Bro don't do this to homeboy

I prefer tops like this, if he's gonna be toxic and horrible, then commit to it.
Don't just magically fix him or change his personality, thats just bad writing. And I appreciate Taeui for not just being a complete doormat and being legitimately angry and upset with Ilay for his terrible behaviour

weird you don't like character development.

Lmao ikr some people are unable to move on

I feel you on that, it's weird when a story is wishy washy and flips a character's moral compass when they've been acting super awful the whole time to make it seem like everything is good instead of giving them believable character progression.

Like Ilay undeniably has been kinda crummy. Lots of blood and semen on that guy's hands, so it's nice that the story commits to that in his personal life with how he handles taeui. But you can also see that he has some cognitive dissonance too about how he feels so he has some capacity to change his relationship with homeboy. Taeui is definitely doing a great job of telling him off about it. Just again, I need him to take his hands off bro's genitals it's making me hurt when I see it

no, I like character development, its rarely written well enough to be "character development" and is more often than not just flip flopping on the character. Someone who is a terrible person doesn't just magically become a saint overnight.

if you take crazy evil assholes turning into repentant considerate saints overnight as character development than that says more about your reading/writing standards than about me

yeah exactly! Im not against Ilay changing, its just refreshing to see a story for once actually give him time to change his character rather than magically switching from a pretty terrible (often sociopathic) guy to a doe-eyed saint in a few chapters, all by the power of ~love~. I do love toxic tops, but im not against development, they're just by their nature harder to pull off significant changes with. Not impossible, just hard and many stories don't pull it off imo

I dont think Ilay will ever be prince charming, but as you said, you can see that he genuinely likes Tae and is currently confusing himself about how he wants to treat him. As we've literally seen, Ilay hasn't treated pretty much anyone well in past, let alone lovers. He "possesses" rather than loves or cherishes, but we can see that part of him wants to, he just doesn't understand how to do it. He's so used to just taking what he wants it'll take him awhile to unlearn that, and actually prioritize what Taeui wants.
That and Taeui naturally wanting to get away from him is making Ilay fall back into his crummy ways, because he doesn't understand security/trust unless he takes it.

Er...character development and character traits are two different things entirely?

you can be a shit tier person, have development, and still be a shit tier person.

+1 (▰˘◡˘▰)

Lol who says about overnight chara development

Yap session: On the contrary character traits and character development are very similar. Character development is dependent on character traits and characteristics and how they mature/change throughout the story. Ex: if an uke hates partying while their seme loves to party. Character development would either cause the uke to party a bit more and loosen up or cause the seme to wind down with the uke. Wouldn't you rather them adjust to each others needs instead of not being open-minded to change? Another Ex: If the seme in a story was a drunk and got high all the time then he met his uke who happened to hate drugs and alcohol. Wouldn't it be better if the seme changed his ways aka habits and stopped drinking.
Also, if an author wants their story to remain captivating to their audience the story should include some form of development rather than the characters remaining predictable and stationary. In my experience watching characters gradually develop within a story allows the reader to feel more connected.

I get what you're saying and good character development happens over-time. It should take a minimum of 20 chapters for a character as evil as you just said to fully reflect in their previous actions and even then they need something/someone to initially spark desire to change. Which is typically their lover.

What kind of mangas are you reading