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Falconier111 posted:Also, this is by far the most civil the thread’s been while discussing Kenji. Let’s see if we can keep it going for now! Ack. I forgot Kenji was verboten. Apologies.
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Nov 6, 2021 01:22
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Cobalt-60 posted:Between Jigoro, Kenji, and even Shizune (YOU ARE DATING, TRY TO ACT LIKE YOU'RE AT LEAST SLIGHTLY AFFECTIONATE TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER), I'm skimming a lot of text in the playthrough. Seriously, the other routes wre enough to keep me up late playing and even bring warmth to my cold dead heart, but this is just...a chore. Agreed....though I can appreciate that Shizune is more complicated than she appears, given the stellar person Jigoro is (how Yamaku hasn't clearly had *words* for that one given the nature of his negligence and utter batshit, I cannot see...this is a social services issue of the highest order.) I find myself...a bit pulled distant. No offense to Falconier, who is doing an excellent job with all of this. The route itself feels like it has so many pitfalls that we could rabbithole ourselves down that it felt more comfortable to back away. I'm glad Misha has found something for herself and allowing herself to differentiate and disassociate (a problem even professional interpreters experience) I will say that I understand why Shizune feels the need to prove herself at every opprotunity...but I just can't help but feel like the only thing in this route that isn't toxic is Hisao.
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Nov 6, 2021 02:47
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Sometimes toxic makes for a good read at least, even if you wouldn't like it IRL.
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Nov 6, 2021 02:52
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True. Problematic media for interest is absolutely a thing-I haven't done that in some time, honestly, given work. However, we're talking about something, as someone who works in a social work field, that I have experienced and will experience probably again in the future-specificially the parent problem, but all of these have a aspect in my experiences. It doesn't trigger anything...but it does concern me, because it is basically something that is being used to show an issue, but that the method out of it or to grow forward is to accept the person's clear abuses and enjoy some physical play? I have a good friend-my best actually-who is very much into the appeal of (clearly fantastical) co-dependency. On some level, I understand why-there's some sense of value in someone who loves you unconditionally and without coveat. She has made it very clear that 'growth' and 'communication' is not a part of those interests. With this route, the feelings are there and the motives are there...but what I see is "This situation is very problematic on Shizune's side of things...because she has a problematic home situation, no doubt, but she still is causing a lot of harm more than good. Am I glad she's aware of that? YES. Do I think she needs to do more? Absolutely. Do I expect that she will? Well, optimism is part of the job, but.."
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Nov 6, 2021 03:16
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Cobalt-60 posted:(YOU ARE DATING, TRY TO ACT LIKE YOU'RE AT LEAST SLIGHTLY AFFECTIONATE TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER) This. A thousand times this. There's no physical contact (even something as simple as touching their legs together under the table or holding hands or sitting back to back or side by side), there's no flirting, there's just... nothing. And even if you have Shizune's extremely problematic home life on one side, Hisao isn't initiating anything either, and doesn't even take the opportunity to go to dinner with his girlfriend.
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Nov 6, 2021 04:20
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Dirk the Average posted:This. A thousand times this. There's no physical contact (even something as simple as touching their legs together under the table or holding hands or sitting back to back or side by side), there's no flirting, there's just... nothing. And even if you have Shizune's extremely problematic home life on one side, Hisao isn't initiating anything either, and doesn't even take the opportunity to go to dinner with his girlfriend. The ARE at least spending the bulk of their free time working on Student Council poo poo together; they probably don’t do much because they don’t have time to do much, and they spend so much time together it isn’t shocking they don’t set aside additional time as well. Also, how much physical affection was Emi portrayed as showing? We may be bumping into an issue with the medium here, too. It does feel like Shizune’s writer had no idea how to write a romance and compensated by not writing one.
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Nov 6, 2021 04:54
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Falconier111 posted:The ARE at least spending the bulk of their free time working on Student Council poo poo together; they probably don’t do much because they don’t have time to do much, and they spend so much time together it isn’t shocking they don’t set aside additional time as well. Also, how much physical affection was Emi portrayed as showing? We may be bumping into an issue with the medium here, too. It does feel like Shizune’s writer had no idea how to write a romance and compensated by not writing one. Just went back and checked, and Emi frequently is shown to be kissing and hugging Hisao in Update 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, etc. (even outside of the NSFW scenes). Kissing, hugging, and flirting are incredibly common interactions for them. Granted, Emi is a very physical person, so that tracks.
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Nov 6, 2021 05:11
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It's definitely a dynamic I've seen IRL and frankly very realistic to some of the HS couples I knew - they start officially dating and nobody really knows what that means or comes from an affectionate family so they're 90%+ of the time the same as friends, just with more of a monopoly on each other's time. However a lot of the fun of fiction is to see things that are heightened from reality, not merely believable. I don't think this is nearly the worst fiction I've read even this week, but it's jarringly weaker than the Emi and Hanako routes. A pretty big example of this just kind of not having gotten the love of other routes: Kenji hanging around like grim death. He's got a narrative function - to provide a push of "no you really don't want to be the guy in the dating sim who doesn't date" to accompany the "pull" of other characters being interesting to see Hisao date - but that function is massively shot past in this route and his scenes have become just big "why is this here" moments. If there was some obvious way in which he was a foil to Shizune that would be one thing, but Misha and Lilly are the actual foils, not Kenji, so what the heck.
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Nov 6, 2021 06:56
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A lot of folks have touched on issues in the route, and while I have some different takes on a small few things there's one thing that hasn't been brought up I wanted to mention. Misha is 100% crushing on Hisao, right? I'm not crazy for thinking this? She has: -Cut her hair into a similar style as Shizune's. To add to that, off the top of my head, she still has her twintails in the other routes during the acts she has shown up past the point she cut them in this route. -She is currently in a fight with her best friend. This is not to say it is specifically about Hisao, but the friction of watching your best friend date the person you're hard crushing probably caused the stress that got them into the fight with Shizune. -She hauled Hisao out on a date(?) to get a parfait, which following anime romance tropes is somewhat of a date food. Especially since she offers to share it with Hisao. -Hisao has shown a demonstrated interest in the subject matter of her own big interest. Shared interests are a big draw! -This one is a bit more out there but at the end of the Act with the zoom in on Shizune and Hisao watching the fireworks at the end of the school festival and the shot of Misha watching them through the door on the roof always put me in the mind of Misha having some resentment/mixed feelings on seeing the two of them like that. On top of all while I have some gripes with how Hisao written sometimes, he's still a decent enough guy (with his own issues) that I understand why the girls from each route would become interested in him. This extends even to the girls that aren't targets of the route, hence why I find it so believable that Misha might have started crushing on him after having been in such close contact for a while. There's a bunch of other small things that I can't point out off the top of my head since it's been a while since I read them, but I just wanted to check if I was maybe overanylzing it or something. Feel free to call me crazy about this.
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Nov 6, 2021 12:15
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Evil Kit posted:Misha is 100% crushing on Hisao, right? I'm not crazy for thinking this? She has: That is a good take. Though a lot of her behaviour could also be put down to her struggling to process the reality of her BFF suddenly acquiring a boyfriend. Also, there are bits of Shizune and Misha's history that have yet to be revealed.
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Nov 6, 2021 12:53
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Disability Corner: Komi-san Can’t Communicate I’m willing to bet at least a few of you remember that wave of autism self-diagnoses that swept the Internet several years back; for a while, it seemed like every awkward misfit who struggled to connect with other people announced they were on the spectrum. The resulting backlash was, looking back, disproportionate and honestly driven much more by cringe culture and ableism than logic, but it was a hot-button issue for a time. Apparently, something similar’s happening in Japan right now, where kids describe themselves to each other as having a “communication disorder”. What exactly a communication disorder is in this context isn’t clear to me; at least in Western usage, communication disorders describe specific issues in forming or expressing language rather than the general communications issues I found mentioned in English discussions of the subject (most of which seemed convinced it’s just a Japanese euphemism for autism). I have a sneaking suspicion it’s one of those things where similar conditions manifest differently in different cultures, so attempts to slap a precise definition on it might end up tripping over their own assumptions and falling flat in their face. Whatever’s actually going on, it’s an ongoing cultural phenomenon, enough to leak into manga. (From here on out will be minor spoilers; I can’t talk about what I want to talk about without going into how the plot shakes out. Read lightly or skip to in the next post if you don’t want to spoil yourself, though this thing has too many character arcs for me to spoil them all in like five pages.) .png) Komi-san wa Comyushō Desu features as a protagonist a prep school student so beautiful the whole school worships the ground she walks on. She never interacts much with anyone, but that just adds to her allure; it makes her seem untouchable, almost supernatural, and the whole school eats it up. When the class holds elections at the start of the year, they immediately proclaim her president without her even entering the running; her friends deflect the nomination by declaring she deserves a higher title, which the class unanimously agrees to and declares her class goddess. .png) They did that for her because she’s actually a huge dork scared shitless of the spotlight. See, her name is Komi Shouko. Change that to komiushouko and you get a phrase that means “communication disorder girl”, which is the core of her characterization. Whatever that term actually means, with Komi it means such severe social anxiety she’s developed a bad case of selective mutism. That aloofness? Nearly every time someone around her sees her as otherworldly or untouchable, her internal monologue shows she wants to get involved and participate but chokes on her own anxiety. She doesn’t speak a word until like the second volume, resorting to writing her thoughts down on a notepad and hiding behind it; even when she does speak, she limits it to a few sentences most translations render in all lowercase. .png) Our other protagonist, Tadano Hitohito (“ordinary guy”), is so painfully middle-of-the-road it beggars belief. This is a guy whose height, weight, appearance, and test scores are all exactly average. At one point, one girl’s friends gather around a picture of him and several classmates to determine which one is her crush. His name doesn’t even come up because he looks so boring. He really doesn’t want to stick out. At first. Except he’s apparently capable of telepathy, since by volume 2 he has Komi so figured out he can have conversations with her by reading her mood, and she’s not the only one he does this for. It throws him into the heart of the story. .png) As you can probably guess, the bulk of the manga revolves around their relationship, but we do get a sort of tritagonist in Osana Najimi (“childhood friend”, as any good weeb will tell you, which goes to show how lazy some of these puns are). Najimi is everyone’s childhood friend, so much so they’re on first-name basis with every student we see (unusual by Japanese standards) and can hold conversations with eight people at once. They’re heavily implied to be nonbinary; while they do identify as male at one point, they take pride in blurring gender lines, consistently crossdressing and blending in equally with male, female, and mixed-gender crowds. No one ever judges them negatively for this, it’s just approached as a character quirk. They’re also the best, because they are a huge troll. Half their screentime is devoted to them punking their friends or organizing dumb games for them to play; they’re at least partially aware they live in a gag manga and absolutely love it. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have some depth. Najimi is a skilled manipulator who tempers their desire to gently caress with people with a genuine care for their well-being, using their astonishing communication skills to rig up encounters or social events just to forward their relationships. You wouldn’t think the childhood friend character archetype would map well to someone that plays people against each other for their own good, but it’s a natural outgrowth of what you’d expect from someone who could genuinely and happily be everyone’s childhood friend – and that’s how Komi-san works. .png) Instead of relying on predetermined plot beats or relationships to keep the story moving, the author extrapolates personalities from dirt-simple puns, sets up situations, and lets the dominoes fall. For instance, one character is named Ase Shibuki (“Sweats Like A Pig”). That’s her thing, she’s really sweaty. So where do you go with that? The author builds her into a nice girl whose self-esteem has been worn down by years of excessive sweating leaving her constantly low-key humiliated. Ase also has a friend named Isagi Kiyoko (“Clean Freak”). I mean, you COULD just make are obsessed with cleaning or something, but that’s kind of boring. So the author makes her fastidious about everything. She’s diligent, dedicated, and driven by a strong moral code: to her, untidiness is disgusting, misbehavior is worse, and human suffering is worst of all. She sees all of those as different kinds of filth she feels compelled to clean up, even in herself. So to bounce them off each other, the author portrays them as childhood friends who grew apart after Ase touched Isagi with her sweaty hands and she reacted very badly. Ase forgave her when she apologized but internalized it, and Isagi never forgave herself for lashing out like that and pushed her away. Them processing their mutual past forms the emotional core of an entire arc; Isagi runs for class president on a platform of improving the school, only to face both the disappointing legacy of her predecessors and her own failings, culminating in the two hashing out their differences. At another point, Ase’s classmate Naruse Shisuto (“Narcissist”) gets swept out to sea while grandstanding on a beach visit with their friends. He makes it out safe, but has to spend some time recovering – time he spends with Ase, who connects with his embarrassment as someone who feels embarrassed by existing. Naruse, too used to ignoring his own flaws to even notice hers, bonds with her, and they soon become love interests. Except after they make up, Isagi takes issue with Naruse’s attitude (at one point he gets kicked out of the library literally because his personality was too loud) and somehow always shows up to prevent any… Questionable behavior. This all gets played for comedy, but it adds an emotional resonance that lifts it above the gags. .png) This format also makes setting up new situations or changing things up easy and frequent because all it takes is rotating characters into the spotlight; their quirks are simple, memorable and lead logically to their decisions, making bringing in different personalities to bring out different aspects of the main characters simple. The manga focuses on Komi and Tadano’s evolving relationship, but that relationship exists in the context of the people around them. While it never goes away, getting a handle on her anxiety is a group project that involves most of her classmates, each with their own quirk and personality, bonding with her in some fashion. It makes for a potent ensemble cast that sticks in your head while taking a backseat to the core story arc whenever it comes forward. But that’s not why you’re here, so let’s talk disability. .png) I wasn’t kidding when I said she never gets over her anxiety. The manga plays fast and loose with the definition of “communication disorder”, has a nasty habit of implying disorders come from childhood trauma, and uses neurodivergent-coded behavior as a source of jokes (no more than any other kind of behavior, but still). But it does get the trajectory of neurodivergent personality development pretty right. The manga establishes and emphasizes from Chapter 1 on that a communication disorder does NOT mean a person doesn’t want to communicate, just that they struggle to do so – and that viewpoint is very important to remember when talking about how a disability affects a person’s life. In the 300+ chapters and two-and-a-bit in-universe years this thing’s been running, Komi’s gone from completely silent even around her family to talking with acquaintances by writing in a notebook and chatting with her friends in a whisper. At no point is her progress presented as inevitable or something performed by others; she inexplicably manifests cat ears every time she resolves to push her comfort zone, which happens at least every couple chapters. Her growing friend group offers her support, yeah, but she’s the one who takes initiative, and we’ve talked about how vital having control over their life is for a disabled person. .png) While the manga milks her shyness, anxiety, and inability to speak for jokes, she’s not treated as inherently weirder than the rest of the cast – hell, compared to classmates like Gets Involved in Other People’s Emotions, Likes Summer Uniforms, Obsessed with Graduation Ceremonies, and Likes Boobs, her anxiety and self-doubt reads as relatable. It even plays her condition for tragedy sometimes, albeit with a comedic tinge; she’s never needed a phone before, not having anyone to call, so after she gets her first she sits around listening to ringtones because she has no idea what else to do with it, then excitedly mimes having a phone conversation before panicking when she accidentally dials Tadano. Honestly, she reminds me a LOT of Hanako. They share complexes about their appearance and a specific kind of relative boldness; their comfort zones may be very small, but they’re a hell of a lot more enthusiastic about pushing them than most. Even people who take pride in pushing their comfort zones often only do it in specific ways they’re used to, doing increasingly wild or dangerous things instead of risking boredom; Komi and Hanako regularly face down stuff that leaves them literally shaking, then pop back up and keep going. It’s very human, and very admirable. They both exploit the “respectable protectable” instinct I talked about earlier to great effect. .png) As time goes on, we get to meet Komi’s family. Her mom is perky, cheerful, and outgoing; she enthusiastically introduces herself to her daughter’s friends as “eternally 17”. Komi’s father and brother are both as silent as she is. Her brother is frankly kind of a dickbag, but I want to focus on her parents, her dad particularly - not only does he still have intense social anxiety in line with that of his kids into adulthood (which lines up with a lot of people’s experiences), but his life is happy, stable, and successful in spite of that. While their family dynamics act as springboards for jokes, we’re talking things like “Komi and her dad decide to go out for shaved ice by staring at each other” and “Tadano can read the men in her family as well as he reads Komi” and “her mom and dad still fawn over each other despite having been married long enough to put their kids into high school”. That last one deserves extra coverage, because the author sets aside several chapters for flashbacks to when they fell in love. The two were very different people from Tadano and Komi and their relationship developed in different ways, but her father’s social anxiety still features as a factor. A relatively minor one, one mostly used to squeeze comedy out of the situation instead of implying the two may not be right for each other. God knows they’re still in love at least 15 years later with no roadbumps in sight. We just covered in the last disability corner how overwhelmingly rare relationships like this are in media. This doesn’t happen! .png) There’s plenty more I could talk about here. Like, at one point they introduce Katai Makoto (“hardliner”), a huge, dangerous-looking mound of muscle with a gravelly voice who’s actually just as kind and timid as Komi: less intimidatingly attractive and more just intimidating. Dude has everything he stutters out come out sounding like a death threat. This trait, too, is shared by his relatives, and at one point we get his entire extended family, all of whom look like Yakuza, sitting around a table utterly terrified of each other  . Once again, we see it passed down through the family instead of it being some kind of personal failure..png) And Isagi Kiyoko, who I mentioned above, is one of the most interesting characters in the manga, and it’s a testament to how evergreen it is that she doesn’t get introduced until chapter 192. She can get pretty hardcore when she tries to hold other people to her standards, interrupting “illicit relationships” between students by wielding one of those comedy accordion squeaky hammers like loving Musashi, but she’s consistently shown to be responsible, caring, and a natural leader who deserves her job. She’s also a dead ringer for autism and NOT in the way you see in Western media. Something you won’t find in scientific studies or lovely sitcoms but do find in many real autistic people is a deeply humanitarian but deeply rigid code of honor, something Isagi practically embodies. This is a girl who cringes and physically shakes when she makes physical contact with another person, but she forces herself to hug classmates when she judges they need real comfort. At one point, Komi catches her stalking Ase and Naruse and confronts her about it, eventually managing to ask her if she trusts her best friend’s judgment; Isagi just stops, gets up, gives the squeaky hammer to Ase, and leaves. Every time the author introduces an element that calls into question (she didn’t have any problem with dirt before fifth grade), he introduces several others that back it up (she refuses to eat food she hasn’t prepared, her face is so expressionless it scares off people trying to bully her classmates). The tics, the loudness, the rudeness, the stereotyped speech and special interests, all the hallmarks and stereotypes that follow autistic people in Western media like the plague are gone, replaced with something that seems awful familiar from the other side. Like, look. I like to speculate on whether a given character is autistic or not. It almost never actually pans out (Entrapta and Symmetra are the only ones who got any kind of payoff there) and there’s probably a lot of projection involved. I know, and I don’t really care. But we are talking about a manga with a neurodivergent protagonist named Neurodivergent Protagonist here, so I’m genuinely unsure how intentional the similarity is. I can tell you that, in line with the rest of the humor it uses, the manga never judges or condemns her behavior, making her exactly as comically strange as the rest of the cast. People frequently make noises about equal treatment, but often that boils down to idealizing us like we’re in some 90s special instead of letting us be ordinary, flawed people. Seeing somebody actually follow through on that, intentional or not, is an unexpected pleasure.  Speaking of unexpected pleasures, Komi-san recently got adapted both into a live-action drama and an anime, the latter of which already has a few episodes up on Netflix at time of writing. I went and watched them. The production values are sky high: the animation beats out most of the anime I’ve seen in the last few years both in framerate and quality, with some real visual creativity on display. The manga stylistically sets itself apart by both working in constant sarcastic commentary boxes to make character motivations clear when they don’t line up with their behavior (very useful for these characters) and by drawing faces exaggerated like Junji Ito when the emotions ARE clear. Instead of copying or suppressing those quirks, the anime elaborates on them, turning the commentary into flowing curtains of characters or flashing text boxes and punctuating facial transformations with impeccable comedic timing; we end up with a sort of comic-augmented animation philosophically similar to what they did in Into the Spiderverse, and that’s high praise indeed. You don’t get product like this unless the people behind it are both very creative and very experienced. The music is only good instead of great, but the sound design and voice acting specially are top-notch; they managed to net Koga Aoi to voice Komi, and that kind of talent doesn’t come cheap. They even found writers who could build on the original without obscuring it, tightening the scene structure and making Komi stutter more to show off Koga’s skill at emoting through random noises. Somebody with a great deal of experience and a great deal of influence is very, very confident this anime will make them real money and they invested in it appropriately. But even though the anime’s pulled back a bit on talking about communication disorders, it still presents Komi like a textbook case of an anxiety disorder and if anything spends even more time driving home that people like her both genuinely struggle with and genuinely want to form relationships – and that’s not the sort of emphasis you get in something milking a disability for kicks. Edit from long after this post went up: Komi-San went on to be one of the hit anime of the season, pulling in accolades and getting greenlit for a second season before it wrapped up. Perfection. I haven’t been able to find much on Oda Tomohito, the mangaka behind Komi-san Can’t Communicate. Apparently he’s male, married, and has a child; his wife is also a mangaka, one who does a lot of yuri. While there may be more biographical information on him out there, I doubt it’s in English. His Twitter page seems entirely devoted to Komi-san (at least as far as Google Translate is concerned), and he has no other social media; I couldn’t even find any press releases or interviews aside from a video of him sketching with a few softball questions thrown in (Komi’s personality is partly based on his wife’s). I don’t know if he’s disabled himself, though some other things he said in the “interview” and his reticence to engage the public hints he might be. But really, given the end product, I’m not inclined to care. I routinely and heavily emphasize how important it is to put disabled creators in charge of creating stuff about disabled people, but as KS itself shows, it is possible to do us good by being sensitive and intelligent. It’s just that that’s vanishingly rare. But whoever Oda Tomohito is and whatever he brings to the table, I think he did good by us here. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Mar 29, 2022 |
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Nov 6, 2021 17:22
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Tbf, that wave of autism self-diagnoses got me to really question if I was on the spectrum. But I'm still afraid to join any autism communities because I dont have an official diagnosis and people might get mad.
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Nov 6, 2021 20:32
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For what it's worth, speaking from my own experience and research, autistic people in general are going to be more likely to accept what people say about themselves without requiring proof, in more areas than just position on the spectrum. There's science behind it, but our ethics tend to be a lot more significant to us than the ethics of neurotypical people. I have to take ethics training for my job far more than seems necessary, but apparently, many people need to have negative consequences to discourage unethical behavior, and need to be reminded of those consequences regularly. If I'm told that I'm not supposed to do something, I don't do it, regardless of whether there's an external consequence. About all I get from the training is a list of what those things are, which never changes, and since I don't have personal motives for the things I do anyway, I have to ask a lot more questions about whether the things I want to do are ethical regardless of the training. I have no idea how an objective observer is going to interpret anything I do. So, to get back to the point, a proper community of autistic people is more likely to welcome you than you might expect, and if you find one that doesn't, it's a community you're better off not joining.
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Nov 6, 2021 21:33
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I don't believe people who tell me they think they're autistic but haven't gotten a test. And I strongly dislike people who tell me that they think someone else they know is autistic, and that's happened to me more than a few times.
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Nov 6, 2021 21:52
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Dance Officer posted:I don't believe people who tell me they think they're autistic but haven't gotten a test. And I strongly dislike people who tell me that they think someone else they know is autistic, and that's happened to me more than a few times. That last one is loving awful, that’s not their thing to tell and it says nothing good about them that they’re willing to spill info that could lead to discrimination in casual conversation. That said, I have sympathy for people who haven’t been tested because those tests can be really loving expensive. I’ve heard of price tags in the thousands for something that’s ultimately of dubious use other than granting peace of mind, and we’re talking about a demographic with sky-high unemployment rates and little coverage. Really, I highly recommend this article on the ethics and issues around self-diagnosis, it lays out why I’m neutral-to-positive on the subject.
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Nov 6, 2021 22:10
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I suppose I'm in a fortunate position, in that I live in a country in which you can get a diagnosis without breaking the bank, or even for free, depending on your situation.
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Nov 6, 2021 22:23
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Dance Officer posted:I suppose I'm in a fortunate position, in that I live in a country in which you can get a diagnosis without breaking the bank, or even for free, depending on your situation. Are you in a country where getting a diagnosis is guaranteed to come without a stigma at any point after that?
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Nov 6, 2021 22:25
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I'm personally in a situation I find to be a little weird with it comes to this. I never went out looking for a diagnosis or tried to test on whether I had autism/Asperger's. Instead, I was told by my parents when I was 14. I was also told in the middle of an episode of Big Bang Theory using Sheldon as an example, which probably wasn't the best time to tell someone that. Or the best example to use, but that's another story entirely. That being said, I'm not entirely sure if I was tested or not. In middle school, I was pulled out of class multiple times and tested by a few different people. They weren't teachers I recognized, but maybe they were guidance counselors? I'm still not sure, and it's been over 15 years since then so I doubt my parents remember either. But I was asked several questions involving memory and personal questions. I remember that one of them was how to make chocolate chip cookies and I recited the recipe found on the back of Tollhouse chocolate chip bags because that's the one we always used at home. The woman was surprised and said that most of the time, she got responses that said 'take cookie dough out of fridge, slice, and bake'. I thought it was funny that people didn't make cookies from scratch. Regardless, at the time I thought it was related to potentially bumping me up a grade as there was a year in middle school where I basically coasted because I had learned all that information the previous year due to a move. Thinking back, it's possible that one of these tests was to see if I was on the spectrum, but I can't be sure. I've used the Asperger's label for a few years, but I rarely spoke about it to people outside my family or close friends. I've rarely had to, since I'm apparently considered 'high-functioning'. I've mostly just been calling myself 'neuroatypical' since it feels safer and I'm definitely different from my neurotypical sister and family. That being said, I've found it difficult to talk about this even in forums like this because I'm aware of how lucky I am. I come from privilege and it makes things like this very different. I'm a cis-female, but I'm also white. My parents have solid jobs and were the ones who pushed for a diagnosis. I had therapy through most of middle school and all throughout high school, which definitely made things easier for me in the long run. I was able to graduate college and have had steady employment after graduation in various jobs. I can afford my own home and unlike a lot of people, I was lucky enough not to have to apply for unemployment during the COVID pandemic. If I do need to return to therapy for some reason, I'll be able to afford it. I'm incredibly lucky. And I'm afraid that if I talk about how I'm neuroatypical to people, they'll see me as a success story even though everything that makes me a success story is because of who my parents are. That any complaining I do feels wrong because I know how much worse other people have and me talking takes away from that. Sorry that this turned into a bit of a rant here.
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Nov 6, 2021 22:36
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One of my therapists leaned on autism when it came to discussing anything but autism. Whatever mental health issue I thought I had, the response was "Well, I'm pretty sure you're autistic, so that's why your brain works that way." But if it came to testing for autism, "we don't need to do that, there's really no point." There have been a few indicators of autism that I read about, thought myself fortunate that I'd never experienced them, and then experienced them. Another type of training I have to do for my job that seems pretty pointless is maintaining a wall full of certifications, all of which have way too many requirements for continuing education. I've never felt like I knew anything more when I finished a training course than when I started, and if I didn't have to do them to keep my job, I wouldn't. And I've been campaigning to have some of the requirements lifted, if only so I can have time to do my actual job. I see a professional autism diagnosis as the same thing. It won't give me anything I don't already know, so if there's nobody requiring that I hang the certificate on my wall, there's no point.
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Nov 6, 2021 23:17
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I'm kind of in the reverse boat in that my parents (...mostly my mom) diagnosed me with autism when I was younger (around ages 9-11) because it was the easiest way for her to write off the fact that I didn't have many friends and preferred to spend all my time reading books, listening to music, or watching movies tv/shows rather than, like. playing outside by myself. It was easier for her to go 'oh he's a weird child because he's autistic' rather than examine how I was being raised (which is a can of worms I don't want to get into, sorry) or the fact that living 30+ min outside of town with the nearest neighbors being a 10+ min walk away meant I had nobody to socialize with  By the time I was 15 I ended up going to an actual psychologist (for other reasons) and when I told them what she'd been diagnosing me with they shot that down immediately lmao (...and then diagnosed me with c-PTSD, which explained a lot more things, lol). To this day she still keeps books about 'raising and engaging with your autistic child' on her shelves and any time I ever tried to broach the fact she's treating me weirdly because she thinks I'm autistic she just rolls her eyes and writes it off as, like. self-loathing or whatever. Which is a hosed situation to be in as someone in their late 20s, but, well, that's why I don't talk to my parents much anymore edit: also in light of how the conversation's going i feel like i should mention i have no issue with self-diagnosis when it comes to stuff like this that doctors/psychs are historically unbalanced about diagnosing (considering how many women go un-diagnosed bc of weird sexist biases, etc.), i just have a weird perspective as a person who was diagnosed by a parent with a thing that was explicitly disproven by later therapy/psychiatric people Mix. fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Nov 6, 2021 23:28
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Dance Officer posted:I don't believe people who tell me they think they're autistic but haven't gotten a test. And I strongly dislike people who tell me that they think someone else they know is autistic, and that's happened to me more than a few times. Tbf I was labelled with NVLD as a kid by a professional, so I'm neuroatypical in some way. I can mask it better now (maybe not the right word) because I'm an adult/have learned coping skills.
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Nov 7, 2021 00:36
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Dance Officer posted:I don't believe people who tell me they think they're autistic but haven't gotten a test. And I strongly dislike people who tell me that they think someone else they know is autistic, and that's happened to me more than a few times. As someone who's not formally diagnosed because my mother actively rejected getting me a diagnosis as a kid, gently caress you. I'm autistic and I'm self-diagnosed about it and you can disbelieve me all you want but that's what I am.
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Nov 7, 2021 12:57
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Nidoking posted:One of my therapists leaned on autism when it came to discussing anything but autism. Whatever mental health issue I thought I had, the response was "Well, I'm pretty sure you're autistic, so that's why your brain works that way." But if it came to testing for autism, "we don't need to do that, there's really no point." There have been a few indicators of autism that I read about, thought myself fortunate that I'd never experienced them, and then experienced them. Another type of training I have to do for my job that seems pretty pointless is maintaining a wall full of certifications, all of which have way too many requirements for continuing education. I've never felt like I knew anything more when I finished a training course than when I started, and if I didn't have to do them to keep my job, I wouldn't. And I've been campaigning to have some of the requirements lifted, if only so I can have time to do my actual job. I see a professional autism diagnosis as the same thing. It won't give me anything I don't already know, so if there's nobody requiring that I hang the certificate on my wall, there's no point. Oh, hey, that's what my psych told me! I feel a little better knowing it's not just me; I always feel awkward being like "well, my psych says I'm autistic but she told me not to bother with the test because I'm "too high functioning"" (read: I can fake eye contact and I have a lot of coping mechanisms) I did get the ADHD eval, at least. The main use of my not-a-diagnosis is really to understand my brain better in comparison to other people. quick edit: also my sister and I learned the other day that she was apparently almost diagnosed with Aspergers* for delayed speech...but when they went to do the second part of the eval she had started talking. She could probably have used learning support, so I wonder if she would've done better in school if she'd been diagnosed. *no longer a diagnosis, but this was Australia circa 2003, we didn't have the most cutting edge mental health care mycelia fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Nov 7, 2021 12:58
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Quackles posted:Are you in a country where getting a diagnosis is guaranteed to come without a stigma at any point after that? No of course not, no country in the world is that nice. There's about a 50/50 chance of someone else treating me at least differently but usually worse as soon as I tell them I'm autistic. Nidoking posted:One of my therapists leaned on autism when it came to discussing anything but autism. Whatever mental health issue I thought I had, the response was "Well, I'm pretty sure you're autistic, so that's why your brain works that way." But if it came to testing for autism, "we don't need to do that, there's really no point." I'm gonna be blunt and say that your therapist was (probably) wrong about this. Most autistic people who I know are very high functioning and good at concealing it. They've got careers, friends, lovers, the whole shebang. All of them also have an official diagnosis, most of them had generalists like your therapist tell them something like "oh, you're not autistic, you can do X" or even "well your brother was tested and he wasn't autistic so neither can you". My point being that generalists generally don't know what the gently caress they're talking about when it comes to autism, both about what it is and who the test catches. Dance Officer fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Nov 7, 2021 |
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Nov 7, 2021 13:10
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Dance Officer posted:I'm gonna be blunt and say that your therapist was (probably) wrong about this. Perhaps not blunt enough, because you quoted a lot of text and I have no idea which part is the "this" you're talking about. But I don't think I care, in the end, because the opinions you've been expressing are rather exclusionary and I don't agree with you. I'll be blunt right back at you: You don't know me, you don't know my former therapist, and you know at most very little of my situation. In my experience, most people are comfortable looking at a waterfowl, hearing a "quack" sound, and calling it a "duck", despite very few of those people having advanced degrees in ornithology. I don't see why the standard for identifying myself should be any higher.
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Nov 7, 2021 17:38
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Nidoking posted:Perhaps not blunt enough, because you quoted a lot of text and I have no idea which part is the "this" you're talking about. But I don't think I care, in the end, because the opinions you've been expressing are rather exclusionary and I don't agree with you. Piling on to say that... Well. I was quasi-diagnosed with Aspergers'* by my mom multiple decades ago. She's a pretty keen observer, and I believe she was dead right. But I don't have a formal diagnosis, because [1] I don't think it would help any - I already know, and it doesn't come up much in the rest of the world because I and the rest of the world get along fairly well. [2] The aforementioned risk of stigma. So... your insistence that you need to be diagnosed to count as autistic is baffling at best, and hostile at worst. *Yes, I know it's fallen out of use. But I do feel it's the label that applies to myself, so I'm going to keep using it. Falconier111 don't repost this anywhere
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Nov 7, 2021 21:53
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Falconier111 posted:While the manga milks her shyness, anxiety, and inability to speak for jokes, she’s not treated as inherently weirder than the rest of the cast – hell, compared to classmates like Gets Involved in Other People’s Emotions, Likes Summer Uniforms, Obsessed with Graduation Ceremonies, and Likes Boobs, her anxiety and self-doubt reads as relatable. I don't know, I find "Likes Boobs" to be pretty relatable. Boobs are great! Big proponent of boobs right here.Funny coincidence, though; I just finished reading Komi Can't Communicate (what's available so far, anyway) only the other day. Or maybe it's not such a coincidence, given it's about social anxiety disorder. Something I liked a lot about it was how likeable basically all the characters were; like, pretty much no-one was a dickhead. I mean, Komi's brother isn't amazing - and I found Najimi to be a bit annoying - but that's about it, off the top of my head. Definitely not the kind of manga to have an antagonist at any point. Maybe I should watch the anime, if it's that good. Man, I can't remember the last time I watched anime...
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Nov 8, 2021 10:04
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There is that one yandere character with an obsession about Komi that leads to the early Tadano abduction arc but at least she's chilled out in the last 300 chapters.
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Nov 8, 2021 10:22
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At this I've been labeled on the autistic spectrum by a neuropsych eval, a separate neuropsych assessment 15 years after the evaluation, and by all of my behavioral health professionals. And there's a part of me that still feels like I'm 'faking it'.
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Nov 8, 2021 10:30
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I still feel like I'm faking it about my physical disability sometimes. The one I had to do two days of extremely unpleasant tests to get diagnosed with. Internalised ableism is a helluva drug 
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Nov 8, 2021 12:56
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Update 78: Tongue-Tied (Act 3, Scenes 11-12) Katawa Shoujo OST - Katawa Shoujo OST - Generic Happy Music .png)  MISHA: "Hi, Hicchan~!" Misha shouts exuberantly, dragging an embarrassed Yuuko behind her. .png) MISHA: "Hicchan~! Were you talking to yourself?" On one hand, saying yes could make me look kind of crazy. On the other hand, if I blow Kenji's cover, he might go off and make me look crazy by association.  HISAO: "Yes." MISHA: "Ahaha~! That's okay~! Don't be embarrassed, Hicchan; I do it too, sometimes, when I'm alone! La~ la~ la~."  YUUKO: "Um... nothing happened while I was gone?" HISAO: "Absolutely nothing." YUUKO: "It smells like... grapes." HISAO: "I'm wearing grape-scented cologne." I lie brazenly and obviously. From her reaction, I'm going to assume that she knows I'm lying, or thinks I have an abysmal sense for colognes. Since the can of grape juice I drank from is still right there, it's likely to be the former. Fortunately, she doesn't ask any follow-up questions. HISAO: "What are you two doing together?" MISHA: "We had lunch together~! Strictly business, a business lunch~!" I try to picture Misha in a suit, having a business lunch with anyone. Somehow, I just can't see it. HISAO: "What kind of business?" YUUKO: "You don't know?" MISHA: "Ahaha~! It's nothing~, nothing~. It's normal for one part of the Student Council to not know what the other is doing~!" HISAO: "Hey, don't “nothing, nothing” something like that. That isn't normal at all. In fact, it's bad. We're only three people." Yuuko laughs nervously. She must be terrified. YUUKO: "Misha says that you want to put posters in the library... for the elections. Um... even though they are really far away, I guess it's okay. I didn't know that I could even decide those kinds of things..." MISHA: "You can~! Isn't that great~? Ahaha~! Aren't you happy? Yay~ yay~!"  The screen shakes. Misha grabs Yuuko's hands and forces her to clap joyously for herself. Yuuko doesn't look very happy about learning that she has more responsibility and power than she'd previously thought. MISHA: "Hicchan~! Since you're here, you can help me put them up!" Pulling out a giant stack of posters from her bag, she cuts them in half like a deck of cards and passes me the slightly smushed half. MISHA: "Shicchan had a really good idea~! We can put some flyers inside books, too~! Then, even if they try to ignore us, they won't be able to! They could even be spring loaded!" Misha tries her best to convey the same tone Shizune used. It sounds close to the real thing, and also a little menacing. HISAO: "She was probably kidding." MISHA: "I liked it~." YUUKO: "N-no... please... not that..." MISHA: "A super ultra aggressive marketing blitz~! We're going to start going door to door, too~!" HISAO: "That's a terrible idea." Misha pouts in her best Shizune impression, fingertips tapping together rapidly in annoyance. MISHA: "Hicchan~! You think every idea is terrible..." HISAO: "Yeah, but that idea is too terrible, too terrible to ignore. I can't have that." MISHA: "Wahaha~! Hicchan, that sounds like a challenge. Mutiny~, mutiny~!" YUUKO: "M-mutiny is bad... Don't fight." MISHA: "Wahaha~! It was just a joke~!" YUUKO: "Okay... Don't fight." MISHA: "Aha~ ha~ ha~." The way Yuuko sounds when she's trying to be firm makes me think of a kindergarten teacher. I suppose that makes her very persuasive in her own way. (Silence) Putting up the posters is surprisingly hard, simply because the library is already plastered with bulletin boards and flyers lining every couple meters, some of them in places so unlikely that I'd never noticed them before. Deciding which of them to peel off in favor of our own adds a lot of time to an otherwise simple job. By the time the bell rings to signal the end of lunch, Misha and I still have a sizable amount of posters left. As we leave, I decide to stick one right by the door. It must be one that Misha did; it has a little drawing of Shizune on the bottom. Katawa Shoujo OST ~ Passing of Time .png) (Silence) A couple days later, Shizune heads off to go eat lunch by herself and doesn't come back. She must really be swamped with student council work, although I know that she probably made most of that work for herself. When I get to the student council room, I find the door unlocked. Before opening it, I hold back for a second, to see if I'll hear Misha's laughing through it. Nothing. I'd almost take that as a sign that no one's in, but Shizune wouldn't leave the door unlocked in that case. She's at her desk, sleeping in her chair with her arms folded over her chest. What a stiff pose; if it weren't for her eyes being closed, there would be no way to tell that she was asleep. In fact, I can't even be sure that she is asleep now. Normally, I'd tap a desk to wake anyone else up, but it wouldn't work with her. I immediately start thinking of tricks I could play on her if she's sleeping. It's disappointing that my train of thought goes in those kinds of directions. .png)  SHIZUNE: “[Hello. Good afternoon.]" Katawa Shoujo OST - The Student Council (Shizune’s Theme) She signs one greeting with each hand. It's really confusing. HISAO: “[Hey, what were you doing? Secretly slacking off?]" Shizune smiles, but lowers her head to conceal it, and tries her best to look annoyed instead. SHIZUNE: “[Don't just stand there, it makes me nervous if I'm sitting down and you're not.]" I take a seat in the nearest chair while Shizune pauses to adjust her glasses on the bridge of her nose like she's fine-tuning an instrument. SHIZUNE: “[Why are you so far away?]" HISAO: “[Does that make you nervous, too?]" Pursing her lips, Shizune doesn't look too amused at my taunting her. HISAO: “[I had some free time, so I thought I would drop by and see if you were still busy.]" SHIZUNE: “[Do you want to help me?]" HISAO: “[Yeah.]" SHIZUNE: “[Too bad. I'm grateful, but it's not necessary. I just finished the last of it, and now everything that needed to be done is done.]" HISAO: “[So formal. Misha was just as businesslike yesterday. Are you both getting serious for official student council business?]" SHIZUNE: “[I'm always serious. Like the student council candidates should be.]" That was fast. From zero to immediately criticizing people who aren't even her colleagues yet before I've had the chance to stretch my legs. SHIZUNE: “[At least the presidents. They need initiative, then maybe they can motivate everyone else, or at least strongarm them along. But even though there's a bunch of them, they're all so wishy-washy. There's no one running for vice president. So, they all want the big prize, but none of them have the right drive for it. And then the treasurers are always so flaky, I've decided to use my power to just eliminate the position.]" HISAO: “[Wait a sec, please. Can you even do that? I don't think it works that way.]" SHIZUNE: “[It is how it is.]" With that, Shizune stares grimly into the distance, rubbing the frame of her glasses. That doesn't answer the question, future dictator. SHIZUNE: “[I'm disappointed. They should want me out of here faster, because they want the job, or at least disagree with me having the job. If I can't mobilize a bunch of student council wannabes for either reason, all my work will have been for nothing. If they are going to be so slow about it, I'll just hold on to my office as long as possible!]" Shizune punctuates the sentence with a snap of her fingers, creating a sound as sharp as a gunshot. I wonder if she knows how loud she can do that. It's definitely an attention-grabber, so I could only see it as invaluable to a mute. She might have practiced it because of that. Quick reminder: don’t say that. HISAO: “[“All of it,” huh? That's too harsh.]" SHIZUNE: “[I always thought this is the real test. Leaving a lasting impression is important. It's why I don't build sand castles, they crumble when you leave.]" HISAO: “[Maybe, but if I see an especially neat one, I still think it's impressive. I'll say it's impressive. I kind of admire you. So, to me, it wasn't for nothing.]" She tugs at her glasses as if she wants to take them off, smiling wryly. SHIZUNE: “[Sorry. I was careless, and something selfish slipped out.]” .png) SHIZUNE: “[I've always wanted to stand at the top. It didn't matter what it was, as long as I was the best at it, and understood it completely, and made it my own. Like when you hear a song and dream of being a musician, or see a plane and wish you could be a pilot. Have you ever had a dream like that?]" HISAO: “[Yeah.]" The first time I played soccer, I'd wondered if maybe I could ever get good enough to wow people. That was just a fantasy, though. As soon as I saw the gap between me and people with real talent, I put those dreams behind me. Well, with my heart the way it is, I can't play soccer any more, anyway. HISAO: “[Do you still have dreams like that?]" SHIZUNE: “[No, they're unrealistic. I realized it very quickly. There is always someone better.]" A nostalgic expression crosses her face. She looks oddly mature right now, as if the days of competing vigorously against others for supremacy are long behind her. Of course, I know that nothing could be further from the truth. Just last week, she wanted to see which one of us could blow the biggest bubble with a piece of gum. It could be that she was even worse when she was younger; a terrifying thought. SHIZUNE: “[I liked that. That there was always someone better. When someone greater than me would appear, I'd get so excited. I'd want to challenge them. Even though in the end, they would usually turn out to be better, and I would be left in awe. There are some people who are on a different level, completely. After a while, I got jealous. I wanted something like that for myself.]" HISAO: “[Is that what the Student Council is, the thing just for you?]" SHIZUNE: “[No, no. Even though it feels like that, sometimes, that wasn't why I decided to do it. That is another story entirely.]” .png) SHIZUNE: “[But... I like being Student Council president. Even if the work is hard and I'm always biting off more than I can chew, that is what keeps it exciting. People at the top shouldn't be able to be comfortable all the time, anyway.]" HISAO: “[You sound like a farmer.]” Although they wouldn't suit her, Shizune would look cute in overalls and a straw hat. HISAO: “[So, if that wasn't the reason, why did you run for the job?]" SHIZUNE: “[I didn't, but afterwards, I decided to stick with it anyway. I wanted to be the Student Council president because the old Student Council was stupid. And I want to stir people up, so that they will be able to say, “That was interesting. Today was interesting.” That kind of thing. Memorable experiences. I'm happy, because I think we succeeded. You, and Misha, and me. I have a selfish desire too, though. At first it was something I thought would only be a nice bonus, but I've gotten greedy. That is why it would make me happy if the elections go smoothly. It would be the only way that I could see that my wish was granted.]" HISAO: “[What is it, then?]" SHIZUNE: “[It's a secret.]" Sensing that I might not be ready to let such a weak dodge slide by so easily, Shizune quickly waves down any attempt at a follow-up, embarrassment coloring her face. It's something she wants to keep to herself only because it's too silly to do otherwise. I start to feel a pang of hunger, and check my watch. It's earlier than it looks. Too early for dinner. HISAO: “[Do you have any kind of food in your desk?]" For a second, it looks like the question confuses her, but she recovers quickly. SHIZUNE: “[Desks are for supplies.]" HISAO: “[Food is supplies.]" SHIZUNE: “[You should have eaten lunch.]" HISAO: “[I didn't think it would be a problem if I didn't. If I was working, I wouldn't have to think about it. I'd be too busy to be hungry.]" She puts her hand up to her mouth in a poor attempt to conceal a laugh, and tries to hide it further by pretending to use it to push her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. HISAO: “[I guess you're not, since you already ate.]” I'm not good enough to sign the appropriate words, so I settle for pointing at the stack of Chinese food containers leaning precariously out of the top of her trash can. SHIZUNE: “[Those are from yesterday.]" HISAO: “[Then we're both hungry. Let's get something to eat. Not from the cafeteria. There wasn't anything good at lunch, so I really doubt there will be anything good left over. Order something?]" SHIZUNE: “[Ordering out two days in a row is unnatural. Only in case of emergencies. That is my personal policy.]" This is why she should think of putting some snacks in her desk, it would be an easier way of dealing with these kinds of “emergencies.” I want to tell her, but signing out how hungry I am like five times has made me too tired to be a smartass. The temptation is really great, though. MISHA: "Hi~! Hi, hi!" Misha's distinctive up-and-down voice sounds muffled through the door. She bursts in a second later. .png) MISHA: "... Hicchan~! You're here, too~!" HISAO: "“Too?” How did you know there was already someone in here?" MISHA: "If it opens, someone is inside~. Wahaha~! Am I interrupting~?" Shizune shakes her head. MISHA: "Great~! That's really great~! But~! I was sure I would be. Is this a break?" HISAO: "I thought so, too, but it turns out everything student council related is over, for now. Is that why you're here?" MISHA: "Wahaha~! Yeah~! That's right, Hicchan!" SHIZUNE: “[Sorry to disappoint you. We were just discussing whether or not to order out for dinner.]" MISHA: "That sounds fun~." HISAO: "Shizune isn't being very fun about it, though. She says that she can't order food two days in a row. Are you hungry, too? Because if you are, we could outvote her." MISHA: "Hm~ hm~, that sounds fun, Hicchan! And, I am a little hungry..." HISAO: "I thought you would say it sounds like mutiny." Shizune pinches the frame of her glasses, clearly thinking that it does seem like mutiny, but being outvoted by a clean 2-to-1 margin, there is nothing she can do. Misha already has her phone out. It's awfully garish. MISHA: "Shicchan, you promised we would have a student council thing, just for us, right~? Right, right~! This can be it~!" (Silence) Shizune only shakes her head. The last party she will be able to attend as Yamaku's Student Council president is too special to her to put that label on our spur-of-the-moment early dinner. Even though I'm sure the real thing will be just like this: a meal like any other, with the three of us. After we finish eating and clean up, I say goodbye to them and head to my dorm. Although I don't feel particularly tired, I think I'll just go straight to sleep tonight. If I were back home, my mom would nag me not to go to bed right after eating, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her. I take a look at the clock as soon as I get in, and realize that it's a lot later than I'd thought. It also feels a bit silly checking the clock when I have a phone and a wristwatch. I take off my watch and hold it in one hand, while holding my phone in the other. It makes me feel powerful, and stupid. I try unsuccessfully to go to sleep, and am glad when someone interrupts me by knocking on my door after only a few minutes. I figure that it couldn't be anyone but Kenji, which is why I'm surprised when it ends up being Misha. .png) MISHA: "Hi, Hicchan~! You don't look happy to see me~..." HISAO: "No, I'm just kind of surprised. Did Shizune remember something that she wants me to do after all? It's late, but... whatever. I guess it's good that I didn't change." MISHA: "Nope~. I just thought I'd follow you back, Hicchan~!" HISAO: "For fun?" No, of course not. It's because she wants to talk. It must be about something important, and something she doesn't want Shizune to know about. HISAO: "Do you want to come in?" MISHA: "Yeah~, thanks, Hicchan!" She walks in and immediately takes a seat in the chair. The natural thing to do, but I'd expected her to sit on the bed. MISHA: "Hicchan..." Misha frowns harshly, arms folded over her chest. It's like she's trying to play a grim interrogator. All that's missing is the mustache and the dangling, flickering lightbulb on a string. Katawa Shoujo OST - Moment of Decision MISHA: "Did you make Shicchan sad?" HISAO: "What do you mean?" .png) MISHA: "When I went to the office today, Shicchan couldn't hear me coming. That's why~, when I opened the door, I saw a really confusing expression on her face. Shicchan looked happy and sad, and~ I wanted to know why." HISAO: "Well, it wasn't because of me. I didn't even see it. I think she's depressed that she won't be Student Council president any more in a few months." MISHA: "Hm~... When I asked Shicchan about it, she said that it was okay~!" HISAO: "That's meaningless. Shizune would say that, but it's ridiculous to think that she would let it go that easily." HISAO: "I mean, there are times when she'll want to fight me over the last apple, or chocolate milk, or whatever. And that is stuff that doesn't even matter." MISHA: "Chocolate milk is important." HISAO: "Okay, it is. Don't get mad. But not as much as Student Council is to her. She wouldn't just wave it off so easily." MISHA: "Wahaha~. You're right~." I thought that this was supposed to be an interrogation, but it appears Misha has already forgotten about it. MISHA: "But~! I don't want Shicchan to lie to me to make me feel better. Hahaha~! Most people don't know how serious Shicchan is and think she's just putting on a show. I'm happy that you understand her, Hicchan." HISAO: "It's obvious. Especially with how she talked about it today." Misha leans in closer with interest, resting her head on her palms. MISHA: "Really~? What did she say?" They are close enough that I don't think much of how she is prying. HISAO: "Why she joined the Student Council. Sort of. She started, but then decided that some stuff should just stay classified. And signed, “It's a secret.” So, I guess that's what she told me: it's a secret." MISHA: "Well~, if someone tells you that they have a secret, you can sort of call that a secret by itself, Hicchan~!" HISAO: "Just like how, according to you, luck is a skill?" MISHA: "It can be! Wahaha~!" HISAO: "Be careful, not so loud." MISHA: "Why, Hicchan?" HISAO: "You're going to wake up half the people in the building, and on top of that, dorms aren't co-ed." MISHA: "Hicchan, are you thinking something dirty?" HISAO: "Stop being weird." .png) MISHA: "Ahahaha~. If you are, it's okay, I think." Hearing that makes me realize how easy it's been for me to talk to Misha all this time, that I would be able to go this long without feeling the need to be on guard. This is the first time I have. MISHA: "I feel sad, Hicchan. It's funny, the happier Shicchan gets, the more depressed I feel. Even though I should be happy for Shicchan. I still am... But~, I can't talk about my problems with her." HISAO: "Why not?" MISHA: "Just like Shicchan can't talk about her problems to me. It's the same thing, Hicchan. If we have that kind of problem, then I'm not sure any more what I should do. I wonder... if I'm a bad friend." (Silence) .png) Misha gets up and quickly drops herself on the bed, until we're sitting only a few inches apart. Just a couple seconds later, she pushes her head forward, and gives me a light kiss. It misses my lips, more due to bad aim on her part than because of me. HISAO: "What are you doing?" Although it's just a formality. I'd be stupid to not know what she is getting at, it's just that it seems so unlikely that I'm hoping there will be some way I won't have to deal with it. Now she decides to be shy, and giggles, embarrassed. MISHA: “… Do you like me, Hicchan?" HISAO: "Yeah." Her head is buried in my chest. It feels like she's talking into my scar. She might be able to feel it brushing against her cheek. I'd tried too hard to hide it from both of them before. It seems like such a dumb thing to have worried so much about, in retrospect. .png) MISHA: "Please comfort me, Hicchan. Just for today." >Comfort Misha. >Refuse. Once again, this isn’t a real decision; I’ll be discussing it in more depth next update. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 15:30
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Oh, I don't like where this is going. Comforting a friend should always be a good thing. But with the kiss involved...Yeah, I'm getting a bad feeling. On another note, Misha's comment sort of reminds me of the relationship betweem Emi and Rin. How they're friends because they don't actively go past the surface with each other, or at least I think that's how Emi described it in her route. But it's a little sad too. Misha and Shizune always seemed so close on other routes and now we're learning they aren't close enough that Misha feels they can talk about their problems with each other. Also, another missing bracket: quote:
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Nov 8, 2021 16:03
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Welp that happened.
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Nov 8, 2021 16:13
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Antistar01 posted:I don't know, I find "Likes Boobs" to be pretty relatable.  Falconier111 posted:
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Nov 8, 2021 16:29
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I guess I wasn't crazy for thinking Misha is crushing on Hisao.Dareon posted:
This is actually interesting, as it's something I didn't even consider. Which says more about me really, I suppose. I'm not sure I agree? Not being able to talk to a good/best friend about the fact you're crushing on their boyfriend/girlfriend seems pretty normal to me, especially if both are picking up subconsciously the tension that builds from that kind of situation. It takes a really intimate long standing relationship, platonic or otherwise, to imo be able to talk about this sort of thing with a friend, especially as a teenager. Not like I'm an expert at all on the subject mind you, just a flimsy personal opinion based on minimal experience. I am interested to see if your suggestion is indeed the case, or if it is the more towards my assumption.
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Nov 8, 2021 18:12
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There will be no "comforting" today. Refuse.
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Nov 8, 2021 18:40
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Antistar01 posted:I don't know, I find "Likes Boobs" to be pretty relatable. Dareon posted:At this point I was already following a scene flowchart, but even without it, all this and the intro cutscene for Shizune's route would have been waving so many goddamn flags. I don't quite know if Misha wants to turn it into a... can you really call it a harem plot if there's only two girls? Anyway, I strongly suspect Misha is actually crushing on Shizune, which is why she can't talk to her about it. Her coming on to Hisao feels like... I was having trouble getting the thought into words, until I remembered the principle of the indirect kiss. It's a concept I've only seen in Japanese works, that if two people play the same wind instrument or drink from the same container, it's like an indirect kiss. Extrapolating from there, if you bone your crush's boyfriend, it's almost like you boned her! Actually, this brings up and interesting point about Komi-san. Ohai Shuki (pun on oppai, which I’m sure some readers know means “tits”) is female and emphatically uninterested in men. And yeah, half the girls in the class are obsessed with Komi, but that’s it as far as it goes for them; Ohai consistently displays attraction to women, blending in seamlessly with her friend group, a bunch of anime-obligatory horny boys (though the worst thing they do is holding a contest rating girls in summer uniforms, they’re pretty harmless). The manga has a recurring feature where they drag Tadano to an empty classroom, put bags over their heads (for “anonymity”), and start theorizing romantic dates with girls in their class. She always gets a round where she’s clearly a speaker, and no one bats an eye. Similarly, there’s a point where Tadano’s family becomes convinced he’s about to ask Katai out, and they independently resolve to support him before it blows over. Given how much casual homophobia I’ve run into in Japanese media it kind of sticks out.
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Nov 8, 2021 18:48
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Nope nope nope nope antelope. This got complicated fast and Hisao is better off not engaging.
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Nov 8, 2021 19:29
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Quackles posted:Nope nope nope nope antelope. This got complicated fast and Hisao is better off not engaging. On the contrary, let's cheat on the girlfriend with her best friend, what could possibly go wrong? Apart from anything and everything of course.
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Nov 8, 2021 19:40
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 21:43 |
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Omobono posted:On the contrary, let's cheat on the girlfriend with her best friend, what could possibly go wrong? Apart from anything and everything of course. Quackles posted:Nope nope nope nope antelope. This got complicated fast and Hisao is better off not engaging. Yeah, I completely agree. Do not engage! But I also just realized something. I'm pretty sure this is the first choice we've had since we got on Shizune's route. Compared to Emi and Hanako, this is really late.
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Nov 8, 2021 19:52
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