Character Sheet


Stress
0​
Office Stress
0​
XP
5​

Matsura Asuka
Head Designer for Ohara Airworks
Age 24 (Legally 25)
Year 12 AF (After Flight)


Design Stats
Aerodynamics Engineering - +2
Structural Engineering - +2
Chemical Engineering - +1
Mechanical Engineering - +1
Ballistics Engineering - +1
Electrical Engineering - 0

Personal/Political Stats
Social Skills - 0
Politics Skills - 0
Importance - 2
Income - 1
Investments - Ohara

Resources
Power - 0
Wealth - 2

Designs
Type 1 Series - Military Variation (Designated T1M1)
Type 2 Racer (World Speed Record October 1910-April 1911, 180kph)
Model 2 Scout (Designated T1M2)
Navy Scout Prototype (Drowned Rat)
Dive Bomber B1M1 "Duck"
Machine Gun Carrier R1A "Dragonfly" (World Speed Record May-July 1911, 200kph)
Naval Rescue Water-Landing Supply Plane NR1M0 "Dolphin" (World speed record 240kph)
Rhino Demon Train Hunter
The world's first airliner
The world's first pulsejet airplane

Assets
Slide Rule
Computator (1 Reroll per Routine)

Languages
Albian
Gallian

Familiar Vices
Drinking
Prostitutes
Dancing

Family Life
- Engaged to Arita Yachi, formerly the leading Ace in the Imperial Army. Designated #1 Cutest Army Boy, he's having some serious problems with PTSD right now.
- Taking a second try at dating Mikami Kiho, ex-dockerwork from the south.

Upgrades
- 3 XP to upgrade a stat.

Ohara Airworks
Start Up, Imperial Capital, Akitsukuni

Owner
- Mr. Ohara, Rich. Aircraft Enthusiast. Business guy.

Engineers

Kibe Koume, 26, Office Manager
Tiny & angry, Kibe went to school in Albia, picking up the language, the religion, and a fuckload of swear words. Speaks Albian.
Mechanical +2, Ballistics +1
Office Manager: If Kibe is not assigned to a team, the Office Stress is reduced by 1.

Sakane Jun, 26, Second Team Leader
A soured patriot, Sakane is married and has a young child being raised gender-neutrally. His two brothers who fought in the war.
Structural +2, Aerodynamics +1
Team Leader: If there are any additional projects, Sakane will lead them.
Joinery: Sakane has training in the traditional Akitsukuni carpentry art of joinery, creating complex self-supporting joints with no fasteners or glue. When working with non-monocoque wooden spars or ribs, +1 Structural.

Tezuka Kenji, ???
A stoner with occasional flashes of insight. Nobody really knows what he does, but he's probably useful?
Aerodynamics +2, Chemical +1
Flashes of Brilliance: Each natural 10 rolled by any team Tezuka is assigned to gives +1 forward to the next research roll.

Hasegawa Morio, 26
A hopeless nerd with a photography habit, mostly on account of developing his own film, Hasegawa seems to do nothing but work and stack card houses, but somehow has an incredible attractive boyfriend. Speaks Gallian.
Chemical +2, Ballistic +1
Silent Workhorse: Hasegawa can work on two different projects at once for no cost to Office Stress, providing they use different stats.

Kawamura Yosai, 25.
Serially successful womanizer and incredibly attractive, Kawamura doesn't seem to have much of a personality outside of seducing women. Well, except for that time he seduced Asuka, which nobody talks about. Speaks Dyske.
Structural +2, Electrical +1, Social +1
Easily Distracted: If Kawamura is working on the same team as a female or non-binary employee, the team is at -1d10.

Koide Hatsu, 24.
One of the few female graduates of an Akitsukuni engineering school, Koide is brilliant and incredibly driven, but her first job at Akibara was both humiliating and exposed her to an abusive coworker. Her father is a rich businessman with factories in Joseon, and she's engaged to Ken from Castles of Steel. Speaks Joseon.
Mechanical +2, Structural +1
No Sleep: If you let her, Koide will work herself to death. She can work a second project for no Office Stress, but all her stats will be reduced to 1 for the routine.

Kobayashi Ayao, ???
Disowned heiress of the Kobayashi family, all Kobayashi wanted was a career and to be a modern woman. For her trouble, a cousin threw acid on her, scarring her face, neck, much of her torso, and her left arm. Despite appearing serene and above it all, she's actually an avowed communist activist and baseball player.
Aerodynamics +2, Social +2

Adachi Ren, 24
Adachi learned chemistry from her father, one of the most famous chemical engineers in the country, rather than through formal schooling. She's married, has a kid, and takes spirituality very seriously. Yes, you did the math right, she had Yuki when she was 17. It's 1912, folks.
Chemical +2, Electrical +1
Young Mother: Adachi will cause double Office Stress if she has to work multiple tasks.

Uyeno Sei, Ballistics Engineer, 31.
The oldest member of the crew, this is Uyeno's second career. Her first was as an officer in the Imperial Navy with specialized technical training: her very promising career was cut short by her transition. Her work in a naval arsenal on machine-guns landed her the job here. Briefly dated Satomi (the age range is a bit creepy but again, 1912), she's missing a piece of her ear and is deaf on that side, from an exploding cannon. Recently returned from Varnmark from experimental surgery, she's known for her skill navigating gendered bureaucracy.
Ballistic +3

Mi Kyung-Jae, 23
A recent graduate of the Imperial College of Heijo, Mi is from the recently annexed territory of Joseon. For those keeping track at home, that means he's a Korean national living in Imperial Japan in 1912. We haven't seen much of his personality because he's rightfully terrified of everything around him. He has a specialty in endurance engine design and modification. Speaks Joseon.
Mechanical +1, Chemical +1
Endurance Engines: Mi has an excellent understanding of metallurgy and tolerances. Any engine he works on gains +1 Reliability if a 16+ is rolled.
Pulsejet Wizard: Mi is now one of the world's leading experts on the pulsejet engine. He can be given his own project to custom-craft pulsejet engines, and he gives +1 to any pulsejet-related project.
Joseon National: Mi does not have security clearance to work on any top-secret projects.

Miyoshi Shigeri, 23.
A non-binary person and admirer of Asuka's work, they were in an support role in the Army before joining the company.
Structural +1, Mechanical +1, Aerodynamic +1
Mechanic: Miyoshi has some experience repairing and refurbishing aircraft. They get +1 if assigned on the clean-up phase.


Other Employees
- Ohara Satomi, 22, Mr. Ohara's niece and the company test pilot, Ohara is a general lesbian disaster. She's good at flying planes, driving cars, and kissing girls. She's bad at being patient, being respectable, and sticking to literally anyones conceptions of gender roles. Deeply in lesbians with Coralie D'Amboise.
- Fujkikawa Sotatsu, old, modelmaker. He's an old man and toymaker and we don't see much of him because he locks himself in his workshop a lot. He's friends with Kawamura?

Assets
- Engine Test Rig (Allows engine tweaking and optimization.
- Wind Tunnel (+1 Aerodynamics)
- Rapid Prototype Lab (+1 Clean Up)
Expanded Cast

Akitsukuni Industry
- Homura Mohoko: Head Engine Designer for Kobayashi. First female engineer in the country. A lot of sex appeal.
- Okumura: Head of Akibara aircraft design.
- Yamanaka Hajime: Kobayashi engineer. Young and eager.
- Igarashi Masazumi: Kobayashi engineer. Reserved and experienced.
- Admiral Akibara Toru: Imperial Navy Admiral. Maximum nepotism. Maximum douchebag.
- Lt.Cmnd Akibara Shinzo: The above's son. A hottie but very forward.



Character Families
- Matsura(?) Mizuko: Asuka's sister. Was paralyzed in an accident in Asuka's first flight. Lives Elsewhere and is married now. Can't forgive Asuka, even though she's tried.
- Adachi Motoki: Adachi's husband, an accountant. Legally blind.
- Adachi Yuki: Adachi's 7 year old daughter and wannabe pilot. Very adorable.
- Yachi's Brother: Exists.
- Sakane's Wife: Exists. Drives him a bit crazy, but he loves her.
- Yachi's Brother's Wife: Exists. Is statistically likely to be pregnant.
- Lt. Coralie D'Amboise: Gallian pilot in exile. Satomi's girlfriend. 25. Accomplished bisexual duelist. She flew in the war for a single day, and for her troubles got a hole blown in her cheek and had her left arm paralyzed.

Akisukuni Army & Ex-Army
- Lt. Torio Tanaka: Yachi's former observer as an enlisted man. Was jumped up to fly Ducks and lost a leg on his first mission. A trained painter, married to Torio Saya.
- Captain Amari Shiro: A Dragonfly pilot who ended up flying as Yachi's partner. Kind of delightfully twinky. They sorta slept together at one point, which wasn't great. He lost his previous boyfriend in the April Offensive and turned his plane into a shrine. He was shot in the gut and is still recovering.
- Major Izuhara: Logistics officer, Imperial Army, this bespectled officer stood up to the Caspian Crown Prince and accidentally kicked off the Akitsikuni-Caspian War. The guilt was so much that, after almost a year of running Army procurement, he shot himself in a phone both.
- Captain Nakai Sekien: Army scout pilot. First person to drop a bomb from an airplane, later head of the Duck Squadrons.
- Captain Teshima: A Desk pilot that fought with Yachi. Lost an arm in the process, took over for Major Izuhara after his death. Seems cheery despite it all.
- Captain Nashio: A real piece of shit dude and probably a rapist, he's also a war hero as the second-highest scoring ace on the Akitsukuni side. He was a young shitty kid in way over his head but it's no excuse.
- Lt. Kinjo: Kind of a dumb lump and Nashio's friend, one of the desk pilots. Dead at 19.
- Lt. Okazaki: Yachi's friend from before the war and pilot, he died in a spin in his dragonfly. His death probably hit Yachi the hardest.

Westerners
- Rose & Antoinette Sears: Pioneers of flight. Sisters. Black in 1910s not!America. Yikes.
- Timina Guasti: Famous aircraft designer from Otrusia. Likes big planes and green.
- Prince Protasov Vasilyevich: Crown Prince of Great Caspia. Real dick. You gotta hand it to him though, a decent flier.
- Count von Zeppelin: Invented rigid airships. Runs a successful airline business. Damned impressive.
- Bennhold: Aircraft Engineer. Experimenting with metal aircraft.
- Aileen Middlemiss: Albian reporter for the Artimis Times. Well meaning and oblivious.
Available Tech
  • Materials: Wood, Duralumin, Molded Wood, Wood & Silk Composite, etc
  • All engine mounts
  • All wing types
  • Basic reinforcement
  • Wing warping and ailerons
  • Basic water radiators
  • Flying Wings
  • Semi-Monocoque design (requires at least half the slots have frame pieces)
  • Valved pulsejets
  • Basic weapon mounts and turrets
Tech not Yet Developed
  • Custom engines
  • Monocoque construction
  • Cantilever Wings and associated tech
  • V and T tails
  • Tailless designs
  • Aluminum and titanium
  • Cellulose surfacing
  • Any kind of radar
  • Weapon accessability mods
  • Interruptor gear
  • Geared propellers
  • And Maybe Other Stuff
Akitsukuni
Island Nation

Government
Constitutional Monarchy
- The democratic portions of the government are dubiously legitimate.
- The head of state is the Empress of Akitsukuni. She gives her blessing to newly formed governments.
- The Navy and a small number of families have undue influence on politics.

Economy
Developing Mixed Market
- Most industry is controlled by a small number of wealthy, family-owned companies.
- The state provides most contracts to industry. Consumer good market is anemic.
- Exports are few, mostly cultural.
- Imports are raw minerals, food, oil, and expertise.
- Currently suffering an economic crash after the last war.

Politics
The Diet is currently ruled by a Constitutional Nationalist government. It has a system of nonlocal proportional representation, with representatives appointed by the party in accordance to their share of the vote.
- Constitutional Nationalists: 50%
- Purity Club: 9%
- New Independents: 26%
- Fairness Association: 11%
- United Communist League: 2%
- Monarchists: 1%
- Assorted Fringe Parties: 5%

Demographics
Akitsukuni is mostly very ethnically homogeneous. Around 5% of the population are various minorities, most from nearby countries. Roughly .1% are westerners here for business or in advisory positions.
- Population: 55 Million
- Religion: Mostly Kodo. Roughly 2% of the population follows western religions.
- Wealth: Most wealth is concentrated in the top 5% of the country. Nearly 20% of the population lives in conditions indistinguishable from peasantry.
- Urbanization: Heavily urbanized for a small economy: 35% and rapidly growing.

Military
At Peace
- Imperial Akitsukuni Navy (IAN): The 6th largest in the world, and the most experienced.
- Imperial Akitsukuni Army (IAA): 150,000 highly experienced soldiers, and a considerable reserve.

Aspects
- Poor Resources: Aluminum costs +1.
- Damn Akitsukuni Engines!: Engines have -1 Reliability.



The Main Character Of This Quest Is Nonbinary And Uses They/Them Pronouns.

I Am Putting This Here Because The Next Person To Misgender Them Is Getting Yeeted Into The Trash


Also here's the Gayaverse TV Tropes page, because why not.
 
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Because gender neutral pronouns do not flow naturally in English. Also Asuka is biologically male so male pronouns are technically correct in the case of said character.
And yes, I also could not use genders neutral pronoun here because it feels grammatically incorrect.

And it is not intended as flame, I just answered your question.
Okay, let's take this in order...

As someone whose first language is English, who read a moderately disturbing amount of literature during their formative years, and as someone who has researched this point, singular 'they/them' has been accepted English for around 700 years. Honestly, I didn't even know people had a problem with it until I came across transphobes trying to play the "it's not grammatically correct!" card. Gender-neutral pronouns do work, they are correct and moreover are necessary in this case.

Wrt Asuka being """biologically male""", this is irrelevant. Please look up the definitions of "transgender identity" and "Nonbinary gender" for why.

As mentioned before, not only are gender-neutral pronouns grammatically correct, but they are necessary. You may as well choose to refuse to call someone by their name because you think they look like they have a different name.

As for not being a flame... This is in violation of the thread policy, as per the pinned post, and, iirc, in violation of SV's rules against misgendering. Regardless of your personal (incorrect) beliefs, these are the rules.

Please have an interesting day.
 
Also Asuka is biologically male so male pronouns are technically correct in the case of said character.
You seriously just went there... I'm at a loss for words.

This isn't how pronouns work. This isn't how gender works. This isn't how basic human decency works. Fuck, it isn't even consistent with the misgendering that brought this up in the first place, so you're pretty clearly just grasping at straws.

You should give these replies serious consideration, realize why you are wrong, apologize to the rest of the quest and then not do it again. If you don't do that, and instead get all defensive and write some comment or other trying to defend your shitty opinion, I do not foresee it going well for you.
 
Stop: You can take a minute to think this
you can take a minute to think on this
Because gender neutral pronouns do not flow naturally in English. Also Asuka is biologically male so male pronouns are technically correct in the case of said character.
And yes, I also could not use genders neutral pronoun here because it feels grammatically incorrect.

And it is not intended as flame, I just answered your question.
We expect our users to respect each other. When you disrespect a non-binary character, you disrespect our non-binary members. When you reject a trans character, you reject our trans members. Three days off will be plenty of time to consider what that means, and also how to fit they/them into your vocabulary. 25 points will remind you of your mistake.
 
Huh. The modpost got tagged as the OP posting. Is that a thing for all modpost or is @4WheelSword counted as an OP?
I believe staff posts just automatically get put in their own category and treated as OP-like for threadmark generation purposes. Could be wrong, though.


Edit: I jumped to a bad conclusion based on what might have been one of the simpler ways to program things so staff posts are threadmarked properly.
 
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Feels like forever since the last time we had a plane for art to be made of. Kind of exciting to see what we make.
Budget and technology constraints may very well push us towards something pretty conventional, unless the width of our factory requires more sets of shorter wings than we might otherwise prefer. That will probably be one of the big things that drives our choice of basic configuration, actually.
 
Budget and technology constraints may very well push us towards something pretty conventional, unless the width of our factory requires more sets of shorter wings than we might otherwise prefer. That will probably be one of the big things that drives our choice of basic configuration, actually.

But think about the passengers. We don't want to spoil their view by putting a wing in the way.

I propose we put the wings on the right side of the plane, and all the passengers on the left.
 
With all these shell factories and cannon foundries winding down after the war, and all these artillerists out of work, clearly the only reasonable course of action is projectile-based transportation.

If it was good enough for Julia Verne, by gum it's good enough for Akitsukuni!
 
[X] Coralie receives a letter from a Gallian paper asking for her account of traveling, flying, and fighting in Akitsukuni. She claims she's far too young to be writing memoirs, but notes and pieces of outlines start appearing on bits of scrap paper around the house over the next few weeks. What do they say?
[x] The newspapers have had opinions on Matsura and Yachi during the war and during the peace. What does their scrapbook look like?
[x] Cats plz meow
 
today i learned what pronouns i should use as a "technically biologically male" person. i am graced by this wisdom.

like the whole point is rendering a non western gender expression thing inside western neologisms and constructs to show people the kind of damage done by imperialism to human expression as well as how restrictive gender roles do not have to be the restrictions or the roles or the *genders* familiar to us

so to have a person who read enough of my 150 thousand word story to know the main character was amab, which comes up very infrequently, yet decide this was a thing they wanted to say, makes me feel a little like i've been too subtle. maybe i haven't been gender enough in this story.

buckle the fuck up, it's about to get gayer, then.
 
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[X] Coralie receives a letter from a Gallian paper asking for her account of traveling, flying, and fighting in Akitsukuni. She claims she's far too young to be writing memoirs, but notes and pieces of outlines start appearing on bits of scrap paper around the house over the next few weeks. What do they say?
I can't speak for @open_sketchbook , but I for one would be delighted. Remembering that one of her vices is Write Poetry (not great poetry, not remarkable poetry, but poetry), I'd actually be totally unsurprised if she was willing to send a partial write-up containing some of her experiences home.



ALSO...

I still don't get why anyone thinks 'singular they' is a problem; it's been a common English usage since Shakespeare at the latest as I recall. I'm quite sure that at whatever equivalent Albia has of the Battle of Trafalgar (the Napoleonic Wars may have gotten truncated, or not, but there MUST be a Trafalgar or it's not Not!England), well, I'm sure their Nelson said "Albia expects that every sailor will do their duty."

I also find it on some level darkly amusing that someone wanted to come in and troll about 'technically, should use male pronouns' when the actual problem we're having in the thread is that people keep absent-mindedly misgendering Asuka as feminine.

Simon, not every time I call for communist revolution is entirely serious. Sometimes, I'm joke.
Firstly, my default orientation towards other people's humor is very much "the straight man," and I'm sorry for that, I can only plead that it takes all kinds.

Secondly, consider this my tacit confession that there are enough good reasons to adopt democratic communism, that it's actually relevant to know when a certain specific thing isn't a reason to adopt democratic communism. The sheer surprise factor of "wait, this technically isn't an instance" carries some merit.

In the same way that it's remarkable that the dog didn't bark in the night, or when a politician didn't take a bribe.
 
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"My Life in Akitsukuni: Faulty Expectations, Freedom, War, and a Life in Silk. An Autobiography of Coralie d'Amboise-Ohara"
 
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I can't speak for @open_sketchbook , but I for one would be delighted. Remembering that one of her vices is Write Poetry (not great poetry, not remarkable poetry, but poetry), I'd actually be totally unsurprised if she was willing to send a partial write-up containing some of her experiences home.
And even an otherwise-utterly-unremarkable poet may occasionally turn out an absolute masterpiece once in their lifetime. It may be is definitely wishful thinking to hope for Coralie to be this timeline's author of High Flight...but it could happen.
 
I still don't get why anyone thinks 'singular they' is a problem; it's been a common English usage since Shakespeare at the latest as I recall. I'm quite sure that at whatever equivalent Albia has of the Battle of Trafalgar (the Napoleonic Wars may have gotten truncated, or not, but there MUST be a Trafalgar or it's not Not!England), well, I'm sure their Nelson said "Albia expects that every sailor will do their duty."

Honestly, probably because the complaint about "they" is merely an excuse.

You don't see the same complaints when people use words like "smartphone", "Googling" or "app", despite the fact that those things are all recent additions to english.
Language serves to communicate, and the singular they is perfectly adequate for the purpose, and far better at communication than relying on binary system based on people's chromosomal sex.
 
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Honestly, probably because the complaint about "they" is merely an excuse.

You don't see the same complaints when people use words like "smartphone", "Googling" or "app", despite the fact that those things are all recent additions to english.
Language serves to communicate, and the singular they is perfectly adequate for the purpose, and far better at communication than relying on binary system based on people's chromosomal sex.
Opposition to the singular they always did seem like a bit of a dogwhistle to me.
 
Opposition to the singular they always did seem like a bit of a dogwhistle to me.

NGL my inner grammar nerd personally wishes we had a proper gender neutral singular word that wasn't they/was exclusively singular rather than singular and plural (I'd also like a "you guys" word to enter common lexicon, just to eliminate any ambiguity). But then my high school teacher just was rather particular about not using they for singular case (guess she was wrong but eh, language evolves) so I sort of instinctively mentally correct whenever I see it. In proper English fashion I humbly suggest we consider pirating words from someone else.

Of course this is just personal preference and if peeps want to use "they" or whatever else then that's what I'm going to use for them.
 
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