'The vision' by Italian Cheone (@cosimocheone1) for Streetart Festival 2022 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France #cheone #streetart #lamolinastreetart | photo by @philippevincent76 via mysl.nl/isbih
one thing about ptj's writing that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth is sometimes i feel he doesn't completely grasp the issues of abuse and sexual trauma, mostly and majorly for the female characters, but the male characters too.
take for example mira getting sexually assaulted by the cult leader and camp instructor, zoe's transaction with logan, club vivi, vin'mom being raped and killed by the shaman, sujin being abused and preyed upon and sexually assaulted before getting beaten to death by taejin... ALL of this feels so catatonic, almost unnecessary in its cruelty. this is a horrible world no doubt. but whatever he inflicts to his female characters seems to be done purely for the sake of shock value, almost like an indelible grief or hurt or helplessness a MALE character has to overcome in his path to nirvana. it is never shown what the woman feels about her own violation, no impact of it can be seen on her own life before she dies or simply forgets and moves on (kinda telling of the author's attitude towards how victims ought to react...).
then lets talk about the male victims. daniel gets stalked, goo and gun and eli were all minors who trained under a man who unironically touches people's genitals and brags about doing so, olly gets raped, eli gets groomed (i will not argue here about this one), sinu is shown naked often with the woman who brainwashed him. not mentioned in the comic but should be pondered upon is the fact that jake and jiho were in juvenile prison, a place with alarmingly high rates of sex crimes. dg is an idol who deals with invasive fans (sasaengs in real life are legitimately terrifying). seongji and vin were the ritual vessels for a cult. but this aspect of their trauma gets completely brushed under the rug, as if even alluding to it would take away from their strength and uhhh, masculine nature.
much to be thought about his treatment of his own characters...
chin up, baek cheon sahyung. one is blessed when they are loved
chapter 278, i said previously somewhere else that chung myung is a rubber-necking auntie but i take it back; the entirety of the mount hua sect are all rubber-necks.
And you know Yu Yiseol would quietly sit next to him and Tang Soso would braid flowers into his hair. Baek Cheon and Yunjong are trying to get everyone back to the dormitory, specially Jo Gul who is trying to take grandpa’s sword. 🥹🥹🥹