beta
"it was only one chapter, it could have been good!"
based on what? does anyone saying that care to explain why they think so aside from just calling anyone who criticized this oversensitive, censorious, or throwing around racially coded dogwhistles? (as if oversensitivity isn't a natural response to pain and hurt, or simple vigilance after having been hurt or wronged) what's wrong with being sensitive, as opposed to being callous or numb?
the people who were concerned based on what was shown in that one chapter explained the potential for this to go wrong(er than just its conception in the first place) in multiple ways and brought it up to the creator and platform/publisher. and evidently the creator recognized the limitations to their preparedness and/or ability to execute the story in a way that satisfactorily addressed those concerns, and discontinued the series.
and that's not a bad thing!
now instead of sinking time and energy into the quagmire this would have been, they can make something else with better return on investment, and take more measured risks with that.
i have said in other replies that i don't think the topic of war, post-war conditions, slavery, and all sorts of sensitive topics are untouchable in fiction. but that doesn't mean that anyone can do anything any which way they want without reaction or criticism.
ideally, someone who has done the research, is aware of the racial dynamics, and has the skills for it could pull off a story in this setting. i think it would have to depart from many typical BL conventions to be good and worth doing, though.
I can believe that the premise and execution of song of the wasteland didn't originate from malice, but ignorance doesn't get a free pass either. and that's why people talked about it even from the just the first chapter, because none of that originated in a vacuum, and none of that was free from the biases, assumptions, and narratives surrounding race and history that prioritizes the interests of white people at the expense of just about everybody else. that's why the post-civil war setting is so noteworthy and egregious, because the failures of Reconstruction, lack of reparations, and subsequent efforts to subjugate and exploit former slaves after the war are foundational to present-day problems, same with land theft and everything leading to reservations on the Native/indigenous side. and that's not even getting into how race and racism were codified into the social and political fabric of the country in ways that are consequential even now and would definitely impact any potential interracial coupling of any sort at the time.
if any of the above reads as blah-blah nonsense to you, then on what basis would you even be able to judge how well a series like this would have handled the hard, serious, and contentious topics that it brought up? and if it doesn't matter how historically accurate the story was or how it approached those topics, why bother including any of those elements in the first place?
why should anyone be able to make stories based on painful real life history without any dedication to accuracy or sensitivity to the topics involved and make money off of it without any feedback or response?
i personally wasn't calling for the series to be dropped, and was willing to see where it would go even though i had serious misgivings and wariness about the creator's knowledge and capacity to handle all of that as someone presumably without any personal or cultural connection to any of that history. i could give it a chance, but the risks were sky-high. that's why i'm glad the creator either took the criticisms to heart, or more likely simply recognized that a controversial story like this wouldn't necessarily generate the profits the creator and the publisher wanted, and dropped the story.
people can and should be free to create whatever they want, but that doesn't make their creations free from criticism or pushback from other people, especially when the profit motive is involved. artists taking creative risks need to have conviction in their work and be prepared for negative feedback. this one couldn't or didn't want to take the heat, so they got out of the kitchen. i don't see a problem with artists thinking twice about approaching certain topics because some things are better left alone if not approached with the right level of care.
they won’t reply to this tho ( ج_ج )
a flag is a communication tool. a basic and common function is signalling if a path is clear (green) or obstructed/hazardous (red).
imo, many people are using "flags" weirdly because it makes more sense to apply it to behaviors and attitudes rather than to a person or character as whole. that's how I saw the concept used, initially, anyways. so this is in terms of attitudes, behaviors and actions
green flags: emotional intelligence (being able to know/identify one's own feelings and recognize them in others), respect for boundaries, willingness to share, communication skills, anything that facilitates a functional relationship
red flags: being controlling, ignoring and violating boundaries, undermining the autonomy of others, superiority complexes, being invested in hierarchies, self-sacrificing or guilt-tripping, anything that leads to an abusive relationship
stuff like that
you can have conflict in a story, even a romantic one, without resorting to abuse and so-called red/black flag characters. it's as simple as characters having different needs and wants in life, or pressure from external forces. but that kind of thing takes actual writing skills and capacity for complex reasoning.
(there's a question about flags that I'm responding to, but it looks like I'm blocked by the op of that)
Its honestly overused to simplify a complex action, decision, character, development and dumbs down the person assigning it cos they cant comprehend that people (even greatly written characters) are black and white (or green or red for this matter)
Are not* black and white
great point! it oversimplifies things to talk about characters like that! if you've ever seen people bring up "yellow flag", I feel like that's an attempt by people using flags that way at reintroducing the nuance that got lost by reducing characters to red or green.
after thinking about it some more, a point I forgot to mention is that some traits or qualities can be green flags/positive in some contexts or situations, while red/negative in others. is someone ambitious, or a social climbing user? is a person pragmatic, or cynical? are they easygoing, or lacking drive? even the negative interpretations of those traits could potentially work in a relationship with someone on the same wavelength or just drive conflict in a story in a way that's not merely abusive.
Yea, that just shows that different people interprets some actions differently. The key word is “tolerance”, how much a person tolerates the character’s bs and affections. This is why i think many readers may find a character/ action “red flag” only because they dont have personal affections to the person doing it. Meaning, that affection increases a person’s tolerance to bullshits, making some actions acceptable to the person involve. This supports your conclusion of it working in a relationship or driving the conflict. This is also where perspective also comes into play. Different perspectives have different access to information of why and how is an action performed to be labeled as a flag. To anyone reading just one side of the story, it may be a “red flag” but after knowing the whys and hows, it challenges a person’s judgement to adjust, essentially claiming “yellow flag” to redeem themselves and compromise.
Ive actually seen this in Solo for two. It was interesting seeing the different reactions of the readers in real time as they try to label the complex characters. Many have debated where the destructive and clumsy love of the main characters are red flag or not. Watching and entering the debate as people try to label the main character in “flags” summarizes to me that altho these labels are a widely accepted basic descriptive analogies of a person’ character, we cant essentially use it to describe anyone as a whole, especially for humans and humanly written characters. Cos if we do, everyone is a red flag, since human mature is very selfish and self serving. But its also not a red flag. (Btw im anti flags in the debate in this story, the characters are very human to just label them red green yellow)
who do you wish got more screentime, better development, a whole spinoff...?
mine is the blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint of the relationship between the MC's sunbae/former crush and the ml's ex-lover in love for sale. still hoping they'll get their spin-off eventually! it didn't seem completely off the table for the creator...
someone asked this earlier and I would have replied but I seem to be blocked (not mad about it, but why?)
cant rem the name of the manhwa rn but it was the mcs landlord x tall alien and the bottom just wanted to remain attached to the alien like always in his lap it was so cute
Love in Orbit yes i’m still waiting for the side stories too please author nim
ummm for me i feel like there’s a lot but one i remember a lot is the words in your snare second couple it was not fair they only got 2 side stories and just called it a day author should've explored it more hell it should gotten spin off like bad apple from red candy matter of fact in both those stories red candy and and twiys i didn’t like the main couples they were boring and dragged way too much so it was easy to be distracted by the other side characters
yes, the bottom here sexually harassed the top at the start, why does that excuse the top now? they're both in the wrong! with that said, we can acknowledge that the top was able to "opt-out" and express his non-consent to being harassed by the bottom when that happened in a way that the bottom cannot when things are being done to him while he's unconscious and incapacitated. regardless of how much of a fan of somnophilia the bottom is at any other time, or his lack of reaction after the fact, it remains true that the top did something questionable in that moment because the bottom could neither accept nor refuse his actions a.k.a. not consenting because you can't just assume it's there. the bottom being fine with it afterwards doesn't mean that people reading it can't be icked out or think it reflects poorly on the top, it just means that the bottom isn't taking the top to court over it.
even if "they're both freaky," consent to one or even several things doesn't automatically extend to consent to other things, especially when one of those things, like the somnophilia "play" here involves one person being unable to give a response one way or another in the moment. and it's not like the top knows the bottom so well and intimately as to know where his absolute limits are without discussion. even if you don't verbally talk everything out in detail or make a written checklist and draw up contracts, people still indicate what they're okay with using their words and actions. you can't do that when you're unconscious! it's perfectly reasonable have misgivings about unnegotiated somnophilia between people who are barely past being strangers to each other.
regardless of what happens in the story, people can have their immediate reactions to seeing the events of the story and talk about how and why they feel that way. the characters don't have to be perfect paragons of moral virtue and behavior, that's part of the intrigue of the story - it doesn't mean that people can't have moral judgements on the characters' actions and have thoughts and feelings about what they do. it's what you do as a reader!
I decided not to continue this past chapter 2 or so, but I keep seeing annoying takes, so here we are. let's all be annoyed together! there are people dressing up their rape apologism as opposition to purity culture or as being supportive of kink when they're just revealing that they don't know what purity culture is, where it originates from, or why it's a problem, along with their poor understandings of consent. why is it a problem for people to want to see active and enthusiastic participation in sex by every party involved in it and have that as the default?
and you shouldnt get booed for saying that!!!