THIS ONE'S FOR THE LADIES...AND PRETTY WEIRD...AND MAYBE A LITTLE GROSS

oy fucking vey

libby:

author=Me
Another idea I considered but rejected is that the mother died during childbirth and the father doesn't know the first thing about menstruating, but I found this logically leading to the fact that it's practically more likely than not that in the absence of her mother, her father would have begun to sexually assault her. (As gross as this is, this still does happen in modern society at least it was hapening well into the late 20th century, but since we're talking medieval Europe where no one's got any morals or ethics that we would recognize as such, it seems more likely than not.) But idk, that specific effed up family life feels like a cliche to me. Also this is going to be a dark dark dark dark dark dark game. If I'm doing my job even half-right as a game designer and storyteller you'll wind up liking and relating to (sometimes playable) characters that die horribly, tragically, or brutally later on, Game of Thrones style (but less excessive) or cross the moral event horizon to the point hwere you can no longer earnestly root for them (also Game of Thrones style). If I put all that rapey stuff in her backstory, I feel like I'd be courting Darkness Induced Audience Apathy

I just outlined why I WON'T be including that as an element in my game and WHY I won't be including it...and Libby started screaming at me. Maybe read a little more closely? I feel like you just see a few words and go fucking ballistic where if you look at the context you are shouting at me about something I already explained up front I was not going to do and WHY I wasn't going to do it. Like, take a breath, and read.

I for one would really appreciate it is you could turn down the reflexive outrage and turn up the reading comprehension.

Lemme be clear on a few things:

1) During the middle ages, it was not uncommon for the patriarch of a household to force a female child to take up the matriarch's "wifely duties" if the matriarch had passed on or could otherwise no longer perform them. When I say "this happened all the time in the middle ages" I'm not actually, literally claiming to have any idea how often it happened (if I had to guess, I'd guess maybe 5% of the time), just that it wasn't uncommon, it wasn't controversial, and it wasn't illegal.
2) "It was the middle ages and people hadn't invented morality yet" was lighthearted shorthand for "social mores were dramatically different".
3) Along the same lines but not as inherently rapy or horrifying, until the end of the 19th Century it was customary for a man to wed his brother's spouse if his brother died.

author=visitorsfromdreams
Yeah thats a big ol' no from me dawg.

1) I did not ask you anything. You're a dude. See thread title.
2) I certainly did not ask you a yes or no question, or your permission to make my game however the fuck I want to, so this isn't something you get to say "no" too, at least not and have it mean anything. Saying that the answer to a question that wasn't a yes-or-no question and which wasn't directed is "a big ol' no" at you is pretty damn rude. I did not ask your permission to make my game however I feel best. I asked if there were any female users that for one reason or another had any issues with their first periods.

LockeZ is the only other person in this thread that has said anything that makes any sense. He is also a dude but in this case his input is welcomed because it saves me the effort of explaining stuff I shouldn't have to explain because it's obvious. No, I was not saying that every single person during the middle ages was raped by their dad. I was saying that this is a thing that could potentially have happened to my MC, again, one I considered and rejected.

ANYWAY, ANYHOW: the menarche/menstruation stuff will be toned down to the point of subtext. A witch's mark (stigmata on the left hand) will largely stand in for menstruation: one of many advantages there is that it is pretty easy to conceal menstruating, but pretty I haven't decided how many living parents Camilla has or if either of them are abusive.

"Don't worry; it's just stigmata
Pass me a napkin
And don't you dare tell my mother."

Song lyrics, from the band Clutch, summarize better than I can the intended tone here, the conflation of magical abnormal bleeding (stigmata) with ordinary period bleeding by the use of the surrounding language and context: textually, we're talking about stigmata, subtextually, we're talking about Menarche.

@InfectionFiles, Mirak: Okay, now I will engage in my time honored custom of flying away from this thread without ever looking back. : )