Katawa Shoujo Forums

Captain Niggawatts wrote:

OriginalContent wrote:

Smoku wrote:I agree. sounds pretty awesome.
I'd just give Lilly ear plugs.

OH GOD, brainwave:

Hawt blindfolded Shizune on earplugged Lilly action.
fap fap fap fap fap fap

I fail to see how two girls knocking over furniture, walking around a dark room for hours on end looking for each is fapworthy.

USING THE POWER OF MATHEMATICS:

Shizune = hot
Lilly = hot
Shizune = deaf
Lilly = blind
Therefore blind = hot and deaf = hot
blind + deaf = 2hot
2(blind + deaf) = 4hot

Blindfolded Shizune and earplugged Lilly is therefore twice as hot as just Shizune and Lilly.

Probably.

Captain Niggawatts wrote:

OriginalContent wrote:

Smoku wrote:I agree. sounds pretty awesome.
I'd just give Lilly ear plugs.

OH GOD, brainwave:

Hawt blindfolded Shizune on earplugged Lilly action.
fap fap fap fap fap fap

I fail to see how two girls knocking over furniture, walking around a dark room for hours on end looking for each is fapworthy.

I've (figuratively) seen people fap to weirder...

U.T. Raptor wrote:I've (figuratively) seen people fap to weirder...

Yeah, because for the seeing to be literal you'd have to use a mirror.

Wokka wrote:Helen Keller wrote that it was her deafness, not her blindness, that made her feel isolated from the world. I really don't know if that is true, a deaf person once asked me if I'd rather be blind or deaf and when I responded deaf, he told me that.

I'd believe it. Deafness cuts you out of communication with other people, because you don't have a common language -- Shizune is as socially isolated as Hanako, but Hanako can overcome her isolation. Shizune can't. She simply can't communicate verbally, and almost no one can communicate with her using sign language. Look at Shizune's end of Act I -- it's really a pretty sad when you think about it; she wants to tell Hisao how she feels, but she can barely get the simplest ideas across to him.

Merlyn_LeRoy wrote:

Wokka wrote:Helen Keller wrote that it was her deafness, not her blindness, that made her feel isolated from the world. I really don't know if that is true, a deaf person once asked me if I'd rather be blind or deaf and when I responded deaf, he told me that.

I'd believe it. Deafness cuts you out of communication with other people, because you don't have a common language -- Shizune is as socially isolated as Hanako, but Hanako can overcome her isolation. Shizune can't. She simply can't communicate verbally, and almost no one can communicate with her using sign language. Look at Shizune's end of Act I -- it's really a pretty sad when you think about it; she wants to tell Hisao how she feels, but she can barely get the simplest ideas across to him.

She can still write on a notepad, and use sign language. It's just more inconvenient, is all.

Blind people don't consider themselves a separate community the way many deaf people do. There's a wiki page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture. In real life, it's a huge social barrier.

To contribute something to the discussion, I've read that the areas of the brain that handle the sense of touch are often completely rewired in the event of blindness to make it resemble something akin to 'sight'. It's sort of easy to understand why this is: both sight and touch give ideas to the shape and texture of an object, and are therefore more linked to each other than the other classical five senses. If you see a completely novel object, you're much more likely to hazard an educated guess as to what it feels like than as to its smell or taste. Touch is also the only sense which demonstrably increases in sensitivity in response to relatively short periods of blindness (i.e. a couple of days), as far as I can remember.

My increasing obsession with Katawa Shoujo has led me to 'experiment' - for want of a better word - with the idea of disability. I find myself trying to get dressed without using my hands (bloody difficult, but easier with elastic objects like T-shirts and tracksuits) or with my eyes closed (you can tell which item of clothing is which by their texture because I know them by sight), amongst other everyday tasks. My 'research' has led me to conclude that living in dark is something a lot less terrifying than living in silence. Blindness can be compensated by sound and touch, but once your hearing's gone, that's it. There's really nothing else that you can use that mimics tiny hairs in the deep canals of your inner ear picking up the sensation of waves vibrating through the air with exquisite precision. While you can hear sounds coming from every direction, sight is limited to the narrow funnel of the direction you happen to face; so to me, blindness would be easier to cope with than deafness.

Man, talking about all this makes me feel so fortunate. Here I am, living a healthy, wealthy, happy life while there are millions all over the world struggling with disease and disability. It puts all my problems into perspective. It's a good mental slap in the face when you're feeling depressed about some stupid, trivial detail to think about the things you have that so many more people would appreciate so much more than you.

That's... impressive, OriginalContent. I've considered doing such experiments but never tried doing things like that, in part because I'm afraid of what it'll be like. In the programs about people doing this kind of thing (experimenting with being disabled/obese/whatever in order to experience it) I've always thought it's overplayed. But when you think about it carefully, disability really can cut you off.

I mean, can you imagine walking around with horrific burn scars on your face, like Hanako? That feeling that everybody must be looking at you through sheer fascination and/or digust must be horrifying.

I have to admit that the idea of being cut off from sound is, to me, a lot more terrifying that losing my sight, because as has been said with the loss of sound you've effectively lost the familiar way of communication, which is through speech. They've had to create their own language; and a unique language generally gives far more of a feeling of culture and society, rather than simply being connecting by a disability.
There must be a feeling of being completely alone at times.

It really is scary to think about in detail.

In this light it seems that Shizune's and Hanako's disability is worse then Lilly's. not in terms of mobility tough. moving aroun deaf and scarred isn't surely as hard as being blind.
Also Emi's disability actually seems the less troublesome. She has prosthetics and problem practically solved... not so much of social pressure, like Hanako. no trouble in everyday skills involving managing things in a house, like Rin. and she has all her five senses.

Then again Lilly was born without eyesight. It surely is hard for her if she encounters new places, but it shouldn't be as sad for her then for someone who had sight and suddenly lost it.
Disabilities are really scary, it makes the KS girls all the more impressive for getting along and living life through it.

Smoku wrote:Also Emi's disability actually seems the less troublesome.

It's really a "holy crap, technology" moment when you realize that Emi's lack of legs is in modern times less of a hindrance to her mobility than Lilly's blindness is to hers. ('Course, Hanako has the most problems with moving around out of everyone, since she can't go where there are new people. >_> )

Smoku wrote:Disabilities are really scary, it makes the KS girls all the more impressive for getting along and living life through it.

Real people are able to effectively cope with their disabilities every day. The KS girls are fictional. I think it's much more impressive to actually live with a disability, than to be written as living with one.

G3n0c1de wrote:

Smoku wrote:Disabilities are really scary, it makes the KS girls all the more impressive for getting along and living life through it.

Real people are able to effectively cope with their disabilities every day. The KS girls are fictional. I think it's much more impressive to actually live with a disability, than to be written as living with one.

naturally.

For anyone interested, there's an old thread on what sex with each of the girls would be like. Fairly interesting.

As for OriginalContent's experiments, he's got a thread here and I'll also direct you to my post for those particularly interested in deafness.

It should be said that any social aspects of Hanako's disability are not so much simply the disability herself, but more a combination of the scars and her personality. If she had a more confident personality, the scars would not be as significant of a social hindrance, I would think.

Captain Niggawatts wrote:It should be said that any social aspects of Hanako's disability are not so much simply the disability herself, but more a combination of the scars and her personality. If she had a more confident personality, the scars would not be as significant of a social hindrance, I would think.

That's possible, but I think that also discounts the fact that any friends she may have had then avoided her because of how she looked; possibly even made fun of her and teased her. Granted, Hanako may have already been shy, but after something that potentially traumatic, having everyone you once knew avoid you and possibly even hurt you can shake even the most confident of people. Kids can be pretty cruel.