This... this cut into my heart. She wanted out of the ninja life. She wanted to retire. She wanted to pop out babies and maybe dabble in leaf's social politics. She didn't want to to do I&S missions. She didn't want to twist and coerce and break. But now she is. She's right back to where she started, but worse because she's accepted herself as the person she (incorrectly) feared she was. Can we get Mari some help? Please? @eaglejarl, you're breaking my heart!
I thought most of her wanting to retire was so she didn't have to disguise herself as someone else, worm her way into people's hearts to get information and then murder them while they think they're in love with her (and vis versa).

Nobody's dead (and from the sound of it Mari intends to keep it that way) so clearly everything is fine.

Everything is fine.
 
Protoplan: From one humanoid intelligence to another
  • Meet with Ami when she has the time.
    • Bring an escort but speak to Ami in private.
    • Exchange pleasantries, ask if she still has the octocat.
    • Main topic:
      • We've recently, through means we cannot disclose, been exposed to the Out, that place beyond reality where madness reigns, and some level of connection/understanding/deviation has stayed with us.
      • Given your uniquely flexible mindset, we were wondering if you had any tips on how to stay grounded when tapping into an alien frame of mind?
      • When pressed for details, do not reveal our seal-downloading or Keiko sending us her way. We cannot reveal that information without breaking trust.
I feel like this, while not detailed enough to be complete as a section, is a good foundation to design the scene around.
 
Protoplan: From one humanoid intelligence to another
  • Meet with Ami when she has the time.
    • Bring an escort but speak to Ami in private.
    • Exchange pleasantries, ask if she still has the octocat.
    • Main topic:
      • We've recently, through means we cannot disclose, been exposed to the Out, that place beyond reality where madness reigns, and some level of connection/understanding/deviation has stayed with us.
      • Given your uniquely flexible mindset, we were wondering if you had any tips on how to stay grounded when tapping into an alien frame of mind?
      • When pressed for details, do not reveal our seal-downloading or Keiko sending us her way. We cannot reveal that information without breaking trust.
I feel like this, while not detailed enough to be complete as a section, is a good foundation to design the scene around.

Is it me or I wanted to scream in falfec?

[X] Action Plan: Continuation
Meet with Ami.
  • Exposed to the out on accident. Given your uniquely flexible mindset, any advice on how to stay grounded while tapping into an alien frame of mind?
  • Ask Keiko for permission to mention her to Ami.
Goketsu compound/Business
  • Implement storage seal bank/subscription service as soon we gain approval from MC.
    • If not already approved, continue working the MC to get their approval.
    • Utilize our tavern or our compound as base of operation for our business.
  • Start construction of a school. Daytime for children/academy students. Nighttime for night schools for adults.
    • Find and hire teachers as necessary using the method devised in the last chapter.
    • May be necessary to get licensing and permits to get a school operating.
    • Operates as a charity school supported by the Goketsu.
 
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You know, you say "everything is fine," but all I hear is "there is no war in Ba Sing Se."

Mari needs an afternoon off, a hug, a family dinner, a metric TON of therapy, some Talk no Jutsu, and some of that old fashioned we're-running-for-our-lives-but-we're-together soup.

Edit: and she might need even more than that. I'm not the best at comforting people...
 
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You know, you say "everything is fine," but all I hear is "there is no war in Ba Sing Se."

Mari needs an afternoon off, a hug, a family dinner, a metric TON of therapy, some Talk no Jutsu, and some of that old fashioned we're-running-for-our-lives-but-we're-together soup.

Edit: and she might need even more than that. I'm not the best at comforting people...
Honestly I doubt that would fix things at this point. Mari is messed up in all the ways she was when she was a moping wreck, and she's used ninja magic to do something to be functional nonetheless, and not only is the Elemental Nations' understanding of therapy insufficient for this task but I daresay modern therapy would flounder in the face of what she's done to herself.

Being perfectly honest, I expect the best thing we can hope for is to remove the duct tape holding her together and let her collapse into a pile of misery again, and then maybe, maybe we'll be able to find something left to rebuild her from.

So yes:
 
Fixed, thanks.

Time isn't what you think it is...it doesn't really exist, it's just an artifact of our limited perception. The truth is that everything is eternal, and our perception of past and future as distinct things is a limit of our own minds." He paused for a moment and then started over. "A person exists apart from time. They are whole things, spanning four dimensions and stretching into the future and the past.

Anyone able to explain or link a resource that explains what this all means? Assuming this worldview exists in real life
It's saying that an object is not just the thing that we see in three-dimensional space in front of us, it's actually the entire worldline of that object -- all the points in time and space that it has ever occupied or will ever occupy. It is an object that exists at certain points of time regardless of whether the observer is at those points, the same way that the Washington Monument exists at certain points of space regardless of whether the observer is at those points.

An analogy:

Imagine you live in Flatland, a two-dimensional space. You see a circle. Someone tells you that the circle is just an artifact of your perception, that the circle is actually extends 'up' and 'down', and that the circle is really just a cross-section of a higher-dimensional object.

Now imagine you live in the real world. You see a person (or a rock, or a tree, or a raindrop, or...). Someone tells you that the circle person is just an artifact of your perception, that the circle person actually extends 'up' and 'down' 'past' and 'future' and that the person is really just a cross-section of a higher-dimensional object.

Another analogy:
The guy in the photo is holding something in his hand (a sparkler) and waving it around on a long-exposure photo image that causes it to show up at every point that it occupied along its trajectory. That's a method of showing the fourth dimension in a way that we can see it -- what looks like a spatial effect (a line made out of light) is actually a temporal effect (an object moving and its light being recorded at each point along the way). What we see as the sparkler in his hand is one spacetime instant of the wordline of that object. There was a point in time at which the sparkler was on fire, and a point when it was not, but the object is still the same.

anyone know what the lie was?
Kagome is suggesting that Jiraiya didn't really tame and ride a giant chakra monster and didn't really seduce a widow and her daughter, etc. That the journal entry is basically just Jiraiya writing self-insert fanfiction of his own life.

@eaglejarl, you're breaking my heart!
Eeeexcellent. *evil finger-steeplage of evil*
 
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Did we ever get rewarded for the all the work done on economic questions? Or is that supposed to wait until all the economic questions are answered?
 
Did we ever get rewarded for the all the work done on economic questions? Or is that supposed to wait until all the economic questions are answered?
I thought you had, but maybe I forgot. Do you have a link to the original bounty post? If not, I'll just pick a number.
 
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So looks like Kagome is teaching sealing
  • still alive.
  • 2 mature and competent chūnin: Atomu and Reo. They are both in their early thirties, charismatic and organized enough that you can delegate some leadership tasks to them
Even with all the fiddly bits, this seal isn't hard; you or even Reo could probably learn to infuse the blank in a few minutes, except that he can't because he hasn't learned enough to be allowed to infuse anything
 
Protoplan: From one humanoid intelligence to another
  • Meet with Ami when she has the time.
    • Bring an escort but speak to Ami in private.
    • Exchange pleasantries, ask if she still has the octocat.
    • Main topic:
      • We've recently, through means we cannot disclose, been exposed to the Out, that place beyond reality where madness reigns, and some level of connection/understanding/deviation has stayed with us.
      • Given your uniquely flexible mindset, we were wondering if you had any tips on how to stay grounded when tapping into an alien frame of mind?
      • When pressed for details, do not reveal our seal-downloading or Keiko sending us her way. We cannot reveal that information without breaking trust.
I feel like this, while not detailed enough to be complete as a section, is a good foundation to design the scene around.
I don't agree with not sharing that Keiko sent us her way. Keiko pretty clearly expected that to come up in the discussion, and without the framing of Keiko telling us to talk to her about it (and therefore it being something Keiko wants), I seriously doubt she'd tell us much.
 
Do Nakano's teammates and Jinno (I think) still study under him?
Yes. Nakano bowed out because he didn't feel up to it, but the rest are still studying. Kagome-sensei's students in order of acquisition are:
  1. Hazō (sealing, general life advice that mostly relates to explosives)
  2. Honoka (math, other academics, cheating, general life advice that mostly relates to explosives)
  3. Genda, Sugiyama, and Jinno (sealing, general life advice that mostly relates to explosives)
  4. Fuyuki (sealing, general life advice that mostly relates to explosives)
 
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Just finished the Hillbilly Mountain Pangolin Summoning Extravaganza: Shitty Infiltration Edition.

I can't believe no one died. You guys gave that village so much time to prepare countermeasures to kill you. Really hope jumping through all those hoops ends up worth it for nearly dying horribly to a bunch of upsized rodents and hillbilly ninjas :confused:
 
Just finished the Hillbilly Mountain Pangolin Summoning Extravaganza: Shitty Infiltration Edition.

I can't believe no one died. You guys gave that village so much time to prepare countermeasures to kill you. Really hope jumping through all those hoops ends up worth it for nearly dying horribly to a bunch of upsized rodents and hillbilly ninjas :confused:
Boyyyyyyyyy, was it!

(Not that I was part of the hivemind at the time, but still I quite enjoy us having the pangolin scroll)

Edit:
To expand on this, the pangolins have provided both fascinating challenges and awesome solutions to other challenges. I'm quite glad that they are in this story as I think they make it all the more interesting.
 
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Just finished the Hillbilly Mountain Pangolin Summoning Extravaganza: Shitty Infiltration Edition.

I can't believe no one died. You guys gave that village so much time to prepare countermeasures to kill you. Really hope jumping through all those hoops ends up worth it for nearly dying horribly to a bunch of upsized rodents and hillbilly ninjas :confused:
I'd like to think so. :>

By the way, welcome! Nice to have you around. How did you find us?
 
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