Collage of Naysay

[jarek56]

Bunch of stuff to reply to here...

The thing with KS was to me that the girls weren't all that "special". It was a very good VN in its own right and I especially admire it for taking a jab at whiteknighting, especially when the theme is so vulnerable to the old cliché of the player "fixing" the weak women. But once the theme - that disabled people are just like anyone else except their physical disabilities - is brought to light the game loses a central theme. With VNs focusing less on physical appearances and more on personalities and plot, the disability theme soon becomes a mere detail as the focus shifts from the disabilities of the girls, if there ever was one, to their problems that are not directly related to their loss of limbs, scarring etc. - it was doomed to be "self-defeating" and make itself fairly irrelevant very soon. Mental disorders, on the other hand, permeate the personalities of those they affect, which may alter the relations the affected one has with other people and may be a difficult obstacle that has to be overcome - Hisao does not seem to have any major issues with coping with the girls' disabilities in KS, except for Shizune's perhaps if we are genrous. The theme seems to have a much more central role in MS, or at least the potential to play one.

While I agree with you in saying that coping with disabilities seems like it's going to play a very significant role in MS (how could it not?), I disagree that KS loses anything by reaching a point where the focus shifts from their physical disabilities to their non- or semi-related personal issues. One of KS's most significant achievements, in my opinion, was doing just that: demonstrating that people with disabilities are people. Getting the player to look beyond the girls' disabilities and accept them as 'normal' seemed to me to be the point of the whole thing, not an unfortunate misstep. KS made me look at disabled folks differently; even though I mentally accepted the fact that they are people just like anyone else, playing KS made me feel it, too. Now when IRL I see someone who is disabled in some way, I see the person, not the wheelchair or the crutches or the cane. (I mean, I see them, too, but...you know.)

I don't expect MS to downplay anything about mental disabilities (not that I felt like KS downplayed physical disabilities, necessarily), and in fact, I would find it a bit disappointing if it did. I'm looking forward to MS partly because I want to have a moving experience like I did playing KS, but I'm also hoping it will have a similar effect on the way I think about mental disabilities and the people who suffer from them. Some of the detractors aren't wrong when they point out that mental disabilities are going to have more of an impact on the person's identity and abilities to cope, and they can be pretty damned scary. Having a romantic relationship with such a person is a bit different of a deal. Still, one of the things that pisses me off the most about a lot of these detractors is their underlying attitude that because someone has a mental disability they're undeserving or incapable of romance.

(EDIT: After reading this blog post, I want to clarify my thinking: I'm not expecting to come out of MS with the notion that "mentally ill people are just fine and normal after all," but rather I would like to come out of it with a more realistic understanding of the subject, and a more healthy attitude toward them. Right now my views of those who suffer from mental illness are ast least somewhat shaped by movie depictions (usually quite negative), wishful thinking, and the few interactions I've had with loved ones suffering from dementia.)

But I know my hopes are all in vain, since MS is just going to be retard porn.

Hoa showed me/the irc this http://boards.4chan.org/a/res/73727814 http://chanarchive.org/4chan/a/62879

FORGIVE ME HOA
http://archive.foolz.us/a/thread/73727814/
hahaha

Awww, that was actually FUNNY, ILY.

Hell, they were even talking about YOU, Worthington. Seemed to think that your tender age was a strike against you.

Assholes. Ignorance in isolation breeds contempt. Thank GOODNESS I'm only here for the "feelz".

Holy crap, yes. I'm not entirely certain what state of maturity brings a person to revel in the notion that they're only interested in something for nekkid bewbies while mocking people for being emotionally invested in it.

...Oh, wait, yeah I am: puberty.

This post sums up much of my reaction to the thread:



The rest is the rolling of my eyes in the face of so much hypocrisy. For a bunch of people who seem to be so gravely concerned that a VN is only going to be catering to people with social dysfunctions, they certainly seem to demonstrate a wide array of them.

Also, "crap art"? Really?

While I'm all for getting along with people, nobody should be afraid to speak their mind. Everyone needs to be a bit more honest, and I think real life needs to be a little less sugar coated.

Perhaps, but there's a line between being honest with people and just being an ass. And sometimes the sugar coating helps the medicine go down, like the crazy lady with the umbrella said.

God bless you, Good Sir, and keep speaking the good word. Nice to see even 4chan has its semi-sane types. I particularly liked that bit about 1984 and Eurasia.

[Snuffkin]

The only valid objections I've seen to this game have been in the consent dept. (which have been addressed ad nauseum), and that it will be too derivative (which seems unavoidable, to an extent). There may also be the problem of trivializing these illnesses, or the people associated with them. It remains to be seen whether that will be the case, but I certainly hope not.

[Snuffkin]

This is only tangentially related, but I feel like saying it. I'm really annoyed when people talk about how the point of this game is to "look past the veneer of flesh and accept people for who they are on the inside". That worked fine for KS, because most of the girls there WERE perfectly normal people on a mental level, but it sure as fuck doesn't here.

Mental illness (especially personality disorders, though some don't include them in the categorization) ARE a major issue when it comes to accepting a person for their interior; if the devs have any intelligence whatsoever, they'll realize the point of this game should be to appreciate people for who they are, despite the fact that who they are IS radically different and, perhaps, inferior in a lot of respects. Nobody is equal; fucking nobody. And most of the time that's a good thing. When you're talking about cases where there are sweet girls with mental disorders, that would definitely count as one of the times it's a net gain for deficiencies or irregularities to exist in the collective cognitive capacity and gene pool of humanity.

[scopedknife]

While I may not have worded it exactly like that, and while I'm not a writer, Snuffkin's right. No person can be completely detached from their issues, whether those be physical disabilities, mental illnesses or disorders, personality disorders or even something 'less serious' that doesn't fit into these categories. A person's experiences and characteristics define their personality and actions to some degree, and if those include physical or mental irregularities then their personality and actions will, to some degree, be reflected as such. People cannot be separated from their problems, since problems and experiences and reactions to external stimuli are an essential part of who each individual is. Some people may choose not to be "defined" by their irregularities, but even that in itself is their personality changing as a result of (or reacting to) their irregularity - irony at its finest. This is particularly true in the case of mental, emotional or personality disorders where the line between a person's personality and what defines their brain as working differently to the average person's is blurred and distorted, often until it is an essential part of their individuality. An irregularity of this sort isn't necessarily what defines a person and it isn't all there is to their personality, but if it's as serious, life-altering and essentially irregular as a major physical or mental disorder you can be damn sure that their brain and body will react accordingly, and they will be different as a result.

[Snuffkin]

While I may not have worded it exactly like that, and while I'm not a writer, Snuffkin's right. No person can be completely detached from their issues, whether those be physical disabilities, mental illnesses or disorders, personality disorders or even something 'less serious' that doesn't fit into these categories. A person's experiences and characteristics define their personality and actions to some degree, and if those include physical or mental irregularities then their personality and actions will, to some degree, be reflected as such. People cannot be separated from their problems, since problems and experiences and reactions to external stimuli are an essential part of who each individual is. Some people may choose not to be "defined" by their irregularities, but even that in itself is their personality changing as a result of (or reacting to) their irregularity - irony at its finest. This is particularly true in the case of mental, emotional or personality disorders where the line between a person's personality and what defines their brain as working differently to the average person's is blurred and distorted, often until it is an essential part of their individuality. An irregularity of this sort isn't necessarily what defines a person and it isn't all there is to their personality, but if it's as serious, life-altering and essentially irregular as a major physical or mental disorder you can be damn sure that their brain and body will react accordingly, and they will be different as a result.

Not that this is particularly important, but what about my phrasing did you find objectionable, and what made you assume that either a) I was a writer, or b) you have to be a writer on this project to present any point, affect any influence, or simply act as the voice of reason?

[scopedknife]

The objectionable parts to me were the bits that whiffed slightly of Social Darwinism.
As for the writer part, I simply meant to imply that I don't know exactly how our writers are going to approach it; I'm not them.

And, if it means anything, I wasn't entirely sober when I wrote that comment iirc, hence the multiple redundancies...

[Snuffkin]

The objectionable parts to me were the bits that whiffed slightly of Social Darwinism.
As for the writer part, I simply meant to imply that I don't know exactly how our writers are going to approach it; I'm not them.

And, if it means anything, I wasn't entirely sober when I wrote that comment iirc, hence the multiple redundancies...

How was that social Darwinian? I said it was a good thing that genetics is so variable, and the fact that nobody is equal to anyone else is just a truism. Lord knows there are plenty of other times when the presence of the mentally ill presents a benefit; just think about Syd Barret of Pink Floyd, or the writer Phillip K. Dick. Even Nietzsche wasn't that mentally sound.

[Brasse]

While I agree with you in saying that coping with disabilities seems like it's going to play a very significant role in MS (how could it not?), I disagree that KS loses anything by reaching a point where the focus shifts from their physical disabilities to their non- or semi-related personal issues. One of KS's most significant achievements, in my opinion, was doing just that: demonstrating that people with disabilities are people. Getting the player to look beyond the girls' disabilities and accept them as 'normal' seemed to me to be the point of the whole thing, not an unfortunate misstep. KS made me look at disabled folks differently; even though I mentally accepted the fact that they are people just like anyone else, playing KS made me feel it, too. Now when IRL I see someone who is disabled in some way, I see the person, not the wheelchair or the crutches or the cane. (I mean, I see them, too, but...you know.)

I ought to clarify this, as I think I managed to omit it entirely in my original post; I should add that it wasn't as if the focus on the physical disabilities was in any way secondary, but you quickly learn that the characters are just like anyone else aside the lack of limbs, senses etc. Personally, I learned this early in Act 1; it came "naturally" and it wasn't exactly counter-intuitive. After you learn the lesson, the theme of the game sort of falls into the background - it becomes obvious that the persons you speak to and interact with are healthy, well-adjusted individuals whose company and friendship/love are no different from that of people without physical disabilities. Their issues and personal shortcomings do not stem from their disabilities themselves. Once you see past the cane or wheelchair, you do not notice it any longer. Once you get the point of the game, its theme is not as prominent any longer.

I don't expect MS to downplay anything about mental disabilities (not that I felt like KS downplayed physical disabilities, necessarily), and in fact, I would find it a bit disappointing if it did. I'm looking forward to MS partly because I want to have a moving experience like I did playing KS, but I'm also hoping it will have a similar effect on the way I think about mental disabilities and the people who suffer from them. Some of the detractors aren't wrong when they point out that mental disabilities are going to have more of an impact on the person's identity and abilities to cope, and they can be pretty damned scary. Having a romantic relationship with such a person is a bit different of a deal. Still, one of the things that pisses me off the most about a lot of these detractors is their underlying attitude that because someone has a mental disability they're undeserving or incapable of romance.

This is more or less the point I hoped to make.

[Snuffkin]

Well, Scoped?