- Thoughts:
- Ami hurt Hazou, then doubled down on it.
- Ami doesn't understand what family is. She's probably always been isolated by her own brilliance and her social prowess is as much a necessary defense mechanism as a weapon.
- Hazou might literally be her first real friend. And she's probably genuinely hurt by his reluctance to play along with her scheme, in her own way.
- Much like the rest of the Goketsu misfits, it's going to take time and effort for her to grow into the family, if that's what she wants.
- Hazou wants to give her a chance, but also expects that she meet him halfway.
- Ami is intensely prideful. Don't condescend to her, no matter what.
- Message
- Apologize, for not being what she'd hoped we'd be.
- Forgive her, for not being what we'd hoped she'd be.
These parts feel mutually exclusive. It feels as though Hazou is staking the moral high ground and saying, oh-so-generously, that "we were wrong to expect better from you, but we're mature enough to continue working with you in spite of your flaws."
Further, I don't like how it asserts a claim on Ami's familial knowledge. While I've mused about it as a possibility, it's
also possible that Ami does understand and simply has trouble putting that theory into practice. Or maybe this is
genuinely how Ami expresses her familial affections. Look at the power dynamic she has with Kieko. Ami could do almost anything to Kieko would forgive Ami for it --sweeping it under the "Ami has a plan I cannot foresee" umbrella or the "I'm so worthless that I deserve this" umbrella.
Do I think these possibilities are as likely? Not quite. But I worry that (with the wording as it currently is) Hazou will come across as high-handed, moralizing, and snobbish. That might not be the intent of the plan, and that might not be Hazou's intent when he says it, but Hazou is a fallible/realistic character and has a habit of dining on his foot, especially when he's earnest. Remember, Hazou-the-character accidentally implied to Orochimaru that
he, a teenage missing-nin from a foreign country with a clanless ninja's education, would know how to lead the Goketsu Clan than
Orochimaru of the Sannin (back when we were still trying to convince him not to slaughter us all for squatting in his home) and got his soul brutalized for it.
But yeah, this plan's overarching tone comes across as too patronizing for me to be comfortable voting for it.
What is the optimization meeting/plan meant to be for, again; and also, why do we need to say this (I get this weird feeling we are going to get roped into another treason plot or something).
Honestly can't recall. I remember it being a proposed addition when I originally posted the very first iteration of this plan and I added it accordingly, then carried it over. I think it might've been a meeting about the Keiko Clones, or for a plan for which Ami never clarified the intent? Although, now that I'm typing this out, I seem to recall that Ami had an unvoiced idea that she wanted to run by us moments befor she was all but ferried away to Mist in chains.
