tezuka rin (katawa shoujo) drawn by iceo208

Artist's commentary

  • Original
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    Tezuka Rin

    Credit to ghostpenis for the original concept (i knew i saw this somewhere but didn't remember it was DA) Pic here [link]
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    another somewhat fast drawing

    Rin Tezuka, form Katawa Shoujo. I might draw something else of this, i can't seem to be able to get it out of my head o_O

    She is SO freaking adorable >_<

    ...oh god what's wrong with mHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNGGGGGG

  • Comments
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    NWSiaCB
    [hidden]

    lemures said:
    ................................."I'll do enough hugging for the both of us." That was my first reaction.....is it bad that this is unbelievably adorable to me? Am I a bad person
    Voice in the back of my head: yes, yes you are.

    I shall respond to this nearly-year-old message with a overly wordy and analytical response, because I apparently like taking any random chance I can get to talk about ethics.

    When talking about morals, you first have to declare where you are coming from as the basis for your moral philosophy... There are two extreme ends when it comes to ethics: There's deontology (which is derived from the word for "duty",) which states that the consequences or circumstances of your actions are irrelevant, the morality of your actions are contained within the action you take, or your intentions for taking them, alone. (This means, for an extreme example, that lying is always wrong... even if it's to a serial killer who is asking you where your family is so he can chop them to bits.) On the far opposite end of the spectrum is Consequentialism, which states that the consequences of your actions is the only thing that matters, and that the intentions or specific action you take are irrelevant, and that only achieving the best possible outcome for all parties is what matters, which is often derided as "the ends justify the means".

    Deontologically, you have to look at what is driving the formation of the thought you are having...

    There's two competing natural instincts at play with something like a "disability girl" being presented: One is a self-preservation instinct - a revulsion to anything that looks "diseased" that tells people that they can't stand being around things that are "gross" like people with boils, that serves to keep people away from people with contagious diseases, but which also applies (perhaps because of an inability for the instinct to be specific enough) to non-contagious things like a genetic deformity. This is where that whole "Uncanny Valley" thing comes in. It helps the survival of the fittest in Darwinian terms for them to have "revulsion" to "disease".

    Opposing that is what can basically be described as an instinct to protect others who are injured or appear otherwise weak or helpless (something that can be extended to cover the even stronger impulse to protect children, and especially babies). Unfortunately, this is considered to be fairly patronizing by anyone who actually has a disability for you to consider them helpless, especially if they can generally get along just fine, thank you very much, and the notion that you are thinking about them in such terms can very well offend them.

    (Obviously, some people feel one of these two opposing instincts more than the other.)

    Deontologically, however, having and acting upon an impulse to care for others because you feel they need the help is an admirable thing, even if it may accidentally wind up harming others emotionally (but deonotologically, the consequences don't matter, so that's irrelevant), so you're in the clear, ethically, if your first reaction to someone who has serious deformities is to want to do something nice for them if you can.

    There are several sub-categories of Consequentialism, meanwhile, but perhaps the one that is most applicable to this sort of situation is Utilitarianism, which basically states that happiness is the goal of morality, and that the action that makes the most people happy, or at least mitigates the most suffering possible, is the most moral action you can take.

    In Utilitarian terms, your first instinct doesn't really matter so much, it's what you actually do to act upon your instinct that matters. If your act is to say something that genuinely cheers up the person you are talking with, and you are happy because you know you made someone else happy, then it's probably a moral act in Utilitarian terms.

    Of course, few people think in pure, absolutist Deontological or Consequentialist terms, and generally have a mix of those moral theories without realizing it, but if both opposite ends of the graph are showing positive, it's pretty safe to assume that in most areas, it's a general positive.

    The reason I would suspect that voice in the back of your head is saying that "you're a bad person" is a societal taboo that has been placed specifically in response to the fact that people get offended if you just walk up to someone and say "Oh wow! You have no arms! That makes you weak and helpless!", for obvious reasons. While deontologically, if you don't have an impure motive in doing this, it's not really wrong, it's still not something that would help, and would probably get you some icy glares, if not kicks.

    That said, if, because of this, your response to someone who is disabled is to just feel uncomfortable, and try to pretend like they don't exist at all, and to simply help to isolate them from everyone, then you're probably not doing anything to help anyone, now are you?

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    • AbatedDust
    [hidden]

    NWSiaCB said:
    . . . stuff was said . . .

    The issue here isn't an issue of morality, this character was artificially designed to be adorable. If I saw this character, or any anime character for that matter, I would go hug it because lets face it, if you ever see an anime character and it's not where it's supposed to be, either you've gone mad, you're dreaming, or a genie has granted your unspoken wish.

    At least from my viewpoint, the thought process goes as follows:
    ~ That character is adorable
    ~ I wanna hug it
    ~ Wait they has no arms
    ~ But that doesn't matter

    A more observant person may think:
    ~ That person has no arms
    ~ Regardless, that does not change my stance that I wanna take her home hau~ hauu~

    Morality would only come into play in a scenario such as:
    ~ Dude... chick has no arms
    ~ This has in some way altered my perception of how huggably adorable she is
    ~ *Smokes joint* (Oh wait, that was me)

    Having gone through more trouble than I'm used to to write a comment, I find that I have no credentials, I contradict myself, at least, in my very opening statement, and my community-college explanations are more shoty than Oh I found a nickle!

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    • NWSiaCB
    [hidden]

    thatother1dude said:
    Yeah, I don't think this is really "heart-breaking" either. She doesn't even look that sad.

    Besides most other people having arm, stubs are fine too.

    Actually, just looking at the picture the first time, the way I read it, she was basically saying "Enh, I'd hug you, but I've got no arms, so whatcha gonna do?", so I didn't see it as terribly depressing, myself.

    AbatedDust said:
    stuff

    Well, I'm figuring that if someone considers themselves "a terrible person" for finding someone who is functionally an amputee adorable is probably wrestling with the notion that it is unethical to fetishize something that is a serious and life-changing medical problem.

    To a certain extent, it would be wrong if you look at someone, and only saw them in terms of what is "strange" about them, especially as it would be offensive to that person to know you only see them for their lack of having arms, regardless of whether you saw it as "adorable" or "disgusting" or even "sexually exciting". Of course, the whole starting point of this game is that "hey, it's a collection of disabled girls!", which kind of starts this whole thing off on the wrong foot.

    With that said, however, there is nothing immoral in the act of reacting to disability with compassion from the start, although how you show it may make a definite difference, depending on your moral framework. And frankly, if you're interested in Shizune, for example, then there's really not much different between a deaf girl and girls with their hearing that would make for a turn-on or a turn-off, as far as I can tell, which heavily implies the fact that the emotional basis is something other than mere the presence or lack of some sort of fetishized handicap.

    Of course, then that would raise the question of the ethical nature of adoring an anime character simply because there is some agreed-upon laundry list of tropes that can be attached to any imaginary character to instantly turn her into an object of affection, and when you find the character with the right combination, you automatically pursue them as "MAI WAIFU"... but hey, I'm sure we've already had that conversation before.

    And if we're talking about credentials, we're talking about a game made by 4chan for Chrissakes, this is just pure contemplation of navels for the sake of naveldom!

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    • xitel
    [hidden]

    Dark_Plague said:
    Well, now that the game's out, this picture's more funny than anything because this is totally something her character would say with a straight face.

    She does, in her neutral ending. And it's horribly depressing.

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