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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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So, the last Ami gift:
  • It was relatively inexpensive but not worthless.
  • It was a reference to something personalized about Ami.
  • It was relatively playful.
  • The context of the meeting was that neither of us knew all that much about the other and we were hoping to learn more about her.
    • We also hoped we would be able to find an ally for Uplift.
The context now:
  • We know more about Ami but still not all that much, and we want to know more.
  • Ami's letter makes this next meeting more serious. Either she inflicted that on us and Keiko without good reason, in which case we and Keiko have grievance against her, or she had good reason to send a letter like that in which case she's obviously taking this more seriously.
    • Either way this isn't the same playful investigation the last one was.
  • We intend to talk about serious topics directly relevant to our futures.
    • As a result of these higher stakes, we can be seen as acting as a proxy for Jiraiya to a certain extent.
  • Ami scares us, but we still don't dislike her.
In my opinion, we should not go for a gift like the stamp we gave her earlier. The context is more serious now and signalling playfulness would be dishonest. Bringing nothing is an option, since that would signal that we're treating this as a different kind of meeting, but may also risk disappointing Ami and making her less cooperative.

I feel like, given the more serious nature of the meeting and the way we're more directly acting in Jiraiya's stead, we may be better served preparing something 'Goketsu' as a gift, to help signal to Ami that we're here on behalf of our clan this time.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
So, the last Ami gift:
  • It was relatively inexpensive but not worthless.
  • It was a reference to something personalized about Ami.
  • It was relatively playful.
  • The context of the meeting was that neither of us knew all that much about the other and we were hoping to learn more about her.
    • We also hoped we would be able to find an ally for Uplift.
The context now:
  • We know more about Ami but still not all that much, and we want to know more.
  • Ami's letter makes this next meeting more serious. Either she inflicted that on us and Keiko without good reason, in which case we and Keiko have grievance against her, or she had good reason to send a letter like that in which case she's obviously taking this more seriously.
    • Either way this isn't the same playful investigation the last one was.
  • We intend to talk about serious topics directly relevant to our futures.
    • As a result of these higher stakes, we can be seen as acting as a proxy for Jiraiya to a certain extent.
  • Ami scares us, but we still don't dislike her.
In my opinion, we should not go for a gift like the stamp we gave her earlier. The context is more serious now and signalling playfulness would be dishonest. Bringing nothing is an option, since that would signal that we're treating this as a different kind of meeting, but may also risk disappointing Ami and making her less cooperative.

I feel like, given the more serious nature of the meeting and the way we're more directly acting in Jiraiya's stead, we may be better served preparing something 'Goketsu' as a gift, to help signal to Ami that we're here on behalf of our clan this time.
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Bring a cat plush.
 
Cariyaga said:
Bring a cat plush.
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That would be a good choice... if we wanted to signal the same playfulness of the first meeting. And also that we wanted to talk about Keiko. I don't think that's the way we want to take this.

The main reason for the second meeting, quite honestly, is that Ami appears to have suggested a political marriage and we need to know how serious she is about it. This is Jiraiya's, the Goketsu's, and ultimately Leaf's interests enacted through Hazou, rather than Hazou and Ami meeting as individuals.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
The main reason for the second meeting, quite honestly, is that Ami appears to have suggested a political marriage and we need to know how serious she is about it. This is Jiraiya's, the Goketsu's, and ultimately Leaf's interests enacted through Hazou, rather than Hazou and Ami meeting as individuals.
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Good luck getting her to a place where she's comfortable discussing this openly. Especially with Hyuga running around.
 
MMKII said:
Does anyone have strong present preferences?
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Does not wanting to give a present count?

I want Hazou to just cut through the chase. Ask her whether she needs our help for real and what the deal is between Keiko and her. If she agrees to be truthful (as far as we can tell anyway which probably isn't that much), continue the "date".

Otherwise leave and tell her that she should contact us once she is ready for this to become a committed and serious relationship.
 
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Tua said:
Does not wanting to present count?

I want Hazou to just cut through the chase. Ask her whether she needs our help for real and what the deal is between Keiko and her. If she agrees to be truthful (as far as we can tell anyway which probably isn't that much), continue the "date".

Otherwise leave and tell her that she should contact us once she is ready for this to become a committed and serious relationship.
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We do not ask about Keiko without Keiko's permission.
 
Kiba said:
Our objective is to help Keiko get better, not let her little brother be unable to talk to talk to her big sister.
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Right, of course, that's why we pissed her the hell off. How could I have possibly been mistaken.

Do I really have to go over how much of a breach of privacy it would be to bring her up to her estranged family member without her permission? It's not even going to be hard to get her permission at this point, and quite frankly, I'm not willing to go through with this marriage -- assuming the offer is genuine -- while they're still estranged.
 
Cariyaga said:
Do I really have to go over how much of a breach of privacy it would be to bring her up to her estranged family member without her permission? It's not even going to be hard to get her permission at this point, and quite frankly, I'm not willing to go through with this marriage -- assuming the offer is genuine -- while they're still estranged.
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I wanted to say I don't mind asking Keiko about if we can make sure that she agrees but I realize that putting it that way completely negates the point of asking.

I'll say this though: we shouldn't limit having Hazou only do things that others expressively approve of because we wouldn't get anywhere, and this isn't a good limitation to have anyway even when dealing with mentally healthy people (which Keiko is sadly not).

This part in particular makes me think that Keiko wished we had talked about her but admitting that would contradict her previous lashing of Hazou so she just makes an excuse and runs off:

Velorien said:
"Did she say anything about me? Anything at all?"

Hazō shook his head. "I think we both made sure not to bring up the subject."

The faint light in Keiko's eyes faded into nothingness. "Yes. Of course. Thank you for respecting my privacy."

She ran.
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It basically reads as if we had gotten something positive out of it, Keiko would have minded it less. And while we didn't solely seek out Ami to fix their relationship, that has always been a part of the reason to do so - for me. (It is also why I want to keep pushing for Noburi to mend his relationship with his sisters; there is little benefit Hazou gets out of it IC but Noburi would be happier for it.)

So, yes, with that in mind asking for her permission is probably going to go well regardless but if I'd vote for a plan that talks about her even if she disagrees - which I would - I'd feel just a tad hypocritical to push strongly for this.
 
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Tua said:
I wanted to say I don't mind asking Keiko about if we can make sure that she agrees but I realize that putting it that way completely negates the point of asking.
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Hazou: I Want to ask Ami about her feelings about you.
Keiko: I think this is pointless because she will just say that I'm a traitor.
Hazou: OK, you just made a verifiable prediction and I think that you are not correct. Let's test it. But I have a condition that you will update your beliefs if you're happen to be wrong and I promiss to do the same.

No objections to other things in your post.
 
Y'all really make this a much bigger issue than it needs to be. Respecting people's privacy and agency isn't hard. You just don't make plans around people whose opinions you care about without their explicit permission. Most of our plans do not involve other people. Salt? Nope. Sealing? Nope. Even gambling only involved Keiko and Noburi on the side.

And regardless of whether it's "healthy" or not, I can assure you it's not healthy for Hazou or his plans in the long run for him to be estranged with his sister.

It seems like a lot of everyone's ideas around how we should treat Keiko is based around the idea of what's "right" to do, when coincidentally, what's "right" also happens to be what they want to do and is self-serving to do.

e: What's "right" matters not a whit compared to what will be effective in accomplishing our goals with the minimum of drama, in my opinion.
 
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Cariyaga said:
Y'all really make this a much bigger issue than it needs to be. Respecting people's privacy and agency isn't hard. You just don't make plans around people whose opinions you care about without their explicit permission. Most of our plans do not involve other people. Salt? Nope. Sealing? Nope. Even gambling only involved Keiko and Noburi on the side.

And regardless of whether it's "healthy" or not, I can assure you it's not healthy for Hazou or his plans in the long run for him to be estranged with his sister.

It seems like a lot of everyone's ideas around how we should treat Keiko is based around the idea of what's "right" to do, when coincidentally, what's "right" also happens to be what they want to do and is self-serving to do.

e: What's "right" matters not a whit compared to what will be effective in accomplishing our goals with the minimum of drama, in my opinion.
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Flag on the play! Implicitly assuming moral high ground via usage of air quotes!! Ten yard penalty.

More seriously, can we stop pretending as if we literally put Keiko under a Geas and chained her up in the basement to live with the rotting flesh piles?

We had lunch with her sister without telling her about it. It's not like we trapped her into a marriage contract in front of thousands of people. I'm hard pressed to acknowledge this as anything more than a moderately dickish move.
 
MMKII said:
Flag on the play! Implicitly assuming moral high ground via usage of air quotes!! Ten yard penalty.

More seriously, can we stop pretending as if we literally put Keiko under a Geas and chained her up in the basement to live with the rotting flesh piles?

We had lunch with her sister without telling her about it. It's not like we trapped her into a marriage contract in front of thousands of people. I'm hard pressed to acknowledge this as anything more than a moderately dickish move.
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Yeah, my bad, I'm just frustrated at the implicit assumption that asking her permission to do a thing is slaving ourselves to her will for now and forever.
 
Cariyaga said:
Y'all really make this a much bigger issue than it needs to be. Respecting people's privacy and agency isn't hard. You just don't make plans around people whose opinions you care about without their explicit permission. Most of our plans do not involve other people. Salt? Nope. Sealing? Nope. Even gambling only involved Keiko and Noburi on the side.

And regardless of whether it's "healthy" or not, I can assure you it's not healthy for Hazou or his plans in the long run for him to be estranged with his sister.

It seems like a lot of everyone's ideas around how we should treat Keiko is based around the idea of what's "right" to do, when coincidentally, what's "right" also happens to be what they want to do and is self-serving to do.

e: What's "right" matters not a whit compared to what will be effective in accomplishing our goals with the minimum of drama, in my opinion.
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For the record, while I do want to mend bridges with Kei, I also think she's being unreasonable. Giving Kei a The Reason You Suck speech (or whatever other unsympathetic-to-Kei ideas are being suggested) is absolutely not something I want to do, or something that serves my own goals... but I could definitely see it as a candidate for "what is right".
 
Cariyaga said:
Yeah, my bad, I'm just frustrated at the implicit assumption that asking her permission to do a thing is slaving ourselves to her will for now and forever.
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But this is what the thread is good at, isn't it?

We love to overcorrect issues so I very much welcome people taking a stand and declaring that one minor mishap does not mean our strategy of approaching social situations need an overhaul. And that it does not mean we should fold anytime someone is upset with us, especially when there are legitimate reasons for them to be wrong.

Only recently we have come out of our shell and started playing the game that actually matters in achieving our long standing goals of changing the ENs for the better: building alliances and making contacts.

Developing WMDs and becoming the Emperor of Salt is all well and good but people (yes, me included) tend to underestimate the importance of being capable socially IC to get what they want. We can't avoid socials - and the Agency Issue it entails - forever.

For example, the negotiations with Jiraiya would have gone a lot worse for us if Mari hadn't been around. A person who had no hand in developing Skywalkers yet was just as important in making them our ticket to become Leaf royalty.

And Mari or Jiraiya won't be there forever to hold our hands and this is a skill we need to learn eventually so I am quite glad people are dealing with "the Keiko thing" quite well, all things considered.


But enough about generalities, let's talk specifics:

If Keiko told you not to contact Ami but you did anyway, would her current Levels of Sad be worse or better than if we hadn't contacted Ami and possibly missed saving her life (and the potential future relationship between the two that entails)?

Yes, there is no guarantee we actually can save Ami or whether she is even truthful. And yes, this is using hindsight to make the argument but this is a lesson to keep in mind for the future regardless: sometimes doing something that hurts a person you like can be worth if it benefits them more in the end.

Which is, coincidentally, also Ami's reason for alienating Keiko and a huge reason I want to talk to Ami about Keiko.
 
Tua said:
Developing WMDs and becoming the Emperor of Salt is all well and good but people (yes, me included) tend to underestimate the importance of being capable socially IC
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Hey now. Money is an amazing superpower. Its ability to lubricate seemingly impossible social situations and advance diabolical schemes is not to be taken lightly.
 
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