I kinda agree with you on this one, the writer felt biased towards chang. I quite like chang myself but he did tell ed to go sell his body or organs to pay the debt. I think the way i understand how ed felt towards chang is the same way siblings seem to hurt you deeper than other people. If i was in an accident where i almost died and the only other person i could ever rely put me in that situation i definitely am not getting near them. He put ed's grandfather out of business and put him in debt while he was dying. Ed's not in chang's head to understand his thought process. It just felt like the worst kind of betrayal because it's in your worst time that actually see who's there for you and chang just wasn't.
Cool so can you apply that to McQueen too? Thanks
You know this is fiction right.... fiction... there’s no need to go into deep philosophical, psychological breakdowns unless you are writing a thesis ...which it looks like you are. Of course the story line is absurd but thats was make it entertaining and brings the drama...
This argument is bullshit you can leave
Don't let that get to you at all. I saw nothing but constructive and sound criticism with much deserved frustration. It was an incredible waste to build up all that character of Chang to just throw it away. Especially for the underdeveloped character that is McQueen. I really liked the the first part. Even though it had rape in different packaging, it at least felt like a step in the right direction compared to outright rape that is in a lot of BL(and happens to be the start of the relationship). While I can definitely see where we have "this is a work of fiction", if the stories we told didn't have any power, WE WOULDN'T TELL THEM. It is super disheartening when a step in the right direction just jumps off the cliff.
Again, why ruin the best written character the author has. The whole debt thing is super spotty. As for the verbal abuse, eh. Maybe I grew up super disfunctional, but I don't see it.
Thank you for articulating why it felt so icky and hard to see all of the one sided hate towards Chang. The short "I still like Chang" weren't that awesome either lol
As many people already said, this was a wonderful analysis. Props to you!
The only verbal abuse I saw was when he tells him to sell organs / body to pay it back (cuz it's a threat), when he references Ed's porno when he asks why Ed stopped coming to the office (and suggests he wouldnt want people to think he was gay). Everything else is legit normal but strained conversation. McQueen does go so far as calling Ed a lonely loser who got pimped out tho so I'm thinking verbal abuse is not really the clincher here.
I like how you called porn rape in different packaging. I did not even address that because I thought it would be too complicated for people to grasp without everyone claiming I was stigmatizing sex work. But if you look for any accounts of men and women who have left the industry that's exactly how they describe it. Especially how Ed gets slippery sloped into doing couples and bottom work. That is exactly what peer pressure and psychological manipulation trafficking looks like.
And the person who said they were going to bring me examples of abuse and manipulation isn't back yet so I'm wondering what happened there but I think they were heavily reaching. I outlined Chang's offenses in my original post so ╮(￣▽￣)╭
I also don't think I was particularly biased in my initial post. I talked about sex work, the mafia, and what we know about the characters.
The debt is extremely contrived. I tried to calculate how much interest he had to be charging and at what rate for the debt to go from 20-30k to 300k+(considering ed says he was able to pay the principle over a few times in 2 years on a body guard's salary) and I couldn't figure out how high the interest possibly could have been. Like 30 points / monthly so its +$3000 every month? It still doesnt work.
And yeah the post wasn't meant to be a wow Chang is innocent; it was more like wow hating on one character who is extremely fleshed out and rather tragic is painful to watch, especially when he tries to do as much good as he has done bad (minus downright deus ex machina rape scene). And especially when you exonerate another character of everything.
Honestly I liked season 1 just fine too but season 2 really did take a nosedive as you say and it was extremely disappointing to watch it burn with all of its unfortunate implications in tact.
Thanks for your kind message though, it made me feel better. I do try to think that whenever someone has to resort to the it's just fiction argument it means they couldn't come up with anything better (⌒▽⌒)
Fiction is important because it forms many peoples world views on topics, relationships, expectations etc. This stuff has to be taken to task. If the comments section was not as vitriolic I wouldnt have written all of this but seeing all the "our king mcqueen / fuck chang" was uncomfortable.
What I think is a lot of ppl fail to realize why Chang gave the loan in the first place. They weren’t reading between the lines. For Chang he loved Ed, like you said he was holding back because he knew Ed wasn’t gay, when Ed got in the accident basically it was like Chang’s accident all over again the only difference Ed means something to him. He didn’t want to lose him which to him it felt like he was, so in order to keep Ed close without revealing his feelings, he used the loan as an excuse. Was it right that he gave a loan that resulted in the closure of his grandpa’s store and an interest rate so high that Ed was struggling to pay it back? No. But you understand why he did it. There are one or two other factors besides the accident why, but I don’t want to make my post too long.
I wish youd included your other reasons! In my book add that seeing Ed in an accident brought back the trauma from his own accident -- so aside from not wanting to experience loss again, he felt the trauma again and then ON TOP of that had to contend with feelings of caring for someone so much that it could break him.
What he did? Bad. How he got there? Makes sense. Also he gave the loan to save Ed in the interim anyway and while he was harsh as he pushed Ed away, the Grandpa was thankful for the loan. It's not like Chang planned for the Grandpa to suffer and die or something.
In the moment it was also the only option (according to how the author thinks the US medical system works).
Also if debt drove people to porn everyone would be in porn the avg American has 40,000$ of credit card debt accruing interest at rates of 18%-24%. Like debts disrupt peoples lives but do not destroy them the way appearing in a porno does.
There's this weird idea people have that being in debt is worse than appearing in a porno and it is the opposite. Always be financially fucked over being buttfucked on camera.
But that's asking for too much logic.
Well my other reason for why gave the loan as an excuse (but like you said he did it to save Ed anyway) when he joined the mafia, if I remember correctly Ed didn’t like it which was putting a wedge between them initial. Was it a big enough wedge for Ed to drop Chang, no, which I think would be enough for anyway to not want to be associated with someone like that, least they get caught up in some crossfire.
And then you have years earlier when Ed was a kid, Chang didn’t like Ed pretending to be his lil brother. Chang admitted it himself, that was a form of his past he was trying to run away from hence him not be friendly with Ed in the first place what changed his mind was when Ed broke down claiming he didn’t want to be alone. So this draws me back to the accident, Chang realized he was emotionally attached coupled with the accident, he used the loan as an excuse to keep him close and equally keep him at a distance, all on his terms. So he can decide if he want him close this week or distant another.
Personally, I would take debt over porn any day. But for this storyline I guess the readers a glossing over the porn aspect because of the high pay Ed got, which enabled him to take a big chunk out of his debt. But we probably wasn’t reading the same manhwa, because Ed said it himself, that the porn was taking toll mentally and he wanted to stop. Doing the porn didn’t allow him to become debt but yet he decided he didn’t want to continue, so if debt was the deciding factor he should have continued. But the mere fact that he didn’t SHOULD show the readers that making porn was the heavier toll.
It's really hard to hear the accounts of people who have left the industry. I really wanted to add and should have originally something that I only realized recently with more people talking about sex work. You can be sex positive and support sex workers while not supporting the industry. An industry that lies to actors by having them film with other actors that they didn't know they were filming, doing acts they didn't know they were scheduled to do (which can be painful, humiliating, unsafe), and if refused would lead to them being labeled a "difficult actor". "Because it is your job" is not consent.
We support sex workers by not condemning them or thinking that they are any less valuable for being in the industry.
And oh my goodness I went back and read some of the chapters from the 40s. HOW did I let some of those slide. After Chang's version of a date he drops off Ed to be punished like a brat by McQueen in a hotel room. WHAT. WHO. DOES. THAT. I understand the kindness of not prying 100%. Ryan not asking about Ed's injuries during a family day can be considered kindness. Punish fucking someone for being late because they were with someone they have known 5ever and not even really talking to them is um hmm.
Ohhhh! Okay from what I remember and idk if it's the book or the webtoon but Ed is proud of Chang for making it out of the projects and tells Chang that he's going to be like him and do that too. And Chang kind of smiles at him ruefully and it's supposed to indicate that Chang shields him from the majority of what he does.
In the book, Ed prods a bit about how much money Chang makes and if its a lot and Chang says it's enough but doesn't answer any other questions about his work. Overall, I took that to be Chang being resigned to doing dirty work but not wanting to involve Ed in it / tell him about it.
But I agree it was his way of creating comfortable distance. Regular check ins but not too close.
And yeah, I agree debt over porn any day. And yes Ed quit doing porn before he got his debt paid because of the mental toll. Which begs the question of what he thought he would achieve. It doesnt seem like he did the math for that business model before going in but I'm getting too logical again.
Like if the debt is the main driver then take Chang's offer, suck it up and work with him for a year, and never see him again, but Ed's decisions are not always rational (which I'll give to him, he is young, not very highly educated, no parents, and spiralling downwards under a lot of pressure). Still not a reason to go for Chang's balls but I digress ahahah.
Okay, I have had a chance to re-read. Unfortunately I won't do my ideal job of responding as I take time to process to explain my perspective and I haven't yet been able to and it's 3am - now 4am. but I love debating when I feel passionate about something so here I am. After re-reading - I do agree there is unnecessary drama at points and in behaviors for Ed and McQueen. I won't say McQueen is perfect - none of the characters are really and his behavior definitely shows his personal issues that I hope Ed will talk to him regarding so they can work through it. I won't talk too much about him since I would need to think a little more on how to describe but I don't think he's as despicable as you describe nor is he unredeemable as a character. The writer perhaps has the flaw of glossing over what realistically would be a lot darker in this story doing porn but leaving that aside I want to talk about some points of your post.
1. For both your descriptions of pros and cons of Chang and McQueen, partial of both is unknown to majority of us readers and probably take from the raws. I haven't read them yet. Starting with Chang - your criticism #4 I feel is biased towards Chang. I will explain more later since you expanded on Ed, esp the rape portion. But I will say the violence is mainly instigated by Chang. The worst case and I will say connected to what happens later in the rape is Chang literally choking Ed at Xiao Lings grave after he found out Ed filmed porn.
Defense #3 - is this in the raws I didn't read this. Also since it's ongoing we don't know what steps McQueen will take in the future to make things right so you don't know he won't do something to remove Chang's videos. Also Ed is unaware of this. #5 just drives further a point I want to make later about Ed but summarizing it furthers the betrayal he feels since obviously he cared/cares about Chang and Chang changing so much from being like a brother to what he's like now hurt Ed further. Also to a lot of defense for Chang points if Chang doesn't tell this to Ed and cares secretly Ed won't know.
McQueen Criticism 3: we don't have enough details yet about him and Ryan to blanket accuse him of this, don't have his or Ryan's story on this. #6 when did this happen? Their one night stand in the beg of the story? #7 I don't think we can hold against him that he didn't know.
I want to now get to what I feel is important to discuss. Yes I feel bad for Chang too and I think deep deep down he's not a monster. His background is sad but once again how he's treated Ed is something he should regret and reflect upon forever and apologize knees on the floor to Ed. If you feel it's weird for him to have such a sad background and also be evil I don't know what to tell you, sounds from this post that youve sided emotionally with his character and don't agree with how he is represented but that's what he's been this whole story. He's had a sad past and fell for Ed and denied it and through repression treated Ed so poorly afterwards there's no turning back. Here's what I have read of Chang throughout this story.
Chapter 20. Chang tells Ed to sell his organs or body do whatever to get the money. This is just straight up terrible? How do you expect Ed to feel to hear this from someone he considered a brother.
Chapter 21 Chang provides loan with high interest to grandpa and doesn't even look at Ed and calls Ed a commodity and leaves without talking to Ed. Ed cries and realizes their relationship is shattered and gone. I want you to look at Ed's perspective on this situation in this moment as it builds precedent for their entire relationship after this. Ed has no one, literally. He tries to act like a son to the Grandma to receive love he is starving for. He originally feels weary around Chang as Chang confronts him for imitating Xiao Ling. He never fully feels accepted into Chang/Youyus/grandma's family and is walking on eggshells. He behaves like Xiao Ling to curry favor with Grandma. When people at school comment that he's close or like brothers with Chang he denies it. He is an orphan and I sympathize as he can't ever really feel comfortable to belong with them even though he yearns so much for them to be family. He always denies as he doesn't want to be hurt. He is alone and starving for familial love. He and Chang spend their years together and become closer. He could never admit it out loud but he wants Chang as family. So imagine his complete heartbreak when he gets into a life changing accident. Chang turns from the family he wanted to loaning him money. Business/money changes personal relationships. This is a known thing in society and I can personally confirm with my parents generation and their money drama. Awkward to say the least and bridges burned between family. Also am Asian. Chang calls Ed a commodity to grandpa, offers a loan with high interest and leaves the room. He doesn't ask Ed how he's doing and just becomes a loaner and leaves. Ed's fragile self worth is shattered and he thinks Chang doesn't care for him afterall. For all of their conversations present day onward is unfriendly and harsh. Chang never tries to reveal or explain that he cares for Ed. Making passive remarks to work for him to decrease the debt is not direct at all to tell Ed he secretly cares. Ed is trapped in a debt hole with Chang as his cold loaner. Now Ed has been drowning in debt for years and feels miserable and helpless. I understand Chang offers better deals later esp. finding out Ed did porn but too fucking little too fucking late?????? Also he offers the best deal for Ed in middle of their worst fight ever right before the rape is he expecting Ed to agree after mocking and bringing him to his lowest low? You told him to sell his body to pay you back. And now you turn around and say this. Good job Chang. Ch 30. Chang overhears Ed and the gay industry boys talking about gay sex. He confronts Ed in a cold mocking way and grips Ed's thigh intimately/mocking to further disrespect and hurt him. Overall their present day conversations have all been terrible. It's clear surface level they don't get along and only hurt each other with their words in every conversation. I forget which chapter but Chang takes Ed to see a play. Chapter 45 Derek who I Stan best character btw is laying into Chang calling him scum and doesn't know how Ed puts up with him. Ed says he wants to hate him but he thinks of the small gestures of fondness like the play and can't close his heart though he's trying to. So this entirely against your comment of Ed not caring about Chang at all, etc. He also has the poster Chang gave him of Bruce Lee after all these years of their cold relationship which is more proof he didn't close his heart all this time, even if he eventually does get rid of it wanting to move on. Chapter 47. Chang chokes Ed first with his tie then literally with his hands (wtf?) at Xiao Lings Grave and calls him disgusting after finding out about the porn. How do you expect Ed to feel. He is completely destroying Ed and ruining his self worth. Ed has already been struggling with his feelings spbit doing porn and Chang nails it in to the worst extreme. This drives it all in in the worst way that Chang doesn't care for him and they're not family. Literally at Xiao Lings grave. And Ed shoves him off but he doesn't try to hurt him so this is all on Chang. These tumultuous feelings come into play when they run into each other Chapter 51. Chang and Ed meet while Ed is with a customer. Chang spends the entire time belittling and shaming Ed for prostituting for a man and mocks and hurts Ed by paying him a "tip" for his prostituting services. Do you even realize how offensive he is being? He also mentions if Ed works at his office people might think they are gay and says this in a negative manner. These chapters he degrades Ed constantly re gay sex and says homophobic things and clearly indicates that he despises Ed's choice and gays. Obviously this all comes into play for the rape chapter. You talk about Ed assaulting Chang what about these chapters where Chang verbally assaults Ed and leads up to the rape chapter? Then he literally buys Ed. Ed immediately TRIES TO LEAVE and is stopped by Chang. Ed is fed up and mocks Chang back and offers to fuck him. How else would he react after Chang had been so deragatory and shaming of what Chang calls "whoring": You know when Ed offered to fuck Chang? It was right after Chang told Ed he couldn't imagine being fucked and likes doing the fucking and tells Ed sneeringly "you looked estatic". How are you blaming Ed for assault in this situation? You are blaming the victim. You are painting a biased picture of the story defaming Ed when this was Chang instigating the situation. Ed is completely miserable and mocks Chang back to fuck him. Yes he does get aggressive but it's him calling a bluff he doesn't think Chang actually wants him sexually, he thinks he's just mocking him. Chang has indicated this whole time how disgusting he finds gays and prostitution. He realizes Chang is serious as Chang pushes him down etc. He says no over and over again, way more times than the 3-4 times Chang did resisting and Chang literally KICKS him in the stomach and rapes him. You call out Ed for assault for fighting back with words against his abuser and leaning over him unbuckling pants but you don't have the same energy for Chang who has CHOKED Ed and now KICKED him in the stomach and raped him while Ed struggled and begged to escape the WHOLE TIME? And Ed was clearly bluffing thinking he was disgusting Chang like Chang had said over and over again about gay sex. Ed literally blames himself in his thoughts while being raped and after all this you're pro Chang and anti Ed? I disagree with everything you said about Ed in your post. You are biased towards Chang and glossed over his terrible treatment of Ed and blame Ed for not understanding Chang's deep hidden love for Ed? You had some interesting points on some aspects and on real life industry but your disdain and dismissive commentary of Ed I completely disagree with and ruins the post for me as your opinion is colored with your bias for Chang and bias against Ed that you don't sympathize with him even though it's CLEAR why he acted the way he did. Also, he did have psychological blowback from porn that's why he fought with McQueen and they broke up. It is not unconsidered for plot hole to be with McQueen as you said at all they literally broke up due to this in part. Also it's really low and not true at all to compare McQueen to Harvey Weinstein.
Exactly! It's so difficult to read those accounts but I legit went and read because I had to reaffirm that doing porn isnt some casual and clean thing like it's portrayed in this. And literally everything you said about supporting sex workers while not supporting the industry.
Each of the bad things mentioned happens to Ed. He has to shoot with someone he didnt know he would be shooting with, he has to do acts he didn't originally agree to, and he gets lured into escorting.
And ryan deals with the being told something would be x initially and then having it be way more brutal and mentally taxing but having no recourse, no ability to make it stop, and then not getting work with mcqueen anymore because he was difficult. McQueen acts like Ryan has pick of the litter for which companies he works with... he doesn't have a single choice.
And ugh the punish fucking was unacceptable to me too. They've been together for less than 2 months at that point and Glen treats him like that. He doesn't even let Ed talk. And its supposed to be read as a cute high end hotel date. It would be a straight dealbreaker for me.
The other dealbreaker was after their first one night stand mcqueen offers Ed a shoot with Lancer, effectively reminding him that he sells his ass. It hurts Ed and Ed mentions it but just overlooks it.
It's hard for me to witness all of Glen's infractions be written off because they're all subtle and deceptively harmful when Ed has really only known him for 3 months and the man hasn't done a single positive thing for him and have Chang's 10 years of friendship be completely written off for the debt issue -- which he legit is trying to get through to Ed on from the moment we meet him.
I'm on the side of considering relationships based on both positive and negative aspects of them so Chang tends to end up with more points in my book than McQueen because despite his major negatives there are major positives.
For McQueen, I really can't help but feel that Ed became attracted to him because of the sex in the first porno scene and then the scene where McQueen tells Ed off reads as McQueen sees himself as a victim of Ed's wiles. That's some abusive ass shit. McQueen has more power in that situation and makes himself the victim. Even his apology makes them equally wrong like sir........ but it's supposed to be okay because at the end he gives Ed the money for their porno and claims he wasn't selling it with the aim of selling Ed. Hwat???? Σ(っ°Д °;)っ
Yeah a lot of what I include is from the recent raws. I think you're accusing me of having emotional bias towards Chang but legit coloring the events of the novel with your own preferences.
I'm also asian. I am also asian american. I also live in a chinatown.
Things chang says are rude but not abusive. Also I don't think any of your points undermine what I'm saying which is that the logic of the narrative is all over the place.
Ed says he cares but doesnt act like he cares. Ed says he tried to understand Chang but we dont see that even once. Ed is angry with McQueen but forgives him right away. Ed doesn't even let himself be fully angry with McQueen for all of the things he himself accuses McQueen of.
The graveyard scene is a violent scene, never claimed it wasnt. And like I said about the rape scene, Chang is wrong. However the author really wrote it in a way that erases certain types of sexual assault and is therefore pretty sleazy.
Also, chang says no pretty clearly multiple times.
The tipping scene is not offensive, it just is. He immediately tries to stop having Ed from having to escort and also Ed himself doesn't read disrespect there.
Anyway, you're repeating arguments I've dealt with already so I'm not going to go into this further. You are free to think what you want and perceived this how you want. You want to see Glen as better, that's fine!
I just wanted to take some time to write out what I think is done badly about this plot. And twisting up race issues to create a villain out of them is irresponsible writing.
Overall, you're reaching. Chang says maybe 2 really bad things and is just talking to Ed normally otherwise. Ed tries to say far more to hurt him intentionally and also assumes intent frequently. Also the gripping the thigh thing wasn't mocking. He wanted to know if Ed was interested in men / Glen and Ed got mad at that. Chang responded by calming the situation down and saying he was just making stuff up but that Ed seemed attracted to McQueen.
If you can see how Ed's fragile self worth would make it difficult to for him to understand Chang you should see why we shouldnt be making moral judgements of Chang. Hes not god, hes just another character in this mess. However, the writer does use Ed's perspective to moralize about Chang's life and decisions smh.
Also next time can you use paragraph breaks?
Also Chang asks Ed if he enjoys whoring himself out and is calling out the act not Ed. Ed still has no business touching him. Don't try to make a verbal discussion into justification for a physical escalation that is YOU messing up what sexual assault looks and works like. I could call anyone I want anything and that doesn't mean I should get my genitals grabbed lol wtf
But I do agree with you that the organ thing, the commodity thing, and the money relationship were harsh and wrong.
Contextualize it with Ed ending up with a man who sold his body and then acted wishy washy about it -- that's the issue.
Also I just don't think of Chang as evil. It's not that I don't understand how his background would twist him up, I just think he's not given a chance to decently make amends despite trying.
I understand why Ed is hurt by Chang, what I am critiquing is that Ed assumes Chang is pushing him into a corner / acting generous / acting like he has Ed's fate in his hands etc.
Where do those broad assumptions come from when someone is outright trying to help you not have to sell your ass???
Lol???
I’m considering dropping this, I’m not 100% sure yet. It depends on how the next chapter goes.
Btw did you get my DM?
The next korean ch is the last supposedly... but no I did not get your DM!
Np, I just sent another.
Think my DMs are broken so I'm trying to get it fixed, I'll ping you later!
I know you want to hate Chang and love McQueen but I'm about to come at you with more facts than yall ready to handle out here.
Criticisms of Chang:
1. He gave Ed a debt with sky high interest
2. He's in the Chinese Mafia
3. He rapes Ed
4. He and Ed get violent with each other (it's not always Chang who throws the first punch or gets handsy first).
Defense of Chang:
1. He tries to give Ed outs on the debt on multiple occasions
2. He tries to save Ed from escorting
3. He beats the shit out of McQueen for making Ed's porno and asks McQueen to sell the licenses to him so he can stamp that bullshit out of existence (the cost would be $500,000+, but he doesn't care what the cost is)
3.2. He asks McQueen wtf kind of man makes a porno of his lover
4. He protects the image Ed has of Granny Lingbao so he can receive love and affection despite the fact that Lingbao abused him for years.
5. SPOILER He takes Ed in as family and is considerate of his feelings for many years (giving him a Bruce Lee poster when he's upset, listening to him recite lines from his play).
6. He supports Ed's acting interest (Bruce Lee poster, taking him to see Othello).
7. He would give Ed a sweater off his back if Ed asks
Criticisms of McQueen:
1. He is a porn director and player type
2. He shot a rape porno of Ryan which fucked Ryan up deeply
3. He lived with Ryan and Cecil for three years and abandoned Ryan at his lowest
4. He started dating an employee of his own company
5. He abandoned Ed when the going got rough and only apologized about what he said, not about how he left when things got difficult.
6. When he is jealous, he does not let Ed speak and takes things out on him with angry, rough sex.
7. He didn't know about Ed's debt or reasons for doing porn (so that seems like a deep relationship lol).
Defenses of McQueen:
1. He has not raped Ed
2. Some people think they look hot together
3. Some people think that McQueen knows how to make adult apologies
4. He gave Ed the money he made off of selling the rights to Ed's pornos
5. He eventually apologizes to Ryan
Now, I know this comment section is full of people who love to proselytize and say porn is okay and fine, Chang made Ed do it, there's nothing wrong with McQueen, and the only reason I am stepping in to say anything at all is because there are children here reading this when they shouldn't be.
So first.
The porn industry is not a safe environment. The avg lifespan of a porn star is 37 years (compare to 70+ for the rest of the population). They face coercion, unsafe work environments, and pressure from male stars and directors to do scenes they're not comfortable with. We see this for Ed. He loses his anal virginity on camera to a man that he didn't even know he was shooting with that day. He says that he doesn't care, but later we see that it does bother him (from his own internal monologue). The psychological blowback of this is unconsidered because McQueen is the main ship and we can't be having too much darkness there.
In the work, Ed's porno pays $6000 to $7000. Considering this would have been in the 2000s based on setting, that is incorrect and porn scenes actually pay closer to $1000. If Ed's debt is say around $300,000 max, that means he needs to appear in more than 300 pornos, and the production quantity of pornos is not high enough to support this. Porno was never really something that was going to get him out of debt.
Next, Ed says he would rather help McQueen in his work with porn than Chang who exploits people.
Surprise, surprise, the entire porn industry is funded by Italian mafia money laundering schemes and porn shops and website are completely run by organized crime. So he's running from the hands of the Chinese mafia to the hands of the Italian one. This is unconsidered either because the author did not do the research and does not know, or because Chang is supposed to be one true bad guy whereas McQueen is one true good guy.
Finally, the writer chose to write an asian american male (a group that has difficulty making it in hollywood and acting), had him give up on his dream, had his debut in film be a porno, and then had him uncritically fall in love with the man who shot his porn and fucked him in it. I'm sorry guys but Harvey Weinstein is in jail for a reason.
Again, the psychological blowback of this goes uncriticized because we're supposed to believe that Ed made these choices and he was forced by a shitty situation with Chang to do so.
As a plot, this is disgusting and it would be fine if it was just a shitty BL that didn't masquerade as deep but it does masquerade as deep.
So next, we have Chang's character. He is an orphan who has lost his mother and father, and is taking care of a dementia addled woman who is not his relative, who also hates him and wishes he would have died. He has been doing this since he was 12. He is growing up in low-income housing in New York, living on ostensibly peanuts from the government. He gets involved with the Mafia because poverty and gangs go hand in hand, and he has no support system, no parental love, and no opportunities.
It's really easy for people to hate him, but I don't know how many of you have grown up in the states or grown up in major cities of the states. Inner city experiences mess people up.
Within this he has Ed, someone who grows to be like family to him and eventually someone he likes romantically. However, Ed is not gay and so Chang keeps it to himself. He sees Ed dating women and he's respectful of it though it hurts him. When Ed's porn comes out, note that Chang says "then why did I hold back for so long?"
But despite having held back, he still doesn't make a move on Ed even after finding out about the porno. He's doing his own thing when he finds Ed selling himself. When he finds out about that, he still makes it clear that he's not trying to have sex with Ed. When Ed asks if Chang is going to do it, he tells Ed to know his place and come to work.
Chang has created a distance between him and Ed because he doesn't know how to love without it destroying his peace, but that makes sense. He's someone who grew up without love and though Ed is precious to him, the anxiety of loving someone makes him push him away. I'm not defending it, but I am saying this is a common defense mechanism.
Now let's talk about the Mafia right quick. Apparently Chang gave Ed a really high interest debt as a form of loan sharking. This loan was legal because Ed declared bankruptcy at one point and was denied (ostensibly due to Chang's intervention). If Ed can declare bankruptcy on the debt, then it's not a secret illegal debt. However, at times, the work makes it seem like Chang has an illegal bookmaking business and Ed pays into that.
Regardless of which it is, going into porn is not going to solve the issue for him, but also the US govt does not look kindly on illegal book making operations. There have been several FBI stings of illegal loansharking and gambling dens, and California Senator Leland Yee went to jail for his ties with the mafia. If a senator can go down, Chang isn't all powerful like the author seems to imagine he is.
Secondly, Ed decides to not pay the debt eventually though that's not translated. Which begs to ask the question, what's the point of this fucking plot?
Now let's look at what we're all reacting to here.
Ed/Yeowoon starts out as a sensical character who loves Chang's grandma and Chang to the extent that he feels they were family and Chang was the only one who understood his loneliness. However, he's damn fast at turning on Chang when he learns Chang has given him a loan. He goes from "we were family" to "he hated me all along". Forgive me but you guys have been friends / family for 15 years at this point. That's quite the jump to make.
For Ed, everything revolves around his own self and he isn't able to imagine the motives of other people. I don't know why this is, because Chang's character is decently fleshed out emotionally and psychologically, but Ed's reasoning is legitimately "I'm angry at Chang because he turned on me, I will never pay attention to his efforts at starting a conversation (when he asks for them to get dinner), making amends (multiple job offers, multiple check ins), helping me out (stopping the prostitution from happening)."
On the other hand, Ed sees everything McQueen does as golden. "He can hurt me and I will heal." When McQueen continues to have sex with others despite them being in a relationship. Feeling like he wants to die, but fine when McQueen comes back to him and gives him a flimsy apology about how he said mean things. I say this is a flimsy apology because the fact that McQueen has an abandonment kink is never addressed, not by McQueen, not by the plot, and not by Ed. At the end of the day, McQueen apologizes to Ryan about what he did, but we as readers only know the following things about McQueen:
1. He's good at sex
2. He gtfo's when the going gets rough
3. He doesn't care what people think about his porn
4. He likes to make celibate looking people cry
Going back to Ed though, for someone who loved Chang dearly, he doesn't for a second think about Chang's pain even when he finds out about it. He goes so far as rejecting Chang because he's a weak man who couldn't show love. However, Ed does acknowledge that saying I love you was difficult for him (at McQueen) and that apologies are difficult as adults. This consideration, however, is only applied to McQueen, and never Chang.
This is what we call bad writing. If you're going to take a character and just turn him into angst porn, then don't do it with such a serious plot. These writers seriously fumbled every aspect of American immigrant life, from poverty to race relations, and these are real, legitimate issues.
Chang's character makes no sense. On the one hand he is the only one speaking sense about Ed's porno and trying to protect him, and on the other hand he is this callous evil man. Forget that Ed has known him forever and knows almost everything there is to know about how he ticks. Forget that Ed is supposed to care for him so at some point would have tried to understand what's going on under there. Forget that Ed grew up with Youyu, Youyu's mom, and the restaurant crew and could have easily talked to someone about what was going on with him and Chang (there's a picture of them at the restaurant opening).
Ed's character also makes no sense. On the one hand he is yelling at Chang, throwing away offers to have his debt's interest frozen, or having his debt paid off; on the other hand he is putty in the hands of a man he barely knows (legit they're together for like three months), and forgives that man for indirectly ruining his life and then *disappearing*. Taking an extra week or two to get back together with someone is not enough here. The conversation needed to discuss trust, reliability, commitment and instead it's like "I thought about you but you're with Chang now???"
Glen's character doesn't even get screentime. You guys realize we see the story from Ed's perspective, we see it from Chang's perspective twice (one is coming up in the raws), but we never see it from Glen's perspective? Because there's nothing there. He's just a dildo ken doll with no character development outside of edgy lover movie director buff white dude.
And finally the contrived rape scene. Rape happens. Rape is terrible. It is mishandled in BL all of the time, but I have never seen a grander fuck up of a rape scene than the one in this webtoon.
What Ed does is assault. It doesn't matter if he didn't think Chang wanted sex (that's WORSE cuz he's just assaulting someone for funs). It doesn't matter if Ed was in an escorting situation. Ed had asked if Chang was going to do it and Chang had already indicated no. Chang says no about 4 times.
And then he flips. Now this is EVEN worse. Because usually, when we look at rape scenes, we understand that one person did it to another person and the other person was not responsible for anything. But in this situation, they both legitimately assault each other.
If they went to court over it, Ed would go to jail too. They are gay men. Telling a man to bend over so you can fuck him is assault. And obviously what Chang does is assault/rape.
But, from what we can understand, someone sat there behind a computer, typing and minimized one type of assault and made a victim story for the other character. This is horrendous mishandling. Like what the absolute fuck, you needed a plot device so bad that you did this???
Especially coming from a character who has managed to hold back for 9 years. What's one more night for him? He was trying to convince his childhood friend and person he likes to stop selling his body and then the plot powers created this garbage?
It's irresponsible to people who have been raped, it's irresponsible to males who are sexually assaulted because it erases certain types of assault, and it's an absolute insult to rhetoric around assault because we trust that when people say they didn't do anything to start the violence, they didn't. In this case, Ed instigates violence where there was none up until that point.
Anyway, this has gotten long, I will leave my comment with this.
Walk on Water portrays selling your body as something equivalent to bagging groceries. There's no psychological blowback, there's no pain, there's no hurt. This is not true of the real world. Despite destigmatizing sex work, sex workers still need mental health services because the actual work hurts them.
The only person in the whole work who recognizes this is Chang, and he tries to protect Ed from it on multiple occasions. Everyone else sees porn as fine and okay, until the end of the plot where Glen suddenly sees the error of his ways for the past decade and randomly decides he was trying to get out of porn all along and is therefore selling his company.
We don't see him logically reach this point, but the narrative wants him to reach it. We are left off in the end with Glen is the better man because he knew how to change his ways and because he knew how to apologize. But where was Glen's struggle? He says he never cares about what people said and he only cares that he hurt Ed with his words. What kind of power does Ed have over him after barely 3 months of knowing each other. Also what kind of reasoning is that? There's no consideration of the ethical implications, no struggle with his own self. TF? He just changes because that's what the plot needs for the story to end.
But the real question is, did he really? At what point did we see that? Real convenient that suddenly everything goes to Ed's happily ever after.
So let's see we have one (1) decently fleshed out character, one (1) mary sue / wish fulfillment vehicle that loses all semblance of his own thoughts and feelings as a previously straight man when he decides to start doing porn, and one (1) walking orange dildo who we learn nothing about except that he is the bigger man who knows how to change his ways despite having benefitted off of the 100s of actors that came before Ed.
COol Cool cool cool cool. I wish this garbage would unpublish itself.