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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Tua said:
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 pregmatic 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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Keeping up appearances, I mean. Giving the appearance of crying when forced to interact with others and staying socially isolated otherwise.
 
FWIW, Jiraiya also knows/suspects that Mari killed her abusive uncle; Ren alluded to the killing during the chunin exams, and he already suspected she'd been abused. So asking him about it could help Hazou understand what happened.

As for Hana, what kind of thing are we hoping she'll help with? The way I see it, she's not gonna talk to Mari, she probably can't improve on whatever Jiraiya would do, so at best she'll have advice for the kids? And I'm not sure that's worth the emotional minefield of bringing this up with her, though I could be convinced.
 
Langevin said:
As for Hana, what kind of thing are we hoping she'll help with? The way I see it, she's not gonna talk to Mari, she probably can't improve on whatever Jiraiya would do, so at best she'll have advice for the kids? And I'm not sure that's worth the emotional minefield of bringing this up with her, though I could be convinced.
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I'm more in the boat of "tell Hana how she fucked up so that when we un-fuck Mari Hana won't re-fuck her".

Edit: Also, I'm feeling a bit petty and want Hana to clean up her own mess.
 
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faflec said:
I'm more in the boat of "tell Hana how she fucked up so that when we un-fuck Mari Hana won't re-fuck her".

Edit: Also, I'm feeling a bit petty and want Hana to clean up her own mess.
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I think this confrontation should happen when Hazou has more faith in Mari-sensei. As it is, I'm worried that Hana will shake his confidence far more than he'll shake hers.
 
If J were willing to let anything leak he would have just thrown his most trusted Yamanaka at it. We should be very, very wary of involving anybody without clearing it with him.

The only two potential exceptions I can think of are Pandaa and Sunny, with Sunny as a last resort and only in an emergency.

So, throw Pandaa at the problem.
 
Velorien said:
6 feet and no, respectively.
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If a ninja 7 feet away from the seal shoots a lightning bolt at another ninja 7 feet away from a seal on a path which traverses the 6 foot radius (i.e. represents a chord of the circle), would that activate the seal?

Edit:
If Kei vacuum steps along that same path, does it detect her?

A vertical wall is erected 8 feet from the seal. Hazou, while chatting up Ami, is adhered horizontally to the wall such that his feet are outside the 6 foot radius but his torso is within it. Does the seal activate?
 
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I want to involve Hana, but mainly because I think she's the only one who can help Mari without taking a very long time.
Velorien said:
There was only one conviction that her unstable self could accept with certainty. When she thought of what it meant to be a parent, all she could remember was the man who'd acted as her father, a smiling abuser she'd executed with her own hands, and her mother, who'd chosen to sever their bond of trust rather than disrupt her comfortable life in order to protect her daughter. So if a woman who had spent every day of twelve years showering her son with love and fighting for his sake—a woman who'd raised someone as impossibly pure as Hazō in the hellhole that was Hidden Mist—told her that she was unfit to be a parent, then Mari was unfit to be a parent. She'd always known, in her heart of hearts, but thought that if she pretended hard enough, maybe it would come true.
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This quote basically says to me that Mari looks up to Hana so much that if Hana thinks Mari is an irredeemable monster, Mari must be an irredeemable monster. Full stop, no room for disagreement because Hana.

In the time since then, Keiko talked with Hana and convinced her that simply breaking Mari until she goes away is not the right way forwards. If we can get Hana to talk to Mari and add something positive like that Mari might one day possibly become a good person, even if it takes years and years of Hana's watchful eye correcting her every step of the way, I think that would help Mari escape her spiral of self-hate.

If Mari's opinion of Hana was strong enough that Hana could plunge her into this state, Mari's opinion of Hana should be strong enough that Hana can pull her out.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
I want to involve Hana, but mainly because I think she's the only one who can help Mari without taking a very long time.

This quote basically says to me that Mari looks up to Hana so much that if Hana thinks Mari is an irredeemable monster, Mari must be an irredeemable monster. Full stop, no room for disagreement because Hana.

In the time since then, Keiko talked with Hana and convinced her that simply breaking Mari until she goes away is not the right way forwards. If we can get Hana to talk to Mari and add something positive like that Mari might one day possibly become a good person, even if it takes years and years of Hana's watchful eye correcting her every step of the way, I think that would help Mari escape her spiral of self-hate.

If Mari's opinion of Hana was strong enough that Hana could plunge her into this state, Mari's opinion of Hana should be strong enough that Hana can pull her out.
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I repeated that this is against J's express orders to keep people away from her until he gets back and could easily qualify as outright treason...
 
Maybe we can use the medium of lies and trickery to redeem Mari with the power of True Love afterall?
 
Lailoken said:
I repeated that this is against J's express orders to keep people away from her until he gets back and could easily qualify as outright treason...
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We can still lay the groundwork for this. Hazou is probably gonna talk to his mother whether we like it or not so might as well influence his topics.

Something like this:

Next update:
- Hazou talks to Keiko and Noburi about what Mari said in detail, especially the part about his uncle.
- Hazou talks to Hana, asks why she did what she did and that Mari didn't take it well; mostly just listen here and then build arguments for next plan.
(- Other, non-Mari related stuff happens.)

Update after that:
- Hazou asks Jiraiya whether he can bring Hana to try and fix this, having planned out what to say to Hana with Keiko, Noburi and whatever the hivemind came up with from the previous update; if Jiraiya says yes, go through with it. If he says no, tell him what we figured out and let him handle it from there.
(- Other, non-Mari related stuff happens.)
 
Velorien said:
I think any exchange which goes "Do this thing." "No." "That wasn't a request" is a threat and/or blackmail about to happen.
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Vecht said:
Common definitions of blackmail include coercion via emotional manipulation, non-physical extortion, or use of threats.

The given example ("Do you think things will turn out well if Keiko tells Jiraiya of your role in this?") certainly qualifies.
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I moderately strongly disagree with extending "blackmail" to cover all these cases. I mean, clearly "Get off the sealing grounds" / *Mum look* / "Do you want to die?" should not be blackmail, it should be fair warning. And "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to fuck over my team" is emotional coercion, but I think it's super weird to call that blackmail. Fundamentally this is a Mist nin that wounded a Leaf nin while in Leaf, who is still in Leaf, and if any reminder at all that that might have been dangerous, misguided, or frankly simply deeply idiotic counts as blackmail and is going to turn out terribly for us, I honestly don't understand why.
 
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Veedrac said:
And "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to fuck over my team" is emotional coercion, but I think it's super weird to call that blackmail.
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I don't know if you are arguing just to clear things up or because you want to put it in the plan, but if it is the latter then the distinction is probably not going to matter anyway. I can't see Hazou actually saying this to his mother even if it is in the winning plan due to his strong attachment to his mother.
 
Tua said:
I don't know if you are arguing just to clear things up or because you want to put it in the plan, but if it is the latter then the distinction is probably not going to matter anyway. I can't see Hazou actually saying this to his mother even if it is in the winning plan due to his strong attachment to his mother.
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The former.
 
Veedrac said:
I moderately strongly disagree with extending "blackmail" to cover all these cases. I mean, clearly "Get off the sealing grounds" / *Mum look* / "Do you want to die?" should not be blackmail, it should be fair warning. And "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to fuck over my team" is emotional coercion, but I think it's super weird to call that blackmail. Fundamentally this is a Mist nin that wounded a Leaf nin while in Leaf, who is still in Leaf, and if any reminder at all that that might have been dangerous, misguided, or frankly simply deeply idiotic counts as blackmail and is going to turn out terribly for us, I honestly don't understand why.
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"Get off the sealing grounds unless you want to die" isn't blackmail because the threat is out of your control.
"Fix Mari-sensei or I'll tell Jiraiya that you're responsible for her being like this" is blackmail because the threat is in Hazou's control. Even "Fix Mari-sensei or I won't stop Keiko from telling Jiraiya" is still a threat within Hazou's control.

The crux of the matter here is that Hazou is not warning Hana of the consequences of her actions, he's holding a threat over her head, which at least to me rings my 'this is blackmail' categorizer. It's possible you still don't think that it's blackmail-blackmail, but at that point the labels just become semantics because we know what's going on underneath the hood.

I personally think Hazou holding a threat over Hana's head will not go well, both because Hana's really good at hostile diplomacy and because it would heavily strain their relationship that's already been strained all the time they've been apart.
 
Veedrac said:
and if any reminder at all that that might have been dangerous, misguided, or frankly simply deeply idiotic counts as blackmail and is going to turn out terribly for us, I honestly don't understand why.
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Well, you are explicitly using said thing as leverage to gain a specific desired outcome, no?

The intent of that line of conversation is not "Hey, FYI here is a problem. Reminder: This might be an issue."

What your saying boils down to "Hey this is a problem (and so you should help Fix Mari)." if I'm reading what you're saying correctly.

I don't really know if I would call that blackmail explicitly but that label is probably in the ballpark, in the given situation.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
"Get off the sealing grounds unless you want to die" isn't blackmail because the threat is out of your control.
"Fix Mari-sensei or I'll tell Jiraiya that you're responsible for her being like this" is blackmail because the threat is in Hazou's control. Even "Fix Mari-sensei or I won't stop Keiko from telling Jiraiya" is still a threat within Hazou's control.
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I was imagining it more as "I can't stop Keiko doing whatever she thinks to do, because this is an issue that she cares about deeply." The idea that Hazō could reliably restrain her seems like a polite fiction.
MMKII said:
Well, you are explicitly using said thing as leverage to gain a specific desired outcome, no?
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Ditto for this rephrasing TBH.
 
Veedrac said:
I was imagining it more as "I can't stop Keiko doing whatever she thinks to do, because this is an issue that she cares about deeply." The idea that Hazō could reliably restrain her seems like a polite fiction.

Ditto for this rephrasing TBH.
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Although to clarify: not saying that it's impossible to frame it in a way that doesn't come off as blackmail, but you do have to be a bit careful there if one goes this route.
 
Hazou should point out to Hana that she obviously doesn't care about him if her intent is so clearly to destabilize Leaf-Mist relations by striking at the Hokage's family. It only makes sense that that's her intention because she is so competent and cunning and so good at social stuff and definitely wouldn't have accidentally destroyed Mari during the days prior to their leaving for the tournament otherwise.
 
Vecht said:
I literally died inside when I realized how incredibly, hilariously often words randomly lose their meaning over time.
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I don't object to meaning drift (but "literally" is not that! it's stock hyperbole! really!), I just don't think "blackmail" is carrying accurate connotations for this situation. This may just be a regional difference.
 
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