Oh great!!!Scramblers wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:26 pm This is going to become an infinite loop of you two snottily refusing to argue but still needing to get in the last word, isn't it?
). I found the general analysis of the VN very interesting; my creative writing skills, while decent, probably pale in comparison to the average person still freqenting this forum, and a lot of the criticisms and analyses were things I had never considered before. You've especially convinced me to go back and give Rin's route another go sometime soon. But above all, you've reawakened some of the inspiration KS gave me, and helped me along on my journey to understand why it has affected me so. Thank you.
This was excellent. It's what i wish i would've had the motivation to type up, and what i sought for discussion, to quench the thirst for discussing the glory of this great piece of art. I apologize i couldn't structure my response by quoting individual parts, as i feel doing it while reading would have distracted me, and i don't have enough time to reread it. I hope expressing academic ideas will help my get half as good as you at expressing my philosophical ideas by the end of my studies, it's something i really enjoy but where i often find myself a bit clumsy.
Hanako's route was deeply personal for me, and the feels didn't hit me until a day after, the time to properly absorve everything. My experience with it was split in halves, the first day, i did everything from the shopping trip with Lilly to the goodbye party where Hanako ends up drunk: very enjoyable, very heartwarming, resonated with me, it's what i sought, and a story not unlike the dozen or so i had done before. Then, i did everything that came after, and it was the single most thought provoking thing i had ever experienced, and it was unique, it reached much higher than i expected it to, it shown relationships much more humanely and realistically than i wanted it to. It didn't challenge any views i held in the end, if anything it reinforced them, but that was something i am glad to have experienced.
To preface my feelings, i am diagnosed as on the spectrum, and while i thankfully have very little issues in most places, i got hit extremely hard in the social side of things; while i don't have issue with mundane interaction (i'm really more of a yuuko than an hanako), in all my life, i have only ever had a single person with who i maintained contact, and even then it's mostly just because we have very similar tastes in media. I wouldn't say it particularly bothers me, as you can't miss something you never had, but it's still incredibly sweet to fill this void with parasocial relationships, and this is what i seek in media.
The one scene that hits me the hardest was not the bad end, which i got first; not the end itself, which was moreso frustrating and confusing than anything with Hisao suddenly getting possessed by the ghost of Andrew Tate and doing the only 4th wall break of the entire game by ignoring your choice of listening to Lilly and deciding to go with his instincts anyways. What hit me the hardest was afterwards, while discussing how arbitrary the fact that it was solely based on going out or back in the dorms felt; my reasoning was simple, after something like that, i would just want to go home too, whether i was in the position of Hisao or Hanako, so i did that. And then someone pointed something out, and that felt like a low fucking blow; we could guess she would've wanted to go out in town and was displeased when you said to go back to the dorms, because she was a wearing her city clothes. And like a dumbass, i thought she was just wearing it because they came back late from the night out and thus didnt have time to change before going to sleep; even in the idealised, pre picked options of a VN, with someone i felt i understood and had an understanding of, so long as i had been given a crumb of influence, a small bit of my own input, going on what felt like the most basic and inherent of reasonings for me; that screwed it up.
As for the H scene, i've had a different interpretation of it, i didn't feel at all that it would have been a reciprocal misunderstanding of desires, it just felt like straight up rape and betrayal by Hisao that wasn't resisted out of sheer shock/mixed feelings and later rationalised. This perception is probably influenced by the fact i have experienced something somewhat similar though with much less aggravating circumstances (just a handjob, not during a moment of absolute vulnerability, and there was at least a confession of mutual love, only 10 minutes beforehand but still better than pulling his dick out of nowhere like a terrorist pulls a rifle at a concert) in my first and only romantic relationship, and can tell from firsthand experience that it is quite unpleasant, "shower yourself 3 times before you stop feeling so dirty that you'd rather claw your skin off" unpleasant. Unfortunately, it really took me out of it and tainted my perception of the good ending afterwards, i only have a hazy recollection of the details.
And so, KS has come to made me consciously acknowledge the views i held; Hanako and Hisao are a Catherine and a Heathcliff (And i mean the book ones, my profile picture is really just for memes, though i do really like how Limbus got plenty of peoples to read some classics), bound to make eachother miserable. They're the most proheminent example, but pretty much every girls ends up better if left alone. And so it made me admit that such deep relationships are not only impossible in real life, but that even if they were, they simply wouldn't be desirable. The human brain is possibly the single most convoluted organic process on earth; trying to reach so deep within it when we can barely even scratch its surface with a PhD is akin to attempting open heart surgery while not knowing what organs are, it's just gonna hurt everyone involved. Typing it out like that, it sounds a whole lot more doomery than i intend it to; of course we should still be as nice to eachother as we can, help when it's needed, be polite, just that trying to dig until we inflict puncture wounds is exclusively destructive for both parties. And honestly, for Hanako Hisao relation, sure, they definitely are a catherine and a heathcliff, but with both alive, they can mend it and have the blossoming relation they were denied, it's hard to tell what is just anchorage bias to that impression i first got and seeking to validate it by viewing as more overall negative than it actually is, what are my genuine thoughts on it, and what is copium/self delusion from my desire to see them happy and to not have picked a route that would end up hurting her, i know myself, and with time i'll lean more on the latter.
"I need a Haniko roleplayer"
"just set a girl on fire"
barrage of angry emojis
Hey, thanks for the kind words.
I don’t think that you need to beat yourself up for missing the ‘Hanako’s clothes’ cue. I’m not even sure that it is a cue. People are messy, and the same signal can mean different things. Maybe Hanako chose those clothes because she wanted to look her best when wishing Lilly goodbye, and wanting to go to the city was incidental. It’s easy to imagine another scenario where this was the case, and the girl was upset and did want to be alone. In that universe, your choice would have been the correct one. I don’t think your interpretation was indicative of any horrendous character flaw on your part.
I’m sorry that your sexual experience was shitty and unpleasant, and that your partner didn’t take more (perhaps, any) care making sure you were comfortable. He should have done so, and I can see how the experience might have led to your view on Hanako’s ending.
That said: I think that there is a spectrum of rape-y behaviours. A kindly prostitute once conducted a survey on the matter and produced the following chart: https://aella.substack.com/p/the-rape-s ... ey-results .
Hanako is an adult woman, of sound mind, with agency. At any moment of the encounter, she could have asked Hisao stop. Had she done so, there is virtually no chance that he would have continued. Hanako did not resist at all, and even consented by giving Hisao a nod. In black and white legal terms, the encounter literally wasn’t a rape.
Was it on the ‘rape spectrum,’ though? Of course it was. Hanako was CLEARLY uncomfortable, and Hisao knew enough that he should have realised she might not have felt comfortable saying no, even if she REALLY didn’t want to go ahead. I think he made a very shitty choice in deciding to have sex with Hanako, and he did not go about it in a good way. It worked out okay in the VN (IMO), but in real life, you should not initiate sex with emotionally damaged women who are physically shaking and flinching as you initiate.
You can read Hanko’s speech afterward in several ways. I think that your negative interpretation is fair. Personally, I don’t see any reason not to take Hanako’s words at face value. She seems genuine in the final scene, and I can’t sense any hint that she’s kidding herself.
I think that Hanako WAS genuinely terrified of sex, and that a large part of her didn’t want it for that reason. On the other hand, I think that Hanako was depressed, frustrated, and miserable about feeling stuck as an emotionally fragile child. She desperately wanted to become a well-adjusted adult, and I think THAT part of her DID want to push through the discomfort and have sex. It’s possible to both want and not want a thing at the same time – you may have experienced this yourself if you have ever felt nervous or scared before a performance or big social occasion. Sometimes, pushing through the discomfort is the right option. Not always. But sometimes.
I don’t think that Hisao’s behaviour was great in the sex scene. I don’t actually think that Hanako’s behaviour was great, either. Both communicate terribly. That’s why I I like the scene. It’s realistic. They’re a pair of teenagers, barely over the cusp of adulthood. Like everyone at that stage of life, they suck at communicating and at understanding others.
I think your idea that most girls will be better off if left alone romantically is… charitably, ‘unsupported by the evidence.’ You can run your own test by asking the women in your life if they would rather be alone. I myself know plenty who seem happy with their relationships. I can’t speak for my own partner’s internal experience, but she says that she’s happy with me, and hasn’t yet left me even though she easily could.
You don’t need to understand crank shafts and pistons to drive a car. In the same way, I don’t think that you need a neuroscientist’s understanding of the brain to function as a human being. You know your own experience of the world, and that’s more than enough.
I’m not so naïve as to think that relationships cannot be horrific shitfests that hurt people horribly (and probably women more often than men). I’m also aware that searching for love can be a miserable, laborious exercise that will leave you feeling like shit, over and over again.
On the other hand, I’m also aware that deep relationships are possible, and worth the effort they take to find. I think it’s much harder for some people. I didn’t find it easy, and perhaps you will find it harder than most. Perhaps not. Either way, I think that your positive reaction to much of Hanako’s route shows that the best parts of it resonate with you deeply and are things you really want. I think that you can find and have them, if you work at it. Perhaps that’s too positive a take. But I don’t think so.
Good luck.
