Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Reader mode
MMKII said:
EXCUSE ME WHAT?

The ramen guy!?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's also the Water/Mist Oyabun's name:

Velorien said:
The Oyabun gave a smile, revealing unusually white teeth. "My name is Asahi Teuchi. As you are, of course, aware, I serve as the present leader of the Kuronuma Group. I assure you that the pleasure is all mine. I would not have expected to meet the illustrious heirs of the Hokage face to face even if I were to live for a hundred years."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Anyway,

eaglejarl said:
Hey, I'm not saying it's true, just that it's what they claim.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Same here, "In God We Trust".

:V

Apologies to all Patriotic or Religious members of this board.
 
ContextBot said:
It's also the Water/Mist Oyabun's name:

Anyway,
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh that makes so much more sense.

Okay, so this means that she knows about the Yakuza connection.

Damn, this was info dense. She implied the Mori knew something about roughly when the world started going to shit, too.
 
I wonder what Keiko's reaction to Ami's psychological situation would be, if we told her in great detail about our encounter? Would she agree that Ami's weird gestalt of many different minds and ways of looking at things is just fine and her goals and priorities are healthy, or would she want to help her reconnect to humanity and lose the cynicism? Because I don't think anyone else has a shot, and doing it might just help Keiko with her problems by granting her an outside perspective.
 
I wish alert system told me of this update sooner. Or at all.
Because... this update met all the hype.

Hell, I'd say the XP for meeting QMs dream is actually well-deserved in-story. You don't just go through a meeting with her unchanged.

What the hell did it change, actually?
A set of cutting insights into Uplift (it needs to be more complex, more different and peace-oriented, not power/wealth-oriented).
How to survive being hit with the sledgehammer of social performance, especially when the other person merely booped your nose with their squishy bits.
How to keep up when you are dancing on a stage of a greater being, palace of their mind leaking into reality, you a mere courtier to their royal performance?

Keiko? HAHAHA. No. No no no. Keiko is no problem. We tell her we met her sister. We tell her there is nothing we told each other about Kei.
It just wasn't about Kei. Ami's a player. A big big massive player, leaning over the board, casting a shadow over the world.
It's good to know what's the manicure of the hand moving the pawns around you. Moving your own self.

And I don't think Hazo is ready for any deeper-serious relationship with her?
Not even ally/game-partner (and yes, don't actually think of it as a game).
At least not a serious game-partner. Just a beloved pawn. For now, only now.
He'll grow. Our schemes will develop. His XP, our expertise- those will grow too. Numbers and quality, improving.

She's... aware. Levity and awareness. This irony of treating things seemingly as a joke, yet hating people treating their lives as a mere game.
A deep seriousness that allows to treat challenges with humor, yet despising those who don't understand the weight of the life they have.
The relieving sigh of someone drinking a cold beverage after a long day of heavy labor in blazing sun. It's so very different from a person merely wasting their day away in comforts of chill-but-not-cold comforts. A fundamental difference.
Would she hate us, for who we are? Would she be merely curious-wary of our existence? We may want to add a degree of depth to his resolve, so that there are no half-measures with this. With her.

This... was a treasure trove of information, wasn't it?
The bigger problem is what the hell do we tell Jiraiya? Everything? Surely not. How about that cooperation agreement?
 
How about we *dont* threaten the kage of mist? That sounds like an incredibly bad idea, especially after meeting with the mysterious third faction. It would signal all sorts of not so fun things.
 
PurposefulZephyr said:
I wish alert system told me of this update sooner. Or at all.
Because... this update met all the hype.

Hell, I'd say the XP for meeting QMs dream is actually well-deserved in-story. You don't just go through a meeting with her unchanged.

What the hell did it change, actually?
A set of cutting insights into Uplift (it needs to be more complex, more different and peace-oriented, not power/wealth-oriented).
How to survive being hit with the sledgehammer of social performance, especially when the other person merely booped your nose with their squishy bits.
How to keep up when you are dancing on a stage of a greater being, palace of their mind leaking into reality, you a mere courtier to their royal performance?

Keiko? HAHAHA. No. No no no. Keiko is no problem. We tell her we met her sister. We tell her there is nothing we told each other about Kei.
It just wasn't about Kei. Ami's a player. A big big massive player, leaning over the board, casting a shadow over the world.
It's good to know what's the manicure of the hand moving the pawns around you. Moving your own self.

And I don't think Hazo is ready for any deeper-serious relationship with her?
Not even ally/game-partner (and yes, don't actually think of it as a game).
At least not a serious game-partner. Just a beloved pawn. For now, only now.
He'll grow. Our schemes will develop. His XP, our expertise- those will grow too. Numbers and quality, improving.

She's... aware. Levity and awareness. This irony of treating things seemingly as a joke, yet hating people treating their lives as a mere game.
A deep seriousness that allows to treat challenges with humor, yet despising those who don't understand the weight of the life they have.
The relieving sigh of someone drinking a cold beverage after a long day of heavy labor in blazing sun. It's so very different from a person merely wasting their day away in comforts of chill-but-not-cold comforts. A fundamental difference.
Would she hate us, for who we are? Would she be merely curious-wary of our existence? We may want to add a degree of depth to his resolve, so that there are no half-measures with this. With her.

This... was a treasure trove of information, wasn't it?
The bigger problem is what the hell do we tell Jiraiya? Everything? Surely not. How about that cooperation agreement?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If anyone else in the world is a gestalt mind like us, it's definitely Ami. 'Which one of those is the real you?' 'Yes.'? I mean, come on. Perhaps it was how she was born, perhaps she made herself into one, but Ami is much like Hazou.

Hell, part of me wants to take direct control of Hazou and say 'You're a gestalt mind too, aren't you?' just to see what would happen. I can't decide what's more likely, getting killed immediately as a future threat or gleefully recruited, but who knows, maybe option C.

Ami's comments about Uplift were insightful, but I don't think we've been thinking of it as a wealth and power thing. That's just how we've been trying to sell it. Maybe we need a better way of marketing it. Apparently telling people 'humanity's going to go extinct if we don't do anything' might not be enough either, if Ami's right about cynicism being too widespread among the top power players.

I do think we should seriously consider telling Keiko everything that happened so she knows what her sister's like. It might stir her to action.

I also think we should tell Jiraiya everything. Taking Ami up on a clandestine deal we'd have to hide from him is a massive trap. It's manufactured blackmail. Maybe we could take her up on it if Jiraiya knows, though. And in any case, he needs to know that she's capable of thinking many different ways simultaneously, is well informed, and her cynicism and psychology along with her remarkable capability means she's a risk for becoming a 'I'm going to take over the Elemental Nations, bwahahaha!' threat if she doesn't reverse course.
 
Twinnstars said:
How about we *dont* threaten the kage of mist? That sounds like an incredibly bad idea, especially after meeting with the mysterious third faction. It would signal all sorts of not so fun things.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We still have an enormous amount of wiggle room as far as "How shitty can we make Ren's life before she can justify resource expenditure to get back at us for it."

Or, she can give Hazou a decade and a half of missed birthday presents, with interest, and we try very hard not to inconvenience our (second) favorite aunt.
 
Damn, Ami is... actually surprisingly kind. I've played the character she's presenting before, and I estimate her intentions at "thinks we're an idiot, but respects our guts." Her motives are unknown. She is both less inhuman and less sympathetic than she pretends to be: basically, treat the contents of this conversation as "garbage: discard" save where they are verifiable facts.

The messages I got were:
1: You are not capable of enforcing basic physical or mental safety against a jounin. You have been compromised in at least three different ways in this conversation alone.

Note that she touched Hazou after he tried to avoid it, and he took it as a comfort.

Note also that she has a hook in him - a "favour" he's now "obligated" to repay. She framed the discussion and he fell for her framing without questioning it. He does not owe her dick all for doing things without his requesting it.

Of course she also totally compromised him using fear, anger and lust in turn, demonstrating that he doesn't have sufficient emotional control.

2: She did not pretend to be our friend. She made it clear that, at best, we're allies. She showed that her "friendly face" was an act. (Or, possibly, that it was genuine: it doesn't matter. The point is that she can act better than we can read her.)

This is a signal that says "if I am manipulating you, it is intended to be a long-term investment requiring your actual trust, not founded on your mistaken belief that you know me or my motives."

3: She's made it clear that us talking to more jounin is not in her interests or ours. Wether this is something more advantageous to her or us is doubtful.

4: She's given us a very factual and concrete account of how the shop came to be open for us that day. We can and should verify that. This is a very real way for us to judge her facility at manipulation.

5: She claims to be willing to invest in us, even though we're terrible at this.

6: There are very definitely signals to Jaraiya in this. Report fully and to as detailed a degree as possible.
 
Last edited:
Grand. That went well, very well. Nearly a best-case scenario. My predictions for it were far worse, it wasn't even that intense.

The seduction part was a bit concerning, since I remembered we didn't put in a hard precommitment against changes of environment/interaction, but everything else was surprisingly smooth. I read every line expecting a disaster, and was surprised when I hit the end of the chapter.

... Nevermind, I still need to re-read it to figure out if she managed to slip something past the narrative. Nice of her to confirm that our double-deception worked, though — one of its main failure modes was nobody except Sand paying attention to Ikeda, and since Ami knows about it, it didn't come to pass.
Velorien said:
"World domination," Ami said matter-of-factly. "I don't know why anyone would ever settle for less."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Aww. She is truly a kindred spirit.
 
Evenstar said:
Damn, Ami is... actually surprisingly kind. I've played the character she's presenting before, and I estimate her intentions at "thinks we're an idiot, but respects our guts." Her motives are unknown. She is both less inhuman and less sympathetic than she pretends to be: basically, treat the contents of this conversation as "garbage: discard" save where they are verifiable facts.

The messages I got were:
1: You are not capable of enforcing basic physical or mental safety against a jounin. You have been compromised in at least hree different ways in this conversation alone.

Note that she touched Hazou after he tried to avoid it, and he took it as a comfort.

Note also that she has a hook in him - a "favour" he's now "obligated" to repay. She framed the discussion and he fell for her framing without questioning it. He does not owe her dick all for doing things without his requesting it.

Of course she also totally compromised him using fear, anger and lust in turn, demonstrating that he doesn't have sufficient emotional control.

2: She did not pretend to be our friend. She made it clear that, at best, we're allies. She showed that her "friendly face" was an act. (Or, possibly, that it was genuine: it doesn't matter. The point is that she can act better than we can read her.)

This is a signal that says "if I am manipulating you, it is intended to be a long-term investment requiring your actual trust, not founded on your mistaken belief that you know me or my motives."

3: She's made it clear that us talking to more jounin is not in her interests or ours. Wether this is something more advantageous to her or us is doubtful.

4: She's given us a very factual and concrete account of how the shop came to be open for us that day. We can and should verify that. This is a very real way for us to judge her facility at manipulation.

5: She claims to be willing to invest in us, even though we're terrible at this.

6: There are very definitely signals to Jaraiya in this. Report fully and to as detailed a degree as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What's your take on her goals? I'm not sure which of the possibilities she meant by the world domination bit.
 
I came away from this actually liking Ami a lot. She reminds me of a less psychopathic Junko Enoshima, which is exactly how I'd present a character that is, essentially, our methods and behaviors elevated to a higher level of power.
 
So.... what are our plans for improvement, social-wise?
Because we are not going to talk to another Jounin without at least provisional improvements. Just no.

It feels like spending a bit of current XP on social stats feels pretty damn narratively fitting.
A "Hey Jiraiya I think I need to git gud or I'll literally die- any tips?" moment.
Focus should probably go to defensive stats. We can do jack dick with offensiveness against jounin, so at least keeping his pants on would be a good idea to not embarass himself at least.

Of course, we the players need... more-than-usual learning from this. Because holy damnation that was... yeah.
Stuff like better contingencies to attempts at seduction- Mari sensei was too ambiguous on her philosophy, and Akane is not a good bone killer.
Also an in-depth personality profile of Ami, complete with a step-by-step guide on how to not piss her off anymore.
And of course any and all advice we can get from Jiraiya. Maybe we should ask him to go with him to those high-level meetings? We could learn about subtle jabs and OPSEC games of politics first-hand.

Also if we meet Ami soon again we could be like "hey look at me I am an idiot but I am capable of learning from my previous mistakes!".
 
Last edited:
PurposefulZephyr said:
And of course any and all advice we can get from Jiraiya. Maybe we should ask him to go with him to those high-level meetings? We could learn about subtle jabs and OPSEC games of politics first-hand.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Consider how much of a problem having Kagome in the room is when we are trying to lie.

I expect Jaraiya's answer to be "hahaha no."
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top