Katawa Shoujo Forums

There's a webcomic I read called Spinnerette. It is a superhero comic (although one that likes to play with the tropes of such a thing) and one of the characters is Mecha Maid. Slight spoilers, although I won't hide this as it is too relevent to my post here: Mecha Maid suffers from ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's Disease) and became a costumed hero when the nerve amplifier she developed to try and combat it worked too well.

Some more involved spoilers, so this I am hiding: Of course, it will only work for so long as her desease progresses. In fact, in the current story line it has become clear that it is doing so. Meanwhile, in the past she had resigned herself to her fate, but since meeting Spinnerette she found herself falling in love, giving her something to live for even as she wasn't looking for such a thing. Spinnerette, meanwhile, remained blissfully ignorant of Mecha Maid's feelings, just thinking she and Mecha Maid were really good friends. Very recently, Mecha Maid may have slipped out a hospital bed confession. The reprecussions of that are ongoing...

I found myself wondering how such a thing might have applied to a Katawa Shoujo situation. This is all hypothetical, but what if the developers hadn't limited themselves to the five disabilities presented in the original drawing? (I think it worked well as it did, so I'm not saying they shouldn't have.) Or what if, someday, again just talking hypothetically here, some of them decide to get together and do it all again, or to give their blessings to a new group to develop a sequel with a new protaganist entering Yamaku and meeting a new group of girls? And one of those girls was in the early stages of ALS? How would that work?

The existing story lines did a very good job of not letting the girls be defined by their disability, but the way I see this playing out, in this case the girl is doing that to herself and the protaganist's mission (should he get the good ending) would be to convince her that she should do otherwise. They meet, she seems nice, they have some common interests. Innitially, he can't tell what her disability (if any) might be, but decides of course that it would be rude to pry. He finds himself falling in love, but there always remains some distance. He finally, hoping to break through that distance, confesses... only to be flatly turned down. In the conversation that ensues, she tells him of her condition, that she likely only has limited time, and she doesn't want to hurt him by dying and leaving him behind.

In the story that follows, if he pushes too hard in trying to change her mind, of course that will lead to a bad end. But if he does things correctly, he can convince her that she is, currently, still alive. It would be a waste to not enjoy that life while she can, otherwise what is the point? And if she someday does die and leaves him behind, his grief will be proof that she was alive and she was loved, and how can that be a bad thing?

Does that sound like a potentially interesting (yet very rough, I'll admit!) idea? And what are some other ideas that some of you might have for other girls? Since the original game did so, please limit yourselves to physical disabilities.

Thanks, you've added another webcomic to the list of stuff I have to follow.

I hate you. not really

It's certainly an interesting idea, and I definitely like the thought of another time through Yamaku better than revisiting the same characters. At most in a "sequel" I'd want to see Mr. Nakai as the science teacher, as that seemed to be where he's headed on most paths, but beyond that the stories are finished for me and I'm happy with them.

As for other Physical disabilities there's MS which has similar obvious symptoms to ALS though it tends to progress much slower. Either of the two afflicting an Emi-esque track star would be interesting to write and incredibly depressing to read though.

Congenital analgesia. Subjects either have no sense or pain, or no pain affect (the feel pain but don't have an emotional aversion to pain lik e the rest of us).

Goldilurks wrote:Congenital analgesia. Subjects either have no sense or pain, or no pain affect (the feel pain but don't have an emotional aversion to pain lik e the rest of us).

I was talking with a friend not long ago (the conversation started as one about Katawa Shoujo, actually) and at one point, the conversation turned to, "If you had to lose one sense, what would it be?" And she and I both agreed that loosing the sense of touch would be the worst, as touch is related to so many safty responses.

Re: Returning characters. Yeah, I had kind of hypothetically placed Hisao in my mind as having become the new Science teacher. Perhaps as a nod to the Shizune Epilogue Project, Misha could have some sort of cameo as a Sign Language teacher as well, although I'd stop short of including Shizune or any of the five main girls, it'd be best to leave it ambiguous who Hisao may have ended up with so as not to alienate anyone with extreme opinions on their prefered path in the first game.

To the few that have made suggestions thus far, what sort of story do you see possibly involving the girls in question? Doesn't have to be anything too spicific, my earlier thoughts were certainly vague. Although I am thinking of fleshing them out a bit, perhaps I'll post more on her in a day or two. Also, what might be a good idea for our protaganist? I think another heart defect would be a bit too close to Hisao, don't want to make New Guy just a Hisao clone, after all.

Also, while for the most part it might be nice to avoid repeat disabilities, it could be interesting to see either another blind person or another deaf person if, unlike either Shizune or Lily, in this case it is not something they had lived with since birth, but was something that was the result of a more recent accident. Be quite a different take on the matter, I should think. If someone else wants to run with that one, go for it, as I'd rather concentrate on my first idea.

Oh, and...

Mirage_GSM wrote:Thanks, you've added another webcomic to the list of stuff I have to follow.

I hate you. not really

You're welcome.

Yotsuyasan wrote:Also, what might be a good idea for our protaganist? I think another heart defect would be a bit too close to Hisao, don't want to make New Guy just a Hisao clone, after all.

I've got pretty radical idea, but it came to me right away. He might be HIV positive. It became semi-manageable desease lately. I might be inspired by a comic book by Frederick Peeters: Blue Pills.

And I'm just trying to match the mood you set, I always found kinds of illness that slowly steals your life span the most bleakly horrifying.

Yotsuyasan wrote:Also, while for the most part it might be nice to avoid repeat disabilities, it could be interesting to see either another blind person or another deaf person if, unlike either Shizune or Lily, in this case it is not something they had lived with since birth, but was something that was the result of a more recent accident.

This I find more emotionally manageable, and it brings an idea of all characters to have their state fairly recent and having to deal with it on the course of the game/story. It was a noticable note in KS plots, that except Hisao, all characters managed to relate to their disabilities some time ago, this way, or the other, although in case of Emi, or Hanako it still had some grip over them.

Also, I follow Krakow's comics for some time now, and find Spinerette one of the best graphical novels online. Side by side with http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/index2.php Gunnergkrigg Court, or http://dresdencodak.com/ Dresden Codak, since http://www.megatokyo.com/Megatokyo while still nice, lost some of it's impetus lately.

NoOne3 wrote:I've got pretty radical idea, but it came to me right away. He might be HIV positive. It became semi-manageable desease lately. I might be inspired by a comic book by Frederick Peeters: Blue Pills.

And I'm just trying to match the mood you set, I always found kinds of illness that slowly steals your life span the most bleakly horrifying.

Interesting thought... I'm somewhat reluctant on this only because... well... as something that hypothetically would be a Visual Novel, one might presume that (like the original KS) there'd be h-scenes. A protaganist with a sexually transmited desease as his disability would add, even with precautions taken, a risk factor to such scenes that could have a side effect of overwhelming whatever else a senerio writer may wish to put into those scenes. So again, not giving this idea an outright no, just think I may need some selling on it.

Not that I'm actually producing a sequel to a game I had nothing to do with producing, have no permission to produce a sequel to, and most importantly I've no idea how to make a visual novel... but the more I think of this, the more it seems at least an interesting mental excersise.

As a side note... if I'm going to be posting more here, thought I'd make an account. So this'd be my first officially logged in post! Woo hoo.

Yotsuyasan wrote:I was talking with a friend not long ago (the conversation started as one about Katawa Shoujo, actually) and at one point, the conversation turned to, "If you had to lose one sense, what would it be?" And she and I both agreed that loosing the sense of touch would be the worst, as touch is related to so many safty responses.

"Touch" is not really a single sense... It's more like a label we use to describe the senses of pressure (mechanoreception), heat (thermoception) and pain (noiciception).
Some also lump body position sense (proprioception) under touch, but I think it better fits under the internal senses.

I did a bit of research into that a while back for a fanfic I was writing... (technically I still am, but it's on hiatus at the moment^^°)

DAREDEVIL!!!!!!

Eyes fried but all other senses on overdrive.

newnar wrote:DAREDEVIL!!!!!!

Eyes fried but all other senses on overdrive.

I was going to say that :/ lol