that their big stance lol. But I mean it's an overwhelming ludicrous amount of them to the point where me saying this is just fact. Anyway, I am glad that I read this despite it being a 9.1, because I 1) I don't have that weird hang up about infidelity and 2) no actual cheating takes place. Even though the MC is just friends with benefits with multiple people none of whom he agreed to be in a monogamous relationship with, the poor babies on here just can't stand the idea of the MC "sleeping around" or basically having sex with anyone other than the dude they are supposed to end up with in the end. smh, kind of immature but I digress, I don't know how old these guys are so I'ma let them be. The beginning was a bit rough but not rough to get through. You know how some things are just hard to get through because you're like "damn I really don't wanna keep reading based off the things I've seen so far". People are acting like it was that kind of situation when it really was not. The beginning was just rough in a regular "I can't call the BL good yet" way. It went from being rough in the early beginning, to being mediocre throughout the entire middle which makes up at least 70% of it and then got kind of good in the last act. By good I more so mean interesting and you know kind of messy hehe. Anyway, in the very very end though, the whole BL comes together to pull off what could probably be called the best ending it could possibly have. That's pretty damn rare I think: for a BL to pull off the best possible ending given it's plot up until that point. They sometimes at best get close but still leave you going "ah, but I still wish so and such thing happened... and also this too", you know? But nah, other than us readers wanting a bit more content (and I do mean a bit- at 1-2 side stories for the lesbian side couple and for me personally one more side story for the main couple), all the other things were wrapped up just as nicely as they could possibly be wrapped up. I liked the way the story line was resolved with the uncle giving back that money, love that the blonde psycho brother went to jail, like that the company went down in flames, and the (insinuation) that the drugging, obsessive dude was also going to turn himself into the cops, and more than anything else, we love that after all this trauma, our lovely MC is both getting therapy and taking medication to heal. Like how often in BL's do the right people go to jail and then on top of that people who need it get therapy and then on top of that medication as well??????? Not often at all, that's when (BIG TIME looking at you "Love on my Terms"). (To be fair, it can and should be argued that the MC is not the only one who needed therapy and that there is no reason in hell why the love interest dude should not also be in therapy, but shhhhhh I'm going to take what I can get here...). Yeah, good ending "wrapping up the plot-wise" and good ending overall meaning-wise it didn't slap or anything, but it prevented itself quite successfully from going down the shit show rabbit hole I have seen more than enough BL of this caliber go down. It subverted expectations in that way and that was refreshing :). Okay, let's see what else... ngl some of this sex was h-o-t hot, mmmmmmmhm. I wasn't particularly attracted to any character at all during this BL at any given time and yet I still got a good handful of sex scenes that turned me on so that's a damn feat for smut am I right? Also, as always, I am all for a horny, open-about-his-sexual-desires bottom MC -- especially in this case when they're a bad bitch with at least mid-bad bitch fashion sense and piercings (double helix baby, woo!!!). Then art wasn't anything to write home about, but it was pretty darn good, a nice bit above average there. Characters not only were not particularly attractive, but also were not particularly enjoyable as people and I think both of those things together are really respectable form a BL. Like, you did not need to make your characters so hot and irresistibly psychically or psychologically to keep my attention and to get me to give a fuck about their stories and what happened to them. That is a crutch that many a BL author relies on (though I don't hate it). All the characters here just felt very real and realistic which was nice. Aside from them not being irresistibly enjoyable personality-wsie, I enjoy the MC even though he is not stereotypically enjoyable. He's ratchet and traumatized and a brat and all-around giving off HUGE Hyesung vibes and y'all know how I adooooore Hyesung :3. Okay, bad things? Small thing: story-telling was choppy enough to land this on the lower-end of the 9.3's instead of the middle. Bigger thing: ugh, the pedo vibes rolling off of this with the whole emphasis on the MC being so small like a child was distracting and upsetting to a certain extent despite me trying to look beyond it. It's not like I feel like they were unreasonable in the Bl, but I don't like the ideals we setting up/feeding into for people irl. Anyway, that's all I've got folks, not much else to say, but this is getting a 9.29.

(not in proper timeline order) note: ch81+ must add more smut bookmarks REVIEW FROM THE 1ST READ: Lmao, baby head uke but not ur usual baby head uke ya know? .... like a baby head who doesn’t think he’s a baby head and tries to not a baby head but ends up being a baby head after all :’( UPDATED REVIEW (now that it's done): So... I obviously read this a looooooong time ago. After Sign I think it may have been one of the first BL's I ever read. At the very least I know it was FOR SURE my first ABO/omegaverse one.... and oh what a first it was. Reviewing it so long after I first read it means I won't be able to do it justice by giving the review as much of my feelings of excitement that I felt when i read it the first time. However, it also means that I can now in this review speak to the LONG LASTING impact this story has had on my life and how it has FUNDAMENTALLY changed me as a person hahahaha. Like, wooow. It's been years and since reading this I have never not once been the same. It really..... opened my eyes to the possibilities in this world. Hahaha I know I'm doing a lot but I mean it. Okay, about the actually story, I feel like this is one of those like Cherry Blossoms After Winter and Hold Me Tight where I ain't even got to do too much reviewing. The real review and honest truth about how I feel about these stories will always be in my heart so much so that it's not like I'll forget about what happened in them, you know? Unlike Hold Me Tight and Cherry Blossoms though, this is something I come back to decently oftent o re-read my fav parts of. Particularly the smut. Till this day some of my fav smut to come back to of all time. That probs won't change anytime soon. Park Dojun is just.... so.... Hye-sung will always and forever be one of my fav BL main characters ever. I love that kid, he's the best. Byul will always be one of my fav BL babies. Love him soooo much. Their love story is always gonna be one of my favs. Now for down sides... the main downside of this story is that the author clearly didn't know where to stop :( This is actually one of the worst cases of "the author didn't know where to stop and that ruined the story" that I've ever seen even now. The main story between the two is so wonderful. The story between the side couple dampens it qite a bit IMO. But the real damage is done with everything that comes after the side couple. It sullies the whole piece of art. Not saying I don't want Hye-sung's friend to find love or anything like that, but.... bro who cares???? If we had to extend past the main story as fucking far as we did, I would have much preferred to watch Byul grow up than to try and now care about these people I never cared for too much before. Anyway, I will be coming back to read snippets of this often, but I'll also come back and read it fully from top to finish one of these days. If I could only give it a rating for the main story I would give it a subjective and perhaps unreasonably high score of 9.7 to be completely honest. But because I have to include all that happens after the main story....... I'll settle for giving it a 9.6 :3

okay, but this was literally SO FUCKING GOOD also just for some clarification, baby head uke = Kim Seunghee, and can I plz has this seme = Kwon Suhyeok, but for the first time eve that I’ve seen in a BL, we have a seme who is both “baby head seme” AND “can I plz has this seme”: Lee Kyubin ladies and gentlemen a round of applause

Ummmmmm lol what? Not taking itself seriously at all is a nice trait in this BL. Smut that knows it’s smut. Not lacking plot, but rather making a silly plot with holes that don’t make sense but also that no one minds because (see first point). Reads like a playful fan fic that the author updates occasionally. The art is also really playful and sometimes funnily bad at places. Cute? Enough I guess. Hot? Haha nah not really. Funny? A decently good laugh ngl. So yeah, it was cool. 9.3 fitting

I’m in love. This is exceedingly realistic, but it isn’t the most realistic BL. This is an exceedingly healthy relationship but it’s not the healthiest relationship I’ve seen in a BL. What does this BL do better than al other? THE GOOD WORK. The author of this BL is literally doing the good work to correct and change the narrative surrounding BL’s yes, but also relationships in young people fiction all together. The unfortunate thing is that she’s doing so much of the good work that the people reading this who have already sucked up all kinds of nasty misconceptions about relationships and toxic visions of what a nice relationship is.... they don’t know what to do with themselves. They don’t like it. That’s why the rating is so low. And this is not a fact that makes me mad, but one that makes me so very sad for them :( Alright yes characters go but therapy after realizing that they don’t understand things about themselves in this BL. Yes characters come to a very concise and mature conclusion on what the problems they face in themselves are after loads of self-reflection that had to have taken place off screen. It’s weird in that way, we the audience are not privy to all of the characters’ thoughts and emotions like in other BL’s. So much self-reflection happens off screen and we get to hear the conclusions they came up with. Sure it’s a tiny bit unrealistic that you find 3 whole men who are this emotionally intelligent and mature in one story lol, but MAN are these characters setting a wonderful example of the proper way to interact with ourselves and our emotions. Love and nothin but love. (Sure there were parts where the story wasn’t super duper enjoyable). Nonetheless this gets a 9.4999999 for me

Needs review lol cuz this was special

This BL reminded me a little bitty bit of Wild City, lol. Why? 1) Both have the word “wild” in their name and 2) both are aptly named. While this here was not nearly as wild as Wild City, it was wild nonetheless. Just like Wild City things kept happening in this story that… I could not have anticipated happening. Wild shit….. MC really said “never let them know your next move” fr. Lol, he was a cutie, but also crazy because why was he doing all of this??? also he was funny. This BL made me laugh a lot. So that’s a good point. Another one? This art style was wonderfully up my alley, very well done indeed. The humour and art style were this BL’s high points. Mid points? The actual plot was not anything to write home about and got kind of sloppy here and there in terms of making total and complete sense. Like I’m the end I know what happened because it made enough sense for sure, but…. eh. What else? The sex wasn’t super great and not really all that hot. It was just very regular degular. Also MC, MC’s ex, the clueless cutie gangster henchman, and the old couple at the farm were just about the only characters in this story with solid characterization and personality. Everyone else’s characterizations were weak sauce- particularly love interest and his brother! Smh, like who even was the brother in the end of the day? Idek! Who was he, what were his goals, how does he fit into everything? I can barely make it out. Love interest gets a clearer picture but still a lackluster one. For a supposed gangster he sure is a big old softie + simp! Like damn, how could any of the others in the biz take him seriously with the way he was acting towards MC (and esp with all that damn PDA!). So yeah, romance, plot, sex, and characters were the mid points. Low points? The relationship between MC and love interest. Nothing was wrong with it; I just wasn’t the biggest fan. It was bland. MC’s side of it was fine but the love interest? Mehhhhh. MC relationship with his ex was more like able to watch for me than his relationship with the love interest. The love interest was too tame and whipped and too much of a baby gay to be frank, hahaha. Okay the other low point, and the main main main main reason I am deducting major brownie points from this story is the rape. This rape is unique because it is two different instances of the main character himself raping people in what is made out to be a “funny” way. :/ Yeah, I really liked the MC a lot because he was a crazy lil cutie but…. a line must be drawn. Like wtf? That was fucked up. Why would the author make light of rape not just once but literally twice like that? It was sooooooooooo not okay. Especially since it wasn’t just rape but also the men were knocked out, kidnapped, tied down/bound, raped by total strangers, filmed + had pictures taken of them during it, and blackmailed. :((( How fucking traumatic. The second one was even left with a ruptured rectum! :(((((((((( Main, that shot was fucked up. Yeah, anyway, that’s not okay at all and really made me unable to like the MC as much as I wanted to and honestly overall like the BL as much as I wanted to. If it weren’t for that I might have given it a 9.4, but now I will lower the score to a 9.25.

I liked this so much more than I expected. The worst parts of it was, unfortunately the art and the translation. The best parts were the angst and the angst, lol. I know I can’t actually hold the poor translation I was reading against the story itself because I’m obvi reading illegally. So, as usually, I won’t actually factor it into the score at all. But the art? That’s fair game. The art style was very much giving “an artist who just got done being a beginner”. Like they aren’t a beginner, and you can tell by the amount of “polish”. But they can’t have been a beginner too long ago. What makes me say that? Such extremely noticeable disproportionate anatomy. It’s really actually so sad because the anatomy of the characters is like, this only problem! All of the rest of the art is just fine! And man, I wish I could say you stop noticing it at a certain point or that this is one of those where the artist’s skills grows during the publication of the story to the point where it isn’t a thing by the end, but…. neither of those is true here. *sigh* So yeah, the anatomy issues through me off and never really went away. While they didn’t go away or get less noticeable, I aa a reader began to notice how bad it was as thing went on because of how goooooood the story was getting! The angst was so yummy delicious in this one lol. I mean a really delightful concoction of toxic relationship and personality issues all throughout. Ohh, I was actually so into this. Something that sets this story apart from the majority of BL I read is that not only is the MC a bottom who holds more socio-economic and political power than the top love interest, but he’s also so completely and wholly a bad guy!!!! Like, I really am struggling to think of where else I’ve ever read that dynamic. I loved it. Jaehan was such a horrible person but he was CRAZY endearing so I couldn’t not root for him if I tried. He would keep doing bad things and I’d be like “

Lol why did this get a 9.1? You guys are mean hahaha. It wasn’t good enough for a 9.3 or anything, but I very much nipped myself so I am giving this a 9.25 :)

Y’a boi best baby head lol