When I was around 9 years old, the website I played this on tried to desperately warn me by saying I needed "nerves of steel" for this game. I didn't know what those words meant. 2 minutes later, shit made me freeze up so bad that it felt like brain paralysis. The first episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People was downloading in the background. My family was in the other room, blissfully unaware of what I just stumbled into. And there I was, absolutely frozen in my chair. Presumably, taking a mental note that I should probably be more careful of the internet from there on out. I proceeded to do some research on screamers, memorized how a couple of them looked, and vowed to never be tricked into seeing them ever again.

A couple months later, my friend put headphones on me and started playing that car coffee commercial. I jumped out of the chair before the jumpscare even happened, knowing full well what this was. My research... paid off in the end.

I haven't just mastered you, you fucking piece of shit of a browser game. I've mastered how to dodge them all.

must things be "good?" is it not enough to have consumed it during a weirdly vulnerable and foundational time in one's youth and promptly have it set a precedent for what one seeks out in other works of fiction going forward?

i'm not sure if katawa shoujo is entirely worth reading in this day and age; it is in almost every way a product of its time and place. its popularity was most likely spurned by a bunch of young dudes from /v/ expecting a funny little game with crass humor and walking away from it having genuinely felt something from a piece of media from the first time. again, time and place — in today's era of brutal honesty about commitment to fiction and fandoms wearing their investment in their favorite stories proudly on their sleeves, it may seem quaint at best and downright questionable at worst. but back in 2012 when the abstract concept of "feels" was all a lot of people really had to describe what this game and many other period-piece jp media had done to them, it was something truly special.

in many ways, it still is — at least to me. rin was my first favorite-ever character and probably my first hint that i was autistic was how much i related to her route at the tender age of 14. it set a precedent going forward for my investment in character writing above all else in fiction, and i really can't imagine where i would be without it.