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
    • I mean, it's not a full success, but it is really good for the situation. I'm happy.
    Also, it's neat to see this quest is being integrated into the product, though I worry about getting the older planes to mesh properly with the more recent system - some, probably significant, modification will probably be needed.
     
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    10-6: A Little Overwhelming
  • Threadmarks
    • What a question. What an enormous question with possibly litigious consequences. You were trying to think of what could be worse than your plane crashing with a member of the Imperial Family aboard... they would kill you for that, right? That sounds like one of those things where they would super absolutely one hundred percent kill you for that.

    On the other hand, this was as stable as planes went. Even if an engine went out, it was perfectly capable of flying under its own power until it reached safety, though not terribly nimbly. It wasn't a sure thing.

    But the Empress herself, in that tiny and incredibly illegal glance you got at her, had smiled when she saw your machine. How could you deny it to her?

    "I can't say anything with one hundred percent certainty, Your Imperial Majesty. I would say that, if our future tests turn out fine and if a competent pilot and copilot are chosen and if the plane is well maintained between flights... then yes, I would say that this aircraft is as safe for the Imperial Family."

    "That's a lot of ifs, Matsura." She said. There was a brief moment of excited panic, that your name had been on the Empress's tongue. Then you briefly wondered how did she know your name??? before realizing that one of her aides told her, obviously. "Still, that's encouraging to hear. We may be sending a represented to Ohara in the near future."

    What did that mean? Was that good? Were you good? Did you say something wrong?

    You wanted to ask if you were done here, but people were talking and you realized that was super not your place to ask. They'd dismiss you when they were ready.

    "One last thing, then we'll let you get back to your numbers. Are you any good with children, Matsura?"

    What the fuck question was that???

    "Ummm... I don't have much experience, Your Majesty. Your, Imperial Majesty."

    "Hmm. Alright. You may rise."

    Anxious, you sat up as quickly as possible, not wanting to look like you were tarrying in following instructions. The blood rushed to your head all at once, and you got a brief glimpse of the woman in the white makeup, looking just a little wide-eyed, before pitching over backward and passing out cold.

    ---

    You awoke in the back of the Ohara truck, Yachi at your side.

    "Are you alright, Asuka?" He asked. After a moment, you nodded slowly.

    "I don't know." You said honestly.

    You sort of just sat in his arms a moment, staring up at the cloudy February skies. It was a decently warm day today, the clouds that had stuck around after last week's rain trapping the heat, but tomorrow, if your instruments were right, you were in for a real cold snap. Maybe down to minus ten. That poor little beetle was going to freeze, and as gross as you found it when it was poking your forehead, you felt sorry for it. Destroyed by forces beyond its comprehension or control.

    "I talked to the Empress." You said flatly.

    "Yeah. Wow." Yachi said. "Wha... what about?"

    "She wanted a plane, I think." You said.

    Mr. Ohara was there, all of a sudden, faster than you thought a sixty year old man could move.

    "She wanted WHAT?"

    "Her Imperial Majesty wanted one of our planes. I think." You repeated.

    You could almost see the yen signs in Mr. Ohara's eyes.

    "What did you say?"

    "She also wanted to know if I was good with kids? What's that about?" You continued, your brain not really processing the question.

    "Focus, Matsura. What did you say?"

    "I said our planes would safe for the Imperial Family if well kept." You said. "And she said she might send us a representative."

    You thought it was Mr. Ohara's turn to faint, but he kept his composure pretty well.

    ---

    Tests continued for another week, and you were pretty heavily involved. But the election was also approaching rapidly, and politics weighed very heavily on your mind. When you got home, you started spending time organizing your thoughts about the election generally.

    After a year or so of paying attention to politics, you were starting to see yourself pretty firmly as a moderate progressive. The more pacifistic policies of the Fairness Association appealed to you, and you were increasingly terrified of the country taking a slide rightward towards increased militarism. The results of the snap election seemed like a foregone conclusion, but maybe there was something you could do. Then again, maybe it was best to save your effort and wealth, or try to use it to get yourself into a better position to effect change in the future.

    ===

    Here is how this part works. Submit regular votes about things that Asuka might want to consider trying in the political realm, and discuss it. Long term and short term. From these options and stuff that comes up in the discussion, I'll create a list of things Asuka might be able to do and how much they will cost in political power and wealth. This doesn't have to be stuff that immediately changes the world: it might be investing wealth to create more wealth, or making political contacts.

     Snippet votes activate.​
     
  • Threadmarks
    • []Pay several people, with bring priorities being social skills, political indifference, and cost, to go around and ask people for their political leanings and priorities. Try to get data from as broad and fair a cross-section of society as possible, including (if possible) the positions of various social classes, genders, location, and other such potential divisions.
    I don't know much about polling methods, but I figure it's a good idea to get some level of information on the likely political landscape of coming elections, and this arrangement seems like a functional way to do that without too many irregularities in data flow. Not sure if it's economically viable on our income, though.
     
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    Poor Asuka! So overwhelmed! Poor Empress! So overwhelming!

    @open_sketchbook is there a threshold for the regular vote policy items to be considered? Will you consolidate similar votes?

    So things I definitely see Asuka supporting:
    • Infrastructure
    • Education
    • Veteran Care
    • Enby & trans rights
    • Equal franchise
    Things that are logical from Asuka's experiences but less certain:
    • Workers' rights
    • Noninterventionism
    • Cutbacks of secret police
    • Increased international trade
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Political polling is already a thing the newspapers do, though they are almost entirely local polls.
    Click to expand...
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    Neat - that does mean a larger operation is viable, but sort of makes an independent operation pointless if we could just use their operations for base-level polling, and "almost entirely means there already are at least a few larger polling groups.
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    Political polling is already a thing the newspapers do, though they are almost entirely local polls.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    [ ] Pay a starving grad student from one of the local universities (a stats major, ideally) or some similarly stereotypically broke intellectual type to subscribe to literally all the newspapers in Akitsukuni and collate their polling data.
    -[ ] Provide a carefully-anonymized summary of the results to that one friendly local secret police officer.
     
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    Oh wait, can't forget this for the politics:

    [:V] An unlikely series of policy proposals that butterfly the Ohara crew into starting WW1.

    Actual snippet votes before I go to sleep:

    [ ] Popular Mechanics style sensationalist coverage of the airliner.
    [ ] Satomi's hot takes on the snacks from the drink cart.
    [ ] What was the first flight across to Joseon like?
    [ ] Yachi and Asuka try to figure out a strange Western fashion accessory
     
    @open_sketchbook is there a post that lays out what the current state of Akitsukuni politics is - I don't really recall what the party platforms of the various parties exactly was - I know that there were two different basically socialist parties, and then there were fascists calling themselves "Purity Club", but I can't remember exactly what the demarcation line between the other two or so parties was.
     
    1912 Politics Summary
  • Informational
    • Ash19256 said:
    @open_sketchbook is there a post that lays out what the current state of Akitsukuni politics is - I don't really recall what the party platforms of the various parties exactly was - I know that there were two different basically socialist parties, and then there were fascists calling themselves "Purity Club", but I can't remember exactly what the demarcation line between the other two or so parties was.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Briefest summary, from most rightward on.

    The Purity Club are proto-fascists. populist rhetoric but their upper ranks literally want a resurgent shogunate.

    The Constitutional Nationalists are bog-standard 1910s conservatives. They think the government should just be an army and that army should do whats best for the country. Like invading more of Cathay.

    The New Independents are a liberal/libertarian party. Into cool Western enlightenment values like freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and equality for women. Also into less cool Western enlightenment values like imperialism, queerphobia, and capitalism.

    The Fairness Association are progressives on a range from social democrats to democratic socialists, mostly. Popularish mostly among the people not allowed to vote, which makes them fairly fringe. Slightly less of a Western values fetishization but still present. Pacifistic. Also, idealists who have never really held meaningful power and don't have much institutional experience.

    The United Communist League is the borderline illegal leftist party which may or may not be allowed on the ballot come election day. Believe in a violent revolution of the proletariat, kinda iffy on the democracy thing, swears loyalty to the Empress only because they legally have to, only really get votes from academics but have solid support in urban workers. Also, about as racist as the Purity Club.

    Not really fitting in, the Monarchists just want all this dumb democracy out of the way so that Empress can rule directly, the Still Waters party are proto-environmentalists, and there's a single-issue feminist party called the Women's Equality League that snuck a single rep into power last election against all odds (likely due to the volatility of the that election).

    The Diet has two chambers, a house of commons and a house of lords sort of deal. The house of commons is the one that is shuffled directly by elections and appoints the PM, while the upper chamber's seats are held for a number of years and voted in by the lower house. The tendency is to just keep people's seats going and even to give them to their children, regardless of political affiliation, because this is like, barely a democracy, but the fringe parties will likely shake that up.

    For a quick summary of how it works, Akitsukuni uses a system of non-geographic proportional representation. Your household needs to pay a certain amount of tax to be able to vote, and this tax has been lowered in recent years just low enough that most of the middle class squeaks in. Representatives vote in lockstep with their party, but if you resign your seat it doesn't get replaced, thus shrinking your party's hold of the chamber.

    Women can vote, but their votes are counted for half. They also aren't allowed to vote for parties that don't already have representation in the Diet. This makes the WEL getting representation last election kind of a huge deal that came totally out of left field.

    The last election was weird as fuck because the NC were dealing with some bad scandals and their traditional ally the Purity Club was imploding after being caught out essentially planning a coup (of course that was swept pretty quietly under the rug for Reasons). So a whole shitload of fringe parties got traction. This snap election is looking to more likely be a rightward swing.
     
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  • Informational
    • Seconding these snippet votes. Is that how this works?

    [ ] Satomi's hot takes on the snacks from the drink cart.
    [ ] Yachi and Asuka try to figure out a strange Western fashion accessory
     
    open_sketchbook said:
    The results of the snap election seemed like a foregone conclusion, but maybe there was something you could do. Then again, maybe it was best to save your effort and wealth, or try to use it to get yourself into a better position to effect change in the future.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm still sad that Castles will probably never catch up enough for it to also effect the elections
     
    So, Asuka has a lot of issues which are important via proximity- that is, immediately noticeable things apparent based on life experience. Some of these which come to mind are:

    Government labor laws; setting mandated wages during the war came very close to actively crashing the Ohara business and Asuka was personally involved in some of the discussions about coping with it. This update is really important to the understanding of how Asuka's life has been impacted by this and measuring awareness of and perspective on it in general. The one following it is also critical as it quite literally opens with Asuka being part of an effort to understanding the needs of the workers and how to meet them in spite of laws making it difficult to do so. I suspect it's the single strongest bit of political/policy action that Asuka has taken in this quest, in a personal ("I am doing something") rather than broad ("I did/said something that probably caused effects somewhere else") sense.

    Workplace social dynamics; it's probably way too early for this to be handled on a legal level. However, Asuka is an influential figure in Ohara and, as proven by the ability to participate as a leading figure in the discussions of how Ohara should handle the labor laws in the paragraph above, that means that there is some significant ability to define workplace policy and culture here, from the top down. Female engineers at Akibara are making 35% of what male engineers do, and working conditions are both exploitative and degrading. Is this true across the industry? How are other enbies treated?

    Enby handling in politics; it was made clear in the last election that there is no "enby" box for voting; they're classed as either male or female. It's likely that there are a lot of places where official policy reflects this kind of neglect. Messing with this is somewhat dangerous because if they start getting treated as their own thing they won't have the numbers to fight for anything on their own- women can fight for women's rights, workers for workers' rights, and so forth, but there simply aren't enough enbies to meaningfully fight for enby rights, so they will be down at the very bottom of pretty much everyone's priority list.

    Worse, for Asuka specifically the traditional box is something to be simultaneously embraced and broken out of; there are a lot of aspects of it that they feel comfortable with but they wouldn't be marrying a man if they liked all of it. This means that a lot of people who hold highly traditional attitudes- which would other be natural allies in standing up for the right of enbies to be recognized as such- are likely to be wary of their politics on this matter.

    So, here are a few ideas that could gather information or begin to figure out how to change the world in ways that reflect the life and experiences of Matsuda Asuka, using resources and contacts currently available. Some of them are just figuring out what's going on, others are more direct.

    [x] Figure out what's happened with the wartime labor laws now that the war is over- and what happened with the policies they forced at various companies. Are wages going back to normal? What about corporate benefits? Is the election likely to actually be terribly skewed by having massively reduced voter bases due to lowered pay, as was feared? What are opinions on this? Start with Ohara and get broader information starting from there.
    [x] If other companies are giving shockingly low pay for good workers- they're female, foreign, missing a hand or something, whatever- Ohara could use the anticipated profits from the upcoming airliner sales to poach them in significant numbers, while increasing their pay substantially. A new project team or even two for the company and, perhaps, it'll push pay rates higher for the underappreciated at our competitors, making the aviation industry as a whole a better place. Even if it doesn't, it'll make a positive difference in the lives of everyone hired, and that matters.
    [x] Approach Mr. Ohara and a university about offering student internships to their top performers interested in aircraft or related systems. Maybe Ohara can get some of the best right out of school- and even if they're not hired, exposing them to a less awful corporate culture than other places seemingly have might make them less inclined to accept that as just the way things are.
    [x] Look up if there are any other enbies who are well known enough to potentially have a political impact, and try to meet them if any live nearby. Maybe they won't care about the politics of getting an enby box on the voting ballot, but it's worth a shot.

    It would be pretty great if we could come up with some way to make tons of money. Money makes everything easier. However, I have no stunningly brilliant ideas on that matter. We have a limited amount of wealth which could be invested- and fortunes can be made by such investments if well-chosen- but that's always a risk unless we get a very sure bet. We're not strongly tied enough to Ohara to get wealthy based on its corporate success, so "make our company do really well" doesn't actually benefit us directly.

    This is the right vote to hatch a genius scheme to make a fortune and get it started, though, so if anyone's got one now would be a great time to mention it.


    open_sketchbook said:
    Women can vote, but their votes are counted for half. They also aren't allowed to vote for parties that don't already have representation in the Diet. This makes the WEL getting representation last election kind of a huge deal that came totally out of left field.
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    Wow, no kidding about what a huge deal it is. With at least one rep currently elected they can now grab those half-votes by the bucketload and massively strengthen their toehold, but without anyone standing for their party getting that toehold in the first place would have been all but impossible.

    Even if the next election is a rightward swing overall, the WEL will probably make notable gains just on their broad appeal (to literally all women who can vote and care about womens' political rights) plus the importance of their immediately pressing issue rallying the constituency (if they lose their only seat getting another might take decades).
     
    Thought about getting an Enby box on the ballot, or indeed many of the Enby exclusionary elements in society: If we get an equal vote for women then the male/female question can come off the ballot entirely. I know that's a bit TERFy but it has broader appeal than just for enbies, it doesn't mark enbies out as a voter bloc which will be inevitably tiny and therefore ignored and it totally swerves the uncomfortable possibility of enbies being given a 3/4 vote since "they're halfway between".
     
    enby social role & work (and quick ace/aro note)
  • Informational
    • While the rest of the write-in vote is good, Asuka knows (intimately) that the stereotypical job for nonbinary people in Akitsukuni is as personal secretaries. A really good example is Haruna's mum's assistant...

    This is mostly an upper class thing but its still pretty common. Dealing with records and stuff is one of those ancient and prescribed gender role things, going back to their original social role, and even earlier. There's a social expectation that you can trust your enby assistant to be as discreet about your business and life stuff as they have to be about everything else, which is also why people keep fucking blabbing their personal shit to Asuka while they do their best to look interested and not feel awkward. It's so closely tied, actually, that its a part of the reason that their cute enby marriage thing involves writing and signing a document: literacy was presumed.

    A not-inaccurate way to look at how all this got here is that nonbinary folks in Cathay (and thus spreading elsewhere) occupied a version of the role that eunuchs filled in real life history. You don't feel like a man or a woman? Well, we have a philosophical framework that accepts that, so obviously there's no place for you in families or politics (same thing), so here's the deal. Step into this super narrow set of roles, give up having a family or love, and be afforded the relative privilege of a life of comfy intellectual or service work. This also ends up framing the Akitsukuni enby marriage thing as a bit of quiet rebellion which I'm extremely cool with.

    (Total tangent but it's been on my mind for a while to figure out Akitsukuni attitudes towards asexual/aromantic people, and honestly I think they're cool about it in the same way they're cool about monosexual people (ie: give it the good ol' college try, but if you ain't into it, you ain't into it. also if you're a woman we might ask you to try a lot). But I can see there having been times where a thing to do to dodge expectations to marry *somebody* and engage in family stuff might have been to take the shitty calculus of identifying as non-binary. Which is a big oof.
     
  • Informational
    • how much could we invest say in the city around us to gain favor and help the community.

    also can we spend like 3 xp to up social or something?
     
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