I got to play as Miles deaf girlfriend. Some one had sprayed ugly grafiti so I got to play her as she turned this ugly grafiti into beautyful art! Even though she is deaf, she is also a very skilled street artist. I never knew deaf people could be skilled and talented, and this is just one of many things this sidequest has taught me!
The mission had me walk over to a grafiti tag and press triangle to start the painting process. First I got to shake the spray can by pulling up and down on the right thumbstick, then hold the right trigger, but not too hard!, to start painting. To paint the correct shape I had to guide a dot on the screen to a circle on the screen with the left thumbstick, while not pressing to hard on the right trigger at the same time! It sounds pretty tense but she is such a positive and confident character so it never felt too stressful. I got to do this three times with different colors and then the art was done. It felt like I had created this beautiful piece of art all by myself. Aftet that I got to climb over a fence, walk up to a new grafiti tag and do the whole thing again!
I got a glimpse of the person doing the grafiti up on a roof, so I started making my way up there by way of the scafolding. A cat was in the way, so to get it to move I threw a rock at a cat toy which was sitting on a fence, and when it hit the ground the cat went there and picked it up. Im so glad I didnt have to get the cat to move by gently pushing it aside or walking towards it, since that might have been very stressful for the cat.
The person who had done the grafiti was another girl about the same age as the character I was playing. They started communicating by texting with their phones. Did you know deaf people cant hear so they need to communicate by other means than sound? Using phones and texting is one way, but Im pretty sure there are other ways as well!
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot! During this whole mission there is basicly no sound in the game, to reflect how the character you are playing percieves the world! This sidemission have given me such a deeper understanding for deaf people: they can´t hear. This game really makes a difference!
It turned out this other girl was trying to make art too, but she was never happy with what she was trying to make, so she kept painting over it. But my character asured her she had talent and was great too, and they created this amazing artwork together! Then they decided to start an artclub together, and my character texted "It is good to have support". Wow, when it was spelled out in black and white I totally got it!
Later Miles morales turned up, and when he saw the artwork he said to her "Wow, you are amazing!".
I´ve always pondered how you can get an audience to understand the importance of having support from other people, or how to convey that one character has admiration and love for another character in a way that is engaging for the audience. This has to be the best way, to spell it out in black and white! If someone says "its good to have support", we know its good to have support! And if someone says "you are amazing" to another character, we know that character thinks she is amazing.
We also know that she is amazing despite her handicap, because spiderman said she is. So if you didnt think deaf people could be good, or even amazing, people, now you know better.
While I applaud Spiderman 2 for having a deaf woman as a protaganist, we have to remember that other video games laid the important groundwork: