- Location
- Washington State
Ah, I was under the impression that new votes cancel out old votes, my bad.
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- 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 open voting
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
The thread uses approval voting, so you can cast votes for as many distinct things as you'd like to and they all get counted.
Omake: The Parable of a Leaf Upon a Lake
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
The Parable of a Leaf Upon a Lake
In his many travels, the Sage of Six Paths met all kinds of people. Once in his travels, he met an old man sitting under a peach tree by a lake, contemplating something to great depths. Curious as to what the old man was pondering, the Sage of Six Paths sat next to the man and asked.
The old man replied that he was contemplating the nature of free will. He was contemplating whether free will could exist at all, due to the gap between the mental faculties of children and adults, he said.
Confused, the Sage of Six Paths asked the old man to elaborate.
The old man sighed, and began. First, the old man reasoned, if one person reasoned another into making a decision, it seems fair to credit the result to the reasoner, and not the reasoned. Secondly, the mental faculties of adults were far more developed than the faculties of children, the old man said. It would seem fair, the old man posited, that adults would be able to reason children into making whatever decision the adults wished the children to make. Given these three factors, the old man concluded, it follows that because adults possess superior mental faculties and experience with children, that adults could reason children into making whatever decision the adults wished, resulting in children having no free will of their own. Logically, the old man said, this seemed to apply until the adults in a child's life died; otherwise, the child would continue to lack free will because an adult could always reason the child into their preferred decision.
The Sage of Six Paths heard this and gently laughed. The Sage first lightly rebuked him for assuming children were so easy to reason and control - perhaps he had been blessed with such easy children, but this was by no means universal! - and then offered to demonstrate why the Sage disagreed.
Curious, the old man agreed to participate in the demonstration.
The Sage of Six Paths reached up to the peach tree and plucked a single leaf from the tree. Gently, he stood up and released the leaf out onto the lake. The Sage then told the old man to make the leaf go the direction he wanted it to go, without directly touching the leaf.
The old man laughed, and said that this was a trivial exercise for anyone with hands to do; the Sage merely smiled enigmatically, and gestured towards the leaf.
At first, the old man controlled the direction of the leaf easily; small little juts pushed along the leaf to his content. Soon, however, the old man discovered that the task was becoming steadily more difficult. Every little movement he made, after all, rippled and spread out, bouncing off the lake shore and causing the leaf to move in a fashion difficult to track by his eye. The old man soon found himself making larger and larger motions to try and control the leaf. Try as he might, he found himself losing control of the leaf. The bigger the wave he made to control the leaf, the more unpredictable and choppy the lake became.
Finally, the old man decided to be clever. Cupping his hands around the leaf, careful not to touch the leaf, he let the water smooth itself out. When the water finally stilled, the leaf did as well - inside the palm of his hands.
Triumphantly, the old man turned to the Sage of Six Paths. What was the Sage's answer, knowing that the adult's ability to reason a child was similar to man's ability to cup a leaf in his hands, he wondered?
The Sage simply smiled, and let a peach fall into the lake.
The peach hit the water with a mighty splash. Waves rippled out, quickly finding the old man and his cupped hands. Water crested the top of the man's hands, and washed the leaf out of his hands and onto the lake as a whole, where it swirled and swayed according to no discernible pattern.
The Sage then serenely told him that a person's life was infinitely harder to control than the movements of a mere leaf on a lake.
Humbled, the old man thanked the Sage for his wisdom. The Sage of Six Paths acknowledged his thanks, and continued wandering.
In his many travels, the Sage of Six Paths met all kinds of people. Once in his travels, he met an old man sitting under a peach tree by a lake, contemplating something to great depths. Curious as to what the old man was pondering, the Sage of Six Paths sat next to the man and asked.
The old man replied that he was contemplating the nature of free will. He was contemplating whether free will could exist at all, due to the gap between the mental faculties of children and adults, he said.
Confused, the Sage of Six Paths asked the old man to elaborate.
The old man sighed, and began. First, the old man reasoned, if one person reasoned another into making a decision, it seems fair to credit the result to the reasoner, and not the reasoned. Secondly, the mental faculties of adults were far more developed than the faculties of children, the old man said. It would seem fair, the old man posited, that adults would be able to reason children into making whatever decision the adults wished the children to make. Given these three factors, the old man concluded, it follows that because adults possess superior mental faculties and experience with children, that adults could reason children into making whatever decision the adults wished, resulting in children having no free will of their own. Logically, the old man said, this seemed to apply until the adults in a child's life died; otherwise, the child would continue to lack free will because an adult could always reason the child into their preferred decision.
The Sage of Six Paths heard this and gently laughed. The Sage first lightly rebuked him for assuming children were so easy to reason and control - perhaps he had been blessed with such easy children, but this was by no means universal! - and then offered to demonstrate why the Sage disagreed.
Curious, the old man agreed to participate in the demonstration.
The Sage of Six Paths reached up to the peach tree and plucked a single leaf from the tree. Gently, he stood up and released the leaf out onto the lake. The Sage then told the old man to make the leaf go the direction he wanted it to go, without directly touching the leaf.
The old man laughed, and said that this was a trivial exercise for anyone with hands to do; the Sage merely smiled enigmatically, and gestured towards the leaf.
At first, the old man controlled the direction of the leaf easily; small little juts pushed along the leaf to his content. Soon, however, the old man discovered that the task was becoming steadily more difficult. Every little movement he made, after all, rippled and spread out, bouncing off the lake shore and causing the leaf to move in a fashion difficult to track by his eye. The old man soon found himself making larger and larger motions to try and control the leaf. Try as he might, he found himself losing control of the leaf. The bigger the wave he made to control the leaf, the more unpredictable and choppy the lake became.
Finally, the old man decided to be clever. Cupping his hands around the leaf, careful not to touch the leaf, he let the water smooth itself out. When the water finally stilled, the leaf did as well - inside the palm of his hands.
Triumphantly, the old man turned to the Sage of Six Paths. What was the Sage's answer, knowing that the adult's ability to reason a child was similar to man's ability to cup a leaf in his hands, he wondered?
The Sage simply smiled, and let a peach fall into the lake.
The peach hit the water with a mighty splash. Waves rippled out, quickly finding the old man and his cupped hands. Water crested the top of the man's hands, and washed the leaf out of his hands and onto the lake as a whole, where it swirled and swayed according to no discernible pattern.
The Sage then serenely told him that a person's life was infinitely harder to control than the movements of a mere leaf on a lake.
Humbled, the old man thanked the Sage for his wisdom. The Sage of Six Paths acknowledged his thanks, and continued wandering.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
What about Jiraiya?
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You never felt his killing intent fully enough to name it.
- Location
- Yes.
Probably something along the lines of having a family and protecting it. His dialogue in Grief suggests he's majorly messed up about losing his father figure, and his threats in A Family Dies also suggests that putting his surrogate family in danger is a pretty big KILL button.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Unaligned Player
Agony that desires to meet Extinction
- Location
- Adrift between sanity and madness
- Pronouns
- Shrug
With the references to "reality" being a mere layer of paint, and his Outer insights into everyone, I wonder what the result of Hazou painting a portrait of someone while Out-Aspected would be?
- Location
- Yes.
One day the winning plan will be Armageddon Initiative.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Hello thread.
I would like to attribute virtually every positive thing we accomplish to some vague and unstated application of the Iron Nerve in an extremely nonchalant and flippant tone, in character.
Benefits --of which there are myriad-- are left as an exercise to the reader.
I would like to attribute virtually every positive thing we accomplish to some vague and unstated application of the Iron Nerve in an extremely nonchalant and flippant tone, in character.
Benefits --of which there are myriad-- are left as an exercise to the reader.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
"These walls are remarkably solid, what jutsu did you use to build them?"
"Oh it's just because of my Iron Nerve bloodline"
"How did you come up with a full battle plan within a second of the ambush happening?"
"Oh, you know, the Iron Nerve."
"What's the secret to becoming a sealmaster?"
"Two words: Iron Nerve."
"Why is the Goketsu selling so much salt? Where are they getting it all from?"
"It's because of the Iron Nerve. Really the surprising part is that Mist isn't doing it already."
"Why do people say that you can fly?"
"Iron Ner-"
"If you finish that sentence I'll punch your face in."
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
We'll know we succeeded when other people start doing it.
HINABI: How is he this terrifying?
HONOKA: It's because of the Iron Nerve, stinker. Or thats what Hazou keeps telling me.
GENIN1: How does he do that planning thing so fast?
GENIN2: I dunno, doesn't he have a bloodline for that?
GENIN1: Oh yeah I guess so. Like the Nara except the Nara are just smart like that?
GENIN2: Keep this secret, but I overheard Lord Gouketsu talking with his brother... they said that the Nara do actually have a bloodline. One of them can use the Mokuton!
GENIN1: Wow, thats crazy!
GENIN2: Yeah, some others in the village too, its real hush hush.
SHIKAMARU: Hazou, why are there rumors of members of my clan and other miscellaneous individuals in the village possessing Lord First's bloodline limit?
HAZOU: Oh, thats just a coded phrase Noburi and I slip into our conversations sometimes to denote an individual with attractive physical or mental qualities. Mari invented it, we found it funny, and it goes really well with the usual gibberish I use for subtle misdirection. You see its funny and makes sense because the "Mokuton" is really a reference to the ability to--
SHIKAMARU: Thank you, Hazou, but I think I understand. Your ability to create clever nonsensical verbal constructs and conversational misdirection-- presumably for the purposes of humor and Sage knows what else-- is rivaled in magnitude only by your maturity.
HAZOU: Well, its no surprise. I have the Iron Nerve after all.
SHIKAMARU: Mphm.
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Noumero
Omit Needless Words
[wet_blanket]
Okay, look. I was patient with the thread's interest in Ikeda, since if we ever do meet her again, a notable length of time filled with high-stress developments will have passed, and any inconsistency between Hazou's actual personality and the one he demonstrated during the reverse-seduction could be successfully blamed on that; OPSEC risks are minimal. But if you're going to go around and explicitly draw attention to the fact that we're using Iron Nerve as a meme excuse for everything we're able to do, the whole world will know we have armor jutsu in like a month tops.
[/wet_blanket]
By which I mean, if you want to do that, let's also start continuously orchestrating international disasters of magnitude so massive that no-one is able to line up four thoughts in a row in their wake, let alone conduct retrospective review of our past notable behaviours in response to new puzzling claims. We'll probably get an Ami favour or two out of that, too. Something something the Kaiju Themselves.
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- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
- Strictly speaking, we said 'normal Kurosawa stuff' instead of 'Iron Nerve' to Ikeda.
- We also pretended to have just made a big mistake and tried to cover it up, whereas here we're blatantly claiming patently false things.
- Enough time has passed between then and now that it's perfectly plausible for this to be an unrelated joke of ours.
- Even if people do think it's related, given our hasty coverup I would find it more plausible that Hazou's new joke is an attempt to divert attention away from the slip-up:
- "So I heard that Hazou let slip that the Iron Nerve lets you tank explosions."
- "Man, Hazou says everything under the sun about the Iron Nerve these days."
- "Yeah but this one was before he started making those jokes. I think he was serious that time."
- "Heh, I guess that puts the jokes into perspective. Hide the OPSEC breach in a cloud of incredible claims."
- which means imo it's more likely to reinforce our OPSEC gambit than poke holes in it.
Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Bah! @eaglejarl Can I borrow your dryer?
SHIKAMARU: And in conclusion, the whole world will know you have armor jutsu in a month, at the longest.
HAZOU: I don't have armor jutsu.
SHIKAMARU: Of course you don't.
HAZOU: Do you remember how earlier in that match I said I had explosives that wouldn't harm me? That's a thing. Watch.
...
SHIKAMARU: Okay, what the everloving hell was that?
HAZOU: I'm just that good at sealing? Come on, skywalkers, the new one you're not cleared to know about yet, some others only I know, etc. ! Why is this surprising? Though if you think its prudent I'll just leak that info to everyone so they don't think I have armor jutsu. Why don't you get that started actually?
SHIKAMARU: Okay. How are you able to make all these ridiculous seals?
HAZOU: Motherfucker I keep telling you , I have the Iron Nerve!
SHIKAMARU:...
...
HAZOU: Thank the Sage, he bought it.
MARI: Used the regular explosives while the Pangolin Training Jutsu was up?
HAZOU: Yep. Highest of fives!
MARI: It's nice when funny things happen that are to our advantage once in a while.
HAZOU: Totally! You have to get your laughs in before the kaiju come calling.
MARI:You realize this won't actually stop issues from the armor jutsu thing, right?
HAZOU: Won't it? In what universe is the thing that actually happens usually the most plausible explanation to outside observers? That would be a nice place to live in. Really though, aren't there a dozen plausible explanations aside from the truth?
MARI: No, we're pretty fucked now on that front. I wish you'd checked with me before sending me out for a few months and doing this. Sipping mimosas on the beach all that time was relaxing though.
HAZOU: Darn. If only I kept you around!
...
HAZOU: You thought this was a harmless conversational script omake designed to make you laugh, didn't you Outsider? But it was not! It was meant to render an aesop all along! Mari needs to stay on the clock goddamnit!
MARI: I think it was to misdirect attention so that people won't waffle on about the implausibility of the aforementioned comedic idea that one of them would find very enjoyable. Also, why are we talking like this!
HAZOU: a) Hush you, and (b) Iron Nerve!
(The real lesson was the Deceit score we leveled along the way.)
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- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You know, Hazou could start doing it as a sarcastic middle finger to his brother. I mean, picture it, he tells Hazou to get a sense of humor and Hazou, never the type of person to do something for only one reasons, decides to do this to help secure opsec, give the middle finger to his mom's clan, mess with Keiko's hyper-rational mindset, bring humor to a dark time in the Leaf, and spread deliberate misinformation about his bloodline. After all, who's going to call him on it? Almost no one knows his bloodline well enough to dispute it.
Though, I suppose that he could accidentally give away genuine secrets about the Iron Nerve without realizing it. I mean, he was raised outside of his clan and his mother couldn't really teach him anything out of fear of being killed for it. So it's not like he knows the more esoteric uses of his bloodline. His jokes might actually hold a grain of truth to them...
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
Suppose Hazou does in full ignorance give out an Iron Nerve secret. Say, he gives out something uncomfortably close to "The Iron Nerve lets you cast non-elemental jutsu at halfcost if you practice right." and that happens to be a Major Clan Secret. The results are as follows:
- Hazou doesn't speak his joke any different from the other jokes he believes to be false. There's no information to be gained from his behaviours.
- Nobody else outside the Kurosawa know the Major Clan Secret and thus have no reason to think of it as anything different than the average joke.
- The Kurosawa don't dare call Hazou out on it because that would out the secret. They are also aware of points 1 & 2 and know that as long as they keep their mouth shut nobody will be the wiser, and in fact it'll just be forgotten (tbh the odds that it even reaches the Kurosawa is minimal since it's just a blatant joke among many).
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
You seem to be under the impression others expect us to be playing on level 1. Clearly, this is a clever ploy to disguise that we accidentally let people know about the secret of Iron Nerve.
e: This is supported by the fact that Nara obviously carried usthrough the fourth and fifth rounds. Clearly we're operating under his direction and not trolling the shit out of him too.
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zap lunch
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Emstar
The Shining One
- Location
- Trapped in an extradimensional rift.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ok, so hear me out. We make these contain large free response sections and hand them out to a bunch of individuals. Make up some Nara-ish reason about data collection for behavioral assessment and assisting preference optimization.
Everyone will think we're just doubling down on the joke, but really I just want signatures and handwriting samples from everyone.