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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


PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

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

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

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

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

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

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

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

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

Voting Rules

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

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

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

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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[x] Get over yourself, find him, and give him it back. Maybe with an apology. (Roll +Serenity)

I don't want Aiko shutting down parts of herself because she feels like she owes it to Hanura, and this 'never talking to men' thing feels like it started there. :-/
 
I don't want Aiko shutting down parts of herself because she feels like she owes it to Hanura, and this 'never talking to men' thing feels like it started there. :-/
I really don't think so?

"I'm not particularly interested in rolling those dice." You insisted. You were your own person. You weren't going to give up your dreams to become part of some man's household. To basically become his property.

"Why aren't you angry? All men do is hurt us, and they don't stop with us either! When women in Europa started making gains, their men just went out and fucked up the new world, started slaving and pillaging. They came here, they came for us when they couldn't hurt the women back home!" Learning about what men from the West--what men from Akitsukuni--had done to girls like you from Haruna had horrified you so fundamentally, it'd stuck in your mind and just kept coming back. It had made the distaste you had for the men around you into real anger.

This seems like a more likely origin for the sentiment.
 
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[x] Get over yourself, find him, and give him it back. Maybe with an apology. (Roll +Serenity)

I don't want Aiko shutting down parts of herself because she feels like she owes it to Hanura, and this 'never talking to men' thing feels like it started there. :-/
Ah, I hadn't thought of it like that. I'd taken it to be that she was avoiding men because she's chafing under the expectations men and society in general are putting on her. "Women shouldn't be in universities. Men make better leaders. Women should keep their opinions to themselves. When men demand something of her, she should listen. She's attracted to men, so she must date and end up marrying one." Those sorts of things.
 
She's so mad about the patriarchy that she's completely ignoring it, allowing men to do whatever they like and saying nothing. That'll show them!

She's also denying her own sexuality out of, what is in the end, fear. Put your hands up if you ever did that. Put your hands back down if you think it was good for your emotional well-being.
 
She's also denying her own sexuality out of, what is in the end, fear. Put your hands up if you ever did that. Put your hands back down if you think it was good for your emotional well-being.
That's fair, but, on the other hand, being bisexual doesn't mean that she has to date men, which people will be (and have been) pushing her to do. The best result would be her getting to the point where she can accept that part of herself without feeling like she's mandated to pursue relationships with men if she doesn't want to.
 
She's so mad about the patriarchy that she's completely ignoring it, allowing men to do whatever they like and saying nothing. That'll show them!

She's also denying her own sexuality out of, what is in the end, fear. Put your hands up if you ever did that. Put your hands back down if you think it was good for your emotional well-being.

I don't think she is denying her sexuality?

You have no obligation to date everyone you are attracted to?

Like, not interacting with men at all unless she is actively forced to and feeling guilty about any attraction to men is the problem here, not her unwillingness to date men.

Also I just think the option that says "get over yourself" feels super dismissive.

(And WRT the first part of your post, she's actively a member of a feminist organisation in the 1910s, so it's super off base to claim that she's not combating patriarchy, honestly.)
 
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The 'Get over yourself' wording in retrospect probably made it sound way more flippant than intended, but is kind of the way Aiko is framing it to herself. Really it should be more along the lines of 'Face your fears' or 'Maybe this attitude isn't sustainable' instead. Such is the life of the writer.
 
[x] Get over yourself, find him, and give him it back. Maybe with an apology. (Roll +Serenity)
 
Eh, I'm on Aiko's side with this. Of course, I'm pretty much always on the side of people not talking to folks if they don't want to. It sounds like she does a fine job of interacting with men when necessary. Her current choices don't seem to be causing any problems for her, so I don't really see a need for her to change.

That being said, she should probably return the book after sitting on it for a week.
[x] Get over yourself, find him, and give him it back. Maybe with an apology. (Roll +Serenity)
 
It does cause problems...
"Right, the other thing. You mentioned having a brother once, right? In the Navy, I think?"

You nodded.

"Two brothers. My other brother is studying to be a lawyer." You explained.

"How are things with them? With your father?"

You shrugged helplessly.

"I… haven't really written to them since… in a few months." You said. Close to eight now. "I've sent one or two letters to Hideaki but…"

"I imagine it can't be easy, staying close to them with the way you think." She said, and you nodded. You tried not to think about it, it was just
 
[x] Get over yourself, find him, and give him it back. Maybe with an apology. (Roll +Serenity)

Basic politeness. University is for practising all sorts of skills.
 
Well yes, but my point was that our Serenity stat wasn't great and failure in this sort of thing is likely to make our problems a lot worse. At best, it'd make an awkward and painful scene to read.

E: And the potential benefits were honestly not that great either?
We had 72% chance of making it, which is decent enough.

And while the rewards wouldn't have been that great, it's for the same reasons that the consequences aren't likely to be to severe either.
In addition, success all the time is boring to read. Why even have a dice system if you only want to take sure bets?
 
We had 72% chance of making it, which is decent enough.

And while the rewards wouldn't have been that great, it's for the same reasons that the consequences aren't likely to be to severe either.
In addition, success all the time is boring to read.

I mean, an awkward scene where she completely loses her chill at some random dude isn't really enjoyable reading either.

E: It will, no doubt, be as well written as anything else in this Quest, which is *very* well-written.
 
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