silver medal BL

I'm not exaggerating when I say this: this story should be considered a BL classic. It's so fucking good. It's literally perfect . . . Up until the ending. Most of the ending is great, what I disliked was literally the last scene—when Doyoung and Hyunjin leave the hotel, it's revealed that Hyunjin, who I thought was the heart of the story, couldn't remember anything that happened. His memory got wiped. And I've just always fucking hated that trope

While season one had some issues regarding pacing and character development, and season three had an issue regarding an unnecessary antagonist, season two was legitimately just perfect to me to the point it overshadows everything else. This was a great exploration of BDSM, S&M, and all four main characters—the main couple and secondary couple—were so interesting and complex. Gyum is one of my favorite BL characters ever, I love his intensity and tenderness

What I like the most about this story is the build-up to and a majority of the ending; spoilers without going into the specifics, but this story is a tragedy, and the set-up for that tragedy was great. As you're reading it, you can see it start to take shape—the story creates this foreboding dread and almost suffocating sense of misery perfectly. But then at the very last minute, the story forces its hand for something incredibly dumb to happen which leads to an incredibly OOC moment

What's really of note to me about this story is that I usually don't like the side couples in BL, yet with this . . . Dare I say I liked them just as much as the main couple . . . If not more. They were excellent, I fucking loved them, and I was so happy that so much of the side chapters were dedicated to them. What I didn't like about this story was the resolution to Yura's DID, and the backstory to it. Was just kinda stupid as well as underwhelming

A lot of people won't like this. This isn't a story for just anybody, I'd even say it's not for most. This is an incredibly bleak, explicitly miserable story. Personally, I like nihilism, and I think there's a kind of macabre sense of beauty & value to be found in stories of misery. So this was right up my alley. The only thing that holds it down is its length—it's too short to really flesh out both men, so the villain is left feeling a bit superficial

In all honesty, my enjoyment of this and why it is in this list falls entirely on the ending. The author fucking nailed this ending. This story is the epitome of the "right person, wrong time" sentiment and it all came together right at the end in such an insanely bittersweet way. I loved it. This story does have some pretty fatal flaws though, primarily in some of the conflict that happens since I thought it felt very needless and then poorly written, but that ending . . . Perfect

This is here almost purely for the first volume. There aren't a lot of stories that I think are a 10 / 10, but that first volume easily is. It's great. Sadly, I do think that roughly around volume four it does lose steam a little bit, it feels like the author is stretching it kind of thin. But that doesn't take away from the perfection of the first volume, and volumes two and three are both really good as well

I don't cry much from stories. Usually it needs to be pretty gut-punching for me to get teary-eyed, much less shed a tear. But this is one of those special stories where it'll move you to tears not because it's sad, but because it's so sweet. This was just such a cute story, and it's contrasted with this kind of melancholy that blankets the entire story. It's really good. The one thing I didn't like was a bit of conflict near the end, bit too self-pitying

I'll be upfront and say that the thing that stops this from properly being a favorite of mine is a side character called Shino. She serves as a kind of antagonist role, and when she first shows up, she makes sense. I'm not mad at it. But then she just overstays her welcome and everything about her and her relation to the plot just doesn't make sense. She brings this story down a lot. But the main love story in this is really fucking good

"I knew from the beginning, but what could I do? I liked you."

This story was beautiful. The way it was written was phenomenal. It had this amazing mix of romanticism with this overhanging feel of melancholy throughout the whole thing. I loved it. The way it was able to balance the sweet moments with the suppressive emotions these characters were feeling was almost impressive enough to be applauded.

The thing that brings this down though . . . Is the art. It's just not good lmao