- Location
- Yes.
KAGOME: *talking in obscure Sealing language not in the dictionary*
KUMOKOGO: *takes offense, commits a violence*
HAZOU: Jashindamnit.
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
KUMOKOGO: *takes offense, commits a violence*
HAZOU: Jashindamnit.
How Miyuki introduced herself in an earlier chapter. Kagome probably interrupted her right before she would have said it again. Painful timing.
She likes Yuno so the unwarranted hostility was extra distressing.
[errr] Started a plan but ran out of steam.
- This is a good moment to rise to the occasion.
- Mari will not always be around to handle social encounters.
- Kei prefers to visit when Mari is absent.
- Work with Gaku to find a social debrief helper for the clan. Keep family up to date on VIP dossiers so guests can comfortably visit without having to give a warning.
- Acting with the decorum of an influential clan is important to be treated like an influential clan.
- Work with Kagome and Mari on how to improve his social intuition and other skills he will need for summoner relations.
- Fixing specific hiccups is not enough. Any number of things he could have said to upset a member of Kei's polycule. He was unprepared. Next time he will not be. Good progress in not prejudging Miyuki or trying to blow her up.
- Apology to Miyuki.
- Consult with Ino and Kei.
- She does not want her clan's style to die out. With consent, pay for a high quality printing of axe martial manuals.
- She wants to be an ordinary ninja. Brainstorm tools or seals to cover for fieldwork with her limitation.
- Yuno needs to apologize.
- Share what Miyuki said about Yuno.
- Getting Yuno to a better place.
- Yuno is on edge from the Nara girl in the hospital. Her friend Akane is troubled.
- Test if Neji added something missing to the Yuno-Noburi dynamic by arranging a meeting.
- Ino could spin stories of Noburi rejecting girls. Pull strings to get Nara reassigned. Tempering jealousy will make Noburi more comfortable being transparent, which will illuminate reasons not to be jealous.
- Couple bonding ideas from Ma and Pa.
- Test ARS by sneaking seals into Yuno's kit for Noburi to activate. Little surprises, smitten messages during the day.
- Check in. Promise a mission clearing many chakra beasts with Noburi soon.
Please let us not spend even more time on this, which promises to be tedious and ill-fitting to our current problems + build composition the extreme.
Another few reasons why we shouldn't spend any more than the minimum possible time on fixing our "mistake":
1. Fujisawa doesn't matter.
In relative terms, her social, political, or personal power mean nothing when compared to our other problems. The most likely scenario is that we will encounter her much less frequently in the future, which is an absolute win in my book. Her function so far has been: a trap for Kagome's social skills, a trap for Noburi's horrendous marriage, and a trap for Yuno's hair-trigger antagonism a la Noburi.
Why on earth would we want any more of that? I don't think that she is a bad person, nor do I care. There are other "not bad people" we've done nothing for or about in the setting. Fujisawa is just a net negative for Goketsu's current priorities and composition.
2. Being somehow offended/enraged at us is Kei's resting state.
Kei will continue to be as self-absorbed and short-fused in the foreseeable future as she is right now. We will not have to help her to create problems that include and spontaneously stem from us.
Spare our efforts for when her current blow-up's consequence matters.
Maybe ask her to at least coordinate with us to prepare the living social landmines that are Kagome and arguably Yuno+Noburi (sorry Nobs) if she decides to find the one sensitive ninja in a world that kills sensitive ninja, and brings her home to meet the family. Though from a meta standpoint, I'd rather those preparations and even the meetings happen off screen, but I accept that it is unlikely.
The most important lesson from this update is how much a thorough preparation will be necessary for Kagome's interaction with our erstwhile? spider wife. Unlike this event, even the slightest temperamental faux pas there can result in 1) Kagome's death 2) The spiders' death as a clan 3) The release of dragons 4) Armageddon, one way or another.
We must do whatever we can to make that interaction go as smoothly as possible.
That's why I voted for the plan that I did.
Is there any way we can further prepare the spider queen or whatever for Kagome?
Another few reasons why we shouldn't spend any more than the minimum possible time on fixing our "mistake":
1. Fujisawa doesn't matter.
In relative terms, her social, political, or personal power mean nothing when compared to our other problems. The most likely scenario is that we will encounter her much less frequently in the future, which is an absolute win in my book. Her function so far has been: a trap for Kagome's social skills, a trap for Noburi's horrendous marriage, and a trap for Yuno's hair-trigger antagonism a la Noburi.
Why on earth would we want any more of that? I don't think that she is a bad person, nor do I care. There are other "not bad people" we've done nothing for or about in the setting. Fujisawa is just a net negative for Goketsu's current priorities and composition.
2. Being somehow offended/enraged at us is Kei's resting state.
Kei will continue to be as self-absorbed and short-fused in the foreseeable future as she is right now. We will not have to help her to create problems that include and spontaneously stem from us.
Spare our efforts for when her current blow-up's consequence matters.
Maybe ask her to at least coordinate with us to prepare the living social landmines that are Kagome and arguably Yuno+Noburi (sorry Nobs) if she decides to find the one sensitive ninja in a world that kills sensitive ninja, and brings her home to meet the family. Though from a meta standpoint, I'd rather those preparations and even the meetings happen off screen, but I accept that it is unlikely.
The most important lesson from this update is how much a thorough preparation will be necessary for Kagome's interaction with our erstwhile? spider wife. Unlike this event, even the slightest temperamental faux pas there can result in 1) Kagome's death 2) The spiders' death as a clan 3) The release of dragons 4) Armageddon, one way or another.
We must do whatever we can to make that interaction go as smoothly as possible.
That's why I voted for the plan that I did.
Is there any way we can further prepare the spider queen or whatever for Kagome?
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- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Only in Marked for Death.
- Location
- Bronx
So Miyuki is associated with all three Kei's, right? What if Hazou found her in public, got down on hands and knees, and asked for her forgiveness? She'd probably forgive us and it would raise our social standing, showing humility to a (former) clanless ninja. (Not to mention it would be the right thing to do)
This seems wildly incompatible with the sensibilities of the setting.
Why would Hazou do such a thing?
If the motivation is a social victory to balance out our general social inaptitude, a clan head doing this would torpedo their social standing. This is a "might makes right, and you better maintain that illusion" world, not a "common contract courtesy" world. This course of action is self defeating.
If the motivation is NOT social gains, there is no reason to do this in the first place.
- Location
- Bronx
My rationale was to further court KEI, since they seem to be gaining more political power. Ami kinda likes us, but my concern is Naruto, and getting on his good side.
My thought was that with KEI, Kei, Ami, and Naruto on good terms with us, we don't really need to care about the clans that would look down on us for apologizing, and the clans that we do like wouldn't care about our public apology. Not to mention that we still have the civilian merchants on our side. Maybe it's not viable, but that's why I didn't write out a whole plan; somebody with better social and calligraphy skills might take it further 😁)
- Location
- The state of Paranoia
[X] Enough is Enough!
I would prefer to also have something in there for Kagome and Akane, but I really like how you do the Noburi/Yuno conversation.
Getting a social debrief-er is an excellent idea, as is having Mari work with Kagome to improve his social skills.
These ideas on the other hand, are not great. As Miyuki said, she already is a normal ninja, just one that can't speak. I think she would take offense to us trying to 'fix' her.
And spreading rumors of Noburi rejecting girls would just make Yuno more worried, because it implies that there are lots of girls who are interested in him and aren't staying away at the thought of death by Satsuko. I don't know if reassigning Nara is a bad idea, but it sounds like the kind of thing that would get us squished by Tsunade, so I'm skeptical.
These are good ideas. Noburi doing little romantic gestures for Yuno will spice things up for them both and probably at least help a little with her worries. The biggest thing they need right now is communication, but this certainly won't hurt on top of that.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That sounds like a wildly disproportionate apology. Not to mention the public performance of it would erase the genuinity of the act.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've reformatted this plan (below) so it looks more like a traditional MfD plan. The content is unchanged. Specifically, I'm confused by the '[X]' on every line. If you want to use this format, edit the original post (quoted above) and put it in.
I kinda like the frustration expressed in [] Plan This Is Not Good Enough but there are too many other good things that I feel should be done in the next update, like seals and all the other stuff we were working on in past updates. I wish there was a way to _actually_ get people to talk to each other....
[jk] add CCNJ to the academy curriculum.
[jk] add CCNJ to the academy curriculum.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
What is a social debrief-er?
[X] Action Plan: Changing Minds
@ProperAttorney Can you loop Cannai in on the Mareo efforts? Worried we have not built enough rapport to hand over chakra fueled brain altering.
@ProperAttorney Can you loop Cannai in on the Mareo efforts? Worried we have not built enough rapport to hand over chakra fueled brain altering.
I agree that the question then becomes choosing between KEI vs everyone else. I strongly, strongly recommend we choose "everyone else".
Practically:
Whether or not they're honest, the reason for KEI's existence includes the practical abolishment or eventual irrelevance of clans. We are a clan. Any long term preference for KEI will inevitably lead to strengthening those who are bound to stab us in the back (or front, if they get powerful enough). Finally, any association with KEI should make it harder for us to make use of other clans' resources, e.g. sealmasters or technique commissions.
In the end, I have strong reservations about the ability of our socially inept clan leader to play the clans and KEI off of one another while KEI is led or supported by indeterminately capable people.
Societally:
(I have strong reservations about KEI, and think that they are either power hungry hypocrites or, at best, a temporary measure which will not abolish itself when the time comes. That's what the text below is about, in case you might want to skip it)
Clans are not the fundamental problem in MFD society; the insane disparity of power concentration is - personally and organizationally. Obviously, the most prominent examples of this are the clans and Essies. Critically, KEI will not solve but exacerbate this problem by creating an overwhelming, monolithic power bloc with a lack of credible opposition.
In a KEI world, you trade the snobbery of the numerous clans for the monolithic power concentration of KEI. This is akin to praying for a benevolent king. In KEI's world, whatever KEI doesn't like ends. In the clan world, you can go to a different clan. If we want to trade optionality for the promise of absolute power being wielded responsibly, we should check for lupchanzen.
In the end KEI is just another clan, which is funny (and further revealed by) the clan of the same name, only its growth is not limited by constraints of tradition. As an example, the belief in their relative benevolence is severely misplaced when they tout the last gift program as a public good.
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Thinking of that role you see in movies sometimes. The assistant whispering in the important person's ear, reminding them who they are about to speak with. Their name, were they recently married or divorced, how many kids they have, what gift they recently sent you, grudges with other people at the event or idiosyncratic faux pas to avoid. That kind of thing. Someone who could get along with the clan and anticipate needs. Whose very absence makes you think twice about what to say.
Where did my pants go?
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
EDIT: who's writing the next update? If it's Velorien, then we might want to wait on Kagome...?
EDIT 2: Velorien says that he's open to writing Kagome and doesn't like writing Kagome because he feels he's bad at writing Kagome, but would like to practice, so small Kagome scenes seem okay. He's also writing the next update. Also, per Discord, Kagome can't get a crypto stunt to be better at socials.
I think that a lot of plans have good elements but none of them incorporate everything I want.
This plan is two, maybe three, scenes. What happens offscreen is low-stakes (writing a letter doesn't carry the possibility of failure IMO, given that Kei will nix the plan if it's no good) but carries the plot forward.
[X] Action Plan: Facilitate All The Things!
Word count: <300
EDIT 2: Velorien says that he's open to writing Kagome and doesn't like writing Kagome because he feels he's bad at writing Kagome, but would like to practice, so small Kagome scenes seem okay. He's also writing the next update. Also, per Discord, Kagome can't get a crypto stunt to be better at socials.
I think that a lot of plans have good elements but none of them incorporate everything I want.
This plan is two, maybe three, scenes. What happens offscreen is low-stakes (writing a letter doesn't carry the possibility of failure IMO, given that Kei will nix the plan if it's no good) but carries the plot forward.
[X] Action Plan: Facilitate All The Things!
Word count: <300
- Duration: ten days.
- Kagome and Mari:
- Tone: understanding, solution-oriented.
- Kagome, your social skills can cause trouble. We're not upset, but we're worried - you can't always avoid these situations. We almost got in trouble with Kumokugo more than once.
- Mari, can you help? Kagome has a lot of skills - worked in intelligence, knows how to keep quiet - which might translate to these situations with a refresher/some work.
- Noburi:
- Go sparring (away from prying ears).
- Tone: brotherly. Support/empathy.
- Do you want to talk about Yuno?
- She's effectively from another world. Bridging that gap is hard. Everything to date speaks volumes about Noburi as a person and his love.
- We want to offer support, resources, and ideas, in that order. What do you need?
- Would talking to someone help? Happy for you to hire a relationship counsellor (clan pays). Kurenai is discreet/socially adept. Ma and Pa are respected Summons and have a successful relationship (of sorts).
- Communication, boundaries, expectations, and relationships are hard - an expert might have new perspectives and tools.
- Mareo:
- Explain the Yamanaka to Kumafuwafuwa - their specialties/the YSJ. Would it be appropriate for Hazo to discuss this with Mareo, offering help?
- If so, bring this up with Mareo. Does he want help? Discuss what assistance he's comfortable with.
- Hazo might not be able to help - hasn't spoken to anyone. Not an expert, but he knows experts.
- Offscreen:
- Follow sealing SOP, research the easier seal:
- Chakra adhesion activated ARS.
- Two output seal ARS.
- Miyuki:
- With Kei's permission and input, write Miyuki a letter.
- Include a tasteful gift - food, books, paper/ink?
- Thank Miyuki for her grace in a trying situation. Apologize sincerely.
- You want her to be comfortable visiting the Goketsu estate and recognize your errors.
- Extend an open dinner invitation.
- With Kei's permission and input, write Miyuki a letter.
- Akane:
- Spend time. No pressure, just presence.
- Follow sealing SOP, research the easier seal:
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- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So you want to crossbreed Mari and Gaku?
That would be great. Someone in the room supporting us when things happen, but not making their own plays.
Nomenclator. And it's not just a movie thing, ancient Roman politicians had them.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You know, I was going to make a post about Kei. It was going to be about how I was worried that her political prominence may tempt people into dating her just for the political association, and how we may want to look in on that.
And then I remembered that Kei is friends with Naruto, and that Ami is Ami. Kei is fine, and anyone dating Kei is probably given nine different "break Kei's heart and you're dead before the hour ends" speeches.
And then I remembered that Kei is friends with Naruto, and that Ami is Ami. Kei is fine, and anyone dating Kei is probably given nine different "break Kei's heart and you're dead before the hour ends" speeches.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh, also Hazou. If it came down to it Hazou would totally help someone in the Uplift Family hide a body.
- Location
- Yes.
HAZOU: Why are we doing this, exactly? Why aren't we just exploding it?