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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
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
I think it's more than a little insulting, and definitely infantilizing, to call this a tantrum.
I'm not saying we should have confirmed Akane's consent. I'm saying it was probably a bad idea for us to pursue this avenue of research at all. Like, we shouldn't have put the thought in Hazo's head that something interesting might happen.
There is basically nothing in Akane's character to suggest that she would be okay with becoming a walking tactical nuke.
We already murdered/killed 4(?) people trying to get the Squirrel Scroll and I don't think we had any reason to believe we wouldn't need to murder more people to get it.
My point was also more, we had no immediate reason to believe Akane was going to be capable of deploying an EM-nuke against the Dragons so I think we were counting our eggs before we hatched them there. (Though I'm sure there were also skill pyramid considerations in play).
Says who and on what authority are they making that decision? Nara Kei doesn't have to listen to us anymore.
I'm not saying we should have confirmed Akane's consent. I'm saying it was probably a bad idea for us to pursue this avenue of research at all. Like, we shouldn't have put the thought in Hazo's head that something interesting might happen.
There is basically nothing in Akane's character to suggest that she would be okay with becoming a walking tactical nuke.
We already murdered/killed 4(?) people trying to get the Squirrel Scroll and I don't think we had any reason to believe we wouldn't need to murder more people to get it.
My point was also more, we had no immediate reason to believe Akane was going to be capable of deploying an EM-nuke against the Dragons so I think we were counting our eggs before we hatched them there. (Though I'm sure there were also skill pyramid considerations in play).
Says who and on what authority are they making that decision? Nara Kei doesn't have to listen to us anymore.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Kei doesn't know the details, just "Hazou made a superweapon... again." She can tell Ami that much, and that it's via a method that Akane can deploy but Hazou can't.
But Kei doesn't know anything else. Akane and Hazou haven't told anyone.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Kei: I want to be included and brought into the team
Kei: immediately goes rouge and betrays our trust
- Pronouns
- He/Him
And yet, she still does, because at the end of the day she still respects Hazou's opinion. She never had to listen to Hazou for anything really, because it's very seldom that he tries to use authority in the first place, he just makes people want to listen to him. See her ending the pangolin deal where he actually did try to flex clan headliness to stop her and she ignored it anyways, and he didn't punish her.
Uplift gang doesn't really worry too much about hierarchy, they generally just trust that everyone is acting in good faith and thinks what they do for a good reason. Every now and then that trust gets tested of course
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
The topic at hand is necromancy, not EM.
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
I believe what @FaintlySorcerous was referring to was Kei revealing the specifics of our Resurrection research to Ami
yeah it sucks when people don't care about how you might feel about their actions when they make their plans.
I understand the dynamic. I meant that if our approach is "Kei your sister who you trust more than life itself has to swear a bunch of oaths or else we're gonna be really mad at you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" is not a good approach to get her to hear us out.
I might have been reading too much into @FaintlySorcerous 's words a little too much though so I apologize for that.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
We killed more than that getting Kei her scroll. Or, specifically, Kagome did, but while under our nominal command. And those were people the party had been socializing with for multiple months.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It was self defense- er, I suppose that was the case in Neck. But we were in the Squirrels' territory to get the scroll- er, I suppose we were in Isan's home too.
You know what, Glory to Jashin.
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
I understand that. But do we really think Akane would be happy to receive a Squirrel Scroll dripping in blood? And again my other point is that the Squirrel Scroll was more of "two in the bush" than a "one in the hand" situation.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
any suggestions on how to improve my plan?
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
Don't know if this is an improvement. But I wanna point out that Kagome + Orochimaru seems like it could be a really dangerous combination, given Kagome's poor INFOSEC & trigger finger and Orochimaru's Orochimaruness
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Um.
Frankly, compared to taking out the dragons, her happiness isn't really a factor. I would like her to be happy, and I would happily allow her to give it up (if such a thing is possible) after taking out the dragons, in this counterfactual (as it is, we can just ask Asuma to take care of them).
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Standard "Visit Mareo, Train Harumitsu, try to ensure Harumitsu has friends in the Goketsu"
- Pronouns
- He/Him
True. It may be better to just give him a wide berth in general unless he specifically asks for our expertise but fat chance of that
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
Okay. I get that decision calculus, I don't agree and I think acting like that is ultimately counterproductive to our ends as evidenced by the past two chapters & others like them but I get the utility calculus.
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
We have no idea how long of a time skip that would be, mostly, and if it is sufficiently long it means that Kei tells Ami about our resurrection plans.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Correct.
Two wrongs make a what now?
My intention is that we tell Kei that we want her to explain exactly what and how she intends to bring Ami into it, and how she's going to ensure that this project remains in our control and not Ami's. (My objection is that right now, if this gets out of hand, we can just stop researching the seals and that's it. No way Ami would just let this lie.)
We're then going to explain that we understand that she trusts Ami but that Ami has repeatedly taken actions which have violated our trust while simultaneously having taken very few actions to earn our trust. We aren't comfortable with her bringing Ami into the loop without understanding what the process looks like and getting to sign off on it as an equal partner.
I don't trust Ami with FOOM. This is bigger than that.
I am ready to go to war over this, but I'm optimistic that won't be necessary.
Some of that conversation above, please. This is time sensitive and a big deal. I think we can do it respectfully.
Threnodist
occupying Haudenosaunee & Osage land she/her/hers
- Location
- Pittsburgh
I never said Kei was right. Just expressing how sucky of a position we find ourselves in.
I'm okay with this course of action. Would maybe want to watch the phrasing around "equal partner" but I think its appropriate.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm down, and would vote for this.
- Location
- The Void
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Subordinate partner is what I think you mean. We should be able to make the final decision about how the project will go and what countermeasures are necessary. Ami only gets an advisory role at best
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Having thought about this a little more, I think it's workable. We just ask her not to spread that we're doing this for her, because we don't want chakra transfer to be practically his whole contribution to Leaf. It's true, even -- it bothers him, he'd rather not, we'd rather not.
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean Kei as an equal partner but yeah even that is a little tenuous frankly.
This is our baby and I would love to have Ami involved but these are our calls.
- Location
- The Maple Syrup Mountains
I'm afraid I must disagree. This chapter was very anti-enjoyable to me, above and beyond most 'Kei and/or someone else castigates Hazou for his failures' chapters. The recent Kei chapter, for instance, I understood and appreciated even though part of it was old ground (which I'll get to in a second) and another part of it was an IC misunderstanding by Kei (which makes some of her criticism fall flat but in a very understandable way that didn't detract from my appreciation of the chapter).
I can't quite put my finger on why I disagreed with this chapter so much, but I think this is a solid part of why. It's one thing to hear someone insult you twelve different ways in a minute, it's another to then be falling over yourself to agree with every word they say. But another part of it is... I'm not sure how to put this, but it feels like we're playing charades but every gesture is a slap in the face.
Like, we've been down this road before. When I said we were retreading old ground earlier, I mean we're revisiting the exact same problem spelled out in the exact same way, for the Nth time in a row. And there's something odd about that, because from all the past times this has happened we've certainly sounded like we wanted to take it seriously. But time and time again, we're coming back to the same chapter with a new chapter number. What gives?
I see two answers, different only in being seen from a different angle. The first answer is that the hivemind, despite sounding each time like we want to take this seriously, is not actually putting in the requisite effort to avoid <same chapter with a new chapter number>. The second answer is that the level of effort expected in order to avoid <same chapter with a new chapter number> is prohibitively high and the game was rigged from the start. We all know that the ability to expend mental effort is ruthlessly finite, after all. The limits of mind are no less real than the limits of flesh. It is entirely possible that there is no way to do what is asked of us while retaining enough focus and will to progress our other goals, if the bar is set high enough.
But it's a moot point, isn't it? The seventh time you get castigated for the same problem, you don't expect to avoid an eighth. And yet, it always sounds like we're being told the solution is within our reach, as long as we figure out what's being asked of us. So which is it? Is this a solvable problem that we simply don't know the answer to yet? Or is this a scripted cutscene where we get railroaded into suffering? Each time this happens the more I lean towards the latter, and the more I lean towards the latter the more distasteful these chapters start to feel.
Or something like that, maybe. I can't rightly say if that's the true source of my discontent or just a part of it, but I'm getting pretty tired of this beat. I did not enjoy this chapter, nor do I feel like it brought us any closer to any meaningful change. If it's just angst for the sake of angst, yet another slap in the face for the crime of not solving an unsolvable problem, I might just skip future such chapters.