Salutations! Welcome to Butterscotch's Harvest Moon guide!
In this guide, I will be writing down some insightful ideas, character backstories, and researching and answering various HM questions.
terms used : "HM" - Harvest Moon, "HM:AP" - Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, "AP" - Animal Parade, "AU" - alternate universe.
CHAPTER I : I'll explain my views on the Animal Parade calendar and compare it to our 12 month/365 day calendar... (in all reality though, there are actually 365.2422 days in a non-leap year, but we will be rounding it to 365 for the sake of simpleness). In addition to converting HM:AP time to our Earth-time (for a better grasp of the HM:AP timeline and other questions), we will also be converting the Zodiac signs to HM:AP. So everyone can now know and apply their AP character's sign to a fanfiction, as well as our favorite villagers! (A great big thanks to the Wizard for his knowledge in astrology; I couldn't have done it without him.)
a quick note : the following information in chapter I pertains only to the Harvest Moon: Animal Parade calendar, as my interpretations below are based off a 28 day, 4 month seasonal chart.
(this is Butterscotch with author comments)
((these are math equations... you can skip over them))
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A Earth year has 12 months and 4 seasons, while in HM:AP, a year contains 4 season/months... and in each of these seasons there is a total of 28 days. Comparing those ((28 AP days in each month. 28 x 4 months = 112)) 112 days to our 365, ((365 ÷ 112 = ~3.2589...)) we'll get the rounded number of 3. So! Every day in HM:AP is 3 days to us, in Earth time. That's 72 hours in a single day! Wow. No wonder our AP characters get tired so quickly... Not to mention why our animals die after two years. One year is 112 days, x 2 = 224 (which is two years), x 3 = 672 Earth days... which isn't too horrible, but continue reading for further ideas and/or explanations below.
To break the timeline down further, every hour in the AU World of HM:Animal Parade, is 3 hours to us. A ratio of 1:3.
For this reason, I have created the idea of a thus universe where the AP World is hosted on a planet that spins at a much slower rate than ours; which would contribute to the days being 3 times longer, but this concept has a negative side, as it also applies to nights. But, with this information, it would further explain why it is bad to keep animals out at night, as the temperature would have an extra ((24 hours x 3 = 72 hours AP time ÷ 2 = 34 hours cooling time... 34 hours - 12 earth cooling hours = 24)) 24 hours time to drop, which would be over double below what we experience. Earth would cool considerably in that time without the sun's heat. So the HM:AP nighttime would get very very cold, thus resulting in lower mammal metabolism and lifespan. Evolution, my dear Watson, is a marvelous thing. (Of course we would have to apply the same aspect to humans, so the short lifespan idea might not be a good thing to base a story off of, even as realistic to the game as it is.)
useful tidbit : It would take three hours to get to Harmonica Town, on foot, in our time. In AP time it would take about an hour. Sounds good?
All the above, of course, is speculation... as my ideas are not in any way, official. But they are very fun to read an imagine! (I will also be applying these views to my future Harvest Moon: Animal Parade fanfictions.)
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Obtaining the Zodiac Signs (thus further pertaining to the concept that the HM:AP world is an alternate universe similar to our own) was a difficult process, as the beginning of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn all start the day corresponding to spring, summer, fall, and winter equinox (equinox meaning the the beginning of the seasons). Compromises were hard to avoid, as the first day of winter is (either) 21/22th of December and travels through January and February, to stop on March 19/20th (the day of spring); which would be a mess, as the AP calendar has at the end of the Winter season a New Year's Eve party... the New Year couldn't be celebrated at the end of March, now could it? (If this made little sense, I'll try to word it a different way. The first official day of winter is normally either the 21/22th of December, and the official day of spring is either March 19/20th. If the winter season in HM:AP ended with a New Year Party, I couldn't make Capricorn begin on the same day of the Earth-Zodiac, as in the Animal Parade calender winter would start around the 25th of Winter and end around 24th of Spring... New Year's Eve in March/middle of the HM spring season? I don't think so!)
Our 12 months had to be divided by four ((12 ÷ 4 = 3)), so every three months would be a new HM:AP season. January, February, March, are spring. April, May, June, are summer. July, August, September, are fall. October, November, December, are winter... this is where the compromising begins. (Mostly because fall months generally fall under August, September, October, November and winter months are December, January, ect... but, in this case, I couldn't work it out.) Then through a trial and error, with a chart, I finally was able to figure out the timeline calendar, as well as the Zodiac sign calendar.
But first, I'll give everyone an example of what went into figuring the HM:AP Zodiac. I'll be using Libra as an in-depth example, just because it is my (Butterscotch's) sign.
Libra : September 23 - October 22. There are 30 days in September, thus resulting in seven Libra-days in September and 22 in October, ((30 Sept. days - 23 days = 7 Sept. days + 22 Oct. days = 29 overall days)) 29 days in total for the Libra sign... (A reminder this is in Earth time!) Now, to get those 29 days in HM:AP time, we divide by 3, ((29 divide by 3 = ~9.6666...)) which we will round down to 9*. Therefore, Libra will get nine days in the HM:AP calendar... the HM:AP calendar which, I forgot to add, has 112 days in a year.
*I will explain why we rounded down instead of up soon (because in correct math .6+ numbers get rounded up, not down).
Here are the other Zodiac signs and explanations, I did them in the same equation as I showed you above... so you can skip over them if you'd like.
Capricorn : December 22 - January 19 = 28 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.3333... (which we round to) *8 days in HM
Aquarius : January 20 - February 18 = 29 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.6666... (which we round to) 9 days in HM
Pisces : February 19 - March 20 = 29 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.6666... (which we round to) 9 days in HM
Aries : March 21 - April 19 = 29 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.6666... (which we round to) 9 days in HM
Taurus : April 20 - May 20 = 30 days total (which we divide by 3) = 10 days in HM
Gemini : May 21 - June 20 = 30 days total (which we divide by 3) = 10 days in HM
Cancer : June 21 - July 22 = 31 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~10.3333... (which we round to) 10 days in HM
Leo : July 23 - August 22 = 30 days total (which we divide by 3) = 10 days in HM
Virgo : August 23 - September 22 = 30 days total (which we divide by 3) = 10 days in HM
Libra : September 23 - October 22 = 29 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.6666... (which we round to) 9 days in HM
Scorpio : October 23 - November 21 = 29 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.6666... (which we round to) 9 days in HM
Sagittarius : November 22 - December 21 = 29 days total (which we divide by 3) = ~9.6666... (which we round to) 9 in HM
Total calendar days, ((8 days + (9 days x 6) + (10 days + 5) = 112 days)) 112, as there are 112 days in a HM:AP year. Perfect!
*Now Capricorn had the lowest number of active Zodiac days (28) and when I calculated the unedited HM:AP Zodiac days, it showed that there was 113 days... one day too many. So I took it upon myself to look over the Zodiac signs again and this was the only acceptable compromise. And as I explained (or tried to) above, I had to figure out a system that was perfect, and this one was pretty darn close. Aries begins spring, Cancer begins summer, Libra begins fall, and Capricorn begins winter, each as they should be as the Earth-calendar portrays the equinoxes. If you are confused why some signs have longer dates than the others, refer to above, where I was showing you how I converted the Earth day Zodiac to HM days.
Without further adieu, here are the HM:AP Zodiac signs!
Aries : Winter 27 - Spring 7
Taurus : Spring 8 - Spring 17
Gemini : Spring 19 - Spring 27
Cancer : Summer 28 - Summer 9
Leo : Summer 10 - Summer 19
Virgo : Summer 20 - Fall 1
Libra : Fall 2 - Fall 10
Scorpio : Fall 11 - Fall 19
Sagittarius : Fall 20 - Fall 28
Capricorn : Winter 1 - Winter 8
Aquarius : Winter 9 - Winter 17
Pisces : Winter 18 - Winter 26
And the villagers they correspond to.
Ramsey and Ruth - Aries
Toby, Mayor, and Phoebe - Taurus
Hayden, Chase, Sue - Gemini
Kathy, Cain, and Luke - Cancer
Yolanda, Dale, Owen, and Taylor - Leo
Samson, Barbara, Luna, Selena, and Chloe - Virgo
Bo, Renee, Craig, and Mira - Libra
Anissa - Scorpio
Irene, Julius, Maya, and Jake - Sagittarius
Pascal, Hannah, Candace, and Simon - Capricorn
Colleen and Calvin - Aquarius
Shelly, Paolo, Ozzie, and Jin - Pisces
Now I know, some of these might seem off... but hey, the Zodiac wasn't made to match their appearance, it's scientific! This is all in good fun. Who knows, one of the villagers might have a side of them you never new about! (And this also gives inspiration to you wonderful fanfiction writers, since many secondary-characters have slight Mary Sue and Gary Stu characteristics you could "fix".)
These ideas are free to use anywhere on fanfiction . net. Please do not use them on any other site.
If you do use anything appearing here, please post a link on your profile or state my author's name somewhere in your story. And send me a PM! I'd love to read them.
Even though I will be adding more chapters later, this guild will remain "Complete". +Watch it if you like it enough to be alerted to new information.
Butterscotch Peach.