The only way I will achieve peace and love and light in my heart ever again is through a lobotomy.
This starts off by baiting you into thinking it will be a good time. The dragon kind of looks like Toji; the MC is a relatively good person, going by the extremely low bar set by other fictional men on this site; it's funny and the art is good. Then it decides to switch genres to psychological horror and explore themes of identity and memory, toxic levels of dependency, consent in extremely non-standard circumstances, etc; however, we're not exploring these themes so much as bludgeoning the reader over the head with alarming shit that just keeps getting worse.
This is a romance between a 300 yr old dragon and a 30-something yr old man. We have two grown-ass adults who have both had time to form distinct personalities, motivations, priorities and value systems, whatever. Instead, both characters are extremely one-note, which wouldn't even be a problem if their dynamic was good. Which it's not.
The 300 year old dragon is infantilized. Why. The premise promises old man yaoi and instead I get an ancient being of immeasurable power acting like a child. This is made worse by the fact that he has no memories. Apparently the dragon was a fucking kid when he first met the MC in a past life, who was an ADULT. The dragon goes into these trances where his agency and ability to give consent are muddled, and then diabolical shit is hand-waved because oh, he wasn't in control.
This is like if Sam Winchester's (spoilers) arc of being exploited for others' ends, being possessed and manipulated and losing control of his own body, and fighting the darkness inside him was used as convenient backdrop for a bunch of smut. I don't need all of my fictional smut to be adjudged acceptable by god's exacting standards, but I would like to feel someone other than a gradually dawning horror, because I'm pretty sure horror is not the genre here.
The only way I will achieve peace and love and light in my heart ever again is through a lobotomy.
This starts off by baiting you into thinking it will be a good time. The dragon kind of looks like Toji; the MC is a relatively good person, going by the extremely low bar set by other fictional men on this site; it's funny and the art is good. Then it decides to switch genres to psychological horror and explore themes of identity and memory, toxic levels of dependency, consent in extremely non-standard circumstances, etc; however, we're not exploring these themes so much as bludgeoning the reader over the head with alarming shit that just keeps getting worse.
This is a romance between a 300 yr old dragon and a 30-something yr old man. We have two grown-ass adults who have both had time to form distinct personalities, motivations, priorities and value systems, whatever. Instead, both characters are extremely one-note, which wouldn't even be a problem if their dynamic was good. Which it's not.
The 300 year old dragon is infantilized. Why. The premise promises old man yaoi and instead I get an ancient being of immeasurable power acting like a child. This is made worse by the fact that he has no memories. Apparently the dragon was a fucking kid when he first met the MC in a past life, who was an ADULT. The dragon goes into these trances where his agency and ability to give consent are muddled, and then diabolical shit is hand-waved because oh, he wasn't in control.
This is like if Sam Winchester's (spoilers) arc of being exploited for others' ends, being possessed and manipulated and losing control of his own body, and fighting the darkness inside him was used as convenient backdrop for a bunch of smut. I don't need all of my fictional smut to be adjudged acceptable by god's exacting standards, but I would like to feel someone other than a gradually dawning horror, because I'm pretty sure horror is not the genre here.