Akros wrote:Dude, how can you have a crush on a fictional character? I get you might like it a lot, but I mean, wanting to marry it or something like that is going to far.
I would definetly fall for a girl LIKE Hanako or Lilly, but not for a cartoon.
Some have started this way, and now they've ended up fucking their pillows with an anime cover on it. That's just taking it way to far...
its the fantasy of it ... sorta like eve and the apple ... we know its taboo but we don't care
oh i never humped a pillow lol
What the difference between having a background of Lilly now or a poster of Farrah Fawcett in the 70's .... they are just fantasy ... no harm in it as long as it doesn't control you life
Akros wrote:Dude, how can you have a crush on a fictional character? I get you might like it a lot, but I mean, wanting to marry it or something like that is going to far.
I would definetly fall for a girl LIKE Hanako or Lilly, but not for a cartoon.
Some have started this way, and now they've ended up fucking their pillows with an anime cover on it. That's just taking it way to far...
Having a crush on a fictional character doesn't mean you're going to want to marry her or drop real girls in favour of her. That's just a stupid way of thinking. Like I said, it's not much different to having celebrity crushes.
My first fictional crush was Sailor Mercury from the Sailor Moon cartoon.
...don't judge, I was a middle school weeaboo who didn't know better. Anyway, thankfully KS didn't come out when I was said middle school weeaboo. Oh god, that would had been horrible.
Akros wrote:Dude, how can you have a crush on a fictional character? I get you might like it a lot, but I mean, wanting to marry it or something like that is going to far.
I would definetly fall for a girl LIKE Hanako or Lilly, but not for a cartoon.
Some have started this way, and now they've ended up fucking their pillows with an anime cover on it. That's just taking it way to far...
Having a crush on a fictional character doesn't mean you're going to want to marry her or drop real girls in favour of her. That's just a stupid way of thinking. Like I said, it's not much different to having celebrity crushes.
I don't mean that, what I'm saying is that there's people that go as far as that level. You can have a crush on a Megan Fox poster, an anime chick or something like that, you just need to know what's real and what's not. Celebrity crushes are just the same thing
BTW, just as I was writing this I noticed I messed up before when I said "how can you have a crush on a fictional character?", I meant something way more serious : P
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The comparison with celebrities appeases me. I thought wanting a fictional character to become real was abnormal. Yeah, I would like to shake hands with some awesome KS characters *cough* ===>
Luckily I don't literally love any of them. I wonder, what does you make feel like that for a FICTIONAL character.
I apologize for any grammatical and spelling mistake I may do. English is not my native language.
Akros wrote:
Some have started this way, and now they've ended up fucking their pillows with an anime cover on it. That's just taking it way to far...
What if i'm doing my pillow but it doesn't have an anime cover on it?
I've never had a crush on a fictional character. I have, on occasion, developed something resembling an attraction to a characters voice though. Goliath from Gargoyles was the first voice that made me say "oh gawd it's like having sex poured in my ears" and the sexy British tone of Bastilla from Knights of the Old Republic made me realize a few things about myself...
Seriously, if you literally fall in love with a fictitious character, then you need to spend less time playing or watching whatever you're falling in love with. That's just not normal.
I think that this has been alluded to, but possibly not really delved into very deeply in this topic, but in my case it was always the ideal or the character of the "character" that I was attracted to. A secondary aspect is that I have a very strong imagination, strong enough that it can sometimes take over reality if I indulge in daydreaming too much and I can visually see the imaginary layered over reality. If I watch an anime or show, read a book or visual novel that has strong, developed characters then I can visualize myself in the story as an escapism, similar to playing video games. It's given me many great ideas for novels and artwork that aren't even fanfics, but more like fuel for the stories I love to create.
The first character that I was "attracted" to, was Nene Romanova from Bubblegum Crisis 2032 (not the redone nonsense). She was a geek, great with computers and computer games, very feminine and funny. Her character artwork was attractive, but her personality and motivations were what appealed to me the most. The episode "Scoop Chase" where she was featured, really opened her character and showed how she handled friendships and pressure. In essence, she became part of an ideal of the characteristics I valued in a woman. Would I have had sex with a pillow with her image on it? No as I prefer flesh and blood to cotton and polyester. But her character fueled my imagination and I could incorporate her personality into other characters in different, unrelated stories. She also became part of an ideal that I was looking for in someone to date at the time.
From Katawa Shoujo, Lilly has become that character that has stuck in my mind the most. While her character art is attractive in a 2D artwork way (especially in her peach blouse and tan dress), it is her personality and the way she carries herself, as described by the author, that attracts me the most to her. This is similar to the way that Nene's character stuck with me, yet Lilly is with me far more than Nene Romanova ever was. Why would Lilly's character stay in my thoughts more than Nene's? I believe that the defining reason, at least in my case is twofold, the medium of the visual novel which is perfect to create lasting attachments to the fictional characters as you've seen and my real life.
As one poster previously pointed out, the medium of the visual novel makes it easier to interject ourselves into the story and interact with the characters on a more personal level. Unlike a video game where everything is given to us either in animation or auditory with minimal reading, the medium of the Visual Novel forces the reader/player, to invest their imagination into the story far more than an RPG or FPS. I can zone out on any game I play, however I could never be able to do that with Katawa Shoujo and be able to effectively interact with the story.
I'm not ashamed to say that I cried my eyes out at Lilly's good ending and with the final third of her story being this ridiculous roller coaster of emotion, needless to say I was emotionally spent. But because of the visual novel being from a "first-person" perspective, with Hisao's character development being minimal in comparison to the female counterpoints of each story, I could interject more of my own personality into the character. Plus, the way Suriko wrote Hisao's reactions and reasoning behind his lack of action till the end, mirrored how I probably would've reacted and acted in the situations with Lilly furthering my immersion into the story. There were still a few points where I would've acted slightly different or said something slightly different than how the story was written, but for the most part everything was understandable from my point of view and I could've made that choice for the same reasons as Hisao did.
If Hisao's character had been developed far more and his decisions/responses more radical in departure than what I would do, then I wouldn't have been able to become so deeply immersed into the story as I did. His motivations and reasoning wouldn't have aligned with my own, therefore I would always be aware that this was someone else's story and I have no part in it but to read it. There have been plenty of novels where I have been able to view myself as the protagonist in the story, but only if the characters motivations and reactions were similar to my own. Perhaps it's the way my brain is wired, I don't know. What I do know, is that as I read Katawa Shoujo, I in essence became Hisao Nakai and it was no longer his story but my own.
People falling in love with a character from any medium, be it VN, VIdeo Game, TV Show or Movie, goes beyond what many of the people who play Katawa Shoujo feel. I think that each of the readers/players of Katawa Shoujo put ourselves into Hisao's shoes and play the story as though his perspective is our perspective. I'm married to a beautiful wife and have two wonderful sons all of whom I love. Many of my wife's characteristics are in the character of Lilly, not all but a good portion of them. Would I divorce my wife for a virtual character? Not in my life. What I feel for Lilly's character, allows me to see those characteristics in my wife and in essence let's me see her in a new way and appreciate her more because of how Lilly's path progressed.
I firmly believe that because each of the women from KS were written with such care, dedication and believability by their respective writers, many of us will take these characters and say, "she may not be real, but maybe there is someone out there who is similar to her". Hopefully because we walked in Hisao's (our) shoes and saw how his (our) actions could affect those women in KS, we ourselves will be more careful and mindful if we happen to find our own Lilly, Hanako, Emi, Rin or Shizune so that we ourselves with have good endings as well.
Emi->Hanako->Lilly->Rin->Shizune->Lilly->Lilly->Lilly-><sigh> What the hell just happened?
Arcfault wrote:
[Deletion of full-immersion reading/ gaming experience]
I firmly believe that because each of the women from KS were written with such care, dedication and believability by their respective writers, many of us will take these characters and say, "she may not be real, but maybe there is someone out there who is similar to her". Hopefully because we walked in Hisao's (our) shoes and saw how his (our) actions could affect those women in KS, we ourselves will be more careful and mindful if we happen to find our own Lilly, Hanako, Emi, Rin or Shizune so that we ourselves with have good endings as well.
QFT
Being of deeply romantic disposition, I've had a similar experience when reading good fiction with strong emotional attachments (e.g. the Vorkosigan Saga, anything by C.J. Cherryh). I find myself fretting, stomach aching, about what's next, hoping the author won't let me down (e.g. later M.Z. Bradley). I've recently discovered many happy tears that manga & anime can offer (often yelling at the page/ screen "Turn around, you idiot and tell her/him that you're in love!"). I got all this and a lot more by playing... no, reading KS.
Speaking from nearly twenty years of dating experience, I can say I've met all five personalities that Hisao encounters in his last school year. Each lass was done with respect and depth of character that amazed me. I just wish I'd had HIsao's inner strength and clear thoughts since I've had some bad endings along the way. Heck, I'm kind of jealous since he gets his life-partner before college starts but that's balanced out by his condition. It took me 20 years to find mine (a post-graduate, confident version of Yuuko ) but I did get one of the best endings!
Back to the original question about having crushes on fictional characters, I can say I've had a few of them: Silver Age Batgirl, Doctor Beverly Crusher, Commander Susan Ivanova. More recently, I've found myself wondering how I could get involved with Susan Sto Helit (Discworld), Yomiko Readman (Read Or Die), and Olivia Armstrong (Fullmetal Alchemist). Oh, I wouldn't mind a wild weekend with Chiana or Jool (Farscape) but I wouldn't give them my phone number.
Akros wrote:Dude, how can you have a crush on a fictional character? I get you might like it a lot, but I mean, wanting to marry it or something like that is going to far.
I would definetly fall for a girl LIKE Hanako or Lilly, but not for a cartoon.
Some have started this way, and now they've ended up fucking their pillows with an anime cover on it. That's just taking it way to far...
I might be late, but don't forget that guy who married a vidya character
We're going to have to draw some lines between 'idolatry' (2d celeb crush), 'extreme thing I do to hide my real motivations' (marry a fictional character to dump the girlfriend you don't have the guts to split with otherwise), and 'picture I was looking at when I got my first boner'. There's overlap, sure, but there's something up with having a ceremony with your gameboy and I think there's territory beyond 'weird' to be explored here.
Hanako's favorite joke is The Aristocrats, but she never tells it because Lilly finds it really offensive. Instead, she practices her delivery in front of a mirror when she's alone. It's the only time she never stammers.
