I understand your feelings here and I get why you would be uncomfortable seeing this work, and largely why I write it, even in these recent political times, is that I feel that this story is a piece of media that I have done my best to depict these themes with the severity and gravity they deserve. As much as joke at times out of the story, this actual piece here is less porn and more a story that uses sexual elements and NSFW details as a way of exploring the horror of the situation. It can be tantalizing, but when I really became emotionally invested in this work as a piece of art it became something much, much more than that.
In time likes this, with how things are, I personally feel drawn to writing this story specifically because I did my best to depict fascism, conversion therapy, and queerphobia with seriousness and with care for its themes. I have a background in activism relating to the holocaust and to fascism in general and largely Lessons in Humanity is my attempt at accurately depicting the actions and rationals of fascists, the ways they justify their ideas, and how they use those ideas to justify hurting others "for their own good". Yellow is a character that I put a lot of effort into depicting properly and despite the fandom being in many ways infested with chuds and with bigots, I have not seen that type of attention under my story. And I believe that heavily comes down to this being a queer work, Kris is nonbinary and nothing that he does will ever change that, this story's main premise will always come down to him being wrong and what he is doing being a terrible deed before anything vaguely tantalizing or NSFW gets into it. I view this as a tale about bigotry and the ways it can destroy ones sense of self and completely corrode their life far before I view it as porn or jack off material.
I appreciate seeing this because I do feel it valuable to clarify my intentions with this work. I'm nonbinary myself and I see a lot of myself in Kris, I've always identified with them the most of any character in Deltarune. I project a lot of myself onto Kris with how I depict them in this work, and really use this story as a method of exploring these feelings, many of which I've felt and experienced myself. There's a couple things in this story directly based off events that have happened to me, and largely? Kris is just a character that holds a very close place in my heart and as much as I hurt them here this fic is a method of exploring them and exploring their character in ways few stories have. I'll always make it very clear what this story is and who isn't welcome to enjoy it, because this is a story that is made for victims to have a controlled outlet for exploring their own trauma and feelings far far more than its for anyone like that. I try my best to take everything with the revulsion and heartbreak that it warrants, and I've had many people close to me say how much its effected them emotionally in turn for that, I've had people who have seen so much of themselves in this work, that's something I'll always value here.
I hope if nothing else you can better understand my own thoughts and ideas here, and at least find some solace in knowing that I get why people would be uneasy with this story conceptually. I just would like to at least let you know that I'm doing my best to make a story that pushes good ideas despite its dark themeing, and in the current political climate depictions of the reality of what people like those who are in power believe is more important to me than ever.
Thank you if you read all this and at least gave me the time of day, I tried to be very earnest in responding.
Enby-A Jam (Guest)
on Chapter 1
Fri 28
Feb 202512:43AM UTC
Well, I appreciate you responding and taking what I've said in good faith at the very least. I appreciate you being earnest, even if I still feel pretty uneasy about all of this.
For one, I'm just not sure how much I can understand downplaying the aspects of 'tantalization' as you call them. I mean this is like the fifth or sixth story you've written about an AFAB trans or nonbinary character being tortured and raped as a form of bigotry, not even counting your story, "A Collection of One Shots About Kris Deltarune getting Sexually Assaulted in Various Ways." Which, while I haven't read it, if that's also supposed to be a deep study on fascism and the way it impacts the marginalized, that's a pretty tasteless thing to title it. It just feels like 'tantalization' is an unavoidable part of the story. You know if someone claimed to be writing an explicit story that wanted to sensitively tackle the subject of sexual exploitation during the holocaust from a serious perspective, I don't think it's unfair to side eye them if they also publish a completely eroticized book of just Nazis raping people. Not to accuse you of literally doing that, I haven't read your nazisploitation fics. Maybe they're all tasteful or all non-tasteful.
You mention joking about it out of story, which I've certainly seen you and others do. I've seen people call the rapist in the story 'hot', you saying that you love him and using your money to get art of him, which again, if this is meant to be your serious depiction of fascism, conversion therapy, and queerphobia, don't those kinds of comments sort of take away from that? Like you can write this story as an exploration of fascism and transphobia, or you can try to write it as porn/'dark kink' like how ImpTwins describes the story. Doing both at the same time will necessarily turn out a different kind of product than focusing on one or the other. There are a lot of works exploring fascism and these sorts of themes that have sex or sexual themes but manage not to depict it in a 'tantalizing' way.
I'm also someone that really identifies with Kris in particular, which is probably part of why seeing this in searches tends to give me a bout of dark and self destructive thoughts. (One other thing is that I also headcanon Kris as AFAB, and it feels like the only reason pretty much anyone ever seems to deign to take them away from the 'AMAB default' in explicit Deltarune works is for the purpose of being raped, which is more a problem I have with the larger fandom, but you know, not loving that... Obviously not EVERY single piece but it's a disturbing pattern that it's hard not to notice after a while.) I really like having a nonbinary figure in such an interesting and central role to a story like Deltarune, one where their gender identity isn't demeaned or interrogated. If I wanted to see that, I could just look out the window.
In regards to the thing about audiences, I'll go into detail about that in my reply to ImpTwins. Although I will say what is often a horror story to one is a power fantasy for another, at the very least... I hope something truly horrible happens to the rapist at the end. If this is truly a story about him being unable to change a core facet of someone's being, and being unable to truly break someone no matter what he does, the indomitable spirit of nonbinary people and all that, then I hope it's truly shown in the story rather than it just being another tale of queer trauma with a miserable unjust ending. We have enough stories like "A Little Life" after all.
I can't stop you from doing anything, I'm only giving my feelings as another nonbinary person, all I would really ask is that you consider these things and perhaps try to interrogate some of these repeating patterns in your work. I don't know the depths of your soul, all I know is that even if you do have the best of intentions, being queer does not exempt you from having your own internalized biases or potentially concerning ideas. I know that even if I am queer, I've also grown up in an extremely racist, misogynistic, and generally bigoted society which has undoubtedly seeped into my own thinking. For a long time I used to think that my queerness made me exempt from the larger culture, they don't accept me so why should I assume they've influenced me? But eventually I had to reckon with the fact that no matter how much the culture stomps down on us, we are still a part of it, and we must stay vigilant against those parts of us. As I said, I don't know the depths of your soul or whether any of this applies to you, I just hope you'll think about it.
Hearing your thoughts on it... Well I suppose it gives some solace that you understand, even if it is small. I hope that you're correct in your belief that the presence of people just looking to get off on this is nominal, even though I know for certain that it's not zero. And I also just, don't want to sound accusatory, you've been polite and I'm not calling you a bad person, I just have been trying to get my point across on why I don't necessarily understand all of the arguments you've put forward.
To be fair, stories like the collection one are not focused on the gender aspects. I am a dead dove writer who writes dead dove and largely only some of my fics entail those elements overall. The ones that DO have those elements are ones that I feel all broadly get across their themeing well and work sufficiently good at making it clear that the actions being done are atrocities being committed by terrible people. Out of all of them, LiH is one where I am the most blunt in showing the depth and scale of these actions and the horrors committed in the name of them.
Yellow is a character I feel attraction to even if he also is a character that is wrong. Large amounts of that attraction comes down to my interest in men like that from a trauma angle; I am a lesbian and a lot of traits and ideas related to what I dislike about men are put into him as a character as a means of exploring these feelings in fiction in a safe place. For as much as I love him as a character he is also someone who would deserve to die if he really existed. My fic gets that across very well I feel.
As for this story ‘s ending stuff, I don’t want to spoil it but I cannot do bad endings for something like this. LiH is a story that means so much to me and when I put so much effort into focusing on Yellow being wrong, it would hurt me as much as it hurts someone like you to end it on a sour note. Kris will suffer a lot but in the end it is most important to me to show that whatever he does to them will never truly be able to extinguish who they are and they will always be able to recover from it in the end. I love Kris as I’ve said and I could not fulfill a fic like this to myself without having the ending be bittersweet at the darkest. Queer suffering is an element I write, but in the end it is always secondary to the reminder that we survive as queer people despite the opposition. All we can do is survive no matter how bad things gt, and someday it will become better through that struggle.
I understand arguments about internalized bigotry here, and I do feel that I’ve done very good to constantly center the voices and feelings of victims over those of the abusers. My stories are focused on the harm done to queer people from the perspective of the queer person suffering for a reason; it will always be about showing the harm these actions cause to them and their feelings over some power fantasy someone can project onto.
I really appreciate you being good faith with this, and I understand your feelings and concerns here. All I would say, personally, is that I feel if you read this story you would see the value and care that goes into crafting what I do and I believe you’d understand how hard I try to always focus on always centering the harm and the exploitation over anything else. Thank you for not assuming the worst of me here, I wouldn’t be responding earnestly if I didn’t feel there wasn’t a good conversation to be had here. I really do give this story so much care and I always do have healthy doubts over my own work in that department, and I feel that helps me make sure I’m taking it in the right directions.
I just hope that even if you don’t fully grasp it, you can feel that I’m trying very hard to write something with only the best intentions.
Enby-A Jam (Guest)
on Chapter 1
Fri 28
Feb 202502:12AM UTC
Well I guess that does bring me some measure of comfort, or at least lessens the anger and confusion and misery and fear I get when I encounter this fic in searches or remember that it exists. The idea that it won't just 'A Little Life' things. Sorry, I'm always firing shots at 'A Little Life' unprovoked.
While you're right that I would probably get a lot more context from reading it, I definitely just, I couldn't do that, I couldn't put myself through that. I engage with a lot of dark subject matter, but bigotry and conversion therapy hits a little too close to home, and I prefer it when rape is left to implication or a fade to black rather than shown in a way anyone could potentially find titillating. To see it like (often in things like exploitation films or anime) that feels voyeuristic. Like in something like I don't know, Goblin Slayer for instance. Despite the fact that the evil rapist race is shown to be evil, the way it's framed and portrayed makes it clear that on some level, the audience is supposed to be sexually excited by all the women getting raped by ugly demons. I never want to feel, as an audience member, like I'm expected to find any scene of sexual assault 'hot' in any way. Sorry again for bringing up random examples, just trying to make my point in regards to 'the perpetrator being shown as evil' not always absolving things.
And again while it sounds like you handle things as sensitively as you can, I think it's very hard to depict rape explicitly without any sense of voyeurism. And I don't want to take the risk of being exposed to that. (Nor do I find the premise at all interesting really. I prefer my weird dark torture fics with possible sexual tension to have characters with a pre-established hatred or disdain for each other and maybe some turnabout, more of a battle than a one sided miseryfest. Gotta love cyclical violence after all.)
As I said, I can't look inside your soul, neither to absolve you nor to judge you as evil. On the internet, you really can't ever know. But, I would like to believe you're being sincere. And I would like to believe that you are genuinely taking steps to try and interrogate your own kinks and the things that you write and keeping in mind potential internal biases.
I still hate knowing that it exists, I still don't think it should, I still wish it didn't. But I appreciate you taking the time to help me feel a bit less broken up about it by trying to help me understand, it's kind of you to do that for someone like me.
I don’t believe we’ll ever agree on this, I don’t think its really possible for us to with our differences in perspectives, but I really do sympathize with your feelings here and I don’t think you’re wrong for feeling how you do. Largely, I just feel that as a victim of SA and a victim of many of the things talked about in this fic that its inevitable some people may not understand and feel comfortable with it, and I always am careful to encourage people to not force that for their own sake. I could never regret making this story largely when its had a very positive impact on people close to me for being able to see themselves in it; a friend of mine is an actual kidnapping victim who really closely felt for how I depicted it in this fic and I’ve had others with similar emotional connections to it from its themes on queerness. To me that will always be whats important and will make it hard for me to ever not want to see this project to the end.
Its no problem, I really appreciated the chance to explain this stuff publicly and to help get my intentions out there. You’ve been very nice in your criticisms and good faith pushback can be good for showing others my own feelings here, if only to express my hate and disdain for any chuds who might be reading the story. Getting to say what I did was very important I feel, and thank you for hearing me out and letting me express myself here.
In the end we both want what is best for queer people and that will always be what matters over disagreements like this. I hope I was able to soothe some of your fears and anxieties about this work at least a little bit, and I hope you’ll do well in these troubling times we live in and we all come out okay in the end.
I believe we will, even if things get hard in the meantime. Its easy to be doomer, to give in to hopelessness, but we as a community are too motivated and have built too much to let it be torn down.
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FrillyFrills on Chapter 1 Thu 27 Feb 2025 06:10AM UTC
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