it is not a lazy plotline and it actually explains why chiwoo was so scared of jihyun. Do you think he would have such anxiety bc of him, if it was "just" a forced kiss and getting slammed intot he table, which is also horrible. It was also pretty noticeable that it was rape, when chiwoo said don't do anything you'll regret and the dude was like I won't and getting all horny. Then they did a short time skip and it was quite clear something else happened. If she would have showed it,then you would complain that it's too graphic,so shush. If she would use rape as a normal yaoi plotline, she would show it and try to down play it, which all older yaois do. I mean junjo romantica is supposed to be fluffy, but the seme rapes the uke immediately after the story begins and it is forgotten down the story line. Here you actually see the effects of rape on a person. The readers knew what happened and still shipped them AND THAT IS ON THEM, not the author. The thing is that every person has depth to them and people, who do bad things, also experienced bad things themselves. If they think that that excuses his behavior, it's their fault. I mean lolita was written from humbert's perspective yet the author, nabokov, was very clear that he definitely doesn't defend him and that he is completely against pedophilia, rape etc
idk if you are just young or whatever, but this definitely doesn't support rape neither is it trying to make a rapist seem like a good person. It just shows their lifes as they are. Also, you need to accept that there are people that commit this and are able to move on and become better people. I mean criminal psychologists work their asses off
We'll have to agree to disagree. There's absolutely nothing novel about the "I loved him so much I couldn't control my desires so I raped him" drama trope in BL. It's literally a reoccurring theme at this point, and absolutely a lazy default for a BL plotline. And the scene was left so ambiguous that most of the questions sent to the artist was for her to clarify.
This was combined with the artist's promotion of the webtoon on her social media accounts that repeatedly showed sexy images of Jihyun, or "sweet" moments between Jihyun and Chiwoo. She's always presented him as a potential love interest both inside and out of the webtoon, as if this was some form of love triangle. One would have to be terribly naive or just blatantly blind to deny that fact. One of the images promoting the SEQUEL of this webtoon literally has Jihyun LICKING Chiwoo's face as he blushes. I don't think it's wrong to NOT want to see a rapist presented in this light.
We're constantly exposed to Jihyiun's POV as the artist attempts to cement that his affection for Chiwoo is genuine. While building him up as someone who's just lost, broken, and in need of love. By presenting him as a pitiful love interest instead of a callous antagonist she romanticizes the relationship between them and downplays the trauma. And if you're going to downplay it, there's NO REASON to even include it in the first place...
I may get flamed for this, but I don't like that the artist made the scene ambiguous in the webtoon and then confirmed in the extras that it was rape. The trauma of them fighting after Jihyun's confession and forced kiss, and Chiwoo getting stabbed with glass was ALREADY enough. Why add rape on top of that? It's too much. Just the mental imagery of him sexually assaulting Chiwoo while glass was stabbing into his back is horrifying and sickening.
Learning that it was rape tainted all the scenes between Chiwoo and Jihyun for me. Painting Jihyun as a rapist who can shamelessly force himself back into the life of his victim, without any remorse or even an ability to understand the damage that he's done, just really makes the character seem beyond redemption. But then you try to influence your readers to feel sympathy for him through a sad back story? It makes the entire premise of the story pointless. Why would you want your readers to sympathize with or even CONSIDER a rapist to be a potential love interest for the MC? This makes it obvious that he wasn't going to end up with Jihyun, and the only point to his character was to bring Chiwoo angst and misery.
It would have been better to just leave the rape out of it. I feel like many BL artists use rape as a lazy plot device and it just damages the integrity of the story and the dynamic of the characters. But I guess that's just me...