17 KiB
[FF][RST] The Waves Arisen [Ch.8]
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Author: u/Wertifloke *
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URL: https://wertifloke.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/the-waves-arisen-chapter-8/
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Score: 22
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Created: 2015-02-02T01:06:41
Post:
Comments:
u/Kodix [+17] (29 minutes later)
Good lord. That was.. something.
A plan working out flawlessly and quickly, which may or may not be the first time I've ever read that happen.
Three teams making it out of the forest, with everyone else likely dead, just like that.
The sheer callousness of the ninja - the chuunin and the cloud ninja in particular.
The casual, instant death of the cloud girl.
It's.. it's like this isn't even shonen! Amazing!
u/scruiser [+6] CYOA (43 minutes later)
My thoughts exactly. I was enjoying this fic enough that I didn't care that it seemed to be turning into a fix-fic. This chapter was going along in the same pattern, Naruto's team casually winning with no real struggle, and then a large number of likable secondary characters are just wiped out. No plot armor for anyone! I like it like that.
u/Izeinwinter [+8] (2 hours later)
Everyone is failing very hard at rationality - given this social structure, the only reasonable course of action is to flee. The planet, if possible.
I'm not even joking. Remember that anti-social branch of Naruto's family that went to live on an island to be left the fuck alone? Right idea, insufficiently extreme execution. They are living in a world in which it seems like someone systematically rigged... well, life.. to suck.
The rational move in this game is not to play - Focus on utility-techniques for chakra and found a village which is well and truly hidden. I'd suggest burrowing into the bedrock a couple of miles under the artic, or researching travel techniques to bail on the planet.
u/logrusmage [+11] (7 hours later)
The rational move in this game is not to play - Focus on utility-techniques for chakra and found a village which is well and truly hidden. I'd suggest burrowing into the bedrock a couple of miles under the artic, or researching travel techniques to bail on the planet.
Who says the Uzumaki didn't do just that? Spreading rumors of their village's destruction after the fact, or maybe sinking it a la Atlantis?
u/Izeinwinter [+6] (7 hours later)
.. This seems like it would be simple, actually. Many sided war, an nigh-universal obsession with secrecy. Leave ruins behind, and anyone that checks on you will assume some other faction murdered everyone...
u/puesyomero [+4] The Culture (4 hours later)
ah but can you ever hide from the pettiness, hate, or fear of humans? sure you leave behind the tailed beasts (poor naruto) but eventually turmoil may arise in your community and when everyone has the capacity to become a person of mass destruction.... (damm imagine our sociopaths with chacra!)
u/Izeinwinter [+8] (6 hours later)
Pfth. Sure you can. Doing better than this crapsack social settlement is not even remotely difficult. They are currently running casualty rates comparable to... communist cadre during stalin's purges? Except, it's the norm, not the reign of terror of any individual.
And that doesn't follow inevitably from chakra use - we hand out multi-tonne high speed vehicles to essentially everyone, and they are hardly ever used as weapons. Some places literally give everyone actual weapons, and those also don't turn into bloodbaths.
This world is the result of malign social engineering. The tailed beasts are not really the problem, the social structure is, to an extent that is just ridiculous.
The trick is to avoid the fate which befell Naruto's isolationist kinsmen - Presumably they were destoyed because it was feared that by the simple expedient of just, you know, not murdering their children in droves, they would eventually be back with numbers that could not be fought. So, in order to do this right, you need to arrange to not be findable at all. Or to be thought dead. Or alternatively, be in a place where you cannot be realistically followed/attacked, even if found.
u/Adamantium9001 [+1] United Federation of Planets (6 days later)
They are living in a world in which it seems like someone systematically rigged... well, life.. to suck.
Not to divert attention to a competing story, but:
u/kaukamieli [+3] (45 minutes later)
Thank you! Now I can go to sleep. :)
Thank you for actually killing some genins we know. Would have been better if they had been fleshed out more before that, though.
u/scruiser [+6] CYOA (53 minutes later)
Thank you for actually killing some genins we know.
That is a benefit to fanfiction that is commonly underutilized. Since the audience is already familiar with the characters, the author doesn't even need to build up someone for an emotional impact before they kill them.
u/kaukamieli [+2] (an hour later)
I don't see the emotional impact here. It was too easy and just gives the feeling of them not being important in the fic anyway. If there was a chapter for team Sakura before this test, it would have been way different.
It's still cool to actually have the "good guys" take real damage. Now if author would just kill Naruto off and make this Avenger-Hinata-fic...
u/Bartimeaus [+3] (an hour later)
I disagree to a point. You are correct that for somebody going into this cold there isn't an real impact for that team dying, but for people familiar with Naruto the fact that those very key three died right away was quite a shock
u/kaukamieli [+3] (an hour later)
Well, I've read whole manga and watched most of the anime. Maybe I'm just a heartless bastard?
edit: They got killed offscreen for Pete's sake!
u/Bartimeaus [+4] (an hour later)
Ha, yea the off screen bit hurt, but honestly they were (realistically) no more then bit characters with fleshed out filler stories, and I enjoy that the author is taking it in a different direction. The fact that we knew so much about them gave their deaths a bite without effecting the story
u/rumblestiltsken [+5] (8 hours later)
They got tortured to death off screen. Preteens or very early teens.
I don't know... seemed to have enough impact for me. Maybe I just like Sakura and Shino too much to be objective.
u/rationalidurr [+3] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (8 hours later)
Prediction: everything just before the Rain team ambush is a genjutsu.
Circumstantial proof: Canon has a rain team with wide area genjutsu that was leading the original team + Kabuto in circles. Cloud were demonstrated too powerful in a previous fight, them losing a member in one is a bit far fetched, combined with the fact that Naruto's team won easily over both Rain and a cloud chunin, I call shenanigans. The chunin in charge of preliminaries, doesn't know Sasuke's name, which is weird because the story of Uchiha is well known in the Leaf village. Naruto's description of how wrong everything is going wrong, from dice rolling to chunin not giving a time to rest for Neji's team, or even letting Tenten leave on her own. And I think the dice rolled on Sasuke because the Rain wanted to see his techniques in action.
And seriously, everyone is to callous about death and suffering, this behavior makes sense in a warlike desperate situation, but that doesn't seem to be the case here, I can guess the author is making a point about power distribution between people, when some of those people can move mountains and therefore easily rule the normies.
EDIT: according to the following chapter I am in the wrong. Unidammnit Nappa.
u/jrpguru [+4] (15 hours later)
I think the cloud ninja was overconfident because she was expecting Sasuke to be as weak as TenTen.
In canon at this point Sasuke was near exhausted, only had a two tomoe sharingan and was actively having to suppress using chakra to avoid having the cursed seal kill him, and he still won the preliminary match against the chakra draining ninja with some trouble.
In this story, Sasuke is fresh, has a 3 tomoe sharingan, and is boosting his power with the cursed seal. I'd expect him to easily beat anybody in the exam except for Naruto, Neji, and Lee.
Also the Byakugan should be able to see through a genjutsu like that.
u/kaukamieli [+2] (18 hours later)
Not to mention that Sasuke has gotten enhanced training from Naruto. Their whole team is stronger than in the canon at this point.
u/Jello_Raptor [+3] The Last Tool User (10 hours later)
Hmm, how long did it take you all to solve the dice problem?
Namely: Select evenly two genin out of 9 with only a six sided die for randomness.
u/FeepingCreature [+5] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (15 hours later)
u/Izeinwinter [+4] (15 hours later)
Or in words that would actually be spoken out loud: initial batch of nine divided into 3 groups of 3, select a group using 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 in the group chosen, select using same, first contestant. remaining 8, divide in two, use 1-3 and 4-6, repeat twice.
u/fortycakes [+3] (13 hours later)
Having attempted to subscribe by email, I don't seem to be recieving email alerts from the page after the initial "are you sure you want to subscribe to wertifloke" email.
... After some thorough checking, it turns out GMail was helpfully filing the story alerts under "Social" for some reason.
u/ToaKraka [+2] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (18 minutes later)
The singular of "dice" is "die". Other than that, though, pretty awesome!
u/Wertifloke [+6] (20 minutes later)
Intentional, for clarity, as in other chapters.
u/TabethaRasa [+2] (an hour later)
Historically, dice is the plural of die, but in modern standard English, dice is both the singular and the plural: throw the dice could mean a reference to two or more dice, or to just one. In fact, the singular die (rather than dice) is increasingly uncommon.
u/ToaKraka [-7] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (an hour later)
(holds back vomit) Well, I guess it isn't any more despicable than the use of singular "they", so I'll have to stomach it.
(I really should get around to finishing my edited .epub of Time Braid, in which I convert all instances of singular "they" into "he" or "she", depending on the speaker...)
u/VorpalAuroch [+8] Life before Death (7 hours later)
Singular they is ancient and, especially in the age of publicly-visible nonbinary people, necessary. Making this epub is unambiguously morally wrong.
u/ToaKraka [-1] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (10 hours later)
Didn't someone invent "ze" and "zir" for just this purpose? I find the use of those invented words less confusing and cringeworthy than the use of singular "they". When I'm reading, though, I'm reading for entertainment, not moral satisfaction--and I personally (though your own personal opinion may differ) am disgusted (maybe "aesthetically" is a good word to use here, rather than "morally"?) whenever I see "they" used as a singular pronoun and am forced to mentally translate it into "he" or "she" (or "it" or "ze", if I'm in a moral mood) so that the sentence can make sense to me.
(I've read a children's book from the early 1900s that uses "it" to refer to people of indeterminate gender, and find that to the most readable option, myself--but I guess you'd say that's dehumanizing for people of nonbinary gender, and I'll admit that it's confusing in some cases, so I usually stick to "he" and "she".)
u/VorpalAuroch [+4] Life before Death (17 hours later)
There are two differences between invented pronouns and singular they; the most important is that everyone uses singular they without thinking about it, and invented pronouns only people who are specifically thinking about it use them. The second is that they is an indeterminate form rather than a determinate nonbinary form, which invented pronouns might not have been in theory but definitely are in practice.
When Time Braid's author used singular they, I guarantee you they weren't thinking about it. They just wrote in natural language, and in places where they would use 'they' in speech, they used it in writing. Just like I did here; I don't know the author's gender, and it might be nonbinary, so 'he or she' is inappropriate, so I used they, like everyone else. Which includes y'ou, I guarantee it. It's been demonstrated before that even the most fervent haters of singular they still use it regularly in conversation.
u/ToaKraka [-1] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (17 hours later)
I'll admit to not having seen "ze" in use more than a handful of times, so I could be misunderstanding it.
I don't engage in very many oral conversations--but, when I do, I consciously make a point of using "he" or "she" (though not "ze", and "it" only when I slip up) in preference to singular "they", and have done so for as long as I can remember. In written conversations, I very often use "it" to refer to people of indeterminate gender.
u/VorpalAuroch [+3] Life before Death (18 hours later)
when I do, I consciously make a point of using "he" or "she" (though not "ze", and "it" only when I slip up) in preference to singular "they", and have done so for as long as I can remember.
I am not denying that you intend to avoid singular they. I am denying that you succeed. No one does, because it's too much an integrated part of English.
u/Anderkent [+7] (6 hours later)
Singular they has been a part of english since like 1400's, what's your problem with it?
u/ToaKraka [-2] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (10 hours later)
Didn't someone invent "ze" and "zir" for just this purpose? I find the use of those invented words less confusing and cringeworthy than the use of singular "they". When I'm reading, though, I'm reading for entertainment, not moral satisfaction--and I personally (though your own personal opinion may differ) am disgusted (maybe "aesthetically" is a good word to use here, rather than "morally"?) whenever I see "they" used as a singular pronoun and am forced to mentally translate it into "he" or "she" (or "it" or "ze", if I'm in a moral mood) so that the sentence can make sense to me.
(I've read a children's book from the early 1900s that uses "it" to refer to people of indeterminate gender, and find that to the most readable option, myself--but I guess you'd say that's dehumanizing for people of nonbinary gender, and I'll admit that it's confusing in some cases, so I usually stick to "he" and "she".)
u/Anderkent [+9] (10 hours later)
Okay, but if it's your personal quirk and you acknowledge that it isn't wrong, you shouldn't use words like despicable to describe it. It bothers you, ok, but it's an established part of the language, theres no reason it should bother you more than any other word, if you can't get over it then sure, avoid it, but don't post judgemental opinions where you imply the author is somewhat making a mistake.
u/None [+3] (14 hours later)
Damn, this went from 0 to /r/badlinguistics real damn quick
u/JanusTheDoorman [+2] (4 hours later)
"And the butchery begins"
u/Adamantium9001 [+1] United Federation of Planets (6 days later)
Is a common occurrence in Naruto fanfics? 'Cause holy shit, dude.