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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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So there's a non-zero part of me that really wants to ask Mari what's up with her eye color, why it seems to change soon after she uses TLitF, and what the price is supposed to be, really. Thoughts?
 
Noumero said:
I've discovered a new technique of wordcount optimization! It's called Genda no Jutsu.

Look at the draft of the new version of my plan! It saved me 87 words, made the plan 30% shorter!

  • Get Mari, Kagome, papers, a blackboard, writing implements. Go high-security (anti-hyuuga seals...).
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara a habit: five minutes each day contemplating an enemy destroy them.
      • Thirty by-the-clock minutes: can find overlooked fixable vulnerabilities?
      • Ideas on blackboard. Idea #1: Disguised people poisoning relations with merchants.
        • Or infiltrating compound. Surely no way to disguise that well? Although Fourth Event...
        • One of us disguise self Hyuuga, cause chaos?
      • Take extensive notes. Transcribe meeting, stream-of-consciousness. Analyse how think about things. Be thorough.
    • Get Noburi, if available. Share BotG briefing.
      • Kagome's impression? Discuss:
        • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE.
        • Pain's goal, nature.
        • "The Five".
        • Fate of lost bijuu.
        • Contents, authorship Akatsuki book.
        • Detailed description ritual site.
      • Akatsuki:
        • Loose, "pursuing peace the hard way". How insane contact them? If genuine peace, you've suggestions...
        • At their mercy anyway. If do nothing, they decide take over EN?
        • Could we assemble psychological profiles? Tailored approaches!
    • Update Mari on Ami.
      • Can trust her?
      • May cause us trouble Leaf. Mari have handled?
      • We sell her valuable information, favours?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections.
        • Iron socials.
        • "Become mentor."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize my social competence."
          • ... maximize my agency."
          • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
    • Who remaining Leaf jounin? Adopt clanless ones (Anko, Ebisu, Kabuto, Minori, Kurenai...)?
  • Commit one creative training.

@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail, would you classify it as a kinjutsu?
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This brushes up against the edge of coherent grammar, for me. Stuff like "Become mentor." really sounds like it's missing a world in the middle and makes the line read as stilted. It's only happening for some of the lines though, so it probably just needs more scrutiny to keep things in line.
 
faflec said:
So there's a non-zero part of me that really wants to ask Mari what's up with her eye color, why it seems to change soon after she uses TLitF, and what the price is supposed to be, really. Thoughts?
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Yes, I think we should do it, possibly as lead-in to asking what's going on with her and what she's been doing lately.
Inferno Vulpix said:
This brushes up against the edge of coherent grammar, for me. Stuff like "Become mentor." really sounds like it's missing a world in the middle and makes the line read as stilted. It's only happening for some of the lines though, so it probably just needs more scrutiny to keep things in line.
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That was a joke.
Was this... really not clear? Oh dear, that seems to be a legitimate problem with my jokes. It's happened, what, five times now?

Edit: No, @Cariyaga, that's not a joke, that's a legitimate source of stress!
My complaining about you considering it funny is a joke, however.
 
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faflec said:
So there's a non-zero part of me that really wants to ask Mari what's up with her eye color, why it seems to change soon after she uses TLitF, and what the price is supposed to be, really. Thoughts?
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If she hasn't talked about it yet it's probably something she really doesn't want to talk or think about. Bringing it up might not be a net positive on her state of mind, which is fragile right now.

We could say that if she ever wants to talk anything out with someone so it's a shared burden instead of one she has to carry alone we would be willing to listen.
 
Noumero said:
Yes, I think we should do it, possibly as lead-in to asking what's going on with her and what she's been doing lately.

That was a joke.
Was this... really not clear? Oh dear, that seems to be a legitimate problem with my jokes. It's happened, what, five times now?
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It'd be a better joke if it wasn't actually a good idea. :p Phrasing things like this gets the wordcount pretty low and then you can fiddle with it to make it coherent again. For example:
  • Get Mari, Kagome, papers, a blackboard, writing implements. Go high-security (anti-hyuuga seals...).
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara a habit: five minutes each day contemplating an enemy destroy them.
      • Thirty by-the-clock minutes: can find are there overlooked fixable vulnerabilities?
      • Ideas on blackboard. Idea #1: Disguised people poisoning relations with merchants.
        • Or infiltrating compound. Surely no way to properly disguise that well? Although, Fourth Event...
        • One of us disguise self as Hyuuga, cause chaos?
      • Take extensive notes. Transcribe meeting, stream-of-consciousness. Analyse how think about things thought process. Be thorough.
    • Get Noburi, if available. Share BotG briefing.
      • Kagome's impression? Discuss:
        • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE.
        • Pain's goal, nature.
        • "The Five".
        • Fate of lost bijuu.
        • Contents, authorship Akatsuki book.
        • Detailed description ritual site.
      • Akatsuki:
        • Loose, "pursuing peace the hard way". How insane contact them? If genuine peace, you've suggestions...
        • At their mercy anyway. If do nothing Without action, they decide might take over EN?
        • Could we assemble psychological profiles? Tailored approaches!
    • Update Mari on Ami.
      • Can trust her?
      • May cause us trouble Leaf. Mari have handled?
      • We sell her valuable information, favours?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections politically.
        • Iron Kurosawa socials.
        • "Become mentor me."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize my social competence."
          • ... maximize my agency."
          • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
    • Who remaining Leaf jounin? Adopt remaining clanless ones Jounin (Anko, Ebisu, Kabuto, Minori, Kurenai...)?
  • Commit one creative training.
Lines are now pretty readable, and I think I even saved more words off of that.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
It'd be a better joke if it wasn't actually a good idea. :p Phrasing things like this gets the wordcount pretty low and then you can fiddle with it to make it coherent again. For example:
  • Get Mari, Kagome, papers, a blackboard, writing implements. Go high-security (anti-hyuuga seals...).
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara a habit: five minutes each day contemplating an enemy destroy them.
      • Thirty by-the-clock minutes: can find are there overlooked fixable vulnerabilities?
      • Ideas on blackboard. Idea #1: Disguised people poisoning relations with merchants.
        • Or infiltrating compound. Surely no way to properly disguise that well? Although, Fourth Event...
        • One of us disguise self as Hyuuga, cause chaos?
      • Take extensive notes. Transcribe meeting, stream-of-consciousness. Analyse how think about things thought process. Be thorough.
    • Get Noburi, if available. Share BotG briefing.
      • Kagome's impression? Discuss:
        • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE.
        • Pain's goal, nature.
        • "The Five".
        • Fate of lost bijuu.
        • Contents, authorship Akatsuki book.
        • Detailed description ritual site.
      • Akatsuki:
        • Loose, "pursuing peace the hard way". How insane contact them? If genuine peace, you've suggestions...
        • At their mercy anyway. If do nothing Without action, they decide might take over EN?
        • Could we assemble psychological profiles? Tailored approaches!
    • Update Mari on Ami.
      • Can trust her?
      • May cause us trouble Leaf. Mari have handled?
      • We sell her valuable information, favours?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections politically.
        • Iron Kurosawa socials.
        • "Become mentor me."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize my social competence."
          • ... maximize my agency."
          • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
    • Who remaining Leaf jounin? Adopt remaining clanless ones Jounin (Anko, Ebisu, Kabuto, Minori, Kurenai...)?
  • Commit one creative training.
Lines are now pretty readable, and I think I even saved more words off of that.
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Hmm.
Kid said:
The way he'd been told it, one fine afternoon she'd marched up to one of the more competent senior monks, declared "I'm bored of this", and plonked the August Crown of Radiant Wisdom straight onto his bald head. Then, before he could open his mouth, she walked out of the monastery and Hidden Cloud itself.
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Hmm. Grandmaster F is full of good ideas...

Say, @Inferno Vulpix, you ever wanted to edit people's plans in exchange for small favours?
 
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Noumero said:
I've discovered a new technique of wordcount optimization! It's called Genda no Jutsu.

Look at the draft of the new version of my plan! It saved me 87 words, made the plan 30% shorter!

  • Get Mari, Kagome, papers, a blackboard, writing implements. Go high-security (anti-hyuuga seals...).
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara a habit: five minutes each day contemplating an enemy destroy them.
      • Thirty by-the-clock minutes: can find overlooked fixable vulnerabilities?
      • Ideas on blackboard. Idea #1: Disguised people poisoning relations with merchants.
        • Or infiltrating compound. Surely no way to disguise that well? Although Fourth Event...
        • One of us disguise self Hyuuga, cause chaos?
      • Take extensive notes. Transcribe meeting, stream-of-consciousness. Analyse how think about things. Be thorough.
    • Get Noburi, if available. Share BotG briefing.
      • Kagome's impression? Discuss:
        • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE.
        • Pain's goal, nature.
        • "The Five".
        • Fate of lost bijuu.
        • Contents, authorship Akatsuki book.
        • Detailed description ritual site.
      • Akatsuki:
        • Loose, "pursuing peace the hard way". How insane contact them? If genuine peace, you've suggestions...
        • At their mercy anyway. If do nothing, they decide take over EN?
        • Could we assemble psychological profiles? Tailored approaches!
    • Update Mari on Ami.
      • Can trust her?
      • May cause us trouble Leaf. Mari have handled?
      • We sell her valuable information, favours?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections.
        • Iron socials.
        • "Become mentor."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize my social competence."
          • ... maximize my agency."
          • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
    • Who remaining Leaf jounin? Adopt clanless ones (Anko, Ebisu, Kabuto, Minori, Kurenai...)?
  • Commit one creative training.

@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail, would you classify it as a kinjutsu?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's not bad but if you remove more words you can get an even shorter plan. Allow me to demonstrate, free of charge:

  • Get Kagome. Go hyuuga seals.
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara: destroy them.
      • clock: vulnerabilities?
      • #1: poison merchants.
        • Surely? Although Fourth Event...
        • One of us Hyuuga?
      • Stream-of-consciousness. Be thorough.
    • Share Noburi:
      • Kagome:
        • RESURRECTION
        • Pain
        • Five
        • Bijuu.
        • Akatsuki
        • Ritual
      • Akatsuki:
        • Peace suggestions...
        • Decide take over EN?
        • Tailor.
    • Mari on Ami. (Nice.)
      • Her?
      • Mari have handled?
      • Sell her?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections.
        • Iron socials.
        • "Mentor."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize."
          • ... Agency."
          • ... for me."
    • Who jounin? Adopt?
  • Commit
 
faflec said:
SHIKAKU: Shikaku.jpg
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I love how Shikaku's meme has outlived Shikaku himself.

Inferno Vulpix said:
It'd be a better joke if it wasn't actually a good idea. :p Phrasing things like this gets the wordcount pretty low and then you can fiddle with it to make it coherent again. For example:
  • Get Mari, Kagome, papers, a blackboard, writing implements. Go high-security (anti-hyuuga seals...).
    • Brainstorm:
      • Nara a habit: five minutes each day contemplating an enemy destroy them.
      • Thirty by-the-clock minutes: can find are there overlooked fixable vulnerabilities?
      • Ideas on blackboard. Idea #1: Disguised people poisoning relations with merchants.
        • Or infiltrating compound. Surely no way to properly disguise that well? Although, Fourth Event...
        • One of us disguise self as Hyuuga, cause chaos?
      • Take extensive notes. Transcribe meeting, stream-of-consciousness. Analyse how think about things thought process. Be thorough.
    • Get Noburi, if available. Share BotG briefing.
      • Kagome's impression? Discuss:
        • RESURRECTION TECHNIQUE.
        • Pain's goal, nature.
        • "The Five".
        • Fate of lost bijuu.
        • Contents, authorship Akatsuki book.
        • Detailed description ritual site.
      • Akatsuki:
        • Loose, "pursuing peace the hard way". How insane contact them? If genuine peace, you've suggestions...
        • At their mercy anyway. If do nothing Without action, they decide might take over EN?
        • Could we assemble psychological profiles? Tailored approaches!
    • Update Mari on Ami.
      • Can trust her?
      • May cause us trouble Leaf. Mari have handled?
      • We sell her valuable information, favours?
      • Ideas:
        • Help elections politically.
        • Iron Kurosawa socials.
        • "Become mentor me."
        • "Up to favour's value, ...
          • ... maximize my social competence."
          • ... maximize my agency."
          • ... do whatever would be most beneficial for me."
    • Who remaining Leaf jounin? Adopt remaining clanless ones Jounin (Anko, Ebisu, Kabuto, Minori, Kurenai...)?
  • Commit one creative training.
Lines are now pretty readable, and I think I even saved more words off of that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I find some of those lines difficult to read, especially if I'm trying to look through the lens of someone who isn't able to read through all the planning posts. I know in status quo the QMs sometimes post asking for clarification and/or elaboration.

Also, it was my understanding that our problem with word count wasn't unoptimized information density as much as trying to include too much in each plan, and the first few plans after the QMs pointed this out had no real difficulty containing 2-3 scenes with under 300 words.
 
Torpling said:
Wait, I think I know that one!
"Ami, what do you think is the optimal thing I could use my favor on?" - "Asking the question I am currently answering."
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If the answer you get is useless then the question is hardly optimal.

The real thing would be Ami asks a bunch of questions, gives us a summary of our position in Leaf and then suggests that we need her help against Hiashi but it is going to take another favour.
 
Oneiros said:
It's incredibly impressive how much Hazō and co have grown in such a short period of time. I can't wait to see what happens when y'all finally realize how capable you are
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It's a thing I've been thinking about: QM-imposed ninja trauma resistance is a big reason for your (and everyone's) success. In real life, the kind of thing our teenagers get put through on a daily basis (say, being complicit in a massacre of fifty innocents, a few days before watching a new friend murdered before your eyes while all you can do is watch) would result in trauma that takes years to recover from, if you can manage it at all. PTSD isn't the half of it. Much like 12th century morality, this is one of those things where you have to suspend simulationism or the quest simply won't be fun.

Keiko is the poster child for this. In MfD, she has made ridiculous amounts of progress from "isolated and suicidal" to "capable of leading an ordinary life with some emotional instability". In real life, once you get clinically depressed, you stay clinically depressed until further notice, and I don't even want to think about how that might stack with the kind of traumatic experiences she's been through in the past couple of years.

(Relatedly, I invite you to consider how functional you might be, and how capable of healthy human relationships, if you'd spent all your life as an orphan of unknown parentage with no apparent guardians, alienated from society and loathed by every single authority figure for reasons they refused to tell you.)
 
Velorien said:
It's a thing I've been thinking about: QM-imposed ninja trauma resistance is a big reason for your (and everyone's) success. In real life, the kind of thing our teenagers get put through on a daily basis (say, being complicit in a massacre of fifty innocents, a few days before watching a new friend murdered before your eyes while all you can do is watch) would result in trauma that takes years to recover from, if you can manage it at all. PTSD isn't the half of it. Much like 12th century morality, this is one of those things where you have to suspend simulationism or the quest simply won't be fun.

Keiko is the poster child for this. In MfD, she has made ridiculous amounts of progress from "isolated and suicidal" to "capable of leading an ordinary life with some emotional instability". In real life, once you get clinically depressed, you stay clinically depressed until further notice, and I don't even want to think about how that might stack with the kind of traumatic experiences she's been through in the past couple of years.

(Relatedly, I invite you to consider how functional you might be, and how capable of healthy human relationships, if you'd spent all your life as an orphan of unknown parentage with no apparent guardians, alienated from society and loathed by every single authority figure for reasons they refused to tell you.)
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If it helps with the simulationism, children exposed to lots of violence tend to become sociopathic as often as they develop PTSD symptoms. Exposure to sexual abuse also does it, even if the children aren't the direct victims. Exposure to sexual abuse plus violence is practically a recipe for mass producing sociopaths, which is an under-appreciated aspect of why certain parts of the world have such trouble holding civilization together. Large numbers of child soldiers exposed to the use of rape as a weapon resulted in a destabilizing proportion of the population being violent lunatics even after the wars ended.

The fact that Mari held on to her sense of empathy at all despite what she grew up with is a major testament to her personal strength of character. She should really give herself more credit; if she actually were what she believes herself to be she would feel no remorse at all and enjoy hurting people.

...that all went rather dark in a hurry, didn't it? Perhaps we should just disregard certain elements of reality for fantasy's sake.
 
Just speaking for myself I went from actively trying to kill myself to being mostly functional in 8 months. Of course I'm not a child soldier so not exactly in line with mfd
 
Velorien said:
It's a thing I've been thinking about: QM-imposed ninja trauma resistance is a big reason for your (and everyone's) success. In real life, the kind of thing our teenagers get put through on a daily basis (say, being complicit in a massacre of fifty innocents, a few days before watching a new friend murdered before your eyes while all you can do is watch) would result in trauma that takes years to recover from, if you can manage it at all. PTSD isn't the half of it. Much like 12th century morality, this is one of those things where you have to suspend simulationism or the quest simply won't be fun.

Keiko is the poster child for this. In MfD, she has made ridiculous amounts of progress from "isolated and suicidal" to "capable of leading an ordinary life with some emotional instability". In real life, once you get clinically depressed, you stay clinically depressed until further notice, and I don't even want to think about how that might stack with the kind of traumatic experiences she's been through in the past couple of years.

(Relatedly, I invite you to consider how functional you might be, and how capable of healthy human relationships, if you'd spent all your life as an orphan of unknown parentage with no apparent guardians, alienated from society and loathed by every single authority figure for reasons they refused to tell you.)
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If it makes you happier, you could just rule that chakra magic grants mental resilience due to the chakra attuning to your personal mental state and passively tries to revent the brain to a baseline, or something. Like how Dispel is used to tell genjutsu to fuck off, only in a more passive way.

I mean, chakra does tend to go full autoimmune if you're continuously, clinically depressed (as Tsunade said would happen to Mari)...
 
Velorien said:
(Relatedly, I invite you to consider how functional you might be, and how capable of healthy human relationships, if you'd spent all your life as an orphan of unknown parentage with no apparent guardians, alienated from society and loathed by every single authority figure for reasons they refused to tell you.)
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They should be very, very thankful Kurama never tried being the kid's only friend. That would have ended... poorly for them.
 
TaliesinSkye said:
The fact that Mari held on to her sense of empathy at all despite what she grew up with is a major testament to her personal strength of character. She should really give herself more credit; if she actually were what she believes herself to be she would feel no remorse at all and enjoy hurting people.
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Are you under the impression she doesn't enjoy hurting people?
 
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