I agree, but I’m also having a hard time seeing consent fit his character type, so in my mind it’s either this crap or no BL at all (up to this point in the story, idk about the future)
Oh, come on. Honestly, what did you expect? Zhenya is quite literally a criminal sociopath who is part of and was raised in an equally as criminal family.
Why did you expect him to have or adhere to morals like 'rape is bad', fall head over heals for the MC and change his whole character?
There are enough stories without rape and there are some, where I would agree, the rape part is strange and unnecessary. This is not one of them. If you can't handle that / don't like it (understandable), don't read the story. You don't have to have read the novel or spoilers to know, Zhenya was off from the very beginning. He never really tried to hide it all that hard. If you truly believe, his behavior came out of left-field, just like Taekjoo, you just deceived yourself into believing what you wanted to believe.
No wonder the 4B movement took off if mentalities like this are as common in the public as they are in written media. Of course there are immoral people in the world, but for what reason is the author choosing to display rape in such a gratuitous manner? It wasn’t necessary to advance the plot. If the point was to add trauma and illustrate that Zhenya had been an irredeemable villain all along, there is still no need to go into such graphic detail over two chapters. A few cutscenes and a post trauma thought process are more than enough to illustrate the gravity of the crime and psychological impacts.
When creators create such detailed rape scenes, they are catering to people who might enjoy that type of content (and/or telling on themselves). Of course violent rapists make for good villains, but the problem with Korean media is that the author usually doesn’t treat them like a villain at all if they’re part of the main pairing. The harm to the victim is minimized by the perpetrator, other characters, and the plot and the perpetrator usually gets away with it.
I swear if you told Korean authors to write a story that doesn’t excuse or normalize abusive, controlling, or toxic relationships or jump off a cliff, like 60% would go over with no hesitation, and like 20% would have to seriously debate it first. That’s how intensely rape culture and misogyny (I know this is gay, but in the industry, traditionally feminine roles, treatment, and stereotypes are often superimposed on the bottom character, rather than it being written as just two men) permeate the culture (as expressed by their webcomic media)
Because putting the idea in people's head, that violent criminals, who are members of gangs/the mafia, will totally fall in love with that one special person and change their entire personality for them, and thus encourage the 'I can change him' mentality and the staying in (potentially) abusive relationships, is so much better, amirite?
I was more concerned about the gratuitous and overly detailed nature of the rape scene which is obviously meant to cater to the enjoyment of a very specific viewership who don’t think consent is particularly important. If the only reason the author added the rape was for trauma, to illustrate Zhenya’s villainy, or to generate character development, that level of careful step by step detail wouldn’t have been necessary. I have read plenty of comics that dealt with SA. All they needed were a few very vague cutscenes and the victim’s internal monologue/emotional reaction to portray the psychological impact of the event, and illustrate how monstrous the perpetrator was. This scene was drawn the way it was because the author knew that some people would enjoy reading a scene like that because they are the type of people who would enjoy committing a crime like that. My issue is not that the rape occurred at all, but how it was portrayed.
why the fuck author's need to add rape...like is rape really that common in korea