Ariest's manga / #Drama(100)

The story is mostly good. It deals with some pretty heavy and mature subjects and how they affect the characters, which I like. But I find it absolutely unforgiveable how the author not only places a random rape scene at the very end, but even portrays the rape victim as getting hard from it. The assailant had stopped being a plot element for 20+ chapters at that point, so why did he have to come back just for that? It was completely unnecessary. I'm tempted to give the story 1 star just because of that. It's disgusting and ruined the story for me. But since the rest of the story was well-written I'll give it 2.

Ok let's start with the good things: I love the idea the story is based on. I love angst and romance which this tragic curse setup is perfect for. And I absolutely love how the story ended, including the epilogue chapters. I also like the art, and the uke won my heart fairly early on. Part of me wants to give this 5 stars, because I definitely enjoyed it more than most BLs I've read, but I decided on 4 because there were definitely a couple frustrating things about the story. Now for the negatives: The story gets confusing at time. I feel like there were quite a few times where the characters' thoughts and motivations directly contradicted the logic of the curse, or where it was just really hard to understand what they were trying to say. And the curse logic itself got a little too convenient and illogical at times, making it seem like it shouldn't be such a big deal. This seme is also one of the greatest assholes I have encountered in BL. Not only does he say things that gives the uke insecurities and complexes for life, he's also a shitty friend who breaks his promises and forces himself on the uke in more ways than one. He has zero respect for the uke's feelings. Usually most jerky semes have some kind of redeeming qualities about them, but this one is just a terrible person through and through. He's horrible to every character in his life. He cheats on all his lovers, but then blames THEM for hating him or looking down on him for it. At the end of the story he does finally improve and win me over, but I really wish there had been more balance and redemption for him throughout the story, because the first 2/3rds were pretty frustrating to read bc of it.