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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Dissonance said:
They'd certainly be guaranteed membership into the Evil League of Evil if they did that. :V
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Aren't they cofounders?
e:
Cariyaga said:
As I said, the shounen stuff. It's appealing on grounds unrelated to the effectiveness of the plan to (attempt to) make a grand sweeping gesture of defiance. I admit it even sways me to vote for it to some extent.
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To be clear, this is a meta-level concern. It is not in our interests to encourage planmakers to use language that encourages voting for the plan rather than effectiveness of the plan.
 
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Cariyaga said:
When I call it a meme vote I'm referring to appealing to memes to get votes, not to how well-reasoned the positions of some who vote for it is. Something can be a meme vote and still be a good choice.

I object to meme votes on grounds that they get more votes than non-meme vote competing plans simply because of memetic elements of it, such as, in this case, the shounen stuff.
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Thats just advertising though. :p


Anderkent said:
OK but none of the votes for Action Plan: The Power of Love to Go Even Further Beyond in the tally actually link to an action plan? So it's not like it's reordered?
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If the planmaker unvotes it defaults to the first vote in the ordering.

Me, in this case.

Insert evil laughter.

( Although if you dont trust me, you could vote for @Roomba's plan )
 
Cariyaga said:
As I said, the shounen stuff. It's appealing on grounds unrelated to the effectiveness of the plan to (attempt to) make a grand sweeping gesture of defiance. I admit it even sways me to vote for it to some extent.
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The emotive language is used to motivate Hazou to be able to succeed, not to motivate players to vote.

*pinches bridge of nose*

Right. Unintended memeticness aside, if people are going to continue voting for this then I want to edit the Kei section to be less [wrongbad] to Kei's sensibilities.

Any suggestions?
 
MadScientist said:
The emotive language is used to motivate Hazou to be able to succeed, not to motivate players to vote.

*pinches bridge of nose*

Right. Unintended memeticness aside, if people are going to continue voting for this then I want to edit the Kei section to be less [wrongbad] to Kei's sensibilities.

Any suggestions?
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I don't... really think it's all that wrongbad to her sensibilities. I think it might be surprising, but I mean. Kids are experimenting with mind-altering techniques, what do they expect?

That said... just changing the wording to follow from what Hazou tells Keiko. Project himself -- warmth, comfort, compassion, etc.
 
MadScientist said:
The emotive language is used to motivate Hazou to be able to succeed, not to motivate players to vote.

*pinches bridge of nose*

Right. Unintended memeticness aside, if people are going to continue voting for this then I want to edit the Kei section to be less [wrongbad] to Kei's sensibilities.

Any suggestions?
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Make it less 'I will make Keiko feel good' and more 'I will find strength in what I value, despite fear'.

For comparison mostly, since I don't expect there to be 9 votes in <24h.

Wordcount: 181 (TBC)

[X] Action Plan: Ki Practice, unshounened
  • Practicing KI with Kei:
    • Inform her we will try projecting our feelings.
    • Do not attempt to dominate or overpower
    • Reach for the convictions we treasure. Not a will to destroy, but to improve. Not to dominate, but to support.
    • The world is terrifying. Keiko is terrifying. Yet it can be improved, and if it can, then it must.
    • The fear is an irrelevant distraction, and we know how to set it aside.
  • Grab an hour-ish of Jiraiya's time, alone, if possible.
    • Mindset: Mentally prepare for the most brutal thing you have ever experienced.
    • Ask him about Killing Intent.
      • What's the deal there?
    • Help us practice resisting it, please?
      • It's a critical vulnerability if some Jonin can incapacitate and kill us.
    • Ask Jiraiya to floor you with a bit of his KI as he is the scariest/strongest around.
      • Please don't accidentally kill us or break our minds though.
    • Test the same feelings we tried with Keiko
    • Repeat a few times.
      • Ask Jirayia to vary the intensity to find out how much KI you can stand.
    • Ask Jiraiya for intel on our competitors.
 
MMKII said:
Im not at liberty to elaborate, but one of the many Faustian bargains compelling me on this point is that I swore to rectify Hazou's relationship related idiocy.

I believe this is in the cards here.


@MadScientist !!!

Replace the Keiko section with a consultation of Jiraiya for dating advice. Ask Keiko if she would like to help us create a survey we can hand to potential suitors to give us actionable feedback after dates (or other mild quasi-personal social interactions such as getting a cup of hot chocolate or an instance of two individuals hdbwhcbjbfbebfkctn).

The shipping train starts now! Do you know how many safe-to-date kunoichi are going to be in Mist?! The entire Sand team is female! Kiri is going to be there! (Think of the bloodline based puns we can try). Our first round Hotsprings competitor is also female. Lets get to the romancing after we defeat her with our weaponized rogueish good looks and boyish charm!

Dont forget: we're trying to be nice to all the international ninja here. Build good relations right? Heres something actionable, decently reasonable AND memey we can do to do that. This is a rare opportunity!

The potentiality is here. So much chaos to be had! All in the name of SOCIALS and INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY!
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I'm sure sleeping around is a type of diplomacy Jiraiya would approve of, but I'm not sure anyone else would. XD
Jello_Raptor said:
@MadScientist: I am strongly against you changing the fundamentals of your plan.

Since you seem to be thinking of a major change, please just make a new plan.

I think it's important that plans don't change in big ways after people have voted for them.

You could also argue that this isn't a big change.
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Agreed. And in any case, I think you've overestimated the number of voters who were dissatistified with the idea of testing expressing non-KI emotions of love and reassurance with Keiko.
Adhoc vote count started by TaliesinSkye on Nov 20, 2018 at 12:32 PM, finished with 560 posts and 19 votes.
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MadScientist said:
Right. Unintended memeticness aside, if people are going to continue voting for this then I want to edit the Kei section to be less [wrongbad] to Kei's sensibilities.

Any suggestions?
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Depends, how do we want to play this?

Cariyaga said:
Aren't they cofounders?
e:

To be clear, this is a meta-level concern. It is not in our interests to encourage planmakers to use language that encourages voting for the plan rather than effectiveness of the plan.
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Playing Devil's Advocate

On a meta-level, I trust everyone here to know exactly what theyre doing by now if they choose to put that 'X' in the box. Most everyone, I suppose.

If that is because they want Ami shipping, for example, then let there be Ami shipping.

If that is because they want Shounen clash of wills, then let it be so.

Let them eat cake.

(Not really though.)

THAT BEING SAID there are more viable paths to traverse to obtain these goals.

I would caution everyone here to not vote for things based on how good they sound, as far as advancing your goals go. Vote for them on how effective they are at doing that (but dont quibble over an estimated 2-3% difference or something, thats just going to drive us all crazy).

So you want to buy a youthsuit?

You shouldnt just write that in a plan.

Go construct something equally ridiculous, under the guise of Sealtech weaponry. Give it a nice name that approximates YOUTHSUIT-ery, even. BUT YOU make it an effective and advantageous option to have! In the context, this becomes a good option! You have all but nominally accomplished your goal.

Theres your youthsuit.
 
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MMKII said:
Depends, how do we want to play this?



Playing Devil's Advocate

On a meta-level, I trust everyone here to know exactly what theyre doing by now if they choose to put that 'X' in the box. Most everyone, I suppose.

If that is because they want Ami shipping, for example, then let there be Ami shipping.

If that is because they want Shounen clash of wills, then let it be so.

Let them eat cake.

(Not really though.)

THAT BEING SAID there are more viable paths to traverse to obtain these goals.

I would caution everyone here to not vote for things based on how good they sound, as far as advancing your goals go. Vote for them on how effective they are at doing that (but dont quibble over an estimated 2-3% difference or something, thats just going to drive us all crazy).

So you want to buy a youthsuit?

You shouldnt just write that in a plan.

Go construct something equally ridiculous, under the guise of Sealtech weaponry. Give it a nice name that approximates YOUTHSUIT-ery, even. BUT YOU make it an effective and advantageous option to have! In the context, this becomes a good option! You have all but nominally accomplished your goal.

Theres your youthsuit.
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If we're having this discussion, I suppose I must bring up that not everyone who votes participates actively in discussions or is aware of the history behind memevotes, or the seriousness with which QMs treat votes.
 
MMKII said:
Depends, how do we want to play this?



Playing Devil's Advocate

On a meta-level, I trust everyone here to know exactly what theyre doing by now if they choose to put that 'X' in the box. Most everyone, I suppose.

If that is because they want Ami shipping, for example, then let there be Ami shipping.

If that is because they want Shounen clash of wills, then let it be so.

Let them eat cake.

(Not really though.)

THAT BEING SAID there are more viable paths to traverse to obtain these goals.

I would caution everyone here to not vote for things based on how good they sound, as far as advancing your goals go. Vote for them on how effective they are at doing that (but dont quibble over an estimated 2-3% difference or something, thats just going to drive us all crazy).

So you want to buy a youthsuit?

You shouldnt just write that in a plan.

Go construct something equally ridiculous, under the guise of Sealtech weaponry. Give it a nice name that approximates YOUTHSUIT-ery, even. BUT YOU make it an effective and advantageous option to have! In the context, this becomes a good option! You have all but nominally accomplished your goal.

Theres your youthsuit.
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Do you actually think there's a better way to get to the Ami date compared to what I'm doing? We need Keiko's permission, or there be dragons in our future. Hazou's motivation needs to be consistent with his IC knowledge and characterization. And it needs to be something that Keiko can accept as reasonable, even if she doesn't think it will actually work.

There isn't really much room to manoeuvre on this narrow bridge to the Ami promised land.
 
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Roomba said:
Do you actually think there's a better way to get to the Ami date compared to what I'm doing? We need Keiko's permission, or there be dragons in our future. Hazou's motivation needs to be consistent with his IC knowledge and characterization. And it needs to be something that Keiko can accept as reasonable, even if she doesn't think it will actually work.

There isn't really much room to manoeuvre on this narrow bridge to the Ami promised land.
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You could always combine it with the Jounin Presence training. Ask her about it at the start, transition into attempting Hazou's own variant as he explains what he's meaning.
 
Cariyaga said:
If we're having this discussion, I suppose I must bring up that not everyone who votes participates actively in discussions or is aware of the history behind memevotes, or the seriousness with which QMs treat votes.
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See, you're doing this thing, where you use that word "memevote" like you just did in this post to chiefly mean "Bad , YOUTHSUITGATE tier stuff." Which are, at their core, low effort shitposts for gags. Yet, simultaneously are saying that its okay to call stuff that based on one or two elements that serve mostly as flavour, and not substance.

Implicit in the dialogue here, whenever that phrase is used, its to refer to low effort shitposts and to inject some sort of admonishment to any who support them. Thats how its been used on the playerside and the QMside for the most part. And thats fine, where it applies.

What I think is silly, is broadening the category of things to which that word applies artificially, and expecting all that context not to follow with the word.

Thats not really good rhetoric, ya know?

E: And this is of course not a personal attack or anything, but more a statement about that sort of thing in general
 
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Roomba said:
Word count: 384.

[X] Action Plan: One small step
  • Hazou asks Keiko's permission to talk to Ami
    • He won't do anything without her permission. It's under her complete control.
    • He would, however, like to hear what Ami has to say on the topic of her treatment of Keiko.
    • If there's any hope of reconciliation between them, he'd like to try. He knows how much Ami means to Keiko.
    • He also hopes that Keiko might find it in herself to forgive Mari someday, if he succeeds.
  • Grab an hour-ish of Jiraiya's time, alone, if possible.
    • Mindset: Mentally prepare for the most brutal thing you have ever experienced.
    • Ask him about Killing Intent.
      • What's the deal there?
    • Help us practice resisting it, please?
    • Ask Jiraiya to floor you with a bit of his KI as he is the scariest/strongest around.
    • Now. Get. Up.
      • You are Hazou Gouketsu, son of Hana and Shinji.
      • Just one man.
      • Jiraiya is also just one man.
      • If you can't stand against Jiraiya's will, how will you stand against the world itself?
      • The world is a ravenous, unfeeling machine, slowly devouring humanity. We are all its victims - civilians and ninjas, innocents and killers, the weak and the powerful. We all deserve more.
      • You must defeat it. And you can.
      • You took a mundane defensive seal, and let people walk on air with it. In your hands, a pile of wood and a storage scroll turn into a blazing inferno of death.
      • You will bring down every wall, shatter every chain, undo every barrier the world places in your path. You will find a way, as you always have.
      • You must win. And you will.
      • Stand. Raise your head high. Look Jiraiya in the eye.
    • Repeat a few times.
      • Try to at least raise your head and look Jiraiya in the eye without hurting yourself.
    • Ask Jiraiya for intel on our competitors.
  • Bond with Keiko and Noburi:
    • It is readily apparent that Hazou has less skill with relationships than a fish.
    • To rectify this, we would like to create a post-interaction survey to have individuals fill out, to get feedback on the quality of social interaction.
    • Hazou makes the above suggestion in his most serious tone, and attempts to argue in favor of it seriously.
    • He pushes his Deceit to the limit to push this joke as far as he can.
@Oneiros @Noumero @QTesseract it begins. Am I forgetting anyone else who wanted in?
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There's two things about this plan I don't like. It practices with Jiraiya instead of Keiko when working our way up the difficulty scale is likely a better idea and won't result in taking up so much of Jiraiya's precious time. (Time we might not even get, meaning the plan doesn't go off at all.) It also doesn't attempt the 'let's see if we can project love and reassurance at Keiko instead of killing intent' experiment, which will be fun to read and could open up interesting new strategies.
 
MMKII said:
See, you're doing this thing, where you use that word "memevote" like you just did in this post to chiefly mean "Bad , YOUTHSUITGATE tier stuff." Which are, at their core, low effort shitposts for gags. Yet, simultaneously are saying that its okay to call stuff that based on one or two elements that serve mostly as flavour, and not substance.

Implicit in the dialogue here, whenever that phrase is used, its to refer to low effort shitposts and to inject some sort of admonishment to any who support them. Thats how its been used on the playerside and the QMside for the most part. And thats fine, where it applies.

What I think is silly, is broadening the category of things to which that word applies artificially, and expecting all that context not to follow with the word.

Thats not really good rhetoric, ya know?
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Not to gang up on you, but isn't 'elements that are flavour and not substance' exactly what the meme examples you provide are? YOUTHSUIT stuff was pure flavour.

Granted, your plan isn't *purely* flavour. But it has flavour elements that distract from the substance, and are possibly getting it more votes than it would otherwise get. Similarly how the purely-memetic plans would not get any votes, except for getting people excited with flavour.

I think calling your plan a meme vote is a stretch, but it's not completely out of nowhere.
 
Roomba said:
Do you actually think there's a better way to get to the Ami date compared to what I'm doing? We need Keiko's permission, or there be dragons in our future. Hazou's motivation needs to be consistent with his IC knowledge and characterization. And it needs to be something that Keiko can accept as reasonable, even if she doesn't think it will actually work.

There isn't really much room to manoeuvre on this narrow bridge to the Ami promised land.
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I'm just using that as an example.

Anderkent said:
Could have @MMKII copy it to their vote, since it's now first in the line
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Im not evil enough to try to thwart the foundations of trust and democracy on which our bonds rely on.

Like, especially not for something this silly and unimportant.

@MadScientist would you consider just adjusting your plan as necessary? I trust you to have good judgement and to follow the spirit of your plan (roughly) and not edit crazy stuff in, but also to turn away from danger if it turns out that something voted by a handful of people yesterday, is no longer a good idea.
 
Anderkent said:
Not to gang up on you, but isn't 'elements that are flavour and not substance' exactly what the meme examples you provide are? YOUTHSUIT stuff was pure flavour.

Granted, your plan isn't *purely* flavour. But it has flavour elements that distract from the substance, and are possibly getting it more votes than it would otherwise get. Similarly how the purely-memetic plans would not get any votes, except for getting people excited with flavour.

I think calling your plan a meme vote is a stretch, but it's not completely out of nowhere.
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Yeah, I'll happily accept a stamp with bold, lime-green text saying

"40% MEME CONTENT"

On this particular one.

But I think it does do some stuff that at least gets us solid information on the killing intent thing, gives us more exposure to what that sort of thing feels like wrt the Jiraiya section (perhaps desensitizing us to lesser attempts, or at least giving us an idea of what to expect), and it does so in a way that I find mildly plausible and palatable as far as character development goes.

Whether it does that in a way you like or agree with is another matter entirely.
 
Roomba said:
@Oneiros @Noumero @QTesseract it begins. Am I forgetting anyone else who wanted in?
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Excellent, but... I'm doubtful that is the right track. Keiko values her privacy; as @Cariyaga said, she is likely to disagree in principle. I have an alternative approach in mind:

Ami is a powerful ninja, likely on track to S-rank. As such, having information on her goals is paramount, and having her as an ally would be valuable. Since Leaf and Mist are forming a close alliance, it's possible that this could happen. We should ask Keiko whether she thinks Ami could be convinced to support our Uplift goals, with a hopeful suggestion that this may give them grounds for reconciling, someday.

I don't think we should frame it as trying to fix their relationship directly (Hazou may have this as an ulterior goal though, sure), and we obviously should make it clear that we're not asking Keiko to betray Ami's secrets to us. But I think it's more likely to work this way.

(Also, @Cariyaga, wouldn't you like to see a philosophical conversation with one of the most skilled Frozen Skein users in history? I recall you liked those.)
Keiko did feel guilty about intruding into Hazou's life back then, though. If we could have him unknowingly remind her of that, it could help...
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This is easy: just include an offhand acknowledgement/apology that Hazou is intruding in Keiko's life. She'll make the connection on her own, it's pretty obvious.

(By the by, I approve of your treatment of Hazou as a puppet in our hands whose ignorance of our true intentions is but another tool of manipulation at our disposal. Very correct.)

Edit:
[X] Action Plan: One small step
 
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Alright, proposed edit to the Kei section:

"Hazou projects his own soul to answer Kei's and de-escalate the psychic interaction. The feeling he conveys is that yes Kei scares him, but that doesn't matter. He will love and support her to whatever degree she feels comfortable with, and whether or not she's scary doesn't enter into the equation."

What do people think?
 
MadScientist said:
Alright, proposed edit to the Kei section:

"Hazou projects his own soul to answer Kei's and de-escalate the psychic interaction. The feeling he conveys is that yes Kei scares him, but that doesn't matter. He will love and support her to whatever degree she feels comfortable with, and whether or not she's scary doesn't enter into the equation."

What do people think?
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Sounds good to me.
 
MadScientist said:
Alright, proposed edit to the Kei section:

"Hazou projects his own soul to answer Kei's and de-escalate the psychic interaction. The feeling he conveys is that yes Kei scares him, but that doesn't matter. He will love and support her to whatever degree she feels comfortable with, and whether or not she's scary doesn't enter into the equation."

What do people think?
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MadScientist said:
Cool. Anyone objecting?
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Well, the following comes to mind:

Methods!Hermione said:
"Boys," said Hermione Granger, "should not be allowed to love girls without asking them first! "
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I understand that we want to show our love and support to Keiko because she is a massive friggin' edgelord.

But have we considered that maybe thats a bit much for her to handle?

Hazou's heart can go pretty damn far.
 
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