sottovoce's Topics (34)

"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.

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.

what's with people bringing up other sensitive topics often treated poorly and exploited for smut in BL(romance in general if we're being honest) and acting like nobody criticizes those.
PEOPLE DO!
and get dogpiled, harassed, and insulted for it.
there's just not the same critical mass of people scrutinizing one thing (including outside/nonfandom interest/attention) for those works to also be subject to pressure.
there's relatively more awareness about historical topics compared to the nuances of depictions of abuse and rape, so it's slightly easier for more people to get on board with recognizing the problem, and speaking against it.

there's no need to defend or downplay rape or atrocities against other groups of people to defend the rightful criticisms of this story.
there's also no need to pick and choose and act like no one ever speaks up about the prevalence of rape/incest/pedophilia/racism against nonBlack people/colorism/orientalism/stereotypes in general.
PEOPLE DO!
but are you listening, or just trying to use this as a gotcha! moment?

what a brutal mood reversal... it's especially devious because you'd think that them getting intimate for the first/last time is the calm before the storm of the horrors of whatever happened/will happen on the island, something to hold on to in the future, but no, they're just dropped right into it with no warning. I'm in shock and dismay at the chapter ending like that, but it sure is effective for emotional impact.
I did wonder if the creator was going to explore hypersexuality as a trauma response again with seong su unexpectedly screwing another man, but there's the more sinister explanation that they were being followed for longer than they thought and that the cultists would be so depraved/indoctrinated that they would just assault seong su on sight. still out of pocket though.

taejae sucks a bit less than suah when it comes to juhyeok, but he's also clearly using his status to take advantage of people in general, so there's a red flag for him, too. and that's on top of the whole "let's get this vulnerable young person drunk to take advantage of him sexually" thing. burnable trash vs non-recyclable trash.
presumably the author made juhyeok's mom a pharmaceutical company CEO so that this cum-dependency plot can be resolved later, but I need that resolution to move along expeditiously. I can guess that juhyeok would be standoffish towards even his mom when it comes to dealing with omega things, so why don't we get into that? if they're not talking, why?
honestly, both suah and juhyeok's relationships to their parents and their secondary genders are more interesting (worth screentime) than their forced sexual connection.

this will be worthwhile if it doesn't shy away from inverting the title from suah's belief that juhyeok is his world in a "he's awesome! he lights my path", worshipful follower kind of way to juhyeok believing suah is his world in a "he's all I have, I can't live without him" dependent reliance kind of way. it would be an interesting switch up from the way they expected to present when they were kids and how they defined themselves and their roles within their relationship according to how alphas and omegas are generally expected to behave and move in the world, where alphas have all this freedom and potential control over others while omegas are very clearly limited by their bodies and other people. in the early chapters, people got on juhyeok's case about his prejudice against omegas, and thus being an omega himself, but all of suah's behavior so far has justified juhyeok's negativity towards and rejection of his presentation.
it would be a very hard sell on making this a lovey-dovey happy relationship from how things have played out so far, so I'm rooting for a bad ending (by romance standards) where they don't get together (vanishingly rare chance) or a "good" ending where they get together and it's miserable, particularly for juhyeok in a 50s housewife kind of way. maybe he does accomplish his judo dreams, but it's only because he was at suah's beck and call and obligated to start a family with him after. or, to make it more cruel, that's the agreement they make, but juhyeok is never able to compete at the highest levels because he gets pregnant. you could spin the resulting child(ren) into being juhyeok's world/reason for living after having his worldview and dreams crushed. it'd be very tradwife-y and appropriately unsettling for a bad end that's not the ended-in-death kind of tragic.
instead, I bet it'll go along the same lines where juhyeok goes along with suah's BS so he can compete but he seriously gives him a chance and returns his feelings over the course of things and "can finally be honest about how he feels ~~" and then babies ever after.
alternatively, a timeskip after they've bonded, not out of mutual love but so that juhyeok can have some semblance of independence, and they've been living their separate lives and suah's been successful with art because heartbreak made his work compelling and juhyeok's been competing and they reconnect and build a relationship after time has healed some wounds. would still be obnoxious for the whole "falling-in-love -with-your-rapist thing, but a bit more believable.
all that said, I don't trust this author to make good on any of that character/setting build-up based on how suah has been made out sympathetically so far due to unrequited love/obsession while juhyeok's totally reasonable reactions and negative feelings towards having his autonomy and freedom taken away from him have been sidelined and underplayed, as if those two things (having your feelings returned and body autonomy) are remotely equivalent. maybe juhyeok's more of a dick to suah than he strictly has to be, but I don't give a rat's ass about that considering his overall situation.
(this is just my read after dropping pretty early on and then lurking, so it's not attuned to the details)

if you made it this far, here's a gold star!

my guess is that seong su's dad got involved with the cult and brought/forced him in, his sexuality was discovered, and then the cult forced seong su into conversion therapy, which can sometimes involve drugs. maybe they declared him "cured" because/after he was able to father children. I could see that being the root of some of his reactions in the present.
it's too early to tell where things will go, but I'm very intrigued by the dichotomies/contrasts between seong su and hyeondo (Christian vs shamanism, only has his dad vs only has women in his life growing up, suppressed his sexuality and feelings vs living life out and proud)

I'm waiting to catch up with the official chapters, but even as someone who kind of preferred a jo+Ian endgame, I'm not upset with ian+tj endgame because as far as I can tell, that would never have happened without jo. Ian and tj couldn't be together if tj stayed enmeshed in and ascending the ranks of the gang, and if I'm interpreting the spoiler I just glanced at correctly, it seems like he lost that - the gang is either defunct or undergoing massive restructuring in TJ's favor?
it's one thing to be upset that the character you liked didn't "win", especially if the "other side" makes for poor "winners" (that's totally fair and warranted), but I don't think it's bad writing. undercooked in some ways/for some characters, yeah. I'd say the creator overextended theirself. but it seems to me that TJ and Ian ending up together in this particular way, in this particular circumstance makes sense as a resolution to their respective character conflicts. and it doesn't happen without jo! (even though it sucks for him to be sucked into all that with evidently nothing to show for it) （/TДT)/
at least he's still alive and not in prison?

seong su is as cute as he is suspicious and concerning.
reread because I'm obsessed and noticed that this is set in 1999, so I imagine y2k or the new millennium will be plot relevant + tie into the title. if seong su is in a cult, he's possibly a suicide risk (cult = group suicide to commemorate some pivotal moment trope) and him reconnecting with hyeondo and possibly letting himself go/indulging sexually with him is all part of his bucket list or last hurrah before the end. or a ploy to recruit hyeondo?
decent chance he has sexual trauma from past SA and/or mistreatment from his dad or whatever religious entity is in his life, cult or not. or he's severely repressed due to any of the above. or both.
I'm so curious about him!

you know, maybe it would alleviate inseo's neediness if yihyeok topped him once or a couple times...