Hi! Oh my god, I just discovered this demo, and I am very interested in the premise. MC as Sherlock Holmes?? Yes!! And the romance options are incredible. I am currently playing the first chapter right now, and I love how we can customize our character with details. Not to mention the incredible visuals in the game. The letters, and the drawings. I am wishing you well with the game!!
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For the nonbinary questions - anybody could be attracted to a nonbinary person! There are nonbinary lesbians and nonbinary gay people, it really is just whatever fits most for that person.
For the edit, that definition of pan is known to be a bit iffy, since it comes off as saying that other sexualities are attracted only to someoneâs body. There are different reasons to identify as either pan or bi, and I think that would just be up to which one the character identifies with the most!
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Yeah, and considering that bisexual would probably be interpreted as a synonym for intersex (or âhermaphroditeâ, the term used back then) in the 19th century, and pansexual first appeared in print in 1914 to mean something more like erotomania, it would be wiser to describe that the character can be attracted to people regardless of their gender. Itâd be very jarring to see a character from the 1890s call themselves pansexual.
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@mistifiedlotte Iâm really glad to hear you like the premise and the customization 
thank you for playing it! 
(no one has mentioned the letter before! I thought maybe people didnât like itâI am going to try and have at least one image per chapter 
)
@PastelSweetss Interesting! Thank you for telling me, I really do want to learn the correct information with topics like this 
(I think maybe I feel that Adler would identify with bi and Hamish/Helena would be panâwith an inclusive interpretation of bi, that is.)
@fool Yeah I agree, the terms wonât really be used in the game, it was more for the readers benefit of everyone understanding each other with simple terms 
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I got a few really long anon-asks on tumblr about the above discussion. Iâm going to try and answer them here, but I probably wonât answer more cross platform questions as I find it very confusing. Please send me a non-anon question on tumblr so I can privately reply or write here instead.
I think some of the question I got could be answered by reading my edit in the first post or the clarification post. But Iâll try and answer some of the other questionsâ
There are two separate problems, the sexualities of the ROs and the genders of the ROs.
- The genders of the ROs are based on the MCs choice of attraction in the beginning of the story (except Watson). It is like this currently in the demo and in my plan. These things are tied because I feel the amount of content changes and additions I would have to make otherwise are too great. So, there is no change hereâI am not changing or removing anything that you have previously had. What many people asked for is the option to manually change everyone RO, but what I wanted to be clear about (and why I first hesitated) is because the player will still have the romantic flag available for these ROs then. The MCâs sexuality and the genders of the ROs will be implicitly or explicitly related. I donât think I can realistically change that.
So, a gay or straight player would either have to choose (except for Watson) if they want a more diverse cast with regards to gender, or an always correct response with regards to MCs attraction. Tbh I think this is the same as any game that ties gender of ROs and MCs sexualityâbut I am giving the choice to change that at the cost of the MCs sexuality not matching the Players sexuality. Again, it is an option, that probably will come with a warning, and the player can still have Watson as the friend character that will never cross any sexuality barriers.
For an example of a scene that would remain the same even if the player manually changes the genderâsee the (optional) scene before Lestradeâs sandwich scene where the player describes Lestradeâs appearance. Scenes like that can imply attraction/interest/the-ability-to-appreciate-appearances.
I also got a question with regards to me saying that Adler will always flirt with MCâthey flirt with everyone, and in the story they have a reason to flirt with you. In the game, same as in life, you canât control the actions of another persons choice of flirting with you. You can hate them for it, that is valid. And you can probably tell them off. But you canât stop it happening before it even happened. If this makes you too uncomfortable then I am afraid that the game might not be for you, sorry.
One question I got was a person worried that the player will be attracted to someone they are not. To clarifyâI think some people might consider the writing that I do to imply attractionâbut that is a subjective interpretation. I wonât say right out that MC is attracted to an RO without choosing it, but the nature of the romance genre is that there is more focus on certain topics that can be understood as romantic. I am not able to scrub the âromantic vibeâ from everyone but Watson.
- The sexualities of the ROsâis based on the MC. It changes to allow the player to romance them no matter the configuration chosen by the player. But it also is set to allow me to write unique content. And to be clearâI didnât mean less, I meant different (with regards to the Lestrade scene). But, that said, I canât promise that the game will have equal content for all MCs or all ROs and that is not even something I am trying for. I much rather write interesting scenes than worry about that. Fairness doesnât really feel relevant to me? Itâs a game where depending on the playerâs choices the player only sees what they see and the amount varies greatly by choosing one option or the other.
I would like to add this system because the other option is to have every RO be bi/pan and without pretty much all specific content that would make the romances feel unique and real in the victorian era. If they are all bi/pan then a lot of content will probably be removed from the romances with regards to how society reacts to specific relationshipâand instead the world will react in a more safe way, where the there are no barriers or tension related to specific combinations.
I would be sad to lose that as I think there are so many interesting scene I could write. For example, just the idea of how society reacts to opposite sex Watson and Sherlock sharing an apartment. Or two same sex characters dancing at the ball. Or telling Mrs Hudson that, no, you and Watson are not just âgreatâ friends. I just think it would be a really interesting thing to exploreâbut as it seems not a lot of people like the idea I might have to go for the AU were differences are erased and I donât go into such topics.
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I made a pollâplease only vote if you have taken the time to try and understand what both votes mean but I would be really grateful if you do vote after reading the above explanations.
- I would like the ROs sexualities being âfixedâ but in a way that always makes them romanceable with all MCs + more unique content
- I would prefer all ROs to be bi/pan even though it is less unique content
- I still donât really 100% understand it tbh
0 voters
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I actually love this idea.
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What would be the ROs gender if my MC is bisexual?
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@anon67111821 currently the demo is so that if the player chooses for the MC the âlikes the company of both men and womenâ option, then the genders follow canon (and a coin flip for H) meaning: L is a man, A is a woman, and H is a man. W is of course a separate choice. Then if the player instead chooses âit does not matterâ (or however I phrased it, I canât remember) I am planning on doing the reverse of the above canon version.
Iâm in no way married to these combinationsâthey were quite quickly created and I didnât make them that way for any particular reason. So feel free to suggest other combinations or phrasingâs.
But, good news for the bisexuals, the option to change the ROs gender manually would work really well there and minimises the inconsistencies errors that could occur.
Iâm also really glad to see that the vote seems to favour the option that I personally prefer 
I canât tell you how exited I am to write some of the unique scenes I have in my head
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I donât like idea that all ROs will be assigned to one gender when I choose that MC is attracted to that one specific gender. Yeah, I can be straight or gay, but damn it, I want gender diversity of the characters. So when itâs not possible to choose the gender of the ROs by myself, I decide that MC is bisexual. And no problem.
Just my opinion 
I have no idea about writing, much less interactive fiction, so Iâm not going to suggest anything. Anyway, whatever you decide will not bother me too much.
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I think you should write it the way you want to, regardless of the poll. Itâs your story and your interpretation of these characters. That may make it not a good fit for some people, but thatâs okay!
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Just for what itâs worth, I personally donât see this kind of scene as inherently suggesting attraction. Part of the fantasy of being Sherlock Holmes is the ability to observe the world through the lens of ânormalâ folksâ perception, regardless of what Sherlock themself might think. Given that the game also immediately gives the option for the MC to not care about Lestrade in any meaningful way, I think itâs very easy to headcanon that a given MC simply sees that the inspector possesses traits typically considered attractive.
So, I donât have a problem with this sort of passage remaining so long as I always have room to interpret the MC as not being attracted to anybody of a particular gender.
The one thing that would potentially concern me would be in regards to this:
Just to be clear: all of the unique content of this natureâwhich I love, for what itâs worthâwould be tied to events that occur between an MC and RO of particular genders, and not the MCâs apparent sexuality, correct? Any interesting interactions between an MC and RO of the same sex, for example, occurs the same way whether the player explicitly declares the MC gay (thus setting all ROs to one particular gender) or leaves their sexuality ambiguous (because the player has chosen to set RO genders individually)?
I ask because I would hate to miss out if there was content planned for an MC that was specifically gay (in the same vein as a gay Lestradeâs sexuality getting special focus in their storyline).
The one thing I would note here is that if the player is after a more âcanonâ representation of the RO genders, it is most likely that they will want to make Watson male along with Lestrade, whichâif H defaults to maleâwould make Adler the only woman. Given this assumption, I think having H default to female in the âcanonâ version would make it more likely that the genders would be balanced.
The option to set RO genders manually does make this kind of a non-issue, though, since the player can basically just do whatever combination they want. So, I donât think this is necessarily a big deal.
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Personally, I think you should write what you prefer, but I donât understand this argument:
Surely you can still write content that differs based on the combination of genders involved, regardless of the ROâs sexuality?
Victorian society would frown on opposite sex Watson and Sherlock sharing quarters regardless of whether Watson identified as gay, bi, or straight. Similarly, society at large would react poorly towards same-sex characters dancing at a ball, regardless of whether said characters were bi or gay.
So I donât understand why these scenes or âpretty much all specific contentâ would have to be removed if the ROs were bi/pan.
Just as an example, suppose you wrote male!Lestrade as bi/pan. You could still have him (think) he wants a traditional-looking heterosexual partnership. How that plays out would depend on the PCâs gender. If the PC is male or non-binary, he could come to terms with his love for the PC is ultimately more important than his desire for a traditional relationship. If the PC is female, that point is less salient and youâd largely skip over that subplot.
Say Lestrade and the PC go dancing. Female PC? Largely unobjectionable. Male PC? Scandalous. Non-binary PC? Also scandalous, but you could focus the scandal more on the fact that Lestrade is with that Sherlock person who [insert prejudiced commentary about people transgressing gender norms] rather than get into the messy business of what gender non-binary Sherlock is perceived as.
Anyway, my point is not that this is how you should write Lestrade. As I mentioned in the beginning, I think you should pick what youâre most interested in writing. My point is you can still have a lot of differing content even when the ROs are set-sexuality bisexual/pansexual.
If you want to write the ROs as sexuality-variable, by all means, please do that. But please do it because itâs your favorite option, and not because you think itâs the only way to give the romances unique, realistic differences.
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@anon67111821 Yeahâthen with your play style I donât think there would be any issues at all 
@furyleika 
Thank you 
I suppose I was afraid that if I wrote thousands of words of extra content, and it was then universally thought of as a terrible idea, it would be worse. Perhaps not. But thank you for your encouragement
Yeah, thatâs fair, I donât really eitherâbut I can see how there are people who would. Or in other similar scenes. Iâm sure there are people who will think the Watson platonic route is too âromanticâ too, but I am inspired by their close relationship in the canon and itâs very âsoul-mateâ like, (even without discussing whether the canon is romantic/platonic).
I would hope that it will be up for interpretation, but it being so subjective I canât promise, I think ? 
Yeah, the beginning choice of âsexualityâ (Itâs more vague I think in the in-game choice) is actually more of a choice of who the ROs are, so it is that which would determine the different scenes.
Yes, that is the current plan, at least.
Setting the manual ROs or the MC as interested in both men and women would not make Lestrade not a gay man or a lesbian if Lestrade is the same sex as the MC.
If the MC is nonbinary I would have to probably decide which storyline works best or is the most interesting. It could also be that I expand on the MC nonbinary choice, how they present and or if they were born male or female. But that is something I am still thinking about and probably a different discussion
I might change the combinations as you say 
although the point was never actually to be âcanonâ, it just sort of happened because I needed to make a decision
@Lan
Some of them, some of them I could not. But the scenes I have in my mind, and the character combinations are sort of merged. I think if I were to go the pan/bi route I would make the game-world more generally accepting and gloss over some of the realities, good and bad. In some ways it would be easier, and I suppose that would be the only advantage to that idea to me.
Those were just some examples, and perhaps I shouldnât have chosen examples that was more about gender than sexuality. But to me, in how I picture the different characters they are intertwined a bit, I think. Those whole stories are the stories I would like to tell. And without it most of the important ones would be cut as I picture it right now.
There is a specific reason why that does not work for that scene. The scene is not about that, but something more specific that I consider spoiler and would rather not reveal fully yet.
I agree. But there are details in W and L story that I would very much miss not having written, that hinges on them being specific sexualities. but I also have no interest in closing the romances for any players, so my solution to that was to offer different sexualities and the different stories that come with that
(additionally, I never meant to imply that this was the only way to âway to give the romances unique, realistic differencesâ. I donât think that, I personally feel they are very varied without bringing in content around gender or sexuality . But I do think it could definitely add to it all 
)
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Canât get enough of it!
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English is not my first language, but i think i know what you mean now, this looks like a great idea.
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I like books with Sherlock so i love this game. I like the setting and the detail when it comes to creating MC are great. I will play as male Sherlock and finally make him date Watson! But Lestrade is sweet and nice, so it will be a taught choice.
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@anon51362788 very glad to hear it!
@Lady_Daya Alright, awesome 
Let me know if you have any questions
@M_K1 Yay! Live that Sherlock/Watson ship 
(Tbh you can flirt/hangout with all the characters for a long time, you donât have to decide yet Tho you might get some jealousyâŚ)
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Omg no way! Iâm sure others are enjoying the letters and the drawings like me! It add the atmosphere to the game. I played with my little brother last night, and he was so hype by the drawings and the letters and told me he actually felt like heâs playing as Sherlock Holmes!
But of course, do with your own pace! This is your story after all, donât feel obligated to add all those visuals in every chapter unless you feel itâs necessary. 
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Knowing someone enjoys the art motivates me to keep doing it! I already have some plans for the next chapter (and your story with your brother is adorable, itâs lovely to hear he felt so immersed )
â Have a lovely day 
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