FionordeQuester

Well, HughesNet just went down in my area. They're my internet service provider; and apparently, they don't know when they're going back up. Still, I was only something like a hour and a half away from completing this update, so, I'll get that up as soon as I can. Thank you very much for your understanding and patience, and God bless you! Happy New Years!

No Christmas update this time. But, there IS going to be one on New Years. After that is when I'll be hitting the updates full swing. Merry Christmas, everyone!

To be honest, I'd gone on a hiatus for a while. However, I'm about to get my Bachelor's degree in Psychology; so with school FINALLY ending for the time being, I should end up being a lot more productive, soon. So, see you then!

Feh. Another double post. Sorry mods :(

You know what? There is never anything wrong in seeking to help people. I love creating something worth reading, and your one grammar tip here will help with many updates to come. So don't worry; you didn't do anything wrong :) !

Again, no argument there . Anyway, if Christianity has become so radically different from it's roots, that I can no longer talk about Jesus's teachings without talking about something entirely different...then what do you think I should call what I'm talking about? "The way of Christ"? "Followers of Christ"? "True Christianity"? I'm not sure what else I'd call it that wouldn't sound too weird.

Yessir, I did. It was...awkward in a few ways when I first did so (and was probably ESPECIALLY awkward for Judaists who'd been trained to avoid exactly that kind of thing); but in other ways I was touched he'd seriously go THAT far to save me. The fact that he loved me SO much, that we was willing to basically disintegrate himself to save li'l old me... But yeah, a lot of Biblical imagery is pretty wild; which is, IMO, part of what makes it's writings so strong.

That's...part of the doctrine of Christ really. In fact, the Bible itself flat out TOLD use it was already happening even in the days of the Apostles... And besides that, even sincere believers aren't perfect mirrors of Christ. Again, as the Bible says... Technically, I'm not a true Christian either; at least not in the sense that I perfectly emulate Jesus's love and compassion for all. This is a huge part of WHY humility is possible, despite our claims to know the truth. I mean...I can still be certain of things that are plainly written in the Bible itself. And for things that aren't, I can at least debate other Christians on which of our vision's seem to most accurately line-up with what Christ intended in areas such as sex, public preaching, charity, how we spend our money, our attitude towards the poor, and etc... And yet, I can never claim moral superiority over them. And I most certainly do not have the right to dictate what they do, or have the right to believe. In fact, I don't even have the right to claim superiority over pagans either. Because as the Bible ALSO says... If only our churches reinforced these principles more often ...

The point is, Christianity was nowhere near the dominant religion at the time it came into being. Instead, the Romans put their faith in their government, and the Jews put their faith in their understanding of the old Mosaic covenant. And yet, Christians were still willing to co-exist within their own societies, despite them being the minority. Because, as stated by 1 Corinthians 13:4-5... 4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. (New Living Translation) So, the true Christian should not need violence in order to be secure in their faith. That's the point I was getting at when I entered this thread . Again, that would've arguably been for the better. If there's one thing our government has proven to me, time and time again, it's that they tend to botch whatever "duties" it takes on. And from the way you describe it, it's spreading of Christianity was no different. It sounds as though they "succeeded" only in the sense that they got more "followers" to "convert". But in doing so, they ended up warping the very character of Jesus; and to the true Christ-follower, no amount of cultural popularity is worth that. As a general rule, the more popular a system of thought becomes, the more likely it is that someone will abuse it (whether that be Hitler, the Westboro Baptist Church, Stalin, Jim Jones, Mao Zedong...the list goes on).

Before we go on, I must know. How ARE you generating multiple quote boxes while still preserving the "2 hours ago, this guy said:" label? I could NEVER figure out how to do that once Serenes changed the way it encoded it's forum posts; so if you could enlighten me, that'd be great! Anyway... Even so, Caesar used his supposed "divinity" to further impose his will upon his people. His religion may not have been the only one widely accepted by the Romans, but it was pretty clearly the one with the most force behind it; the one that ACTUALLY mattered in terms of moving and shaking the world it was preached in. Any other pagan religions that did their thing did so only with the approval of Caesar himself. See, that's where you're getting your terms mixed up. What you're actually saying is that the Christian people weren't doing fine without Constantine. But that is not a good indication of how well Christianity itself was doing. To illustrate my point further...imagine Kim Jong un. Let's say he one day decided he hates Mathematics. HATES IT! He thought his college teacher was a smelly jerk who had it out for him; so he, in a burst of insanity, decides that mathematics needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. So he (somehow) ropes the whole world into the mass murder of every mathematician in existence. He kills so many mathematicians in his mad quest that only 2% of them are left alive. Does that mean the very concept of mathematics itself has been wiped from the face of the earth? No. Because, evidently, mathematics is such a powerful tool for relating to the physical realities of our world, that nothing could ever replace it. Whosoever gains knowledge of it has their lives irrevocably changed. Never again will they be as helpless as they were when they couldn't do 2 + 2. That's what I meant when I said that Christianity does not need to force itself on others in order to survive. No matter how hard the dominant culture tried, it could never be snuffed out; not even after 300 years. There were (and are) always martyrs willing to lay down their lives, and new converts to replenish it's numbers (even if they didn't represent the popular opinion). Evidently, the effect Jesus's teachings had on his followers was so powerful, that even the threat of death could not deter them. Paul, Thomas, and those that followed them went on, even after seeing their own teacher get strung up on the cross. Yes; and look how wonderful our religious institutions are now >_> ... Modern skeptics of the Church today argue that churches have gotten to the point where "logic", "reason", and "science" have somehow been labeled as diametrically opposed to "faith". I personally have never been raised in a church that preached that, and I don't know of any empirical studies that were done on whether or not that is how most churches operate. But in any case, logic, science, and faith are meant to go hand-in-hand with each other; a fact that is evident to anyone who has ever read Proverbs (with Ecclesiastes also being a pretty decent indication of this fact). If it's critics truly are correct, and the church seriously can't grasp even that simple truth (again, I haven't verified that one way or the other, nor am I aware of any empirical studies that have)...then it would've been better if Christianity HADN'T spread as far as it did. Then, at least, the institutions it DID beget would've been much more faithful to what was written in the Bible.

Why is that the way things dresses are, out of curiosity? Because my first instinct to the question of "looks vs. practicality" is..."is too much to ask for both?"

Wikipedia would beg to disagree with you. I can find official texts from my College library if you're not comfortable with Wkkipedia as a source; but for now, I would point you to this quote... Julius Caesar was the first historical Roman to be officially deified. He was posthumously granted the title Divus Iulius or Divus Julius (the divine Julius or the deified Julius) by decree of the Roman Senate on 1 January 42 BC. The appearance of a comet during games in his honour was taken as confirmation of his divinity. Though his temple was not dedicated until after his death, he may have received divine honours during his lifetime:[120] and shortly before his assassination, Mark Antony had been appointed as his flamen (priest).[121] Both Octavian and Mark Antony promoted the cult of Divus Iulius. After the death of Antony, Octavian, as the adoptive son of Caesar, assumed the title of Divi Filius (son of a god). And I would also point you to this article here, again from Wikipedia... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_cult_(ancient_Rome)#Divus_Julius Yes, he did...in 306 A.D.; more than three hundred years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I think it's fair to say that Christianity was doing just fine without him. If anything, he's yet another another example of a VERY long and extensive list of folks who used religion to advance their own desires (just like some of the politicians that govern us today!). So I would advise not looking to him as a representative of Christianity. Instead, look to the people who founded the religion; Jesus, the 12 disciples, the apostle Paul. Comparing them to some of the hypocrites that came after them is like comparing Bruce Lee's movies to the many, MANY knockoff films that attempted to cash in on his image after his death. You certainly wouldn't think the latter would be a fair representation of the former, would you?

Actually, the wonderful thing about Christianity is that it CAN co-exist with other religions. Others aren't required to believe what we believe in order for us to survive; that's how it survived in it's infancy. Remember; it STARTED as a small, ragtag group of "heretics" promoting a gospel that was radically opposed to both of the dominant religions of that time (the first being the Roman belief that Caesar was a divine being, the second being the Judaistic belief in an overly legalistic version of the laws of Moses). Jesus was literally crucified for his teachings, as were many of his followers. And yet, it still took its place as one of the world's dominant religions; not by force, but because of its ability to speak to men and women. If medieval Catholicism couldn't survive without forcing it's will on other people, then that's a failure of the medieval Catholic Church, not of Christianity in general. On the other hand, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Adolf Hitler were all atheists; atheists who did just about everything they could to eradicate the influence of religion in their country. Didn't stop them from massacring millions of their own people, did it?

Don't worry everyone; this thread isn't dead. I've just been playing through the Golden Sun series, as well as play testing a difficulty/balancing hack that someone made for it. I plan on LPing that series one day, so I had fun planning out what I'd do for that. But yeah, this thread's still going to be finished, so don't worry about a thing ! EDIT: Oh yes; and I just shared Integrity's FE4 LP with the Something Awful guys too! Looking forward to what they think of it!

Eh...I'm generally a pretty cautious person, so I do sometimes worry about things I ought not to worry about. Probably, I'll just do as you say; show it to them, preface it with "it's not as technically proficient as you might be used to", talk about why I like it and... just see how it goes. If nothing else, it'll be something they can read while they wait for the next update .

I'd actually be interested in hearing the full details on all that planning, actually. I'd never want to ATTEMPT to do something like that...but reading about it sounds like it'd be fun!

So now that you've gotten a ton of runs under your belt...would you like to try your hand at doing an all Paralogues run? Or maybe just Paralogue 14 (or whichever involves protecting Tiki)? That'd be AWESOME to watch!

Huh; interesting thread. I really like it! I find Integrity's take on FE4 to be really interesting, and he delivers his analysis in a very humorous way. That said, I'm worried about presenting it to Something Awful, for two reasons... -------------------------------------------- 1) Integrity spends most of his time talking about the story; and while I DO like his analysis and humor, the tone of it is mostly negative (with some exceptions here and there). I actually LIKE this game's plot, warts and all, so it would kind of clash with what I'm going for. 2) The Something Awful forums tend to have pretty high standards regarding the technical side of their screenshot LPs, which Integrity obviously isn't focusing on. For example... See the picture above? You know how I have something like 75% of the dialogue marked with portraits like this? Well, on Something Awful, that's just standard practice; you NEED to show technical competence like that for your LP to fly. The SA crowd is SUPER serious about the craft of constructing a screenshot LP; so I'm worried that Integrity's LP wouldn't click with them as a result. -------------------------------------------- That all said, I might show it to them anyway; it seems to me that the guys who actually post in your threads tend to be more relaxed than the guys who approve your LP threads (standard practice for new Something Awful members). I'll just be sure to preface it with something like "the technical quality is low, keep that in mind" or something, if I show it. In other news...I've got a bunch of Chapter 7 recorded! So expect a new update, soon!

To be honest, I never really minded her lack of "impact"; she was still a really good side character whose conversations with Eliwood and Hector added a lot of flavor to the game. In addition, she also gave a lot of much needed emotional support to both Eliwood and Hector, and helped the latter work with some of his own weaknesses. To me, changing her role would be like trying to change Krillin's role in Dragon Ball Z. It wouldn't necessarily be a BAD change (depending on how it was done); but Krillin's character also works just fine as-is; and that's the same way I feel about Lyn. Heck, just look at Corrin in FE14 (assuming all the rumors about him/her are true, as I've never played it myself). She had TONS of "impact" on the story; but did that make the story better?

There are a lot of technical issues like that that I had to learn when recording my own videos. But Rainbuckets...thanks a ton for making that. I got an odd sense of the warm fuzzies, seeing my name on the title, and having my guide described as "amazing", despite all the hurdles. Thank you very much; that was a cool feeling ...

Hmm...never read that LP actually.

Indeed. You know what's REALLY funny though? I think I remember there being REAL LIFE conflicts that were decided by equally frivolous things. Al Capone, for example, was a criminal mastermind who spent years getting away with all kinds of crazy stuff. But the thing that FINALLY did him in? A tax evasion charge. Yes, that's right. A tax evasion charge. THAT was what finally got him in court long enough for everyone to get him into the slammer .

Hey guys! Here's the next episode! Chapter 7 (Part 1): https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=148463

So here's where I'm at on the next update. I just realized that I don't have Chapter 7 recorded. I believe I had Chapter 6 pre-recorded before actually covering it, so I think I mistakenly assumed that was the case for C7, too; but it was not. For that reason, I'm going to probably take about 2-3 days to record that. In the meantime, you all WILL get an update tomorrow; it's just one that's going to mostly cover Pre-Battle dialogue, along with maybe some Arena fights and some strategy talk as to what I intend to do with Chapter 7. It will be a much shorter update than what I've been doing so far; most of the ones I've done range from around 40,000 to 50,000 characters, but this one's probably going to be more in the range of...7,450 characters, I want to say? Don't worry, I'll make it longer if I feel like it's lacking in content by the end :) . Now, if I get done with that, and I come away thinking that's something that's going to increase my productivity; my future updates will probably be much shorter in exchange for being much more frequent. I don't want to burn out the way the SpoonyOne did; and let's face it, my LP's have more hiatus's then Nomura on Kingdom Hearts! Oftentimes, getting started on an update is harder than the actual work! The actual image editing and writing tends to be the easier part of doing this LP; so I figure I'm going to start planning my update lengths around my own mental stamina, rather than trying to always jam-pack each one with as much content as an update can possibly have (which has been my model before). Hopefully that makes sense, and hopefully this model will work out. If I don't think it's working out by the time I've done a few updates, then I'll go back to what I was doing before. And I also won't work on anything else till THIS LP gets finished! I already tried that with that whole "Fire Emblem Gaiden RTA" project I tried, and well...THAT didn't work out, did it ;) ? So I'm seeing this through to the end before doing anything else. So till then, consider this LP as being in something of a transitionary period while I try and find my groove. Have a nice night, and God bless you all!

Hey everyone! Time for another trip to the War Room! The War Room, Part 8: Know Your Jealousy Tables (Gen 2)!: https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=148410