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

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In the game I am working on that I have yet to deem ready to add to this website, menstruation is closely linked to a certain kind of magical power. Don't worry, it's nothing as weird and gross as like, weaponizing your menses or whatever. Specifically, it's this: the powers of a witch first begin to manifest at Menarche (not to be confused with this unfortunately named MTG legendary, which is exactly two letters off). It's usually a late Menarche and for the character in question it's very late: she's 15. (And as a rule, the later the Menarche, the more powerful the witch.)

This was part of the meaning of the original title Under A Killing Moon*: in the middle ages, generally speaking a woman's menstrual cycle would be spoken of in the context of her "moons", a euphemism that still sees occasional usage today, along with 'Aunt Flo' and 'Time of the Month'. I just briefly considered the idea of a day/night/lunar procession system where indeed a witch will be at the peak of her powers during her period...but I nixed that idea because I think it's so ridiculous even people that want to take the game seriously would have trouble not laughing at it. Too much effort, too.

I'm trying to think of how a young girl in a late medieval village might be stigmatized or persecuted or come under suspicion...pretty much any good reason for her to go running off into the dark woods at night. It shouldn't be hard. I'm pretty sure that in the middle ages, a majority of people still firmly believed that menstruation to be a punishment levied upon women by God for original sin.

My own experience with this during puberty was so uneventful it might as well not have happened--I grew up with at least one decent parent and not during the middle ages, obviously. Every idea I've come up with so far I've realized pretty quick was just ripping off Carrie by Stephen King one way or another (Carrie goes through menarche around 17 which is incredibly late, and also has no idea what menstruation is because her mother's a batshit fundie bitch, the opening of the movie is her being pelted by tampons by her fellow class mates to the chant of "plug it up!", "plug it up!", "plug it up!", bullying which is sufficient to reduce her to the fetal position and tears in a high school girls locker room when she unexpectedly started menstruating.) I'd like to get something that feels a little more real than that, or at least less familiar.

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 (there's a tvtropes page for that, you're welcome for not linking you, you might have something to do today/tonight).

So yeah any of you ladies or a friend of yours have um...a non-ideal onset to their menstruation? Obviously it's a very personal question so don't answer unless you feel like it.

To any guy that clicked this thread out of morbid curiosity: I'm sorry, I actually get it, like, periods are indeed pretty gross whether you're in a position to have one or not. But you were warned in the thread title :P
Okay hold up
no

just no

yes, sexual assault happens and it probably happened a lot before general consensus decided it was a BAD THING

but that does not mean that every girl without a mother back in ye old times was getting raped by her father

I'm more than a little disconcerted that you'd think people didn't have common sense/familial love/morals or anything that would fucking stop them from doing so
as though the rules of today were in any way the only thing that stops such shit happening on the regular.

hell no

sorry, but the father would be more likely to get remarried, not fucking fuck his daughter instead. liek wtf man


just have her be a motherless home with a loving father who works hard but doesn't know shit about ladies business

jesus
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I... dude, there were certainly very different attitudes at the time, but it's not like there were NO societal morals or ethics! Jesus.

Try looking up the actual history of menstruation or something. Like here, from a simple googlin of "menstruation medieval": https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/55yvw7/how_did_women_deal_with_periods_in_medieval_times/
ESBY
extreme disappointment
1238
how did you manage to out do bulma

i don't know whether to be completely horrified or impressed
You say you want the game to be quite dark and for the character to hurry out of the house in the woods...
Liberty's suggestion is pretty good. I think that it would make more sense if the father was away during the event. Maybe he became the local drunkard after his wife died... Meanwhile, his daughter has to steal food to eat. She gets caught and is persecuted everyday, etc. until she realizes she has no future here and decides to run away to reach another town.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=Liberty
yes, sexual assault happens and it probably happened a lot before general consensus decided it was a BAD THING

but that does not mean that every girl without a mother back in ye old times was getting raped by her father

I'm more than a little disconcerted that you'd think people didn't have common sense/familial love/morals or anything that would fucking stop them from doing so
as though the rules of today were in any way the only thing that stops such shit happening on the regular.

hell no

sorry, but the father would be more likely to get remarried, not fucking fuck his daughter instead. liek wtf man


It's not like this is happening to everyone in the world in his story. Just to the one character. It doesn't seem that outrageous that this could happen to someone.

The fact that one course of action is more likely doesn't mean that everyone always takes that course of action. Your job as a writer isn't to come up with the most likely thing that would happen to most people, it's to come up with a course of events that is both plausible and dramatic. Tragedies that lead to the victim obtaining power are pretty dramatic.
I feel like you're going for shock value, even if you're not explicitly saying it.
author=Sooz
I... dude, there were certainly very different attitudes at the time, but it's not like there were NO societal morals or ethics! Jesus.

Try looking up the actual history of menstruation or something. Like here, from a simple googlin of "menstruation medieval": https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/55yvw7/how_did_women_deal_with_periods_in_medieval_times/

^ This is good.

Also just chiming in to say that with what you have written I have absolutely zero clue as to what you are asking people with menstruation here. Like, what is on-set? First time getting menstruation? Start of the period? (no medieval perspective, right?)
Also what is non-ideal? You seem less comfortable saying it than anyone who'd answer. It's a normal thing. Mundane, even. It's not particularly gross to most people having them (at least my being able to talk about it normally with a lot of other peeps and seeing comments about 'em everywhere suggests this). It's a natural, common, albeit a bit inconvenient occurrence. The only not "ideal" on-set one can have is when you dirty things (bed sheets, panties) you do not want to, and for myself my body is absolutely wonderful to work with for that.
First time was just chill. That's the only way I can describe it. It involved a few quick encouragement and chill tips to know relaxing helps the little pain you have to ease, as well as awkward product placements by my siblings afterwards which I didn't really know how to use and would rather have just read through the manual by myself. These manuals tend to be detailed and very helpful no matter what product you get.

That is my best bet of guessing what you tried to get at. If you want horror stories... yeah... you won't get any here, I doubt it. Especially coming from a place of "ewww periods".
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
Also, to suggest that if we didn't have strict regulations, nearly all men would be raping their daughters is...I want to say another word, but I'll settle for saying it's inexcusable.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
Periods are a normal thing to talk about.
Also, I agree with piano.

Now that I've calmed down a bit more


Periods were considered more normal back in ye old days than they are today. We went through a period in the recent past where women weren't supposed to talk to menfolk about such things, but that's a rather modern attitude. It was considered something that was normal. People didn't raise their eyebrows at it or cry in fear. It was just a fact of life.

Keep in mind that we're talking about a period of time where people would sleep in one room together if poor and sex would be happening in the same room (if not bed) bed as other people were sleeping in. So people were used to things like periods being the norm. They weren't icky, they weren't hidden, they weren't horrifying. They just were.

In this case, for your story, you can just make it a fact of nature. Maybe father was the youngest of a group of brothers and his mother died young. He was newly married when his wife fell pregnant so didn't have to deal with that much before she stopped having her menses, and then she died at childbirth, leaving him with a daughter. He thus had no real idea about menses and how to deal with them.

The scariest way to find out about your menses is to not be told and just have them happen. Bleeding from your genitals is never a good thing and a lot of women who aren't told about them think they're dying and seek a doctor asap. Maybe she goes to the wisewoman who is a bitch and makes a huge theatric lol about it. Maybe she thinks she's dying and makes theatrics herself.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
A really horrific period would be if the blue fluid from pad commercials came out instead of blood.

Or like silly string. At the same force as silly string from a dispenser. That'd be unsettling as hell.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Just like you're doin your thing and then all of a sudden "FSSSSSSSS!" from your nethers and pastel foam shoots out your undies.
author=Sooz
Just like you're doin your thing and then all of a sudden "FSSSSSSSS!" from your nethers and pastel foam shoots out your undies.


That would indeed be horrifying, hahaha
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

This is a strange topic.
author=kory_toombs
This is a strange topic.


Yeah... I wouldn't play anything like this.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Now Storm won't touch this topic for a few weeks and we'll get to hear about it and the aftermath in a blog or something
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