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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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That part also helped dissuade any cowards who might try to use this to avoid battle, though you doubted that had ever happened: nobody would deliberately inflict a mismatch of spirit and body upon themselves.

This is a very affirming sort of closed mindedness, I got to admit. I still think this is one of the most interesting parts of the culture, how absolutely certain they are that trans people are valid?
 
I've gotta say, transgender people combined with a lack of the modern methods of sex change gets a bit confusing. The sex-gender mismatch is unresolved and makes things easy to misinterpret. Like that transman who, prior to Samdamandias's post above, I had interpreted as just being a short and probably stout cisman. Or in Rei's case, I initially thought what was going on was that she was a ciswoman pretending to be male so that she could be in the military since that wasn't unheard of historically.
 
I've gotta say, transgender people combined with a lack of the modern methods of sex change gets a bit confusing. The sex-gender mismatch is unresolved and makes things easy to misinterpret.

Well, they have ancient methods to alter the body instead. Mostly herbal from what we've seen, but there is some historical precedent for other stuff? I wonder if anyone's tried it.

I know that uh, an orchiectomy equivalent would simplify the herbal regimen a bit, and that's not technically super hard medical science...
 
I've gotta say, transgender people combined with a lack of the modern methods of sex change gets a bit confusing. The sex-gender mismatch is unresolved and makes things easy to misinterpret. Like that transman who, prior to Samdamandias's post above, I had interpreted as just being a short and probably stout cisman. Or in Rei's case, I initially thought what was going on was that she was a ciswoman pretending to be male so that she could be in the military since that wasn't unheard of historically.

While gender confirming surgery doesn't exist yet (or is barely in its infancy), the setting does have sources of estrogen and very recently, testosterone for use in hormonal treatment. @open_sketchbook can probably go into more detail than I can bc I am sick as hell and tired.
 
HRT
Indeed, they had the Scythian method. Which is to say, mild ginger root poisoning to suppress testosterone production (if you don't go the, uh, more direct method) and drinking the urine of pregnant mares.

Fuckin' ew.

Fortunately about a decade ago (and becoming widely available about five years before our current point in the story) modern medical methods became available through the pharmaceutical industry, and an actually effective form of injectable testosterone was developed in the late 1870s-ish in universe in the West, originally for cis men who suffered accidents or otherwise, but then they were like HUH WHY ARE MOST OF OUR ORDERS FROM THE FAR EAST IDK.


This is a very affirming sort of closed mindedness, I got to admit. I still think this is one of the most interesting parts of the culture, how absolutely certain they are that trans people are valid?
This is a fun thing to play around with in the setting. Like how Uyeno in ADC refuses to finish all her paperwork bc it will retroactively nullify her military service and thus prevent her from getting her cheap government health insurance.
 
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This is a very affirming sort of closed mindedness, I got to admit. I still think this is one of the most interesting parts of the culture, how absolutely certain they are that trans people are valid?
I think they just take for granted the same core proposition I do IRL, which is that no one would put themselves through all the shit involved for any non-genuine reason.

I bet the Akitsukuni tell jokes about people who are not in fact trans transitioning for one reason or another, but that it... doesn't... really happen. Or it does happen, but the Akitsukuni just shrug and go "meh, whatever, it doesn't happen often enough to matter," the same way we do about, oh I dunno... shark attacks. They don't materially affect what people think and feel on the issue, they just get dismissed as "freakishly unlikely one-offs."

I've gotta say, transgender people combined with a lack of the modern methods of sex change gets a bit confusing.
The Akitsukuni don't find it confusing at all. They just have, y'know, no concept of socially relevant sex independent of gender identity as far as I can tell. Presumably the first thing someone does in traditional Akitsukuni gender transitioning is start dressing in a way that makes it utterly unambiguous that whatever their body type is, they identify as [insert gender role here]

Or in Rei's case, I initially thought what was going on was that she was a ciswoman pretending to be male so that she could be in the military since that wasn't unheard of historically.
That probably actually happened in Akitsukuni sometimes, and I wonder what happened.

While we're at it, Coralie probably manages to accidentally convince a small but noticeable fraction of her trainees in How To Not Die Flying Rotary Aircraft training that "D'amboise Coralie" is actually a transman who just hasn't realized it yet. Which she isn't, but it's one of the easiest ways for them to fit her personality into their cultural frame of reference.

Fortunately about a decade ago (and becoming widely available about five years before our current point in the story) modern medical methods became available through the pharmaceutical industry, and an actually effective form of injectable testosterone was developed in the late 1870s-ish in universe in the West, originally for cis men who suffered accidents or otherwise, but then they were like HUH WHY ARE MOST OF OUR ORDERS FROM THE FAR EAST IDK.

"Well, the Oriental menfolk are no doubt a slight, frail, weedy, and womanly lot, so no wonder they're ordering absurd bulk quantities of Doctor Brown's New Invigorating Elixir, Now With Actual Working Ingredients, Guaranteed To Put Hair On Your Chest."
 
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BTW I drew and added a portrait of Haruna in both summer and winter uniform up in her character sheet!
Is... is that summer uniform showing bare skin on her leg? SCANDALOUS!

That's much less impractical than what I was imagining, which was a (near) floor length skirt.

Also, any clarification on the current Stress value being mysteriously lower than it was earlier?
 
[X] Advocate for her. (Diplomacy, +1 Stress)
 
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Is... is that summer uniform showing bare skin on her leg? SCANDALOUS!

That's much less impractical than what I was imagining, which was a (near) floor length skirt.

Also, any clarification on the current Stress value being mysteriously lower than it was earlier?
forgot to factor the stress removing effects of your rousing speech pre-boarding
 
"Well, the Oriental menfolk are no doubt a slight, frail, weedy, and womanly lot, so no wonder they're ordering absurd bulk quantities of Doctor Brown's New Invigorating Elixir, Now With Actual Working Ingredients, Guaranteed To Put Hair On Your Chest."
I know I'm probably not supposed to laugh at this, but "Now with actual working ingredients" got me.
 
People might be worried about Stress? Not like that's too much of an issue though. Despite the low rolls we've been getting lately, it's still only a bit under a 5% chance of failing with 6 stress.
Maybe. Still, it seems like something that we obviously would choose.

[x] Insist she follow the rules. Maybe she can sign back up after the rules change? (-1 Stress)

Here, I actually would go for the other choice, but I'll cast it like this as a kinda fig leaf of democracy.
 
Yeah.

If something bad happens to Haruna against her will and she takes Stress as a result, that's fine, part of the game.

But if Haruna makes a choice that increases her Stress, given that Stress is the core underlying 'bad stuff' mechanic of this RP in the same way that, say, hit point totals are in a typical combat videogame or whatever... Well, I think it's the correct choice to give the players a vote where they COULD, in theory, decide that this isn't Haruna's problem.

And hell, if she were up around Stress 8 or 9 or 10 or something, we might actually be tempted to vote 'no.'

I know I'm probably not supposed to laugh at this, but "Now with actual working ingredients" got me.
Inspired by real history, I figure that the first version was, basically, bull testicle extract or something. Which wouldn't actually work except as a placebo; it wouldn't have a medically relevant testosterone dose.
 
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