Bay 12 Games Forum

... I'd fairly well disagree that most american pastors would consider #2 murder, or think Secunda was going to burn. Especially since it's pretty explicitly not murder in the biblical sense. KJV mistranslation or not, a great deal of the american faithful are bloodthirsty enough that killing like that wouldn't exactly trigger a 'thou hast sinned' reaction. Other parts of the situation might trigger ones, because a fair chunk of the church scene is misogynistic as fuck, but there'd be a substantial chunk that would give the killing a by.

P.S. Buddhism, which doesn't have a deity, has reincarnation but if my understanding is correct, seems to say "life is suffering, and you can't end it because reincarnation. What we offer is a way to end that suffering by ceasing to exist, by ceasing to feel, by cutting off all attachments." If reincarnation is real, I wouldn't want to stop.

That's... not particularly accurate. Like, a lot of the parts are there, but the framing and whatnot is just... off. Buddhism identifies the root of suffering (which isn't life in its entirety or anything like that, but the primary negative aspect of it) as desire (not, mind you, feeling), and offers a path towards stopping that. That, in turn, provides a means to step outside the cycle of reincarnation -- even if you actually do obtain the mastery necessary to separate yourself from the cycle, that doesn't mean you have to. If you want to continue reincarnating after obtaining enlightenment, buddhism also allows for that (hell, people considered to have done so are one of the more venerated figures among the various sects). Separation from the cycle of reincarnation generally isn't a matter of ceasing to exist, either, but rather entering a state of nirvana, separate from the cycle of reincarnation -- some conceptualizations of that is indeed nonexistence, from what I recall, but most aren't. More common is generally a dissolution of the self, iirc, but that's a notably different thing.

A better shorthand description would be, "There is suffering in life. Suffering is caused by desire. The way to escape this is to stop holding on to your desires, to cease finding those attachments to be an intrinsic part of yourself. In doing this, you obtain control over your place in the cycle of reincarnation." What those bits entail, exactly, differs based on the particular interpretation you're working with, heh.

O's saying that something happens in the process of dying/getting in to heaven that makes it so you won't sin anymore by your own choice, near as I can parse. Also God will no longer be tempting people/allowing them to be tempted for whatever reason, which would probably help a helluva' lot. The ability to sin would still be there, the deity would just finally get off its arse and remove the conditions that cause it to trigger, more or less.

As always, it beggars of the question of why not just do that now, but *shrugs*

That's been a question beggared since about a half generation after the first eschatology-focused religious belief failed to manifest its apocalypse (several thousand years ago), I rather imagine. Next year, we promise!

Even assuming the thing is omnibenevolent to being with (thoroughly questionable), no, it isn't. First rule of theological divine benevolence judo: Benevolent is what the divine does, regardless of what the action actually is. Its only connection with what humans normally call benevolent is the arrangement of the letters. One of those cases where religious language co-opts normal language and twists it into a pretzel.

You can't exactly be inconsistent with that -- bloody thing's basically self-referential. It's a pretty effective trick! Bloody annoying part of theological study, though.

Eh, it amused me well enough up to the point I read (I still haven't gotten around to actually finishing it, though, heh), but from what I recall I probably don't have half your abort buttons anymore :V

If nothing else there's some damn good lines in it. Even if the whole's not to taste, bits of it are pretty amazing.

... well, I've probably read several dozen, but asking me to remember them all is an entirely different proposition :V Still I'll mention/re-mention a few, while I'm here and vaguely conscious.

Off-the-top-of-head completed stuff: Acceleration (Railgun/Worm) was thoroughly engaging. Brutal pacing, all sorts of shit going down, just something of a train wreck in motion.

Hope Through Overwhelming Firepower (Diebuster/worm) is another complete, fairly fun, one, in the worm sphere of things. Pretty sure both of these have been mentioned up-thread.

I actually finished Hybrid Theory, which was entirely too good given its premise (Massive multicrossover, Male self-insert into female canon character, buncha' other stuff -- the setup and setting is basically just a glorious mess) and faintly gargantuan length, and These Black Eyes (though it had a sequel) -- the latter was rather episodic in nature, but had some pretty amazing "episodes". Actually having finished both is something of a thing in itself, considering the first is ~1.3 million words long, and the second twice that, but they're both definitely complete.

Mentioned this a bit upthread -- fire emblem more-or-less character piece. Quite fuzzy, pretty damn good read.

You can cheerfully check out nonjon as someone with several completed works to their name. Mostly does/did harry potter stuff, lots of it pretty wildly out of character, but much of it is pleasingly amusing nonetheless.

This is complete, and from what I recall it was pretty amusing -- Something Wicked This Way Comes, a Disgaea/Harry Potter crossover. Can't recall if it deserves content warnings, though -- near as I can tell, I finished reading it back in at most 2013. M rating, though, so fair warning gods know what's actually in there.

Hill of Swords has been mentioned upthread, probably several times :V

This is done -- Mass Effect/Eva crossover, pretty solid character piece. Pretty sure it's NSFW in places, though.

A Green Sun Illuminates the Void finished, sorta'.

Probably mentioned Thousand Shinji somewhere up there, it's done and pretty fun. WH40k/Eva Xover, with shinji starting off more or less as a Thousand Sons trained psyker.

This bugger has something like a half dozen completed sizable Megaman fics, mostly set in the X timeline, iirc. It's been a long damn time since I've read them (like, literally over a decade for some), but from what I recall they were mostly pretty damn ace.

This was pretty damn good, though I can't comment on its sequel. Harry Potter/Metroid crossover, and a fairly solid romp despite the odd premise.

... Naruto Genkyouien is finished, and the writing is by and large pretty decent. Haven't gotten around to actually finishing reading the thing, so I can't comment on a fair amount of the latter half or so >_>

This finished, apparently. Rough in places, but the premise was pretty damn interesting and despite some same-y writing from the author, it was one of those I lumped in as "surprisingly good", so... sure.

and now the headache as drained my will to continue ransacking 17 years of fanfiction memories for completed stuff that was decent enough, so i'm done now, do enjoy. though that said, there's definitely a lot more -- i'm quite sure there's at least six or seven solid complete ranma ones i didn't mention, just as an example. complete fics are definitely less common, but "less common" when it comes to the massive weight of fanfiction still means "at least hundreds", and that's just sticking to the larger ones.

also fanfiction.net has filters, and one of those filters is for "complete"

and for non-complete stuff this made me remember and I don't think has been mentioned, have an example.

*throws ruckus*

... nah, I don't really mind. Just... someone make sure to PM me or something when the hiatus ends, please :V