Voting is open
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] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)

Stress is baaaaaad, and somehow even in a cushy job with lots of social time and literally living with our girlfriend we're stressing out. Lets make sure we don't overwork ourselves like a Type A overachiever princess, just to see what it's like.

To be fair, it's a different kind of stress! Plus, remember that Haruna doesn't handle boredom well...
 
[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)
I'm voting for this because I think it would be useful for Haruna to understand colonialism, but also I want to know how colonialism took place in-universe. I figure it probably happened more or less like it did IRL, but, with Europa's different gender politics, it's possible that things went differently.

IIRC period literature on the matter focuses a great deal on how good colonialism was. The foundations lie in the economics
 
[x] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)

I hoped that this wouldn't happen, but the Green Weenie came and it sucked anyways.

I think the good Leftenant should take a break from unfouling an eternallly fouling mess for now.
 
[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)
 
Just because I ran across it while rereading. Did Kenshin ever get credit for killing the Imperator Nikolai? A battleship kill should essentially boost his reputation a fair amount.
 
"Nonsense. Look, I'll keep your massive cannon. No one gets me anything like that, it's always dainty and appropriate little pistols and women's rifles. It'll be nice to have a change of pace. Then it won't be like a gift so much as an exchange." She was the Empress and so you had to smile and nod.

Welp the Empress is an enemy now

Time to join the communists.
 
[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)
 
[x]Study the recent history of western politics and the current situation. What's going on?

We gotta make our way onto the marxist route.
 
"She violated a pile of regulations, Aiko. Damaged Navy property, violated traffic rules, ignored a traffic police officer, not to mention her… liaison with civilians while on duty. She's in the Navy, there have to be consequences to that so that we can maintain discipline and good order in the ranks." you said, unsure why this was at all a big deal.
Haruna, you're supposed to provide kickbacks and look the other way and so on for your friends or for people who can do you good.

(What? Corruption? Never heard of it.)

"...What made you want to learn the language, Miss Sanders?"

"Well, I came here when I was thirteen because my mom was helping set up the branch office here, you know, the factory and everything, and that took a while, and I kinda just ended up finding it all really fascinating. The culture, the architecture, the food. It's all so wonderful!
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeb :p

Then you realized your apartment's rent was twice the entire monthly pay of your sailors. Three times that of a shipmaid. You'd been proud of how modest a place it was. How much did that tiny place Aiko lived in with all those other ladies cost? How much did the tea in this cup cost?
Oh Haruna you cupcake. She's the girl who asks everyone else if they want to just randomly take a week off and go skiing or yachting and not realize what's wrong with that. >.>

"Nonsense. Look, I'll keep your massive cannon. No one gets me anything like that, it's always dainty and appropriate little pistols and women's rifles.
How uncouth. Don't they know that Empresses love cannons?

[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)

Stress bad. Make hard decisions, find ways to de-stress or else blow up in what looks at first blush as stress-free post-war job, also looks bad.
 
[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)

Stress is baaaaaad, and somehow even in a cushy job with lots of social time and literally living with our girlfriend we're stressing out. Lets make sure we don't overwork ourselves like a Type A overachiever princess, just to see what it's like.
The term you're looking for is "throwing shit around with a shovel".

Well, not to worry, message recieved. No trying to improve things, no trying to do good, no trying to be smart. Do the least bit possible, always follow the road of least resistance.
 
[X] Study the history of colonization in more detail. How did things get this way, really?

After that big oof with the princess of Joseon at the end of last update I can't really vote for anything else.
 
[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)
 
[X] Study economics more closely, get a better understanding of how that works. How's all that work?

Huh well that's a total screw up, sound like our rep with other women tanked badly if they did not talk to us.

[] Meanwhile in Europa, the debate rages on regarding the role of ground and aerial vehicles in warfare. Haruna decide to look deeper into the funny "landship" concept by asking foreigners thus increase interest with its armor and guns like a gunboat on land.
 
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Thinking back, I wonder if we could've played them again each other by telling Claire's uncle we couldn't give Iha a light punishment because the Army were playing interservice games and tell the Army we couldn't punish Iha as harshly as she deserved because Claire's uncle is an important figure in his arms company and it was wished to keep on good terms with him?

Might be an optimistic thought, could have blown up in our faces if an Army general had to negotiate directly with Claire's uncle in the future.
 
[X] Study the history of colonization in more detail. How did things get this way, really?
[X] Actually, maybe you and Aiko can find other ways to pass the evening that don't involve books. (-2 Stress)


The term you're looking for is "throwing shit around with a shovel".

Well, not to worry, message recieved. No trying to improve things, no trying to do good, no trying to be smart. Do the least bit possible, always follow the road of least resistance.

I don't understand this post. You're complaining about people following the path of least resistance...while voting for the Stress-reduction option over trying to accomplish anything?
 
I don't understand this post. You're complaining about people following the path of least resistance...while voting for the Stress-reduction option over trying to accomplish anything?
Not complaining, stating that it's the only option, becuase there can apparently be no doing good here without there being a pile of twice as much bad to accompany it.

E: It could also be read as "fine, QMs, I get it, no trying to improve things, status quo is god and we're heathens for trying to change it"
 
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Not complaining, stating that it's the only option, becuase there can apparently be no doing good here without there being a pile of twice as much bad to accompany it.

E: It could also be read as "fine, QMs, I get it, no trying to improve things, status quo is god and we're heathens for trying to change it"

...but the QMs are letting us change things? The post you quoted is by a fellow player.
 
...but the QMs are letting us change things? The post you quoted is by a fellow player.
I am agreeing with the fellow I quoted (approximately, but with a less charitable reading of the story).

And the in-story scoreboard so far is not in favor of changing things. Surviving another day, slightly more miserable does not count as a success in my eyes, and that (and the pre-story "female naval offier") is pretty much what we've got so far. Oh, and getting to chose which specific unpleasant object to get shoved up our arse*.

Then again, I generally read stuff to try to get in a better mood. Preferably something vaguely idealistic that makes me believe the world is going for a better direction (or at least that such a thing would be possible). I am not interresting in reading something where the main character "gets by" by having psychological breakdowns every 6-12 months while trying to do more than the bare minimum expected of someone in their position. Frankly, I'm not quite sure why I'm still here (possibly because there are occasionally very nice, for lack of a better word, scenes... I was expecting the frequency of such to improve after the war, though).

* Clarification, because otherwise someone will bring it up: Not everything needs to be sunshine and rainbows, and sure, sometimes "there is no right answer" is fitting. But when it feels like that is the most common "vote" we have, and never being allowed anything that could be interpreted as an actual victory (see note about survival)?
 
Castles of Steel is a story about being a small part of a big system that is geared towards the exploitation of others through often violent means. Part of this story is Haruna realizing that the system she has been raised to support is actually harmful not just to her as a woman but to a lot of people based on class, ethnicity, and a myriad of other factors.

Change is possible. Change can and will happen. Haruna is only one woman, however, and is still in the throes of her political and social awakening. If you go back to the early part of the quest, that Haruna has ideas and does things that would horrify our current Haruna.

Like the accompanying ACDQ, this is a story of a single person within a system. Haruna has a degree of autonomy and ability to make change beyond that of Asuka over in the other thread, but she is still a young woman. She is... what? Twenty-three? twenty-five? The race is not done.

For that matter, navigating the politics and social shit that come with being a highly public and highly controversial figure will be stressful. The only way not to gain stress is to do nothing challenging and to retreat from the world.

I should note that the WNA girls not coming to Haruna has nothing to with their confidence in her as a person and everything to do with the expectation that their complaints will not be taken seriously by a higher authority than Lieutenant Arisukawa.
 
[X] Study economics more closely, get a better understanding of how that works. How's all that work?
 
The very next update is going to be the wedding, and then we'll end up at a place castles has never been: with no canon ahead of it.

edit: besides that this is imperial japan like of course it's depressing.

it's like asking if Babylon Berlin is gonna have a happy ending.
 
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