You…you realize it can still be censorship even if part of it has already been written right? Hell the whole thing could be written and it would still be censorship. Censorship can take place at any point in a stories life be it before, during, or after. Also, harassing an author or their publisher is a way people achieve censorship. Like that is an actual form of censorship if your goal is to get the story unpublished, not finished, etc. If this was say a wlw comic in the modern day and homophobic bigots decided to email the publisher and author to get it taken down and it worked then that would be censorship. The same thing applies here. Please stop conflating criticism with censorship. Criticism exists without pushing for the forceful removal of a text altogether. Even if the publisher/author decided to remove the text it is still censorship because there was a group of people pressuring them to do so. I just feel like a lot of people in this comment section are very quickly venturing into “censorship for me but not for thee”. If we advocate for censorship of the things we dont like, then it paves a way for others to do the same thing to the things we do like.
here we go again with people invoking the hot-button issue of censorship and the boogeyman that is "cancel culture" to try to give more weight to being upset that other people had the audacity and temerity to criticize and have negative reactions to something, and - the horror!!! - had those criticisms and reactions taken seriously.
censorship doesn't apply here because there was nothing stopping the creator or publisher from conceiving of the story, producing, and distributing the first chapter, and no state or state-affiliated authority ordering its discontinuation.
"cancel culture" as used by people complaining about it is a scaremongering boogeyman of a concept conflating boycotting and social censure with harassment and cyberbullying in order to vilify the notion of people having negative reactions or judgements of public figures. if you want to talk about harassment and cyberbullying, just say that! instead of whining about how people choosing not to engage with something or someone and talking about why they're doing that is some kind of excessive reaction. in the end, people crying about "cancel culture" have more ire for regular-degular people with their limited funds and attention who sometimes harness their power to do things en masse than the real power players (executives, stock/shareholders, producers) who actually control the resources and funding for the entertainment media that gets made and also have their own ideologies, agendas, and desires to make money.
where's the smoke for the publishing companies who actually determine the creator's contract and compensation for their work?
the creator and the publisher sought to make money off this series, and it was feedback from potential customers that indicated that there would be problems monetizing a series like this. if this story was something the creator felt passionate about the world seeing, they could release it for free. otherwise, they currently have the opportunity to rework it/do something new, and make a better release., because unlike what the people crying "cancel culture" like to make it seem, a cancellation isn't necessarily the end of a creative career (and they happen all the time! usually because a series isn't making enough money for the publisher, like this one had the warning signs for). either the creator learns, grows, and adapts with their next work, or they find out that they don't have the chops for the industry and present market.
if you're serious about protecting series from backlash like this, whether it's actual censorship or simply audience reaction, a.k.a. "cancel culture" (neither of which are at play here), you'd better get to work on efforts to dismantle capitalism, because the major factor deciding whether or not things get censored and pulled from the market in this day and age is their impact on the producer's ability to profit from them. money talks.