Look regardless of research or not I also hope they did do their research but it’s hard writing an original story and drawing it so I wouldn’t be so harsh on creators
Absolutely, as long as there’s common sense I literally won’t be expecting that much. However, the internet is also free it won’t take too much time to research information to be able to write a story on SA trauma sophisticatedly. Especially if your story is going to be centered around the topic.
im kinda tired of people mentioning Research in regards to something that is so steaped in the personal. to write a story this raw and empathetic and thoughtful requires experience and perspective that cannot purely be gained from just Reading about a Thing in a psychology book. research can give u knowledge and ideas and is necessary for most fiction to be its best but it cant make you FEEL the pain or confusion or self loathing etc that survivors of abuse (of any kind) can go thru.
i dont know the writer's life or gender or sexuality but i do strongly feel they are pulling some of this from their own experience or soul and not just research they read somewhere or a few interviews with irl survivors (and considering the stigma it has esp wrt men esp wrt korean society, i cant imagine the writer was able to get a bunch of volunteers to spill their guts to them for a webtoon plot.) there's a saying that art imitates life. so it may well be that this is inspired either by their own life experiences, or a close friend/family member who went thru smth similar OR some combination which may or may not have been further supplemented by "research". just want yall to stop assuming like this writer could not POSSIBLY be using this story to work thru their own stuff rather than they only did lots of research thus they were able to make this story. (thats not how research works yall js). the story also seems to outright reject alot of common BL tropes for kr webtoons. which may be a coincidence or intentional. but its a big part of the story's charm and sense of reallism.
Your point is completely valid. But research isn’t just an academic term, that can only be used in descriptions of science or history etc. It means a detailed study of a subject, especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding. Generally, it’s very rare for a psychological BL story specifically, to be based on personal experience. However, it can be inspired by other’s who have been through it. And obviously you’d research into it or investigate meaning asking certain questions and details or if it’s too sensitive to ask you’ll find other sources to fix gaps. Otherwise, if you only know minuscule details, and don’t know the rest, it’s massive holes for a story.
The reason for why most stories in this genre fall short is because they’re not writing a (auto)biography, experience is important but can prove to limit your writing by being biased and narrow. That’s why research into other details and other experiences are important. They’re not writing a real-life based (auto)biography, they’re writing a story and most of the time it’s hand in hand with the mystery and thriller sub genre’s. Because of this, characters with mental trauma’s aren’t depicted properly and often have to be resolved by love or death. Sometimes in worse case scenarios the characters don’t even seem like they’re traumatised they’re just portrayed as ‘edgy’.
Also, experience really isn’t needed in stories that aren’t personal pieces such as memoir or autobiography. If experience was such an issue, how would authors write about dragons, elves, dwarves, magic, rebirth. Research is highly important beforehand so your writing doesn’t struggle trying to come up with ideas when you’ve realised you’ve neglected an aspect of your work due to assuming you can write it loosely based on your ‘experience’ such as hearing or reading some work that one time, but not extensively researching it.
In my experience, it’s very rare for a webtoon/manga/manhwa to ever write mental trauma properly. In terms of coping mechanisms, behavioural and psychological issues. They usually come out really cheesy, illogical or end up magically becoming better due to the power of love. So I’m very curious on how they will approach it, obviously I’m not expecting details equivalent to a psychologist major but I hope the author has really done their research.