#kwaj

[senpais-aesthetic]

(Kwaj)

♥︎ “Retro Anime/ Lo-Fi Blog” Senpai’s-Aesthetic ♥︎

[ravel-puzzlewell]

I really liked your breakdown of Avatar characters as DnD classes. More detailed breakdowns please?

Thanks! I’ll try to add details, but I’m not gonna write a build :D

At first I wanted to make Zuko a Wizard, because of narrative contrast with Azula. You know, the whole she was born lucky, i.e. Sorcerer, and he was lucky to be born and had to work to get strong, i.e. Wizard. But I had to be honest, I love Zuko, but this boy is not casting from Intelligence, he’s just not. And he’s not a scholarly type anyway, the impulsive overdramatic force of personality is his obvious main spellcasting stat. He’s a Sorcerer, but he’s multiclassing into Rogue (the entire Blue Spirit dual-wielding shebang) and his build had to spread out his stats, so he’s less powerful spellcaster than min-maxed Sorc Azula. From Sorcerer\Rogue the logical step is Arcane Trickster, but again, I have to be honest, he’s not sneak attacking with his bending, he’s very in your face with it, and he only uses Rogue shit as secret identity for Blue Spirit. Instead he has an entire narrative arc of his people receiving fire-bending powers from dragons and then he actually trains with the dragon spirits, so yeah. This is as literal Dragon Disciple as it gets. So it’s Sorc\Rogue\Dragon Disciple, but I think he has only like couple of Rogue levels and is still a decent spell-caster.

Katara is a cleric, water domain, because, again, not only healing, but massive AoE damage. If we use narrative, then she’s also taking homebrew Prestige class on Bloodbending, with powerful crowd control and ability that lets her Dominate anything that has blood without a saving throw

Toph is a druid or maybe Spirit Shaman? I feel like Spirit Shaman is closer both narratively, with her learning her bending directly from spirits and not caring about balance of nature and shit, and also mechanically, bc Toph is a force of personality and I feel like adding Charisma into spellcasting suits her

Aang is a Monk\homebrew Prestige class that has access to spells both Arcane and Divine, but only up to level 6, and in special Avatar Form (that DM has to agree to activate) he gets to cast any high level spells without preparation

Sokka is obviously a fighter with weapon specialization for Boomerangs, maybe even a Weapon Master prestige class. Or maybe he has couple of levels in Bard, given his haiku talents and overall personality.

Mai is a Rogue\Assassin I’d say, with weapon finesse on throwing knives.

Ty Lee is a good example of why Monk\Rogues are broken. She doesn’t fit the alignment requirement that well, but her unarmed style and obviously ki powers can’t belong anywhere else

[ravel-puzzlewell]

The Good Place is THE BEST. Thoughts please??

It IS the best! It’s basically Planescape Torment modern sitcom AU, and I don’t say it lightly :D

I’m holding out on the thoughts bc I want to watch the season 2 finale, and I’m watching it this weekend with my friend, but after that I want to write up few posts, esp about philosophy being useless without compassion and the existentialist themes in general. But even without going into specific meta, the plot twist of the first season was just the absolute genius? I mean, this show started out good and was getting better with every episode until it got to the great, but throughout the first season there were jokes that didn’t quite land, some awkward pauses, some weird narrative choices, some secondary characters that were too flat, and some plotholes and lapses in morals and ethics. And they didn’t hinder the enjoyment, but bothered just a bit, like road bumps, UNTIL THE PLOTWIST DROPPED AND LITERALLY EVER LITTLE THING THAT BOTHERED ME SUDDENLY MADE SENSE? And the narrative was pretty meta even before, but after that it just went up like 2 meta levels and also lapsed straight into existential? honestly, I love this show so much.

[ravel-puzzlewell]

Thoughts on nWoD game lines? Obviously it lacks the (fun) ridiculous "90's Goth Apocalypse" aesthetic and convoluted meta plot of the oWoD, but I like what they did with a lot of the newer lines (Changeling, Promethean, and Geist especially) and wanted to know if there was anything you liked about them.

no.

[thisent1]

‎

Shots From The Underground Vol. 1 by Kwaj DISCLAIMER: LISTEN TO THIS collection of songs with hopes of enjoyment and the thrill of discovering new music. It is being featured by THISENT.com because of its audible pleasure for your ears. It may contain content not suitable for all audiences. Discretion is advised.

Listen to THIS: Shots from the Underground Vol. 1 by Kwaj Shots From The Underground Vol. 1 by Kw...

[heywizards]

Hey Wiz! I recently played Night Road and absolutely loved it. Any recommendations for other Choice of Games stories?

yaaaaay! I’m glad you played it and enjoyed it! n___n I always have very many recommendations

first the same author who did Night Road, Kyle Marquis, has written a few other Choice Of Games books. they’re more in the fantasy genre, sort of difficult to describe, and lighter in tone but still have a lot of narrative reactivity in choices. I’m personally very fond of Empyrean (a sort of steampunky aeroplane rebellion story) and Pon Para And The Great Southern Labyrinth (a fantasy epic where a clockwork world is being destroyed through the machinations of imprisoned gods)

for more supernatural monster stuff, Werewolves: Haven Rising is good. for more mysterious horror stuff rather than playing a supernatural protagonist, I enjoyed The Fog Knows Your Name and The Heart Of The House

for like, high school drama and hijinks, Creme de la Creme and The Grand Academy For Future Villains are fun, though pretty different tones, of course :P

for fantasy dnd-type adventures, Sword of the Slayer and Heroes of Myth are good! On the hosted games side, I’m also fond of the Soul Stone War.

okay, here’s my last smattering of random recommendations. Fool! is a game where you are a jester, and it’s very silly. Choice of the Deathless is a game where you play as wizards dealing with demons, except you’re lawful evil wizards, which really just makes you messed up lawyers. Asteroid Run is a sci-fi game where you are just trying to make your delivery and drop off some high profile cargo, amidst corporate espionage. And Breach: The Archangel Job is a game where you’re criminals hunting down other, worser criminals, with more of a snarky action movie vibe than serious crime drama.

[ravel-puzzlewell]

AU prompt for whenever you feel like doing those again: Mass Effect 2 / The Good Place. After her death, Shepherd wakes up to “Everything is fine!”

okay, I love the interesting AU prompts, but I am very particular about which combos work and which don’t, so I’m gonna have to explain why this one doesn’t work for me. 

The Good Place is an internal conflict narrative, esp in early seasons, it’s about characters growing and overcoming their own flaws. Mass Effect is an external conflict narrative, it’s about the world throwing sucker punches at Shepard at every turn and Shepard keeping up a fight despite it all. Shepard STARTS mass effect 1 as a fully formed hero and badass, she is right from the start about the Reapers and she’s not trying to dodge the responsibility. Shepard doesn’t need to overcome her flaws to solve the conflict, she needs to kick everyone else into doing what’s right. 

So putting Shepard, esp ME2!Shepard into this personality-improving narrative doesn’t really work. Like, The Good Place’s one of biggest motives is “What Do We Owe To Each Other,” and ME2!Shepard paid what she owed with the dividends. She fought against the overwhelming odds to save the galaxy and then she died to save a friend. Are we really going to get on her case for like, being rude and bad-tempered or smth? Leave the poor bitch alone, she is tired, has PTSD and needs therapy, not the life lessons. It’s not that we can’t do a narrative about Shepard improving herself, but this narrative can’t hinge on her learning to care about other people, at least not in ME2, where she’s already proven she’s a hero.

I can see few possible options for ME\TGP:

1. Bring TGP characters into ME. Eleanor Shepard and Chidi T’Soni. it’s always easier to bring the characters with internal conflict into a story with already existing external conflict. We just change Shepard being a hero from the moment one, and instead have Eleanor learn how to become one throughout the game.

2.Shepard and ME cast in TGP, but it’s not ME2, it’s ME1. It’s the Reapers simulation for like evaluating people, Shepard needs to unravel it. Michael is played by Sovereign. 

3. Shepard dies in ME2, wakes up to “Everything is fine!”, there’s an Angel who tells her she‘s in the Good Place. The starting comedic tension is from everyone there being super nice and shocked at Shepard’s renegade attitude. The readers are also expecting the revelation that this is, in fact, the Bad Place, and Shepard is suspicious too, because she doesn’t feel happy. She goes around investigating and experimenting, she gets into trouble, hijinks ensue, etc. But the twist is that it IS the Good Place. Shepard isn’t happy because she doesn’t allow herself to be. And Shepard is like “But I lied, insulted people, stole shrimp, punched Dave and spit in his soup and so on, why they didn’t throw me out?” But because she technically saved every single life in the galaxy without the ulterior motive, she gets points for all of them, so she has basically several gazillion points and there’s just nothing she can do to to run out. 

The next arc of the fic is Shepard coming in terms that yes, she deserves this and figuring out what being happy means for her. And after some time and funny failed attempts, she does! She’s integrated into community, she has her own fulfilling activities, she finally finds her peace. 

And then, through some plot device, she looks to see what’s going on back in the living world, and sees the ME2 situation - colonies being abducted, Normandy crew scattered without her, Reapers still preparing invasion, and no one is doing anything about it. So Shepard decides to go back, finds some illegal Heaven backdoor to the Earth, but the Angel tries to stop her, tells her that if she uses this door, she won’t count as actually alive, and so when she dies the next time, she won’t come back to paradise, she will just disappear into nothingness. So why go if there will be only war and pain, and she will lose her hard-earned happiness, when she’s already paid what she owed, this doesn’t have to be her burden anymore.

And then Shepard smiles, shrugs and goes through the door anyway.

[ravel-puzzlewell]

@kwaj replied to your post “Benezia’s design is so fucking stupid, oh my god bioware writer: so...”

Not to mention that her VA interpreted “wise, tragic matriarch” as “just zoned out on luck, a metric fuckton of Valium”

adgjlkhf yeah, I mean maybe bioware told her “Benezia is indoctrinated by a sentient machine god, she’s like out of her mind” and poor woman just didnt know how to interpret that and went with “zoned out“