I love this but what do you mean you don't want him to be a killer??? He already killed 14...

Yeah that shit was crazy. I think in general while this author has done fun relationship dynamics, I don't jive with the authorial ethics at play in their works

That’s such an interesting take. I find their work The Eve Festival is one of the only ones on this whole site that ethically confronts teacher-student-“relationships”. Have you read that work yet? (If not, highly recommend)

Yeah!! I liked it maybe the most of all pharmacy works, and confronting groomer teachers as nasty is crucial, esp with how uncritically age gap often is written in bl usually, but I feel like making him a Disney villain was unnecessary and kinda undercuts the point, at least for me. I'm really into stories lately that show that people can genuinely believe they're good people and still do bad things, and really hurt people that way. Sure some groomers are morally despicable, but flattening them into 2d evil is boring to me lately.

Eurgh, ok not 2D exactly bc we saw that pedo-teacher hated himself crazy style and his violence was a lot of internalized emotional violence that then went ricocheting off onto other people, but I just am not really convinced? Or maybe just not moved? By the character design the author went with in the end... Or maybe just the character presentation...? He genuinely helped, but hated himself, his life was a mess, he seemed to have internalized some narrative that emotional fulfillment wasn't for people like him, but then he ended on a hateful, emotionally violent monotone. Idk. Maybe it's my own myopia taking the last note as the loudest, but I think he would have been more compelling as sympathetic/tragic, morally repugnant, and culpable rather than unsympathetic, disgusting, culpable, and tidily wiped from the earth?

So I like many things, but didn't really jive with the ethics in the end.

Thanks for your reply! I think I get where you’re coming from and am reminded how we all have different tastes and perspectives with valid personal reasons supporting them.

I personally would not have wanted to see another tragic or sympathetic backstory to a groomer and perpetrator like that teacher. I feel like we get to view all kinds of kidnappers, killers, groomers and rapists through that lens in the stories on this platform.

Him being deadly sick but still killing himself because of the shame of the situation reminds me of Giselle Pelicot’s “the shame must switch sides” quote. From a victim’s perspective, the shame drove the student to run away with his mom and rebuild a life away from public scrutiny, but the teacher, our villain, was forced to face the shame that so many perpetrators don’t have to face in real life. Many victims of SA die by suicide. To have a perpetrator die by suicide doesn’t fall flat to me, it’s an important storytelling choice, IMO. “I wish he would have to feel as shameful as I do. I wish he would die” - I can’t imagine how many victims the whole world over are thinking that right now as I am typing this. I also find the friend’s, the mom’s and the other teacher’s reactions make it seem that this was written for a victim of grooming and rape by an older adult to have a compass on how they deserve(d) the handling of their story to go - no matter what reality they might have faced.

I find a manga that addresses that POV a breath of fresh air and ethically a lot more engaging than the usual. If we look in real life, we see that the law and the media approaches perpetrators of these crimes through the sympathetic lens all the time: Seeing a good person who just messed up, did something to hurt someone accidentally - but hey! He was just in so much emotional distress with his diagnosis and his failing health. And also, is that student really a victim cause he approached him first and he clearly wanted it.

I want to actually see MORE real life perpetrators’ actions approached as disgusting, culpable, and unsympathetic. So to me, the story reads completely different than to you.

Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts! I really enjoyed reading them

Wow, love your reply! Have read about the pelicot affair, but hadn't heard that quote; it's powerful.

I actually don't disagree with anything you said; I think I didn't present my position clearly enough. I especially like the point you make that maybe the intended audience is a victim or someone on the recovery journey who wants something healing or compassionate towards them. I don't disapprove of the groomer's suicide in the plot. I think it's psychologically consistent with how he's been presented, and while it wasn't my initial thought (initially I just thought it was somewhere between satisfying and tidy), it can serve as a justice fantasy.

My chief hang-up in that story was that the groomer's last appearances seem to simplify him into pure hatred. His last comment was about how people like the mc don't deserve love, or something like that. I think for me, I wanted something more nuanced. Not apologetics, nothing that redeems him; I just want him to stay human and complicated. He didn't, as far as I know, help the student in the first instance in order to use him. There is some self-image that the teacher has that involves compassion or charity, some behavioral motif that does "good". For me, it's more compelling to see that villains are not simple. I don't want to be misled by stories into believing that every villain will tip their hands and be, in the end, reducible to a cruel parting shot.

Does that make sense? I'm not saying call him a "promising young man" like every college rapist somehow becomes. I'm saying, "Don't let us remember him simply."

Makes total sense to me, yes. With you clarifying further, I think I am able to understand better now where you’re coming from. Thanks for the pleasant exchange of ideas.

I also dislike those notions of simplification, especially in real life, when people close the reckoning with any cases of injustice and abuse with a simple “he’s (just) a monster”. Refusing to allow for more nuanced centering of a perpetrator’s humanity suggests that evilness is not or cannot be part of that humanity - but it is. Kind of going back to your first point of that good person doing evil things perspective. If an evil act makes you evil and a monster and strips you of your humanity, you allow a type of singling out that prevents a real reckoning with flawed humanity and the systems letting evil flourish inside that humanity. That’s how I see it.

From that POV, I understand your critique of this particular work much better. Where I will still disagree is calling that an ethical shortcoming in the author’s storytelling. IMO, from an ethics perspective they still engaged with the underlying issues much more ethically than I’ve seen in the vast majority of works on this site. Again just IMO, they did so many things right with The Eve Festival that such a general ethics critique as I read into your previous statement of “ethics at play” still feels a bit nit-picky to me in comparison to the rest of BL storytelling.

I guess I’m in the corner of “after eating a LOT of garbage, this tastes really nice and here are my 10 reasons why nice food is great for society”

Maybe important caveat: I actually didn’t like the author’s other works for various reasons, including their storytelling choices regarding the issues addressed in those works.

My “defense” of the ethics of their works is strictly limited to The Eve Festival. Don’t want that point to get lost as we’re having this discussion under another work of theirs and that might very understandably so cause a bit of a misunderstanding, haha

To be sure, I'm not saying BL in general has a big brain approach to ethical issues hahahahahhaha I think I'm meeting this author where it seems they want to position themselves, which is to say, at some level of real critical engagement. From that position, I say that generally, the ethics aren't all the way there for me. It doesn't mean the ethical treatment is wholly trash! Just that it didn't make it all the way to jiving with me. As noted in OP's comment, here we sweep mass murder under the rug; in the other work, we're told that a groomer, at his core, is pure evil; etc.

I don't really compare it by giving it credit relative to the heaps of dross around it, though. I have recently just decried to one of my friends the fact that there's a market for brainless content at all bc it makes it harder to find good work and diverts attention and funding from work that can both titillate AND edify, but even as I recognize that good work is rare, I don't want to then disrespect that good work by giving it a pass on everything just because it dares to try something harder than brainrot. In this, I see your point bc it sounds like I'm throwing the ethics baby out with the oversimplification bathwater, but my real position is that if it does something 70% I want to engage with it earnestly and voice that I'm missing the other 30%. That probably just comes down to an attitudinal difference, in the end. When I say it's missing something, I'm just saying I believe in the value of pushing further, not saying that the missing something is more important than the present rest. Indeed, only in the presence of a 70+% work could I even care to identify the missing parts. For me, critique is per se appreciation.

Thanks for the thoughtful exchange and your efforts to explain your perspectives so thoroughly and eloquently.

I wholeheartedly agree with your stance of critique being a form of appreciation. And that just because something is better than something else, it shouldn’t still be held to a high standard.

I really enjoyed your responses. Happy reading

You, too! Thanks for the chat!!