Katawa Shoujo Forums

To be honest, being armless is a much rarer debility than blindness or deafness or even leglessness. We tend to take for granted the ability to move and manipulate objects at the same time. It's this which makes me worry more about Rin than any of the others; you'll find wheelchair-friendly access etc everywhere, but few 'armless-friendly' public places. I deal with people who sound and think like Rin all the time, and have moderate success getting into their heads and meeting their cognition-based needs.

I'd like to ask any of you with experience dealing with double armlessness on a personal direct basis (i.e. your own or that of someone else close to you) — how do you do it? How do my concerns work out in real life?

Hmm this is a tough one to answer but the physical side of Rin should not matter to anyone if you really love her or being a really good friend of her.

Though I dont know if I could handle Rin being Rin all the time. Trying to decipher what she means, her being passive all the time, etc. I think I'd like someone who would show/tell their feelings towards me directly. Even if she acts very shy and is very anxious but that she clearly loves it when you return the affection. Heh now that I think about it, I would'nt mind someone like Rikka (from Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!), she is so adorable and kinda fell in love with her

After watching both seasons and loving it, heres hoping for a third season and that there is an actual development between the two MC's this time

ogorhan wrote:Hmm this is a tough one to answer but the physical side of Rin should not matter to anyone if you really love her or being a really good friend of her.

Its difficult to be objective when you talk about this subject matter.

It's easy to play the VN and say, I like Hanako, or Lilly or Rin, or so on. But when you talk about reality, you have to notice how different a person's reaction is.

If you look at real burn victims, I'm sure the sight is nothing like looking at Hanako in KS. So could a person look past that to see the beauty in a person to move past it? (I don't expect many, honestly.) It's the same thing with Rin or Emi. Can a person look past the physical to move on to seeing just the mental and emotional sides of a person?

I'm sure there are people who can, but it seems like some people aren't honest with themselves about that kind of thing. For a guy or girl, you ask yourself, when you first see someone, you take notice of what? Their appearance? More than likely is the answer. Of course in some scenarios, you might be able to take notice of the emotional or mental aspects of a person first (but this is not very common.)

See, I don't even see this as something to look past physically though. Whereas Hanako has scars that would actually be something you'd need to see beyond, (and that might be difficult to do so initially since they're on half of her face) Rin missing her arms doesn't make her any less pretty or "blemished"... it makes her armless. Same with Emi, but with legless instead.

Zykes wrote:If you look at real burn victims, I'm sure the sight is nothing like looking at Hanako in KS.

Depends on the severity and healing progress.

Hey guys, thanks for the replies so far. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, not saying this has happened yet, just want to say in order to prevent the possibility, please try not to infer or imply that someone else would or would not accept something or not. For the sake of not having anything devolve into hurt feelings and arguments, I'm willing to take everyone's statements here as their honest opinion on the matter.

Nobody likes to be accused of not being truthful with something, so let's be sure to not get into anything even resembling that in this friendly discussion. Thanks for your understanding guys.

And as far as my input, I agree with the post that burn tissue might be a harder physical quality to look past compared to missing limbs. I know when I'm with a woman I love, the part of her I look at the most are her eyes. And if intimate, the eyes actually stay number 1, but obviously the breasts, neck, and the "naughty parts" below the belt are often focal points. The only thing I think I would be a little let down with Rin is the lack of a tight embrace, but that's alright.

slagman5 wrote:Hey guys, thanks for the replies so far. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, not saying this has happened yet, just want to say in order to prevent the possibility, please try not to infer or imply that someone else would or would not accept something or not. For the sake of not having anything devolve into hurt feelings and arguments, I'm willing to take everyone's statements here as their honest opinion on the matter.

Nobody likes to be accused of not being truthful with something, so let's be sure to not get into anything even resembling that in this friendly discussion. Thanks for your understanding guys.

And as far as my input, I agree with the post that burn tissue might be a harder physical quality to look past compared to missing limbs. I know when I'm with a woman I love, the part of her I look at the most are her eyes. And if intimate, the eyes actually stay number 1, but obviously the breasts, neck, and the "naughty parts" below the belt are often focal points. The only thing I think I would be a little let down with Rin is the lack of a tight embrace, but that's alright.

*grin* I myself am fine with all that. My only concern is safety. It's much more unsafe for armless people out there than for any of the others, because that's how it is at the moment—lots of support for the non-ambulatory (and indeed a high media profile for those with prosthetic legs), the blind and deaf, relatively speaking.

Zykes wrote:

ogorhan wrote:Hmm this is a tough one to answer but the physical side of Rin should not matter to anyone if you really love her or being a really good friend of her.

Its difficult to be objective when you talk about this subject matter.

It's easy to play the VN and say, I like Hanako, or Lilly or Rin, or so on. But when you talk about reality, you have to notice how different a person's reaction is.

If you look at real burn victims, I'm sure the sight is nothing like looking at Hanako in KS. So could a person look past that to see the beauty in a person to move past it? (I don't expect many, honestly.) It's the same thing with Rin or Emi. Can a person look past the physical to move on to seeing just the mental and emotional sides of a person?

I'm sure there are people who can, but it seems like some people aren't honest with themselves about that kind of thing. For a guy or girl, you ask yourself, when you first see someone, you take notice of what? Their appearance? More than likely is the answer. Of course in some scenarios, you might be able to take notice of the emotional or mental aspects of a person first (but this is not very common.)

I don't think I could look past somebody with burns like Hanako's. In the VN, it's stylized and very underplayed. In real life, if somebody received such extensive burning....it would be pretty bad. I myself have a patch of burn tissue on my back from when I was born, and I find it hideous. I hide it whenever possible out of disgust and embarrassment. I think, if I truly knew somebody and loved them, that I might be able to get past something like loss of limbs or blindness. I don't think I could do deafness, and for a serious burn victim....I'd have to come to terms with my own scarring as well. Maybe they'd help me, considering how hypocritical it is of me to have a burn and yet be so turned off of the idea of somebody who was heavily burned. But frankly, I don't think I could ever truly love somebody with burns unless I overcame my own.

But at the same time...it might end up being the other way around. I also have stretch marks (despite weighing a paltry 110 pounds), and until I had been with somebody who also had stretch marks, I had such hatred of mine. Now, I only really dislike the ones on my back, which probably has to do with my back as a whole rather than the individual blemishes.

Honestly, though, I have no idea. I live in grand ol' New York City, so I've seen alllll sorts of people. I've seen legless folks wheelchair bound, people with diseases like spina bifida to name one, I helped out a blind man at Penn Station (he just needed someone to read off how much money was left on his card because our LOVELY city still has no way of letting the blind now that, because all of the displays are digital). I've seen a few burn victims, and being one myself, I might be able to look past it. Hell, it's possible that I'd just soon ignore it and see it as I would a less-than-attractive birthmark: not the greatest thing in the world, but part of someone I care about, and thus it is still a beautiful thing. Hell, with things like that I come to become attracted to them in time.

TL;DR I don't know how I'd react or whether I'd be able to see past it.

brythain wrote:

slagman5 wrote:Hey guys, thanks for the replies so far. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, not saying this has happened yet, just want to say in order to prevent the possibility, please try not to infer or imply that someone else would or would not accept something or not. For the sake of not having anything devolve into hurt feelings and arguments, I'm willing to take everyone's statements here as their honest opinion on the matter.

Nobody likes to be accused of not being truthful with something, so let's be sure to not get into anything even resembling that in this friendly discussion. Thanks for your understanding guys.

And as far as my input, I agree with the post that burn tissue might be a harder physical quality to look past compared to missing limbs. I know when I'm with a woman I love, the part of her I look at the most are her eyes. And if intimate, the eyes actually stay number 1, but obviously the breasts, neck, and the "naughty parts" below the belt are often focal points. The only thing I think I would be a little let down with Rin is the lack of a tight embrace, but that's alright.

*grin* I myself am fine with all that. My only concern is safety. It's much more unsafe for armless people out there than for any of the others, because that's how it is at the moment—lots of support for the non-ambulatory (and indeed a high media profile for those with prosthetic legs), the blind and deaf, relatively speaking.

Not saying anything you're saying isn't true, but when you love someone, you don't really think about practical things like that for the most part...

Zykes wrote:

ogorhan wrote:Hmm this is a tough one to answer but the physical side of Rin should not matter to anyone if you really love her or being a really good friend of her.

Its difficult to be objective when you talk about this subject matter.

It's easy to play the VN and say, I like Hanako, or Lilly or Rin, or so on. But when you talk about reality, you have to notice how different a person's reaction is.

If you look at real burn victims, I'm sure the sight is nothing like looking at Hanako in KS. So could a person look past that to see the beauty in a person to move past it? (I don't expect many, honestly.) It's the same thing with Rin or Emi. Can a person look past the physical to move on to seeing just the mental and emotional sides of a person?

I'm sure there are people who can, but it seems like some people aren't honest with themselves about that kind of thing. For a guy or girl, you ask yourself, when you first see someone, you take notice of what? Their appearance? More than likely is the answer. Of course in some scenarios, you might be able to take notice of the emotional or mental aspects of a person first (but this is not very common.)

I guess you are right about it being difficult to be objective about these things, I mean I never had a gf let alone a relationship so what would I know, but I guess I was kinda going off the assumption that you already knew the person and were friends with them so them having a physical disabilities shouldnt matter as much as if it was someone who you never saw before or talked with, even if you were slightly interested in them or it was something that grew over time, you could get past the looks but I guess thats also not being objective either

I guess as someone who'd like to someday find someone he loves, I want to believe that not everything is about looks but even then who wouldnt want that their love interest is at the least somewhat attractive to his/her eyes.

Im just going to stop before I go rambling on and on (something I quite do irl, even if to myself )

azumeow wrote:

Zykes wrote:

ogorhan wrote:Hmm this is a tough one to answer but the physical side of Rin should not matter to anyone if you really love her or being a really good friend of her.

Its difficult to be objective when you talk about this subject matter.

It's easy to play the VN and say, I like Hanako, or Lilly or Rin, or so on. But when you talk about reality, you have to notice how different a person's reaction is.

If you look at real burn victims, I'm sure the sight is nothing like looking at Hanako in KS. So could a person look past that to see the beauty in a person to move past it? (I don't expect many, honestly.) It's the same thing with Rin or Emi. Can a person look past the physical to move on to seeing just the mental and emotional sides of a person?

I'm sure there are people who can, but it seems like some people aren't honest with themselves about that kind of thing. For a guy or girl, you ask yourself, when you first see someone, you take notice of what? Their appearance? More than likely is the answer. Of course in some scenarios, you might be able to take notice of the emotional or mental aspects of a person first (but this is not very common.)

I don't think I could look past somebody with burns like Hanako's. In the VN, it's stylized and very underplayed. In real life, if somebody received such extensive burning....it would be pretty bad. I myself have a patch of burn tissue on my back from when I was born, and I find it hideous. I hide it whenever possible out of disgust and embarrassment. I think, if I truly knew somebody and loved them, that I might be able to get past something like loss of limbs or blindness. I don't think I could do deafness, and for a serious burn victim....I'd have to come to terms with my own scarring as well. Maybe they'd help me, considering how hypocritical it is of me to have a burn and yet be so turned off of the idea of somebody who was heavily burned. But frankly, I don't think I could ever truly love somebody with burns unless I overcame my own.

But at the same time...it might end up being the other way around. I also have stretch marks (despite weighing a paltry 110 pounds), and until I had been with somebody who also had stretch marks, I had such hatred of mine. Now, I only really dislike the ones on my back, which probably has to do with my back as a whole rather than the individual blemishes.

Honestly, though, I have no idea. I live in grand ol' New York City, so I've seen alllll sorts of people. I've seen legless folks wheelchair bound, people with diseases like spina bifida to name one, I helped out a blind man at Penn Station (he just needed someone to read off how much money was left on his card because our LOVELY city still has no way of letting the blind now that, because all of the displays are digital). I've seen a few burn victims, and being one myself, I might be able to look past it. Hell, it's possible that I'd just soon ignore it and see it as I would a less-than-attractive birthmark: not the greatest thing in the world, but part of someone I care about, and thus it is still a beautiful thing. Hell, with things like that I come to become attracted to them in time.

TL;DR I don't know how I'd react or whether I'd be able to see past it.

Hey, you know they say love is blind.

I really think that if you love someone enough, you can almost look past anything physical. I honestly feel that emotional problems are a whole lot tougher than physical ones.

I remember like maybe 10 years ago, I read about how the wife of a music artist I like killed herself. I read into it, and it turns out he married her because he loved her, but she fought with chronic depression and I guess since he was on the road touring, one day she just couldn't take it anymore and killed herself. I find that really tragic, mainly because he married her knowing she has emotional problems, but his love for her saw past that, but then it ultimately didn't end well. And I'm sure some people, even subconsciously, might wrestle with that possibility in their minds if they are falling for someone with obvious emotional issues...

A physical disability, it is literally the moment you can look past it, it is gone. While an emotional one, even if you do everything right, there's always that chance that it will end in tragedy. And I think that loss of control kind of scares a lot of people...

ogorhan wrote:

Zykes wrote:

ogorhan wrote:Hmm this is a tough one to answer but the physical side of Rin should not matter to anyone if you really love her or being a really good friend of her.

Its difficult to be objective when you talk about this subject matter.

It's easy to play the VN and say, I like Hanako, or Lilly or Rin, or so on. But when you talk about reality, you have to notice how different a person's reaction is.

If you look at real burn victims, I'm sure the sight is nothing like looking at Hanako in KS. So could a person look past that to see the beauty in a person to move past it? (I don't expect many, honestly.) It's the same thing with Rin or Emi. Can a person look past the physical to move on to seeing just the mental and emotional sides of a person?

I'm sure there are people who can, but it seems like some people aren't honest with themselves about that kind of thing. For a guy or girl, you ask yourself, when you first see someone, you take notice of what? Their appearance? More than likely is the answer. Of course in some scenarios, you might be able to take notice of the emotional or mental aspects of a person first (but this is not very common.)

I guess you are right about it being difficult to be objective about these things, I mean I never had a gf let alone a relationship so what would I know, but I guess I was kinda going off the assumption that you already knew the person and were friends with them so them having a physical disabilities shouldnt matter as much as if it was someone who you never saw before or talked with, even if you were slightly interested in them or it was something that grew over time, you could get past the looks but I guess thats also not being objective either

I guess as someone who'd like to someday find someone he loves, I want to believe that not everything is about looks but even then who wouldnt want that their love interest is at the least somewhat attractive to his/her eyes.

Im just going to stop before I go rambling on and on (something I quite do irl, even if to myself )

I don't think there's anything wrong with hoping you'd end up with someone who is attractive. You don't want to feel like you have no standards, lol. But honestly, it really depends on what you consider attractive. To me, a pretty face defines attractiveness for me more than anything. But honestly, when I'm with a girl, their looks change depending on their character. I've gotten to know some REALLY beautiful women, but when I got to know them, they ended up either being really stuck-up, bitchy, or just lacking in morals (something that does bug me), and literally, I actually see them as unattractive after that. Like if you told me to rate her, and I think consciously, I'll tell you she's good looking, but just knowing that she's not a good person, my impression of her when I just look at her without thinking consciously about it, I would cringe at her face as if I just saw something really disgusting.

And the opposite is true, I've met girls who are either very average or maybe not attractive, but upon getting to know them and they turn out to be really nice or sweet, I would literally take second looks after that and be like "did she just get really cute and pretty??" lol. So in a way, I do think that a girl's personality affects the way I see them physically...

And my last girlfriend, honestly, she wasn't my type at all physically. I actually fell for her because when I first met her, her personality was great. So I actually fell head over heels in love with her despite her not being physically my type. But of course, after almost 2 years of dating, it was like her personality completely changed, don't know why, but we ended up breaking up. But just pointing out how I saw her as beautiful while her personality was beautiful to me even though physically if I didn't talk to her I wouldn't have thought anything about her looks...

I've just been reading a bunch of the replies to what i've said.

Maybe I can say something like this.

We talk about getting past it. But it the first step (unless your blind, then of course its not an immediate thought.)

You will see this person, before you talk to them, before you learn about them. You will make a pre-judgment. a Decision based a bunch of factors (one of the main ones being their physical appearence.)

"Oh look at this girl, she is..." (you will analyze what can gather, and from there, you will make a decision whether or not to approach her.) You will make the decision if you noticing the fact she doesn't arms will deter you from making first contact or not. (At this point, as I've mentioned, most people would feel deterred by it due to the abnormal nature of the person. Of course some would and could not be deterred, from that point we can add emotional and mental aspects of an individual into the later decision for furthering a relationship.)

This kind of thought process isn't just about people, its about anything, We pre-judge food just on appearance, before tasting it. "ugly" looking food is avoided because it doesn't look appealing, even if it could be really delicious.

So, quite apart from the assertions that love is blind or doesn't think about practical concerns, what do you really think of having a long-term relationship with Rin?

For me, it would have to be. You'd have to be in it for the long haul or not at all. I don't think I'd be deterred by her physical appearance. The problems of daily life would come later, and I'd be concerned by her physical limitations. It's not that she can't do many things for herself: there's ample evidence that the armless can do many things (even most things) with their legs. But they're inherently more vulnerable given the nature of the world. I agree that if you love someone, you will try to make it work. I'm just not confident I'd be able to do that, being as honest as I can.

slagman5 wrote: Hey, you know they say love is blind.

I really think that if you love someone enough, you can almost look past anything physical. I honestly feel that emotional problems are a whole lot tougher than physical ones.

I remember like maybe 10 years ago, I read about how the wife of a music artist I like killed herself. I read into it, and it turns out he married her because he loved her, but she fought with chronic depression and I guess since he was on the road touring, one day she just couldn't take it anymore and killed herself. I find that really tragic, mainly because he married her knowing she has emotional problems, but his love for her saw past that, but then it ultimately didn't end well. And I'm sure some people, even subconsciously, might wrestle with that possibility in their minds if they are falling for someone with obvious emotional issues...

A physical disability, it is literally the moment you can look past it, it is gone. While an emotional one, even if you do everything right, there's always that chance that it will end in tragedy. And I think that loss of control kind of scares a lot of people...

Well, I could just take off my glasses!
And as for emotional disability, that's where I come in! (Yes, I know this is about to get into Hanako's Broken Heart Club territory, but bear with me for two minutes) PTSD and Chronic depressions, so yeaahhh.

Anyways, yes, love is blind, but...spending your life (or at least a long time) with somebody who has significant scarring on a large portion of their body could be difficult to accept at first, and that's where a lot of those issues would present themselves. And then there's all the other disabilities present in KS and their implications towards everyday life.

What if you fell in love with someone like Hisao or Saki? Hisao COULD have a normal life, but...a bad fall, a bad scare, pushing himself too hard...could end it.

And Saki just has a time bomb. "Expires XX/XX/XXXX" Imagine that life? Could she ever let herself love somebody, knowing that she would decades before they could retire and live out old age together? With Hisao it's one thing, because he could just give up exercise and rot away with her, but with a "normal" person? Would she let herself get close to someone knowing they'd lose her soon enough?

brythain wrote:So, quite apart from the assertions that love is blind or doesn't think about practical concerns, what do you really think of having a long-term relationship with Rin?

For me, it would have to be. You'd have to be in it for the long haul or not at all. I don't think I'd be deterred by her physical appearance. The problems of daily life would come later, and I'd be concerned by her physical limitations. It's not that she can't do many things for herself: there's ample evidence that the armless can do many things (even most things) with their legs. But they're inherently more vulnerable given the nature of the world. I agree that if you love someone, you will try to make it work. I'm just not confident I'd be able to do that, being as honest as I can.

I think I could make it work with Rin, if I really cared enough to. Barring the traditional relationship issues (which I've had plenty of trouble navigating) I don't think her armlessness would present too huge an obstacle.