[Kitten4u Only With A Long Name]

This thread is for subjects that warrant their own post, but don't really have any obvious threads to be posted in. There's no particular theme between them.

Table of Contents
Demographics (this is about demographic information and how minorities are generally treated)
Language (this gives a little info about the New Sumatran language and how people name their children)

[Kitten4u Only With A Long Name]

Demographics

New Sumatra is roughly 51% women and 49% men. As a culture, New Sumatra does not have any imposed gender roles, so people are free to live as they please, wear what they want, and do whatever hobbies they find interesting. It's rare to find one gender dominating a field of work or a particular hobby, though there are a couple of notable exceptions. Positions that deal with reproductive health (IE, gynecologists) are almost exclusively the same sex as the people they serve. The other is where biological differences between the sexes make one sex more likely to excel in one area. For example, men are more likely to be in positions that require a lot of upper body strength, such as mining, and women are more likely to be in positions that require a lot of multi-tasking, such as monitoring security cameras. However, it is completely based on the individual's skill, so if a woman is particularly strong she is just as likely to be considered for a position as an equally strong man.

Racially, more than 99% of the population is some kind of mixed race, with a majority of them having some kind of East Asian heritage. Because of this, the government has long since stopped tracking racial groups in the city. To the citizens of New Sumatra, caring about someone's race makes about as much sense as caring about someone's hair color. Skin color and facial features don't mean anything and they don't affect anything beyond the type of shampoo a person gets or their skin care regimen. There's been enough race mixing that a particular race is not more likely to get a certain genetic diseases either, making it even more of a non-issue.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people make up about 6% of the population. People are free to marry one person regardless of the sex of the person. There are even known places, both on the internet and in person, where people of any sexuality can find a date if they're looking for one. It's frowned upon, to the point that the person will be kicked out and banned from the establishment if found out, for people to go into dating hangouts when they're not looking for a date or are in the wrong place based on their sexuality.

Transgender people make up less than 1% of the population. Because there are no gender roles, it's not viewed at as strange in the slightest for anyone to wear anything. Children can't change their name or the gender marker on their IDs until they turn 18, but even without that most people will respect any name changes or pronoun choices. It tends to be easy for transgender people to socially transition for this reason. Medical transition is much more difficult and most will find themselves unable to get the resources they need there. It's considered a cosmetic treatment, and transgenderism is obviously not an infectious disease that will spread and kill the population. Because medicine is so focused on infectious diseases, any other medical issue or issue that requires medical intervention receives much less attention and almost no resources. Unfortunately, that goes for hormone therapy and top/bottom surgeries for transgender people.

The religions that exist in New Sumatra are the ones that exist in the real world as well. There are places of worship, but like everything else, they're crammed into the skyscrapers of the city and do not have their own buildings. Peaceful religious customs are handled gracefully and with respect, and are even given proper consideration with in the government. For example, a Seventh Day Adventist will never be expected to work on a Saturday. Violent customs however, will be treated like any other crime. If someone follows the ancient Azetc religion, they will still not be allowed to sacrifice people to ensure the sun comes up the next morning. They will be arrested for murder.

[Kitten4u Only With A Long Name]

Language

This is not an attempt to create a new language, and everyone should still be roleplaying in English. This is just to give people who are into this kind of thing some information about the linguistic patterns of the language in New Sumatra, and a bit of information on how people name their children.

The language of New Sumatra is simply known as Sumatran. If English is considered a mutt language then Sumatran is even worse. A lot of its rules don't make much sense, spelling things can be difficult, and it's clear that it was created from a wide variety of different languages. It's an inflection-based language, which means the kind of tone used to make certain sounds completely changes the meaning of the word. It uses a Subject Object Verb (SOV) structure, which means the subject comes first, object second, and the verb at the end of the sentence. So instead of saying I ate food, it'd be I food ate.

The variety of languages that Sumatran is made up of really shows in the names. Some of them might be names that are totally common in the real world like Amy, Yuki, Wei, Putri, or Dmitry. Some of them might be something you'd see out of a fantasy novel like Aisanne or Restkeishis. Some might mix those options or spell common names differently. Mostly, people either choose their child's name based on what they think sounds interesting or if they think it has a nice meaning. Names are very diverse, and it's rare for someone to someone to be made fun of because of their name.