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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[ ] Army boys snarking that at least the Navy got bloodied for once. Maybe this causes a fight.
 
[X] Give in (-2 stress)

We've driven her to the edge trying for the 'right' decisions, and I don't want to push her over.
 
I prefer the drama and the self hate developing from that to the simple crying one I have to say in terms of how it will motivate our Heroine to look at herself and the world around her.

[X] Give in (-2 stress)
 
[X] Break down crying (-1 stress, but you will likely be overheard and it may have consequences for your career)
Let's not do cheating sort if things, at least not without social approval, but something clearly does need to happen.
 
I don't really care about the cheating angle, aside from a vague desire to not have to read the resulting drama. These things apparently happen, and the social norm in this society even seems to be that it only matters if you make it impossible to ignore. The issue for me is that I can't tell if she actually wants this or is doing it because she thinks she has to, along with the larger question about whether consent is even meaningfully possible with that kind of power imbalance. This has the potential to be pretty fucked up. And yes, Haruna might develop as a character and have interesting and productive self-reflection after this, but there are less horrible ways to get to that end result.
 
brmj said:
I don't really care about the cheating angle, aside from a vague desire to not have to read the resulting drama. These things apparently happen, and the social norm in this society even seems to be that it only matters if you make it impossible to ignore. The issue for me is that I can't tell if she actually wants this or is doing it because she thinks she has to, along with the larger question about whether consent is even meaningfully possible with that kind of power imbalance. This has the potential to be pretty fucked up. And yes, Haruna might develop as a character and have interesting and productive self-reflection after this, but there are less horrible ways to get to that end result.
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I agree with this sentiment.

This – the stress relief – is not worth the pain with respect to our relationship with Aiko, and with respect to our morals.
 
Just to reiterate, Min Seo has excellent reasons of her own to seduce Haruna right now:
  • The woman who has always had her back clearly needs it
  • This is a way to tie herself to an imperial princess who has treated Joseans with respect
  • And Haruna is a dead sexy heroine and a much safer fuck than any of the men.
 
So, we're at what might be called an impasse. 23 people don't want to cheat for various reasons, 17 are voting to Give In. We're the majority, but we're divided between two votes.

noliar said:
Just to reiterate, Min Seo has excellent reasons of her own to seduce Haruna right now:
  • The woman who has always had her back clearly needs it
  • This is a way to tie herself to an imperial princess who has treated Joseans with respect
  • And Haruna is a dead sexy heroine and a much safer fuck than any of the men.
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And this should influence our choice because...

"The person we're cheating on our girlfriend with has reasons to want to have sex with us, maybe."
 
10ebbor10 said:
You're making a few mistakes in this calculation.

1) You're double counting 1 vote
2) You're assuming that your 2 seperate options are a coherent block, which is not necessarily the case. One of the Protest votes changed their vote from Give In, for example, so they appear to lean that way.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a coalition victory, but it's a closer vote than you imply.
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Well, sure, yeah. Maybe? But I'm trying to get something together, especially since I'm currently fighting for, you know, not dropping this Quest for a month until it all shakes out.[1] Which is what I will do if "Cheat on our girlfriend" wins. So I have plenty of motivation to try to twist a victory, Protest or Cry.

(Honestly, I find the 'drama' reasons for Giving In at least more honest than a lot of the contortions of the other arguments, or that one person who cites a Game of Thrones scene.)

[1] Bizarrely, a lot of people don't want to read about infidelity?
 
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You're making a few mistakes in this calculation.

1) You're double counting 1 vote
2) You're assuming that your 2 seperate options are a coherent block, which is not necessarily the case. One of the Protest votes changed their vote from Give In, for example, so they appear to lean that way.

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you have a coalition victory, but it's a closer vote than you imply.

Edit: Yeah, I accidentally deleted the previous post. Got confused and thought I screwed up and was talking nonsense, when I didn't. So I've reposted it here. Sorry for the inevitable confusion.
 
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The Laurent said:
So, we're at what might be called an impasse. 23 people don't want to cheat for various reasons, 17 are voting to Give In. We're the majority, but we're divided between two votes.



And this should influence our choice because...

"The person we're cheating on our girlfriend with has reasons to want to have sex with us, maybe."
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Obviously it doesn't address cheating on our girlfriend. It does address somewhat the arguments that it's skeevy because of the power imbalance. Min Seo has worked up the courage to try this - I think she should succeed and become a reccurring character rather than just another Joseon victim left behind at the end of the war.

As to cheating, I don't think Haruna is considering consequences at the moment, I think the consequences will be interesting, that they won't be too severe, that Haruna will be able to cope with them and fix any damage and, I'm not too invested in her first love being the OTP - I like Aiko well enough but if they break up that's fine too.
 
I also admit that while I don't doubt the Stress -2 because the vote says so and the QMs ain't liars, for me personally the idea of being on the edge of a breakdown and yet having to perform sexually and presumably not suck at it sounds way more stressful than just, like, literally doing nothing or dosing yourself with sleeping pills and hoping that things will feel less horrible when you wake up eight hours later.

So that's another, like, barrier to understanding the decision, I guess? But if it was a Play As The Laurent Quest, Give In would be (Stress+3). :V
 
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The Laurent said:
So, we're at what might be called an impasse. 23 people don't want to cheat for various reasons, 17 are voting to Give In. We're the majority, but we're divided between two votes.
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Yeah, 10ebbor10 already alluded to this, but uh...don't assume everyone not voting Give In is on the same side. For instance, I'd rather see Give In win than Break Down, because to me it's a question of "which problems are most interesting to have," though if enough Break Down voters wanted to switch over to Protest in an attempt to prevent Give In I certainly wouldn't complain.
 
[X] Break down crying (-1 stress, but you will likely be overheard and it may have consequences for your career)
Switching from protest to this because this has more chance of winning :V
 
Like-

I can see an argument for "give in" both in terms of character (Haruna, progressive that she is, is still a 20th century noblewoman- I doubt she has the same views as us and especially under circumstances like these I suspect she would not instinctively grok the power dynamics, even if she would hopefully reflect on that later) and in terms of "this could cause interesting problems." At the same time, I also feel that Haruna really needs some TLC, whether that's sex or anything else. And I doubt she's really in the mood for sex either (I mean I'm shocked that she's still awake).
So-

[X] Break down crying (-1 stress, but you will likely be overheard and it may have consequences for your career)

Seems like a fair choice.
 
Undead Martyr said:
Like-

I can see an argument for "give in" both in terms of character (Haruna, progressive that she is, is still a 20th century noblewoman- I doubt she has the same views as us and especially under circumstances like these I suspect she would not instinctively grok the power dynamics, even if she would hopefully reflect on that later) and in terms of "this could cause interesting problems." At the same time, I also feel that Haruna really needs some TLC, whether that's sex or anything else. And I doubt she's really in the mood for sex either (I mean I'm shocked that she's still awake).
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My mental picture is definitely on the lie back and enjoy it side of things. Possibly getting more actively involved as things progress. That would run into all the aches and pains of the day. Which pains need some TLC and so the session turns from sex to massage leaving Min Seo frustrated...
 
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