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I don't think the nurse is unprofessional; I think he has (or at least affects) a more casual manner, since his clientele are all high schoolers, and he sees them regularly. Regarding Hisao's exercise program..well, this is the only route where he actually exercises. Don't know if that was due to the desire to skip details, or focus on his personal development, or unintentional. Cobalt-60 fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 12:35
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Blaziken386 posted:
Absolutely. That’s what Hisao should have done, no question. In best-case scenarios, that should have happened. But we are dealing with teenagers, and on top of that, within a school where the environment of disability and dealing with it-especially for a transfer student-would be a call of some intense social pressure. I mention that because the Nurse might not have known that, but he was aware of Hisao’s condition when he asked Emi to keep an eye out for him. Of course, what stands for HIPPA in this setting would prevent him (rightly, and for good reason, good on you there, Nurse) from directly stating Hisao’s condition, but informing Emi to ‘not push or goad him, please’ isn’t a breach: he knows his patients, and if asked directly, he could have give the “I can’t tell you” dance, but reiterate the advice given. I find the Nurse, likely because Paraprofessionals and medical at school/site practice was not as tightly researched for the game, made a big error…and then hoisted it onto kids, which is a bad look. Psycho Lawnmower fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 12:55
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Update 14: Foot and Mouth (Silence)  There is some way to get to the school building straight from the auxiliary building, but I'm not keen to find out and possibly get lost, so I go out from the exit that I know works. I stop at the stairs of the auxiliary building, deliberating for a moment between going to the dorms to get my books and stuff and going straight away to the class. The sun stings my eyes, so I head towards the dorms. The halls are quiet as the courtyard was, naturally so since everyone is in class. I knock lightly at the door of 3-3 and push open the door when Mutou calls from the other side.  HISAO: "Sorry I'm late." Fifteen pairs of eyes turn to me.  MUTO: "Good morning, Nakai." Mutou seems to be somewhat confounded by my coming in late, as if I interrupted his flow or something. Judging from the rambling lectures his classes tend to be, that might be the case. I pass him the note the nurse gave me. Mutou takes it with a nod and reads it quickly.  He lifts his eyebrows and gives me a kind of a stern look but doesn't say anything, just nods solemnly again. I shrug and he gestures at me to run along so I naturally do. Katawa Shoujo OST - School Days The class goes on lazily. I think I'm starting to get into the rhythm of the school. I have even stopped worrying about taking notes and being overtly attentive. The first days, I was pretty high-strung in class. Mutou finishes his lecture about electricity early, but continues without a pause about the festival. MUTO: "So, as you know, the festival is on the day after tomorrow. I hope everyone's projects are going to be successful this year. Have a good time, but also come Sunday, please keep the meaning of this festival in your minds..."  MISHA: "Games and fried food!" Everyone bursts out in laughter, and so do I. MUTO: "Yes, thank you Mikado. But what I meant was more the—" The remainder of his sentence is buried beneath the ring of the lunch bells, and everyone starts packing their things. Mutou deliberates for a moment, but since almost nobody seems to pay attention any more, he gives up and sits down. (Silence, Chattering Crowd Sound Effect)  It's crowded in the hallway... or as crowded as hallways in this school probably get. Most of the students seem to be heading down for the cafeteria. Normally, I'd join the flow and grab a lunch myself, but today is different. Today, I've been invited to lunch on the roof. An odd location, but that's where I was told to go. Fortunately, I manage to find shelter from the storm in the lee of the classroom door. Eventually the torrent subsides and I step tentatively out into the hallway. Only to be met by Emi, who comes flouncing down the hallway like a cannonball. Katawa Shoujo OST - Standing Tall (Emi's Theme)   EMI: "Hey! Hi Hisao! Great timing! I have super extra lunch today, as promised! Let's go upstairs!" (Silence) The stairway to the roof is a little dilapidated, but it's clearly been used recently. At the top of the stairs is a door, complete with missing padlock. I wonder who the intrepid individual was that removed the lock? Emi shoves the door open and steps beaming into the sunlight. Suddenly, a tall dark stranger appears out of nowhere, standing imposingly in front of us. Emi flinches back, almost falling back down the stairs.  EMI: "Eeek!"  RIN: "Hello." EMI: "Yipes! You scared me, Rin!" Wait, isn't she... Katawa Shoujo OST - Parity (Rin's Theme)  RIN: "Hello." Noticing that Rin is speaking to me, Emi looks curiously at me. EMI: "You two know each other?" I look confusedly at Emi. HISAO: "She's that friend of yours?" Rin has turned her gaze towards the clouds drifting above the school. RIN: "I didn't know you knew this person, Emi." (Silence) ... The awkward silence lasts only for a few seconds until Emi lets out a tiny giggle, shrugging the coincidence off. EMI: "I invited Hisao for lunch. If you know him, that's just better." RIN: "Oh. Does this mean I don't get food? Or did you invite him for lunch without the lunch?" EMI: "Erm, neither, I have food for three." RIN: "Nice thinking." Katawa Shoujo OST - Air Guitar  They walk to the other end of the roof while I stay at the clock tower for a while, taking in the atmosphere. There is nobody else but us here. I guess the roof is not as popular as it is in other schools. A few rundown benches and tables are scattered around the edges, perhaps in an attempt to make the rooftop look less desolate. The small pebbles covering the roof rattle beneath our feet. I peek through the chain link fence to take a look at the school grounds and beyond. Students are strolling in pairs and groups around the quadrangle and at the cafeteria. A few delivery trucks are driving past the school towards the convenience store nearby. Somewhere a watchdog barks at a passer-by. Somehow, when I look towards the town center the small town feel strikes me very strongly, almost palpably. The hectic lifestyle of big metropolises seems so far away and foreign here; nobody has to run to catch a bus like their life depended on it or get their senses overloaded by the neon lights and traffic jams. I feel surprisingly optimistic about this new life of mine, looking at my new hometown, even if it's going to be mine for only one short year. Finding out about my illness and having to move away from home all came so suddenly I haven't had time to think how I feel about it. When I step out of the shadow of the clock tower to the open I feel warmth touching my back. The sun shines from a perfectly clear cerulean sky. A cool breeze sweeping over the rooftop makes me shiver, but only briefly. The wind carries the scent of trees and flowers, not smog and car exhaust like it used to, just a few weeks ago. Emi settles on a bench with Rin in tow and produces one big and two small lunch boxes from her bag.  EMI: "Come on, Hisao! What are you waiting for?" She is beckoning me to join them, making room on the already small bench. I seat myself on the corner of the bench to take as little space as possible. It's pretty cramped, but somehow all three of us fit on it. HISAO: "Impressive view." Emi suppresses a giggle and places a lunchbox in front of Rin, and hands another lunchbox to me. EMI: "Here you go! Lunch, as promised!" Homemade, no less. I'm impressed. HISAO: "Wow. This looks really good." EMI: "Thanks! I make 'em myself when I can." Conversation dies off as I set about the business of feeding myself. Taking a few bites, I glance up and notice Rin deftly opening the lunch box and popping a forkful of food into her mouth using only her feet. Even though I've seen it before, I can't help but be impressed at her dexterity. It's also a reminder of the sort of place I am in right now. Will I ever get used to sights such as this? I can't decide if getting used to such a thing would be a good thing or a bad thing either.  Does getting used to this place mean that I'm giving up on being a normal person?  Or does it just mean that I'm becoming more understanding about those around me?  I'm distracted from my thoughts by the sight of Emi tearing into her lunch as if it had insulted her ancestors. HISAO: "You seem pretty hungry." Emi looks up, mouth half full, and swallows before nodding. EMI: "My morning run always works up an appetite. Which is great, because then I burn through lunch pretty quickly. Helps me keep my girlish figure." RIN: "What would happen if you'd lose it? Would you become a man?" I very nearly choke on my lunch trying not to laugh. EMI: "It's a figure of speech." RIN: "Does your figure have to run in the mornings too?" HISAO: "Do you always talk like this?"  EMI: "Talk like what?" RIN: "Like what?" I think that answers my question. HISAO: "Er, never mind. So, uh..." I struggle to think of small talk and settle on the obvious question. HISAO: "How'd you two meet?" Rin seems content to let Emi answer this question. EMI: "Someone in the housing department thought that we'd complement each other well, so we were assigned rooms next to one another." HISAO: "Complement each other?" RIN: "Like shoes and a suit." HISAO: "Huh?" Emi giggles at my confusion. EMI: "Put us together and we've got all our limbs, get it?" HISAO: "Ah." EMI: "So I started helping Rin get ready in the mornings, and that was that! I mean, you can't help someone get dressed every morning and not get along." HISAO: "I see." Rin chooses this moment to interject. RIN: "I have trouble with shirts." HISAO: "Right, that seems... fairly obvious." RIN: "Really?" HISAO: "Kind of...?" This isn't helping, but at least Emi seems to find the whole thing funny. That, combined with the fact that Rin is genuinely curious, makes me feel slightly better and yet, confused. HISAO: "I mean, you've got no arms. So uh, putting on a shirt seems like one of those things that would be... difficult." You know what? I'm going to just stop talking now. It'll save me a lot of trouble in the long run. Rin nods in what I suspect is meant to be a sage manner. RIN: "I see." The conversation dies as I turn my attention back to my lunch. It's really quite good. Emi finishes her lunch first and makes a contented noise. EMI: "Ah, that was good." As she busies herself with cleaning up her lunch, Rin speaks up. RIN: "I'm thirsty." EMI: "Oh! I almost forgot about that! Sorry!" With a flourish, she reaches into her bag and removes a trio of juiceboxes. She tosses me one that appears to be cranberry juice, one to Rin that appears to be some kind of strawberry milk (complete with pink color scheme), and keeps a (equally pink) box of some kind of fruit punch for herself. Rin dexterously stabs her straw through the top of her box and begins to drink. I'm once again impressed by how flexible she is, but this time I keep my comment to myself.  Somehow I don't think either Emi or Rin are the sorts of people to think twice about the way they work around their particular disabilities. Rin especially so. Indeed, she gives off the impression of being entirely unaware that she's missing any limbs at all. Whether or not that's a conscious decision is another matter. I'm honestly not sure. EMI: "So Hisao, how do you like it up here?" HISAO: "Hmm? It's quite nice, actually. I like high places, for the view. Thanks for inviting me up here. And for the lunch, too." Emi grins a thousand-watt grin, pleased by my response I suppose. EMI: "No problem! Feel free to eat with us next time too, okay? I won't make you a lunch, but you can bring your own up here." HISAO: "No lunch service? I don't know..." Emi looks mock offended. EMI: "Trying to take advantage of my good nature? The nerve!" She giggles. EMI: "Well, if that's your answer, I guess Rin and I will just keep eating lunch all alone..."  I am suddenly assaulted by the most heart-rending puppy-dog eyes I've ever seen as Emi pouts. HISAO: "Kidding! I was kidding! I'd love to eat lunch up here again. Good location, and the company's okay too." Emi frowns a bit at my declaration of “okay” but seems happy enough that I've accepted her invitation. I guess this makes us friends now. Or at least acquaintances. The lunch bell rings, signaling a return downstairs. EMI: "Rin, you didn't finish your lunch again!" RIN: "I wasn't that hungry." EMI: "If you don't eat more, you're going to fade away!" Rin shrugs, as if this is an acceptable risk. HISAO: "Come on, we'd better get going." The three of us head down the stairs together. (Silence) The afternoon class passes. Once again, I find myself without a plan for something to do after school, so I head to the library to return a couple of the books I finished reading. Walking inside, I see that there are about as many students here as there were on Tuesday, all the more evident from the almost total silence enveloping the room. As I drop the books I'd borrowed into the returns slot in the counter, Yuuko suddenly pops up from behind it, quite startled from the banging they make as they hit the trolley next to her. Katawa Shoujo OST – Fripperies HISAO: "Ah, sorry Yuuko. Didn't mean to startle you."   YUUKO: "No, no. That's fine. It happens... a lot. I'm used to it by now. Um, can I help you?" HISAO: "It's okay, I think I know where everything is. Thanks anyway." I suppose I'll grab another book or two while I'm here. There's not much else to do, and after reading so much during my stay in the hospital, it's become a hard habit to break. I wander down to the fiction section towards the back of the library, scanning the bookshelves for anything that catches my eye. As I do, I look over to the corner where Hanako had been the last time I was here, not really expecting anything to come of it. ...surprisingly, though, she's there, absorbed completely in a fairly thick book. I decide against intruding on her like last time and get back to finding reading material. Katawa Shoujo OST – Afternoon After an indiscernible amount of time spent perusing the aisles, I finally decide on a couple of books to get and slide them off the shelf. With a minimum of fuss, I quickly walk over to the counter, check out my books and pop them into my bag as I walk out. By the time I leave the main building, sunset isn't too far away. A small trickle of students remain, but the majority have left; presumably to their homes and dorms.  Feeling utterly drained, I head to my room to read the books I borrowed. There's been enough action and excitement for one day already. The first is “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”. I know the story, of course, but I've never actually read the original book. It's just as trippy as I remember the story to be, with the wacky characters and nonsense plot. I start thinking of myself as some kind of an Alice too, haplessly tumbling down the rabbit hole into this Cripple Wonderland. …Okay, that's a rather strong expression. Still, the isolated location and the overt way the school accommodates to absolutely everything is unsettling. It is like another world. I wonder why I can't shake the feeling of being an outsider like Alice, despite most everyone being so hospitable and friendly with me. (Silence) Turning another page, my mind starts drifting further away from the book. It's quiet, I can hear my heartbeat thumping against the fabric of my shirt. For some reason, it makes me feel really bad like it has since that time in the forest with Iwanako. Like I was locked in a cage with something nasty and scary. I put the book down for a while and stare at the ceiling, taking my time to shake off the feeling. 200 pages later, I fall asleep. Katawa Shoujo OST - School Days The students roll into class for the Saturday morning session, each and every one of them sporting the tired eyes of people that have worked through the night. With only a day left to prepare, I suppose it's not so surprising. Thankfully, we only have to suffer through classes until the lunch break, and then our time is our own. Mutou lurches into class in a tired stagger. I suppose students aren't the only people here that enjoy their late Friday nights. Without saying a word, he scrawls some page and question numbers on the board and slumps down at his desk. It's completely atypical behavior for him, but it appears that no one in the class is going to call him out on it. Wordlessly, the students shuffle their textbooks into position and get to work. Not wanting to break the trend, I do the same. Fatigue has made the class antisocial; not a peep is heard among the ruffling papers. That can partly be attributed to the two empty seats beside me. For some reason Misha and Shizune aren't present; probably doing council work for the festival. It's very quiet without Misha present. I wonder if she was born as rowdy as she is, or if she is “making up” for Shizune's lack of voice. (Silence) MUTO: "Nakai, can I speak to you for a moment?" I'm so engrossed in thinking about Misha that I don't even notice Mutou approaching my desk." HISAO: "Sure... what's this about?" MUTO: "It's probably better if we speak outside the classroom..." Something about this doesn't sound too good, but I stand up and follow him out into the hallway. Mutou stands in the hallway, scratching his head as he works out what he is trying to say. Not knowing what's going on, I wait silently. MUTO: "I heard from the school's head nurse that you had an incident the other day. Ah. So it's about that. HISAO: "Well, kind of, but it's not anything to be worried about. MUTO: "Yes, yes it is. Anything that can endanger your health is something to be worried about. We try our best here to prepare you for life here. Part of that involves knowing your limits, and how to work around them. It would be remiss of me if I didn't speak up about this." HISAO: "All right, I get it. I'm sorry." Mutou closes his eyes in frustration, and I realize that this probably wasn't the best thing to say."  MUTO: “Something tells me that you're not sorry. Pretend as much as you want, but this isn't a normal school. A lot of people have put in a lot of time, effort, and money to make sure that you, and every other student here, can have the same level of education as your peers. For you to abuse that by throwing out advice, especially medical advice, is plain selfish." I'm not quite sure if this is actually how he feels, or if it is some act that he's practiced many times to guilt-trip students into doing the “right” thing. Either way, it's working. HISAO: "I understand. This is all new to me, and I apologize. I know my limits now, and I'll be sticking to them." Mutou appears to lighten up a little, satisfied that his message has been received. MUTO: "So then, onto my next question; how are you finding your studies? I understand you were laid up for a while. We're not too far ahead, are we?” HISAO: "I don't really think so. I tried to keep up when I was in the hospital, so it hasn't been too hard." Mutou taps his chin and raises an eyebrow as he absorbs this information. Katawa Shoujo OST - School Days MUTO: "Is that so... I suppose there are still students out there that realize the importance of learning..." I wouldn't go that far, I was only trying to keep myself occupied in my little life-support prison. HISAO: "Well, yeah. You've got to keep up with these things, right?" MUTO: "That's exactly it. One wrong move in this world and you're left behind, right?" HISAO: "Er, right. Wouldn't want that to happen." MUTO: "No, no you wouldn't. Every week there's a new scientific discovery. Most of them mean nothing to the layperson, but any one of them could be the key to the Next Big Thing." HISAO: "I'll keep that in mind..." It's obvious that Mutou's Serious Talk is over, and he's gone back to his standard, slightly scatterbrained approach to life. I think, in hindsight, that I prefer him this way. He's slightly more predictable in his unpredictability. MUTO: "Well then, I think that's all I really had to say. Let's get back inside, shall we?" My relief at that suggestion is insurmountable. HISAO: "Sure. You're the boss, right?" Mutou pauses for a moment.  MUTO: "I don't think any of my students have ever said that to me before." For an instant I consider replying to this, but something deep within me tells me to shut my mouth and get back into the classroom. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Aug 28, 2021 |
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Jun 11, 2021 20:55
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Alright, looks like the conversation’s drifted to a stop, so it’s time for another post roundup. Marluxia, clockwork chaos, BurningBeard, Ghost Car, Nidoking, Psycho Lawnmower, you all get the nod this time around, if you like. Side note: after you approve it, it goes up in the second post of the thread under a descriptive title; let me know if you want those changed at any time. Contact me through post, PM, whatever.
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Jun 12, 2021 03:28
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Absolutely. I'm always happy to contribute something of value.
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Jun 12, 2021 03:51
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E: particularly bizarre doublepost
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Jun 12, 2021 04:54
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yeah go right ahead, mines not really educational beside a first-hand account of living with my conditions but if it helps go right ahead!
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Jun 12, 2021 13:23
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I love this chapter. When this old world starts getting me down And people are just too much for me to face I climb way up to the top of the stairs And all my cares just drift right into space On the roof, it's peaceful as can be And there the world below can't bother me Let me tell you now... And then, it hits you: Falconier111 posted:
The first step towards healing is acceptance.
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Jun 12, 2021 13:42
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clockwork chaos posted:yeah go right ahead, mines not really educational beside a first-hand account of living with my conditions but if it helps go right ahead! Never underestimate the educational value of first-hand accounts. I can't tell you how many times I've read just an ordinary story of someone's day and realized that I'd seen a side of the human experience I didn't know existed, even if I was already familiar with the circumstances.
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Jun 12, 2021 14:12
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Sure, go ahead
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Jun 12, 2021 16:30
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Go for it.
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Jun 12, 2021 19:17
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Nidoking posted:Never underestimate the educational value of first-hand accounts. I can't tell you how many times I've read just an ordinary story of someone's day and realized that I'd seen a side of the human experience I didn't know existed, even if I was already familiar with the circumstances.  That’s one of the big things about activism: by far, the best way to persuade someone is by forming a personal connection between them and someone affected by an issue. Unfortunately, there’s no real way to personally connect with millions of people, especially if they’re suspicious of you trying to make them change when they don’t want to. That’s what makes KS such an excellent tool, by the way; people swing by to rubberneck at what they think is going to be the gaming equivalent of a car crash, only to get sucked in and start engaging with the game. Still doesn’t guarantee they’ll change but 
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Jun 12, 2021 22:54
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Oh sure. Feel free-more this spreads and we engage, the better. Edit: Teacher right here? Really good example, if a bit personally affronted (which I think is okay in this case) of how to handle expressing what he needed. Took him outside and away from earshot of classmates clearly expressed concern, asked leading questions to express gravity. Like that. That Hisao feels pressured and controlled..that could be teenager or associated to his feelings with his disability for the first time, but I’m unsure Psycho Lawnmower fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Jun 14, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 15:53
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Sure, go ahead!
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Jun 14, 2021 16:18
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Update 15: Proper Exercise (Silence) A few of the students jump at the sound of the door, rapidly trying to pretend that they are working on the questions on the board. Some don't even bother, their heads slumped on the desk as they nap. Thankfully, it would appear that Mutou does not even notice them. He returns to his desk and retrieves a scientific journal from one of the drawers. I guess I got to him there. The class returns to the near-silence that Mutou and I left it in before our chat. Mixed feelings of tiredness and anticipation buzz around the room. Everyone here is either waiting for a chance to rest or the chance to get their last-minute preparations underway. The clock on the wall slowly ticks the remaining class time away, until finally the bells cry out, ending the torment. Katawa Shoujo OST – Daylight  MUTO: "Before you all leave, I expect the answers for those problems by Monday." The class sighs as one, instantly regretting slacking off, but still acutely aware of the more pressing issues at hand. The classroom empties in a blink as everyone rushes to their last-minute festival preparations. I stay behind and try to quickly finish the questions so I don't have to bother with it over the rest of the weekend, with the festival and all tomorrow. Apart from me, Hanako is the only one left, obviously waiting for Lilly. It's weird that Lilly comes all the way to our classroom to pick her up. I expect that moving around is at least nominally harder for her than it is for Hanako. But it's none of my business, and I naturally don't ask about it from Hanako. Despite the relative proximity of our seats, neither tries to strike up a conversation about that or anything else either, so an oppressive silence falls upon the classroom. Time passes in silence. It's probably just fifteen minutes or so but it feels longer. I turn pages of my notebook. Hanako turns pages of the novel she's reading. My pencil lead splinters against the paper just when I was about to finish a paragraph. The sounds of my irritated sigh and subsequent fumbling around for a sharpener feel like they're breaking the mood in the classroom. Hanako keeps her eyes firmly away from my direction. Before long, Lilly's tall figure appears in the doorway.  LILLY: "Hanako?"  Her name is all it takes to make Hanako jump up from her desk and run to Lilly. They talk quietly for a moment, but it isn't long before Lilly leaves down the hall and Hanako idles back into the classroom, taking her seat once again. I watch Hanako out of the corner of my eye out of sheer curiosity at the idea that the two would be separated. For a couple of minutes, she does nothing but sit with her chin in her hand, staring at the desk dejectedly. The boredom evidently becomes too much for her though, her slender frame reaching into her bag and pulling out a small book. Come to think of it, that isn't the one I saw her reading at the library. She must be quite a fast reader to get through them at this rate.  This scene, Support, is the last one a majority of routes pass through; the only way around it is by locking into Shizune’s route. Between the last line and the next one, the game runs a series of flag checks and sorts the player into one of five paths, each of which lead to either a route or the Bad Ending. No more choices left to make until the end of the act. Emi’s flag overwrites all but one of those paths, so the rest of the process doesn’t really matter now. (Silence) After about ten minutes of restlessly shuffling in her seat and trying to read, Hanako closes her book and leaves too. As should I, since the assignment is all but finished and there is nothing else to do in the classroom. Not that I have anything to do anywhere else either. Katawa Shoujo OST – Afternoon (Crowd Chattering)  The school is a beehive of activity but nobody pays me any heed. I saunter past classrooms filled with students frantically doing this and that, buzzing around like little worker bees. You wouldn't guess the school day is over. It's a bit quieter outside, but not by much. People zip by, left and right, hurrying as quick as they can; busy and energetic. I feel the opposite. The midday sun seems to be draining all the spirit out of my body, making it feel limp all over. Warm, soft air flows inside my shirt, feeling like a cushion. I yawn lazily, thinking about what I'd do. I'll drop off my books at the dorms first, and then... something I haven't decided yet. Maybe Kenji is in his room. On the way to dorms, I spot Emi coming my way, running despite not having those weird running prosthetics on. I wave at her and she skids to a stop.  EMI: "Yo, Hisao!" Spatters of white and green paint adorn her nose and chin respectively, but her smile is wide, as it seems it always is. She leans closer to me, amplifying the feeling she is examining me. EMI: "Whatchadoin'?" HISAO: "Nothing, really. I don't have anything to do for the festival and everyone else seems to be doing something important." EMI: "That's perfect! Then you can help me and Rin!" HISAO: "With the festival preparations? Eeeh, I'm not sure if I would be of much help."  EMI: "That's fine! I'm not much help either!" (Silence) Emi grabs my wrist and starts dragging me back inside the school quite forcefully. Even her walking speed is more like jogging, making me stumble over myself simply trying to keep up. The stairs slow Emi down a little bit. Maybe it's hard to climb with her legs, or maybe she's finally run out of breath. We go all the way back to the third floor and to the seniors' hallway, ending up where I left five minutes ago. I could just as well have stayed here waiting for Emi, had I known. HISAO: "So are you... is Rin working on that mural, still?" EMI: "That's right! She needs all kinds of paints and brushes and stuff, so I went to get them from the art classroom." HISAO: "And you need me to help with that." EMI: "Well... Rin told me you had already helped her so I thought you wouldn't mind." HISAO: "I see." So thanks to Emi's flaky logic, here I am again, collecting stuff from the art classroom for other people. The room is empty apart from ourselves and the lonely specks of dust floating in the air. Emi skips straight away to the back wall, digging out a tiny, crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. While she tries to make sense of the scrawled handwriting, I take a closer look at the materials lying around here. Dozens of paint cans and bottles are arranged on the shelves in a most unorganized fashion. Some look like they have been left there for several decades; relics of previous art club generations. Next to the heavy stacks of neatly piled drawing paper are boxes full of different-sized brushes and unsorted crayons. The smells of paint, turpentine and fresh paper float in the stale air, mixing in my nostrils to form that unmistakable scent of art. Emi studies her notes, comparing them to markings on the various paint cans, and passes them to me as she finds the correct matches. She stretches her neck to look on the topmost shelf, but it's not quite enough. Her eye level stays below the shelf no matter what she does. Emi gives up and just looks up to the shelf longingly, like a child at a toy store, huffing in annoyance.  After a moment of building anger, she starts jumping up and down, apparently trying to speed-read the labels during the fraction of a second she can see them, and catch what she can. Yes, her sprite is jumping here. No, you can’t see it very well. The perils of a visual medium.  It's no surprise that she fails miserably, and almost manages to bring the entire shelf crashing down. Now I see why me lending a hand here would be useful. HISAO: "Come on, let me do that. You can't jump high enough, and I don't want you to hurt yourself trying. Also, I'm like twice your height."  EMI: "You are not!" She turns around, flaring scorn, flushed cheeks and all. HISAO: "Just kidding, just kidding. Anyway, I'll look up there, okay?" She glares at me one more time, but can't come up with a retort. With a grudging “hmph,” turns her back to me. So I begin scrounging around the top shelf for paint while below, Emi crouches to scavenge what she can from the cupboards. I shake my head a little, after double-checking to ensure she can't see me do so. Emi having a complex about her height was a surprise; I wouldn't have joked about it otherwise. She seems easygoing, but I guess everyone has their weak spots. Only after we have almost all the items collected and spread out on a desk like a treasure hunter's spoils do I realize that it wasn't necessarily the height jab that got her riled up. She might not like to be told that she can't do something. Like jump. But Emi herself seems to have forgotten all about it already. Quick to anger, quick to forgive... she is that type of a person? At least she doesn't seem to have taken anything to heart, as she chatters away happily while we pick up the rest of the items and then make our way back to Rin. I chivalrously carry the bulk of the materials as we make our way towards the dormitories. EMI: "Rin is really stressed about getting her painting done. It's her own fault though; she should've started earlier." HISAO: "Is she going to make it?" EMI: "No idea. It looks good to me, but with Rin, you never know what's going on. I found her this morning lying in front of the dorm in fetal position. She hadn't slept all night. I can't believe that the night nurses hadn't found her. And now she's painting again like crazy." HISAO: "Yeah, I've... noticed that she comes off as kinda... unhinged. So to speak." Emi giggles at that, as well as at my likely too-obvious awkwardness. EMI: "I don't mind it. She's just a little weird sometimes." On that I can agree with her. Unlike me, Emi seems to be cool with Rin's... whatever it is that feels so off about her. Still, they don't feel close like Misha and Shizune do. With them working as a single entity sometimes, it's hard to say where one ends and the other begins. Even though they're so different, just like Emi and Rin are. And Rin is the most different of them all, different from anyone else I've met. HISAO: "Yeah, I guess she's a very... unique person." I return to that word again, as if it encompasses Rin's personality by itself, but really it's just a substitute for a lengthy description of her oddities. Emi giggles as I grasp about for a properly descriptive word.  EMI: "She's just weird. You know, earlier, she just spent half an hour sitting on her box. And stared at her toes." She giggles again in a way that makes me think she doesn't know what's funny about it, it just is. EMI: "All that time." Katawa Shoujo OST – Fripperies  The working area is a mess, but the mural itself has taken over even more of the wall since I last saw it. The disfigured human figures have been mostly colored in tones of red, pink, and orange; weird, imaginary... things populating the spaces between. It looks... nice. I can't think of any word that would describe the work concisely and comprehensively so I settle myself on a nondescript “nice.” But honestly, it seems that the area around the wall becomes untidier at the same rate as the mural progresses. The ground is littered with dozens of paint cans, various art supplies and empty soda bottles. Rin herself is in the center of this chaos, standing there looking very cozy as if she was a natural part of the scene. Her pant legs have been rolled up to her knees, exposing her thin legs which sport a drying spectrum of war paintings, similar to those on Emi's face. Emi sprints to Rin ahead of me and gleefully jumps in front of her. EMI: "I'm back!" RIN: "That was fast. Did you run in the corridors again?" EMI: "Hisao helped me." Emi points victoriously at me. Rin turns around following Emi's finger with her eyes, looking at my general direction. She nods absentmindedly at me. She looks like she hasn't slept since last night: a vacant, glazed stare that's focused slightly off me, and movements like in a slow-motion movie. RIN: "Hello, Hisao. Thank you for the help." HISAO: "Don't mention it." RIN: "I just did." HISAO: "Never mind. Looks like you've made progress. Looking good, as far as I can tell." RIN: "But now you get more bad luck." HISAO: "I know, but I'm willing to take the risk."  RIN: "That's a very nice thing to say. For me, of course. Not for you. This is why artists are always unlucky. They have to constantly look at their unfinished paintings. So artists can't find romance, their favorite TV shows are canceled, or they die young because of an unspecified disease. It's a deep and mysterious law of the universe. Unless they are blind." She considers this for a while, looking like she's going to fall asleep. RIN: "There is a boy. At the art club, you see. Blind boy. So he doesn't. See." HISAO: "You already told me." I glance sideways at Emi and she glances back in a way that tells she has heard this one before too. Neither of us says anything to Rin, though, so she continues her monotone soliloquy like an unfunny stand-up comedian. RIN: "He should become an artist. No bad luck, guaranteed. Don't you think that would be a good idea?" HISAO: "That only blind people should become artists? No, not as such." … RIN: "You might have a point." Abandoning this train of thought, she turns again to consider her work and starts humming a tune that I think I recognize, but can't remember the name of. Emi arranges the supplies we brought and moves a few paint cans around, trying to bring some organization to the scene. RIN: "Emi, I need the Prussian blue paint." EMI: "Which one's Prussian blue..." She is staring helplessly at seven or eight cans, each with a different tone of blue. RIN: "It's the one with Prussian blue paint in it." EMI: "Geez, Rin! You're not helping at all!" I look around as well, even though I don't know what Prussian blue looks like, either. I wonder what blue has to do with Prussia. ...Or what Prussia even is. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. While none of the blues looks more Prussian than the others, the small print on the labels is legible enough to determine that none say anything about the contents being Prussian. HISAO: "There is no Prussian blue here." Emi and Rin’s routes share the last scene, but this next scene is all Emi. EMI: "We need to go get more, then." I open my mouth to say that actually, we're not both needed for such a simple task like finding another pot of Prussian Blue, but Emi's already grabbed my arm and started dragging me off. I wave to Rin, who doesn't seem to have noticed that the two of us are even leaving. Well, she'll notice when she goes for her Prussian Blue and finds out it's still not there. Maybe. (Silence, Crowd Chattering) … Probably not, actually. While I'm busy thinking of how weird Rin is, Emi's been dragging me back to the art classroom. I feel myself starting to run out of breath. HISAO: "What's the rush?" Katawa Shoujo OST - Standing Tall (Emi's Theme) EMI: "Huh?" Emi's giving me an appraising look, as if she's trying to figure something out. HISAO: "It's just that you seem to be in a hurry. I'm not sure I can keep up." Comprehension dawns on her face. EMI: "You're not out of breath, are you?"  There's almost an accusing playfulness to her tone. I'm tempted to deny it, but then I realize that I've been breathing heavy since we stopped. Guess it's kind of obvious. HISAO: "A little. Not everybody can be in shape, you know. Takes all kinds, right?" Emi frowns. It's not a particularly good frown. HISAO: "Er, that is... I should... get in shape?" Not that I hadn't already decided to try for that. After that flutter on the track I figure there's a real need to get in some sort of running habit. I was, after all, feeling pretty good until I had my false alarm. Well, actually I wasn't. But it was... fun? Meanwhile, my comment seems to have helped Emi come to some sort of a decision. (Sudden Silence) EMI: "Well, that's it, then." She gives me a serious look.  EMI: "You're joining me." … HISAO: "I beg your pardon?" EMI: "In the mornings. You and I are now running partners. I've got a routine all planned out. In fact..." She produces a crumpled sheet of paper. EMI: "I've got it right here with me." Katawa Shoujo OST – Hokabi I take the sheet of paper and give it a once-over. Times, dates, and laps, all laid out. A slow increase from just a few laps a day to... My God, does she expect to have me running marathons? And where did she find the time to get this all together? And how long has she been planning this, anyway? HISAO: "You've been planning this?" EMI: "A little. But it's really the nurse's idea! He told me to keep an eye on you to make sure you exercised like he told you to!" A vast conspiracy? Maybe Kenji's on to something here... (  )HISAO: "This seems a bit much for just “keeping an eye on me.” EMI: "Well, to be honest I've been trying to find a running partner in the mornings for a while now." My God, Kenji! If you could only see the scheme unfolding! ( )HISAO: "What do you need a partner for, anyway?" EMI: "It's easier to keep up a workout if you're not the only one doing it. Isn't that obvious? You're less likely to quit if someone else is counting on you to be there, right?" HISAO: "I see. And this won't only keep you running, but it'll make sure that I keep running as well. Meaning that I'll be obeying the nurse..." EMI: "...and I'll be keeping an eye on you just like he asked! You caught on quick, Hisao." HISAO: "And if I refuse?" I have no intention of refusing, of course. But I've got to at least put up a token resistance to such a masterfully executed plan. EMI: "Well, if you refused I'd have to pout. And you'd have to live with being the guy who made Emi Ibarazaki pout. You don't want that on your conscience, do you?" As if to demonstrate, Emi begins pouting.  It is the most adorable, heart-wrenching thing I've ever seen. HISAO: "Okay! I'll do it! Just... don't do that! I feel like I just hit a puppy!" EMI: "So it's settled, right? You're going to be my running partner? Follow the workout? And the dietary plan?" HISAO: "Dietary plan?" EMI: "Yeah, the dietary plan! You've got to eat healthy if you're going to get in shape, you know!" I examine the workout routine closely. HISAO: "I don't see a dietary plan on here." EMI: "Oh right! I forgot to give that to you!" Another crumpled sheet of paper is produced and handed over. It's somewhat less detailed. EMI: "I had the nurse help me come up with it."  The amount of dedication that the nurse has to keeping me in good health is pretty overwhelming. I don't know many school nurses who would get one of their students to spy on me, much less help come up with a dietary plan. Then again, I guess I'm not in a normal school. And maybe that's not such a bad thing. Then again, this dietary plan seems to cut out just about everything that'll be offered at the festival tomorrow. Hmm. HISAO: "So when does our running start?" EMI: "After the festival." HISAO: "Right after? What if I've had something to eat there? I could get a stomach ache, you know." EMI: "I meant the day after the festival." HISAO: "I knew that." Wasn't there something we were supposed to be doing? HISAO: "Oh! I guess we should get that paint for Rin, huh?"  EMI: "Oh no! It slipped my mind!" (Silence)  By the time we get the paint and get back to the mural, Rin's already wandered off. Oh well. Emi and I both decide to part ways there, leaving the paint on the ground. Rin'll find it. Whenever she comes back, anyway. Festival's tomorrow. I'm actually a little excited for it. At the same time, the week's left me feeling pretty tired, so I read a little and then go to bed. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Jun 14, 2021 21:03
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oh no, emi is suddenly extremely relateable
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Jun 14, 2021 22:21
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Update 16: Don’t Panic All six of Act 1’s endings route through the following scene before they hit their climax. Unfortunately, the scene includes Kenji. Katawa Shoujo OST – Daylight The next day, I wake up feeling a little lightheaded. It's almost noon already. Sleeping late is fine, since it's a Sunday and there are no classes. Not just a Sunday, though, but the festival as well. From my window I can already see some people at the soba booth slinging noodles onto plates for people with a craving for low-quality food. I throw back a handful of my morning meds and ponder how to spend the day. There will be a few exams in the coming week, but I don't consider those as ominous as others, so I'm not as worried about them as I probably should be. With no urgent obligations regarding education, I should be free to spend the day at the festival as I like. (Silence) Finishing my morning routine, I exit into the hallway, intending to go out and find something to eat. Passing by his door, I decide to see what Kenji's up to today out of impulse. I'm curious if he has any plans, since everyone is doing something. Then again, I can picture him having built a soundproof shelter in his room. Or possibly something like a fort, complete with “No Girls Allowed” sign. ... and with the “Girls” crossed out and “body” crudely scrawled underneath it. Knocking on his door which is luckily devoid of any kind of sign, I hear again the unsettling clicking of at least ten locks being pulled back. The door opens up a crack.   KENJI: "Who is it?" HISAO: "You're supposed to ask that before you open the door." Katawa Shoujo OST - Out of the Loop (Kenji's Theme) KENJI: "Oh, it's you. drat, it's early." HISAO: "It's not really that early." KENJI: "What is it, man?" HISAO: "Nothing, was just gonna ask what you're gonna do today. Half the school is out there already." KENJI: "Out where? Why?" HISAO: "What?"  KENJI: "What what? Is today special? Why are they there? Who are? I can hear them. It's loud... don't tell me... Has the invasion begun? It's going to be loud as hell. drat, and I was going to go out today, but now it's ruined, everything is ruined. This is awful. This sucks. This sucks! What the hell, this really sucks. I can't go anywhere now. There's nowhere to run." Kenji seems nervous. You could even say he's majorly freaking out. KENJI: "I can't believe this. So that's what today was. drat, and I couldn't even prepare for it. I couldn't even brace myself and now it's here and I can't do anything. You should have told me this earlier, dude. I mean, at least, I know, but... I could have known earlier! Imagine what I could have accomplished..." HISAO: "Sorry. I thought you knew. So I guess you're not going to do anything today? The weather is even good. Yesterday was really windy, so I thought today would be cold. It's not, though, so there's no reason to just stay inside. Yeah, you should check the festival out." Kenji groans and covers his face with his hands. KENJI: "Agh, no, no! I can't do it. They'll eat me alive out there, I know it." That has to be a joke, but he said it with such a straight face. Relatively straight. KENJI: "What are you going to do? We should hang out in here, you can help me build my fort. We might still make it if we work together." HISAO: "I wonder... I'm kinda hungry, but I made this deal that I try to take better care of myself. Be healthier, you know. Dunno if I should steer clear of the takoyaki, or head straight in." KENJI: "Deal? Sounds ominous. So what are you getting in return?" HISAO: "Nothing, I guess? It's not that kind of a deal.”  HISAO: “You know Emi, from our year? We kinda agreed to watch each other's backs and..."  KENJI: "Aieeeeeeee!" The shrill scream and the expression of abject terror in Kenji's face chill my blood. It's as if I told a Catholic priest I sold my soul to the devil. KENJI: "Her! You sold your soul to the devil, and didn't get anything in return? What the hell is wrong with you, man? Do you know who you are dealing with? She's a public health danger. Do you know how many people she sends to the hospital monthly with her carefully placed flying tackles? She's one of them! A key player in the vast conspiracy that aims for the complete submission of everything that is manly. I can't believe what I'm hearing. I trusted in your judgment, man. I thought we were brothers. You have to call it off before it's too late. This festival too; it's just one of their ploys." He fingers his scarf nervously, faster and faster like he is trying to start a fire, then slowly begins to calm down once the panic attack finishes running its course. KENJI: "I'm going to have to find some place to hide in, a safe haven. And then knock the lights out of myself so that I don't have to experience this horrible day. I have the perfect thing for that. I must prepare now. Don't go to the festival." HISAO: "Okay." KENJI: "Later, dude." Goodbye, you extremely uncomfortable person. This game frontloads its :kenji: - he shows up from time to time in other routes, but he gets by far the most focus in Act 1. I’ll be circling back here from time to time to show off how things differ at the start of various routes, but I’ll be skipping anything we’ve seen before – and that includes the vast majority of his scenes. Rejoice! (Silence) The door slowly closes with a low creak and I don't know how to feel about what Kenji just said. It's kinda unsettling, and now I start to feel doubtful, myself. Should I bother going? I've got a book I've been meaning to read. Something about an underground postal system that may or may not exist. It's short, too. I could have it finished in a day. But would that be a good way to spend my time? Well, yeah. It definitely would be. But I suppose that it would probably be a better idea to head outside. See the festival. Try to integrate with all the other sideshow acts. Honestly, I should at least make an attempt to keep up the somewhat friendly personality I've had the past week. Maybe get something to eat, my stomach suggests. It's almost lunchtime... I could at least grab something from one of the stalls outside. Katawa Shoujo OST - Air Guitar (Chattering Crowd)  I'm soon outside, surrounded by various students and people who may or may not be their parents. Every so often I catch a glimpse of someone who clearly just came up from town for the promise of a festival. They're easy to spot. The ones who can't stop staring, and behind their eyes you can tell they're thinking “Now, what's wrong with this one?” I almost want to yell at them. But at the same time, can I deny that I've been doing the same thing all week? A wave of something like disgust sweeps over me; guilt for my own narrow-mindedness. … I push the thoughts aside, concentrating on the pangs of hunger that burn my guts like a wildfire. The scent of something fried leads me to the promised land, where I can get some lunch. I'm just getting my order when a loud voice interrupts me.  EMI: "Hey, what the hell are you doing?" HISAO: "Having break— er, lunch." Katawa Shoujo OST - Generic Happy Music EMI: "Breakfast? You mean you just got up?" HISAO: "Er..." Suddenly sleeping all morning feels like a crime. HISAO: "No, I meant lunch... honest." She's not buying it. HISAO: "Brunch?" EMI: "That's not a healthy breakfast at all!" She snatches my food out of my hand and glares at me. What the hell is this girl doing? HISAO: "Hey, that's my breakfast!" EMI: "What happened to it being your lunch?" HISAO: "That's my... whatever, it's my food!"  Emi places her hands on her hips and begins lecturing me. Well, she actually puts her hand on her chest and glowers. Sprites can only go so far. EMI: "Did you really forget your dietary plan already? You need to be more conscious of your health, Hisao! What about your heart? HISAO: "My heart's fine the way it is! Mostly." All I get in response is a roll of the eyes. EMI: "I doubt that. You wouldn't be here if that was the case, would you?" The girl's got a point, of course. But I'm not about to concede it. HISAO: "It's not that bad of a heart! Certainly it can handle a little grease now and again!" Yeah, sure. And it handled a little running just fine, too. Emi seems unconvinced. Not surprising, as I haven't even managed to convince myself. EMI: "Maybe, but not if you're sleeping the day away all the time!" (Silence, Crowd Sounds Continue) A devious look suddenly crosses her face. EMI: "Of course, if you'd been following a routine from the beginning you wouldn't be in this situation..." HISAO: "Hey, I've had a pretty eventful week, you know! For example, I almost died! And there was a lot of meeting people, and then I was on a roof for a while..." EMI: "Which is no excuse for slacking off, you know.”  EMI: "A little near death experience is no excuse for skipping basic exercise. Like running in the mornings." She nods, as if something important has just been decided. Katawa Shoujo OST - Standing Tall (Emi's Theme) EMI: "So it's settled, then! You've seen the error of your ways and are willing to adhere to my routine, right? I'll see you bright and early in the morning? We'll be running buddies?” HISAO: "You know, you'd already convinced me yesterday that this was a good idea. You don't need to convince me again." Not that I did a good job of being convinced. She's right about eating healthy, after all. And here I am ordering up something grossly unhealthy. But delicious! There are more important things than deliciousness, aren't there? Like staying alive? If Emi weren't here browbeating me for my poor decisions, I'd probably... Hey, wait a second. A sudden question springs to mind. HISAO: "Hey, why the hell have you taken such an interest in my well-being?" Emi shrugs and grins at me. EMI: "You're the new guy. I figure you don't have any friends yet, right? Besides, I've caused you trouble all week, right? I owe you for not getting angry. And I told the nurse I would, anyway." Uh... huh. Crazy little running girl wants to make me healthy. Well, I suppose there are worse fates. HISAO: "Okay, that sounds... fine. Thanks for your concern. Tomorrow morning, then?" (Silence, Crowd Sounds Continue) I figure that ends the conversation, so I turn to leave. EMI: "Not so fast!" Katawa Shoujo OST – Hokabi I feel a hand on my collar and in a second I've been yanked backwards. HISAO: "Hey, no need to be so rough! What do you want now?" Emi looks almost wounded by my annoyed question.  EMI: "Thought you could use the company." Her eyes narrow. EMI: "Besides, you were just going to try sneaking some more of that fried crap, weren't you?" Well, I wasn't going to, but now that she mentions it that would have been a really good idea. HISAO: "I was not!" Another glare. HISAO: "Okay, maybe I was going to get a little..." The glare continues. HISAO: "Okay, a lot." Jesus, I'm a danger to myself and others, aren't I? I get done agreeing that I need to be healthier, and then immediately start considering the next unhealthy habit that comes my way.  EMI: "I knew it! You can't be trusted.”  EMI: "Now I definitely have to stick with you. This whole situation feels silly. I can only imagine what passersby think of the sight of me being lectured by a tiny girl half my size. Maybe I should just give up for now. HISAO: "Fine, do what you like." I sigh. Might as well make the best of this. HISAO: "What do you want to do?" Emi thinks for a minute. EMI: "Well, I promised Rin I'd stop by her mural... So let's do that! I confess I'm slightly curious as to how her mural turned out myself, so again I consider there are worse fates. I give a nod of assent and find myself almost dragged bodily through the crowd as Emi races to our destination. (Complete Silence)  By the time we reach the dorms, I can feel my heart pounding. My heart shouldn't be pounding after just that. I take a few deep breaths, willing myself to calm down. I'm one of the most normal looking people in the school, but I still have to be here. Sometimes I almost wish I'd lost a hand or something. At least then it'd be obvious that I belong. But instead I don't even look sick. Even now, trying to catch my breath, I just look out of shape. Emi looks back and notices my state of distress. EMI: "You're not going to die on me, are you? Please don't! It'll be all my fault, and I don't want to deal with that kind of guilt. Besides, after the last time I really don't think I need to see that again, especially because the nurse will totally say it's all my fault." HISAO: "N... nah, I'm fine. Guess I need to start running after all." EMI: "And you wanted to keep eating your greasy... whatever it was. See?”  EMI: "It's a good thing I found you, right?" Yes it was. HISAO: "Maybe." Of course I don't add that I wouldn't be in this state if she hadn't dragged me across the festival grounds. Further conversation is interrupted by the sudden appearance of Rin. Katawa Shoujo OST - Air Guitar  RIN: "Oh, it's you. Hello Emi." EMI: "Hey Rin! I brought Hisao along because he was going to give himself a heart attack!" HISAO: "I was not!" My objection goes unnoticed. EMI: "We stopped by to see how the mural turned out!" Rin nods slowly. RIN: "Well, it's right there. You can see it pretty clearly." I find myself wondering how long Rin's been standing here in front of the mural. Has anyone even stopped by to look at it? Are we the first ones? Obviously we're not the first to see it, of course. I mean, it's pretty big. You'd be hard-pressed not to see it. At the same time, I don't think anyone's actually talked to Rin about it. Anyone but us, that is. I feel compelled to say something. HISAO: "It looks pretty good." RIN: "I'm still not happy with how it turned out. But I guess it'll do." She seems almost resigned to it. I'm not sure what she expected as a result, but I guess she didn't quite get there.  We stand in front of the mural, taking it all in. I try my best to concentrate on the composition of the thing.  It's actually fairly interesting. The colors swoop and blend together, dragging me along with them.  There's a dreamlike quality to the whole thing that makes me almost feel sleepy.  I try hunting out some of the colors Emi and I grabbed for her. Try as I might, I can't see any Prussian Blue. Oh well. I'm sure it's in there somewhere. My feet start to hurt, but Rin doesn't seem inclined to move on. Emi speaks up. I only showed about half the mural, by the way. It’s so large that you can expect to finish the text well before you reach the end of the pan even if you read slowly. I would have shown more, but this is where it transitions into unambiguous exposed breasts and I wasn’t interested in futzing around with spoiler tags or edits in Paint. EMI: "Hey Rin, have you eaten?" RIN: "Of course. You can't survive otherwise." EMI: "What about in the past five hours?" RIN: "Maybe. But I'm hungry again, so maybe that means I'm wrong." Emi grins and claps her hands together. EMI: "Good! Come get some food with us!" Rin nods in assent. RIN: "Okay, but we should hurry before they notice I'm gone." Somehow I don't think they'd care. Whoever they are. (Silence, Crowd Chattering)  As we head back to the food stalls, I cast a longing eye over the fried food. No, I'd better not. I'm pretty sure Emi wouldn't let me, anyway. Katawa Shoujo OST – Ease  We find a nice spot on the grass and sit down to eat our purchases. Well, my purchases, anyway. Somehow I've wound up paying for all the food. Surprisingly, my (unfried) food is pretty good. Silence falls as Emi and I eat and Rin stares at... something or other, occasionally eating a bite or two of her food. I finish my meal first, and lay back on the grass. Emi glances up from her food. EMI: "Tired, Hisao?" HISAO: "A little, I guess." EMI: "Well, don't oversleep or anything tomorrow morning.”  EMI: "We start our morning runs, remember?" Actually, they'd slipped my mind. I was actually just enjoying myself. Wandering around the festival with these two has actually been fun. HISAO: "Yeah, I'll set an alarm." EMI: "You'd better be there! I'll get angry if you aren't!" HISAO: "God forbid." RIN: "I don't think God comes into it. Unless there's some kind of freak accident and your alarm clock shorts out. That might be a random act of God." EMI: "Well don't cause any random acts of God, then." A plan forms itself in my mind. It's a plan that makes me feel kind of guilty, but I throw it into execution anyway. Dammit, I've earned a little fried food. And anyway, I'm going to start running tomorrow, right? So the actual routine all starts then, not now. Ergo, the dietary portion starts tomorrow too, ergo I can have something unhealthy today. A sort of final farewell to all the stuff I used to eat with wild abandon before the hospital. HISAO: "Actually, I suppose I should head back to my room. I had some homework to do, and if I'm going to run in the morning I should make it an early night..." Those narrowed eyes again. EMI: "You sure you're not just going to sneak off and buy some of that fried stuff over there?" HISAO: "Nah, I'm too full to bother now." I pat my stomach for emphasis. HISAO: "Besides, you two have cleaned me out anyway." Emi giggles. It's a surprisingly pleasant sound. Another pang of guilt. She's got to know that I'm lying to her, doesn't she? Or is she just that trusting? I feel kind of like a monster. EMI: "All part of my master plan, Hisao. Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning then. Thanks for the food! And for keeping us company!" And here I thought she was doing me a favor. Rin nods in agreement. RIN: "I won't say “See you tomorrow” because that would be like predicting the future, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that." HISAO: "... Okay. Bye, you two." (Silence)  I feel oddly glad that I decided to leave my room today. Not a bad way to start my second week here, I suppose. Once I'm sure I'm out of Emi's line of sight, I make a beeline for the food stands and buy some cake. At least it's not fried, right? That's slightly better than what I was planning to do. I still feel a little bad about lying to Emi, though. She really does seem concerned about my health. I'll make it up to her somehow. Better head back to my room. Hey, I do have work to do. My book waits for me, and I flop on to my bed and read through the fireworks display. Eventually all the walking around (or more accurately, running around) catches up with me. I really am out of shape. Emi dragging me out in the morning to run might just be a good thing after all.  It's something to look forward to. END OF ACT 1 Before we hit Act 2, I’ll take some time to go over what we’ve seen so far in a special conclusion/disability corner post. So look forward to that. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 19:20
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Clearly, Emi is evil. Festivals are made for eating bad, greasy food!! That's the point!!!! Also, farewell, Kenji, you paranoid poo poo. e: maybe the justification for him being frontloaded in act one is that in act two, you've firmly established yourself as "not being an insane misogynist", so he starts avoiding you like the plague. or maybe it's just so the bad ending doesn't come out of left field
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Jun 16, 2021 22:19
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I think Kenji got frontloaded because Act 1 was made well before the rest of the game, and the dev team decided not to use him as much in later parts, both because the tone of his character clashes pretty hard with the more down-to-earth tone of everything else, and because, yeah, his writing is problematic, to say the least. When he shows up in the actual routes, he tends to be a little more nuanced, if still decidedly unhinged, rather than just being "MRA Dale Gribble".
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Jun 16, 2021 22:37
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I’m considering doing a sort of live-review of Interviews with Monster Girls, an anime that, like KS, is a sympathetic look into the lives of disabled girls in a school setting. However, a) it’s as pure as driven snow, b) it looks at disability through a fictionalized lens, and c) the fact that it deals with disability seems to have completely flown over people’s heads. Would the thread be interested in seeing that?
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Jun 17, 2021 15:42
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I would
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Jun 17, 2021 15:59
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Emi is a fun character.
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Jun 17, 2021 16:44
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Falconier111 posted:I’m considering doing a sort of live-review of Interviews with Monster Girls, an anime that, like KS, is a sympathetic look into the lives of disabled girls in a school setting. However, a) it’s as pure as driven snow, b) it looks at disability through a fictionalized lens, and c) the fact that it deals with disability seems to have completely flown over people’s heads. Would the thread be interested in seeing that? This was a cute anime, I'd love to hear your take on it.
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Jun 17, 2021 18:24
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Falconier111 posted:I’m considering doing a sort of live-review of Interviews with Monster Girls, an anime that, like KS, is a sympathetic look into the lives of disabled girls in a school setting. However, a) it’s as pure as driven snow, b) it looks at disability through a fictionalized lens, and c) the fact that it deals with disability seems to have completely flown over people’s heads. Would the thread be interested in seeing that?
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Jun 17, 2021 20:24
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Hrmmm. I dunno, that felt a bit touchy, but understandably so. Clearly, taking away Hisao’s agency to have what he wishes is touchy, because if there was a concern for the school regarding health habits and food, staff would take care of that. Like get the Nurse to redirect Hisao instead? Not sure how much more I’d have found that. That being said, what would be their functional alternatives, at a festival? That being said, he did cake. I’m glad.
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Jun 17, 2021 20:51
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The festival is the only time Emi says anything about Hisao's diet. I think they needed some angle for her to interact with him at the festival, since each path has him doing different things there. It's the weakest version of this chapter, IMO.Falconier111 posted:I’m considering doing a sort of live-review of Interviews with Monster Girls, an anime that, like KS, is a sympathetic look into the lives of disabled girls in a school setting. However, a) it’s as pure as driven snow, b) it looks at disability through a fictionalized lens, and c) the fact that it deals with disability seems to have completely flown over people’s heads. Would the thread be interested in seeing that? I'd be interested. I didn't think much of the anime (too slow-paced, too much infodumping), but the manga was good, at least as far as I got. Man, it's been nearly 2 years since I picked it up... Saw this the other day, made me think of Emi/Rin: 
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Jun 18, 2021 05:32
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Penguins make extensive use of their front limbs.
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Jun 18, 2021 10:03
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The Lone Badger posted:Penguins make extensive use of their front limbs. Opus doesn't exactly have the typical penguin lifestyle.
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Jun 18, 2021 13:42
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Update 17: Act 1 – Hisao and Ableism We just finished Act 1 of 4. Each route shares a largely conventional three act structure over 1 through 4, and like any good first act, Act 1 sets the stage and introduces the important characters. Unlike most first acts, though, it has a thematic role most stories don’t need filled: it breaks down stereotypes. "Disabled We Stand” posted:[P]eople in wheelchairs repeatedly find that, when they have somebody pushing their chair, questions are addressed to their pusher rather than to them… Edwina McCarthy finds that this happens so frequently that it comes as something of a surprise when her presence is actually recognised: “At the greengrocer's the first time we went in they asked me what I wanted. I was a bit taken aback.” (And Derek adds wryly, “Quote. I got told to shut up, they were speaking to the young lady.”) “But in our local supermarket, some of the cashiers would ask Derek. And that's degrading.” Trick question: why would you look at someone in a wheelchair, someone who otherwise looks perfectly ordinary, and talk only to the person pushing them? Go ahead, think of a reason. I’ll wait. Now go back, think about that reason, and tell me: was it that the person pushing the wheelchair was their caretaker? We don’t know jack about this situation. The person in the wheelchair could be asleep, or sick. They might be doing something else or talking to someone else, or they just might not want to talk. So did you guess that whoever was pushing the wheelchair was making decisions for the person in it? I’d bet most people reading this didn’t make that assumption. But I’d lay down good money that many of the people who chose otherwise, consciously or unconsciously, specifically did so to subvert that expectation. They thought of the person in the wheelchair as someone who needed a caretaker first, then substituted another answer when they checked themselves. That assumption was a gut response, even if the reaction to it was also a gut response. It kind of sounds like I’m knocking them for that, and I’m not – that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing because the belief that disability makes everything about you less capable runs so deep it takes active effort to fight it off. It’s so omnipresent that it usually influences people legitimately trying to help, causing everything from talking loudly to deaf people to not offering promotions to disabled people because you think it would stress them out to this particular gem from the same source: "Disabled We Stand” posted:[A] woman had just climbed, on crutches, one of the longest staircases in the New York subway system and was standing at the top, getting her breath back, when some well meaning cavalier materialised out of the crowd, grabbed her up and carried her down to the bottom again. Had he bothered to ask if she needed assistance no problem would have arisen. Not every player will come at KS with those assumptions still in place, but enough will that it needs to take a chisel to them and weaken that belief system enough to let things slip through. I mean, they absolutely could have just skipped this process, but it might fall afoul one of the most infuriating aspects of writing about minority issues: for someone with -isms in place, realistic depictions feel fake. The funny thing about preconceptions (which biases are a type of) is that they’re a lot more universal than people assume: at their heart, they’re tools that speed up cognition and reaction by fitting situations into patterns you already recognize on an instinctive level. If you see a number you don’t recognize calling you out of the blue, chances are you’ll assume they’re a telemarketer and not pick up. It could be anyone, it could be important, but you’re used to unexpected calls being telemarketers so you act on that assumption. They can even be helpful; if you see someone walk towards you in a dark alley reaching for something under their coat, you probably should get out of there. Your preconceptions make sense to you and form a basic part of your personality; they seem logical, even obvious. But biases are preconceptions that are wrong or harmful, and since they feel and work like any other preconception, you can’t tell the difference on the spot. Having your biases challenged can feel like a personal insult, given how deep in our heads biases can run, or it can feel like someone’s trying to put you in danger: if you react to a black person approaching you the same way you would a person in a dark alley, someone saying no, that’s kind of messed up sounds a hell of a lot like they want you to get mugged. And yeah, that’s an extreme example, but people make, say, economic decisions based on biases all the time, and if you tell them no, that’s kind of messed up they might react like you’re trying to scam them and lock down. Breaking down biases is an extremely delicate and difficult process that involves getting past a person’s defenses to avert that reaction. Without that process, you’ll more likely than not find efforts to broaden someone’s horizons just bounce off. And that’s why Act 1 is Hisao Is Ableist Theater. Hisao rolls into Act 1 with his biases still intact and unchallenged, and, importantly, does not immediately change his ways. Here’s a screenshot I cut from the first update for space:  HISAO: “This isn’t an opportunity, don’t call it an opportunity. Don’t call it a goddamn opportunity.” Nobody changes their opinion instantly. It doesn’t matter that Hisao is now disabled; he’s just as ableist as he’s ever been. Even if it’s a step up from staying in the hospital forever, to him, Yamaku is a school for people who are less than him. We see he’s willing to give his new classmates the benefit of the doubt and try to interact with them like normal people (and that’s not always the case), but… The ways he responds to his classmates – awkwardly dancing around topics, averting his eyes from people’s disabilities, wincing when he can’t – that’s all familiar, and obvious, to anyone who’s been on the receiving end. Those responses will make sense to many readers because they’re nearly universal, even to other disabled people; I know I’ve had to catch myself in the past. So the reader starts out in familiar territory. And then they realize how anime the cast is. I’ve seen a couple people in the thread mention that it sticks out, and it’s true; the characters are all exaggerated and slightly unrealistic in a very specific way familiar to weeaboos everywhere. Hell, I could probably slap a -dere derivative on most of them if I was even lamer than I already am. We’re still in familiar territory. But it’s a different familiar territory. It’s one that doesn’t jive well with ableist biases but does jive well with the game’s portrayal of disability. When the average weeb filters through potential anime girlfriends and lands on the tsundere, they probably aren’t expecting her to need an interpreter just to talk to them; if they go for cheerful and/or athletic characters, they probably don’t anticipate their latest waifu using prosthetics so blatant she brings a clearly artificial running sound effect everywhere she goes. And yet nobody seems to agree that that’s weird. Every spotlighted student except Hisao has fully adapted to their disability; they are clearly aware of it and how it affects them, but it doesn’t dominate their lives the way some abled people assume disabilities do. They even display the blunt, blasé sense of humor about their disability that’s actually really common among real disabled people and which often shocks abled people. For someone familiar with disability, there is no cognitive dissonance there. For someone who isn’t, its lack itself causes cognitive dissonance. Just as Hisao gradually realizes his preconceptions are kind of bullshit by interacting with other characters, that friction between expectation and reality gradually breaks down readers’ preconceptions too. Let’s take a look at this process in action: Lilly and Shizune throwing down.  Most readers will immediately notice this scene features a blind girl facing off against a deaf girl. Many readers will also leap to the conclusion that their disabilities play a role in that rivalry. They kind of don’t, though. Shizune’s deafness is why Misha needs to be there to translate, and as the thread noted Lilly’s blindness is probably why she had to foist off filling out her forms on someone in her class (sidenote: her class includes people who have impaired eyesight like Kenji, so they can probably fill out those forms for her). But the dialogue makes it abundantly clear their clash has more to do with their conflicting personalities than anything else. Shizune is aggressive, harsh, and blunt, while Lilly’s comportment and passive-aggression reflect the ojou cliché her character’s clearly based on (forgive me, Father, for I have linked to TVTropes). For readers expecting their theoretically conflicting disabilities to dominate the scene, the fact that they barely come up puts them offkilter; for those expecting them to shape the conflict, they find that their expressions, stances, and dialogue play a much bigger role than their disabilities, which only come up in a utilitarian fashion. No judgment is offered by either one unless you interpret some of Shizune’s insults through that lens, and even then, they probably have more to do with her being a dick than judging Lilly’s disability. The process of breaking down biases is a gradual one: so far we’ve covered somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 words in the updates, and that’s about half the length of an average novel in one part of Act 1 alone. But this and other scenes like it are designed to overwhelm bias with sheer weight of experience. Eventually that friction wears biases down so far the reader’s mind starts to change. I want to draw attention to part of another scene: Falconier111 posted:
The presentation was pretty clunky and I probably could have portrayed it better, but I wanted to draw attention to this moment as one of the most important in the LP so far. Hisao’s been immersed in this environment for the better part of a week now. He’s spent time with half a dozen different people who have wildly divergent personalities but all feel little to no angst over their disabilities. Hell, earlier in this scene Emi’s like “they put me and Rin together so we could add up our limbs  ”. He has this revelation, something kind of profound, in completely mundane circumstances next to Emi as she horfs down her food. This is the point where that cognitive friction finally wears Hisao down enough to open his mind. Earlier, his continual denial of his condition backfires during his run and nearly gives him a heart attack, forcing the Nurse and Mutou to spend time beating it into his head that he can’t avoid it anymore. Then, while he’s still recovering from that psychologically, he sits down with Emi and Rin, two very different people with very different personalities enjoying each other’s company and who cast his choices in stark relief: he can either deny his condition and have heart attacks, or accept it like they have and spend time with two people you can date. The choice is pretty obvious and drives the point home. It also complements a bit of quiet brilliance that I’m not sure the devs intended, though I really hope they did. You know how Emi’s route is both the easiest to stumble into and overwrites most other routes? Almost every first-time player not dedicated enough to beeline it for another character or using a guide will probably stumble into her route, get chewed out, and run into this scene. This lesson, the contrast between those two options, will be one of the first things the game drills into their head. Even if they realize they got Emi’s route and go back and restart the game, they’ve already been through those scenes and hopefully absorbed that point – and that will change the way they perceive the game and the characters.Of course, not everybody will get the hint. If you don’t absorb the lessons the game is trying to teach you, you’ll get the Bad Ending for Act 1. Every route, by the way, has at least a Good and Bad Ending, and sometimes a mediocre Neutral Ending. I will only ever cover the Good Endings because a) we are dealing with an insane amount of text already, I’m not adding like 40,000 more words at least to that count b) I need to leave SOMETHING for people to discover when they play the game themselves and c) I deal enough with disability-related unsolvable issues at work, I’m not piling more of that on myself unless I have to. However, each route will end with an analysis, and during that analysis I’ll talk about the Bad/Neutral Endings and what they mean in abstract. Once I finish a route, you can freely discuss all of its endings or any content in the route I skipped over or missed. Don’t even bother with spoiler tags; I’ll be dissecting them in the analysis anyway, so there’s no sense in hiding things. The only place this doesn’t apply is parts of Act 1 I haven’t been through or described. I recommend playing the game on your own so you can actually read those endings, but if you don’t care to or can’t for whatever reason, I’ll cover what happens and what it means. Like so! If you manage to isolate yourself, insult others, or refuse to commit to any course of action, you’ll end up spending the school festival with Kenji on the roof of the school building, getting drunk with him at his “manly picnic”. You sink into nihilism, lose your balance, and fall off, dying. Yeah, I think this is the only way you can die in the game with one possible exception, but we’ll see when we get there. I hear a lot of players actually struggle with this, getting the Bad Ending by picking the options they’d take if they were in those situations. Fighting that impulse is the point. Well, mostly. I mean, let’s be honest, most of the people playing this game are awkward nerds who struggle to socialize anyway, so they may end up shoehorned into the manly picnic even if they otherwise wouldn’t make such obviously terrible decisions. The devs didn’t quite stick the landing on that one. What they were shooting for was Hisao combating his isolation. He was thrown into a situation different from anything he’d experienced before, even though parts of it were familiar. He could have kept his distance easily enough. But thematically, that parallels him denying his disability and disability in general, which is exactly what the game is trying to combat. Engaging with his new condition is equated to engaging with the people in his new school, and failing to reach out to them means failing to come to terms with his heart condition. And let’s be blunt, not doing so will kill him. Even if he didn’t die at the manly picnic, if he ignores his disability, eventually he’ll stumble into a situation his heart can’t cope with sooner rather than later. He might do that anyway even if he DOES start working with it, but denial will shorten his life. Refusing to accept responsibility for himself as he currently is, the sort of thing the first part of this post touched on, will backfire. That’s the message this part of the game is shooting for: you cannot ignore or dismiss disability. It doesn’t have to dominate your life, and in fact with some adjustment it won’t, but refusing to come to terms with it will only lead to tears. And that reflects on the player; in order to avoid the Bad Ending, they have to engage with the message of acceptance the game keeps bringing up. If I had to pin down that message, I’d put it like this: you cannot approach disabilities from an ableist perspective, dehumanizing those who have them or denying its presence; you have to approach them realistically, as things that really do affect people but do not determine who they are or how they live outside of how those disabilities directly affect them. That’s a deep, nuanced perspective that even a decade later many activist groups have failed to grasp. The dominant agenda among most groups in the disability activism field, as it has been since before this game was released, mixes evoking pity with trying to prove our value to wider society. While that’s better than, like, eugenics, it’s quietly dehumanizing in its own way: instead of assuming that our lives have value because we are living human beings, it implies the most important thing about us is how we contribute to society and makes us objects of pity, worth less than fully functional humans because we have to prove our right to exist. That puts KS ahead of the game by an almost shocking margin. That is why I care about this game on a philosophical level. That’s why I said all the way back in the OP that it was one of the best representations of disability ever released to a wider audience. It takes an evenhanded, sensitive approach to our lives that very little else ever does, and I’ll never stop being grateful for that. Of course, I also care about this game for its characters, which… Brings up a thorny topic. See, there’s a long-running debate in the community about the presumed sexlessness of disability, where abled people view disabled people as either so unattractive/dysfunctional that entering a relationship with them is a sacrifice or as objects of perverse lust. I have actually seen someone look at a person in a wheelchair, turn to their spouse, and say “wow, you’re so brave” to their faces. Hell, I had to step back and untangle my own feelings on the subject when I entered my first relationship. That sort of desexualization dehumanizes us further, cuts us off from other people, and quietly dovetails with eugenics (it makes sure we don’t reproduce), which, uh, yeah, that’s worth opposing. On the other hand, we are talking about sex, and even though the characters are all canonically 18 there’s still a creepo factor there. I originally planned on skipping this game’s sex scenes entirely in line with SA LP standard practice, but the more I think about it, the more I feel not addressing the sexlessness issue runs against the whole drive of this LP – it is, after all, skipping over a fundamental part of what it’s like to live as a disabled person because reading about it makes people uncomfortable. Which is a really blunt way of putting it, but it’s true. I want to poll the thread on how to handle this.
 Vote ends in 48 hours I still have plenty more to say, but that can wait for after we start finishing routes. I’ll be looping back to parts of Act 1 every time we start a new one, but for now, it’s time we leave it behind and start running through Emi’s story. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 19:03
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Limited or Clear. If there's some importance to the sex scenes beyond allowing you to jack off then you should talk about it.
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Jun 18, 2021 20:15
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Falconier111 posted:Most readers will immediately notice this scene features a blind girl facing off against a deaf girl. Many readers will also leap to the conclusion that their disabilities play a role in that rivalry. Hmm. I'll admit, part of my reaction to that scene is "wow, Shizune's really putting Lilly in a rough position here, arguing with someone she can't see and can only hear through an interpreter." That's... not exactly the same kind of thing you're talking about, but it's still parsing the argument in terms of their disabilities, rather than the personality clash. I'll have to think about that a bit more. Anyway, I'll vote for Keep it limited. I only ever played the demo so I'm blind past this point, but I'll trust your judgement.
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Jun 18, 2021 20:33
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I vote to keep it limited. I'm assuming we're all adults here and can handle it, and some parts of those scenes tie into the broader overarching narrative of each route, but at the same time, there are some moments that are best left summarized. Also, one note about the "manly picnic" is that it's the scene where Kenji explains the origin of his weird conspiracy theory. It's literally just this scene from Dr. Strangelove. It really hammers home that not even the writers were really taking Kenji all that seriously when writing Act 1. Just a bunch of jokey-jokes about a certain strain of Extremely Online types.
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Jun 18, 2021 20:34
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Limited or clear seems good to me.
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Jun 18, 2021 21:05
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Limited.
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Jun 18, 2021 21:22
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Limited or Clear. Something I really like about KS is how it integrates character stuff into the sex scenes so they don't feel shoehorned in for the sake of just having tits in the game, so I'd like to see that showed off in some capacity.
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Jun 18, 2021 21:33
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Clear I remember several of them being rather cute and well written, they should be included! edit - also, re: the manly picnic: is it bad that my memories of that ending wasn't that hisao lost his balance, but that kenji pushed him off because he was drunk and paranoid about hisao being a "feminine secret agent" or whatever? That's not what happens, but my brain remembered kenji as being that much of a little creep. Blaziken386 fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jun 18, 2021 |
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Jun 18, 2021 22:00
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Blaziken386 posted:Clear I think we're in it for the full experience, so it's a Clear from me too.
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Jun 18, 2021 22:11
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Clear It seems like sexual encounters might be important emotional events, and I feel like just a synopsis wouldn't do justice to this game's writing.
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Jun 18, 2021 22:26
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Why not Clear and Limited? Do the Limited thing, but then include a tl;dr (too lewd; didn't read) with the brief summary of Clear.
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Jun 18, 2021 22:29
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Clear. You've got a lot of faith in this game's writing, it'd be foolish to bowdlerize that.
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Jun 18, 2021 22:52
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