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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Velorien said:
The general concept is sound. However, your main problems are threefold.

1) The idea of Keiko secretly dating someone is a priori utterly bizarre and difficult to imagine given her personality, mental health, social skills, self-isolation and overall aversion to displays of affection, especially but not exclusively physical.

2) The idea of her dating Tenten is even worse, given that Keiko communicates verbally and loquaciously and is bad with anything else, while Tenten hardly communicates at all as far as Hazō's concerned.

3) Much of the evidence concerning Tenten (e.g. Keiko's reaction during the Neji debacle) is just as plausibly attributable to her being overprotective of the only friend she's ever made on her own initiative, and of her relationship with same.

These are considerably worse obstacles than when he was trying to understand Mari's position, and I think you'd need to hit Hazō with an evidence hammer to get past them, or at least bring him to a point where he has the conviction to ask Keiko directly. Not saying it's impossible, but mere accumulation of small details is unlikely to do it.
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So he can tease out the unspoken details about a justu like shadow clone, but can't really figure out that his stepsister is dating someone not Shikamaru?
 
Kiba said:
So he can tease out the unspoken details about a justu like shadow clone, but can't really figure out that his stepsister is dating someone not Shikamaru?
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Not that that doesn't sound believable for a tech-focused optimiser with limited awareness of human relationships, but which unspoken details were you thinking of?
 
Roomba said:
@Tua this might be another opportunity to broach the sister topic.
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Yes, please.

Maybe this time we will actually be able to talk to Noburi without something interrupting us.

QTesseract said:
Is no one going to comment on the fact that you can have summons on the human path while you are reverse summoned? This could be a game changer.
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I did notice that (and the post mentioning it earlier) but I am just too jaded to accept it at face value. I half expect Keiko to have told Pandaa to deliver this message and then unsummon himself while she was on the Human Path. Then once Keiko notices the connection sever she'd resummon him and they would go to the Summoning Path together.

She'd certainly be bright enough to pull this off and realize how convenient of an excuse this would make. Just summon Pandaa with a message and she can do whatever she wants undisturbed on the Human Path because people assume she is gone.

eaglejarl said:
They really are amazing animals. I hope we don't kill every single one of them and remove their beauty from existence because some people are too stupid to realize that keratin will not in fact change your floppy into a hard drive.
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Until close to the end I thought you were talking about the IC Pangolins because the hivemind has strong opinions on how to deal with the Pangolin Problem.
 
Or....not strictly in this update, of course,but...
Just a really stupid plan.
A ridiculous plan, so foolish i almost can't believe i'm writing this.
We...could...
Talk?
Just, call Noburi and Keiko to the house, maybe even Jiraya if he's free.
Craft a sensible and well done apology and analysis of our and the team social problem and then try to tackle the problem?
Then ask Keiko about the engagement and ask her if she want to say something to us or need our help in any way.
Remain strictly as support, as Keiko is the one with the final decision in what is her life, to help voice her feeling on the situation instead of hiding everything...Like her relationship with Tenten and her feeling on the engagement, and Hazou, and so on.
You know...
Just honest and sincere talk between brothers and sister?
 
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To be clear: Hazou does not know that Keiko and Tenten spend a lot of time together. There is little reason for him to suspect they're in a relationship.
 
Velorien said:
Can you remember when that statement was first made? Paging @faflec just in case, but I don't actually expect anyone to dig that deep into the thread.
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Velorien said:
The thing about consistently rolling social combat is that, with the kind of opponents you've been taking on, a rigid mechanical interpretation would see updates where you are socially crushed by everyone every time. That would be boring and ironically unsimulationist, and would probably result in levels of salt orders of magnitude greater than what we get about Hazō's narrative socials now. Oh, and it would leave you drowning in Mental Consequences for all time.
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This is the closest that I've found so far. I will keep looking. This to me explains why Kei is able to play with high level players. While Hazō automatically is a push over to whomever he talks to
 
Lord Marshal said:
Or....not strictly in this update, of course,but...
Just a really stupid plan.
A ridiculous plan, so foolish i almost can't believe i'm writing this.
We...could...
Talk?
Just, call Noburi and Keiko to the house, maybe even Jiraya if he's free.
Craft a sensible and well done apology and analysis of our and the team social problem and then try to tackle the problem?
Then ask Keiko about the engagement and ask her if she want to say something to us or need our help in any way.
Remain strictly as support, as Keiko is the one with the final decision in what is her life, to help voice her feeling on the situation instead of hiding everything...Like her relationship with Tenten and her feeling on the engagement, and Hazou, and so on.
You know...
Just honest and sincere talk between brothers and sister?
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The first problem is that Keiko's currently out of reach at the moment, with no guarantee we can convince her to come out of the Seventh Path except for clan obligations.

The second problem is that even if we get Hazou to want to honestly talk like this, there's no guarantee that Noburi, Keiko, and Jiraiya will also be willing. Maybe Jiraiya's too busy, maybe Keiko's can't/won't be honest.

The third problem is that just talking about stuff doesn't solve anything. We can express our feelings on certain topics, and we can seek to undo misunderstandings, and we can make promises, but honest talk is not a social panacea. Currently Hazou has already expressed to Keiko his feelings on the Ami situation, and Keiko doesn't seem to misunderstand us, so if she's still upset we can't actually improve anything by repeating ourselves. Further, Keiko is not only upset by Hazou's actions but by Shikamaru's (remember, she stayed with us after the Ami letter but it took the Shikamaru contract for her to ditch this plane of existence entirely) so honest talk will accomplish very little there.

All that I just said is a bit overly-structured, but it's the majority of my opinion towards the idea. The idea that honest conversation is a panacea for all social problems seems overly simplistic and under shaky assumptions, so I do not feel like it has good odds of solving any of our problems.

Personally, I think Keiko needs time to calm down from the pain she feels from what we and Shikamaru did, and we need to not inflict any more on her if we can help it. Give that some time, and then we can re-evaluate the situation and decide if further intervention is needed.
 
Okay, here's how I think we should structure our plan:

Pre-Ami_letter#2:
  • Write a letter to Keiko.
  • Explain to Shikamaru what happened.
  • Pre-emptively apologize to Shino.
  • Bet money on Keiko.
Post-Ami_letter#2:
  • Show the letter to Jiraiya. Help him find a clean shirt. Quickly confirm conclusions:
    • Letter #1 was deliberately leaked through a compromised courier. Implication: Courier #2 wasn't compromised.
    • Letter #2 leaves us an opportunity to go along with the marriage (if it wasn't leaked), and signals that Ami'll drop it if we won't
    • Letter #1 was pretty aggressive: likely signals that she strongly prefers the former option. Testing Courier #1 was secondary.
    • If we run out of time, cover these later.
  • Tell Noburi about the second letter. Finally get his full opinion on the situation.
  • Do something calming and rote to relax, like making explosives.
  • Once Jiraiya returns, discuss the situation (include Noburi; high-OPSEC conditions):
    • How long before we leave Mist?
    • Second meeting with Ami. Should it happen? If so:
      • Should we seek a honest answer regarding whether she's in danger/wants a political marriage?
      • Would require better OPSEC. A walk across the bay, then a picnic?
      • We're a bit shaken from recent events. Any advice?
    • If Jiraiya approves, send a letter. Contents:
      • Decline the favour.
      • Set up the second meeting.
        • Place: "near" a random restaurant.
        • Time: tomorrow? (Jiraiya's call.)
  • Clear this section with Jiraiya:
    • Watch today's matches.
    • Verify Ami's story (if time permits).
      • Byakuren's Cookbook: name-drop Ami for regulars-only menu.
      • Persuade Chouji to visit a few restaurants, inquire about their history. (We're paying.) Points of interest:
        • Connection between Byakuren's Cookbook and Experimental Cuisine.
        • Byakuren's Cookbook serving large groups of ninja.
    • If anyone talks about Hazou and Ami: no comment.
Velorien said:
The general concept is sound. However, your main problems are threefold.
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What about this?:

  • In light of recent events, consider Keiko's character in more depth.
    • Noburi had a peculiar reaction to your "Keiko wouldn't hide improvements in her relationship status from us" line. What was it about?
    • She evidently isn't dating Shikamaru, but Noburi wasn't very surprised about her dating someone.
    • If she is dating someone, then who?
    • Try to recall times when Keiko seemed to care about other people.
      • She reacted surprisingly strongly when Team Gai was killboxed. Surely it's neither Neji nor Lee, which leaves...
      • Tenten and her were targeted by Lee once, and Keiko's reaction was strange. Why didn't she just deny the implication?
    • Tenten is Keiko's only non-Nara non-Gouketsu friend, and if she was hiding some interpersonal developments, it's likely with her.
 
Velorien said:
What does it mean to say that a theoretical concept does or does not exist?
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If, according to the simplest explanation, an entity is complex and autonomous, then that entity is real. I'm pretty sure 'natural justice' and 'human rights' don't count, unless they're already impacting / followed by / believe in by significant number of people.


I wish I had the time to contribute more meaningfully here rather than just drop one-off jokes and references every now and then ;S
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
The idea that honest conversation is a panacea for all social problems seems overly simplistic and under shaky assumptions, so I do not feel like it has good odds of solving any of our problems.
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It is certainly a panacea for many, many, many of them to the extent that I would analogize it to ibuprofen being a cure-all for pain.
 
Cariyaga said:
It is certainly a panacea for many, many, many of them to the extent that I would analogize it to ibuprofen being a cure-all for pain.
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Ibuprofen doesn't actually fix the root symptoms a lot of the time though.

So perhaps this is a very accurate analogy to the situation at hand...
 
Noumero said:
what about this?:

  • In light of recent events, consider Keiko's character in more depth.
    • Noburi had a peculiar reaction to your "Keiko wouldn't hide improvements in her relationship status from us" line. What was it about?
    • She evidently isn't dating Shikamaru, but Noburi wasn't very surprised about her dating someone.
    • If she is dating someone, then who?
    • Try to recall times when Keiko seemed to care about other people.
      • She reacted surprisingly strongly when Team Gai was killboxed. Surely it's neither Neji nor Lee, which leaves...
      • Tenten and her were targeted by Lee once, and Keiko's reaction was strange. Why didn't she just deny the implication?
    • Tenten is Keiko's only non-Nara non-Gouketsu friend, and if she was hiding some interpersonal developments, it's likely with her.
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Yes, that looks good from a "how these things should look" perspective. No comment on the content itself.
 
Repurposing the Noburi section from the last plan we included it in, wherein it was interrupted by the marriage proposal letter.

Hang out with Noburi
  • Internally:
    • Noburi always struggled with self-esteem. Losing to Hinata must be hard on him.
    • He's avoided talking about family, but specifically mentioned his sisters... Is he embarrassed? Self-conscious?
  • Explain the Ami situation:
    • The reasons Hazou pitched to Jiraiya for meeting Ami aren't everything.
    • He hoped to eventually reconcile Ami and Keiko, and therefore let Keiko forgive Mari.
    • He explains his suspicions about the way Ami treated Keiko, and how it looks like she might've been intentionally protecting Keiko from the Mori.
    • Part of the reason he didn't ask Keiko for permission, is that he'd have needed to use this argument, and he really didn't want to give her false hope in case he was wrong.
    • He also didn't want to make Noburi lie to Keiko, and feels like he leans on Noburi's social prowess too much in any case.
    • Regardless, he's very sorry that things ended up the way they did.
  • Gently bring up his family.
    • He was upset his sisters didn't talk to him after his match.
      • Wanna talk about it? Any plans to visit them?
    • Might be better to see them on his own terms?
    • Regardless, Hazou has his back, and is willing to go "pretty damn far" to help.
@Tua what do you think?
 
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