Wednesday reading
Apr. 24th, 2013 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianCurrently reading: Most of the way through Katawa Shoujo [link is to Wikipedia, not anywhere horrifying]. This is a visual novel the first of whose problems is the name: "katawa" is not a polite way to refer to people with disabilities. I got interested because so many people referred to it in discussions about Hatoful Boyfriend, and because it turns out to be an internet phenomenon in which people got interested in a (satirical?) piece of art and put together a game around it.
The second enormous obstacle is the premise! The idea is that the male protagonist has a heart attack and goes to attend a high school for students with disabilities, at which of course he meets a bunch of cute girls to date, all of whom have various physical issues. So we have the overlapping concerns of attraction to disability and the gross side of moe, in which incompetence is so cute because that person must need you. However, I've been quite pleased with how well the structure of the game pushes back against the intrusive caretaking impulse. No one is remotely incompetent, and, in every storyline I've played, there's at least one time when the player has to pull back and let the girl find her own way through a problem rather than smothering or micromanaging.
The sexual content is, well, pretty convincingly Japanese-style. Foreplay is rare*, though I admit that as a virgin I made similar mistakes myself. (Obligatory recent Earth Day reference!) There is some not-quite-vanilla stuff I was not expecting, though the queer threesome I was hoping for did not appear. The queer storyline is sad and a little predictable, but at least it's there.
* Personally I have decided that Lilly's storyline is the optimal one, partly because foreplay exists and partly because Hanako actually seems happier than when you date her, hmm.
Just finished reading: Tam Lin, which I read this time with completely justified suspicion toward all the boys. And a test read of a novel for a friend, which has killed me dead.
Soon to be reading: SOMETHING WHERE NO ONE DIES OR HAS DEMENTIA
Also Moby-Dick! Successful talking about its funny awesomeness with Wim occurred over dinner last night (the nautical sermon! the friendship with Queequeg! the landlady's bargain sign-painting utilization!), though he hasn't gotten to the whale taxonomy yet. Soon we'll be caught up.
The second enormous obstacle is the premise! The idea is that the male protagonist has a heart attack and goes to attend a high school for students with disabilities, at which of course he meets a bunch of cute girls to date, all of whom have various physical issues. So we have the overlapping concerns of attraction to disability and the gross side of moe, in which incompetence is so cute because that person must need you. However, I've been quite pleased with how well the structure of the game pushes back against the intrusive caretaking impulse. No one is remotely incompetent, and, in every storyline I've played, there's at least one time when the player has to pull back and let the girl find her own way through a problem rather than smothering or micromanaging.
The sexual content is, well, pretty convincingly Japanese-style. Foreplay is rare*, though I admit that as a virgin I made similar mistakes myself. (Obligatory recent Earth Day reference!) There is some not-quite-vanilla stuff I was not expecting, though the queer threesome I was hoping for did not appear. The queer storyline is sad and a little predictable, but at least it's there.
* Personally I have decided that Lilly's storyline is the optimal one, partly because foreplay exists and partly because Hanako actually seems happier than when you date her, hmm.
Just finished reading: Tam Lin, which I read this time with completely justified suspicion toward all the boys. And a test read of a novel for a friend, which has killed me dead.
Soon to be reading: SOMETHING WHERE NO ONE DIES OR HAS DEMENTIA
Also Moby-Dick! Successful talking about its funny awesomeness with Wim occurred over dinner last night (the nautical sermon! the friendship with Queequeg! the landlady's bargain sign-painting utilization!), though he hasn't gotten to the whale taxonomy yet. Soon we'll be caught up.
