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Aircraft Design Company- Matsura's Planes Are Always Fastest!

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Character Sheet
  • Informational


    • ​
    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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  • Informational
    • Undead Martyr said:
    (I'd also like a "you guys" word to enter common lexicon, just to eliminate any ambiguity).
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    I can sympathize with that - I don't have the right accent to pull off "y'all", and "you folks" is way too easily mispronounced such that people think you're saying "You fucks".
    DocMatoi said:
    "y'all" already exists
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    People look at you weird for saying that if you don't sound like you're from the American south.
     
    I suppose the south had to get at least one thing right eventually.

    In fact, I propose that we solve this whole perceived problem by taking it one step further: "they" becomes always singular, and we can use "th'all" when we want a plural they. Problem solved.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Y'all is good civilization and I wish it was common enough in my local colloquial english to sound natural for me to say.
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    The only way to get it into (widespread) colloquial english is to be an early adopter, like me. If y'all start using y'all, it'll be properly normalized.

    plotvitalnpc said:
    How's that pronounced? Thuh-all? Thall? Thell? The All?
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    Well, considering English linguistical patterns...yes.

    :V

    I'm just enjoying this conversation a lot. I came down on the side of using they as a non-gender specific singular pronoun way back in high school, because the only alternative in English made one sounds like a most pretentious ass, and one generally does not need help sounding like such.
     
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    Diomedon said:
    Most people who are rich enough and important enough to be flown are also rich and important enough that they'll want the pampering.

    I might be navigating the social constraints improperly, but I wonder if employing attractive enby flight attendants will help sidestep or...hrm no, rather curtail the worst excesses and harassment? It seems like the public expectation is still for enby-enby relations, even though we know that's not a particularly strong rule once we take even a half-step back from the public space. With the other passengers, the plane will still be a public space, but since we know actual attraction to enbies is broader than politely spoken of, would achieve a balance of cute young flight attendants to put customers at ease vs too much like exploiting our workers.

    Or am I reading the social expectations around the enby gender wrong? I know I binged this quest really quick, so I probably missed some nuance and clarifying posts in that process.
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    Going back regarding this, this would be... it would still be pretty exploitative, basically. There's a sex appeal element in Akitsukuni's wierd binormative culture thingy wherein a lot of people find nonbinary folks like, sexually intriguing in a pretty comprehensively gross way. Like the culture idea floating around among people is if you sleep with them, you get to find out who they "really are" and that's cool but why would you stick around afterward?

    (Recall the discussion Asuka and Yachi had about why Yachi finds Asuka attractive, or Nashio being shitty to Yachi about sticking around with Asuka after 'satisfying his curiosity'.)
     
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    Simon_Jester said:
    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."
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    While, as previously noted, the whole 'oh it's so new' thing is blatantly just a smokescreen, my inner pedant will not be satisfied until I note that you are several hundred years off on that; there's multiple uses of the singular 'they' in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, from the 12th century.
     
    AlphaDelta said:
    I personally prefer the singular "you".
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    You is second person singular.
    (It used to be second person singular formal, and thou was second person singular informal)
    Y'all is second person plural. (There's a really fun creole that has English as one of the base elements that has degrees of exclusivity in the first and second plurals, so there's a word that means "speaker and another person, but not the person being spoken to" and another word that means "Speaker and one person being spoken to, but not others.")

    And I agree that we need a gender-neutral third-person singular that is distinct from the third-person plural, but honestly "they" is what we're going to get.
     
    trust me. could be worse. we could be speaking german, which as i understand has a neutral singular pronoun, but because for people it's only used for like babies and little kids, it sounds super infantizing and awkward to use for adults :(

    i've been reasoning for a while that akitsukuni, while just translation convention japanese for the most part, probably has a unique first person singular pronoun, and sticks harder to the other gendered ones than irl japanese. so telling people your gender is literally built into the process of telling people your name.

    (the translation convention causes all kinds of wierd which i pay occasion subtle lip service to, and forget about other times. like akitsukuni obviously has their own words for "transgender" and "non-binary", which is why when they tell westerners about it in their own language, they switch back to default text and say it in the own words. or how akitsukuni has different words for the different sorts of marriages they have but we don't know them so they get lumped in the "translation".)
     
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    samdamandias said:
    You is second person singular.
    (It used to be second person singular formal, and thou was second person singular informal)
    Y'all is second person plural. (There's a really fun creole that has English as one of the base elements that has degrees of exclusivity in the first and second plurals, so there's a word that means "speaker and another person, but not the person being spoken to" and another word that means "Speaker and one person being spoken to, but not others.")

    And I agree that we need a gender-neutral third-person singular that is distinct from the third-person plural, but honestly "they" is what we're going to get.
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    *facepalm*

    Sorry, plural "you". Brain did a stupid.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    trust me. could be worse. we could be speaking german, which as i understand has a neutral singular pronoun, but because for people it's only used for like babies and little kids, it sounds super infantizing and awkward to use for adults :(
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    If it is any comfort while the pronouns are gendered their connection to the actual gender of the the person/object is limited. The german word for "girl" "Mädchen" always take the "neutral" pronoun. I think gendered languages actually might help with disassociating gender from any biological/physical connotations. Any language that decides that tables are manly while doors are female will have some understanding for gender being arbitrary and defined by social conventions.

    I also found this gem on wikipedia from when English had grammatical genders:
    "Old English wīf (neuter) and wīfmann (masculine), meaning "woman" "
    So in old English "He was a good woman" would be the correct way to say things.
     
    Axslashel said:
    If it is any comfort while the pronouns are gendered their connection to the actual gender of the the person/object is limited. The german word for "girl" "Mädchen" always take the "neutral" pronoun. I think gendered languages actually might help with disassociating gender from any biological/physical connotations. Any language that decides that tables are manly while doors are female will have some understanding for gender being arbitrary and defined by social conventions.

    I also found this gem on wikipedia from when English had grammatical genders:
    "Old English wīf (neuter) and wīfmann (masculine), meaning "woman" "
    So in old English "He was a good woman" would be the correct way to say things.
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    I'm almost surprised.

    Almost.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    trust me. could be worse. we could be speaking german, which as i understand has a neutral singular pronoun, but because for people it's only used for like babies and little kids, it sounds super infantizing and awkward to use for adults :(
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    Or you could be using a latin language and have none of that at all. Everything gendered male or female. Everything. You can fudge the actual pronouns (and we do try), but you still end up with everything either conjugated male or female and you have to pick. It's bloodly awful.
     
    thepsyborg said:
    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.
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    If there is a perfect poem waiting within Coralie, it would be about aerial dogfights, specifically.

    plotvitalnpc said:
    I can sympathize with that - I don't have the right accent to pull off "y'all", and "you folks" is way too easily mispronounced such that people think you're saying "You fucks".
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    I just say "youses."

    brmj said:
    I suppose the south had to get at least one thing right eventually.

    In fact, I propose that we solve this whole perceived problem by taking it one step further: "they" becomes always singular, and we can use "th'all" when we want a plural they. Problem solved.
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    Eh.

    German uses the same pronoun for "she" and "you-esteemed-and-respectable-person-you" and "that plural group of people over there," at least in the determinative case. I don't see why English can't use 'they' for both the gender-neutral singular and (usually though not always mixed-gender) plural.

    open_sketchbook said:
    (the translation convention causes all kinds of wierd which i pay occasion subtle lip service to, and forget about other times. like akitsukuni obviously has their own words for "transgender" and "non-binary", which is why when they tell westerners about it in their own language, they switch back to default text and say it in the own words. or how akitsukuni has different words for the different sorts of marriages they have but we don't know them so they get lumped in the "translation".)
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    At least when they aren't getting translated as "friendship rituals" by Westerners who either assume that saying "those two women are married" must be a translation error in its own right, as opposed to being the true sense of the word... Or Westerners who, while writing home, don't want to out themselves as having gone and done it
     
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