Katawa Shoujo Forums

I recently finished Rin's story in KS, and my god... coming from someone who has a touch of autism, the story was so powerful, so enlightening I was glowing for the next few days. I would replay random load files and scenes from the library and shake my head at all the subtle, hidden clues that I didnt see until late, late into Rin's story. I have read alot of theories and opinions on Rin's mind, and I will say straight off, the intent of this topic is not to persuade people to seeing it my way, but to educate and enlighten those that played through Rin's story, without an opinion or idea of why she acted the way she did. If you finished Rin's story, and are thinking she's just an artsy kook who cant help but be difficult, or "Why couldnt she just tell Hisao how she feels?" your only going to get a small fraction of the beauty, that is Rin's story. That said, I will now post my long winded points of certain scenes and habits/quirks/skills Rin had or did. If I can get at least one person to see the patterns and clues throughout the story, I'll have done my job :p

*Spoilers ahead since we're talking about scenes from all over in Rin's story*

1. The fight between the art teacher then later Hisao.
This is VERY telling. When I first played through this part, it was like a light bulb went off in my head, and everything past and prior made 100% sense now. Hisao defends himself by distancing himself from the art teacher saying "He was trying to force you to be something you werent." its funny to note, Rin glances at Hisao (She was looking away, grimacing painfully) when he says this. Apply that to how Hisao was treating Rin... like a creative, spacey girl he had feelings for... she doesnt feel or think like Hisao, she is INCAPABLE. You can see it how she wants Hisao to understand her, she wants him to put it into words so it makes sense to him. She says she doesnt understand love later, while that is a very blanket comment, (who truly fully understands such a thing?) if she was autistic, she would know far less what Hisao expects from her, if she were to be in a romantic relationship with him. Hisao fails miserably with Rin, when he tries to force her to explain her inner thoughts and motivations to himself and the art community... why? Because he's forcing her to be something she is not... someone who thinks and feels like he does. "Normal"

2. Rin's artistic talent and reasons for painting.
People with Autism are usually very, VERY skilled in one area. Hers being drawing and creativity. What more she is painting to show people who she feels, for people to understand her. If she was autistic, she would feel and think completely alien to most people. She literally has no idea how a person without autism thinks, and is doing her best to just play along. She literally wants someone to look at her paintings, and understand how she feels and thinks, because of the romanticizing of art by her art teacher. In fact, it was because of how the art teacher put art, as being "Undefineable" what distracted me from realizing Rin was autistic earlier. We the reader are purposefully thrown off the scent, by thinking she is the way she is, because she's an artist. When the closer truth is, she is an artist, because she's autistic, doesnt understand what people feel and think around her, feels like the only one in the world who thinks like she does, and can only break through this through painting... and of course she is utterly disappointed because everyone is looking at her art as art, and her as an artist, nothing more.

3. Rin's view on love and why she rejected Hisao so firmly.
How does Rin describe how she feels when being confronted with feelings of love? Fear. Hisao told her he liked her, romantically, and she abrubtly said no. Why? We later find out, she thinks Hisao is "scary" when she thinks about him that way. She interprets this, that romance, love, sex, is frighting. Yet, later in the Delirium scene, we see she was perhaps unable to stop thinking about Hisao and his intentions. Some are interpreting this as a sexual disorder, but I wouldnt call acting on feelings, triggered by someone you care about as abnormal, rather how she handled Hisao telling her this, and later recanted by visiting him in his room is what is more telling. She doesnt know how to tell Hisao her feelings, feelings that frighten and confuse her.

4. Rin's eye contact and facial expression.
These are much simpler, she breaks eye contact and rarely shows emotions through her face, throughout the story. This is a common autistic symptom, nuff said.

5. Rin's lack of empathy.
Ive already covered this, but autistic people are bad with empathy, because they have to understand what people are feeling to see things from there point of view. When asked why she doesnt try to see things from Hisao's perspective in an argument, she gets wide eyed, before expressing she cant. If she was autistic, she would literally be unable... poor Rin.

There's much much more hints and clues throughout the story but I wrote enough I think lol.

Here we go again…

Atario wrote:Here we go again…

What, were the other topics of this nature that were taken down? I made sure to search through all the forum topics that had Rin in um, didnt see any with autism in it.

Acesahn wrote:

Atario wrote:Here we go again…

What, were the other topics of this nature that were taken down? I made sure to search through all the forum topics that had Rin in um, didnt see any with autism in it.

It's because this question has been answered by the devs many times already:
No, Rin doesn't have any mental disorder. She's just weird.

Steinherz wrote:

Acesahn wrote:

Atario wrote:Here we go again…

What, were the other topics of this nature that were taken down? I made sure to search through all the forum topics that had Rin in um, didnt see any with autism in it.

It's because this question has been answered by the devs many times already:
No, Rin doesn't have any mental disorder. She's just weird.

Wow, they flat out said she has no mental disorders? But... her condition is almost text book. I actually researched Autism for like 30 minutes looking for any evidence AGAINST autism lol.

Acesahn wrote:

Steinherz wrote:It's because this question has been answered by the devs many times already:
No, Rin doesn't have any mental disorder. She's just weird.

Wow, they flat out said she has no mental disorders? But... her condition is almost text book. I actually researched Autism for like 30 minutes looking for any evidence AGAINST autism lol.

I actually have Asperger's syndrome and I can see that Rin has it. Like, she's literally an armless, redheaded, female, Japanese version of me. Just replace "painting" with "gaming", and yeah

But no. According to the Devs, she doesn't have any mental disorders.

Note: I may be misremembering it, but that's what I think I saw a while ago.

*wired.

I'm afraid so, mate. Devs don't want to put all their chips into one corner, per sé.
Was Rin designed to appear autistic? Was she based off of someone in real life who happens to be autistic? Was it all an unintended coincidence? Did the writer do it intentionally, just for shits and giggles?
Who knows.

All we know is that Emi is way better

Thats... quite a shame then, at least for me. Regardless of Rin's personality or any evidence of her character, if the Devs didnt intend for her to be absorbed in such a way, to enlighten and educate what its like to love someone with autism... all the beauty I saw, the patterns and clues throughout the story... only exist in my head.

That's exactly what the Headcanon thread's for Give it a read!

Aura, Rin's pathwriter, hasn't stated one way or the other. The only comment from Aura I can find in these forums searching for any of "autism aspergers asperger's autistic" is this one.

This doesn't mean Rin ISN'T autistic. I think Aura wants readers to make their own interpretations.

Merlyn_LeRoy wrote:I think Aura wants readers to make their own interpretations.

Not as if interpreting rather than knowing/understanding isn't kind of pounded into you in Rin's route

Autism in any form is not a mental disorder, it's neurological. There's a difference. You can have Autism and still be perfectly sane.

Shockproof Jamo wrote:Autism in any form is not a mental disorder, it's neurological. There's a difference. You can have Autism and still be perfectly sane.

See, I've always deemed a mental disorder as a condition where one's brain functions alright, but they way it functions is different to that of a healthy person. Saying the brain isn't broken, it's just dis-ordered.
As to say things like Depression, ADHD and Autism don't make you any less sane, functional or intelligent compared to a regular person, it's just that their brain takes in and sorts information in a different way.