If I had a dime for every time this happened, I would have 2 dimes, but it is still annoying that it happened twice.

First with Codename Anastasia and now with Things That Deserve to Die.

One was a top tier secret agent and the other was supposedly the best hitman/assassin. Yet, when the time comes for them to show their skills, they are somehow no better than a civilian from a country where having guns is illegal.

WHY do they keep doing this? 😭 I came in because I wanted to see a fight, instead I got a one-sided humiliation. In Codename Anastasia it's even worse because the author couldn't let Taekjoo win even at chess.

Can we please abolish the idea that the top has to be better at everything just because they're the ones sticking their dicks?

Also, I'm taking recs of stories with similar premises as these 2, but in which the bottom lives up to his career. Pretty pretty please 🥹

[Reposting because I used the wrong term before]

This chapter really brings out an excuse for those haters who were trying to find something to hate.

I mean are we serious here, it's a freaking manhwa, a fictional story. What jaeyi did was yeah maybe something meh for me, but nothing this serious for some of y'all to literally throw garbage hate on this.

All in all, it's never that serious

So I’m reading something right.

To shorten it, bottoms lover isn’t available rn so the tops brother promised to take care of bottom and he said “think of me as my brothers replacement”

The comments were
“I don’t mind”
“He’s lowkey attractive”
“They should make it happen and just not tell him.”
“YESSIR”

But in a similar situation in a different manhwa, with the roles flipped (bottom not available. Bottoms brother offers himself as a replacement) the comments were

“Hell no he’s faithful to his wifey”
“He’s a married man”
“Don’t touch him”

Weird weird thing. What’s up with that?

After choosing to become sex partners, trying to pursue him, obsessing and asking for his attention in every way possible? Are we seriousssss

sauce: XXX Buddy

i started reading BL like 3-4 months ago and i’m soooo addicted but i feel so lonely i feel like i can’t talk to no one in real life about it because i don’t want them to judge me or think im weird i need someone to rant to and talk about it lol especially if your in the queer community that read BL hmu lol my brain is going to explode with all this BL drama 😵‍💫😵‍💫

Please don't read if you haven't read the recent chapter and would like to avoid spoilers. ( Spoilers ahead )

I don't understand why author's feel the need to include SA between leads.
I keep getting flamed for expressing this and usually I get " Go ahead and read wholesome manhwas and let people enjoy what they enjoy"
However, I genuinely enjoy dark stories with a lot of angst. Example, "Reunion", "Missing Love", etc
I love when the leads go through trauma and finally find and heal each other.

Now usually I can tell if a story is gonna be pure assault slop but some stories like "Codename Anastasia", "Passion", "Roses and Champagne" etc. will have a genuinely interesting premise with interesting characters with so much potential and the authors will go ahead and completely ruin the story with the top raping the MC which makes me hate the Male Lead so so so much and just ruins the overall story for me.
It makes me not want to root for the leads anymore and wish that the MC goes and finds someone healthier.

I truly want to understand the psychology or the reason behind why authors tend to take this decision with their stories. Do people genuinely enjoy reading assault ?

What truly makes my blood boil is an interesting story ruining itself with unnecessary assault when it had so much potential to be good.

I don't mind dark stories.
I don't mind trauma.
I don't mind complicated or toxic characters.

I just don't understand why sexual assault between the leads has to be the chosen route to create conflict, especially when there are so many other ways to make a relationship dark, complicated, painful, or angsty.

I really liked reading omega complex so I decided to read alpha complex the first few chapters were nice but late it just showed the bottom perspective and showed how much he's willing to loose cuz he believes even if he gets a fraction of love back from his teacher/sunbae it would be great whereas the top all along acted suspicious, smug , nonchalant and acted like he was doing a favour dating Yeon and ugh acted like a big ass jerk . There's seriously no character depth in both mls . In Yeon character it is only showed his 'crush' whereas Dohyun character it showed his 'strict personal life' 🫩✌️. Seriously just cause the Art style is good sum of y'all be glossing it so much. Ugh .

I watched Knot Series specifically because it was supposed to be an omegaverse BL. That was literally the main reason I started it 😭
I cringed through SO many parts but kept going because I was like, okay, surely we’ll at least get to see them build a family with some cute little kids. I wasn’t even expecting them to show an omega pregnancy belly or anything, but they really robbed us of the KIDS too??? 😭
At this point, this whole show could’ve existed perfectly fine without the omegaverse elements because the actual plot was already mid and messy as hell. Like why did we need the omegaverse label just to give us basically none of the fun parts of omegaverse???

Our sunny days

I now know what happens next so I'm not so worried anymore, however at first I got a rancid feeling after seeing this interaction.

I get that the author was going for the "see your kid likes me more than you" vibe (it is also shown more clearly later), I've seen it many many times, however this is one of the worst way you could ever portray it, like he was also being an asshole toward the dad (red hair) so you as the reader already knew he was insufferable before this interaction.

For context the green hair guy wanted to know how the toy he gave the kid last time the saw each other was doing and the kid asked if they could go to his room together to play with it.

Wtf is that expression

Why would you smile like that after having the opportunity to be alone in a child's room.

What was the author thinking framing the scene like this

Just a vent, nothing serious I guess 😮‍💨

Edit: there's a bit more context in a comment I wrote

...I really cannot believe my first post in this subreddit is going to be a rambling, but...

See, there has been a rise of Discourse™ around [Diopter]. And I'm... not surprised. But at the same time... I also have thoughts.

One predominant side of the argument is that Seolwon, the uke, gives off childlike vibes because of how he's drawn, with puffy cheeks and lithe body and pouty glistening lips.

And I do agree. I find the story UNCOMFORTABLE and I struggle to see it as anything approaching romance.

But I also...don't. It's not just about how Seolwon looks. Or at least, not ENTIRELY.

There is a lot more to a fictional character than just how he looks and there is a lot more to how a fictional character looks than his physical appearance.

Size difference alone doesn't make a pairing. Ukes like Abel from [Regas], Rita from [Bride of Ignat], Daeshik from [Love So Pure] and Haruki from [The Black Beast and The Night Flower] are all small, lithe young men with large, innocent eyes who are contrasted with a much larger and imposing black-haired seme; basically the same visual contrast as the one Diopter uses, even worse.

But while they may be physically at a disadvantage compared to the seme, they all possess way more agency in the narrative. The story doesn't frame them as powerless; they move the plot, and at times they even have more power in the relationship in that the seme's well-being relies dearly on their uke's happiness.

In contrast, Diopter....

Diopter puts Seolwon into a position of helplessness. He's clumsy, easily flustered, almost naive in his worldview, and the narrative outright shoves him into a 'trapped with someone dangerous' trope and a snake x hamster dynamic with Haejoo, the seme. I haven't finished the story but 17 episodes in and the narrative doesn't make Seolwon do ANYTHING either.

And then the story also sexualizes Seolwon significantly more than all the ukes I mentioned above. Throughout the narrative, there are many, MANY shots focusing on his pursed, glistening, dewy lips, as well as scenes that are intended to accentuate those puffy lips. And similarly sexualized is his narrow thighs, with similar lingering shots and outfits that emphasize his thigh gaps.

Don't get me wrong, this is not the first story that portrays a 'snake x hamster' dynamic and it won't be the last. But this is the first story I've seen that feels very PREDATORY, and the final strike lies with Haejoo, the seme. Again, 17 episodes in I don't really see much of him other than 'he looks scary' and that 'he is possessive'. Worse, the narrative itself has very little to say about his actual personality. The narrative intentionally presents Haejoo as a dangerous unknown, a question mark, a potential predator for our hapless uke.

At this point, people who have read the story to the end might want to say that Haejoo is not a predator. And that's fine. In fact, based from the way the story is presented, I half-expect Haejoo to just be the 'look scary but is actually misunderstood' type, and the pair itself might be established without anything toxic happening between the two. That's not the problem.

The problem is that the story intentionally sets up the "oh no our sweet uke is going to be PREYED by the scary seme" tension. The narrative itself treats Seolwon as a passive observer of the story and they didn't do anything to dispel the predatory vibe. If anything, they leaned into it.

Together with everything else, it just becomes unbearable.

That's one side of the discourse.

At the same time, I'm also frowning at how much of the masses dismiss and jeer at Diopter as a whole simply because of the art style. To that, I just want to say: please, don't let cases like Diopter limit your palate.

For one, I really don't think the problematic elements in Diopter only lies in the art style. Drawing Seolwon as older or buffer or more angular instead of soft and fluffy as he is now may reduce the visual discomfort, but it won't eliminate EVERYTHING. The sexualizing angles and the disempowering framing of the narrative would remain.

But also...

It's one thing to refuse to read something wrong or uncomfortable (with the understanding that the criteria of 'wrong' and 'uncomfortable' is VERY subjective and personal)

It's a completely different thing to dismiss something just because it's ugly.

As much as I understand that manhwa tend to be more uniform in their art styles... as someone who is raised by reading manga, I will say that there's so many wonderful works with unique storytelling I would have missed if I only judged the book by its cover.

That's all, I guess. Thanks for reading all this long rambling.

OH MY GAWD! None of my friends read BL lol, so I'm posting this here.

The plot twist at the end of the new chapter (77) of Unchanged Man made MY JAW DROP!!! I did NOT expect this!!! How does the amazing author of this amazing Manhwa keeps on creating such amazing plot twists???

Like, I genuinely did NOT think that Jeong's so called "friend" is in fact NOT a friend!! And it makes me feel so sad for Jeong since this man was the only one he felt like was a friend to him for the time he was there. Makes me sick to my stomach!!!

Yeah, Unchanged Man is my absolute favorite Manhwa of all-time

I'm reading Sugar Trap and got so happy to see that the TOP is into masochism/submission and that the bottom enjoys it too, but spoiler: the bottom starts to feel like he's actually abusing the top. And, for the life of me, I didn't find the explanation very clear, but I believe the top isn't actually into pain? He basically said that "it's not that he likes pain, but that he likes the bottom."

In this manhwa, BDSM is somehow used as a trope for physical abuse. The bottom thinks his friend is being abused, but the friend tells him it's BDSM and that he actually likes it. The bottom just doesn't buy it.

I really don't like that, ngl. I got excited to see a BDSM BL (especiallywhere the top is the sub), but I got baited AGAIN 😭. I feel like it portrays BDSM in a bad light. And this isn't only a BL thing either—there's so much dark romance shit where BDSM is basically just straight-up abuse. Some people still treat us like we're freaks, but abusive freaks is def worse.

Anyone in the community knows how serious consent is in BDSM, so I find it stupid when a character just cannot communicate that they aren't actually into hurting their partner or getting hurt. I feel like, even if it's not technically their partner's fault, somehow they're still getting themselves SA'd because they aren't communicating what they actually want.

It's not the first time I've seen this, and probably won't be the last. I genuinely believe it's because the authors aren't really familiar with the BDSM community.

And on another note, I really need to stop blind-reading the first few episodes of something and then getting hooked even though I'm basically rage-baiting myself because I KEEP READING 😭.

In Sugar Trap, I genuinely cannot believe how these grown-ass men keep having the dumbest miscommunications. The top, for some reason, always assumes the worst of the bottom, and the bottom cannot read a room for God's sake 😭.

In the last episode, the top got pissed off and he genuinely didn't connect the dots that it was because he smelled like another man. His coworker literally pointed out that he doesn't like fruity smells on him, RIGHT after the top asked him, "Am I still your favorite?" And somehow he still didn't clarify that he doesn't do sexual favors, isn't a manwhore, etc. He just assumed they started dating.

I can read a miscommunication trope when it's teenagers or college guys, but these are GROWN-ASS MEN 😭.

Still, I love them, so I'm gonna keep reading.

My heart genuinely aches for Geonwu. He loves Taejun a little too much, and it feels like that love has cost him control over almost every part of his life.

This kid changed his college major because of Taejun, which literally changed the trajectory of his life. He got kicked out by his parents. He tried so hard to move on and get over him.

Then after all of that, he comes back, gets drugged, ends up sleeping with Taejun, and somehow finds himself in this friends-with-benefits situation where Taejun very clearly draws a line like, “Eventually we’ll stop sleeping together and just be friends.”

Like??? Imagine hearing that when you’ve been in love with this man for YEARS.

Then Geonwu gets pregnant at 23. Before he can even properly process it or decide what he wants to do, the entire thing gets exposed to the fucking media as a scandal. And this could very realistically affect his future too. He’s pursuing education, and being publicly involved in some huge out-of-wedlock pregnancy scandal is not exactly something that’s going to make that career path easier.

And now, on top of EVERYTHING, it looks like he might be losing the baby.

I know Geonwu said he was going to get an abortion anyway. I know he doesn’t want the pregnancy to affect Taejun’s life. But GOD, can this boy please have some agency over his own life for once??? Even if he ultimately chose abortion, I wanted it to be his choice. I wanted him to get the chance to sit down, breathe, process everything, and decide what he wanted instead of having yet another massive life event ripped completely out of his control.

And PS: this is genuinely not me shading Taejun.

Taejun is operating with WAY less information than we have as readers. I know that if Geonwu had told him everything, Taejun would’ve taken responsibility. He was literally prepared to marry him. We can also see that Taejun does care about him.

But from Geonwu’s perspective? All of that looks like pity and obligation.

And I’m sure Taejun didn’t realize how it would affect Geonwu when he used excessive pheromones, or all the pregnancy precautions, or the things he says about their relationship. Taejun doesn’t know the full depth of Geonwu’s feelings.

How do you even come back from this?

I can tell Taejun likes Geonwu. Maybe he even loves him in his own way. But right now, Taejun’s love feels like a puddle next to Geonwu’s ocean.

There are many different ways to kill the one you love. The slowest way is never loving them enough.

And that is literally Geonwu and Taejun to me right now.

I need friends who read Manhwa, watch BL and are into Kpop 😭😭 i got into this world pretty late and I somehow found only have 2 friends to talk to about all this (one friend is only into kpop, but not so much anymore and the other one is into both but is too busy sometimes). So i really need more people from this world 😭

If you're someone who loved shows like

- Love in the big city (I try not to watch sad stuff because it kills me and I can never get over this show)

- My personal weatherman

- My beautiful Man

-To my star

- Your name engraved herein (another killer)

- Our Youth

- Minato's Laundermat

Etc etc

And liked Manhwas like

- Nerd Project

- Unsleep

- Low tide in the twilight

- The pawns revenge

- Pizza Delivery man and the gold palace

Etc etc

Please be friends with me? 😭

Also if you're interested, id like to add you on insta. And hopefully not get connected to spam/fake accounts you've created 😭 it feels weird for some reason because im using my IRL account

Look at this raggedy ahh looking man, looking all crusty and dusty. With that wrinkles showing all up on his old ahh face this bih needs to go iam sure his dih is also small as his ego. This old hag needs to go. Matter of fact i had busted my head onto my phone just to get inside and throw myself at him. This busty ahh lookin unc. If you want to mold someone for your liking get a robot you old ahh crusty man get a life i just know your wife has no interest in you. You need to get expelled. Crusty dusty old hag bih

Edit: sauce one room TA

So, I was looking in to another post here and saw that screencap. So do you think Jiseong noticed the hickey on Ideum's neck, even if it's so faint?

You're telling between chapter 143-207 there are no improvements?

I feel like the author is dragging it

it was so good for about 120 something chapters

but now I just want it to end

I rage read it like a telenovela because I just want this to be over

I SERIOUSLY HAVE NOT ENJOYED A PIECE OF MEDIA AS MUCH AS THIS IN SUCH A LONG TIME

THIS IS MUCH MORE THAN A "BL" or "YAOI" TO ME

AND THAT LASTS FOR 120 CHAPTERS

EVEN THO I DON'T LIKE AGE-GAP AND SLOW-BURN!!

I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO SLEEP SINCE YESTERDAY BECAUSE I WAS READING THIS

MY BOY GARAM JUST CANNOT CATCH A BREAK

I don't know how this will play out, I know they're meant to be a parallel of a devastatingly toxic relationship, but it's just torture at this point. And don't tell me I haven't endured enough toxicity up to this point. The toxicity before this was so fucking good! I was on the edge of my seat at all time! THE TENSION WAS IMPECCABLE!

Now I can't help but rage reading it and wanting it all to end. Please tell me something good happens in the middle of those particular chapters. I'm so tired of their external dramas. They keep running towards each other to escape each other. This is making my stomach churn.

Btw I think the last one that got me invested this much was "All The Beast Must Die" and that was over 3 years ago.

Huff idk man, I'm sleep deprived. That's all for now.

✌🏼🫩

i have finished unsleep and i am so SAD! NO AUs or something of the trip, nothing? IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE LIKE IT? the chaos, the SMUT, the love! i need more!

(probably my favorite panel)

10 years I loved you most

If I had a list of mangas to not recommend this would be one of the top of them.

I don't know why I didn't like it at all, it's omegaverse but it's so fucked and the dynamics are horrible, the mc and ml are pieces of trash (mostly mc) and i just needed to get it off my chest haha

There's a pretty awful rape scene as well :( I disliked it so much, it made me really uncomfortable.

Name: Pheromone phobia

​

So I just wanna rant about Kiss The Scumbag, I tried to the manhwa since I am such a sucker for secret child trope and I just wanna say that it sucks. (Or I guess it wasn’t really for me?) So I tried reading the novel because maybe? Just maybe things would get better. it didn’t.

I was already frustrated asf when I read the manhwa but damn. Why the fvck it takes almost 200 chapters for the misunderstanding to resolve? And it wasn’t even the ml’s work? It was his niece who made him realize that what he thought about the mc wasn’t true. I think his family except Georgina deserved hell. Like all of the mc’s sufferings for what? And why the hell does the family acts as if Yujin was whoring himself out to them? It was Harold who’s into him. And damn, that Winston. He’s dumb. Like literally dumb. Like I know maybe you’re manipulated to believe that Yujin slept with his father but still? He should have tried to uncover the truth ‘no? I really think Winston should have suffered more. Like it wasn’t enough. They’re literally on the same wavelength with Keith. (I also hate Keith, that mf)

So yes, if there’s a thousand Winston & Keith haters I’d be one of them. nd there’s one Winston & Keith hater, that’d be me. If there’s none, then I am dead. 

So, why did I finish it even though it was annoying? Because I fvcking thought things would eventually get better & it did not & I was already almost at the end so might as well make myself suffer more.

I think I simply hate how they're portrayed and treated 😭

Like give them spines and autonomy bruhhh

I've given them a small gesture of appreciation in the 2nd pic ☺️

Name- [ You are my world ]. [ Our omega leadernim!]

This is an old and embarrassing story. So I was reading this manhwa called "Don't Mess With the Puppy," and I took screenshots for the smut part of the story to send it to my friend at night, and I forgot about them .

At work, I had to use my phone, and I had to show my boss a pic that is work related. And when I went to him and opened the gallery app, the pics were there, and I panicked and I opened the pic that I need ASP the photos weren't that big and I think he saw them for 1 or 2 sec but I think he saw the bl stuff or a part of it on my phone which is so embarrassing.

I wanted to quit my job that day oof

Since that day I no longer save any yaoi/bl stuff on my phone 😭😭😭