u/likes-beans

I've been thinking about how it could be really cool to have a Orre remake, but the story would be difficult to come up with, so here we go:

Michael caught and purified Shadow Lugia, and left Orre to travel the world and become a Pokemon Champion. However, after he returned home from his journeys, he found the Orre region to be transformed in an unsettling way.

The more corrupt son of Greevil, Ardos, had recaptured the lugia (and the ho-oh) and made it shadow. Moreover, with help from Team Rocket, he caught and made shadow Mewtwo X and used it to bring to heel all of Orre.

Orre, though now possessing a pokemon league and elite 4, run by Cipher, is completely run by a high-tech Cipher dystopia, with its citizens in resentful obedience to the new regime. To make matters worse, the region suffers between sporadic breakouts of street fighting between Team Rocket and Team Cipher, as Ardos refused to return Shadow Mewtwo X to Team Rocket.

Going undercover as a team Rocket member, with the intent of snagging Mewtwo X and returning it to Rocket, our hero Brandon must battle across all of the old parts of Orre, as well as new developments such as the pokemon league and team Rocket secret bases, in order to defeat Ardos and save all of the shadow mons.

Brandon will enjoy the benefit of new typing, including the fairy type and physical/special split, new movesets, new pokemon up to gen 6, mega evolutions, and new content, including safari zones that replace the Poke spots, and battles against the classic characters of XD, whom you have to defeat to maintain your cover. He will also face steep difficulty adjustments, as the enemy trainers have had years to get their mons better stats, and to refine their battle strategies.

What do you think?

Nietzche made me struggle with my faith, but I realized there's an alternative way of viewing Christianity thats not necessarily so nihilistic.

1. Before Jesus left his disciples, he said to them that they ought to *love one another as he has loved them*. A few things about this: this love included scolding (calling them "wicked and unprofitable servants"), rebukes (eg. of Simon Peter's hesitation around Jesus facing persecution), and lots of playful teasing (so much ye of little faith etc) and showing miracles.

Jesus to me, in this case, seems to be actually teaching his disciples to _be bold_, to _overcome_ their attachment to a comfortable, materialistic lifestyle, and to adopt his practices (asceticism) to be able to _replace_ him in his absence (love one another as ye have loved me) -- that is replace _him, Jesus_, who is worshipped as a God!

When people have quibbles about his lack of Sabbath observances, he says, "are ye not gods" - basically saying hey, humans are powerful beings in and of their own right!

2. Church fathers (athanasius etc) especially then put a different emphasis on the letters of the apostles: for example, Paul states that God "is filling us with his energies so that we might be energized to do his good pleasure" and that we have become "partakers of the divine nature." This means the fathers emphasize not as much our meekness, but our greatness after being touched by God's grace!

3. Finally, I totally agree with his "anti systemic" bent and the idea that institutions drain people of their life... But the church was never meant to be institutional! Many Christians (especially Catholics, orthodox) view it as a mystical and united body. Therefore in those, the participation in the body is hidden and silent, and doesn't have as much of this "ground down by the rules of the org" stuff as institutional Christianity might. This mystical body is supposed to serve not as a way of "breaking down sinners," but as a reservoir of regenerative love that is _for anybody_: all can partake, (supposedly) all can be healed. This is the strongest critique for me, because while nietzche himself is not very nihilistic (pts 1 & 2), he talks about aristocratic society as if it were an alternative ideal, but I don't think it could ever serve as a reservoir of love.

All this to say... Idk! I think nietzche does a great job of tearing down something evil. But what he tore down was not Christianity, but a "dead" carcass of Christianity formed by the unholy collusion of state power, resentment, and decadent elites.

Wondering if anyone is well versed enough to engage hehe

One thing I noticed is that tenet has a good angle I think on predetermined timelines and free will.

The protagonist has a determined will to go back in time and "change the past". But we find out, the actual past was then the past that _he set up_ as the Protagonist. Since he wanted to be in charge of an effort to change the past, he became in charge, even if nonlinearly.

i still fall asleep at work 2mos after quitting coffee. halp