Katawa Shoujo Forums

SpunkySix wrote:

Sea wrote:

icannotfindausername wrote:As much as that is a valid argument I don't think I'm strong enough for that, I mean, this game man... When playing through a route I could not think about anything else but the well-being of that character, and having to step away from the story just seems to taxing to be worth the reward, in my opinion at least.

I don't this I've ever played KS not in 4 hour or so chunks and then though about nothing else till I got back to it.

Yeah, I played about three hours one session and then two and a half the second, and the time between the first and second session absolutely killed me.

Man, it must be psychological torture for my readers, sometimes... I guess that explains why there have been so many comments made about pounding through all 400,000 words in one sitting, though.

Anyway, on the topic of Rin: that was the first route I played. Evidently getting onto her route is a statistical anomaly, but that's beside the point. The thing that makes it stand out against all the other routes is that the plot doesn't have anything to do with her disability.

In every other route, it's something that features rather heavily, or is implied, at least:

In Shizune's route Hisao has to learn sign language, obviously, and there's an implication that Shizune isn't just deaf physically, but also somewhat on an emotional level; she lacks empathy, and misses emotional cues to the point of treating her best friend as though she were a puppet.

In Lilly's route, obviously she's blind and sometimes isn't completely okay with it, but it also becomes a sort of metaphor for the conflict between staying at Yamaku or going to Iverness. Blindly following her father's beckoning, she very nearly throws away the life that already makes her happy.

In Emi's route, not only are there occasions where her lack of legs crops up as a point of contention - when she ends up in a wheelchair, for example - but it turns out the events that resulted in their loss also took her father, moreover resulting in her being unwilling to commit and generating the major conflict.

In Hanako's route, the events that resulted in her scars also caused the psychological trauma that has left her with crushing anxiety and occasional panic attacks. Despite the assumed internal struggle that implies she's much stronger than she looks, people see her scars, observe her behavior, and end up pitying her, which is how Hisao nearly implodes their relationship.

Conversely, in Rin's route, her lack of arms and the fact that she paints using her feet and such is just a novelty. It's treated similar to the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies: they show you they're small every so often, but otherwise it isn't mentioned. All the conflict in the route comes from Rin's artistic talent, the pressure being put on her to succeed, and the resulting identity crisis that drives a wedge between her and Hisao.

Now, I was able to latch onto that conflict easily because I've been through something like it; I was something of a brooding artist back in high school, myself. Anyway, the reason people might not "get" her route is that it isn't a generalized teen angst tale like the others. Emi has daddy issues. Shizune lacks empathy. Lilly can't see what she has in front of her. Hanako isn't seen for the strong person she really is.

Rin, on the other hand, is trying to figure out who she is in the world, what her life means, and find some way of expressing that in her own terms. Basically it's a more complicated problem than the others, and usually something one doesn't face until sometime after High School. Rin isn't worried about social cues, or what her parents think, or how people perceive her. Essentially she's trying to figure out who she is, what she wants, where she's going, how to get there, and when.

TL:DR: Unlike the other four routes, Rin's is an existential tale, rather than one about teen angst.

Helbereth, you wrote Emi's route? To avoid completely rambling, I'm just gonna say, good job, and thanks.

No, the guy you're thinking of is called TheHiveMind.

Guest Poster wrote:No, the guy you're thinking of is called TheHiveMind.

Oh, okay then. Why'd he say "his readers" then? What did he write?

His work's listed underneath his post.

Helbereth wrote:TL:DR: Unlike the other four routes, Rin's is an existential tale, rather than one about teen angst.

Really? Rin's tale is full of angst.

I don't recall much of Rin herself trying to figure out what she should do, where she should go or anything. But I recall a lot of people (Sae, Nomiya, Hisao, random art-exhibition people...) trying to enforce their ideas of the same, and her angsting all over the place trying to fix into the boxes they make for her until Hisao alerts her to the concept of not giving a fuck. Her entire conflict is stuffed to the gills with angst.

Potato wrote:

Helbereth wrote:TL:DR: Unlike the other four routes, Rin's is an existential tale, rather than one about teen angst.

Really? Rin's tale is full of angst.

I don't recall much of Rin herself trying to figure out what she should do, where she should go or anything. But I recall a lot of people (Sae, Nomiya, Hisao, random art-exhibition people...) trying to enforce their ideas of the same, and her angsting all over the place trying to fix into the boxes they make for her until Hisao alerts her to the concept of not giving a fuck. Her entire conflict is stuffed to the gills with angst.

I'm actually going to kinda agree w/ you here, but It's not entirely angst but more a mixture of that, stress, and a burning desire for someone to understand her in at least a minimal way.

Sea wrote:

Potato wrote:

Helbereth wrote:TL:DR: Unlike the other four routes, Rin's is an existential tale, rather than one about teen angst.

Really? Rin's tale is full of angst.

I don't recall much of Rin herself trying to figure out what she should do, where she should go or anything. But I recall a lot of people (Sae, Nomiya, Hisao, random art-exhibition people...) trying to enforce their ideas of the same, and her angsting all over the place trying to fix into the boxes they make for her until Hisao alerts her to the concept of not giving a fuck. Her entire conflict is stuffed to the gills with angst.

I'm actually going to kinda agree w/ you here, but It's not entirely angst but more a mixture of that, stress, and a burning desire for someone to understand her in at least a minimal way.

Eh, I pile all that under 'angst'. Stress paired with 'Why doesn't anyone understand me?!' sounds very teen angst to me.

Yo,

So I recently finished reading through KS after a couple of friends urged me to play/read/whateverthepropertermis it.
Having never played something like this (as in a VN) before, I had no idea how it'd actually work, so I just kept on making decisions and ended up with the Emi route (just like most people, apparently, it's the easiest route to get). I got the good ending, which was nice of course, even though I had no idea that it was actually possible to get bad endings at all at the time.

After the first playthrough, I looked up a flowchart with all the decisions and the routes/endings they led to. Thinking Emi's route was alright-ish, my curiosity got the better of me as I tried Lilly's route second. This one I actually really got into, and the part in Hokkaido, y'know, starting with the heart attack and eventually leading to the confession (Fuckin' Feels) and the parts after that. The ending made me feel absolutely horrible until I realised that you weren't actually gonna die and it was the good ending in disguise after all.

After this I played the other three routes, Hanako's was alright, even though she's not the type of person I could ever develop feelings for myself, causing me to feel a bit disconnected from the story (sorry Hanabro's, which apparently is a thing).
Rin's was confusing as shit, but seeing as that was probably intentional, I say it's a job well done. I felt the same disconnect as with Hanako's though. Shizune's route I kinda disliked, I'm sorry. Mostly cause most of the characters just annoyed me fairly often, aside from the few touchy feely moments. Except for her father, ironically enough. He's funny.

In the end I played Lilly's route once again, cause it was by far my favourite.

So, just to be clear, I liked KS, my thanks and respect goes out to 4LS.

Now, onto some semi-serious business.

I'm sure a lot of you can relate (judging by what I've read so far) when I say that after playing like all routes in a week or so, I've found my mind stuck on the game. It's a bit like it's unable to process it or something like that.
What's disturbing to me is that I'm generally not a very emotional person at all, I tend to be a nasty rational cynic more than anything else. This game however has struck me right in the heart. I'm not gonna lie, I am fuckin' embarassed to admit all this.

Now I got this hollow feeling inside that I don't understand (and really hate). Where does it even come from?

Some theories on what might be the cause:
-Even with the happy ending the outlook is still grim, the character you play as needs a considerable amount of luck to live a full life considering he's got arrythmia.
-Thinking about the tough lives (past & future) of most of the characters in the game that 4LS eventually managed to make you care about, born out of sheer bad luck, is a bit of a downer to think about.
-The nagging feeling that no matter how immersed you are, nothing of it is real, which I feel somehow (I have no idea how, specifically,though) invalidates the good feels, but not the bad feels.
-The other nagging feeling, considering my previous point, that in case the characters were in fact real, they'd have suffered a positive fuckload of bad feels, also a bit of a downer.
-The general feeling of being down when you finish a good book or a good game that you really got into, knowing that even though it's all just a game, you'll never have that great first time feeling again. And even if you did, you'd suffer from the same problem eventually. Even if they released a KS 2, 3 and 4 etc about the exact same characters but set int he future, it would have to end eventually, and the end of something good always feels bad.

So I'm here to ask for your thoughts on this matter, how something with a positively happy ending can cause such a hollow feeling in the chest.

From what I've read, I'm not the only one suffering from a bit of the sads after finishing KS. Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed and all that shit, I got my life on track, I eat well, I go to Uni, I got plenty of friends and all that. Which is another reason why I'm disturbed by all this.
How did those of you that can relate deal with the aftermath of feels? I don't really feel like playing the game again at the moment, maybe later. Yet, I'm having trouble turning away from it, knowing that playing it more will only prolong these annoying feels. I don't wanna go cold turkey and never touch KS again.
I'm at a bit of a loss regarding what to do. Will time heal everything? Do I just need to tear myself away completely even though it might hurt a bit? Or would it be more effective to just take it as it comes and see what happens.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on all of this, really. This post became much, much longer than I expected. I actually feel kinda relieved pouring my heart out.
I look forward to hearing from you, don't be shy now.

PS: Completely unrelated, yet I still kinda wanna know, if Lilly and Shizune's fathers are brothers, how come they don't share the same surname, either Hakamichi or Satou?

Firstly, i move this be merged into the feels bazaar, because that's exactly what this is.
You sir, by the sounds of have never really experienced the feels before, or at least on this magnitude, which I get as I stayed up for a good 2 days after first finishing Hanako's route looking for some type of vent for my feels-yness. This was the place I found and my fervor has since dimmed but I defidently get where you're coming from. Luckily, if you are looking for something to keep you from post KS-depression, we have FANFICTION! And there is some seriously amazing stuffs there. I won't really get into it (unless you want me too, in which case my incredible bias towards Rin and Hanako will most assuredly shine through, so for any other girl, talk to other peoples)
You seem like a very analytical type of person, and you're used to other games that have not much depth (comparatively; KS is the like the Marinas Trench to most other things) and if Fanfics aren't your thing, the forums in general are a pretty cool place, not without the dangers of being cooked (Pro tip: don't even vaguely allude at the slightest hint of possibly wanting something that might in any way be related to requesting, it's bad news bears)
Other than that, welcome!

I had a similar feeling of emptiness... it goes away, kind of. I still "miss" Emi and wish she was real, and it still kind of hurts that she isn't, but I don't think about it nearly as much and the feeling isn't as intense anymore.

But yeah, Feels Bizarre seconded.

Ah, sorry for not posting in here then.

Furthermore, the problem I personally have with fanfics is that anything that's not canon doesn't really feel the same, I did consider that option though.
Oh, and by the way, you're right that I'm not used to anything with this amount of 'depth' really, cause I never played a game before that is just 100% character and emotion driven story. So yeah, I suppose I'm kinda new to heavy duty feels like these. You're also right that I'm generally a very analytical person, but I suppose that much was obvious, considering my post.
I guess what bothers me the most at the moment is that doing too much KS related stuff is just delaying the withdrawal symptoms.

SomeGuy wrote:I guess what bothers me the most at the moment is that doing too much KS related stuff is just delaying the withdrawal symptoms.

I disagree, it's more like weaning you off of it, because you're right; it's not canon, but ti can get pretty damn close and as you diversify and talk about it more, the emptiness and extremes fade until you relapse like 6-ish months later.

Sea wrote:

SomeGuy wrote:I guess what bothers me the most at the moment is that doing too much KS related stuff is just delaying the withdrawal symptoms.

I disagree, it's more like weaning you off of it, because you're right; it's not canon, but ti can get pretty damn close and as you diversify and talk about it more, the emptiness and extremes fade until you relapse like 6-ish months later.

I guess I'll give it a shot.

SomeGuy wrote:

Sea wrote:

SomeGuy wrote:I guess what bothers me the most at the moment is that doing too much KS related stuff is just delaying the withdrawal symptoms.

I disagree, it's more like weaning you off of it, because you're right; it's not canon, but ti can get pretty damn close and as you diversify and talk about it more, the emptiness and extremes fade until you relapse like 6-ish months later.

I guess I'll give it a shot.

Depends on your preference but Sisterhood by Guest poster is regarded as one of the best pieces on the forums.