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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Well, yeah.

Point is, falling on our sword at this time is as unnecessary as it is foolish. We did as well as we reasonably could, IC. We are trying to chastise ourselves for sins we didn't really commit.

And if we do fall on our sword, we are knee-capping all the ambitions of the women of Akitsukuni to be recognized as peers to men. Because they take falling on your sword seriously enough that it's not uncommon for it to be literal.

"If a literal Princess couldn't cut it, what hope does a commoner girl have?" - That's going to go through the head of everyone if we go down as responsible for this. The bigots will feel vindicated, the hopefuls will despair.
 
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Rat King said:
Captain Ienga has his own report to write. And perhaps he'll take responsibility. We don't know.

But we should and can take responsibility for our own part in it instead of throwing our hands up and saying "I was a victim of circumstance."
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Rat King, this is getting tiresome.

We're responsible for how we handled the part of the situation we confronted upon taking command. Namely, we faced a riotous mob hurling rocks and bricks at us. How did we handle that? Well, we COULD have holed up in the palace and hoped the mob didn't come after us. Or we could have fired vollies of rifle bullets and killed, realistically, 50 or 100 or 200 or maybe even more people.

Instead, we fixed bayonets and marched for the trucks. Our own men personally downed about a dozen or so of the rioters, in close quarters. "A score or two more" were trampled by their own fellow rioters after the crowd started running away.

If we had opened fire on the crowd, there would assuredly have been far more dead. If we had holed up in the palace, any of a number of things might have happened, but "less dead rioters" was not guaranteed to be one of them.

Neither the Army, nor the Navy, is going to consider our handling of the situation after command passed into our hands to be incorrect. That is not the mistake they are trying to pin blame for, because they don't consider it to be a mistake.

...

The mistake the Navy is seeking to assign blame for is the fact that there was ever a riot in the first place. And in NO way was the princess responsible for the riot itself, because she was neither the civilians who wanted a symbolic gesture for a photo op that drove the crowd into a rage, nor was she the military commander who chose to allow that gesture to go forward.
 
Simon_Jester said:
I may be confused, but are you suggesting that we blow up our own career on the grounds that it would be politically expedient to blame the princess for a situation that she wasn't responsible for?

That seems... very strange.
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No, it's more that other people would very much like to use this event to torpedo our career faster and harder than our current ship's various torpedo boats can.

It's important for this vote to insulate Haurna politically. You have your own opinions, of course, and what the best option is. But it cannot be an option that destroys Haruna's career or puts it into a dead end.

I edited my post to clarify my thoughts.
 
[X] Yourself: For who else is there? You could have made your objection more stringent or insisted that the schedule be kept or found a way to avoid this becoming the bloodbath that it had.
 
[x] Captain Ienaga: His acquiescence to a foolish request for political gain caused the riot.
 
Simon_Jester said:
I may be confused, but are you suggesting that we blow up our own career on the grounds that it would be politically expedient to blame the princess for a situation that she wasn't responsible for?

That seems... very strange.
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Crasian01 said:
No, it's more that other people would very much like to use this event to torpedo our career faster and harder than our current ship's various torpedo boats can.

It's important for this vote to insulate Haurna politically. You have your own opinions, of course, and what the best option is. But it cannot be an option that destroys Haruna's career or puts it into a dead end.

I edited my post to clarify my thoughts.
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Respectfully. Both of you are wrong about what this would do. Blaming ourselves in the report won't look like that. And it won't "blow up our career" It'll look like a young, junior officer blaming themselves for not being perfect. For not somehow managing to make it out without anyone getting hurt. Frankly, it's the best fucking option to my eyes, it's also the most human.

All of this hypernegative shittery is stupid. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we came out glowing in other reports, because we kept our men safe, even in a horrible situation. This might even be amplified because we're "The Woman."
 
Jeboboid said:
Respectfully. Both of you are wrong about what this would do. Blaming ourselves in the report won't look like that. And it won't "blow up our career" It'll look like a young, junior officer blaming themselves for not being perfect. For not somehow managing to make it out without anyone getting hurt. Frankly, it's the best fucking option to my eyes, it's also the most human.

All of this hypernegative shittery is stupid. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we came out glowing in other reports, because we kept our men safe, even in a horrible situation. This might even be amplified because we're "The Woman."
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You must consider the culture of our country.

There a great many people who want to see us fail. Who are hunting for the merest excuse to have their bigotry justified.

We've played it by the book every time we could precisely because of that. Because one slip up, especially this early, is all it will take.

We are a Princess. Not only that, we are an officer in the Imperial Navy. Not only that, we are the only female officer in said navy.

We must hold ourselves to the highest standards, because that's what people will do. Because that's the easiest way to have us fail.

As it is, we have come out glowing out of this. Ther bloodthirsty lot will see the casualties and think "lesson taught". The merciful ones will see that, unlike the average officer, we did not actually, y'know, massacre the mob by ordering it shot, and will commend us on our restraint.

Everyone will see that no soldier, Army or Navy, died. And we will be commended on our ability to think clearly and stay calm and competence at giving the orders we did.

We blame ourselves, and suddenly only the negative aspects come out to play.
 
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TotallyNotEvil said:
You must consider the culture of our country.

There a great many people who want to see us fail. Who are hunting for the merest excuse to have their bigotry justified.

We've played it by the book every time we could precisely because of that. Because one slip up, especially this early, is all it will take.

We are a Princess. Not only that, we are an officer in the Imperial Navy. Not only that, we are the only female officer in said navy.

We must hold ourselves to the highest standards, because that's what people will do. Because that's the easiest way to have us fail.
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And blaming others is holding ourselves to the highest standards, is it? :V
Adhoc vote count started by Rat King on Nov 27, 2018 at 2:50 PM, finished with 142 posts and 29 votes.
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TotallyNotEvil said:
You must consider the culture of our country.

There a great many people who want to see us fail. Who are hunting for the merest excuse to have their bigotry justified.

We've played it by the book every time we could precisely because of that. Because one slip up, especially this early, is all it will take.

We are a Princess. Not only that, we are an officer in the Imperial Navy. Not only that, we are the only female officer in said navy.

We must hold ourselves to the highest standards, because that's what people will do. Because that's the easiest way to have us fail.
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And nothing says high standards like dumping all the responsibility on someone else.
 
(Blaming Ianaga won't do anything for the Army-Navy rivalry, but we have to pick SOMETHING to sacrifice, ya?)
 
HMS Sophia said:
Holding ourselves to the highest standards would be blaming ourselves tho.
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Yeah, and if blame falls on us, by our own admission, we are done.

Like I said, so far, we've come out of this glowing. One side is sympathetic, the other is outraged in our behalf, and all are pleased we did as well as any man would. We showed remarkable restraint, which would be seen as a terrible failing had we not made it out with just superficial wounds. We proved we could afford said restraint, so instead of blaming her "feminine nature" for the many dead soldiers, we get painted simply as merciful, which an admirable quality.

Our superiors in the Navy will eat up that the Army was to blame, and we come out spotless.

In the end, there's no blame more telling than your own.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
You must consider the culture of our country.

There a great many people who want to see us fail. Who are hunting for the merest excuse to have their bigotry justified.

We've played it by the book every time we could precisely because of that. Because one slip up, especially this early, is all it will take.

We are a Princess. Not only that, we are an officer in the Imperial Navy. Not only that, we are the only female officer in said navy.

We must hold ourselves to the highest standards, because that's what people will do. Because that's the easiest way to have us fail.
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Okay, then how about we look at this narratively.

Is it interesting if when the report goes through, our career tanks? Hmmm... No, it isn't.
Does it make sense for Haruna to get fired from her job for blaming herself for not being perfect? No, it doesn't

Yes, we have enemies. One of whom, you might remember, is the cousin we have who for the first fucking time, actually called us by our rank.

Blaming ourself IS holding us to the highest fucking standard. It's blaming ourselves for not being fucking perfect. For recognising that "Hey! I could have done better!"

Blaming the captain also makes us look bad. It makes us look like someone desperately trying to keep her fucking hands clean, and our detractors will probably try to get us over that, same with blaming the reporters. That was expected, because it's going to fucking happen anyway.
 
So, what y'all saying is that there is no possible way a person could blame their commanding officer for fucking up, without it being seen as covering their own ass?

Even if said officer is likely to blame himself, because it was his duty to keep us safe and he failed in that?

You are expecting our superiors to pat our head and say "don't blame yourself kiddo, you did your best".

Except that, by condemning ourselves, we give them the reason they were looking for to say "yes, you should have done better, but we shouldn't expect more from a woman playing soldier, should we?".
 
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TotallyNotEvil said:
So, what y'all saying is that there is no possible way a person could blame their commanding officer for fucking up, without it being seen as covering their own ass?

Even if said officer is likely to blame himself, because it was his duty to keep us safe and he failed in that?
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Yes, if they were active and in command throughout.

The captain, however, was not. If the captain had been awake, he would have been in command, and the deaths would have been his responsibility. But he wasn't and therefore, it isn't, and the responsibility of command fell to us.
 
It is inappropriate to be taking blame for the protesters who got stabbed because from the IAN point of view that was not blameworthy, it was a successful action. We got back to the staff cars in good order, no further casualties among our forces and as few crowd deaths as could reasonably be expected in the circumstances. They would have been fewer if the people had more space to get out of the way but that was outside anyone's control. All the bits where we were in charge we should bee taking credit.

The blame is for the fact that we had to deal with the situation at all. Further, the report is not an invitation to express personal feelings of regret, it's an imprecise political tool that we must nonetheless swing - we have to aim for the target that's closest to OK outcomes going forward. The options are:
Crack down on the press;
Crack down on the Joseon public;
Army needs to learn some political savvy or;
Women can't lead.
 
Jeboboid said:
Yes, if they were active and in command throughout.

The captain, however, was not. If the captain had been awake, he would have been in command, and the deaths would have been his responsibility. But he wasn't and therefore, it isn't, and the responsibility of command fell to us.
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And we've been absolved of those deaths.

What's being asked here is not who held the gun, it's who allowed the entire fuck up to happen in the first place.
 
Jeboboid said:
Respectfully. Both of you are wrong about what this would do. Blaming ourselves in the report won't look like that. And it won't "blow up our career" It'll look like a young, junior officer blaming themselves for not being perfect. For not somehow managing to make it out without anyone getting hurt. Frankly, it's the best fucking option to my eyes, it's also the most human.

All of this hypernegative shittery is stupid. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we came out glowing in other reports, because we kept our men safe, even in a horrible situation. This might even be amplified because we're "The Woman."
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I understand where you're coming from, I just don't believe in it.

It is easy to spin such a report to make it into the Princess being too foolish to be given responsibility, and then suppress any reports from others about her reaction to the riot. Indeed, it is already easy to blame Haruna for failing to magically resolve the situation without bloodshed, because you see, women are supposed to be good at that sort of thing (or something).

Is there someone who is pulling for Haruna somewhere in the military? Probably, yes. Will that person have the ability to spin Haruna's report into the most positive light possible? I don't think so. I think that the majority of the people have any kind of power want to crush's Haruna as soon as possible.

I agree with the sentiment that blaming the Captain will read as throwing someone away else under the bus, and blaming the rioters has a legitimate risk of backfiring. Blaming the press for their indiscretion is the least risky of the options, in my view.
 
On mobile here but I just want to credit the writers for giving us back to back controversial choices that are causing so much debate and drama.

*claps*
 
Jeboboid said:
Yes, if they were active and in command throughout.

The captain, however, was not. If the captain had been awake, he would have been in command, and the deaths would have been his responsibility. But he wasn't and therefore, it isn't, and the responsibility of command fell to us.
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What part of this situation do you not understand? This isn't about the deaths, nobody cares about those in our chain of command, welcome to Imperial Japan.

It's about the riot. And we weren't in charge for the choice that caused the riot, we were only in charge after the riot started, since the first thing the rioters did was down our commanding officer.
 
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