very thorough, nuanced, and knowledgeable
"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.