Did any of these stories particularly hit close to home?

[darkgryffon]

i was just curious as for me....it kinda did in one way or another and i wanted to hear your stories, or opinions, if your willing to share them with someone..^^ i know ill gladly share mine if you so desire to hear it

[Saucium]

For me, the Hanako and Rin paths kinda hit close to home. I can relate to themes of trauma and recovery, self-expression and establishing one's own identity.

[darkgryffon]

heh ironically for me it was finishing Emi's arc ^^......duno why.....even though it ended on a happy note...i kinda well began to cry heh ^^" oh well..i look forward to hearing more....maybe it will help me sort out why i feel this way ^^"

[quellsnarg]

I was able to relate to all the girls and their problems except for Lilly, and I'm not sure if I totally "get" Hanako, honestly, as much as I did understand and sympathize with her social anxiety.

Above all, I was able to relate to Emi. I tend to push people away if I feel they're getting too close (although it's gotten better over the past year or so), and her overall personality is closest to mine offline. While I haven't had an experience as drastic as Emi's, the scene at the graveyard made me cry because it reminded me of when I really opened up to someone close to me for the first time, as well as being an emotional moment to begin with... Emi's reaction by talking about herself and telling Hisao that her favorite color isn't pink was perfect. It felt more real to me than some of the other "dramatic moments" in the other arcs...

I did have the same problem as Misha, though... a few times... and I understood Rin's ramblings and trying to understand herself, because I went through a similar transformation a few years ago, also while a boy was trying really hard to understand me. (We're still together.)

Shizune is more of who I want to be (and date, haha) than who I am, but after Emi, she was the easiest for me to relate to, even if we haven't had that many shared experiences. Annnnd I suppose I didn't get Lilly at all, because as nice as the route was while I was playing it, after two weeks of not playing, I have no desire to go back and play that route like all the others.

[Kanodin]

Lilly's arc for me, trying to handle a long distance relationship, that just didn't work out. Knowing that my ex would never come back, so yea. That.

[Misery]

It's funny, playing Act I and Lilly's route really seemed like deja vu to me.

Currently, I am 18 years old, and was forced to drop out of high school due to an uncommon blood disorder that surfaced later in my life (four years ago, on Valentine's Day, ironically), as I could not attend classes. I didn't really spend long periods of time in hospitals like Hisao did, but I was in and out of them frequently for blood pictures and all sorts of other procedures. My father was often abroad on business trips, and my mother worked all day and sometimes even of a night, so I was forced to spend a lot of time alone, as my condition was quite debilitating, I could not always go out to meet people or participate in certain activities or events. Nobody from my classes or anything came to greet me, I was always the one trying to initiate contact, which eventually died out. To this day, I am left with no choice but to limit my activity due to the risk of injury, and I always want to do more. However, one positive is that now I have successfully applied to a university and will be undertaking study this year, regardless of the fact that I have no prior qualifications or school leaving certificate. Sadly, there was no "Yamaku" for me. Playing through KS really did make me stop and wonder about what might have been if there was.

As for Lilly's arc, I too had a relationship with a girl that ended up being long-distance and failed. She was nothing like Lilly's character though. However, she did enjoy brewing and drinking tea. Personally, I never liked the taste.. Mind you, that changed after playing KS, strangely enough. Lilly's route impacted me the most, even though Act I bore more of a resemblance to my life's story. My relationship never had the romance that was evident in Lilly's arc, and I'm envious of it.

I had been playing the piano since I was a child, but due to my condition, I had to give that up too, to a degree. I could no longer sit exams or take lessons. Hearing 'Concord' while playing Lilly's route really shook me up, and made me determined to take up the piano again and learn that song, which I am in the process of, thanks to the kind people who transcribed the sheets here.

I ended up getting Lilly's good ending by some stroke of luck, which really meant a lot to me, but I'm too afraid to play for her bad ending like I did with the other girls.. As it would mean not only the end to KS, but the possibility of seeing a not-so-savory reflection of my past in it.


That's my time, thanks for listening.

[Brisingr]

Hanako's ark has me written all over it. While I never lost my parents like her, I have a couple things that while not obvious, made me a prime target for bullying in middle school and high school. In school, I was either that guy that stuck out like a sore thumb or that guy that could blend into the background. Because of the near constant bullying, I practically forced myself to learn how to fade from everyone's perception (I'm still able to sneak up to even my closest friends and occasionally my parents without even trying because of this). The people I could call "good" friends at that stage of my life also took shots at me and caused me to distance myself even further from social interactions. Once I finished high school, I moved on to college and found a better environment for social interactions and I even managed to join the videogame club. My experience in middle/high school was indeed similar to Hanako's but I have never been as bad as her. I know what she has been through to some degree so I guess I relate to her the most.

[Tomate]

Maybe I'm just a non empathetic jerk, but i cant relate to most characters or situations. But there are two semi-exceptions.

At First i thought that Hanako was a bit like myself when i was 14, like her i was quiet, distant, always reading and spending my time with a couple of friends, ignoring the world 'round me, but then i went on with her route and learned more about Hanako, and all similarities were gone, she was shy out of social anxiety, bulling and her traumatic past, i was just quiet, not shy or submissive i just had nothing interesting to say so i kept quiet.

Then i played trough Emi's route, like her i lost my father, not in a car crash though. at fist it was all fine, but eventually i was hoping for a option "Tell Emi to get the fuck over it"

[geekahedron]

All of the stories hit pretty close to home, though, except for probably Shizune. Emi's bad ending in particular is hauntingly similar to my most recent relationship, where my girlfriend decided she would rather be alone than have to give up her independence and I haven't really spoken with her since. For most of the stories, I found myself relating to Hisao dealing with different situations with people rather than necessarily feeling like I have been in the same shoes as any of the girls.

[Thrasher Thetic]

Nah, not really. The closest resemblance any of the characters have to someone in my life would be Misha, who reminds me of my chubby/emo first girlfriend, although Misha's crazy only hits about the halfway mark when compared to her. The only physically disabled people in my life/family also have severe mental issues as well, which is a whole different ball of wax from anything KS hits on. Even the personalities don't really fit with anyone I know or knew well.

Frankly I think it speaks to the quality of the writing that the story could pull me in as much as it did, despite not having any one to one relationship with my personal experience.

[If_You're_Into_It]

I played the Rin route my first time around and it was very hard-hitting because my ex-girlfriend was an aspiring artist. I took art classes in high school to be closer to her and to understand her works much in the same way that Hisao does. We didn't have the same problems with communication (she didn't speak very abstractly, per se), but she was very, *deeply* passionate about her art and was very philosophically in tune with "living in the present" and "seizing the day" to feel alive. She would hurt herself in many physical and psychological ways in order to find inspiration. She was also 10 or 20 or so pounds underweight, had short, wild hair, and had very dark green eyes.

The resemblance was almost uncanny. That alone, made me have to pursue her story arc. I guess that I also found her the most attractive of the main cast had some influence, too. The whole experience was deeply emotional. I cried several times, especially whenever she fell asleep or looked at the sky or talked about change and flowers; it just felt too real. I completely sympathized with the end of school coming closer and closer along with its anxieties and the growing emptiness in the life outside of Rin from the main character's perspective. It was deja-vu.

When Rin said in Act IV that she wanted to destroy herself, I felt a jolt. I felt the same fear I did when my ex went through a nigh-suicidal phase because we stopped being able to see each other over the summer (her guardians were, and still are to the best of my knowledge, incredibly controlling) and she wasn't able to draw or paint anymore. During that time, she broke up with me (temporarily), and got into a very sexually-driven relationship with a previous ex of hers. She also stopped eating and sleeping for extended periods of time. Even the first H-scene felt very cold and had a sense of self-destruction to it, much like our few sexual encounters.

We reconciled when we saw each other, though it wasn't easy. Our relationship rekindled and trudged on another year longer before I couldn't handle taking care of her anymore or waiting for her to be healthy. I wanted to be happy with someone else; I currently am.

I managed to beat her story with the good ending and it provided an odd sense of... catharsis. Like, what would have happened had she not been so hard on herself to be an artist? To be enlightened? What if she had just tried being happy with who she was and where she fit in with me? The whole thing read like a bittersweet, forlorn fantasy as if I had read a diary entry from the time I was with her and compared it to the reality now. I loved her very much. I don't wish that things had worked out any differently as I'm quite happy with who I'm with and who I am now, but it helped me cope with so many repressed and pent up feelings I didn't even know I still had.

I hope that Hisao and Rin do last in their own little universe. What we lost was very special, even if it was for the better.

[tibbycat]

Hanako's ark has me written all over it. While I never lost my parents like her, I have a couple things that while not obvious, made me a prime target for bullying in middle school and high school. In school, I was either that guy that stuck out like a sore thumb or that guy that could blend into the background. Because of the near constant bullying, I practically forced myself to learn how to fade from everyone's perception ...

This for me as well. I was violently bullied in high school which sunk me completely into my shell and I developed social phobia and obsessive compulsive disorder. I've subsequently had treatment for them and I'm much better these days but I don't think you ever completely get over the mental scars of that.

So yeah, I really connected with Hanako's story. <3

[newnar]

I.....I think I'm just hopeless and helpless. When I see these characters in KS who were also in a pretty bad mess that wasn't something they could've avoided get into a better life despite what they suffered prior, yea, that warms me up alittle.