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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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[X] Action Plan: Be The Best Man You Can Be

We already had Hazou using a proto-Jonin Aura:

eaglejarl said:
Kei eyed him dubiously for a moment. "You realize that there is a tremendous amount of damage to the Nara estate that I should be assisting with?"

Hazō straightened and turned to face her for the first time since he, Kei, Noburi, Kenta, and the four confused civilians (to whom she had not yet been introduced, due to Hazō's utter focus and dismissal of the rest of the universe!) had arrived in the overgrown jungle that was the Gōketsu backyard.

Hazō's face was utterly blank but his eyes burned with simmering anger. When he spoke, his words were frozen harder than the ground they stood on.

"From what I saw, the damage to the Nara estate is largely property damage that can be fixed by any competent construction worker. Likewise, you have some dead about whom nothing can be done and only a few wounded, whom someone else can care for as well or better than you. I, on the other hand, have two hundred and fifty-ish people who are going to be showing up on my doorstep sometime in the next hour, desperate for a place to sleep out of the cold. They have nowhere to go; their houses are destroyed, their families and friends are all dead and their houses were destroyed, and they can't afford to pay for an inn. If someone doesn't step up and help them they'll freeze to death before morning. I'm not going to let that happen. If necessary then yes, I'll have them packed cheek-by-jowl into the house, but I'd rather give them their own quarters. As to you, you are either Team Uplift or you're not. If you abandoned us for the Nara, fine. Go. If not, summon your pangolins so that we can make those people some shelter."

The force of his anger almost physically pushed at her and Kei stepped back, away from the intensity of it. Kenta and the unnamed civilians, already jumpy from the way Hazō had been using small implosion bombs as brooms to clear the snow from their path, stepped back quite a bit farther than she had and looked as though they were one angry glance from outright fleeing.

"Of course," she said. She stuck her finger on a kunai and made the handseals before slapping her hand to the frozen, spike-grassed ground. "Summoning Technique: Pankurashun!" Sparkles of exhaustion danced before her eyes as the chakra was torn out of her and thrown across the void between Paths.
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We should probably use that as a indicator what his "self" is. (It's probably just going to be Fire-themed because he wants to help people or something)
 
Done.

MadScientist said:
Guess I'm one of those insane people this cycle.

[x] Action Plan: Aura Training

To take place the evening before the wedding.
  • Important: Clear things up with Akane. Hazou speaks from the heart.
  • Make sure you have a suitable wedding present ready for tomorrow.
  • You may not get an aura right away, but there may be some things you can do to speed the process up.
  • Meditate on the burns Mari gave you. Feel where in your being that they lie. Focus on these surfaces.
  • You've tasted multiple auras. Think of identity along their associative metaphorical logic.
    • Mari = Flames
    • Orochimaru = Vivisection
    • Ami = Ice
    • Jiraiya = Inferno of Damned Souls
    • Zabuza = Biting Demon
    • Hiruzen = Grandfather
    • Asuma = Bonfire
    • Itachi = Grinding Bloody Wheels
    • Keiko(?) = Frozen Mirrors
    • Haru(?) = Chained Raging Animal
    • Hazou = ???
  • What are the core elements of your identity that wouldn't be common to most other people?
    • Uplift (drive to improve the situation instead of merely preventing it from getting worse, everyone gets saved; no exceptions)
    • The Thing (sudden flashes of insight, inconsistent strategic brilliance with a risk of catastrophic miscalculation)
    • List-maker (high effort to catalogue your ideas, plan things out, and create contingencies)
    • Innovator (love of problem-solving and invention, turning things upside down)
  • Let your mind wander. What forms do these concepts coalesce to?
  • Remember in Asuma's office, when you met his gaze and refused to back down on protecting Leaf. Forget the argument itself, and dredge up that feeling of determination that even the lord hokage was not allowed to argue with. Remember also, when you told Keiko to choose whether she was on Team Uplift, or whether she had abandoned it for the Nara, and your anger "physically pushed at her" .
  • Having done the above, unchain your soul.
Ping me with copy-edits, and someone explain the significance of the IC date.
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Hazou's aura, hm?

Something... Implacable, a force of nature, computation and abstraction. It looks on those it touches not with hate or cold derision but with alien warmth that feels unwarranted, and yet that would scour away from his path what it must. Perhaps a clockwork automaton, to fit the setting, careful in its motions to crush as little as it can, but with the assurance that if there is no way to avoid it... it would crush you.
 
I'd say that being Out Touched would factor heavily into Hazou's aura. And his trip to the afterlife. Those are huge, formative experiences that has, genuinely, shaped Hazou into the young man he is. And that's not even mentioning that his Out Episodes often transcended reality and provided glimpses of possible futures, alternate realities, and forbidden knowledge. That's definitely influential.

But, beyond all the interesting, mystical bits and icing on his character, Hazou's defining trait... is his compassion. He has our own "modern" sensibilities, which should be damned impossible in a deathworld. Yet, he is compassionate and kind. He empathizes and care about people that he, by all logical right, shouldn't. But he does. Hazou cares so much that his literal life's dream is to end suffering. Not for himself, or his monkeysphere. But for everyone.

So... (@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail)

Aura: Eldritch Insight

An intense gaze presses down upon you. A million eyes and more, rending your soul bare. There is no escape, they see you. In you. Through you. The gaze strips away your every defense, every deflection and facade. It dismantles your hopes and dreams, picking up the essence of your motivations, trailing the threads to the events that spawned them.

The gaze twists Outwardly, still examining you but now studying your parallel, alternative lifelines and possi... [Error]. Too-knowledgeable eyes return, understanding far too much. There is no privacy. All you Are, all you could ever hope to Be, is Seen. All you Are is Understood. These eyes gaze at You, and you see [abject apathy], [weeping disappointment], [warm acceptance], [a fury that bathes the forest in fire, turning rot to nutritious ash for future growth.]
 
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RandomOTP said:
Aura: Eldritch Insight

An intense gaze presses down upon you. A million eyes and more, rending your soul bear. There is no escape, they see you. In you. Through you. The gaze strips away your every defense, every deflection and guard. It dismantles your hopes and dreams, picking up the essence of your motivations, trailing the threads to the events that spawned them.

The gaze twists Outwardly, still examining you but now studying your parallel, alternative lifelines and possi... [Error]. Too-knowledgeable eyes return, understanding far too much. There is no privacy. All you are, all you could ever hope to become, is seen. All you are is understood. These eyes gaze at you, and you see [abject apathy], [weeping disappointment], [warm acceptance], [a fury that bathes the forest in fire, turning rot to nutritious ash for future growth.]
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That sounds amazing!
 
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Supersuslik said:
That sounds amazing! Could you please change bear to bare?
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Done and done.

I was on board with taking the PotO stunt back when it was on the table, purely because it would make Hazou's aura alien and odd and something that Did Not Belong.

While Hazou may not get that from PotO... He has since stepped into the afterlife, and expressed an instinctual understanding about the true nature of his universe on a level that even Kagome-the-Universal-Constant cannot match (see: their sealing argument about hexa-whatevers and tri-thingies as proof). So we can get a very similar thing, while retaining Hazou's humanity! (Well, maybe)
 
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faflec said:
Do you guys think I should switch to a Suicide Squad joker.avi or a Joker joker.avi?
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For the love of all things, please do not go with Leto's Joker. It's a pet peeve for me -- a screenwriter should not need to literally tattoo "Damaged" on a character's forehead in order to make it clear that the character is damaged, an actor should be able to break character after the camera shuts off, and a human being should not be sending used condoms to coworkers.

If you want to change, maybe look at the Nicholson Joker? For me he was the defining version.
 
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[X] Action Plan: Be The Best Man You Can Be

Siding with this plan mainly because I'm not too keen on the angle of the aura plan in which it lists out specific character traits as the expected basis of Hazou's aura. While I have my own hopes and mild expectations for what Hazou's aura might turn out to be, something that I don't want to do is try to force what shape his aura takes. I feel like a decision that reaches so deep into the core of Hazou's being can only properly be determined by the QMs, and trying to put our finger on the scales would be presumptive and potentially complicate their decision when it does come time to make it, such as if they must consciously ignore our requests in order to make their fair decision.

(Outside of the 'we the hivemind formally request this of the QMs' planning context, however, I have negative qualms with sharing our preferred take on Hazou's eventual Jounin Aura. In addition to being an interesting and fun topic, it can possibly provide inspiration for the QMs that they can keep for when it does come time to make a decision)
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
[X] Action Plan: Be The Best Man You Can Be

Siding with this plan mainly because I'm not too keen on the angle of the aura plan in which it lists out specific character traits as the expected basis of Hazou's aura. While I have my own hopes and mild expectations for what Hazou's aura might turn out to be, something that I don't want to do is try to force what shape his aura takes. I feel like a decision that reaches so deep into the core of Hazou's being can only properly be determined by the QMs, and trying to put our finger on the scales would be presumptive and potentially complicate their decision when it does come time to make it, such as if they must consciously ignore our requests in order to make their fair decision.

(Outside of the 'we the hivemind formally request this of the QMs' planning context, however, I have negative qualms with sharing our preferred take on Hazou's eventual Jounin Aura. In addition to being an interesting and fun topic, it can possibly provide inspiration for the QMs that they can keep for when it does come time to make a decision)
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The intention with that section isn't to shape Hazou's aura, but rather to get him to think introspectively by encouraging him to explore some of his most prominent facets. In fact, they're largely based on his aspects:
  • Promising Sealing Student — Innovator
  • OMIF — (not included because it's a temporary flaw that Hazou will inevitably outgrow)
  • Team Uplift — Uplift
  • Lists and Plans — Listmaker, The Thing
  • Lord Gouketsu — Uplift
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Velorien on Nov 4, 2020 at 7:02 AM, finished with 114 posts and 22 votes.
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Voting is closed.
 
When it doesn't directly clash with Leaf marriage tradition.

Essentially, let the Hagoromo run the ceremony, which we kind of need to, but any touches or traditions we can include that are physically doable (we don't have tapirs for example) that won't invalidate the wedding/"make it a sham" so the Hagoromo could use it as grounds to say the wedding isn't valid.
 
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