- Location
- Liverpool
Did you depose the Mizukage?"
Ami beamed. "Nope. Lord Utakata deposed the Mizukage. The very idea that I, a humble jōnin who'd mostly been away for a year, should have set up a youth organisation that was able to offer a traumatised ex-missing-nin a place to belong during the chaos after Nagi Island, when he had no connections whatsoever in Mist, while Kurosawa couldn't afford to publicly reject Yagura's legacy of missing-nin hatred because the sharks were still pissed at you guys for existing and also for humiliating Mist before the world at the Chūnin Exams? Laughable. Next you'll be suggesting that my deputies built on his fear and loathing of Yagura and his regime, which Kurosawa was taking too long to dismantle because she couldn't afford to alienate the traditionalists, needed the toolkit to reinforce her fragile rule, and wasn't taking my people seriously enough as political actors whose demands mattered. What a wild imagination you have, Hazō.
This is interesting. THIS is the level we could be playing at, hypothetically. Ami is a Jonin, sure, but a fairly new Jonin with not remarkable combat power. But this was just clever planning and good timing and making good use out of paradigm shifts. It wasn't event unknown to us: we knew that Ami and the AMI were brainwashing their own superweapon. Heck, if we hadn't messed things up so much with Naruto, we could easily have been one of his advisors, if/when he steps up to the plate next. Incidentally, Naruto is going to be one of our final challenges. Can't wait outlive him naturally. Can't really FOOM harder than the inspiration of FOOM. Through compelling speech and conviction and actually backing up good words, we'll need to convince Naruto to buy into uplift with us, as equals, even if he doesn't like us. And at that point, we're a couple inspiring scenes from the end credits.
Still, there's an important lesson here for you. None of this was set in stone. She could have alienated me, and then played a perfect game and been perfectly fine, because there was no way I was going to put in the time and resources and take the risks necessary to bring down a Kage, especially when I was happy minding my own business over here. Or she could have kept me on-side and screwed up in the massive, unimaginable, epic fashion she just did, and I'd have interceded with the boys and bailed her out—or, frankly, warned her up front, because none of this was unpreventable. But bitter enemies and big mistakes? No. Either you pick one or you end up dead.
This is a fairly reasonable lesson. I have a refrain I like to use "if you can't rely on me to be good, you can at least rely on me to be smart about it". It seems like it fits here. Though I'm curious what exactly the blunder was.
Three girls," Hazō corrected.
"I'm sorry?"
"Three girls," he repeated. "Kei, Tenten, Snowflake."
"Well sure," Ami said, "but only Kei and Tenten were…"
She broke off to stare at him. "Hazō, don't tell me…"
Hazō studied Ami's rare and delightful bemused expression. "Yeah, they're a lawfully not-married triad now. I guess they were going to surprise you at the ceremony, only then you couldn't make it."
Ami continued to stare. "They pulled off a three-way not-wedding involving a shadow clone in a way that was lawful enough to satisfy half of Leaf's power-holders and the Hagoromo."
"That's right."
Ami was silent for a full three seconds.
Then, a deeply, deeply ominous grin began to stretch slowly across her face. "That's it. I refuse to be outdone by my little sister. Say goodbye to the Leaf you knew."
Honestly I'm here for it. Like, I weirdly like Ami in this chapter. Maybe it's an absence makes the emotion-brain fonder thing, but I really enjoy Ami this chapter, and I feel like it was nice for Hazou too, which is not always the case.
Old news," Ami brushed him off. "My sister has just wielded the power of Law to rewrite society, the nature of romantic love, and the very definitions of metaphysics.
"Chaos must answer."
Hazō had a sudden, very vivid image of Leaf in ashes, with Ami and Kei holding each other atop the shattered ruins of the Hokage Tower. Ami was stroking Kei's hair.
The only way to save Leaf was to distract Ami with something very interesting and completely unrelated, just like Mari had distracted Orochimaru with… with… ah, crap.
Hazō realised, with perfect clarity, that if he did not tell her about the Orochimaru incident right now, then Ami would go away and hear Kei's version of the story first. And if he did tell her about the Orochimaru incident right now…
In his mind, Ami and Kei held each other atop the shattered ruins of the Hokage Tower. Mari's corpse lay at their feet.
The first scene was kind of cute. The second... Yeah, we have to bring it up. Now. But without trying to manipulate things, since we really can't do so successfully, and trying will just lose us the honest recap credit we'd otherwise get.
Technically untrue. You just need to model the entire modern-world civilization alongside Hazou's in-universe personality, and you could probably get a decent approximation just by getting a good read on the top 15 MfD players plus the thread logistics.
That would be a very good approximation. As someone who's confident they've never been above the 15 line of top players, I'm greatly relaxed, knowing Ami won't be able to predict me with an accuracy that almost starts to approach the other scary social-spec chaos agents in my life.
Thank you, @faflec, for reminding me of the idea, and you, @OliWhail, for conceiving of it to begin with.
[x] Ami Plan: When in Doubt, Go Meta
Word count: 366
Humour index: 30%
- (After talking to Ami, proceed with the previous plan.)
- Ask Ami to optimize your approach to the next topic, so that it works even given that she helped optimize it.
- Spend the favour token, if necessary.
- Avoid mentioning Asuma's inability to control Orochimaru.
- If Ami refuses to humor this, try Pragmatic, then Door-in-the-Face, then Adversarial.
- Subject: Suppose there was news you needed to tell Ami that might induce anger and counterproductive desires. How should you describe the situation to minimize such outcomes?
- Approaches:
- Door-in-the-Face: Start by conveying the situation's emotional truth and the sanctions taken to avoid its recurrence.
- Conceit: Frame it as already "settled", requiring no further action. Lead with the emotional impact so Ami knows what to expect, and is ready to process it constructively.
- Con: Might prime her to see it in the worst light.
- (Clarification: "Sanctions" stand for Kei cutting ties with Mari. "Emotional truth" is that Kei feels that Mari sacrificed her for Hazou.)
- Foot-in-the-Door: Chronological description that focuses on the sanctions at the end, vividly describing their effect.
- Conceit: Provide Ami the experience of righteous justice and catharsis vicariously — no need for active action.
- Con: Ami might consider the sanctions insufficient — bad combination with ending on an emotional note.
- Factual: Recount the events objectively, no opinions or careful framing.
- Conceit: Trusting Ami to act in everyone's best interests.
- Con: Ami's priorities might be incompatible with that.
- Empathetic: Draw parallels between the situation and some of Ami's actions.
- Con: Ami might disagree with the parallels, or refuse to care about "hypocrisy".
- (Clarification: Hazou might be to Mari what Kei is to Ami. Also, Ami invented the FGP and lets Kichi manipulate people into it, all to escape Oro.)
- Pragmatic: Detail how counterproductive acting on the initial desires would be. Pivot to discussing constructive responses.
- Cons: Ami might consider the counterproductive actions necessary.
- Adversarial: Promise to take sanctions against Ami should she act on her desires, and/or ask to stay her hand for a favour.
- Con: Damages your relationship with Ami.
- (Clarification: "Sanctions" might range from refusing to cooperate with her projects to actively obstructing them to withholding FOOM to broadly damaging her standing in Leaf.)
- Distracting: Stage a major crisis that would leave everyone too preoccupied to spend time on (this) drama.
@Velorien, does that meta-approach sound particularly entertaining to you?
No plans by pointer addition, please. "Continue previous plan" is fine, but if you want to add stuff to it then you need to copy over all the stuff you want from the previous plan
I'll vote for the plan if you unnest the previous plan @Noumero