Agent B52

Notice me, Sentai! A High School, Romantic, Magical Person roleplay!

@Medusa In my defense it is 00:05 where I am right now.

Oh god why I am not sleeping yet I have to get up at 6:00.

Notice me, Sentai! A High School, Romantic, Magical Person roleplay!

I was under the impression you had to pick a flower with someone specific in mind already? Esteemed GMs, a clarification please?

Notice me, Sentai! A High School, Romantic, Magical Person roleplay!

Yay cookies! Nom!

My CS is now up in my first post, still as the hider implies a work in progress. Very much just the short I wrote poured into a CS format. I just want to keep it somewhere safe and work some more on it later.

Notice me, Sentai! A High School, Romantic, Magical Person roleplay!

Okay first off apologies for the double post. Consider this a placeholder for my CS as I bother @Madame Kitten and @Karl Kadaver with questions.

Speaking of:
Is it absolutely mandatory to play as a high schooler? First off the character I have in mind is a character at 19 years, not anything creepily old.

Bastian Saunders, WIP

Name: Bastian 'Bastion' Saunders

Gender: Male.

Grade: Lance Corporal. (19 y o)

Weapon of Choice: Himself. Given that he is a marine as well as somehow the USS Iowa this is more than enough for most practical purposes.

Bio: Adventure has always been in Bastian’s blood. While he liked books growing up he also frequently went out to actually try some of the more ‘exciting’ things he read about. Whether that be fighting imaginary dragons to parkour to posting as neighbourhood watch for a few months. However, other than ‘adventurer’ he really did not know what to make of his life. He was intelligent enough to go to college, healthy enough to work, and blessed enough to not need to choose early. This lack of direction and thirst for adventure combined into what he now calls one of the best bad decisions in his life. He enlisted in the USMC.

Bastian got called 'Bastion' in boot camp because he complained about how a French recruit butchered his name. It has nothing to do with the fortress bit or the video game, no matter what he claims to the contrary. While training has ground out most of his dreamland tendencies, he is still very much up to any challenge put in front of him that does not offend his morals. Said morals are slowly but consistently and enthusiastically lowered by his fellow marines.

Now take this young, fresh out of boot and still emotionally utterly clueless marine. It is Bastian's first time abroad, his first proper bit of shore leave and he is one giant buzzing ball of bright eyes and excitement now free(ish) to roam the fabled land of sushi, katanas and, most importantly, anime and manga.

Through translation mishaps, enthusiasm, and general lack of fear to step on toes both literal and figurative he found his way not to Otaku central in the Akibahara district, but a small time manga store in the Shinjaku district. This turned out to be a most fortunate little misdirection for two individuals.

The first was of course the gallant soldier still dealing with major aftershocks of puberty. The second, a bookish and nerdy girl wearing a black poofy victorian dress in a desperate effort to imitate her paper heroines. Very much an Otaku with a capital O. On first glance 'dressed like a princess' as the errant American told her.

They met through serendipity. The shopkeeper was friendly enough but barely spoke a word of English, so translation fell to her, the high school student who happened to be an ace in English.

Take a step back and think what would lead a person to cling to fantasies so much that they dress up in their likeliness. Especially in an extremely rigid and demanding culture one finds in Japan. Then, take someone of the opposite gender who is genuinely interested in the same hobbies, does not care about social stigmas, is physically attractive and has a stable future ahead of himself. A future far away from places that have youth traumas attached to them in both literal and figurative sense.

Is it any wonder that these two picked flowers for one another?

Come the following morning we find our marine waking up atop the waves in the middle of Yokosuka harbour. Off to either side frigates circle warily while a strange weight hangs off his back. As Bastian groggily tries to process these developments an officer of rank God begins to question him with a megaphone. In order if the marine can explain why he A) can walk on water B) has the radar return reminiscent of an Iowa class battleship and C) got back after curfew. Now.

Describe your sempai: An adorable Otaku girl. First time she and Bastian met was in an out of the way manga store after he got lost in Tokyo and wound up in Shinjuku by accident. Being the only one in the store who spoke English well, she acted as his translator and general tour guide of the city. About three weeks later the love blossoms sprouted. She likes to cosplay, for example she was dressed as Rachel Alucard when they first met. Personality wise there is one factor that really has to match: That same sense of adventure Bastian has, to be brave enough to every once in a while take a plunge into the unknown just because she can.

====

There are many directions I can take this character. For example the reason government interference is kept to a minimum is because of a team he is now the field agent for, and is tasked with sorting the mess out with minimal fuss. There is the foreigner angle. Stuck in pacifist Japan now for the foreseeable future is going to be quite the culture shock for a 'violent yankee' from Boston. Or I could play up the fact he's just that touch older than most of the other empowered youth and the inherent conflict when he tries (and mostly fails) to be the adult. Or how his relation is essentially a spur of the moment affair where neither party really thought everything through and it remains to be seen how stable it will be.

So GMs! Am I to leave, never to return? Or perhaps you see something of value hidden away in my writings?

Notice me, Sentai! A High School, Romantic, Magical Person roleplay!

I might just have a concept for this.

An Amateur's Treatise on Popular Military Understanding

@Zugzwang

I do believe we are broadly in agreement here. We both seem to agree that the katana as it stands has a reputation far in excess of it's actual effectiveness, and that it is fairly good at cutting down unarmoured opponents. Nowhere do you see me arguing that it would be effective vs a fully kitted out ~1500's era man-at-arms.

We only seem to disagree on the degree of effectiveness of a katana for it's time and circumstances, ie Japan prior to about 1850, after which the society went on to modernise, conquer, and then get a suntan.

An Amateur's Treatise on Popular Military Understanding

@Agent B52

I know that blades can in fact split bullets. Most bullets are designed to fragment, mushroom, and generally do things that make them really good at soft tissue damage and really bad at "not getting cut in half". The idea is that a human WIELDING a sword cannot move the blade to cut/block the bullet. Bullets are too fast and the human mind, let alone the human arm, is too slow in almost every case, ESPECIALLY in a battlefield situation.

@Zugzwang

I only posted that video to demonstrate that the quality of the sword has very little to do with it's bullet splitting abilities. It was intended as a clarification though I should have added that.

I never said the katana was bad at wounding the unarmored. I assumed its use in that field was implied when I said it was a good draw-cutting sword.

@Zugzwang

This point of yours however was not readily apparent. Rather than a specific set of techniques such as draw cuts, it is the way the katana curves that allows it to cut through flesh and light armour so easily. This is also the reason why various types of sabre and scimitars had curves whenever strong armour for whatever reason was not normally encountered. A good example from the Napoleonic wars is the British 1796 pattern cavalry sabre.

((As a short, humorous aside: The 1796 pattern tended to wound and maim rather than kill. Allegedly the French considered this poor sport and petitioned the British to adopt a more lethal design. The British response was a more polite form of 'lolno, working as intended motherfuckers'.))

My point is the very issue that made the katana a relatively mediocre sword, namely low quality materials, is the same issue that made it a viable weapon. A katana-wielder was very unlikely to encounter someone wearing full plate. When they did, usually during the invasions of China or Korea, it tended to not end well for them. I am trying to repeat your first point here: Ancient people were not idiots. The katana was invented and came into vogue in a region where it was very unlikely to encounter anyone with a full set of European quality plate armour.

The katana could really fuck up an unarmored peasant. But, the point is, so can any sword, and so can spears/bows. As such, and for many, MANY other reasons, they were the dominant forces on the Japanese battlefield.

@Zugzwang

While this is true, there is a difference between weapons optimised for the job. Refer to my earlier point above about the use of armour here.

I really should make a point about battlefield weapons, and why spears were so ubiquitous.

@Zugzwang

Please do, I enjoy reading your posts.

An additional note: the katana is a very poor weapon for fighting enemies in full plate armor. This is going to be in another section, but the long story short is: armor piercing becomes pretty much moot once late medieval plate harnesses came into vogue, and the katana lacks a great many qualities that fighting people in armor requires. It has a poor stabbing point. It is curved, so half-swording is less effective. It is short, so it is a rather poor aide to grappling, and its guard is not robust enough to hook, or to really be much help in controlling an opponent's blade.

@Zugzwang

Agreed.

An Amateur's Treatise on Popular Military Understanding

Point of order, the katana was in fact very good at slicing through un- or lightly armoured flesh. This is what it was designed for, and what it excelled at.

As far as splitting bullets are concerned though, well I feel it is best summed up by the following clip.


Note the still very lethal high velocity shrapnel btw.

Darkness and Light

@Agent B52

We will miss you my dark lord Agent B52. Good luck in Russia.

@Cultural Titan

Thanks. If you want I can send you my World Domination Plan that involved solving world hunger and Anthrax-on-steroids.

Darkness and Light

Welp, just got told by my boss that I'm going to a gulag. As in I gotta go fix a telescope in Russia in a remote region at ballsfreezingoff degrees celcius while sleeping in a wooden hut with no heating or running water.

I shall leave it up to your imagination what kind of internet connection awaits me there. Suffice to say I gotta drop this, sorry for causing that shitstorm earlier and I hope you get a good replacement Evil Overlord.