Hello. I sent the mod team a PM previously, which I will link here so that there's a clear record of our conversation. I'm grateful to hear that you gave this topic some more thought. However, I must ask you to again reconsider your stance.
I'm sorry in advance for the length of this comment. I have a lot to say.
As far as I understand it, you are saying that at the core of Union society, heterosexuality is still deemed more valuable because of the city's focus on reproduction. You are also saying that despite this, homosexuality is not stigmatized, persecuted, or derided.
I'll start by showing you two sentences from your comment:
"...There consequently exists a great deal of societal pressure for people to reproduce.
However, what people do, sexually, is considered nobody's business."
Do you see how these two sentences contradict each other? Society cares very much about what my character does in the bedroom (assumedly reproduction), but simultaneously is stated to not care at all.
Another point: if society "doesn't care" what anyone's sexual orientation is, why does the gay bar that the other player suggested have to be a secret? Why can't it be placed in the center of the nightlife district, where everyone could see who entered and left? After all, "no one cares," right?
Here's another question. What do you gain, as mods and worldbuilders, by instating this strong focus on heterosexual marriage and childbearing?
Here are a few of the problems this position causes. It makes players feel ostracized. It narrows the relationships and plotlines that some players can pursue, because queer characters must account for society's opinion of their sexuality (more on that in a moment). It provides plots to some characters (i.e., marriage) that are then denied to other (i.e., queer) characters. It also distracts from the true strengths of this RP, such as its very interesting Enlightened typing/ability system and the exploration of the world both within and outside of Union.
Most of the problems I've listed are quite serious. The first one alone would give me pause as a mod; this many at once would set off serious warning bells.
The only explanation I can find for your dedication to this idea is that you're hoping to use it to inject some "realism" into the RP. If that is the case, please allow me to fact-check your realism. You have stated that the RP is based on the Industrial Revolution period, which is roughly 1760 to 1840. In this time period, we had not yet discovered penicillin or any antibiotics. We did not have many vaccines. The spread of disease was only just beginning to be understood; even simple hygiene techniques such as hand washing were not widespread at this time, as hard as that may be to believe.
Indoor plumbing was also not widespread during this time period, which is probably something most characters would be more immediately concerned with.
Let's continue with the medical concerns, though. Childbirth is a messy and extremely dangerous process for both mother and child. There are hundreds of ways for a woman (and her fetus) to die in childbirth, especially considering at this time period we had almost no way to prevent the spread of illness. Does this mean that because of the strong and "realistic" focus on childbirth, female characters should also be willing to accept that there is a real chance that their characters will die, and so will their children?
Even if they survive, children often became ill and died before reaching adulthood. If we are being so very realistic and focusing so very strongly on heterosexuality and childbirth, should I also prepare to have my character face outbreaks of cholera or smallpox, which are only two of the many diseases that plagued humanity during this time period? Should I also prepare to have my character lose their children to these diseases?
Because of these facts I have mentioned, I am also not confident that your stated number of 4.4 children per household is accurate; certainly some women died before having that many, unless remarriage is also common. If it is accurate, I can guarantee that not all of them would survive to become reproducing adults themselves.
Surely by now you're thinking, "This is silly! All of that is way too complicated, and not much fun to RP at all. If we did all that, all we'd do all day is cry over lost characters and loved ones." And I agree with you whole-heartedly! Why don't we dismiss all that nonsense about medicines and disease? Sure we want to be realistic, but most importantly we are here to have fun and enjoy ourselves.
Do you see how easily I removed a "realistic" element from my worldbuliding, because it caused more trouble than good? Adjusting the focus on heterosexuality and reproduction—clearly a problematic element, or else we would not be having this conversation—is just as easy. All it takes is deleting one paragraph from the rules. No fuss, no muss.
Here's the other side of that coin: the current stance you are taking does not provide realism, because it is not realistic.
If you want "realism," there is nothing more realistic than the oppression and poor treatment that queer people experience on a daily basis. This has been a societal force for a very long time; certainly it was present in the 1800s. Why is that we can keep "realistic" childbirth (which I've previously shown is not very realistic at all), and yet we can easily dismiss the real pain and suffering felt by thousands of people around the world even today?
There are many historical examples of the "open secret"-style society that you are proposing, and they have always failed to prevent homophobia and ensure the safety of queer people. The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is the first to come to mind; the Reagan administration's handling of the AIDS crisis is another. If you are choosing to infuse the society with something that will provoke homophobia, you cannot sweep it under the rug by saying "But there won't be any homophobia, promise," because history has repeatedly shown that this is not what happens.
Look at it this way: let's assume I'm a member of Union society. If that society trains me to believe that not having children will bring my city to the brink of extinction, and you are not having children, then I will understand you to be threatening my society's future, and you'd better believe that I would take a keen interest in your bedroom affairs. If I am queer myself, then I will internalize self-hatred because I'm not attracted to people with whom I could procreate, and I will feel as if I am endangering myself and my city. A society with this setup will lead to queer oppression. This is a logical conclusion with basis in historical fact.
That's why the gay bar can't be in public, by the way. It's because regardless of your well-intentioned promises, societal censure will inevitably follow anyone who was seen patronizing it. That's just what happens. If it didn't happen in the RP, it would seem fake and forced—unrealistic.
Here's one more angle. We are choosing not to RP something realistic (homophobia), because it is unacceptable to everyone involved in the RP. (No good hearted person would want to spread oppression, and I strongly believe that you're trying to do the right thing here.) But we are simultaneously choosing to keep something unrealistic (strong pressure to marry and bear children, childbirth without its associated mortality rates and medical concerns), even though it is resulting in these unacceptable and oppressive RPing consequences?
I've been talking for a while now. But honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This society's view of childbirth opens up a lot of plot holes. If the focus is childbirth, why do people have to get married to do it? Why don't people take multiple partners if they want to have the maximum number of babies? If children are so devastatingly important, why do females have any option to have positions outside of the home? (After all, they'd be best serving society as baby making machines!) And if the goal is to ensure that the maximum amount of children grow to become productive members of society, and you have previously stated that orphans exist, why can't same-sex couples be married and raise those adopted children? Certainly that also fulfills that goal?
There are of course people who would have fun RPing plots involving closeted characters, and enjoy RPing out the real-world consequences of a homophobic society. The problem isn't necessarily even that queer characters will experience oppression—it's that if I choose to play a queer character, I am forced to incorporate that oppression into my character history and playing style, even if I don't want to. Because I've chosen to play a character who happens to be queer, my playing options are suddenly limited. That seems unfair. I didn't choose my character because he was queer; I chose him because I liked him.
But there are actually ways to satisfy all parties, if you can't give the childbirth/marriage focus up (though what is making you keep it, if everything I've written here cannot convince you? Is your plot primarily built around this? Do you need it for the entire RP to function??). The trick is to make your RP more inclusive, not less.
As I understand it, the primary sticking-point for you is that you want the society to create as many productive members of society as possible. You really, really want people to have a lot of babies and then raise them to adulthood, regardless of how realistic that may be (and regardless of whether your players want to RP out pregnancy, child-rearing, and marriage plots, which is another thing I haven't touched on at all). Okay, sure. So what if we changed things so that there was still a focus on having and raising children, but we took the associated homophobia away? What if every member of Union had to eventually be in a relationship, whether straight or queer, and everyone in those relationships had to raise kids, whether biological or adopted? And, to satisfy those players that wanted more conflict, what if there was also a more radical sect that felt that homosexuality was endangering Union by limiting the amount of children that could be produced, as you've originally stated? That way, players who wanted that kind of RPing could still have it, but players who didn't could choose to avoid it. It's at least a compromise, if one I'm still not totally happy with.
What you're offering now is not any sort of compromise. Your most recent proposal doesn't fix the problem—it simply tries to mask it, and that does not does not ease my concerns. It only amplifies them, because now I am worried that you're not listening to your player base.
One final point. This focus on children and marriage is not native to the pokemon franchise. The games allow you to play a male or female character and the plot does not change; females aren't limited by external requirements, such as bearing as many children as possible. Romance and sexuality are barely mentioned. In both the games and pokemon special, there is only one PC character with siblings (the gen iii PC/Ruby). Additionally, PC characters are almost always shown to be from single parent (or functionally single parent) homes.
The pokemon universe is ultimately an idealistic world; truth and justice always win in the end. Isn't it more suitable to the canon if love, too, were to win the day, and queer relationships valued as much as straight ones?
I am very sorry that this letter is so long. I sincerely thank you for reading it all; that means a lot to me.
Please, please reconsider your stance on this important topic. Ultimately, it does the RP more harm than good. It doesn't add realism, it limits your player base and RPing that they can pursue, and it's easy to remove.
no subject
I'm sorry in advance for the length of this comment. I have a lot to say.
As far as I understand it, you are saying that at the core of Union society, heterosexuality is still deemed more valuable because of the city's focus on reproduction. You are also saying that despite this, homosexuality is not stigmatized, persecuted, or derided.
I'll start by showing you two sentences from your comment:
Do you see how these two sentences contradict each other? Society cares very much about what my character does in the bedroom (assumedly reproduction), but simultaneously is stated to not care at all.
Another point: if society "doesn't care" what anyone's sexual orientation is, why does the gay bar that the other player suggested have to be a secret? Why can't it be placed in the center of the nightlife district, where everyone could see who entered and left? After all, "no one cares," right?
Here's another question. What do you gain, as mods and worldbuilders, by instating this strong focus on heterosexual marriage and childbearing?
Here are a few of the problems this position causes. It makes players feel ostracized. It narrows the relationships and plotlines that some players can pursue, because queer characters must account for society's opinion of their sexuality (more on that in a moment). It provides plots to some characters (i.e., marriage) that are then denied to other (i.e., queer) characters. It also distracts from the true strengths of this RP, such as its very interesting Enlightened typing/ability system and the exploration of the world both within and outside of Union.
Most of the problems I've listed are quite serious. The first one alone would give me pause as a mod; this many at once would set off serious warning bells.
The only explanation I can find for your dedication to this idea is that you're hoping to use it to inject some "realism" into the RP. If that is the case, please allow me to fact-check your realism. You have stated that the RP is based on the Industrial Revolution period, which is roughly 1760 to 1840. In this time period, we had not yet discovered penicillin or any antibiotics. We did not have many vaccines. The spread of disease was only just beginning to be understood; even simple hygiene techniques such as hand washing were not widespread at this time, as hard as that may be to believe.
Indoor plumbing was also not widespread during this time period, which is probably something most characters would be more immediately concerned with.
Let's continue with the medical concerns, though. Childbirth is a messy and extremely dangerous process for both mother and child. There are hundreds of ways for a woman (and her fetus) to die in childbirth, especially considering at this time period we had almost no way to prevent the spread of illness. Does this mean that because of the strong and "realistic" focus on childbirth, female characters should also be willing to accept that there is a real chance that their characters will die, and so will their children?
Even if they survive, children often became ill and died before reaching adulthood. If we are being so very realistic and focusing so very strongly on heterosexuality and childbirth, should I also prepare to have my character face outbreaks of cholera or smallpox, which are only two of the many diseases that plagued humanity during this time period? Should I also prepare to have my character lose their children to these diseases?
Because of these facts I have mentioned, I am also not confident that your stated number of 4.4 children per household is accurate; certainly some women died before having that many, unless remarriage is also common. If it is accurate, I can guarantee that not all of them would survive to become reproducing adults themselves.
Surely by now you're thinking, "This is silly! All of that is way too complicated, and not much fun to RP at all. If we did all that, all we'd do all day is cry over lost characters and loved ones." And I agree with you whole-heartedly! Why don't we dismiss all that nonsense about medicines and disease? Sure we want to be realistic, but most importantly we are here to have fun and enjoy ourselves.
Do you see how easily I removed a "realistic" element from my worldbuliding, because it caused more trouble than good? Adjusting the focus on heterosexuality and reproduction—clearly a problematic element, or else we would not be having this conversation—is just as easy. All it takes is deleting one paragraph from the rules. No fuss, no muss.
Here's the other side of that coin: the current stance you are taking does not provide realism, because it is not realistic.
If you want "realism," there is nothing more realistic than the oppression and poor treatment that queer people experience on a daily basis. This has been a societal force for a very long time; certainly it was present in the 1800s. Why is that we can keep "realistic" childbirth (which I've previously shown is not very realistic at all), and yet we can easily dismiss the real pain and suffering felt by thousands of people around the world even today?
There are many historical examples of the "open secret"-style society that you are proposing, and they have always failed to prevent homophobia and ensure the safety of queer people. The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy is the first to come to mind; the Reagan administration's handling of the AIDS crisis is another. If you are choosing to infuse the society with something that will provoke homophobia, you cannot sweep it under the rug by saying "But there won't be any homophobia, promise," because history has repeatedly shown that this is not what happens.
Look at it this way: let's assume I'm a member of Union society. If that society trains me to believe that not having children will bring my city to the brink of extinction, and you are not having children, then I will understand you to be threatening my society's future, and you'd better believe that I would take a keen interest in your bedroom affairs. If I am queer myself, then I will internalize self-hatred because I'm not attracted to people with whom I could procreate, and I will feel as if I am endangering myself and my city. A society with this setup will lead to queer oppression. This is a logical conclusion with basis in historical fact.
That's why the gay bar can't be in public, by the way. It's because regardless of your well-intentioned promises, societal censure will inevitably follow anyone who was seen patronizing it. That's just what happens. If it didn't happen in the RP, it would seem fake and forced—unrealistic.
Here's one more angle. We are choosing not to RP something realistic (homophobia), because it is unacceptable to everyone involved in the RP. (No good hearted person would want to spread oppression, and I strongly believe that you're trying to do the right thing here.) But we are simultaneously choosing to keep something unrealistic (strong pressure to marry and bear children, childbirth without its associated mortality rates and medical concerns), even though it is resulting in these unacceptable and oppressive RPing consequences?
I've been talking for a while now. But honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. This society's view of childbirth opens up a lot of plot holes. If the focus is childbirth, why do people have to get married to do it? Why don't people take multiple partners if they want to have the maximum number of babies? If children are so devastatingly important, why do females have any option to have positions outside of the home? (After all, they'd be best serving society as baby making machines!) And if the goal is to ensure that the maximum amount of children grow to become productive members of society, and you have previously stated that orphans exist, why can't same-sex couples be married and raise those adopted children? Certainly that also fulfills that goal?
There are of course people who would have fun RPing plots involving closeted characters, and enjoy RPing out the real-world consequences of a homophobic society. The problem isn't necessarily even that queer characters will experience oppression—it's that if I choose to play a queer character, I am forced to incorporate that oppression into my character history and playing style, even if I don't want to. Because I've chosen to play a character who happens to be queer, my playing options are suddenly limited. That seems unfair. I didn't choose my character because he was queer; I chose him because I liked him.
But there are actually ways to satisfy all parties, if you can't give the childbirth/marriage focus up (though what is making you keep it, if everything I've written here cannot convince you? Is your plot primarily built around this? Do you need it for the entire RP to function??). The trick is to make your RP more inclusive, not less.
As I understand it, the primary sticking-point for you is that you want the society to create as many productive members of society as possible. You really, really want people to have a lot of babies and then raise them to adulthood, regardless of how realistic that may be (and regardless of whether your players want to RP out pregnancy, child-rearing, and marriage plots, which is another thing I haven't touched on at all). Okay, sure. So what if we changed things so that there was still a focus on having and raising children, but we took the associated homophobia away? What if every member of Union had to eventually be in a relationship, whether straight or queer, and everyone in those relationships had to raise kids, whether biological or adopted? And, to satisfy those players that wanted more conflict, what if there was also a more radical sect that felt that homosexuality was endangering Union by limiting the amount of children that could be produced, as you've originally stated? That way, players who wanted that kind of RPing could still have it, but players who didn't could choose to avoid it. It's at least a compromise, if one I'm still not totally happy with.
What you're offering now is not any sort of compromise. Your most recent proposal doesn't fix the problem—it simply tries to mask it, and that does not does not ease my concerns. It only amplifies them, because now I am worried that you're not listening to your player base.
One final point. This focus on children and marriage is not native to the pokemon franchise. The games allow you to play a male or female character and the plot does not change; females aren't limited by external requirements, such as bearing as many children as possible. Romance and sexuality are barely mentioned. In both the games and pokemon special, there is only one PC character with siblings (the gen iii PC/Ruby). Additionally, PC characters are almost always shown to be from single parent (or functionally single parent) homes.
The pokemon universe is ultimately an idealistic world; truth and justice always win in the end. Isn't it more suitable to the canon if love, too, were to win the day, and queer relationships valued as much as straight ones?
I am very sorry that this letter is so long. I sincerely thank you for reading it all; that means a lot to me.
Please, please reconsider your stance on this important topic. Ultimately, it does the RP more harm than good. It doesn't add realism, it limits your player base and RPing that they can pursue, and it's easy to remove.
Thank you very kindly.