Cosmos Quest (Naruto/Lupin III)

[FurikoMaru]

I'll admit I'm voting this for a very childish reason.

It's because Jigen-sensei called the other winning option 'hippie crap'.

Click to shrink...

Smooth jazz daddios such as Jigen-sensei are understandably defensive about hippies.

Me? I'm Canadian. We're the country that told that whole generation "Sure you can crash here!" when they got drafted.

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Would there be any advantage to remembering the emotional stuff better? I guess remembering how we felt or how other people feel might have its uses for psychoanalyzing them, or impersonating them. Or just making sure our rage runs strong and we never forget how helpless we feel to spur ourselves onward.

 

[FurikoMaru]

Oh, the emotional option has benefits that I'm not going to tell you about unless you pick it. ^_^

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Done.

[X] Your promise to Sasuke. If this room should be remembered for anything, it's that.

You told us yourself. When you're cryptic, something interesting lies this way.

Bring it.

 

[Larekko12]

Would there be any advantage to remembering the emotional stuff better? I guess remembering how we felt or how other people feel might have its uses for psychoanalyzing them, or impersonating them. Or just making sure our rage runs strong and we never forget how helpless we feel to spur ourselves onward.

Click to shrink...

Chakra development and meditation progress?

[x]Stitching.
[x]Princess Mage. Boom Boom Boom.

 

[useless101]

[X] Your promise to Sasuke. If this room should be remembered for anything, it's that.

Okay, you convinced me. I must know what this does. Vote change.

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

As I muse on how Itachi plans to make us let Sasuke kill us, I have to wonder about how he plans to make this happen. An embedded command to make our body lock up? Or something subtler, something that makes us accept death? Itachi seems to have a bit of a soft spot for us, so if he could pull the latter, I suspect he would.

In which case, keeping a tight rein on our emotions and sense of self could be extremely beneficial in resisting alterations and foreign intrusions to our personality.

 

[Larekko12]

As I muse on how Itachi plans to make us let Sasuke kill us, I have to wonder about how he plans to make this happen. An embedded command to make our body lock up? Or something subtler, something that makes us accept death? Itachi seems to have a bit of a soft spot for us, so if he could pull the latter, I suspect he would.

In which case, keeping a tight rein on our emotions and sense of self could be extremely beneficial in resisting alterations and foreign intrusions to our personality.

Click to shrink...

Itachi's method most likely involved arranging for a no win situation where the only way out is burning black fire of death or something. The kind of things that get us to perform heroic sacrifices and stuff. Well that or Itachi is relying on us playing turbo mind games ferreting out the secret of the Sharingan and then arranging for our selves to 'die' at Sasuke's hands in a way that fully believable to sasuke but is more like zabuza's 'death'.

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Itachi's method most likely involved arranging for a no win situation where the only way out is burning black fire of death or something. The kind of things that get us to perform heroic sacrifices and stuff. Well that or Itachi is relying on us playing turbo mind games ferreting out the secret of the Sharingan and then arranging for our selves to 'die' at Sasuke's hands in a way that fully believable to sasuke but is more like zabuza's 'death'.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I doubt it. Why? Because overly complex plans to be trusted to execute correctly made on close to a whim ain't kosher with me. He had no plans to hit us with a mind-whammy up until we accosted him, I believe. If we hadn't stepped in his path, we'd have been untouched.

So it's more likely his commands, instead of being overly complex, are simple but effective. Encourage us in certain directions or perspectives, or to just accept death. And it is clearly expected to be at Sasuke's hand, like how Itachi killed Shisui. Supposedly. He can work on making Sasuke kill us later, or he just counts on Sasuke, who he had much more complex plans for, deciding to kill us.

....Which would still be very fucking stupid because Sasuke killing us means he'll never be seen by Konoha as a hero, but whatevs.

 

[Larekko12]

Yeah, I doubt it. Why? Because overly complex plans to be trusted to execute correctly made on close to a whim ain't kosher with me. He had no plans to hit us with a mind-whammy up until we accosted him, I believe. If we hadn't stepped in his path, we'd have been untouched.

So it's more likely his commands, instead of being overly complex, are simple but effective. Encourage us in certain directions or perspectives, or to just accept death. And it is clearly expected to be at Sasuke's hand, like how Itachi killed Shisui. Supposedly. He can work on making Sasuke kill us later, or he just counts on Sasuke, who he had much more complex plans for, deciding to kill us.

....Which would still be very fucking stupid because Sasuke killing us means he'll never be seen by Konoha as a hero, but whatevs.

Click to shrink...

Well depends. We're getting rather infamous for the thievery and stuff... And there's always the desperate situation hard man making hard situation shenanigans with an impending disaster that needs a mangekyou to save untold lives or something.

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Well depends. We're getting rather infamous for the thievery and stuff... And there's always the desperate situation hard man making hard situation shenanigans with an impending disaster that needs a mangekyou to save untold lives or something.

Click to shrink...

Which means an extremely circumstantial situation which, quite frankly, is impossible to accurately predict. At best it would mean this idea popped into Itachi's head and he plans to engineer such a situation directly instead of leaving it to chance.

Far more likely he implants a fascination with sacrifice or something, to encourage lines of thought that would make us lay down our life, maybe a brute force "Don't move" command to seal the deal.

KISS principles apply.

 

[Jans]

*Taps his desk.*

You know, I still like the [X] Capitals options. Its the "Having a wide base of knowledge to draw on makes life immensely easier." kind of information, something Lupin was famous for. He was at his best as a chameleon, able to pick up a role, run with it, and then switch out at a moment's notice. Your Fire Country food merchant may not need to know the latest court fashions in Lightning, but a courtier should know that like the back of her hand. That sort of thing.

 

[FurikoMaru]

What on earth does KISS mean, aside from $125 a ticket to see a plagiarist's father embarrass himself?

 

[Vindictus]

(K)eep (I)t (S)imple (S)tupid.

 

[Torgamous]

In most other settings, I'd stick with storing complex information, since people tend to remember emotional stuff forever by default. This does not apply to settings in which you can be brainwashed into having your best friend kill you with a glance and half a sentence. As soon as we figure out how, we're sticking every important decision we make inside Escher's take on Catachan.

[X] Your promise to Sasuke. If this room should be remembered for anything, it's that.

 

[FurikoMaru]

Congratulations, you have just chosen a specialization in Constructs.

I could write a snippet about this, but I figure I said I'd tell you about it if you picked it, and that's what I should do.

Basically, from all your focus on trying to capture the moment just as it was, with all the emotional intensity you both felt, you got quite good at making your mental Sasuke seem lifelike. Granted, he only has the emotions he had in that short period of time... for now, anyway... but still. What you have preserved is more than a memory, even if it's still less than a full mental clone.

Constructs borrow a tiny fraction of your yin energy to mimic lifelike behaviour inside your head; they are most commonly used as part of a Yamanaka family jutsu I'll think of a poncy name for later. The basic idea of it is that when encountering a 3-5 group of mooks, career genin and the like, you trap them in your head the way your Dad did to you when he showed you his Matrix, and instead of the ninja waving to the guests, they wail the shit out of them.

Now tell me. What happens if you die in the Matrix?

Okay, okay, no, you can't kill people with your brain. ) But you can overwork their imaginations (read: yin reserves) so much that when you drop them back into their own heads, they'll wish they were dead. You might even be able to get it to the point that you can put people into comas - your Dad can manage that in a fight, provided he only has to do it to one target.

It's basically Tsukuyomi as designed by a Spark.

But that's just one thing you can use constructs for. Sakura unconsciously uses one as a vent to get rid of her more problematic emotions and opinions, the Hokage uses his to honour fallen friends and 'get their advice', some ANBU or, formerly, KMP personnel use them to model their targets' behaviour or compare various pieces of testimony at once, and Ebisu uses his to practice talking to women.

O.O PLANS! TO CUSTOMIZE LESSON PLANS IS WHAT HE MEANT TO SAY!

tl;dr: The Fab Four better get the sofabed pulled out, they're gonna have company in your head.

You can still learn to do the other stuff, too, but constructs are going to be the easiest for you.

 

[useless101]

But we can make them fight Goemon in Ino's head too, right? I think this is a very important question.

"Ghost Minds" "Mind Ghosts" "Mind Clones" "Fragments of Another's Dream"

Poncy names! I have them.

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Totally. Fucking. WORTH IT.

Because now we can bring Lupin and his friends to life inside our minds!

 

[Torgamous]

Not the bonus I was expecting, but if it makes turning our mindscape into a deathworld easier I'll take it.

 

[Guile]

I am okay with this.

Having constructs of Lupin's team battling Itachi's Tsukuyomi clones in a inverted world beneath a blood red sky pleases me.

Actually, I wonder if Ami is gonna be the most useful friend for this. She feels things so strongly, imagines so powerfully - her construct might be stronger than she is just because she thinks she should be.

 

[FurikoMaru]

I'll get started on the proppah snip now, shall I?

 

[FurikoMaru]

[embed=425,349]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VnMNl92Qj4[/embed]

[X] The Princess Mage. *hug; whisper in ears* "When I find whoever hurt you guys, I will crush them."

You smirk. "That's the plan!" you say cheerily, drumming your fingers playfully on Ami's back as you return the hug.

Sasuke gives you a look.

"Dude," you say in a low voice, grinning maniacally, "can you imagine how royally pissed Itachi would be if we sent someone else to kill him? We could give her an introductory letter and everything, be all like 'hey bro, I'm kinda busy being awesome at the moment, but my friend Ami said she wanted a crack at you first anyway, so if you can defeat her, maybe I'll pencil you in next month'. It'd be awesome."

Sasuke frowns, but you can tell you've given him food for thought.

"So... the rumour's true?" Ami whispers as the three of you take some free seats in the back row. "The one who... hurt you, was...?"

"If you really wanna crush him, Ami, you're going to have to do better than a 72 in Handseals," you say bluntly.

She turns bright red. "Then I will, you smart-mouthed hussy!"

Whew. That's better. Ami is too young and too... Ami to act like an overprotective mother.

At least to you. To Sasuke she rarely acts like anything else.

At lunch, Hinata comes over to give you some notes she's taken on genjutsu from her clan library.

"This is great!" you exclaim, flipping through page after page of yin-manipulation theory rendered in her elegant brushmanship; she even included some diagrams of what different types and levels of genjutsu look like with a Byakugan. "Thank you so much, this is going to be really helpful. I'm surprised your Dad let these notes out of the compound."

She shuffles her feet and smiles at the ground. "... I think he would be surprised too, if he knew he had."

You blink.

Rebellious Princess Syndrome. The voice 'nods'. Uncharacteristically, it feels the need to add, in a sulky murmur: How are you better at this at seven than I was at 14?

=

When you and Shikamaru arrive at his house after school, Chouji's there.

In his hand is an envelope. A hesitant smile crosses his face as he passes it to you.

You open it, and find that the writing on the note inside is Chouji's dad's.

A crow landed in the duck pond yesterday evening.

You go stock-still.

Duck pond is code for Hikari-kyo, after the giant artifical lake next to the vizier's residence.

Itachi is in the capital.

You look at Chouji. He holds up an ink well and a brush.

^_^; "I know how much you hate it when you don't get the last word."





Acquire Weasel penpal? Y/N

If yes, please select trolling style:

[X] Pithy and to the point. You're already demonstrating you can just send him a letter whenever you want, that does half the work for you.

[X] Troll? No, no, no. Ino is a good girl. :3

[X] Follow me on twitter @TheCrimsonFuckr! ;D

----------

Because it doesn't really make any sense for the creepy bug people or the introverted lazy deer people to have an intelligence network. A successful intelligence network requires a natural gift for establishing person-to-person connections and a nonthreatening atmosphere.

Much like the restaurant business.


(Ne, should I include Jigen-sensei and the Construct update in the archive? I didn't move Magical Kaitou Golden Ino over from tvtropes, but these actually kind of relate to the plot and stuff, so...)

 

[nightblade]

Acquire Weasel penpal? Y
[X] Troll? No, no, no. Ino is a good girl. :3

Chouji is Awesome. Think we should get Sasuke in on this eventually.

 

[hunter09]

Acquire Weasel penpal? Y
[X] Follow me on twitter @TheCrimsonFuckr!

This is the one true path

 

[Selias]

[X] Troll? No, no, no. Ino is a good girl. :3

 

[Hymn of Ragnarok]

Hmm....on one hand, TROLOLOLOLOL.

On the other hand, Weasel butchering our network would be horrid.

 

[Balatro Philologus]

Acquire Weasel penpal? Y

[X] Follow me on twitter @TheCrimsonFuckr! ;D

(does this mean we get to send all our letters to him by carrier pigeon )

Edit: on second thought can we try that regardless of which option wins

 

[FurikoMaru]

That was the plan. The Yamanaka and the Akimichi are allies, but neither of them would risk a human agent's life for a little girl's monkeyshines.

 

[Guile]

Chouji, I love you.
[X] All my yes. All the yes I will ever have.
[X] Tone: conversational. Hello Itachi-chan! May I call you Itachi-chan? It seems silly to insist on formality after you've already been inside me, and all. The trees are lovely this autumn. But then, you can probably tell that for yourself, being in the capital and all~

As for complications implied in being penpals with an S-rank missing-nin, like guys on our own side thinking we're a spy, or simply the logistical problems of getting a letter to said S-rank nin, I say to you:

"When you see my Zantetsuken, you are already gone."

*click* *complications fall into sliced bits*

 

[FurikoMaru]

... >.>;

<.<;

...