Evenstar
Triple Jump Unlocked
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- She/Her
What of his argument do you believe to be faulty?
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- Tags
- naruto rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
What of his argument do you believe to be faulty?
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I'm honestly fine if Keiko categorically refuses to sell another seal to the Pangolins. I'm especially fine if she accepts Noburi selling seals to the Toads, and double especially fine if she accepts Hazou selling seals to all other Leaf summon clans so that we can actually save Seventh Path lives, but I'm still kind of fine if she forces us to stop or put those off too.
After all, the Pangolin gold doesn't stop coming until two months from now, so what we really lose is the ability to spend quantities of money now that would require Pangolin gold-tier income over multiple months into the future. It may mean we can't afford to buy out the Hagoromo, which could be a danger, but we can consult with Mari to see if we need to put our foot down on that.
And beyond the Hat, well, we have plenty of ideas for how to make money in the long-term, and we were planning to cancel the deal when they came to fruition anyways. If we can manage the Hat safely then I'm okay with letting Keiko terminate the deal early.
After all, the Pangolin gold doesn't stop coming until two months from now, so what we really lose is the ability to spend quantities of money now that would require Pangolin gold-tier income over multiple months into the future. It may mean we can't afford to buy out the Hagoromo, which could be a danger, but we can consult with Mari to see if we need to put our foot down on that.
And beyond the Hat, well, we have plenty of ideas for how to make money in the long-term, and we were planning to cancel the deal when they came to fruition anyways. If we can manage the Hat safely then I'm okay with letting Keiko terminate the deal early.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thank you.
Without comment on the rest, I should note that lying is not gaslighting. It would be gaslighting if Hazō already knew that Ami was in Leaf.
- Location
- Yes.
And Keiko is pretty much fucked, since she's gonna lose nearly all her available Pangolins. Which is a major part of her power, and her sense of self-worth.
fmlllll
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Honestly pretty much all of it. We could very much get a letter to Ami and Ren. We know that the Nara are secretly messaging the Mori. No one on our end is going to go after us for sending this message. At the very worst we could have had a civilian deliver the message to Ami if only messaging Ren was the bad idea. He's also downplaying our capabilities to a relatively huge degree. We are backed by Leafs two remaining S-rankers. We have 10% of leaf current jounin. We have roughly 5-10% of leafs seal production. We have an even higher number of its skywalker production. We have a summoner with a second one coming. We have all of Jiraiya's sealing notes that we can destroy if anyone tries to threaten us. At the time we had enough gold to fund the search for Naruto. We absolutely dominated the chunnin exams. We have 3 unique bloodlines. Mari is the premier social manipulator in leaf. Shikamaru is literally desperate to marry Kei as soon as possible even though he claims it's something that's an inconvenience to him. On top of that we are the nephew of the Mizukage.
Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
Hmm, do you want to deal with getting Keiko ready for a wedding when she knows Ami is going to be there?
I sure don't. Yeah, it's a lie but I can absolutely understand why he did it. Especially once you acknowledge how much of a ticking time bomb Ami is.
Plus he's not trying to make us feel bad or worthless, in fact he's being refreshingly direct. This has been a constant pattern when the thread deals with the Nara.
They are not insulting you by being direct! They are showing that they trust you to handle the truth.
Really, we made this mistake with Shikaku already. Do we even need to do it again with Shikamaru?
Some of the communities I'm in IRL act the same way. When I had newly joined my lab, I had to hold back tears when my teammates critiqued my writing. But direct, forthright feedback was the best way to get me to improve my writing fast.
Now, when I work with people who don't act that way, I find myself repeatedly annoyed at how inefficient it is to have to dig for people's real opinions. I have to go through all this rigamarole to signal that it is safe to share their thoughts with me, and that I can handle their criticism.
It makes perfect sense that the Nara would have the culture internally. Shikamaru being brusque to us is signaling that we are in his in-group, and that he trusts us to maturely handle feedback.
Not to mention, all of that sugar-coating your criticism takes spoons that are in short supply for the Nara.
Edit: Yeah he's not downplaying our capabilities. Both of the S-rankers you mention would not hesitate to kill us if Leaf's stability is at stake.
The problem with punching above our weight-class is that we're punched back it's coming from someone much bigger than us.
Hiashi, if he was willing to sacrifice a few people and his reputation, could easily destroy us. He's not the only one who can.
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- Location
- [REDACTED]
@Velorien @eaglejarl
I just want to thank y'all for spending your time and effort writing this quest for us. In particular, to Velorien, this update was amazingly well written.
I just want to thank y'all for spending your time and effort writing this quest for us. In particular, to Velorien, this update was amazingly well written.
Some of which can be argued with or quibbled with or already acknowledged by Nara. Being associated with the Mizukage is definitely a negative with some of the clans.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sure but his arguments are wrong
Not the clans that matter to us. We are getting the majority
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Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Seconding this one. I haven't participated much in this plan cycle because of the negativity but that does not reflect on you guys. You all have about a thousand times more patience than I do.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I disagree with your read on things. Yes Keiko is resolving some of her issues. But in the process she seems to be developing new ones. Specifically when it comes to communication.
She used to have little problem telling us that we're wrong. Now instead of bringing up when she's not okay with stuff, she just avoids us and acts with no warning in ways that have major repercussions for the whole family.
Even if one ignores Hazou's position as clan head (which is fair IMO), she still doesn't seem to be okay with discussing and considering the viewpoints of anyone else in her family.
I am not denying her right to ultimately break of any deal with the Pangolins that goes through her. But instead of talking about what she deems necessary, she literally reads up on Leaf legalese in preparation to being able to unilaterally and combatively shut down any attempt of any of her family members to try and stop what she has decided behind her back, as if her family had already proven themselves to be an enemy on this matter.
And I am pretty sure she decided and prepared for this already before our ill thought out attempt to force peace by funding larger scale conquest.
Most of all though, one thing is true IMO. Any failing you are blaming Hazou or us for when it comes to Keiko, Keiko herself is doing no better when it comes to Hazou.
Here I agree though. Clan Goketsu is being actively isolated by pretty much everyone who is currently running this country and we are sleeping on the job. Ami didn't sneak in. She came as an official envoy of another major nation. And we currently don't have a single contact in a single government agency.
That said, I don't care all that much in the short term. For all I care our direct involvement in governance and politics can stay limited in ensuring that ISC's favored candidate beats Hiashi Hyūga. After that we are best off with leaving stuff on that front up to our new clan head.
Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
See my edits.
There is a difference between having power and being secure in that power.
You seem to be saying we have a lot of power in Leaf. Shikamaru is pointing out that the type of power we have doesn't buy us security or safety.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And the plan to contact Ami would have helped secure that power. If we don't win the hat the doomsday scenario is almost guaranteed. By playing by the rules we are making ourselves less secure
Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
I don't think it's active isolation. It's just that our interaction with official Leaf powers structures came through one person.
That person is dead now.
This is why I want our condition to vote for Asuma be that he takes Naruto as an administrative assistant. (At least we want Asuma to believe that that's how he's buying our vote.)
How does Ami help us secure that power!?
She's a granade thrown into a crowded theater.
We might be better at handling chaos that the other established parties but there is such a thing as too much chaos, even for us.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's a town of 30,000 people.
It's a world-editable Google Doc; you can just paste them in. Here you go: Questions In Need of Answers (QuINOA)
Because she wasn't coming to see you and explicitly asked her host that he keep her presence secret.
Thanks, much appreciated.
I have no problem saying that you've been doing seal research during unoccupied hours. We'll need to figure out if there any, but if there are then sure. If people want to do that, put it in a vote and also specify what you've been researching.
Thank you for attempting to place peacemaker. This is one of the things I like about our readers.
- Location
- NY
Point about Shikamaru:
We deserved every bit of the "Shika-splaining", if you really insist on calling it that. We proposed a dumb idea that would have gotten us in trouble, and Shikamaru not only did us the favor of keeping it secret, he even explained to us exactly what the problems with the idea were. Compared to the substantive benefit Shikamaru chose to provide to us in that social interaction, any procedural issues (his tone) are minor at most. He does not owe us anything, and yet he is choosing to go out of his way to support and advise us. That he does it in a manner some people find prickly is of little consequence.
Point about Keiko:
Oh boy. Where do I start. This was a problem I started having with the character since our first meeting with Ami. She doesn't seem to understand that there's a middle ground between "my desires are worthless" and "you have offended me to the point where I am physically threatening you". This is not only an issue she has with us, as we can see from how she reacted to Shikamaru's proposal. Swinging between those two extremes is unhealthy for her, while making her impossible to rely on from a leader's perspective and someone to tiptoe around from a fellow's perspective - and not even in the Kagome sense, because Kagome flipping out is mostly predictable at least.
We deserved every bit of the "Shika-splaining", if you really insist on calling it that. We proposed a dumb idea that would have gotten us in trouble, and Shikamaru not only did us the favor of keeping it secret, he even explained to us exactly what the problems with the idea were. Compared to the substantive benefit Shikamaru chose to provide to us in that social interaction, any procedural issues (his tone) are minor at most. He does not owe us anything, and yet he is choosing to go out of his way to support and advise us. That he does it in a manner some people find prickly is of little consequence.
Point about Keiko:
Oh boy. Where do I start. This was a problem I started having with the character since our first meeting with Ami. She doesn't seem to understand that there's a middle ground between "my desires are worthless" and "you have offended me to the point where I am physically threatening you". This is not only an issue she has with us, as we can see from how she reacted to Shikamaru's proposal. Swinging between those two extremes is unhealthy for her, while making her impossible to rely on from a leader's perspective and someone to tiptoe around from a fellow's perspective - and not even in the Kagome sense, because Kagome flipping out is mostly predictable at least.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Guess I'm weird. I keep track of all senators IRL and was probably projecting Hazō keeping track of the 50 jounin
- Location
- [REDACTED]
Maybe there are like "secret jounin" for opsec reasons? But, yeah, I imagine Hazō would know or know of the majority of Leaf's jounin.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You have the advantage of modern TV and internet.
Thank you, much appreciated.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The plan was to get Ami in and she would owe us another favor that we could use to help secure the hat by coordinating with her. Now she is very much a a grenade
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I really don't care about this. If Naruto wants something like this I am a 100% willing to back him up. But I don't think he needs anything as crude as that to remain politically relevant. We are electing an officially absolute dictator, not some kind of president to whom administrative aide is a title with unignorable weight. Also, the title pales in comparison to the title and reality of Jinchūriki. Naruto is one of the two most powerful ninja in the village, has an extensive political education, and has many friends due to his winning personality. He doesn't need our schemes to remain relevant.
Yep. Definitely weird.
Joking aside, I currently know only who three elected or appointed officials relevant to me are with actual certainty. The head of government in the country I live, the head of government in my country of birth and the mayor of my village, who I know personally. Beyond that I know a sliver about American politics due to certain humorous talkshows. Everyone else I'm not sure if they still hold the same positions they did when I last heard of them.
Both the well-being of her sister and the expansion of the AMI are not aided by a Hyūga Hokage. And that is all we currently care about, politically speaking. Ami is currently our natural ally. At least within the limited scope of the upcoming election.
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Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
He doesn't need it. We do.
Naruto can get into power on his own easily, it will just take a bit of time.
Making him an administrative assistant to the Hokage will get him deeply embedded into the power structure of Leaf very quickly, as that power structure starts to reform .
This means there is less time when we are particularly easy to dislodge from the village.
Of could this all depends on him being willing to do it. If he doesn't want to do this, we'll figure something else out.
- Location
- Yes.
Mari's been gossiping with the clans for months, can't we just ask her?
I mean, surely she has an idea...
- Location
- Hiding
Did… did this chapter include HANDHOLDING!!! You, you—perverts! EWWW!
Also, have we seen Sasuke's face? If no, Sasuke is Itachi confirmed.
Stop. Dispell. Now. A Hyūga is riding piggyback? … Hanabi Social Stronk.
Ahh! They are multiplying!
Yeah, no help there
Also, have we seen Sasuke's face? If no, Sasuke is Itachi confirmed.
No, please don't. Ami, throw your hand grenades literally anywhere else. The Watchers are about.