SUMMER LOVING A universe for open-source fiction Primary creator: Ben-San Arizona ============================================================ Well, it's not pure comedy, but it's an idea. Tell me what you think. :p Summer Loving is a romance story in the vein of "date games" such as Tokimeki Memorial or H-games such as Season of the Sakura or True Love, although probably without the pornographic aspects of the latter two (except possibly in side-stories). It takes place in the span of a single summer, with its primary location being a beach rooming-house called Kasahara House where some of the major characters are spending the summer. As with the sources, the tone will probably go from outright comedy to serious romance. As a result of OSFic's unusual writing structure, it's not only possibly but quite likely (assuming the story thrives) that we'll see several versions of the events of that summer. One thing I would like to see, although it may or may not happen, is different "paths" of the same events; for example, two seperate stories both telling about the same summer festival, but in each version of which the characters go in different groups and thus events unfold differently. Thus, rather than being a single linear story, the story is actually a network of diverging and parallel events and possibilities. Essentially, this parallels the "replay factor" of such games, which often have a fixed length but many possibilities for what can happen in that time. The character list below is very short, and suggestions for more characters are welcome. Naturally, this is just a start. More to come; I finished rereading Maison Ikkoku the other day, so I'm full of this stuff. :P A Few Characters: Shiroji: Male, 19ish. The default "male lead". This is his last summer as a boy rather than a man, legally and culturally. His friends seem to think he's a bit too morose. Keitaro: Male, 19ish. Shiroji's best friend. He convinced Shiroji to come on this trip to the beach and is the more upbeat of the two. They share a room at Kasahara House. Mika: Female, 19ish. An outgoing girl who came to the beach to have fun and meet boys. She's a friend of Akari's, and they share a room at Kasahara House. Akari: Female, 19ish. Friendly, but very quiet. She came to the beach with Mika to have some time away from her family and sort out personal issues. Shares a room with Mika at Kasahara House. Mr. Kasahara: Male, 45ish. A lifelong bachelor who takes it upon himself to act as mentor in the ways of manhood to Shiroji and Keitaro. He runs Kasahara House. ============================================================ A suggested added character: Emiko Kasahara: Female, 13. A niece of Mr. Kasahara, staying with him at Kasahara House for the summer, helping him with the running of the house. She's just developed the first big crush of her life, and it's on either Shiroji or Keitaro. ============================================================ OK, my thoughts. I'm tossing out MY impression as they come to me so folks can use them. > >> The character list below is very short, and >> suggestions for more characters are welcome. >> Naturally, this is just a start. More to come; I >> finished rereading Maison Ikkoku the other day, so I'm >> full of this stuff. :P >> >> A Few Characters: >> >> Shiroji: Male, 19ish. The default "male lead". This is >> his last summer as a boy rather than a man, legally >> and culturally. His friends seem to think he's a bit >> too morose. >> And why is he morose? I get the impression we've got a moody artist here. >> Keitaro: Male, 19ish. Shiroji's best friend. He >> convinced Shiroji to come on this trip to the beach >> and is the more upbeat of the two. They share a room >> at Kasahara House. >> >> Mika: Female, 19ish. An outgoing girl who came to the >> beach to have fun and meet boys. She's a friend of >> Akari's, and they share a room at Kasahara House. >> And Keitaro should immediately hit on her Promptly, she hits on Shiroji. >> Akari: Female, 19ish. Friendly, but very quiet. She >> came to the beach with Mika to have some time away >> from her family and sort out personal issues. Shares a >> room with Mika at Kasahara House. >> And the personal issue? I bet she has a crush on Mika. >> Mr. Kasahara: Male, 45ish. A lifelong bachelor who >> takes it upon himself to act as mentor in the ways of >> manhood to Shiroji and Keitaro. He runs Kasahara >> House. > I get the impression he used to be a bit of a "player" in his younger days before settling down. FOr some reason, in my head, he looks like Mr. Tendo. >A suggested added character: > >Emiko Kasahara: Female, 13. A niece of Mr. Kasahara, staying with him >at Kasahara House for the summer, helping him with the running of the >house. She's just developed the first big crush of her life, and it's >on either Shiroji or Keitaro. Great idea. I get the impression that it'd be Keitaro. Sets up one of those fun complicated love-pentagrams you see in anime. We also need an older woman with the hots for Mr. Kasahara. She's gonna land the bigone . . . ============================================================ I started looking at these characters through the lens of "what do they want?" and "how do they get it?" and found something interesting: the two main female characters, Mika and Akari, have defined goals ("to have fun and meet boys" and "to have some time away from her family and sort out personal issues") but the two main male characters don't, yet. I'm guessing that this derives from the date-sim influence on "Summer Loving", since the "male lead"'s goals will vary with whoever's playing the game, but it might help in writing stories if the two boys get slightly more defined goals. My thought on Shiroji's goals is that they are actually two-fold and somewhat contradictory[1]: on the one hand, he wants to experience more; he wants to enjoy the freedom of the last year before he becomes "a man". On the other hand, he's at least aware of the possibility that, if he explores more, experiences more, he'll discover something he loves too much to give up, that will make it difficult to face his responsibilities as a man -- or at least to accept his life continuing on its current track. Does this sound viable? [1] Not that this is a bad thing! It leads to more interesting stories when a character is pulled in two different directions and it's not clear which he'll choose. ============================================================ "Tsunami", a.k.a Namie Tsumetai: Female, 21sh. After a few unsuccessful semesters spent at college, Namie dropped out to concentrate on what she was doing better at than in any of her studies: singing and playing guitar in hard-edged alternative rock bands. Her reputation in the indie scene has grown steadily in a short time, especially since moving up to the role of lead singer in the band She Cried Harder when the previous lead singer quit. Recently, She Cried Harder went on a "hiatus" over personality conflicts and a member's illness, freeing all its members for solo pursuits. Namie intends to use the time at Kasahara House to polish her talents as a solo performer, in case SCH's hiatus proves permanent; however, it's also a way to mend fences with her parents, as she is officially there to look after her brother, Hiroji. Hiroshi Tsumetai: Male, 15ish. Asthmatic, bespectacled, irrepressible. Hiroshi has a rare enzymatic disorder -- not life-threatening, but it's always limited how much physical exertion he can get up to, and his mental energy has always outstripped his physical energy. Recent treatments have increased his independence somewhat, and he's overjoyed to have a whole summer to spend with his awesomely cool Big Sister, who no matter what his parents say can do no wrong in his eyes. Hiroshi tends to overidealize the world around him, particularly in contrast to his sister, who's had a lot more experience and tends to always "look for the catch". ============================================================ Since I have in mind definite actions for this character to take, I'm asking that no one use her just yet without checking with me. She's got a particular style all her own. ^_- Atsuko, a.k.a. The Barracuda, a.k.a. The Collector. Unlike most of the other "Summer Loving" characters, Atsuko doesn't live at Kasahara House. She's a year-round resident of the town, and looks forward to every summer because it brings a flood of new targets for her favorite game: man-collecting. Nothing's as much fun for her as picking a good-looking guy (preferably with a girl-friend she can take him away from) and setting out on a whirlwind campaign to get him into bed, even using her practiced acting skills to make him think he's leading her. Of course, once she's actually had him, he's served his purpose, and she'll move on to another... that is, unless someone actually managed to truly win her heart, for the first time in her life. ======================================================== Mmmm, well, what would be the "typical episode", if there is one? [...] ..well, okay. If this were an actual datesim, an episode might follow the course of the day. *nods* In the morning, Shiroji is woken up by Keitaro telling him he's wasting his vacation time by sleeping. He decides to go hang out at the flavored-ices stand on the beach, where he finds Mika reading a book. They interact for a while, and their relationship develops in one way or another depending on the player's choices. Assuming that the conversation goes well, Mika eventually leaves to go meet with Akari as she agreed to earlier, and Shiroji introspects for a while about things brought up by the conversation. He's interrupted by Keitaro, who razzes him for staring into space introspectively, and they head out swimming. If we had a larger cast, then at this point Keitaro might encounter another girl while swimming and try to hit it off with her, offering Shiroji (and hence the player) an introduction to her without initial risk. At the end of the day, they go back to Kasahara house. Emiko demands that Shiroji tell her what he did today, and looks inexplicably sad when she hears that he's been hanging out with girls. And that would be a potential episode of a datesim. ... So very slice-of-life? With the emphasis on the romantic aspects of life? Yeah. There might be adventurous elements in one day or another (for example, Emiko has run away from home and Shiroji has to go off and find her), but by and large it's slice-of-life romance. [...] You have a Summer Loving story that's a WIMOLP, right? (Work In More Or Less Progress)? Yeah, Shiroji and Keitaro taking the train out to the beach. "INCIDENT ONE: Passing Blurred Scenery". These games name like that. :P It's a pretty standard ren'ai first episode thing. Ah, that's a neat little stylistic thing... One thing I want to do with this is fix together a timeline when enough is written, and from there make everything branches and other possible "game paths", so that the episodes can be meaningfully numbered. It starts at the beginning of summer, ends at the end of summer, and between then things will happen. Ahh.. (As it is, "Passing Blurred Scenery" can be viably numbered as Incident One, because it's the first day of summer vacation. :P) Ah, so in the meantime, lots of stuff will probably get "INCIDENT : Day Of Far-Off Thunder", eh? Well, as we form a proper chronology, we'll probably figure out what goes where. *nod* As the forks get more organized. It'd probably be a good idea to figure out how developed each character's relationships are at the point you're writing before you write an ep unless it's supposed to be early, too.. *nodnod* If I write "Emiko Runs Away", I want to ideally write three or four versions, each assuming different degrees of relationship development with the other characters earlier on. :P ... ooh. [...] oh, wow. three or four different versions? Well, Emiko Runs Away would almost certainly be late in the story. Assuming we expand the cast, there are a lot of possible outcomes. [...] *nods* Tell me if you think it's too far out of flavor... She's not one of the group at Kasahara House; she's instead a year-round resident... ... and, well, the male population of Kasahara House would probably be in for less trouble if they knew the nicknames that she has in town: "The Barracuda". "The Collector". ..heh heh. I pictured her seeing Shiroji on the beach, talking to Mika, and deciding "Mmmm-hmmm. He'd be a nice notch on my bedpost, especially if that's his girlfriend." So when he goes in swimming, she reties her bikini top so that any tug on the tie in the back will undo it... and then swims close enough to him so that of course, he accidentally yanks the knot open... And of course, she pretends that's she's shocked and oh-how-could-you and generally plays on that to try and score him. (Hehehehe.) Does that work? Ya, I think so. (Of course, one of the possible outcomes would be 'catching the Barracuda'; actually making her fall in love.) oooh, hadn't thought of that... I had pictured her more as a Roadblock On The Road To True Love. Well, hey, this is OSFic. It can and should fork in unsuspected ways... *nods* This is true.... Well, a truism of ren'ai games is that every female character of legal age is a possible love interest for the Player. And so is his male best friend. ... Shiroji could wind up with Keitaro? Yep. The Best Friend Who Gets Into Trouble And Is A Potential Love Interest is another character type from this sort of game.