Katawa Shoujo Forums

metalangel wrote: (I'm just trying to lighten the mood, we shouldn't be taking offense and/or waging war over every little comment that doesn't match precisely with our view. I'm just glad to have all you guys here to talk to about KS and related topics)

Okay, you guys are using a lot of smilies now - have I been coming off as belligerent? I hope I haven't, but sometimes I can be kind of humorless. I've just been having fun picking apart the characters.

I should have picked Evangelist for my username instead of Worldly Wiseman...

Titus wrote: Good end was scraped for the neutral end just kidding. That's her philanthropist side, she realizes her old ways of playing with people like little chess pieces (bad end reveals this - right before their first sex scene too) is wrong and she's going to change that. Most of the story then, it can be assumed that she still liked to play around, after all she loves the thrill of the arguing with Lilly. Despite there being no need.

Tell you what, we could agree on a middle ground - that her need to find bigger and harder challenges and her willingness to jump at small, seemingly petty ones is a conflict at the core of her character.
Games are collections of arbitrary rules, and so is society (sort of, it's more like dozens of competing sets of rules), so the line can be as blurry as we want to make it. Shizune clearly likes messing with the vague machinery of both to 'achieve victory' in whatever she has in mind. The same thought processes are present in both. She wants to be a leader and has the will but is obviously still learning how best to do it. We're almost just arguing over specific words.

Whaddya say?

Titus wrote:

Rin isn't even particularly beholden to painting, anyway

Really, now? ... She's says brushes and paints were pretty much her friends, it's the BEST way she can communicate to others in her own opinion. If that doesn't spell just how important and how big a part painting/drawing/art is in her life then...well...then wtf man? The story had completely lead me wrong

I think I found it, right before the H scene, it's "I thought that painting would be enough, because I at least did that right. That all that is inside me could become a picture if I tried really hard. And it could. But it doesn't feel like it's enough anymore."
So I was...half right? She's in it to express herself, not to make Art like Nomiya wants. But I guess I blew it out of proportion after the fact? Who knows if Rin would try other art forms given the chance, there's nothing in the text to imply it I don't think.

Lilly and Shizune as leaders

I'm going to retract my previous statement about Lilly not being a leader, because there are different kinds of leaders. This might have been discussed to death earlier in the thread, I don't feel like checking because I'll make this quick. To use a US government analogy, Shizune is an executive leader, acting as the taskmaster and holding the staff members beneath her responsible for getting their jobs done, and Lilly is in Congress, working behind-the-scenes to build a consensus among representatives. One pushes their influence outward, the other pulls it inward.
This doesn't mirror as clearly to classroom politics, but they have a lot to learn in any case.

Mirrormn wrote: Anyway, I don't think that one episode is really that important in painting the overall picture of either Lilly or Shizune's characters, but it annoys me to have it so grossly misinterpreted as being a focal point demonstrating Lilly's irresponsibility, when it is really nothing of the sort.

It's the one that sticks in people's minds, I think. You get to see it no matter what route you take, and it's presented pretty dramatically.

Sending Hisao is overkill, yeah, it could be any student if they're armed with a paper mask and some hand sanitizer (the idea being to get in contact with the sick kids and get the thing done). It seems a more likely option than Shizune just letting it drop or openly apologizing, since this would let her demonstrate that she's in control. I guess Lilly could have gotten control of the discussion much earlier by just flat-out saying "The forms have been completed and they are with two students who have fallen ill. The forms will be in my hands by the end of the day." right off the bat instead of politely talking around the subject.
Lilly is willing to initiate these petty fights herself (when Shizune and Hisao are eating lunch outside, she starts a spat pretty much on her own), so the history of them fighting is weighted pretty evenly in my eyes.

rydiafan wrote:This is the never ending fight ... when i start this thread i thought it was gonna be burried after 15 post at the most ... fan boys/girls till the end

at this point does it matter who is better ?? Sticking up for shizune or disliking lilly won't get me a raise at work , won't get me a girl friend or what not .... it just shows we are crazy fan people who get some sort of jollies by defending our favorite character ( im honest with myself now ) lol

Mental image -
Rydiafan is huddled under the table where everyone else is drunkenly arguing. Most everyone else in the drunken debate has already passed out. I'm at one corner babbling about my mad peyote visions. Megumeru is standing on the table pontificating loudly and waving a bottle of scotch. Metalangel and TItus are on one side of the table, grinning like crazy behind their hands. Oddball and Mirrormn are looking on the whole debacle in both awe and annoyance.

WorldlyWiseman wrote: Mental image -
Rydiafan is huddled under the table where everyone else is drunkenly arguing. Most everyone else in the drunken debate has already passed out. I'm at one corner babbling about my mad peyote visions. Megumeru is standing on the table pontificating loudly and waving a bottle of scotch. Metalangel and TItus are on one side of the table, grinning like crazy behind their hands. Oddball and Mirrormn are looking on the whole debacle in both awe and annoyance.

This seems frighteningly accurate. I'm the kind of person to remain disdainfully sober at a drunken argument

Oddball and Mirrormn are looking on the whole debacle in both awe and annoyance.

and occasionally interjecting to keep it going!

Oddball wrote:

I'm not forgetting that aspect. Who said she doesn't have followers?
-Misha follows Shizune for her own reasons, but she's there--you can't ignore her.
-Hisao follows Shizune out of his own interest towards her.

So she leads two people. Both of which he only leads because they're in love with her (and at first, just because Hisao keeps getting dragged along. he seems to spend most of act 1 trying to avoid having to work for the council.)

Somehow this establishes her as a good leader, ignoring the fact that he managed to drive away the entire rest of the previous student council.

On the subject of leadership:

Frank Herbert wrote:"She asked me to tell her what it is to rule," Paul said. "And I said that one commands. And she said I had some unlearning to do." [...] "She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel."

From my perspective, Shicchan also has some unlearning to do. The thing is, given her circumstances and her condition, it's unlikely she'll ever become a truly personable leader. But like WordlyWiseman said, there are different types of leaders. Shizune's definitely more of the taskmaster type, and I doubt there would be any (save for Megumeru and Titus) who would follow and respect her in the same way you would with someone (read: a Christ figure) like Paul Atreides.

WorldlyWiseman wrote:To use a US government analogy, Shizune is an executive leader, acting as the taskmaster and holding the staff members beneath her responsible for getting their jobs done, and Lilly is in Congress, working behind-the-scenes to build a consensus among representatives. One pushes their influence outward, the other pulls it inward.

Makes one wonder which would get more done: our current situation, or Lilly and Shicchan at each other's throats here in D.C.

Misha would make a great VP, though.

WorldlyWiseman wrote:

metalangel wrote: (I'm just trying to lighten the mood, we shouldn't be taking offense and/or waging war over every little comment that doesn't match precisely with our view. I'm just glad to have all you guys here to talk to about KS and related topics)

Okay, you guys are using a lot of smilies now - have I been coming off as belligerent? I hope I haven't, but sometimes I can be kind of humorless. I've just been having fun picking apart the characters.

I should have picked Evangelist for my username instead of Worldly Wiseman...

I was gonna address this to rydiafan but I'll say it to you too... having all but crushed Team Lilly, Team Shizune is now fighting amongst itself. This amuses me.

Also, I wouldn't be at the table for long. If we're that drunk I probably need the bathroom AGAIN.

Oddball wrote:

I'm not forgetting that aspect. Who said she doesn't have followers?
-Misha follows Shizune for her own reasons, but she's there--you can't ignore her.
-Hisao follows Shizune out of his own interest towards her.

So she leads two people. Both of which he only leads because they're in love with her (and at first, just because Hisao keeps getting dragged along. he seems to spend most of act 1 trying to avoid having to work for the council.)

Somehow this establishes her as a good leader, ignoring the fact that he managed to drive away the entire rest of the previous student council.

You don't need a crowd, a horde, or an army to be a leader. You only need someone who trusts and believes in you to become one--if you have a younger sibling, you're instantly a 'leader' between the two of you like it or not.

No you don't need a huge crowd to be a leader, but you kind of need a student council if you're going to be the student council president.

Besides, the smaller the group you are in, the closer you are with your 'followers' means the stronger the bond/kinship/relationship within the group.

Yet another thing Shizune blatantly proves to be false.

I think you're missing the point.

You said she doesn't have followers. Which she does--the motives of the followers varied but their given status stays the same as followers.
Say for example you're a child of an alcoholic, abusive father. Even if you hate him/her so much and is on the verge of killing that father, nothing's gonna' change your status as 'that person's son/daughter'.

Also, if I were to point out, if that 'bond' between Shizune and Misha is that weak, I believe she would completely ditch Misha the second she strays off away from Hisao--instead, she tried (in vain) to reconcile their relationship. There's also Misha whom I believe to be playing cupid for Shizune and Hisao from the near-end of ACTI up until the end of ACTIII where she regrets it. You know, I'm starting to believe I'm talking in circles with you; all the answers had been laid out in the previous pages I believe, so just check it there.

And honestly, I do find it a little shocking at first knowing they were a two-man student council--but a student council is a student council, and they are students. You need students for a student council, that is true; but there's two so it wouldn't be one. That statement hovers on both 'true' and 'not true', but considering how Shizune managed to handle the job almost single-handedly (and the teachers and staff not giving a fuck about it--I mean, they accomplished what Student Councils are supposed to accomplish in the first place), she alone accomplished more than what the 'other' student council could do and that still makes that two-three man student council a 'student council'. Not the first I've seen, but the smallest and the most daring I've known.

Mirrormn wrote: I didn't really want to belabor this point overmuch, but... you're twisting the facts of the story to favor Shizune in a way that is not really supported by the text of the game. It is true that Lilly asked for the deadline to be extended, but there's no reason to believe she missed the first deadline. In fact, it is implied, by her statement that "a week is too small a time frame to expect a whole class to work out such a complex issue completely" that she asked for the deadline to be extended at the same time that it was announced (one week before the original deadline, presumably 1.5-2 weeks before the extended deadline, based one Shizune's statement that "If I had it my way, I'd have had all of the necessary paperwork days ago, but someone~! had to say 'the deadline, please extend it~!").
Furthermore, there's no reason to believe that any of the other classes met the original deadline, or that they could have done so, or that they even had any requirement to do so (since the deadline was most likely extended before any of them got to work on it). It's possible that all the other classes had their reports done before Shizune's original deadline, but it's equally as possible that they all turned theirs in the night before the extended deadline (well after the original one). There's just not any evidence in the text indicating one way or the other, so speculating about how pissed Shizune must have been when a single class was being so much slower than the others is fundamentally unfounded.

Not quite. I don't pull something out of my ass magically you know (unless it is chocolate )
What Lilly said:

"Yes, that was me. Planning something on this scale is not a small task, and a week is too small a time frame to expect a whole class to work out such a complex issue completely"

Through out 'Cold War', there was no indication that she ask for the extension at the exact same time when the original deadline was announced. It was only Lilly and her class which planned something 'extraordinary' that it required the extension; the deadline of course, was extended for all the other classes which nonetheless gave that much of a difference since--by the time of 'Cold War'--had all been submitted except Lilly's class budget report. Here again I quote:

"The festival is coming up in three days, right? Every other classes has already handed in their projected budget reports for their events! Even the first-years! Except you~!"

The original deadline--which was never revealed--was meant to give the undermanned student council enough time to relegate all the necessary budget each classes requested for the coming festival. Even with the given extension, all the other classes had already submitted their projected budget reports--except Lilly's class which was the last to do so.

I'm not saying she'll submit it late, she won't (or else her class booth wouldn't be there). But asking for an extension when other classes--considering three year levels (year 10, 11, 12) and the amount of classes each year held--had submitted their budget report before the said 'extended deadline' that tells off something.

Mirrormn wrote:And I feel I must repeat, there was never any danger of Lilly not getting the report turned in on time. The students she delegated it to completed it (implicitly, day(s) before the fight in Cold War takes place, even), and Lilly was well aware of the deadline before Shizune's reminder.

Aside from not getting the desired budget necessary for her class, risking the chance for her to be able to set up the booth in the festival and eventually left out from the rest of the school? Yeah there wasn't any danger to it. Lilly was well aware of it, and that is true. She'll hand over the form at the end of the day or somewhere in between.

metalangel wrote:I was gonna address this to rydiafan but I'll say it to you too... having all but crushed Team Lilly, Team Shizune is now fighting amongst itself. This amuses me.

Also, I wouldn't be at the table for long. If we're that drunk I probably need the bathroom AGAIN.

Yeah, I guess we have been doing that for the past days (weeks?). We're talking in circles, or at least I feel that we are.

Time to drop that whiskey and find a common ground. and hey, Team Shizune won

LOL at this point we are all sticking to our guns ... i always thought the point of a debate was to try to change someone's opinion on a topic ... at this point all we are doing is spinning our tires ... no one will change my opinion thinking that shizune is the best girl in ks ... like i won't change a lilly fan opinion ... but here we are still debating it ... i just don't see the point now lol

Megumeru wrote:and hey, Team Shizune won

Trying to slip that in with size 20 text doesn't make it true

Team Shizune has won nothing except an award for (perhaps misguided) stubbornness!

rydiafan wrote:LOL at this point we are all sticking to our guns ... i always thought the point of a debate was to try to change someone's opinion on a topic ... at this point all we are doing is spinning our tires ... no one will change my opinion thinking that shizune is the best girl in ks ... like i won't change a lilly fan opinion ... but here we are still debating it ... i just don't see the point now lol

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You started it.

The great one of our time.

Mirrormn wrote:

Megumeru wrote:and hey, Team Shizune won

Trying to slip that in with size 20 text doesn't make it true

Team Shizune has won nothing except an award for (perhaps misguided) stubbornness!

That 20-size text will be the last justification/point/etc. before we move to common ground.

We did crushed Team Lilly pretty well though before the discussion about Hisao turns into another repetitive argument . I still give my hats off to you, never had so much fun debating before Mirrornm. Thanks
...
...
...so let's break out the booze again and celebrate

rydiafan wrote:LOL at this point we are all sticking to our guns ...

I'll stick to my cup of tea, thank you. Out of harms way, preferrably.

I chose Team Lilly only because Hanako was with Lilly.

So many walls of text...

ShadeHaven wrote:So many walls of text...

It almost feels like we're seeing college essays written about waifus.

We did crushed Team Lilly pretty well though before the discussion about Hisao turns into another repetitive argument

This is why we can't have a good discussion. You're delusional.