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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Cariyaga said:
It's intended to be him giving her a warning that Keiko is likely to do something, ah, chaotic, and giving her the opportunity to stop her by fixing the problem she created.

My phrasing was intentionally blackmail-y, though, because it amused me at the time; I wouldn't have suggested that phrasing in a plan.
e:


Oh. Right, uh... a thought. On how to get Hana to... well, it won't endear Mari to her, but it could get her to think of Mari as more pitiable than scum beneath her shoe, and that's an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

I was thinking about what I'd have Hazou do over the next 24 hours or so, and an hour or two of thinking on what Mari said is one of the things. But... it occured to me that Hazou... he really doesn't have the background to put together what Mari's uncle did to her. Hana, on the other hand... probably would.
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And now the question becomes: is it morally justifiable under the circumstances to talk to our mother about our stepmother's history of sexual abuse?

For that matter, does Hana know already?
 
I don't believe it's appropriate to leak such secrets to a foreign diplomat, especially weakness of the hokage's wife.
 
faflec said:
And now the question becomes: is it morally justifiable under the circumstances to talk to our mother about our stepmother's history of sexual abuse?

For that matter, does Hana know already?
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No, that doesn't become the question, because under my assumptions, Hazou doesn't know that it's a history of sexual abuse; if he did know, I wouldn't suggest asking Hana.

That said... Shrug. If things turn out well, anything's justifiable.
Kiba said:
I don't believe it's appropriate to leak such secrets to a foreign diplomat, especially weakness of the hokage's wife.
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This is a crisis management scenario, Kiba. I'm not confident that she's not going to try to kill herself in the coming days. Anything that's not a state secret will be put on the altar, here.
 
Cariyaga said:
This is a crisis management scenario, Kiba. I'm not confident that she's not going to try to kill herself in the coming days. Anything that's not a state secret will be put on the altar, here.
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Crisis or not, I genuinely don't think you should do this without first talking to Jiraiya.

Because personal weakness loudly speaks state secrets to me.
 
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Wait, I've got it.

We summon Pankurashun to deal with this problem like he did when Keiko had problems with Akane.
 
[ ] Action Plan: Uptown Funk

Ask Mari-sensei to accompany us around town. The twist: she has to stay silent. She can't corrupt us without talking to us, after all—body language isn't that effective. If she makes a sound, she has to compensate us for her selfish, selfish ways by cooking dinner.

It'll be good social practice for us to cover for her silence. So really, if she doesn't go? She's being a bad, self-centered sensei.

She'll oversee day-to-day tasks like:
  • Finding the biggest, juiciest sausage the Leaf has to offer
  • Acquiring a nice big pair of knockers for the front entrance; the old ones tend to moan when you grab them, and not in a pleasant way
  • Going to the bookshop whose owner is so enamored of Keiko
  • And of course, training with Rock Lee
Goals: get Sensei back into doing activities that aren't moping. Make her feel a little better. Hopefully she'll realize it's possible for her to have not-manipulative, pleasant, productive times with the kids.
 
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Langevin said:
More innuendo
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Pls no.

I like the general direction of it though. As a general subversion of a subversion-of-my-expectations, I think we may have to actually use heartfelt love and true friendship to put Mari on the path to her redemption, should she be willing.

(Whatever that means, I guess.)
 
MMKII said:
Pls no.

I like the general direction of it though. As a general subversion of a subversion-of-my-expectations, I think we may have to actually use heartfelt love and true friendship to put Mari on the path to her redemption, should she be willing.

(Whatever that means, I guess.)
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Wouldn't it be better to redeem her through the power of lies and trickery?
 
faflec said:
Wouldn't it be better to redeem her through the power of lies and trickery?
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"Tell me, Hazou. Did it even occur to you that there was something incongruous about setting out to redeem someone through lies and trickery?"

"I did it without telling any direct lies, and since we're talking about Mari here, I think the word you're looking for is congruous." The boy looked rather smug.

The Hokage shook his head in despair. "And this is the clan heir. We're all doomed."
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Cheering Mari up is nice and all but kind of misses the point. She currently believes that her manipulation of others for her own gain can't be changed (while she obviously did change) and that spending time with us is only going to make it worse.

It's probably better to go: "Yeah, you are kind of a scew up. But you aren't that terrible anymore, so good job and let's try to improve"

There is a bit of an grey area between, a terrible human being like the old Mari back in Mist and a (too) good human being like Akane.

We should also try to talk about her uncle more, with her not Hana, Hazou/Keiko/Noburi probably would see this whole thing different if they understood the whole abuse better. The three were probably the first people she had a genuine emotional connection after her killing her uncle. Hazou should really try to consider what kind of extrem circumstance would push a person to kill your own parental figure.
 
@ContextBot I agree dealing with the root issues is important, and needs to happen eventually. But right now Mari's stuck in a rut where doing anything feels bad/wrong—including spending time around the kids, which makes it really hard to pull her out of. It's very hard to tackle the (aversive, complex) underlying issues when you don't have any emotional energy and are busy hating yourself all day.
 
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I just realized we need to "fix" Mari before the end of the month or she will be incredibly easy to take advantage of by the other clans once she only has Kagome to watch over her for the week it takes to conclude the tournament (travel included).

Good job, Momma. Couldn't have thought of a more cunning way to destabilize Leaf than targeting the Hokage's fragile clan and letting Leaf politicals do the rest. A true Kurosawa.

E: Does anyone think that line of reasoning is actually worth bringing up to Hana? Surely she understands weakening Leaf is really bad for Hazou's future life span?
 
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Tua said:
E: Does anyone think that line of reasoning is actually worth bringing up to Hana? Surely she understands weakening Leaf is really bad for Hazou's future life span?
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I think Hana understands, but didn't account for it when she did her thing. FMPOV Hana thinks Mari really is a sociopathic bitch, and their conversation would keep Mari from fucking Hazou over in the future. Mari might be shaken but wouldn't...well, do this.

Either that, or she's a petty bitch who cares more about hurting those that hurt her/Hazou than actually ensuring their well-being. But that doesn't jive with her characterization thus far.

Edit: It's also possible that Hana, upon hearing the news, would believe that Mari is faking it to get the family on her side and against Hana's. Which would lead to round 2.
 
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faflec said:
I think Hana understands, but didn't account for it when she did her thing. FMPOV Hana thinks Mari really is a sociopathic bitch, and their conversation would keep Mari from fucking Hazou over in the future. Mari might be shaken but wouldn't...well, do this.

Either that, or she's a petty bitch who cares more about hurting those that hurt her/Hazou than actually ensuring their well-being. But that doesn't jive with her characterization thus far.
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Yeah, that was my read on Hana as well so it sounds like this might be an avenue of arguing with Hana to help us fix Mari. Combine with some emotional arguments and this might actually work to conince her to help us?
 
faflec said:
See my edit.
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Fake crying for a week (?). That seems rather unlikely, IMO. Either way, we could prepare some contingency arguments like "Jiraiya can back us up" and he would have little reason to lie considering what's at stake. Of course, then one could argue that Hana will say Jiraiya is on it and lying anyway but she could say that about nearly anything so that isn't as likely.

In any case, the pragmatic argument would be only one track of the argument anyway. If this one doesn't fail, we switch to an emotional appeal. Maybe someone has some ideas for that part?
 
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