Are Reciprocal links bad?

I feel like it's awkward to reach out to some bloggers and compliment them on their site to build rapport, then ask them to link to me.

One thing that makes it more natural is if i tell them I linked to them because i loved their site, then they are more likely to link to me for free. However, is this something google would pick up on? Is it okay if like 25% of my links are reciprocal?

Even if my content is amazing, unique, creative, getting a free link without doing some kind of favor is crazy hard from email pitching. I feel like free links only come after like 2 years of you leading the niche in forums and the blogging community with innovative content, not sure it's really worth the opportunity cost of all the time to do that.

Blog outreach is great and its not bad. But sometime, you will find many website have dedicated pages where they place 100's of links if you link back to them. Those kind of reciprocal linking is bad

A certain amount of reciprocoal linking I'm sure looks natural and not a red flag. Sites in the same niche often link out to each other. I'd save it for very good sites and keep it as a low % of your backlink profile.

Yes but a little bit, quality backlinks are more important than the reciprocal links.

That thing work good in adult niche but main stream? i doubt that.