Shut up and accept using slavery to uplift a white man story and as backdrop for SMUT (if you look at the tags you can see it there) is insensitive at best and downright racist at worst
We have countless popular BLs that actively romanticize literal rape, toxic domestic abuse, non-con, and characters that look/act straight-up childlike. The community will happily gobble up the most unhinged, abusive, toxic dynamics imaginable, but the second an author tries to tackle a heavy historical setting with racial and systemic power imbalances, the internet draws a hard line and completely de-platforms them? Like, I’m not trying to downplay racism or say the historical context isn't hyper-sensitive. It absolutely is, and it requires a ton of careful research. But if the genre is perfectly fine letting creators explore literal sexual assault and severe psychological abuse for "entertainment," why is a dark, messy Civil War historical fiction where the characters are probably going to fight against the system completely off-limits? It just feels wild that the community will tolerate actual crime and abuse in modern settings but won't even give a historical story the chance to get past chapter one before burning it to the ground.
yaoi is literally the worst way to represent slavery and the civil war what on earth are you yapping about
It just feels like this selective outrage is going to completely kill any chance of bl growing up. If we keep gatekeeping what topics authors are "allowed" to touch, BL is just going to stay trapped in a loop of the same safe, repetitive tropes forever. Think about it: if creators look at what happened to jaxx and realize that trying to write a complex, diverse historical fiction will just get them canceled over a teaser, they’re just going to stick to the usual toxic, abusive dynamics that the community seems to absolutely LOVE. We are literally conditioning authors to be afraid of taking creative risks or writing diverse leads but whatever.
The people defending this story are the same people defending rape and incest weirdo they're the one that ride at dawn for the "it's just fiction" excuse
I never said it wasn't sensitive or risky. It absolutely is. My point is that the project got nuked based on a teaser. We have no idea if the story was actually going to 'uplift a white man' or spend the next 50 chapters tearing him down and critiquing the system. Darker genres use heavy backdrops all the time to tell dark stories, but canceling something before it even launches means we’re just judging a book by its cover...
So modern BL can feature literal non-con, torture, and severe abuse, but the second it touches historical trauma, the genre suddenly isn't 'qualified' to handle it? It’s a double standard. Let the author write the story first, and if it sucks, flame it and cancel jaxx...
The mc is a literal white man what else is it going to do other than uplift his story at most they'd make him suffer by having the native ml get revenge but at the end it's still master x slave and it's still racist
And you know all of this... how? From a sneak peek? Or did you talk to jaxx about what the story will be about? If the story actually dropped and turned out to be a racist, fetishistic mess, I'd be right there with you ripping it to shreds. But canceling a project based on your own bad predictions is just...
We all know damn well there have been countless times where Yaoi's that have incest, rape, or pedophilia have been called out. But it's fujoshi's like you and others defending this hot mess that like to jump at others who try to call these creators out for romanticizing them. You don't even know how many times I've seen people get dogged on because they didn't like Rose's and Champaign or Codename Anastasia. I have also been one of those people.
“That's how art works. We traded actual analysis for a cheap moral victory, and it sucks.“
“Actual analysis” and it’s just one chapter out. PLEASE don’t justify the loss of the creative work to the historical portrayal of the story. While it *is* sad, and I genuinely feel for JAXX because of this, it doesn’t mean it’s alright to be enablers to this setting. It’s alright to grieve the loss of what could have been another great story, but that shouldn’t come at the cost of offending the lived experiences of slaves during that era.
I think you can put your thinking cap on its pretty obvious what the story was going to be
You’re completely missing the point of the argument. Roses and Champagne and Codename Anastasia are finished, fully published works. People can read them, analyze them, and call them out based on actual text. Nobody is saying creators shouldn't be called out. The point is that JAXX’s story was cancelled based on a preview chapter. You cannot evaluate the execution, themes, or character arcs of a story that hasn't even been written yet. It’s a completely different situation
Authors will look at what Jaxx did and Learn NOT to do whatever bullshit she had planned. Like think of blearyfrog's comic about a Chinese Immigrant and a former enslaved man. Now THAT is a good and appropriate representation of history
I appreciate the respectful response, and I agree that the lived experiences of slaves should never be minimized or reduced to cheap romance tropes. But my argument isn't that JAXX should just get a free pass to write whatever they want without consequences. It's about whether merely setting a story in a painful historical era automatically makes it harmful. Writers have used horrific historical backdrops for centuries to tell deeply anti-oppression stories. We don't know if JAXX was enabling the setting or completely dismantling it, because a preview chapter can't show a full narrative arc. I just think we do a disservice to media literacy when we decide a story is inherently offensive before we even know what the story actually is.
You actually perfectly proved my point by bringing up Blearyfrog's comic. Do you know why everyone knows that story is an amazing, appropriate representation of history? Because Blearyfrog was actually allowed to write it, publish it, and let people read the full narrative arc.
Nothing about a slave x master trope is new. In fact it's extremely repetitive in yaoi stories. Yaoi authors are not babies, they know how fans will stick through the mud with them, that’s why slave x master stories are so popular. Just because one author cancels their story doesn’t mean others will get scared of creating something similar. If this story was apparently gonna go a different way then maybe don’t end off the first chapter with an indigenous character saying they’ll be a white man’s humble slave, a cliffhanger like that doesn’t work with a genre like this. Mind you, Jaxx themself cancelled their own story, if they come out with a new story, they won’t be persecuted for it, and they will still have a good public image. That’s cause cancelling someone is so much more than saying that their story was insensitive. I said this in my own comment but had Jaxx continued this work, they would have gotten a lot of praise for it despite any criticism in the beginning, cause once again, this isn’t some new and compelling trope.
You can really tell how a story can go just based on the first chapter... I've only read a couple of the panels for Bleary and it is far better than this. And Jaxx even stated in the apology that they didn't do extensive enough research about this sensitive topic which is a clear sign about how this story could've went.
From the character designs to the way the characters speak and operate, YOU CAN TELL. Say I'm reading in between lines that don't exist, stop baby-ing this grown adult and understand they accepted the accountability and did not wish to risk their career writing a sensitive topic they had no clear idea of for rhe backdrop of their yaoi smut
I see, I kinda understand more of what you mean and you do have a point. I think this could have had a better setting honestly, and a better pilot. Unfortunately, first impressions do matter and are the deciding factor of whether or not something or someone has potential to evolve into something greater.
“We don't know if JAXX was enabling the setting or completely dismantling it, because a preview chapter can't show a full narrative arc”
Now that I think more about it, you’re right. It’s just that I that think we, the readers (more specifically those who read yaoi), don’t really trust an author of this genre to be able to handle this type of story of a dark history with much sensitivity—which brings you to your point of doing disservice to media literacy. Thinking more about your point as im writing this post, I don’t think it’s just right to have this historical setting with those tags. It all points to the carelessness of how everything was planned and handled (even though they might think they did everything with much carefulness, it still wasn’t enough). With that said, I hope JAXX isn’t too disheartened to the point that they fall into some sort of dark hole, and I will anticipate more of their works.
Honestly, reading JAXX’s apology just makes me so mad. I’ve been chewing on this all day, and it is so exhausting to see another creative project completely killed off before it even got a chance to breathe. JAXX wrote that they "humbly accept the criticism" and that their "storytelling lacked sufficient care and nuance." But how on earth is anyone supposed to show "nuance" in a single teaser? This is the ultimate example of why you never judge a book by its cover. You literally CANNOT know what a story is actually going to be about from a preview chapter! It’s not even a full Chapter 1! A pilot’s entire job is to set up the mess and the harsh realities of the world, not give a perfectly resolved thesis statement on human rights. We’ve completely lost the plot with media literacy. People online act like depicting a bad thing means you're endorsing it. The second a heavy historical topic or power imbalance shows up, everyone loses their minds and assumes the author is cheering it on. But stories have always explored terrible things precisely because they are terrible. I get why people were cautious. A Civil War BL with a former slave, a white landowner, and Indigenous themes is a total minefield. Caution and scrutiny are totally fair. But there’s a massive difference between being wary and demanding a cancellation over a sneak peek. The saddest part of the apology is where JAXX says, "Even if the direction and themes of the story differ from what you may be concerned about, I have decided not to launch the work." That means the story probably positioned the leads against the system, not celebrating it! The exact themes people panicked about were likely what the story wanted to critique. But because the internet played psychic, we're left with nothing. Everyone is just arguing over a hypothetical version of a story that doesn't exist. Plus, we lost out on a rare mixed Indigenous male lead in historical BL, which had tons of potential for exploring identity and survival. Seeing a creator browbeaten into calling their passion "arrogance" is just heartbreaking. No artist is shielded from criticism. If the book came out and sucked, people SHOULD absolutely rip it to shreds. That's how art works. We traded actual analysis for a cheap moral victory, and it sucks.