So I was reading a KS review...

[Lianam]

So I was reading a KS review here, and found the review to be very accurate of its portrayal of the game (in fact it gave KS a 10/10 ).
And then I read some of the comments...

...and now I feel like I need to hurt puppy...



My god, those comments- THOSE COMMENTS. The majority of them were those kind of comments...

When I was face-plaming at the sheer stupidity of the closed-minded idiots of the internet who clearly didn't even download KS, I asked myself: "Why do these people always assume that KS is nothing but cripple-porn?"
And then it hit me.
The reason why.


You see, when most of people hear "Dating Sim" and "Disabilities" in the same sentence they immediately think, "Fetish-Game", or at the very least they think it's some silly genre savvy VN making fun of VNs (I originally was a part of this category), because they assume that KS can ONLY be that- and why do they think that? I, personally, can only think of one explanation: most people, subconsciously or otherwise, are basically saying "only a person with a fetish could possibly be attracted to disabled people".
Think about it: If I were to tell people that there was a visual novel where all the characters were African or Middle-Eastern, they wouldn't think that it was some fetish-game- okay, scratch that, most people's assumptions on VNs are that they're all porn games, but my point is that they wouldn't immediately assume that it was a fetish-game based off of the characters being African or Middle-Eastern.
But tell people that there was a visual novel where all the characters had physical disabilities? They'd think, "This is a porn-game that fetishizes physical disabilities!" The only difference that could've cause these different reactions was that one featured all the characters being a certain race while the other featured all the character having a physical disability.
In reality a person's disability should be no more defining than there race- but because people assume that the disability VN is lewd and sexualizes disabilities while they think the other VN is lewd and sexualized just because it's a VN, it shows that many people don't think that this isn't the case. Or at the very least, they don't act on it.

And the fact that this is the way most people view disabled individuals? That it took something like Katawa Shoujo to make them realize that a physical disability says nothing more about a person than there race does? And that I was one of those people?
That's disgusting. I feel disgusted. Disgusted in my self and disgusted in society...
/endshootingfishinabarrel and /endrageinducedrant

Thank you 4LS though, for making us wiser and more open-minded people. For making us better people.

[hitman555z]

for me, my first impression was that since i saw it on 4chan, its probably just some stuff to jerk off to. then i saw pics like "what i expected, what i got" and each one had feels in the end. as skeptical as i was, i decided to see what the big commotion was about.

i joined the forum here a bit before my birthday, and i must say, this was the best birthday present i could have given to myself. all of those feels. its not something you can get and then brush aside after a short while. even during the break from the forum and KS because of school and other games i was playing, my mind would drift off into the world of KS and i just wouldnt forget the game and some people on here.

4LS truly are visionaries.

[MegaMoto]

You read comments on the internet. Why would you do that ?

[Lianam]

You read comments on the internet. Why would you do that ?

This more or less sums it up:


In other words I try to see if people have stopped being close-minded idiots and if society has progressed at all.
So of course I am often disappointed, but the comments on that article took stupidity to another level.

[Xillandon]

I don't know though, I feel like a lot of those people are rude out of ignorance of what the game could possibly be about, rather than an actual feeling that disabled people are like that. On the internet, I can't say it's too out of the realm of possibility that a game about disabled girls made by people from 4chan, since it's such a boogeyman so most people, wouldn't be seen as trying to fetishize the whole thing. It's not that these people would see a girl in real life with no arms like Rin and be hostile to her. They would most likely be either intrigued or uncomfortable. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but it's like if you told someone you were reading/playing a visual novel or book about a pool cleaner guy who was working at the house of a lonely, underloved housewife. Sure all sorts of assumptions come up based off of previous knowledge, but that doesn't mean the actual novel is about porn. While I agree 100% that people shouldn't be bashing Katawa Shoujo without even having so much as watched a video on youtube about it, I can understand where some of those feelings can come from. Not to mention a lot of what they say probably comes off harsher than they actual feel, since it is the Internet after all.

[gekiganwing]

There has been a lot of overlap between VNs, romance games, and porn. If you want to change that, then start writing, coding, and creating art. You might not become internet famous, but you can help the EVN community.

I entered the VN fandom after hearing so much about Tokimemo and Sakura Wars. In the years it took to get even one game from each franchise in English, I learned to appreciate a variety of stories and art styles. My tastes have always been odd -- growing up, I knew few people who liked slow-paced and visually boring video games, and no one who genuinely liked cute art.

Even though I have purchased a number of JAST and Mangagamer's localized VNs and enjoyed them, I'm sometimes frustrated by their marketing. There's a lot of emphasis on porn ('cause sex sells), and not much emphasis on story or untapped media forms. The two companies have released at least one genuine worksafe product each, which is a good start... but they have only a few additional worksafe products set for release in the near future. So yeah, this is why I've spent more money on other things: visual novels released by Aksys Games and indie groups, shows/movies about fighting robots, varied comics, board games, etc.

...reading/playing a visual novel or book about a pool cleaner guy who was working at the house of a lonely, underloved housewife...

That could be a story prompt. Try using it as a premise. Challenge yourself: make its content rating PG or Teen (on the MPAA or ESRB scales), consider changing the point-of-view or the characters' sexualities.

[Xanatos]

If you want to change that, then start writing, coding, and creating art.

Much easier said than done.

[Recidivism]

If I didn't already have enough on my plate, I'd try to do something my idea for a visual novel about trying to form and hold together a community in a hostile environment. (Every tuesday or so I change my mind on what the environment should be. It ranges from a jungle planet that they crash land on, to post apocalypse Europe, to a fantasy world, to generation ships that they won't be able to leave because faster than light travel has not been invented yet and they need to get to a planet that supports life.)

[Oddball]

If you want to change that, then start writing, coding, and creating art.

Much easier said than done.

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

[Xillandon]

If you want to change that, then start writing, coding, and creating art.

Much easier said than done.

If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

And then collaborative effort games like Katawa Shoujo wouldn't be so special anymore.

[Xanatos]

And then collaborative effort games like Katawa Shoujo wouldn't be so special anymore.

But collaborative effort games that are actually good could still be special.

[Guest Poster]

And then collaborative effort games like Katawa Shoujo wouldn't be so special anymore.

Oh, it'd still be special, simply due to the scope, refinedness and the fact the team saw it through. Lots of people can draw a picture or two, or write a one-shot or script a basic game. Not many people have the patience and dedication to draw hundreds of pictures, write a whole route, scrap half of it and then rewrite it or put all of those things together. Even if a project has the talent on board to succeed, it doesn't mean they automatically succeed. There used to be a project whose forums I frequented from time to time that had several dozens of members. Even close to 100 near its peak. They had quite a number of talented programmers, artists, animators, musicians and writers. In the end, the project never even made it to the alpha stages, members started leaving and after a decade it was eventually discontinued.

That's one of the reasons projects with the scope of KS that actually finish are and remain rare.

[Fealow]

@OP

I personally feel that discussing any kind of attraction (be it fetish or not) about disability based on the KS girls is a little redundant due to the form of art we're dealing with here. We could create a girl that has burns, no legs, is deaf, blind and has no arms and we would still be able to make her aesthetically pleasing and even sexually attractive. And if the internet failed to see that and still does, then yeah... Not really worth paying them any head.

However it does not quite work like that in real life. I'm not saying I couldn't be interested in a girl with any of these disabilities, but there would have to be a certain level of physical attraction there which is much harder to obtain in reality given the unfortunate circumstances that a lot of disabled people find themselves in and the reason for them being the way they are e.g. accidents.

[Steinherz]

Lianam, there's another reason why people think KS is simply a game about fucking crippled girls:

It was started on/by 4CHAN. Which is known for being a bit.... crude.

[Hybrid212]

I know this is a little late. But I was reading through the comments and the people bring up cripple porn seem to be people who have not actually finished the game and only seen pictures online. Personally I wish to tie them down to a chair and force them to play the entire game with a 100% completion rate, just to show them this isn't "smut, cripple porn" or the like.