Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Sharpandpointies]

He in your D&D group?

We used to play Anima together online. He had fun characters and good ideas. ^_^

.....

Mostly.

[Vakanai]

We used to play Anima together online. He had fun characters and good ideas. ^_^

.....

Mostly.

Ha! Mostly.
I'm the opposite, I have a lot of ideas but they almost never work.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Beadle is pretty good at figuring out weird ways to use magic and other such powers, I've discovered. ^_^

He played, briefly, a megalomaniac telepath... that was also an Armadillo, in one of Cleric's game. My character carried him around swaddled in a blanket.

[Sharpandpointies]

Ha! Mostly.
I'm the opposite, I have a lot of ideas but they almost never work.

I'm not saying all of Beadle's ideas worked. Just that they were good, and could have POTENTIALLY worked. ^_^

He played, briefly, a megalomaniac telepath... that was also an Armadillo, in one of Cleric's game. My character carried him around swaddled in a blanket.

Sounds like Beadle, yes. ^_^

[Beadle]

We used to play Anima together online. He had fun characters and good ideas. ^_^

.....

Mostly.

I think ‘mostly’ might be stretching it.

And I’m sad that COVID put the nail in the coffin of the Anima games.

I mean one was in an iron lung already, and the other had COPD, but I still love that game.

[Beadle]

He played, briefly, a megalomaniac telepath... that was also an Armadillo, in one of Cleric's game. My character carried him around swaddled in a blanket.

Very, very, VERY briefly.

I so wish I could have kept that character going but I quickly discovered the posting frequency on that game was way out of my range.

I'm not saying all of Beadle's ideas worked. Just that they were good, and could have POTENTIALLY worked. ^_^

Some were good. Some were utterly woeful. Some had potential. Some were just foolhardy.

...

My ideas are consistently inconsistent.

And sometimes they’re way OTT, which is definitely the postal district they were squatting in for Nik’s Rumbles RPG (v3.0).

[Vakanai]

I've got to play a game with you guys sometime

[Nik Hasta]

Very, very, VERY briefly.

I so wish I could have kept that character going but I quickly discovered the posting frequency on that game was way out of my range.


Some were good. Some were utterly woeful. Some had potential. Some were just foolhardy.

...

My ideas are consistently inconsistent.

And sometimes they’re way OTT, which is definitely the postal district they were squatting in for Nik’s Rumbles RPG (v3.0).

Aah, fun times. The Mysterious Mister Beadle was a really entertaining character.

Maybe I should try throwing that onto the board again for some Freeform funtimes.

Can't go worse than my last... four attempts at running RPGs haha.

[Sharpandpointies]

I've got to play a game with you guys sometime

Sadly, I barely play online any more due to issues accessing the sites I use.

Still play some tabletop now and then - go through months without, then the group gets together again for a year. COVID has damaged that as well.

These days, even on Tabletop all I run is Anima and Mass Effect (modified Tabletop RPG rules).

I think ‘mostly’ might be stretching it.

And I’m sad that COVID put the nail in the coffin of the Anima games.

I mean one was in an iron lung already, and the other had COPD, but I still love that game.

Sad that we couldn't continue. I was having issues with keeping mine going, due to losing players from the get-go; that tends to put big wounds in my enthusiasm. You'd think I'd be used to it with online games, but no.

Would have been nice seeing where everyone eventually ended up in Siriel's game. Other than 'at each other's throats', I suppose. ^_^

[Nik Hasta]

Corim and Avelyn end up fighting to the death, Tasha kills the winner. Garon morphs into a humanoid mountain, forever unbreakable.

Taran then steals all their **** from their corpses.

[Jcogginsa]

They weren't though?

Hagaromo turned up in a spirit quest vision out of nowhere, explained that the thematic parallels of the Senju vs the Uchiha being embodied by Naruto and Sasuke weren't just theming but were actually the product of the constantly reincarnating spirits of his two children throughout history. Rather than being a statement on "People who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it," Naruto as series ends up with "No, history is just the same conflict again and again because destiny," (which is pretty lame in my opinion)

He then asked both them "Hey, what do you think being a Hokage means?"

Naruto went "Bonds and comradeship," Sasuke went "Revolution and executing my vision of peace,"

Hagoromo said "Neat, have a powerup," and gave them both a big powerup.

They weren't earned by character development because neither character developed significantly between the revelation of the true nature of the historic conflicts in their world being some rando alien spirits getting revealed to them and them being rewarded with a powerup. It's incredibly generous to say "they got them as reward for character development," when said development boiled down to a quick conversation and then they got a powerup despite answering entirely different things.

To me, it's also worse on a larger scale because Harogomo's presence in the narrative and the whole destiny angle boils down the complex question of "how does one end a generations long period of war and lay ancient and potent grudges to rest," to the answer of "oh, you just have to beat this one guy because of destiny,"

As I've said in the past, I like Naruto and generally think it tries to be a lot more complex and interesting in its theming and storytelling than people give it credit for.

This aspect though? This and the whole Ohsutsuki plotline? Terrible, actively made a lot of things much less interesting.

We already had a compelling and complicated story of the most hated and demonised person in his society trying to rise to position where he could create meaningful bonds, be granted a sense of self worth and effect change to end wars, paralleled against one of the most lauded and exceptional people in said society descending into hatred, starting wars and cutting himself off from that society because he believes the exceptionalism nonsense he'd been fed since birth.

That's good and powerful stuff.

You don't need "And also they were the reincarnated spirits of some fucking guys we've never heard of," on top of that. That is a hat on a hat.

TL;DR - adding destiny to an already interesting story is a bad idea. destiny sucks unless it is an antagonistic narrative force.

Some points

1. In my opinion, I think what Kishimoto was trying to do was say that failing to learn from History is what causes that destiny to continue. That's why the point is made that Naruto and Sasuke weren't born with Indra and Ashura attached to them. The spirits only attached to them after they entered that pattern.

It's not a case of standard pop-culture reincarnation, because Madara was still alive when Sasuke was born, and also because if it were that, Madara and Hashirama wouldn't have been able to be Edo Tensei'd, because their souls would have been inside Naruto and Sasuke.

2. It's not about the character development they had during that conversation, it's about the character development they had leading up to it.

3. Destiny in Naruto was an antagonistic force. Naruto did not follow his destiny, he defied it. Destiny said Naruto and Sasuke could not both survive their final battle, but Naruto refused to except that.

[Beadle]

Aah, fun times. The Mysterious Mister Beadle was a really entertaining character.

Maybe I should try throwing that onto the board again for some Freeform funtimes.

Can't go worse than my last... four attempts at running RPGs haha.

I might just have maybe sorta kinda rebadged him somewhat as an NPC the PCs in my D&D game are about to meet... as soon as we restart playing. They were just outside his current home; a weird-ass wizard’s tower he’s claimed that sticks out horizontally from the cliff face of an escarpment; when we had to pause the game. But his stuff’s all in crates because he’s in the process of moving his crap out of there into the pocket-dimensional library he lived in during your game.

He’s a Half-Elf Celestial Warlock of the Eternal Fowl (a kind of abstract purple duck god, whose avatar often shows up and encircles him, just to confound him).

The name has changed but other stuff is pretty consistent.

[Sharpandpointies]

Corim and Avelyn end up fighting to the death

Distinct possibility.

Tasha kills the winner.

Never happen.

If Corim won...I've for a long time had this image of an older Tasha, in her twenties, longer hair just as crudely chopped and tied back, long coat like Corim, walking off a ship onto the docks of the Land of Roses with an older, more scarred Corim (both after years of travelling the world, likely). And what ugliness would follow.

I guess if Avelyn won, the scene would have been similar, but sans Corim, and Avelyn would have been waiting, all armored up, to stop her. Aaaaaand...what ugliness would follow.

Garon morphs into a humanoid mountain, forever unbreakable.

That has already happened.

Taran then steals all their **** from their corpses.

...Taran's going to steal everything from everyone, let's face it.

Also, Solomon and Ardy are...somewhere far away, hopefully living in peace? ^_^ But probably not; every now and then, Ardy loses her **** and kills someone, and then they need to move again.

[Sharpandpointies]

...basically, Avelyn's story likely ends in a tragedy either way.

1. Killed by Corim;
2. Not killed by Corim, but eventually needing to try to stop Tasha. Which ends poorly for her whichever way that goes.

:(

[Beadle]

Corim and Avelyn end up fighting to the death, Tasha kills the winner. Garon morphs into a humanoid mountain, forever unbreakable.

Taran then steals all their **** from their corpses.

Solomon and Ardelyn marry, but Ardelyn stands up in the middle of a rage-filled nightmare and stabs him to death in his sleep. She never forgives herself.

The Inquisition find Zack after he puts a huge glowing neon sign above his head saying ‘Psychic Devil Man Here - Open for Business’.

And though he was no longer with the group, somewhere Jared is still stuck wedged halfway through a window.