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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Speaking of madness, we now need to combine the earbusters and casino seals, reverse a few of the circuits so that they emit chakra in response to vibration, and produce highly dangerous and radioactive chakra-talkies.
 
Aaaaaagh. What the hell are we supposed to do with this whole Mari situation?

Maybe we should just fuckin' kick it up the line. Talk to Kagome, and Hana, and Jiraiya, and get the Yamanaka to treat her.
 
FieryStarVictory said:
Explosives solve all problems
Mari has problems now.
Meaning we need whatever the social equivalent of explosives is .
(Mmm mind explosives , there is now way that can go wrong )
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AFAIK, that'd be either a hug or a knife to the gut.

Neither exactly works for Keiko, seeing as she's a n-stacked minefield, mines layered on mines layered on mines.
 
Poll for curiosity. How well do people think that Hazō+co. handled that last conversation?
  1. They did poorly, and their mistakes were obvious.
  2. They should have done better.
  3. They gave it a good shot but could have done better.
  4. They did well, and it's not obvious how to do better.
  5. They did about as well as anyone could have.
  6. Every problem can be solved with enough explosives.
 
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Veedrac said:
Poll for curiosity. How well do people think that Hazō+co. handled that last conversation?
  1. They did poorly, and their mistakes were obvious.
  2. They should have done better.
  3. They gave it a good shot but could have done better.
  4. They did well, and it's not obvious how to do better.
  5. They did about as well as anyone could have.
  6. Every problem can be solved with enough explosives.
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I wanted to give you but it's broken on my phone, so I'll give you instead.
 
Veedrac said:
Poll for curiosity. How well do people think that Hazō+co. handled that last conversation?
  1. They did poorly, and their mistakes were obvious.
  2. They should have done better.
  3. They gave it a good shot but could have done better.
  4. They did well, and it's not obvious how to do better.
  5. They did about as well as anyone could have.
  6. Every problem can be solved with enough explosives.
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I'll give you a , and the reason is obvious and left as an exercise to the reader. :p
 
Veedrac said:
Poll for curiosity. How well do people think that Hazō+co. handled that last conversation?
  1. They did poorly, and their mistakes were obvious.
  2. They should have done better.
  3. They gave it a good shot but could have done better.
  4. They did well, and it's not obvious how to do better.
  5. They did about as well as anyone could have.
  6. Every problem can be solved with enough explosives.
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Meow.
 
Okay, I'd like to skip the joking and talk about what I see as Mari's fundamental problem which is that she really has been an awful, awful person.

True, she hasn't been quite as awful to Hazou, Noburi, and Keiko as her self-loathing tells her... but she's still been an awful person! And she doesn't want to be awful anymore. In retrospect that was a big part of her "I want to retire" demand. She recognizes that the pressures of being a ninja are part of why she's frequently been awful. So what's the issue here?

"Why can't you understand?!" Mari-sensei threw up her hands. "I'm not somebody who gets to change. I'm a monster. You 'having my back' is just another way of letting me use you. Do you remember how I got you to take up sealing, even though it's the most dangerous ninja discipline and your only teacher was a half-crazed hermit? Or how I made Keiko fall in love with me and then didn't do anything about it even though I knew how much she was hurting? Or how I basically ignored Noburi just because he wasn't much use to me compared to you two? That's all you'll get from me, no matter what you do."
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If Mari wants to be better, she needs to be better. None of this Bojack Horseman shit where she admits she's awful and then pretends she's helpless to change. She needs to believe she can be better, and she needs to get out of bed and start acting on that belief. The question is how to help her get there.
 
Following up.... the point I am trying to make is that trying to convince Mari she is not a terrible person is fundamentally misguided. She is!

What we need to convince her is that what she is doing now, laying around in bed feeling sorry for herself, is another form of being terrible. Now, I can't diagnose a fictional character in another world. I know telling a depressed person not to be depressed isn't effective. But I don't think what's going on here is purely depression. It seems like what she needs is hope that there is a way she can be better.
 
Jokes aside: Perhaps convincing her that her current plan of dealing with this (cry about it and not do anything else) is not efficient( if she wants to do literally anything but gain pity and do nothing all day) would be the most effective.


E:

AS ALWAYS, ITS ALL ABOUT THE FRAMING!

Be back in a few hours after I turn this spark of an idea into a skeleton of a plan to fix this.
 
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I dunno that I can be much help here. My brain is stuck in Hazou-mindset where it sounds like a great idea to yell at Hana to fix it.
 
Belated response:
MMKII said:
I actually don't recall what this is referring to. Is this about the Hotsprings thing, or the Killbox incident, or what?
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This is referring to when Noburi was all pissy at Keiko after she ran away to the Summon Realm for a week.


MMKII said:
I could have sworn there was a section here about Keiko going all

"I was literally on a date in the town over that way a few days ago."

and the guy was like

"Yeah but Jiraiya cleared that in advance."
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Nope. There was never such a section. That section never existed, and no such thing was ever said. Nope, nope, nope. After all, how could it? Keiko went to extreme lengths to prevent anyone, apparently including her family, from knowing about the date. And even if they had known about it and Jiraiya had cleared them through -- which he didn't because they didn't -- then she is still physically incapable of saying that she was on a date...or so I am given to understand.

So, no. There never was such a section and all of this discussion is moot. In fact, what were we discussing?


MMKII said:
Yeah, it's going to be you. Don't think we didn't notice the extra 1000 XP in your character sheet! ;)
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Heh. In fairness, everyone got that during the translation. Actually, Keiko got ~1500 because that was what was necessary to keep her relative power levels the same.

MMKII said:
How long have you been waiting for a good time for one of those? Answer honestly.:whistle:
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No comment. :>

MMKII said:
Good update, pleasure to read, stuff I've already said etc etc.

I am continuously amazed that @eaglejarl and @Velorien can push out half of a book worth of story each month on average.

And do so while adhering to very high standards of quality.

And do so while working around prompts given by a very insane thorough and meticulous reader base.
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Thank you very, very much. We appreciate the kind words, especially when they come attached to reaction posts like this one.

faflec said:
MMKII said:
Tailor your jokes to those of us without perfect MfD recall, why dontcha :p
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Fiiiiine, next time I'll just quote the relevant text. :p
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It *was*, in fact, pretty disturbing to see you apparently get something wrong. I was checking for lupchanz.
 
Veedrac said:
Poll for curiosity. How well do people think that Hazō+co. handled that last conversation?
  1. They did poorly, and their mistakes were obvious.
  2. They should have done better.
  3. They gave it a good shot but could have done better.
  4. They did well, and it's not obvious how to do better.
  5. They did about as well as anyone could have.
  6. Every problem can be solved with enough explosives.
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@Vecht Your vote is confusing me. Do you mind clarifying in general terms why you voted 5. instead of 4.?
 
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Did Hazo get a roll to realizing Mari was using those exact skills she was complaining about to drive him away? He heard the worst parts of her home situation back in Mist, but got insufficient context for it, and then didn't pursue that context.

It's one thing to hear "I killed my uncle, there were consequences for my mom, there were other options, I'm a terrible person", and quite another to know the uncle raped her, and his sister supported him when she was partially clued in. Her actions under the circumstances were not exactly normal, but they were understandable. At least, if you understand the kind of trauma involved there.

Basic forensics, Hazo. Means and motive.
 
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Veedrac said:
@Vecht Your vote is confusing me. Do you mind clarifying in general terms why you voted 5. instead of 4.?
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Saying words at people who are depressed doesn't actually do anything.

Mari's pretty determined to wallow in self pity, and if even Jiraiya couldn't help, then pretty much the only way to proceed is to let her sort it out herself and try to support her while she figures it out. Basically what we've already done / said we'll do.
 
Vecht said:
Saying words at people who are depressed doesn't actually do anything.

Mari's pretty determined to wallow in self pity, and if even Jiraiya couldn't help, then pretty much the only way to proceed is to let her sort it out herself and try to support her while she figures it out. Basically what we've already done / said we'll do.
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But this is a perfect opportunity to gain another minion!!!
 
Next plan needs to include Hazou reflecting on what Mari said and the mindset she was in as she said it. Even from Hazou's perspective, there's obviously more to it than "I randomly killed my uncle lul"
 
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