Tsumibito tachi no amai bara written by Kouzuki Matsuri and illustrated by Takamiya Azuma

[insaneneko]

Tsumibito tachi no amai bara written by Kouzuki Matsuri and illustrated by Takamiya Azuma is the story of a wretched Uke with Issues who meets his Soulmate Seme, survives an Ordeal (or two or three...), gets his Revenge, and then has a Happy Ending. It's as bad as it sounds...Probably worse, actually. I knew pretty early on that it was going to be bad, but I kept reading in the hope that it'd be the greatly amusing bad and not the want-to-hurl bad. And it in fact fulfilled its promise, and more! I laughed at every shoujo/BL cliche that appeared in the story, especially the ones having to do with making the heroine uke more pathetic (and thus more special).

Also, semes with glasses always makes the story better.

1. Wretched Uke with Issues
   
   
   
   1. Mother is mistress to evil, bastard rich man, who eventually abandons her to a life of drug addiction and wretched longing and regret. She eventually keels over while taking drugs.
      
   2. Uke is sexually abused for years by evil, bastard rich man (his father) while his mother did absolutely nothing to help (not even the first time when his father drags him crying out of the closet he had been shut up in to give him what he, a slut like his mother, obviously deserved and wanted).
      
   3. Uke doesn't believe in anyone or anything, avoiding interaction with anyone other than his mother.
      
   4. Uke can't stand having anyone touch him--when someone does he throws up. A lot.
2. Uke meets his Soulmate Seme
   
   
   
   1. Soulmate seme is a trusted secretary to uke's father who comes to invite uke (while uke is waiting for the crematorium to finish turning his mother into ashes) to a gathering at which teh father will atone for his sins to his various illegitimate children and provide monetary compensation.
      
   2. When Uke and Soulmate seme's eyes first meet they sense something in each other's eyes--a deep kinship.
      
   3. Uke doesn't want anything from his father except vengeance--and not just any vengeance. He wants his father to suffer so badly he longs for death.
      
   4. Soulmate seme promises uke vengeance if uke agrees to come to the gathering.
3. Uke survives Ordeals
   
   
   
   1. Uke has a hard time dealing with the many people he has to interact with at the mansion he and his half-siblings are gathered at.
      
   2. Uke can't stand his half-siblings, whiners who complain about their pitiful lives at first but then turn greedy and calculating.
      
   3. The group have actually been brought together not receive an apology, but to be auctioned off by their father, who thinks of them as his possessions rather than as his children. They are being monitored by potential buyers as they wait for the arrival of their busy father. The father makes things interesting by making them greedy and calculating when he provides gifts of unequal value to them.
      
   4. Uke gets some animosity from his half-siblings when he receives gifts of the highest quality.
      
   5. Uke almost gets raped by his father.
      
   6. Uke gets drugged and almost raped by the one step-brother who has been acknowledged by their father (and is just as much of a evil bastard and knows about their father's evil plans). (Of course he has healing sex with Soulmate seme afterwards)
      
   7. Soulmate seme wants sex in exchange for helping uke out with his vengeance. One big problem? Uke can't stand being touched. So they spend quite a lot of time getting uke used to just being touched, including using things as towels and lace as barriers. Uke has to get in touch with the part of him that wants connection and love, which basically turns him into a child (which does make sense as his trauma has stunted his emotional growth, but the author just takes it waaay too extreme--it just becomes comical). Pretty damn quickly the touching moves onto sex...
      
   8. Uke is betrayed. He thinks Soulmate seme had been deceiving him when he overhears a conversation between Soulmate seme and almost-rapist step-brother (this is before the rape) and violently rejects Soulmate seme (even as he angsts about loving a horrible man like his mother), until Soulmate seme can convince him that their love and bond is true and pure. We also find out Soulmate seme was abandoned by his mother when she married uke's dad, and so their instant connection was the longing for their mother's love. They wanted a place to belong. No, I am not joking.
      
   9. Uke tries to kill himself with a shard of glass. This was during his angsting about becoming like his mother in the face of Soulmate seme's "betrayal."
      
   10. Uke gets beaten up by his other half-siblings.
       
   11. Uke throws up. A lot. It's amazing his throat isn't raw.
4. Uke gets his Revenge
   
   
   
   1. All the whiny half-siblings get auctioned off, leaving our uke (saving the best for last--he's the best, you know, being so pretty like his mom, so much so he got the sexual abuse the other sibs didn't). But he's bought by Soulmate seme after a heated bidding war with evil bastard half-brother. And then the plot is revealed, Soulmate seme and his compatriots (basically EVERYONE at the auction who all hate evil bastard) had somehow managed to take all of evil bastard's money and companies away, and evil bastard and evil bastard junior are themselves auctioned off.
      
   2. Uke gets to grind his defeated father's face into the ground with his foot. He laughs, filled with an ecstasy similar to the feeling of ejaculation.
5. Uke gets a Happy Ending
   
   1. With a white picket fence and the whole jazz...or pretty darn close to it. The way he and Soulmate seme muse about their happy abode at the end is pretty hilarious, especially since they let uke's whiny half-siblings stay auctioned off (because obviously greedy shits like them deserve slavery, while uke was pure in his vengeance and suffering).

I was also going to make a list of the most illogical things in this book, but I realized it was pointless. The whole book is pretty damn illogical. ^^;

I have to admit, I really appreciated that there was no mercy at the end. The uke is bitter to the end! XDXD


I'm not going to bother talking about each picture because most of them are about uke and Soulmate seme "bonding." I really like this artist, but...there's just nothing to say. ^^;







Using the towel to get uke used to Soulmate seme's "touch."





Using a piece of lace for more not-touching.



Soulmate seme with evil bastard half-brother. Half-brother is attached to Soulmate seme because Soulmate seme was his tutor when he was younger...





Soulmate seme doing his best to calm uke after the suicide attempt.





Evil bastard half-brother having his way with uke, whom he's drugged so that uke doesn't keep throwing up while he rapes him.



I kind of like the outline summary format. It's so much easier to write up than a narrative summary. I like having to be rather brief...Maybe I'll write more summaries like this one...I'd probably output more. :P