How to justify the little sister route?

[dmasterxd]

In the Visual Novel I am currently working on, one of the routes is the little sister one. But I wanna do something unique and diffrent and the adopted thing is way too common. I had an idea that they both have amnesia when they were 10. Is that a good idea. Please offer me some suggestions.

[chocojax]

Honestly, amnesia sounds like a cop-out to me. Also, a little sister route, as in, actual incest route? Or is it a "wooo friendship with sister" route?

[Laiska]

You could just bite the bullet and have two fully consenting and aware (incestuous) characters xD

Depending on your setting such a thing might not even be canonically taboo. Old school royals were fond of marrying close relatives, for example.

Alternatively, you could have the little sister's route be a 'friendship' ending, rather than romance. Maybe the sister hates the main character for something that happened in the past, and the good ending on her route would be her finally loving the MC again, in a familial (not romantic) way.

[dmasterxd]

Honestly, amnesia sounds like a cop-out to me. Also, a little sister route, as in, actual incest route? Or is it a "wooo friendship with sister" route?

Yeah, it's an actual incest route which is why I'm looking for some way to justify it. But what's a cop-out?

[TrickWithAKnife]

A cop out in this context means it would be taking the easiest possible way to explain something, but not the best way. Another example would be saying "Oh, it's magic" for everything that doesn't make sense.

Unfortunately I have no advice about finding a justifiable excuse for incest, as there is no such thing.

[Asceai]

Basically, the way to determine if amnesia is a cop-out or not is whether it's important to the story. If it's there from the beginning and a constant theme, not a cop-out. If it's just thrown in there as an excuse, welll...

Other possibilities-

• messy breakup, one of the parents ran away with one of the kids after getting a family court ruling they weren't in favour of and took on a fake name to hide from authorities.
• one the children was born under suspicious circumstances, was brought up as a cousin to the other rather than as a sibling to avoid scandal

[Michiyo6918]

Why don't you just go ahead and write a normal love story like how you would do normally between guy and girl? To me even if two people are blood-related, I don't think there is anything wrong to love one another. Every individual person to me is just 'another human being'. (Well, if they have an offspring then it's a whole another story)

Though since it's an incest route, you might consider adding some drama + twist here and there seeing how incest is kind of unacceptable in society.

But as of the possibilities then there are:
- Parents have a divorce. The two kids get separated and meet up some years later.
- Long lost sister/brother. The two fall in love and find out that they are blood-related.
- Grow up together. The two depend on each other and slowly grow fond of each other. (To me, I think this kind of option should put a lot more of effort in (Seeing how the two have to know the different between siblings' love and romantic love. I usually go face palm at siblings that accidentally kiss each other and realize their love for each other on the next day. It's just... 囧囧囧)

[dmasterxd]

Hey thanks for your help guys! I think I've decided.

Why don't you just go ahead and write a normal love story like how you would do normally between guy and girl? To me even if two people are blood-related, I don't think there is anything wrong to love one another. Every individual person to me is just 'another human being'. (Well, if they have an offspring then it's a whole another story)

Though since it's an incest route, you might consider adding some drama + twist here and there seeing how incest is kind of unacceptable in society.

Yep, this is what I'm gonna do.

[Michiyo6918]

Hey thanks for your help guys! I think I've decided.

Why don't you just go ahead and write a normal love story like how you would do normally between guy and girl? To me even if two people are blood-related, I don't think there is anything wrong to love one another. Every individual person to me is just 'another human being'. (Well, if they have an offspring then it's a whole another story)

Though since it's an incest route, you might consider adding some drama + twist here and there seeing how incest is kind of unacceptable in society.

Yep, this is what I'm gonna do.

I'm glad I could help you out! Good luck with your project~

[Vin Howard]

What ever happened to sibling love...?

[MaiMai]

I guess the question you should ask is why do you want an incest route? Is the story going to suffer without it? If not, how else can I manufacture drama that doesn't involve it? Am I aiming this particular route towards people with a thing for incest?

Putting that kind of route for the sake of it (let's face it, way too many Japanese VNs do this) seems a little troublesome and almost thoughtless at times.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

A cop out in this context means it would be taking the easiest possible way to explain something, but not the best way. Another example would be saying "Oh, it's magic" for everything that doesn't make sense.

Unfortunately I have no advice about finding a justifiable excuse for incest, as there is no such thing.

I agree with TrickWithAKnife. There is no real way to "justify" it, but I commend you on wanting to avoid the "adopted" route. I hate that cop-out with a burning passion. It's kind of comical when the adoption isn't even MENTIONED in the game, right up until the epilogue, when in the last few sentences of the game the writer basically goes, "but all the stuff they did was okay, because they later found out they weren't blood related!"

IMHO, if you are going to stick in a little sister or incest route - bite the bullet and DO IT. You either want it there or you don't. I don't think justifying one way or the other is going to work. People are either going to like it and choose that route - or they aren't and will avoid it.

Putting that kind of route for the sake of it (let's face it, way too many Japanese VNs do this) seems a little troublesome and almost thoughtless at times.

Do many Japanese VNs REALLY do it though? I'd say almost 100% of the ones I've played that featured such a route used the cop-out mentioned above. I.e. they make it known early on that the siblings are adopted, or they have the "sibling" really be the next door neighbor kid who spends so much time at your house they call you 'brother', or they wait until the end when the relationship is really angsting all involved and have the parents reveal 'don't be upset, we didn't want to tell you, but your sister is ADOPTED'. (Oddly enough, it occurs to me that I rarely if ever see it happen that the protagonist is the one that is adopted - it always seems to be the sibling.)

Suffice it to say, I rarely see Japanese VN authors "commit" to the storyline being actual incest. Maybe I'm just getting white-washed translations, but that's been my experience.

[MaiMai]

Putting that kind of route for the sake of it (let's face it, way too many Japanese VNs do this) seems a little troublesome and almost thoughtless at times.

Do many Japanese VNs REALLY do it though? I'd say almost 100% of the ones I've played that featured such a route used the cop-out mentioned above. I.e. they make it known early on that the siblings are adopted, or they have the "sibling" really be the next door neighbor kid who spends so much time at your house they call you 'brother', or they wait until the end when the relationship is really angsting all involved and have the parents reveal 'don't be upset, we didn't want to tell you, but your sister is ADOPTED'. (Oddly enough, it occurs to me that I rarely if ever see it happen that the protagonist is the one that is adopted - it always seems to be the sibling.)

Suffice it to say, I rarely see Japanese VN authors "commit" to the storyline being actual incest. Maybe I'm just getting white-washed translations, but that's been my experience.

The, "actually adopted" thing is kind of what I implied (although not clearly at all I admit) when I said thoughtlessly thrown in. It's like trying to skirt around incest, but hey still totally kind of like it!! So when it comes to actual incest I pretty much have no faith in it being written in a mature fashion even if it is meant to be drama.

[Asceai]

Suffice it to say, I rarely see Japanese VN authors "commit" to the storyline being actual incest. Maybe I'm just getting white-washed translations, but that's been my experience.

My only suggestion would be to play more new titles; from 1999-2004, the EOCS (the industry association most commercial eroge companies are a part of) banned incest, so they had to do this. Since then, more and more eroges have included it.

[LVUER]

One thing for sure, when Yume Miru Kusuri doesn't include the little sister route (not really incest since they're not blood related), I was... AM still like RAAAAGGGEEEEE!!!!! That's how important a little sister route for me ;P