Katawa Shoujo Forums

Thank you for all the feedback! I always appreciate it and it's helped me grow a lot as a writer(I'll get back to that)

There's one very specific piece of feedback I was given by multiple people that messaged me that I'd like to address.

I upset a few people because I didn't include a content warning for that chapter and the discussion of suicide; more specifically, the idea that it can be something empowering or something one can find comfort in. Someone even said they were going to stop reading because I was somehow glorifying suicide.

Glorifying suicide is not my intent at all. It's hard to put into words, but all I can do is share my own experience and relationship with that concept to try and explain it better.

I mentioned in my first post that I had a neck injury when I was young (a few years younger than Hisao) and that writing this story was helping me get through some baggage from back then. This is part of that.

When I woke up in the hospital, I couldn't feel anything below my neck. And when I say I couldn't feel anything, I don't mean like "my lip is numb from the dentist" or "I slept on my arm wrong." People take the sensation of touch for granted. It doesn't just let you feel things in a physical sense - it's the constant biofeedback you get from your body just existing in three dimensional space and it's gone. When that gets cut off so abruptly, and you're in traction so you can do nothing but stare at the ceiling, there's a part of you that wonders if you even exist, and being stuck this way is what eternity is going to be like...and how long you can hold on to your sanity like that. (The massive concussion, near drowning, and cornucopia of sedatives and morphine they had me on didn't help much either, but I digress.) And the most terrifying part about it is you can't even kill yourself to end it.

No matter how bad things get, no matter how many things you lose control over, suicide is the one thing you still have control over. It's a horrible thing to latch on to but once you get to that point, you're looking for anything to keep your head above water and it is the absolute last thing that can keep you afloat.

It's not the idea of killing yourself that you take comfort in, it's the sense of agency the ability to make a choice gives. It can create a stepping stone to other small things - if I have control over something...what else do I have control over? Can I control my reaction to the things I find uncontrollable? Yes. Every success builds off the previous one, with suicide being the cornerstone - something that can look incredibly alarming or wrong to other people (like therapists...)

Realizing I didn't even have that, it was the most hopeless I've ever been in my life. Nothing else I've experienced has even come close. Saki's terror is my own.

I did start to get better...but for the first few weeks of therapy, my motivation was to get strong enough to be able to kill myself. I needed to regain control of that. A month into therapy, I reached that point. And it's still a fundamental part of who I am, nineteen years ago next week. Every day I don't kill myself is a day I'm actively choosing to live, and that can become an incredible source of inner strength. In the last two decades, there were times when everything felt like it was stripped to that foundation again, but it's something that has never failed me when I need it.

That's the sentiment of what I was trying to convey, of suicide being empowering...but I realize that suicide can be a very touchy subject and people can have different - yet no less primal - reactions to it being brought up.

That being said, I may put a warning near the table of contents if it ends up being an upsetting issue for more people, however I will not be doing any individual warnings on a chapter basis (excepting smut chapters for obvious reasons)

Ah well, enough yapping from me. Two things to report!

First: The Act 4 outline is pretty much finished, with enough wiggle room. I hope ya'll are gonna like it.

Before I can flesh out Act 4 and start writing it in earnest, I'm going to go back over the next week or two and do some editing of the story. I'm laid up with a bad infection so I'm running out of excuses to avoid sitting down and writing.

No, this isn't Learning To Fly: True Edition, but re-reading it a few years on makes me realize there are a lot of grammar and sometimes spelling mistakes that made it through. I'm not changing the story or adding in extra chapters or characters but there's parts that could be edited to be a *lot* smoother than they are right now.

There's also some inconsistencies in events relating to each other that I want to go back and clear up.

Second: NEW ART BEING WORKED ON

Topics like suicide are always going to be a subject that hits a nerve for any readers because of how personal it is, along with how it can and does affect people on so many levels. Just this week, I have been reading on Gary Speed's widow, football/soccer player that killed himself in 2011 and was one of the people I looked up to a kid because he played for my football team Newcastle United. Piece on how her husband's suicide affects her and her family. Of what the impact of Gary's suicide had an effect on football and the topic of mental health in the UK.

How they never saw it coming and so on (it really was a shock when it happened as Gary to the world had everything and yet still killed himself), very much a emotional pov into the topic of suicide and one I greatly empathize with. Not having an answer and being left with loads of questions for the rest of your life and constantly analysing memories and so on is truly a experience no one should go through.

It takes a lot to come out to the world and talk about the very feelings, thoughts and so on you had at that point in your life. To speak frankly on why the feelings of taking your life gave you agency, of why it was a choice, which is not easy to grasp at first light unless I think you have been through that sort of experience. But helping to break the stigmas, to sharing your experience via Saki is empowering and something I'm really happy and greatly appreciate you did. Especially because as mentioned before. Have been through the same thing and find it very hard to open up to people out of fear of being misunderstood, of being judged for it (it took me a decade for me to tell anyone I had those feelings for a long time when younger). Even now, the only people who know can be count on one hand.

It isn't easy to look at a pov that runs counter to your own beliefs, views or experiences. But it is helpful in understanding why people go through what they go through and evolving your views, emotional intelligence and being able to understand on a empathic level.

A warning of there are sensitive subjects embedded within Learning to fly on the table of contents will help those that find the topic in question hard to read about be prepared or avoid.

Us writers always start noticing the mistakes after we have reread it a few times or years later when our senses have been tuned to spot them a lot more. hope it ins' too big of a job or too much hassle.

Oh, new art is always a welcome .

Take care mate

Blackmambauk

Eurobeatjester wrote: ↑Thu Sep 27, 2018 5:33 am No matter how bad things get, no matter how many things you lose control over, suicide is the one thing you still have control over.

It's not the idea of killing yourself that you take comfort in, it's the sense of agency the ability to make a choice gives.

This is exactly why Saki's view on suicide is so on point. There is no glory in it at all, but the strength you can derive from being able to check out on your own terms is incredibly empowering.

It is a fact of life that there are people who do consider killing themselves. I don't think there's anyone who never stood in a high place and considered how easy it would be to jump... Heck, I know I did, and I never had any reason or inclination to harm myself - I wouldn't even consider getting a tattoo!

Still there are also those who actually act on it, and Skai's motivation in your story is more justified than most of them.

Still at the end this is a forum for Fanfictions for a 18+ VN, so I don't think any story that includes this topic should need a trigger warning - especially if the topic is approached the way you did. If someone is not mature enough to handle it, they probably shouldn't be here in the first place.

I don't think you can let people dictate to you the content of your story, especially not for a reason like "this triggers me." Some people will just plain not like a decision that you make with the story--if they don't offer any real critique about how you executed the idea, or why you shouldn't have done it, or etc., then I don't think you really need to account for them.

Started reading this story the other week, also. I'm still pretty early on but I'm enjoying it. I like the troll personality that you gave Saki. I think the biggest challenge with a character that has no pre-existing personality from the game, is to give them one, and you definitely did that.

My girlfriend who did not play KS read this at my recommendation. I'm here to say on her behalf to say she's really enjoyed it thus far.

Woohooooo. I liek it Euro! Very sads, though. All the sads.

Ugh.

I've had a situation come up where I'm needing to crunch down and pick up as many hours at work as possible over the next two months in order to move by the end of the year. I'm still making edits to the story (act 2 should be done soon) and the editing might be all I have proper time for by the end of the year. I'll try to get a chapter or two of Act 4 out by then but I can't make any promises.

That being said, there are two new pieces of art being worked on that should be done in the next week or two

Eurobeatjester, always work on yourself before this. You've been consistently delivering something exceptional, so never force yourself to write this story if it doesn't suit you - I think everyone thinks that we'd rather you stick around and enjoy creating this than burnout and stop short.

The stress from the last few days gave me a kidney stone, so that was fun.

On the plus side though...here's one of those pieces of art I had mentioned!

The artist who did this is Hairinya. She did an amazing job and I couldn't be happier.

It's amazing!

Absolutely love it, exactly how i pictured the scene between them in my mind.

Will have to keep Hairinya in mind for my own fic projects. She really did a fantastic job naling the scene.

Hope work isn't too stressful with all the crunch they are making you do. Don't want to see a Telltale happen on you or anything Rockstar do to their staff.

Take care mate

Blackmambauk

And one more! This one is done by MoMoeko.

This one looks lovely euro! I especially like how Saki turned out.

Sorry to hear about the kidney stone, hope things cool down a bit and you can relax. Oh, and no need to hurry with LtF, we've been reading your stuff for half a decade now, what's another few years

Eurobeatjester wrote: ↑Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:01 am The stress from the last few days gave me a kidney stone, so that was fun.

On the plus side though...here's one of those pieces of art I had mentioned!

The artist who did this is Hairinya. She did an amazing job and I couldn't be happier.

Just like in my shoujo mangoes.