Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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[X] That'd be lovely, actually. And it might keep my mother distracted.

Friendship is best ship.
 
Mission accomplished.

[X] That'd be lovely, actually. And it might keep my mother distracted.

We now have an ally in the naval service who has the ear of Admiral Akibara and we can actually start to change things. He's also a nice enough chap who I don't think will have any particular expectations of us after this first date and he could end up being invaluable in allowing us and Aiko to work since he has a similar working-class girl.

We are not going to sleep with him. He is not going to sleep with us. That should be crystal clear to all four involved parties (Us, Aiko, Him, his girlfriend). We have semi infrequent business meetings where we discuss how to make things better. Heck, get the girlies in the kitchen entrance and have secret double dates! He's not going to hit on us with his beloved right there!
 
That guy is all right. We should probably discuss it with the girlfriend, but I wouldn't be opposed to pursuing this "business agreement".

[X] That'd be lovely, actually. And it might keep my mother distracted.
 
First, we're not going to have a chance to discuss it with her. Second, again, he's angling to marry us. How many of us here will vote to marry him just to, "Keep up the illusion"?

Probably not everyone voting for "that'd be lovely" but I'm honestly worried that the voters in this thread--who seem to be blithely dismissing the pain this is going to cause Haruna--might at least have a debate about doing so, even if it's not a winning option. This vote won't directly lead into that vote, but Shinzo pretty clearly is angling in that direction, even if he's doing it while being nice, and offering us things... that honestly should exist anyways and rely in part on us having children.

Which means having sex with him, so. (E: I'm absolutely sure that will never happen, but more because of trust in Sketch than in the voters.)

Again, I hesitated to say that because it is a bit slippery-slope, and it's not inevitable that "that will be lovely" will lead us to having to vote on a sham marriage.

But I'm also just... as a Quest Master, I of course distrust Quest Democracy. :V
 
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The Laurent said:
First, we're not going to have a chance to discuss it with her. Second, again, he's angling to marry us. How many of us here will vote to marry him just to, "Keep up the illusion"?

Probably not everyone voting for "that'd be lovely" but I'm honestly worried that the voters in this thread--who seem to be blithely dismissing the pain this is going to cause Haruna--might at least have a debate about doing so, even if it's not a winning option. This vote won't directly lead into that vote, but Shinzo pretty clearly is angling in that direction, even if he's doing it while being nice, and offering us things... that honestly should exist anyways and rely in part on us having children.

Which means having sex with him, so. (E: I'm absolutely sure that will never happen, but more because of trust in Sketch than in the voters.)

Again, I hesitated to say that because it is a bit slippery-slope, and it's not inevitable that "that will be lovely" will lead us to having to vote on a sham marriage.

But I'm also just... as a Quest Master, I of course distrust Quest Democracy. :V
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It's a bit slippery-slope-y, sure, but it's not wrong. Each decision we make that puts us closer to Shinzo and Haruna's mother's end goals inherently put us closer to those goals. And each time that happens, they'll focus on normalizing wherever we are in the relationship and pushing for more.
 
Kinruush said:
It's a bit slippery-slope-y, sure, but it's not wrong. Each decision we make that puts us closer to Shinzo and Haruna's mother's end goals inherently put us closer to those goals. And each time that happens, they'll focus on normalizing wherever we are in the relationship and pushing for more.
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It is a slippery slope, and it is wrong, because Haruna would be being pushed into a marriage she doesn't want. Regardless as to how normalised she is to the idea, this is still skeevy as hell.

And if you don't think Haruna's mother and Akibara wouldn't try and push Haruna into having kids I have no idea which reality you're living in, because it certainly isn't this one.
 
Jeboboid said:
It is a slippery slope, and it is wrong, because Haruna would be being pushed into a marriage she doesn't want. Regardless as to how normalised she is to the idea, this is still skeevy as hell.

And if you don't think Haruna's mother and Akibara wouldn't try and push Haruna into having kids I have no idea which reality you're living in, because it certainly isn't this one.
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No, I mean that the argument The Laurent is making is kind of a slippery slope argument but that the argument isn't wrong.
 
The Laurent said:
First, we're not going to have a chance to discuss it with her.
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Uh, sure we will? We'll talk about it with Aiko, who so far hasn't minded us seeing a guy at all, we'll keep her appraised of the situation and if she's unhappy with it then we take it from there. We're a princess, we can disengage from social arrangements with poise as naturally as we can walk.

who seem to be blithely dismissing the pain this is going to cause Haruna
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What pain? I feel like you're projecting stuff onto this that isn't supported by the narrative so far. Haruna likes him, he likes Haruna, he's useful to us and we're useful to him. This is a stable state of affairs. We have made it abundantly clear that he's not getting any further than this and if he's unhappy with that then that's on him.

We are not marrying the guy. This isn't what this vote is about. We've already gained a worthwhile political victory from one meeting, lets see what we can do with a second.
 
[X] That'd be lovely, actually. And it might keep my mother distracted.

The guy has grown on me, what can I say
 
FrangibleCover said:
Uh, sure we will? We'll talk about it with Aiko, who so far hasn't minded us seeing a guy at all, we'll keep her appraised of the situation and if she's unhappy with it then we take it from there. We're a princess, we can disengage from social arrangements with poise as naturally as we can walk.


What pain? I feel like you're projecting stuff onto this that isn't supported by the narrative so far. Haruna likes him, he likes Haruna, he's useful to us and we're useful to him. This is a stable state of affairs. We have made it abundantly clear that he's not getting any further than this and if he's unhappy with that then that's on him.

We are not marrying the guy. This isn't what this vote is about. We've already gained a worthwhile political victory from one meeting, lets see what we can do with a second.
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Is that all he wants, because he's very clear on wanting more than that. And what I'm projecting is that, like, living a lie is usually very hard?

...also, have we made it clear? We're just about to vote to do further things having already compromised by going out on a fake-date with him. That doesn't exactly scream, "The buck stops here" to me. :V

E: And what I meant about the first part is we're not discussing it with Aiko first. We're going to go, "Oh, I'll make the decision now without her input and then just inform her of what we decided."

Even though this actually does have an impact on our relationship. We told her, "Oh, we're just going to see this guy just this once, unfortunately" and she somewaht accepted that, and now we're voting for, "Let's keep up the charade."

Those two aren't the same thing.
 
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FrangibleCover said:
Uh, sure we will? We'll talk about it with Aiko, who so far hasn't minded us seeing a guy at all, we'll keep her appraised of the situation and if she's unhappy with it then we take it from there. We're a princess, we can disengage from social arrangements with poise as naturally as we can walk.


What pain? I feel like you're projecting stuff onto this that isn't supported by the narrative so far. Haruna likes him, he likes Haruna, he's useful to us and we're useful to him. This is a stable state of affairs. We have made it abundantly clear that he's not getting any further than this and if he's unhappy with that then that's on him.

We are not marrying the guy. This isn't what this vote is about. We've already gained a worthwhile political victory from one meeting, lets see what we can do with a second.
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We haven't made anything clear.

This is the last exchange about marriage we had:

open_sketchbook said:
Assuming I think wedding new money is a good move for my family, I can see your point. But I still have no interest. With things as they are now, I would have to retire to have children by the time I'm thirty. I don't plan to leave the navy to make babies for my mother to spoil."

"Understandable. You have a career you want to keep. If that's the thing keeping you from giving this serious consideration, I can speak to my father about the lack of maternity leave and it will be in front of the Admiralty board by the end of the week. Probably policy within a few years--I think it would have to wait until the war is over, otherwise it might look a bit odd," he replied as cool as a cucumber. It was the sort of conversation the wealthy and powerful were used to having--you could speak to a relative or a friend and have things changed because you wanted to have them changed. It was easy for men. So easy. Easy for you too, you realized.

You were all set to reply that his offer wouldn't change anything when you paused, a realization creeping through your brain. You'd gone into this ready to be selfish, to state your position and damn your mother and her meddling. But this… this made it not just about you.

There was a fresh class of cadets at the academy, and there were fourteen women there this year. Twenty-six total. Probably be more next year. Women who did not have your advantages. Women like Aiko who would have fought tooth and nail to earn a spot in that prestigious Imperial institution.

You sipped your wine carefully to cover up the pause in the conversation.

"That's an interesting offer." You said. "Though I'm in no particular rush on that front either."

"Of course." He smiled. "And I don't want to pressure you particularly. I'll bring it up with him anyway, honestly, though I can't say how much pull it'll have if he hasn't got a personal stake in it. Honestly, parental leave in general like how the Western militaries do it would be wonderful. I've met so many officers who barely know their kids, it's awful."
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Haruna: Yeah, I'm not interested.

Shinzo: Okay, but I totally have connections I could use to help your interests.

Haruna: I'll think about it.

That's it. She started with the position of "No" so he made an offer to sweeten the deal. She didn't bite, so he backed off for the moment. Regardless of what you think of what Haruna said, Shinzo clearly thinks Haruna can be convinced. That is, and will continue to be, both his expectation and his intention going forward.
 
Again, it might not be anything, but considering the excuses already being made by some voters, I'm kinda worried that next time when he pushes it a bit further--not in kissing or anything having to do with romance, but in making their alliance more evident or allowing it to be more fully perceived as dating--they'll go, "Well, it'll help us achieve a 'worthwhile political victory' so why not, we've made it very clear that it's not going to go any further."
 
The Laurent said:
Probably not everyone voting for "that'd be lovely" but I'm honestly worried that the voters in this thread--who seem to be blithely dismissing the pain this is going to cause Haruna--might at least have a debate about doing so, even if it's not a winning option. This vote won't directly lead into that vote, but Shinzo pretty clearly is angling in that direction, even if he's doing it while being nice, and offering us things... that honestly should exist anyways and rely in part on us having children.
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I might be missing something. What pain is this option going to cause Haruna? Pain that she has to go to marriage meetups which she has to go to anyways? Only if not him then with a roulette wheel of candidates anyway? She'll have to go through the candidates eventually, this is just slowing the wheel. When the candidates run out, the parents will start forcefully insisting on a choice. And the charades will "public meetings" with observers about, not like they're privately meeting somewhere. And again, tell Aiko about this. Aiko already knows there are marriage meetings, that Haruna doesn't want to go. Just inform Aiko this is humouring the parents, stalling for time and that she is her true love.


Kinruush said:
That's it. She started with the position of "No" so he made an offer to sweeten the deal. She didn't bite, so he backed off for the moment. Regardless of what you think of what Haruna said, Shinzo clearly thinks Haruna can be convinced. That is, and will continue to be, both his expectation and his intention going forward.
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Shinzo is following along knowing there's very little chance, but is trying anyways. He does want more and thinks that Haruna can be convinced eventually, but she doesn't have to give him any more than she wants. The final vote most likely will be from us, so it's not like this one vote is making Haruna slide all the way to the bottom.

It will suck for Shinzo, hopefully we can continue to reduce his expectations if not his intentions. But between making Shinzo unhappy or royal helicopters unhappy, Shinzo probably does less damage.

I have no doubt that when the choice to deny Shinzo comes to vote, there will be circumstances that add pressure on Haruna give in. But that's a hard choice I expect from this quest, whether it be giving into Shinzo or giving in elsewhere.

The Laurent said:
Again, it might not be anything, but considering the excuses already being made by some voters, I'm kinda worried that next time when he pushes it a bit further--not in kissing or anything having to do with romance, but in making their alliance more evident or allowing it to be more fully perceived as dating--they'll go, "Well, it'll help us achieve a 'worthwhile political victory' so why not, we've made it very clear that it's not going to go any further."
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Hard choices will come, whether it's Shinzo pushing farther or elsewhere. There will be a time to make a stand. I just don't personally think it's necessary to make the stand here at "let's play charades."
 
AntiSanity said:
I might be missing something. What pain is this option going to cause Haruna? Pain that she has to go to marriage meetups which she has to go to anyways? Only if not him then with a roulette wheel of candidates anyway? She'll have to go through the candidates eventually, this is just slowing the wheel. When the candidates run out, the parents will start forcefully insisting on a choice. And the charades will "public meetings" with observers about, not like they're privately meeting somewhere. And again, tell Aiko about this. Aiko already knows there are marriage meetings, that Haruna doesn't want to go. Just inform Aiko this is humouring the parents, stalling for time and that she is her true love.
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Well for one, it's a terrible way to be in a relationship. As in. Here's what Aiko knows, "We're reluctantly going to this date, just to get them off our backs." Then we come back and it's like, "Guess what, I'm going to be pretending to date him long-term. I'll try after-the-fact to convince you that this is okay while having not let you in on the decision at all despite it affecting you."

I'd be pissed, and I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed on Haruna's behalf if Aiko did a similar thing out of the blue, or even with a warning like, "Oh, I'm going to a mixer just because I have to" or whatever.

Also, and I'm going to actually call in the QMs, I'm pretty sure our parents can't actually *force* us to marry, at least not nowadays? They can exert tons of pressure... which they're already doing. @open_sketchbook , @Artificial Girl .

Edit: Also, the entire logic behind accepting the date is that it'd keep the parents off your back for a while. So we could say, "No more" right now and we'd have gotten what we wanted? So the idea that saying "no more" somehow means the parents will immediately be on our backs again is kinda silly?
 
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AntiSanity said:
What pain is this option going to cause Haruna? Pain that she has to go to marriage meetups which she has to go to anyways? Only if not him then with a roulette wheel of candidates anyway?
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But they aren't going to happen anyway- we've already had one choice that the voters talked themselves into, we are facing a second now, and so just accepting the inevitability is pretty much the same as voting for more dates with men. Which is exactly what we don't want.

AntiSanity said:
Aiko already knows there are marriage meetings, that Haruna doesn't want to go. Just inform Aiko this is humouring the parents, stalling for time and that she is her true love.
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And this remains believable because...? Seriously, every time our words say one thing and our actions another we are undermining our relationship and how much she trusts us. Words are cheap. Do we actually want her to be exclusive with us? (As evidenced by the sick feeling when it is suggested she's not...) Then we need to demonstrate, by actions, that we will ask no more than we give.

Seriously, if this were Aiko making the choice, we'd have a right to be pissed if she kept pushing solo dates with men and breezily telling us they didn't mean anything.
 
Also, I'm not as enamored with him as everyone else seems to be? Or rather, he's not a bad person, but he does kinda show the limits of personal decency in a patriarchal system, considering Haruna was like, "Also, if I get married and have kids it'll hurt my career" and he's like, "Well, if you were serious about getting married we could change the laws to have maternity leave eventually."

Which pretty clearly implies what his end-goal is, no matter how nice and polite he's being? He's accepting a patriarchial and, like, outwardly heterosexual bargain (just without the assumption of fidelity or romantic love) and attempting to ease Haruna into doing the same, for the best of intentions, and the best of motives, and yada yada, and he'll even exert pressure to try to mitigate the patriarchal power involved.

So no, he's not remotely a bad person. He's a decent guy and a good conversationalist, and yet that doesn't seem to actually be enough?
 
If people have better ideas as to how we can actually reform the Navy and make it easier for women in the service then they're welcome to state them now. We can, of course, continue to be just another officer, have a no-doubt mediocre career, bin the royal privileges, marry Aiko and live our lives happily until we die in a small cottage in the countryside. That's an option. But I don't like it as a plan in the slightest. I want us to change the Navy, rise meteorically to the top, command as First Sea Lady, marry Aiko and dare anyone to tell us we can't and then live our lives happily until we die in a small cottage in the countryside, having made a difference.

We don't need Shinzo, but we need to do something.
 
FrangibleCover said:
If people have better ideas as to how we can actually reform the Navy and make it easier for women in the service then they're welcome to state them now. We can, of course, continue to be just another officer, have a no-doubt mediocre career, bin the royal privileges, marry Aiko and live our lives happily until we die in a small cottage in the countryside. That's an option. But I don't like it as a plan in the slightest. I want us to change the Navy, rise meteorically to the top, command as First Sea Lady, marry Aiko and dare anyone to tell us we can't and then live our lives happily until we die in a small cottage in the countryside, having made a difference.

We don't need Shinzo, but we need to do something.
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...wow, you're laying on the nonsense thick with a trowel.

@Artificial Girl , @open_sketchbook

Is any of the bolded part a reasonable interpretation of where things are going?

Edit: Also, "First step to happily marrying Aiko: pretend to date another guy long-term without asking her permission first, or even telling her about it ahead of time."
 
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chriswriter90 said:
I'm half expecting 'Mom' to line up a couple contenders to the Cathay throne so Haruna has her hat in the ring when the 100+ year old emperor checks out and the succession crisis/civil war kicks off.
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I feel like this should have happened already if she was going to go for it. It's possible that Mom's shielding Haruna from the worst of the politics, because can you imagine the social battlefield that's involved with getting in on the Cathay throne????

Good lord.

But anyway it's interesting, and if @Artificial Girl / @open_sketchbook did it intentionally, it's a very interesting bit of Mom's characterization.
 
So first, no, Haruna's parents cannot force her to marry. Second, I'm pretty sure the events of the quest so far indicate that Haruna is having anything but a normal, mediocre career.

She's jumped postings more in the couple of years since she graduated than most people do. She's saved a man's life from drowning, crewed a submarine that managed to torpedo a battleship that was in a general engagement, and blunted a Caspian counter-attack among many other things. She's our main character in the vein of Sharpe or Aubrey or Hornblower: she may face adversity and setbacks but mediocre is not the word that should be used to describe her career.
 
[X] Perhaps, but I don't want to entertain this charade further.
-[X] Politely communicate to Haruna's mother that future arrangements like this without Haruna's knowledge or consent will be ignored.
 
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