Katawa Shoujo Forums

I know this game is all about sensitivity to disabilities, but sometimes, you want to ask really dumb stuff. They have different challenges, it's ok to want to ask about how they face them. I have always wanted to ask really really stupid questions about disabilites. Like, really stupid. Here are a few questions I would ask, provided each girl is in a good mood and willing to answer questions.

Emi - Do the stumps where the leg ends ever get sore? And if they do, would you want a guy to massage them for you?

Rin - Do you prefer walking around in sandals or slippers? And do you ever feel the need to have deodorant where your armpits would be?

Shizune - Are there sarcastic tones in sign language? And if you wanted to have sex with someone, would you sign "I want to fuck you" with the last sign being the middle finger?

Lilly - Do you ever wonder if people are making faces while they are talking to you? Would you take a class to learn echolocation?

Hanako - ...on second thought, considering I once confused a guy with a bad burn on his face for make up, and him telling me it's not... I dunno what to ask.

Leg amputation stumps tend to get very sore when you use prosthetics, but massaging them doesn't help much. Rin uses both sandals and deodorant (she has armpits).

In regards to Shizune, I think the "fuck you" implication of the middle-finger has different connotations than "I want to fuck you."

ChaosEngine wrote:In regards to Shizune, I think the "fuck you" implication of the middle-finger has different connotations than "I want to fuck you."

Well, I would certainly hope so, but I suppose I am more interested in how that sign would be handled.

Maybe they would just sign I want to have sexual intercourse with you because they have waaaay more class.

These are the same kinds of stupid questions I've peppered my fiancee with over the years, so let me see if I can remember any good ones. These are just things I've learned that I find interesting. I'll exclude bodily functions on the general principle that you can't unlearn things. They're still fundamentally the observations of an outsider living among a society, so there's always a chance I misinterpreted something, and, as with everybody, there is a range of variance among individuals.

*Blind and deaf people are well aware that someone might be making faces / dressing them funny / talking behind their back. They live with it in exactly the same way that you or I live with the fact that our friends might be flipping the bird every time we turn our backs and talking about how pathetic and horrible we are as soon as we leave the room. We all build trust with people over the course of relationships and accept a degree of insecurity as the human condition.

*People who have never walked have dreamed about walking. You dream about flying, don't you?

*As with any group, certain terms are casually used within the disabled community that would be horrifyingly inappropriate if said by someone else (think of the n-word as an analogy). This includes tasteless jokes.

*On a related note, there are slang terms for able-bodied people. My personal favorite is "temporarily ambulatory."

*Yes, "walking" home from a bar in a power wheelchair is considered drunk driving. Nobody I've talked to has heard of someone being suspended from driving one, though.

*No, saying something like "Let's go for a walk" or "I see how that's the case" isn't an issue unless you go out of your way to emphasize that there might be an issue with it.

*Offering to push someone who uses a manual wheelchair is not equivalent to offering to carry an able-bodied person, so it isn't inherently insulting. You should still follow the same general etiquette as if you were making contact with another person's body. The better you know them, the more casual the setting, or the more they would have a tangible benefit (big hill, curb with no cut), the more acceptable it usually is.

*Of course we know about the Paralympics. If you are, for example, an athlete with no legs, you can't just use whatever prosthetics you want. The artificial limb has to be in a particular proportion to the rest of your body (sorry, no stilts for hurdlers).

*In addition to sports, there are also beauty pageants. I once met Miss Wheelchair Wisconsin. She was originally the runner-up, but the winner was disqualified for being able to walk too far

*I have found that Clint Eastwood is rather broadly disliked in the disabled community. A resort he owns was sued for not being handicapped-accessible, and he spent a lot of time and money fighting it in court rather than just adding the necessary structures. While the relative merits of the suit are open to interpretation, the fact that he made "Million Dollar Baby" while this was going on didn't earn him any friends.

For Hanako, the question that could possibly be asked is whether or not it still hurts, or if the scars cover the entire right side of her body.

Got a new one

For Rin and Emi - If you could be outfitted with artificial limbs loaded with the weapon of your choice, what would you use?

Lilly - Does the idea of blind super hero appeal to you? (I am talking about Daredevil, of course.)

Ozymil wrote:For Hanako, the question that could possibly be asked is whether or not it still hurts

As far as I know, burn scars don't hurt but can be overly sensitive, so that touching them can be unpleasant for the touched.

ZettoSan wrote:For Rin and Emi - If you could be outfitted with artificial limbs loaded with the weapon of your choice, what would you use?

Wow, that just gave me a mental image of Rin with gun-arms, ala Barret from FFVII. And here I thought she couldn't get any better.

For some reason I can see Emi in Strike Witches, with the jet-leg things and all. Omg she would fit in so well. Somebody draw a picture of her with a SW outfit and post it. It'd be so amazingly hilarious.
I think it'd be amazing if Rin had a Mega Buster like Megaman does.

I figure this thread is an appropriate link to post here based on that question....

My roommate blew himself up in a homemade pyrotechnics mishap. His arms have burn scars, and he really enjoys having his girlfriend rub or scratch them. So the sensitivity on burn scars can apparently range from "feels better than normal to be touched" to "is uncomfortable to be touched".

A question I've been dying to ask is directed to Hanako:

She's always covering up the right side of her face, presumably because of the burn scars. Can she see out of her right eye? Is it burned shut, or otherwise impaired in function? Not too worried about seeing through the hair, since that's pretty easy, but I was curious as to what her right eye looks like.

It's probly been answered before... >_>

Judging from Raita's original design, her right eye seemed normal enough, but the devs could have easily decided to change that. Guess we'll know in time.

Hanako has both her eyes intact and her vision is fine.