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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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[X] Training plan - Hazou: Listening to QMs, Power of the Gods

So... We should start studying the sealing notes, personally, even if we don't use shadow clones for it.
 
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ProperAttorney said:
That's not a valid skill pyramid. You end up with two 40s and three 50s.
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Shoot, miscounted, you are right.

That said: could I interest you in also including Pangolin upgrades that there's no reason not to include in your training plans as well?

And where are you getting all the XP? You're using more than I see on the character sheets, and with that amount of XP, I could just put Akane to resolve 60 and the pyramid would work. Are you including the shadow clone XP that hasn't been posted yet? Or am I just not seeing something?
 
Ah, OK you meant Ino, that makes a lot more sense. Should have been able to figure that out, but I guess that's what I get for responding while that tired.

I still think we should try to spend some on screen time with Ino, if only because there's only so much we can glean from off screen interactions, but I definitely see and agree with your point that that would be too much for this update cycle.

[X] Action Plan: Heart to Hearts
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
Know victory, identify our goals and motivations for the scene, and plan our approach accordingly.
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My primary desire is for us to make it clear as Clan Head that the expectation for Goketsu relationships - and thus marriages - is talking out the problems, barriers and feelings. To specifically accomplish that, I believe we should bring up how her actions in the Kei Girlfriend Introduction debacle - to unilaterally deny that woman the ability to even communicate with Noburi when she was trying to introduce herself to the group, as well as the air of utter coldness to a guest - are socially unacceptable, and frame this course correction around her and Noburi's relationship as one aimed at preserving propriety. Given previous information on what Yuno considers important, I believe using this tack will yield best results.
 
You know, I feel that Mari would have been the best person to talk to Yuno about things, given her conversation with Tsunade:
Velorien said:
"Everyone can betray you," she finally said. "No one is safe. In Mist, if somebody reports you for treason, they get a reward, and anything can count as treason if the state wants your stuff or the right people get a big enough bribe. Or if someone fails to report something you've done that counts as treason, they might be the ones who get taken away.

"But you know what? People still trust each other. People still share secrets, and let strangers into their lives, and fall in love and get married even though a quarter of all denunciations come from family members.

"I've been betrayed by parents. Close relatives. Lovers. I've betrayed more people than I can count—it was my full-time job for over a decade, and enough of it spilled over into my private life to make me sick. I've seen all the treachery human nature has to offer.

"But eventually you've got two choices."

She took a swig of lupchanzen piss to focus her thoughts, which in itself said something about how far gone she was.

"Either you give up on humanity and go hide in the woods behind a thousand explosive traps. Or you draw a line.

"I've chosen to trust my kids. I've chosen to trust Jiraiya. Maybe one of them will betray me. Maybe all of them will. If they do, fuck it. I'll deal with it then. It'll take more than a dagger in the back to put Gōketsu Mari down.

"But until the day I feel that dagger in my back, I'm going to keep trusting my family. That's where I've drawn my line."
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Sadly, Yuno and Mari aren't exactly on speaking terms ATM.

Maybe Hazou could talk about his own relationship pitfalls with Akane?
 
[X] Action Plan: Heart to Hearts
❤️💕
[x] Training Plan - Akane: Paper's Path
[x] Training Plan - Hazo: Paper's Path
🥷​
[X] Kumokani x Pandā Cultural Exchange
 
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Interlude: Minato's Poetry, Part 1
  • Threadmarks
    • Readers with an especially good memory will recall that, after Hazō got mauled by reading the Great Seal, Asuma gave him access to Minato's notes on bijū containment. A few chapters later, Hazō got hold of a bunch of Minato's assorted other papers, including some of Minato's famously awful poetry.

    A while back @Twinnstars approached me with a commission to actually write some of that poetry. They wanted 3500 words of it. I said to myself "I can write 1500 words per hour before editing and the stuff is supposed to be bad so it won't require much editing aside from basic spag. It's only about 3 hours work for easy money. Done!"

    Yeah, turns out that poetry isn't the same as prose even when you're okay with it being bad. At the same time I experienced a complete collapse of motivation, to the point where writing MfD is pretty much the only thing I do outside of work, hence why there are a bunch of questions and rules work hanging fire on my lazy butt. Fortunately, Twinstars has been incredibly patient with me about this, for which I offer many thanks. The commission is still not finished, but here is the start of it. I'll post more when it becomes available.


    Kushina's Ode

    Kushina, Kushina
    My beloved, my love
    ugh. trite​
    My beloved, my delight
    eh. not quite the right feel​
    My beloved, my uplifting one
    too verbose​
     My beloved, my joy
    TODO​
     Sweeter and softer and brighter than
    the softest rainbow, her sweetest pie's pan
    because her pie pans are always polished mirror-bright. too much in-joke?​
     Your hair so fair so shining red
    is it to me or about me, you dimwit? :P pick 'you' or 'her' and stick with it​
    stay out of my drafts!!!! they aren't done and they are private!!!!!​
     Well past heart's blood, rose hips, rubies held
    Behold, behold, your flashing eyes upheld
    she keeps her head up even when things are hard...better way to say this?​
     All bliss proceeds from, my heart proceeds to
    Thee.



    Home

    I am home
    Threatless, unthreatened
    Unwatched, unwatching
    Warm. Well-fed. Soft bed
    Loved.



    New Life

    I deal death
    It is my life's work
    I murder, and rend, and gut, and burn
    In service to Leaf and the Will of Fire
    I wade through blood every week, every day, even every hour
    I am Namikaze 'flee on sight' Minato
    not Namikaze 'jutsu crafter' Minato​
    not Namikaze 'research sealmaster' Minato​
    not Namikaze 'poet' Minato​
    From the day of graduation to the day of ascenion to the present day
    I am Namikaze 'flee on sight' Minato.
    Today, Kushina's flows were absent yet again
    Her belly swells with life
    I am, at last, a creator.
    Sage, help me craft a world where my child need be naught else.



    The Seventh Musing on Sacrifice

    A street dog named Angles scans over the Third.
    Arf, arf! says Angles to the band's three chords.
    The viola-ette shouts "The records of your music are not fair! Go slightly deeper!" to the mid-subterranean bass-man.
    The notes they blend, they bend, they curve back upon themselves with a widdershins turn,
    within the stain'ed walls that frame the dancer
    "Not true, not true!" she cries. "Reverse your course lest this dance shall chaos bring!
    "Let not the words of record your steps constrain! Step down, step down, step down, and cross them all away!
    "To build your own dance, the truest form, shalt thou dance by threes, stepping lightly to your part and skipping past the painful paving stones.
    "No mere papermaker's issue can record / the truest steps of this dance / lest frozen words by clumsy, hateful, heavy-footed folk be gained. Dance in truth or dance with death, your choices are alone."
    it's a good thing you're cute, because you are weird​
    what did I say about going into my drafts? It's an experimental form​



    The Will of Fire

    Dancing love, brightest gaze
    Always moving, never time to laze
    Duty leads to freedom, my people's lives to raise
    Courtyards wide and houses tall,
    Water, food, and health for all
    Each and every dusty road
    Every twist and turn and alleyway
    They came and sought and found abode
    Threaten Leaf's great peace and thou shalt pay
    I, the Fourth, standing straight and plain
    I swear by honor, I swear by name
    Reach out your hand as peaceful friend
    All past trouble shall we mend
    Raise up your hand as raging foe
    To a forgotten, unnamed grave thou shalt go.



    A Dream

    I rested, alone at home, with sake and scrolls to hand
    On the battered couch I lay
    Overstuffed, lumpy, patched and worn
    Built by a villein of Leaf, a man of the Warring Clans domesticated
    He learned the trade from his father and he from his
    His hands were knotted and gnarled after decades of pounding nails and packing batting
    His wife, plain-faced and brilliant-smiled
    Ten births, three children, seventeen grands
    His tools and wood and batting form a web across Fire, perhaps across the world
    Every strand a link from man to man to woman to place to time
    A web of Fire's past and present, this battered old couch
    That drew my father to its faded clutches at age thirteen
    It was a spring-to-winter marriage, my father twelve years younger than the faded emblem of human unity that supported him
    Its support he now lacks, traded long since for a cold and lonesome ditch
    It embraces me instead, asking naught but that I recall
    Its lumps and bumps and all
    Where to set my feet and where I should curve that the couch
    The couch my father bought, that the villein made, this his father trained, that all of Fire supplied
    May hold me close in the dream of Fire.



    So Little

    This cold and gloomy yestermorn
    I wandered a dark and dusty street
    A fruit man I happened on to meet
    Long-gone 'twas, the day he was born
    Face like an apple, wrinkled and brown
    Rheumy eyes, two teeth, and a smile so round
    "Praise be," he cried aloud
    "Why so?" I asked.
    "I've my apples and home," he said, his voice so proud
    "From Mist did I flee,
    "To make a new home beneath your mighty tree,
    "Protected I am, by all from genin to thee,
    "Medicine for me and school for the lad,
    "And for him a greater life than I've had."
    I smiled, brave and bright and wide to hide that my feelings were sad
    How little he asked, how small a gift for him I had.



    A Joyous Morn

    Today I abandoned my last
    I crept away, silent and fast
    To my home did I stride
    And spirited away with my bride
    With drink and blanket and food
    And orders that ANBU never intrude
    On a babbling brook's winding bank
    We spread our blanket and shed our rank
    The wind is warm, the sunlight bright
    In beloved's belly, our child turns
    At the feel, my joy so great it burns.
    Kushina smiles, we kiss, and all is right.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • eaglejarl said:
    Readers with an especially good memory will recall that, after Hazō got mauled by reading the Great Seal, Asuma gave him access to Minato's notes on bijū containment. Along with those notes came a bunch of assorted other papers, including some of Minato's famously awful poetry.

    A while back @Twinnstars approached me with a commission to actually write some of that poetry. They wanted 3500 words of it. I said to myself "I can write 1500 words per hour before editing and the stuff is supposed to be bad so it won't require much editing aside from basic spag. It's only about 3 hours work for easy money. Done!"

    Yeah, turns out that poetry isn't the same as prose even when you're okay with it being bad. At the same time I experienced a complete collapse of motivation, to the point where writing MfD is pretty much the only thing I do outside of work, hence why there are a bunch of questions and rules work hanging fire on my lazy butt. Fortunately, Twinstars has been incredibly patient with me about this, for which I offer many thanks. The commission is still not finished, but here is the start of it. I'll post more when it becomes available.


    Kushina's Ode

    Kushina, Kushina
    My beloved, my love
    ugh. trite​
    My beloved, my delight
    eh. not quite the right feel​
    My beloved, my uplifting one
    too verbose​
    My beloved, my joy
    TODO​
    Sweeter and softer and brighter than
    the softest rainbow, her sweetest pie's pan
    because her pie pans are always polished mirror-bright. too much in-joke?​
    Your hair so fair so shining red

    is it to me or about me, you dimwit? :P pick 'you' or 'her' and stick with it​

    stay out of my drafts!!!! they aren't done and they are private!!!!!​
    Well past heart's blood, rose hips, rubies held
    Behold, behold, your flashing eyes upheld
    she keeps her head up even when things are hard...better way to say this?​
    All bliss proceeds from, my heart proceeds to
    Thee.



    Home

    I am home
    Threatless, unthreatened
    Unwatched, unwatching
    Warm. Well-fed. Soft bed
    Loved.



    New Life

    I deal death
    It is my life's work
    I murder, and rend, and gut, and burn
    In service to Leaf and the Will of Fire
    I wade through blood every week, every day, even every hour
    I am Namikaze 'flee on sight' Minato
    not Namikaze 'jutsu crafter' Minato​
    not Namikaze 'research sealmaster' Minato​
    not Namikaze 'poet' Minato​
    From the day of graduation to the day of ascenion to the present day
    I am Namikaze 'flee on sight' Minato.
    Today, Kushina's flows were absent yet again
    Her belly swells with life
    I am, at last, a creator.
    Sage, help me craft a world where my child need be naught else.



    The Seventh Musing on Sacrifice

    A street dog named Angles scans over the Third.
    Arf, arf! says Angles to the band's three chords.
    The viola-ette shouts "The records of your music are not fair! Go slightly deeper!" to the mid-subterranean bass-man.
    The notes they blend, they bend, they curve back upon themselves with a widdershins turn,
    within the stain'ed walls that frame the dancer
    "Not true, not true!" she cries. "Reverse your course lest this dance shall chaos bring!
    "Let not the words of record your steps constrain! Step down, step down, step down, and cross them all away!
    "To build your own dance, the truest form, shalt thou dance by threes, stepping lightly to your part and skipping past the painful paving stones.
    "No mere papermaker's issue can record / the truest steps of this dance / lest frozen words by clumsy, hateful, heavy-footed folk be gained. Dance in truth or dance with death, your choices are alone."

    it's a good thing you're cute, because you are weird​
    what did I say about going into my drafts? It's an experimental form​



    The Will of Fire

    Dancing love, brightest gaze
    Always moving, never time to laze
    Duty leads to freedom, my people's lives to raise
    Courtyards wide and houses tall,
    Water, food, and health for all
    Each and every dusty road
    Every twist and turn and alleyway
    They came and sought and found abode
    Threaten Leaf's great peace and thou shalt pay
    I, the Fourth, standing straight and plain
    I swear by honor, I swear by name
    Reach out your hand as peaceful friend
    All past trouble shall we mend
    Raise up your hand as raging foe
    To a forgotten, unnamed grave thou shalt go.



    A Dream

    I rested, alone at home, with sake and scrolls to hand
    On the battered couch I lay
    Overstuffed, lumpy, patched and worn
    Built by a villein of Leaf, a man of the Warring Clans domesticated
    He learned the trade from his father and he from his
    His hands were knotted and gnarled after decades of pounding nails and packing batting
    His wife, plain-faced and brilliant-smiled
    Ten births, three children, seventeen grands
    His tools and wood and batting form a web across Fire, perhaps across the world
    Every strand a link from man to man to woman to place to time
    A web of Fire's past and present, this battered old couch
    That drew my father to its faded clutches at age thirteen
    It was a spring-to-winter marriage, my father twelve years younger than the faded emblem of human unity that supported him
    Its support he now lacks, traded long since for a cold and lonesome ditch
    It embraces me instead, asking naught but that I recall
    Its lumps and bumps and all
    Where to set my feet and where I should curve that the couch
    The couch my father bought, that the villein made, this his father trained, that all of Fire supplied
    May hold me close in the dream of Fire.



    So Little

    This cold and gloomy yestermorn
    I wandered a dark and dusty street
    A fruit man I happened on to meet
    Long-gone 'twas, the day he was born
    Face like an apple, wrinkled and brown
    Rheumy eyes, two teeth, and a smile so round
    "Praise be," he cried aloud
    "Why so?" I asked.
    "I've my apples and home," he said, his voice so proud
    "From Mist did I flee,
    "To make a new home beneath your mighty tree,
    "Protected I am, by all from genin to thee,
    "Medicine for me and school for the lad,
    "And for him a greater life than I've had."
    I smiled, brave and bright and wide to hide that my feelings were sad
    How little he asked, how small a gift for him I had.



    A Joyous Morn

    Today I abandoned my last
    I crept away, silent and fast
    To my home did I stride
    And spirited away with my bride
    With drink and blanket and food
    And orders that ANBU never intrude
    On a babbling brook's winding bank
    We spread our blanket and shed our rank
    The wind is warm, the sunlight bright
    In beloved's belly, our child turns
    At the feel, my joy so great it burns.
    Kushina smiles, we kiss, and all is right.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm honestly impressed you managed to get the scansion breaks just right for that hidden cipher. So much lore!
     
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