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[gullim92]

Dear devs, a friend of mine who regularly spends time on this forum recently proposed that we work together on a visual novel.
We are discussing possible plot and he's out of ideas at the moment.
Is there anything you'd like to tell to an amateur story writer to get some motivation?

[Guest Poster]

Hmm...

From Lilly's route:

Hmm, from memory there's a small town not too far ahead. Other than that though, this is largely just old farmland. Akira and I stayed in our parents' house which was in the nearest city for a while, but after they left we decided to move into a smaller, more easily maintainable, house.

The context in this case is pretty clearly the nearest city to the summer home, and the summer home itself.

And then...

Since I spent quite a few of my vacations here up until I entered Yamaku, I'd say I know it fairly well. We used to drive there once a weekend then. <snip> My family's real house is quite far south. When they left Japan, my parents gave it to Akira and I. Only Akira lives there now, after my moving into Yamaku.

Actually, there's a grammar error in there (Akira and I), but this is... tricky to parse properly. So, the summer home that they visit in Northern Sojourn is a replacement for a larger Satou summer home in the nearest city (I'm going with Hakodate being the nearest city, but the details aren't necessarily important in this case), and not their real home? Or, did I find a continuity error?

And, by "quite far south", how far south are we talking? Does Lilly just not have much sense of scale, and it's quite far south relative to Hokkaido (and may be relatively close to Yamaku), or even just having to go north for a while to get to Yamaku every day? I can't think it's much further south than, oh, Fukushima, given how much evidence points to Yamaku being in Sendai (I know, I know, that's not canon), unless there's also an apartment that Akira and Lilly got in/near Sendai or something.

Edit: Alright, it's south of Yamaku:

Hisao: "You used to live together? Was it somewhere around here?"
Lilly: "It was pretty far south, so the trip into Yamaku was fairly long. With her working hours getting longer and Yamaku being so far away, there was little choice in the end but to move into the dormitories."

So, relatively close to Sendai (or wherever Yamaku is, anyway), but long enough that it was an arduous drive.

But...

I used to live further north, where there'd be plenty of snow to play in, so it's a little nostalgic. I don't like the heat very much, either.

I think I can build a timeline here - they used to live in Hokkaido (probably Hakodate), moved near Sendai (and by Sendai, I mean "the city that Yamaku's nearest to") for business reasons but kept the Hakodate house for a summer home, and then after the parents left, Lilly and Akira found the smaller house to replace the summer house, but kept the house near Sendai. Is that timeline anywhere near accurate?

I'm kind of trying to make sense of this as well. If she lived further north, she must have moved very early in her life (she must have been five at most, maybe younger) because it's mentioned that Lilly and Akira attended the same middle school and Akira's 7 years older, so they couldn't have moved during the last 7 years Lilly's parents still lived in Japan. I kind of always assumed that Lilly's dad has always worked at the family's company which currently has one branch in Japan and one branch in Scotland. So it wouldn't make sense for them to move unless the Japan office also moved from Hokkaido to a place more south...which is not something an established company would probably do. Not sure what to make of all this.

[Atario]

It seems to me it's like this:

1. Family lives in House A (the one near a city on Hokkaido)
2. Family moves to House B ("our real house", the one fairly south of Sendai/Yamaku), keeping House A as a vacation home
3. Parents move to Scotland
4. Lilly and Akira decide to (and/or convince parents to) sell House A to buy House C (the small Hokkaido house in the country which we see on the weekend trip)
5. They continue living in House B, using House C as a vacation home

[brythain]

It seems to me it's like this:

1. Family lives in House A (the one near a city on Hokkaido)
2. Family moves to House B ("our real house", the one fairly south of Sendai/Yamaku), keeping House A as a vacation home
3. Parents move to Scotland
4. Lilly and Akira decide to (and/or convince parents to) sell House A to buy House C (the small Hokkaido house in the country which we see on the weekend trip)
5. They continue living in House B, using House C as a vacation home

I like this because it's hell writing fanfic without a proper idea of the logistics involved. Also, I note that Akira and Lilly end up staying at the Hakamichi home temporarily before they're to fly off to Scotland for good.

[bhtooefr]

Here's what I PMed Guest Poster (trying to keep speculation that isn't a question out of here, but screw it, I'll ask a question around this):

I kind of always assumed that Lilly's dad has always worked at the family's company which currently has one branch in Japan and one branch in Scotland. So it wouldn't make sense for them to move unless the Japan office also moved from Hokkaido to a place more south...which is not something an established company would probably do. Not sure what to make of all this.

I'm actually not convinced that it's the Satou family company, because of these two lines:

Yeah. Since the business in Inverness boomed, our father decided to move directly to the same city as its headquarters.
Moving to secure our financial future with his new job posting. Even at the time I hardly believed it.

The "secure our financial future" line feels off for a C-level executive.

Here's what I'm thinking happened there:

Hiroyuki was an mid-level executive (they clearly had money the entire time) at a company in Hakodate. The Scottish company has a branch office in Sendai, and hires him away to run that branch office, so they move. Then, he gets a promotion to headquarters.

Another possibility is that there's TWO branch offices in Japan (both Hakodate and Sendai), it's Hiroyuki's wife's family's company, he met her through the position he already had at the Hakodate branch, and by marrying her, he got himself on a promotion track.

So, am I anywhere close to reality?

[Guest Poster]

Personally, I kinda doubt that. Lilly refers to the company as "my father's business".

Odds are fairly low that it's a Scottish company with a branch in Japan, rather than a Japanese company with a branch in Scotland. Japanese are quite fond of export, but tend to be adverse to foreign businesses entering their domestic market. (in other words: the "Japanese snow is different"-phenomenon) Possible, but not very high odds.

Akira also specifically mentions "Japanese branch" rather than "one of the Japanese branches", so I'm not sure if there's more than one office in the country.

Also, Lilly's father didn't meet his wife at the Japanese branch. He was actually attending a conference in Scotland where Lilly's mother was present as a journalist. That's how and where they met.

Quite a bit of speculation here and I wouldn't be surprised if the devs butt in with a generic "all of the above including the statements that contradict"-kind of response.

[Aura]

Dear devs, a friend of mine who regularly spends time on this forum recently proposed that we work together on a visual novel.
We are discussing possible plot and he's out of ideas at the moment.
Is there anything you'd like to tell to an amateur story writer to get some motivation?

You suck at writing. So do I. Everyone does. Write anyway.

[Munchenhausen]

Aura, can we see a photo of your eyes?

[Aura]

I tried to make sense of the Lilly timeline question but as I'm not Suriko and I happen to know that pretty much everything in KS related to locations outside of Yamaku and its immediate vicinity is retarded, I'm not going to attempt an answer. I can't even tell where Lilly is physically in some of those scenes (required to make sense of south/north) because we only refer to them by the internal scene codes, not the names. Your best hope is him showing up.

[Aura]

Aura, can we see a photo of your eyes?

There's a public photo out there that shows one of my eyes. Should be good enough.

[Suriko]

It's been years, and Lilly's path was a mess of continuous and haphazard edits. From what I can remember, this is closest to what was intended.

It seems to me it's like this:

1. Family lives in House A (the one near a city on Hokkaido)
2. Family moves to House B ("our real house", the one fairly south of Sendai/Yamaku), keeping House A as a vacation home
3. Parents move to Scotland
4. Lilly and Akira decide to (and/or convince parents to) sell House A to buy House C (the small Hokkaido house in the country which we see on the weekend trip)
5. They continue living in House B, using House C as a vacation home

I'm pretty sure it was something like:

Family lives in A, owns the summerhouse as C
They move to Scotland
Akira sells up and she and Lilly move to smaller southern house B (the 'real house')
They keep C as a holiday home/retreat

[Atario]

Family lives in A, owns the summerhouse as C

Wait, so they lived in A and summered in C, even though the two houses are quite close together?

Akira sells up and she and Lilly move to smaller southern house B (the 'real house')

Well, shit. This makes a significant chunk of my fanfic-in-the-works have an inconsistency with the canon.

Ah, screw it, I like it too much to change it now. I'll just let it be inconsistent…

[brythain]

Family lives in A, owns the summerhouse as C

Wait, so they lived in A and summered in C, even though the two houses are quite close together?

Hokkaido's about 60% the size of the state of NY, so I can see how you might have a house near a city like Sapporo and decide to have another place out in a less populated area to spend summer in. Fact: it's quite common for relatively well-off people to have a place near their work and a place some distance further out that isn't hundreds of miles away.

[Atario]

Hokkaido's about 60% the size of the state of NY

So, about the same land area as South Carolina.

Maybe I'm spoiled by being from California.

I can see how you might have a house near a city like Sapporo and decide to have another place out in a less populated area to spend summer in. Fact: it's quite common for relatively well-off people to have a place near their work and a place some distance further out that isn't hundreds of miles away.

Hm. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the ways of the more well-to-do. Never having been a party to a summer home, I always assumed they were supposed to be someplace with a significantly cooler climate than the main home. Or, at the very least, at the coast. Since the Satous' was neither, I guess I got corn-fused…

[SpecimenSix]

I think I've missed my window since I'm sure A22 won't stop by the forums for at least another year, but I've always wondered since I first joined these forums...what the fuck is his user avatar?