The Official KS Headcanon Thread

[NekoDude]

Pretty clear to me what their relationship was, and what they knew it to be.

See, as a polyamorous person, that strikes me as a very immature and ill-informed way to establish boundaries.

Polyamory. Lack of boundaries. Threesomes. Disaster. Part-time lovers.

Hmm, sounds a bit like a certain story I know...

[Steinherz]

Pretty clear to me what their relationship was, and what they knew it to be.

See, as a polyamorous person, that strikes me as a very immature and ill-informed way to establish boundaries.

Polyamory. Lack of boundaries. Threesomes. Disaster. Part-time lovers.

Hmm, sounds a bit like a certain story I know...

You really need to stop self-promoting that hard Like, chill brah

[Munchenhausen]

Pretty clear to me what their relationship was, and what they knew it to be.

See, as a polyamorous person, that strikes me as a very immature and ill-informed way to establish boundaries.

That sounded like you're putting down everyone who isn't polyamourous, mate. Choose your words better

Although I may from time to time find myself faced with another person that I may want to do the rumpy-pumpy with, I would never act upon it. Although the innate desire is there, I know that if my girlfriend was to do that to me, I would feel nought but anguish. She may find another bloke who's just as handsome as I am and she may fancy going around the good ol' slickedy-doo-dah, but she knows that if I did it to her, she'd feel absolutely terrible.

The want to have multiple partners is only human nature, but as is the mutual respect to know what emotional damage it could do to this person you absolutely love.
When you both refrain from engaging with someone else, because you both understand how much it would upset the other person - That's also human nature.

Is that really immature?

[Alpacalypse]

The want to have multiple partners is only human nature

From what I understand, men have a greater capacity for having multiple somewhat-close bonds, while women tend to have fewer bonds that are more intimate. That may be me half-remembering something or remembering something from a crappy source, but I seem to recall reading that somewhere.

Also,

good ol' slickedy-doo-dah

I'm borrowing this phrase!

[Strongstache]

Pretty clear to me what their relationship was, and what they knew it to be.

See, as a polyamorous person, that strikes me as a very immature and ill-informed way to establish boundaries.

While I agree that the boundaries of Hisao and Shizune's relationship were not properly defined (hell, their entire relationship never felt like anything concrete) and it is important for two (or more) people in a relationship to agree on the "terms of the contract" beforehand, Hisao fooling around without knowing how Shizune would feel wasn't any less of a dick move, even if it might not feel like "cheating" in the usual sense.

[Leaty]

When you both refrain from engaging with someone else, because you both understand how much it would upset the other person - That's also human nature.

It's not human nature. It's the nature of monogamous people.

Mature adults would clearly and cogently demarcate the terms of their relationship (and don't portray that as "writing up a contract," because that's not what I'm talking about at all) before getting too serious about it. Shizune and Hisao failed to do this.

Hisao fooling around without knowing how Shizune would feel wasn't any less of a dick move, even if it might not feel like "cheating" in the usual sense.

True. However, I'd also argue that the intent behind it was rather benevolent, even though that proved to be the literal worst way possible to deal with the situation.

[Eurobeatjester]

Pretty clear to me what their relationship was, and what they knew it to be.

See, as a polyamorous person, that strikes me as a very immature and ill-informed way to establish boundaries.

In the absence of things being clearly defined, especially with something as important as a relationship (as it's the entire point of the game) then most people assume that "normal" feelings and boundaries apply. This is why it's important to establish these early on. Did Hisao and Shizune officially state the terms of their relationship in such a way? No. But the context of the game is pretty conclusive.

Katawa Shoujo is different than a lot of other VNs that English readers may be familiar with, since many VNs let you pursue and sleep with the entire cast of characters, letting you pick one at the end that you gained enough "points" with. KS doesn't let you do that. It gives you Kenji's bad end if you try to play the field and keep your options open, and Shizune's route is the only one that allows you to make a decision about sleeping with another girl.

I'm not commenting on the morality of polyamory, but at the moment polyamory is not the openly accepted norm, especially in Japan. This is changing, but it's not at that point yet.

I feel that if it was relevant to the story, or Hisao/Shizune/Misha had any feelings leaning towards being polyamorous while in a relationship, then it only makes sense to me that the story would go out of its way to establish that and not making comforting Misha the deciding factor - and literally only factor - between getting Shizune's good end and bad end.

So in that sense, the context of the game makes it really clear that their relationship is not a polyamorous one, and that it is cheating.

[bhtooefr]

My understanding was that Japan had a thing where a huge percentage of marriages were sexless, but that people weren't having less sex. That implies polyamory (or maybe just extramarital monoamory, but certainly not a "conventional" monogamous, monoamorous relationship).

Then again, that's marriages, which wouldn't apply to Hisao and Shizune.

[Eurobeatjester]

My understanding was that Japan had a thing where a huge percentage of marriages were sexless, but that people weren't having less sex. That implies polyamory (or maybe just extramarital monoamory, but certainly not a "conventional" monogamous, monoamorous relationship).

Then again, that's marriages, which wouldn't apply to Hisao and Shizune.

As I understand it, it's one of those "everyone does it but nobody openly talks about it" things. Societal pressure, etc.

Very few cultures have a handle on this "doublethink" mentality like the Japanese do. I'm not saying that's a bad thing or putting it down, but this concept of duality is a major cultural thing that's one of the hardest things for a foreigner to wrap their heads around.

[Leaty]

Pretty clear to me what their relationship was, and what they knew it to be. In the absence of things being clearly defined, especially with something as important as a relationship (as it's the entire point of the game) then most people assume that "normal" feelings and boundaries apply. This is why it's important to establish these early on.

The idea that monogamy is "normal" is presumptuous. Anthropologically there's no evidence that monogamy is the "default," and the concept of "infidelity" is a fairly recent (and very Western) invention. I'm not saying that Hisao, Misha, Shizune, et al are influenced consciously by that context, but as you say, the boundaries were nebulously defined.

Katawa Shoujo is different than a lot of other VNs that English readers may be familiar with

Not to be rude, but why do you feel the need to explain this?

at the moment polyamory is not the openly accepted norm, especially in Japan.

Polyamory is not defined as "the absence of exclusivity." You know as well as I do that the beginning of relationships are frequently "informal," even for self-identified monogamous people. Just because Shizune and Hisao began a relationship doesn't mean that either of them agreed not to be interested in other people.

So in that sense, the context of the game makes it really clear that their relationship is not a polyamorous one, and that it is cheating.

I only brought up my being polyamorous because people here were defaulting to the presumption that relationships are inherently exclusive and need to proactively be "adjusted" in order to become otherwise. This isn't true for poly people OR monogamous people. Failing to establish boundaries with a partner is a sign of immaturity, plain and simple, and any hurt that might be caused as a result of that failure is the fault of both parties.

The context of the VN is that Hisao and Shizune are both too immature/too chickenshit/whatever to have that necessary discussion, and as a consequence, absent other guidance, Hisao and Misha feel like what they did was disloyal. It's not objectively cheating, because cheating requires rules. Hell, that entire route has an extremely strong emphasis on games and rules. Boundaries and agreements are inherently thematic to that story, yet of all the relationships in the VN (and we'll include Summer's Clover in that just for funsies), the one between Hisao and Shizune is the most poorly-defined by a country mile.

I'm not saying Hisao having sex with Misha wasn't unbelievably stupid. It was stupid for a whole lot of reasons. But I'd argue that neither of them are really in their right mind when that decision is made, and then their unwillingness to deal with their mistake in a mature way is what creates the emotional distance between them and Shizune and ultimately dissolves their friendship. The "cheating" isn't the decision that gets the bad ending. It's Hisao's inability to understand his guilt and his feelings that causes the dissolution of the relationship. People like to say "cheating on Misha causes the bad ending," because that's punchy and that's how you'd describe it in video game terms, but the reality is clearly more complicated than that.

[Eurobeatjester]

Leaty, I'm well aware that the concept of monogamy isn't based in historical or anthropological terms and is a relatively recent invention of society. But the fact is, as far as society is concerned currently, it is more "normal" than polyamory. I never said I agreed with it, I never said it was right, I'm simply stating that as things currently stand in society, it's the standard set of rules that most people will default to if nothing else is defined.

As far as explaining other VNs, I pointed it out because most of the VNs that the english world plays are more open with the concept of sleeping around, even if it's not defined as polyamory within a relationship. So in that sense, Katawa Shoujo is different for a lot of people that play it. You cannot persue each girl simultaneously and the game punishes you from doing so; it's a lot different than what a lot of people's experiences with VNs are, especially if they're a casual player and not into some of the longer ones that are better representations of the genre. That was the point I was trying to make - by excluding the idea of sleeping around that is common in a lot of dating sim VNs, KS is implying that the relationships involved are monogamous.

Anyway, this has gone way off topic, and I don't think we're going to agree on how to interpret some of the other aspects of the discussion

[brythain]

I guess it should be in the Random KS Discussion or other thread by now. Reality intrudes on headcanon too much.

[Steinherz]

I guess it should be in the Random KS Discussion or other thread by now. Reality intrudes on headcanon too much.

Well.... It's a good discussion and explanation on how unbelievably stupid Hisao and Shizune were in her route, but

[Rhodri]

Lets try and move on shall we?

Kenji would totally be behind the boycott against the ‘blatant feminist propaganda film’ that is Max Mad: Fury Road. Everyone else on the other hand recognise thats its a badass film. Que the mental image of Lilly shredding a flamethrowing guitar from the roof of Akira’s car

[Alpacalypse]

Que the mental image of Hanako shredding a flamethrowing guitar from the roof of Akira’s car

FTFY, Rhodri.
Lilly would be playing a cello on top of a limousine being driven by Hisao.

Although, Lilly shredding a guitar does make for an amusing mental image...