No plans by pointer addition, please. "Continue previous plan" is fine, but if you want to add stuff to it then you need to copy over all the stuff you want from the previous plan.
Thank you - updated.
Aa few suggestions from me.
- Explicitly add sometime to the effect of "Asuma's inability to control Orochimaru" to the list of things not to discuss.
- Add something to the effect of "Even by Kei's admission, Mari acted completely logically and placed herself at substantial risk."
- Remove the OOC information from Mari's apology to Kei and Snowflake. Hazō wasn't there.
- Remove the section on tearing the family apart. Ami doesn't want to fix the Gōketsu family, she wants to support Kei. We want to support Kei. Don't make it seem like we're favoring a return to the status quo.
- I've added 'do not stray to other topics'. I think that we need to stay tightly focused.
- I don't think that this is valuable. If Ami thinks about it for more than two seconds, it will either be apparent to her or she'll point out that it was not, in fact, optimal. More to the point, I don't think Ami will care. Kei didn't care, and Ami's goal is Kei's well-being.
- I assume that anything which is in updates is (broadly) available to us. Assuming that Mari mentioned, 'I had a huge blowup with Kei' seems reasonable. @Velorien and @eaglejarl, can we assume that we got a summary of Kei's most recent interaction with Mari?
- Done.
In both plans I'd like to see Hazou draw parallels between Mari's actions towards Kei and Ami's actions towards the KEI (with the FGP). I think they're very similar on a lot of levels, even if there are some critical differences.
FGP?
[X] ACTION PLAN: Full* Disclosure
- Lead Ami to the nearest private, OPSEC-safe area
- Explain the Orochimaru incident
- *Keep Shadow Clone and Iron Nerve OPSEC. Additionally, do not discuss Asuma's inability to control Orochimaru
- Start from the beginning, give proper context for Mari's decision
- This was personal for Kei
- Kei never wanted to be a tool again
- Kei wants no relation with Mari now. Snowflake may feel differently; they were hit by this in different ways.
- We do not blame her for feeling like this
- State our own feelings
- Mari's choice doesn't sit well with us either
- Despite this, Mari acted completely rationally, even by Kei's own admission, and we got Orochimaru to back down without anyone being vivisected.
- She also intentionally placed herself at substantial risk and was hurt distracting Orochimaru
- We are keeping all this in mind and want Ami to do the same
- Focus on Kei and how best to help her. Ask Ami for advice.
- After talking with Ami, speak with Shikamaru as soon as possible without drawing suspicion.
- Go to the most secured room the Nara will allow outsiders in
- Talk to Shikamaru about Asuma
- Something was different about him today.
- He had different mannerisms. A different tone and energy. He acted oddly.
- Did Shikamaru notice anything? Does he know anything about this?
- DO NOT ADVOCATE FOR ANYTHING
A few notes:
Plan titles are always ignored. The asterisk doesn't make any sense without it.
I don't think that mentioning that Snowflake may feel differently is particularly worthwhile - maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.
- We are keeping all this in mind and want Ami to do the same
"Okay, Hazo - she acted rationally.
I don't care. Kei doesn't care. Snowflake doesn't care. There were other options available. Mari has demonstrated that she will take action beyond strict necessity which puts Kei in mortal danger. That is not a threat I can tolerate. Don't get in my way."
How sure are you that your plan is flexible enough to accommodate that reaction? What do we we if Ami says, 'I think that the best way to completely remove Mari from her life - here's the paperwork to expel someone from a clan, now get to work'?
My opinion is that we can kill both of these birds with the same stone. We can point out - rightly - that Kei's relationship with Mari is causing her significant distress and that Ami's driving interest is Kei's happiness, so allievitating the distress is our shared, terminal goal. If the source of that distress was a need for Kei to
triumph over Mari, killing or maiming or emotionally wounding her would help, but I think that the source of that distress is unprocessed grief and sadness. You don't get closure from a corpse or a traumatized wreck of a person.
[x] Ami Plan: When in Doubt, Go Meta
Word count: TBO
Humour index: 30%
Didn't we spend both tokens? We certainly don't have them on our person.
- Avoid explicitly mentioning Asuma's inability to control Orochimaru.
Can we avoid implicit mention, too?
- Subject: Hypothetically speaking, if Mari were to put Kei in danger in a way that Kei considers unforgivable, how should you describe the situation to Ami to minimize the chance of Mari being destroyed?
I'm worried that 'hypothetically' is too cutesy in ways Ami will not find amusing.
- Approaches:
- Door-in-Face: Lead with a one-sentence summary that conveys the emotional truth of the situation as felt by Kei, and what sanctions she took against Mari.
- Conceit: Frame the situation as already "settled" by Kei's agency. Put the brunt of the emotional impact at the beginning so Ami knows what to expect and could integrate the rest of the information in a more constructive manner.
- Con: Ami might integrate the information in the worst light instead.
- Foot-in-Door: Inverse of the above. Describe the situation chronologically. Focus on Kei's sanctions at the end, describe their effect on Mari.
- Conceit: Make Ami feel a sense of vengeful justice and catharsis vicariously, with no need for active action.
- Con: Ami might feel that Kei's sanctions weren't enough, and the talk would end with her at an emotional apogee.
- Factual: Describe only the facts, no opinions and no attempts at framing.
- Conceit: Ami is a reasonable person, and/or no attempt to frame it cleverly would help.
- Con: Ami might not be reasonable around the subject of Kei.
- Empathetic: Draw parallels between Mari's actions and some of Ami's actions that you think are conceptually similar.
- Con: Ami might disagree that the parallels are similar, or refuse to care by declaring the concept of hypocrisy incoherent.
- (Thoughts: One, Hazou might be to Mari what Kei is to Ami. Two, Ami inventing the Final Gift Programme and letting Kichi manipulate people into it, all to save herself.)
- Best Interests: Enumerate all the ways that killing Mari won't help Kei.
- Cons: Ami might consider Kei's opinion irrelevant in this regard. Appeasement is an inherently weak line of argument.
- Adversarial: Declare that Mari is under your protection. You won't let her hurt Kei, but you won't let Ami hurt her either. List the sanctions you'd take against Ami should she act around you, and/or ask to abstain from interfering as a favour.
- Con: Damages your relationship with Ami.
- Distracting: Don't describe the situation, and instead stage a major crisis that would leave everyone too preoccupied to spend time on (this) drama or catching up.
- Con: Resource-intensive, execution would require additional time to plan.
- Proceed according to Ami's advice.
I think that this is fun, but I'm really worried that we're not going to get to the list of approaches, and that because we haven't specified Hazo's actions in the face of an Ami which is full of rage, he might just stand there, stunned. I also think that 'proceed according to Ami's advice' is pretty dangerous because she could tell us to do pretty much anything. She's not going to tell us to jump of a tall building (probably) but she might tell us to go lay into Mari where Kei can see us.
I also think that it's important that we give EJ something to write - i.e. the previous plan.
