Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
Evenstar said:
Mari just launched an all-out social attack against Keiko, no doubt operating on Hazou's claim of "my responsibility."

She of course was acting out of "the best interests of the clan", but that was goddamn out of line. Keiko is clan.

So.

I'm tempted to say "discipline Mari", but frankly I feel like that might be what she wants. She's still in "I can't help being a huge bitch" mode, because she's terrified of taking personal responsibility for anything.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
See, I really, honestly agree with you. The problem is that when I read the update, Hazou doesn't.

Velorien said:
"Subsequent to the delivery at the end of this month, I am withdrawing from the Gōketsu contract with the Pangolin Clan."

"What?!" Hazō exclaimed. "Keiko, I can't allow—"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Velorien said:
Hazō opened his mouth again, but Mari-sensei raised her hand. She glanced at him for confirmation, and he nodded.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hazou directed the attack, and would have attempted it himself if Mari didn't offer to do it for him better. In a very real sense, Hazou sought specifically to prevent her from terminating the contract, and gave permission for Mari to make her attempt to stop it.

IMO, voting in this plan would backfire because the message sent would be "what you did wrong was fail", not "what you did wrong was to use your full ability against a clan member".

What we need to do first, again, imo, is to reflect that it has been two weeks tops since this:
Velorien said:
Something in Hazō snapped.

"Fuck the clan!"

Keiko and Noburi reeled back.

"I-I beg your pardon?"

"The clan means nothing," Hazo snarled. "Jiraiya invented it because it was useful. We signed up because it was useful. You do not get to decide your value based on a new surname, a nice house and a bottomless pit of responsibilities none of us asked for."

"Hazō…" Noburi began.

"Still talking. We accepted the label, and we accepted the baggage that came with it, because it was the best way for everyone to get what they wanted. We got rid of Akane, and are in the middle of getting rid of Keiko, because that's what we thought was best for this clan that we'd all created. And by 'we', I half-mean Jiraiya, because we let him make the most important choices for us.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But somehow, the moment we became Clan Head we pretty much signed off on Keiko's primary value being the Pangolin Contract and willingly approved Mari's attack on Keiko to make her back down from the decision she needed to make.

We really need to reflect on this. Realize that we're going full Jiraiya, just not S-Rank.

Realize that we need to do better.

In combination with another initiative:

To socialize with the clan heads more. Shikamaru pretty much told us straight out our good relations with the clan heirs is a significant part of our present legitimacy; we should play that up some more.

To make this:

[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know
  • Reflection
    • (Following Keiko and Tenten's departure)
    • He insisted that Keiko wasn't allowed to stop the Pangolin arms-deal ahead of schedule, after she put in considerable thought towards mitigating the issues, on knee-jerk impulse to value the clan over the individual.
    • Hazou very recently expressed the opposite sentiment; the primary difference between then and now being Jiraiya's death and Hazou becoming Clan Head.
    • Hazou hated it when Jiraiya did it, so why does he think it is good now?
    • Jiraiya...Jiraiya was great. But - no, and - he had flaws, some of which Hazou picked up.
    • One of them was this. Hazou needs to acknowledge that he has valued the utility to the clan over the people, hurting Keiko and Mari.
      • He ordered Mari to attack Keiko, which deeply wounded both.
    • Resolve to discuss this with the clan.
      • Especially Keiko and Mari.
  • Mari
    • (Soon after reflection)
    • Admit your mistake in trying to override Keiko and using her to do so. Reaffirm you take full responsibility for her actions to protect the clan.
      • Amend your order: "protect the members of the clan". The clan means nothing if we treat it as an abstract ideal and harm its members.
      • "Clan" includes her: her well-being matters.
        • Her self-image is part of her well-being.
        • She's making progress; keep it up!
  • Ino
    • (Retroactively) Get Mari's help on a bouquet of mourning.
      • Considerations:
        • We're friends with Ino, allies to the Yamanaka, but didn't really know Inoichi.
    • Meet Ino at her convenience.
      • We'd like to express our condolences, and talk some business.
      • Gift her the bouquet.
      • Condolences:
        • Could you tell us about the friend we never got to make?
      • Business:
        • Who are the Yamanaka supporting for the Hat?
        • Is there anything we can do to help?
        • Can she introduce us to the diplomatic corps?
      • Thank her for her time.

Lines that were tempting to add but had to be cut: losing two fathers makes us somewhat of an expert on the subject
 
Last edited:
Velorien said:
Credit to @eaglejarl for pointing out the ridiculousness of marriage customs in general, and insisting that this be reflected in the wedding.

Which is exactly what you'd expect from me writing what I want.

Well, in fairness, Ami arrived in Leaf a while ago. I just got to be the one to write her because I did the wedding scene. (Also @eaglejarl doesn't want to be the one to write her, the same way I don't want to be the one to write Kagome-Honoka interludes).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Well then, I am not sure why we went through all the trouble figuring out how to contact Ami.
 
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
Hazou directed the attack, and would have attempted it himself if Mari didn't offer to do it for him better. In a very real sense, Hazou sought specifically to prevent her from terminating the contract, and gave permission for Mari to make her attempt to stop it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

:V

Goddamnit, Hazou. I thought you were better than this.

[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know

For now, while I try and figure out how to get Hazou to realize just how much of an ass he's been.
 
Hi all, I have been reading this thread for the last few days. Its great fun. I have an observation to share that will hopefully be useful to you all.

AMI. There is no need to spend her favor to have her help with the leaf politics. She will meddle to our/your benefit anyways. It is in her best interest! Give her the opportunity to employ her genius for political chaos, lean back and enjoy. Make it a game to earn bonus points with her!
 
dakem said:
Hi all, I have been reading this thread for the last few days. Its great fun. I have an observation to share that will hopefully be useful to you all.

AMI. There is no need to spend her favor to have her help with the leaf politics. She will meddle to our/your benefit anyways. It is in her best interest! Give her the opportunity to employ her genius for political chaos, lean back and enjoy. Make it a game to earn bonus points with her!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Welcome! Nice to have you. How did you find us?
 
... I think Hazou's general problem is that he has crap emotional intelligence.

1: He failed to discern that the problem is not "the pangolins are killing people", but "I am personally responsible for a large share of the pangolin deathcount."

2: He failed to control his own emotions in response to Keiko's admission she was pulling out of the contract. He saw the loss of the tool first, not the person.

3: Similarly, he's walked all over Mari's depressive state, because he needs the tool more than the person.

4: This is at least partially our fault as voters. Look back at our debate over "Is Naruto going to take over the clan and ruin everything forever?". Look at the ridiculous lengths a whole bunch of us have been willing to go to attempting to get the snake scroll or a favour from AMI. We're terrified of losing the balance of power, and it's making us grasping and irrational.

I propose the following, even though it's probably extremely dumb, because AFAICT we have not yet actually considered the possibility:

If we were to attempt a deal with Hiashi right now, what's our chance of negotiating a reasonable compromise?

For a lot of people espousing "tolerance" and "goodwill towards everyone", we sure haven't done fuckall to actually attempt to make peace with our actual enemies.
 
Last edited:
Has anyone ever compiled the different statements of the causes of conflicts between the villages by in-the-know adults like Jiriaya or Shikaku? From memory a lot of the villages struggle with food security, with villages invading for farmland and lots of nervous net-importers. The villages might be less hawkish if they aren't reliant on securing foriegn food to survive. As an alternative to further weapon development providing the villages with techniques to improve/secure the food suppy could help lower tensions, establish Hazou as a Tsunade-like figure, and raise the human population to a safer level.

For example is the light from light-seals suitable for Photosynthesis? Could that be used to expand the growing seasons or increase yields? Could Sand solve it's food supply problems without invading River by farming in caverns under the desert, with seal-wall/rock flooring to keep imported water from escaping?

Beyond till and fill a similar effort with proliforating Earth and Water jutsu could replace a lot of the heavy labour involved in agriculture. Ploughing or clearing fields, digging wells or irrigation ditches, digging terraces into the hillside or draining swampland could be profitable uses of washout/redshirt genin's time if everyone has the techniques freely available and aren't restricting them to higher ranks trying to protect them. Then the same people are available for wall-building.

If the Summons are known to honor contracts trying to open wide negotiations with all human and summon parties for a supplemental trade network based on villages' summoners and storage scrolls could lessen tensions over human trade routes. Say if Cloud could get Fire's rice in crates of storage scrolls off the Jaguars that'd give them a stronger bargaining position over Mist's tariffs and at least means another set of people have to join in before they're starving. Then if the norm's established and storage seals allow more volume to be transported Human-Summon trading like the Penguin's selling Hotsprings it's Ice or any deficient village having a new option beyond it's physical borders.
 
Last edited:
Kiba said:
Well then, I am not sure why we went through all the trouble figuring out how to contact Ami.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
@Velorien said that he wanted Ami to attend the wedding, but couldn't figure out how, and that he was willing to give a large number of XP if we found a way.

Now that I think about it, after reading this update, he might have been lying the whole time. The whole wedding happening so soon was apparently Ami's plan all along.

Did we seriously just spent a lot of our collective brainpower - and a good chunk of Hazou's reputation in the eyes of Shikamaru - on a wild goose chase? @Velorien, what the hell?

[X] Action Plan: Ino, You Know
 
Last edited:
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
I believe that this is intended to read underestimate, right?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm confused.

dakem said:
Hi all, I have been reading this thread for the last few days. Its great fun. I have an observation to share that will hopefully be useful to you all.

AMI. There is no need to spend her favor to have her help with the leaf politics. She will meddle to our/your benefit anyways. It is in her best interest! Give her the opportunity to employ her genius for political chaos, lean back and enjoy. Make it a game to earn bonus points with her!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Welcome!

I see you are advocating an increase in exploitable chaos. You'll fit right in around here.
 
Okay. Okay. Hi, I've been watching this thread since before I signed up to this site. It is awesome, it is fascinating, and I love it. I haven't posted before because the level of consideration that has to go in to voting in this thread is really intimidating. BUT! Now I have an idea that might be useful.

I'd like to suggest that we make a list of the other characters we know and whose emotions we care about that gets updated with each update. This list will cover what we know of their emotional states. We'll consult it before we make plans so we don't screw things up like this again. It won't work all the time, but it might work a bit. I figure we'd start with the clan, and if the system works, we can think about expanding it.

Just a suggestion, of course.
 
[X] Action plan: Seal research

  • Hazō is largely out of his depth in dealing with the political crisis
    • Mari & Ami are competent enough to make sure the hat doesn't end up under Hyūga control
    • With all of Jiraiya's notes there is plenty of seal research to do
    • Kagome and Hazō head out to an island in the tropics
      • Noburi and Akane can come as well
    • Research as much as they can for one month
 
Last edited:
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
Hazou directed the attack, and would have attempted it himself if Mari didn't offer to do it for him better. In a very real sense, Hazou sought specifically to prevent her from terminating the contract, and gave permission for Mari to make her attempt to stop it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Aren't you being overly harsh to Hazou here?

I interpreted that scene as Hazou wanting to talk Keiko out of it, and do so by asking for clarification/with arguments.

Not actually attack her. He could not have known that he approved of an attack since for him it looked the same way when he asks Noburi to take over a social aspect/talk to someone because they are better at it (Hazou is at least self aware enough to know that sometimes what he wants to say doesn't come across as intended).

The only reason this is being called in attack is because we a) have the benefit of hindsight and b) are seeing this from Keiko's PoV. Combat rules as they are - that is, social combat is forbidden between teammates - and the fact that Keiko is not exactly a reliable narrator should be enough to give Hazou the benefit of doubt here.
 
Last edited:
djehuty3 said:
Okay. Okay. Hi, I've been watching this thread since before I signed up to this site. It is awesome, it is fascinating, and I love it. I haven't posted before because the level of consideration that has to go in to voting in this thread is really intimidating. BUT! Now I have an idea that might be useful.

I'd like to suggest that we make a list of the other characters we know and whose emotions we care about that gets updated with each update. This list will cover what we know of their emotional states. We'll consult it before we make plans so we don't screw things up like this again. It won't work all the time, but it might work a bit. I figure we'd start with the clan, and if the system works, we can think about expanding it.

Just a suggestion, of course.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not sure that would fix the problem - AFAIK, we were under the impression that Keiko's objection was that selling seals increased the amount of death and suffering in the summons realm, not a principled stand against selling seals to the Pangolins even if it ends with less summons dying overall.

Honestly, I suspect the Pangolins are going to tell her all about how large numbers of Pangolins are dying and it's basically her fault which... isn't wrong.

Tua said:
Aren't you being overly harsh to Hazou here?

I interpreted that scene as Hazou wanting to talk Keiko out of it, and do so by asking for clarification/with arguments.

Not actually attack her. He could not have known that he approved of an attack since for him it looked the same way when he asks Noburi to take over a social aspect/talk to someone because they are better at it (Hazou is at least self aware enough to know that sometimes what he wants to say doesn't come across as intended).

The only reason this is being called in attack is because we a) have the benefit of the hindsight and b) seeing this from Keiko's PoV. Combat rules as they - that is, social combat is forbidden between teammates - and the fact that Keiko is not exactly a reliable narrator should be enough to give Hazou the benefit of doubt here.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
TBF, "I can't allow" looks like the start of an order to me, not an argument.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I'm not sure that would fix the problem - AFAIK, we were under the impression that Keiko's objection was that selling seals increased the amount of death and suffering in the summons realm, not a principled stand against selling seals to the Pangolins even if it ends with less summons dying overall.

Honestly, I suspect the Pangolins are going to tell her all about how large numbers of Pangolins are dying and it's basically her fault which... isn't wrong.


TBF, "I can't allow" looks like the start of an order to me, not an argument.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Nitpick: "I can't allow" is a statement of disappeoval.

An order starts with "You will not-" , "I command/order you to-" and similar things which have an inherent subcommunication of "I am in charge. I get to decide things and you do not. Here is how it is going to be."
 
MMKII said:
Nitpick: "I can't allow" is a statement of disappeoval.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Is it? If you're in a position of authority, it's hard to imagine a statement starting with "I can't allow" that isn't an order of some sort, if only (very heavily) implicitly.

Velorien said:
"But Hazō," she pleaded, "all I ever wanted was for you to find a way for us to Stop. Selling. Weapons."

"Keiko..."

But she could not stand here and listen to his justifications. If they were weak, it would only hurt her more for trusting him. If they were strong, it would only hurt her more for trusting herself. Above all, neither could challenge her naive, irrational desire to just make it stop.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think we're going to have to insist on having a discussion about the pros and cons of our summons realm plan with Keiko.

We already walk on eggshells around her to a certain degree, but we can't actually set a precedent of letting Keiko avoid an important topic because she might be wrong and that would make her feel bad.

Feeling super burnt out on dealing with her self-esteem issues though. It's realistic, but it's certainly not fun.
 
Last edited:
Evenstar said:
I propose the following, even though it's probably extremely dumb, because AFAICT we have not yet actually considered the possibility:

If we were to attempt a deal with Hiashi right now, what's our chance of negotiating a reasonable compromise?
For a lot of people espousing "tolerance" and "goodwill towards everyone", we sure haven't done fuckall to actually attempt to make peace with our actual enemies.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Fuckall chances. Hiashi is opposed to us directly. Our only current leverage on the scale he would be working at as hokage are <Naruto + Tsunade> and <Hokage votes>. The former will remain the case even if he becomes hokage, and aren't the right kind of tool for this kind of compromise, while the latter is meaningless for reasons of it's direct usage, simply from cross multiplications. Friendly Hokage * Chance of vote suceeed + Hiashi Hokage * chance of vote failure >>> Concessions from Hiashi, no matter what the chance of sucess is. If our chance of sucess is low, we won't be able to get shit from him, and if it's high, we should be always going for it. The only situation this would make sense is if Hiashi thinks we have a significantly better chance of getting the hat than we do.
 
MMKII said:
Further than we have already done? :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah. I know she has self-esteem issues, but I actually don't think this is helping?

Honestly, we should see if we can get Ino to owe us a major favour, and see if we can get Keiko talking to someone actually qualified to deal with her self-esteem problems. Or hell, ask Shikamaru to ask Ino because they're his teammate and wife respectively.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
TBF, "I can't allow" looks like the start of an order to me, not an argument.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That could just have been the lead-in to start arguing the case of finding another solution.

Not an order and most definitely not attacking her (and by extension not tacit approval to let someone else do so on his behalf).

Hazou can be blunt and hurt other people's feelings by accident but he has never been the type to be intentionally cruel - especially to his teammates.

Ordering Keiko also goes against his behavior from the chapter before this where he was perfectly fine listening to to other people's arguments and not rushing to conclusions.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Is it? If you're in a position of authority, it's hard to imagine a statement starting with "I can't allow" that isn't an order of some sort, if only (very heavily) implicitly.


I think we're going to have to insist on having a discussion about the pros and cons of our summons realm plan with Keiko.

We already walk on eggshells around her to a certain degree, but we can't actually set a precedent of letting Keiko avoid an important topic because she might be wrong and that would make her feel bad.

Feeling super burnt out on dealing with her self-esteem issues though. It's realistic, but it's certainly not fun.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

... "She might be wrong and that would make her feel bad."

Please reread your quote.

Keiko is not worried about maybe being wrong, she is stressed about being in conflict with Hazou. Either way this could resolve, she loses something important - either her trust in Hazou or her newfound faith in herself.

You're frustrated with Keiko, and that's coloring your reaction to her.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top