I need something to do with myself. Somehow the internet seems to be getting smaller and smaller the more I use it. Oh well, I guess I’m going to be busy fairly soon anyway. (And you though I didn’t make posts like this) Wednesday I get to play DnD again, which involves staying the night at Tyndale, so that should be cool, and Friday it’s off to Missina’s thing. You’d think this week would go faster though. I mean… I’m starting to get really board.

I heard they’re making another Final fantasy movie. The first one sucked, to be sure. I mean, it was basically Square’s animation studio wanting to put their skill to work, and having nothing to do. It had very little to do with Final Fantasy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not demanding a direct sequel, just a movie that somehow warrants the title of Final Fantasy. And now they are doing their best to reassure all the fans that they know how stupid the whole thing is. Hence: the next FF movie will be a direct sequel to VII. Final Fantast VII was a breakthrough video game. It challenged the whole console RPG genre to a higher level of excellence. The story was great, the characters were well developed (most anyway), the battle system was excellent, and the character mod system (with materia and everything), well, it was just steller. Better, I think, then any of the FFs that preceded it. It’s the most loved FF game, I would say. All of this makes me excited about this movie, and it’s potential. I’ll leave you all with a taste of awesome.

Definately Cloud, fighting Sepheroth?

My reserve forgotten, I rushed back to where I had spoken with the supposed leader of this force, breaking through the wall with ease. “Who did that!?”

“What? Why would I tell you?” She was obviously caught off guard by the question.

“You don’t seem to understand. I may have underestimated you before, but you don’t want me in this fight. Just answer my question and I won’t fight against you. I must know who that was.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. Of course I’ll tell you!” She shook her head in mockery.

Starting to get annoyed now, I sent out a wall that sufficiently halted her army. “Tell me, or there will be no fight.”

As bewildered as she looked, she never got the chance to express herself. At that moment, I was pinned to the ground, as middle aged man descended upon me. “Who are you!?” He yelled.

I could feel his power, he was the one causing the wall. “I could ask you the same. Let me up now.” I still had my shield up, so I forced it larger until I could stand.

“If you do not tell me who you are, “ he said, getting angry now, “and who trained you, I will kill you where you stand.”

“Good luck.”

At that moment we both went on the attack. However, with both of us protected, we were blasted apart but not harmed. It did more to harm the soldiers then me. As I was preparing for another blow, he dropped to his knees in agony. After a couple seconds of groaning, he took off at high speed. Not knowing if he was even my enemy anyway, I let him go.

The whole army, as soon as they saw him leave, turned to retreat. Somewhat confused, I became an onlooker once again. The academy faculty seemed relived, and wasn’t pursuing the retreating army. The whole thing seemed a little odd to me, so I went back to talk with the academy.

As I was approaching, most of the mages were heading inside. Raigon waited for me.

“Hey man, nice work there. Come back inside, everyone wants to talk with you.”

“I really didn’t do much. Honestly, I have no clue what the hell just happened there. My curiosity ended up winning this battle for you. Who was I fighting, anyway?”

“Just come inside, we’ll tell you everything we know.”

Upon entering the building, crowds were lining the hall. Everyone was staring at me, as if I was some kind of hero. I half expected them to bust into clapping for all the excited tension in the air. After a walk that seemed to take forever, we arrived at another meeting room. All the familiar faces were there, plus one or two more.

“Greetings once again, young sir,” chimed the man at the head of the table, now appearing a little more cheery then at our last meeting. “We must first thank you for your help today, we had thought you were leaving us until their forces halted. We’re all rather interested to hear the sorry, if you’d like to share it.”

“Sure,” I answered, “as you know, I was actually planning on leaving. I saw no reason to get involved in a conflict I knew nothing about. However, my interest returned when I saw your fireball countered. You see, I had come to believe that I was the only person able to do such things. But to my disbelief, the fire was stopped by a telekinetic barrier.” I continues in the way, describing the events as I had seen them. I tried to get across the point of me not being a hero, because this attention thing was going to get really annoying, I could see it already.

“Well, I guess you’re curious about our side of things, then? The man you encountered today is named Namus. He is notorious for his actions, and is wanted on countless murders. The political strife mentioned to you earlier has been instigated by him. Today is not the first time he’s attempted to attach us here, because with us out of the way, he could take this region with little in the way of resistance. We have, however, developed a defence against him. A group of telepathics working together can cause him extreme, immobilizing pain. We think he was trying to mask himself in the crowd here, and that is why he came with the army. We also assume that he has a mage able to cloak powers with him, or maybe with the army. You see, it is impossible for us to hurt him if we don’t know where he is, and cannot connect to his mind. As far as the story you were told: we think it was either a strait lie, or he orchestrated it in order to attain this force. We believe the second is more likely.

“You give us much hope, something that has been known to wan when talking about Namus. You are the first mage to even take him on and come out unharmed. You seem to have the same unique abilities as he does. You understand now why we distrusted you when you first arrived. We thought you may have been trained by Namus, and come to take us down from the inside. Our law states that we cannot refuse anyone certification, so we were forced to risk it.”

“Well, I guess it all makes sense now,” I finally replied. “You seem rather eager to trust me though, even now. That fight out there could just as easily been a light show, especially considering I came out unharmed. Why are you so sure I won’t kill you now? Or how do you know I’m not just trying to get your trust?”

“A fair question,” he answered, “some in this room are asking the same thing. We all agree that you have warranted at least some trust, but many wouldn’t want to go much farther then that. There is, however, one thing I haven’t told you yet. About 20 years ago, when Namus had only been terrorizing the world for but a few years, and many great mages had died trying to bring him down, there were whispers of a man coming who could destroy Namus for good, using his own powers. They said it was the only way to hurt him, though we have proven that wrong with our telepathy. Most of us in this council didn’t give it much credit, but it inspired hope in many people, and lasts as a belief of some even to this day. I’m not claiming that you are some kind of messiah, I still don’t believe the rumours, but many do. This is why they are eager to except you.

“We can’t let you stay here though. The risk is to high, you understand.”

“Hmm… this is a lot to take in. It makes my question many things. Would you mind letting me rest here for a few days? I need some time to think.”

“That would be fine.”

This is the feel of a few of the songs. ‘I made it, and I dropped out of school first year. You should too. Dealing drugs will get you money anyway.’ That’s the honest message of one of the songs. Aside from that, this quote from ’All Falls Down’ sort of gives you the feel of his lyrics:

It’s Like he knows it’s all bull shit, but doesn’t care. As a matter of fact, the first track is called “We don’t care.” It’s about how certain people (presumably poverty stricken black people) shoulder’s care about moral’s because they want to make money. Deal drugs, steal, fuck it all, just get money.

Anyway, I guess I just set my expectations way to high. The kind of stuff I was hoping this was won’t be mainstream for a long time, if ever. I mean, musically the album is gold, and it does have a little more to it then most mainstream rap today. Ah well, I think I’ll throw on that KRS-One CD now.

College Dropout - Kanye West
I’m actually quite exited to give this disk a listen. It hasn’t been out for a year and it’s already being called a classic album. The honest reason I got it though? As far as Hip-Hip is concerned, I’ve found that these days I only really like the conscious stuff. Because of this Kanye West excites me. You see, he’s sort of a merge between conscious rap, and mainstream. He’s been producing the big radio hits for years, and yet his lyrics contain more intellectual property then a five dollar bill. The reason this is exciting for me is the prospect that this might catch on, and we can wave goodbye to any song entitled ‘in da club.’ And so, I got the album.

The Blue Album - Weezer
It’s my personal belief that this is one of the best disks of all time. Me and Mikey once decided that Weezer is the music we will wake up to in heaven. I have it on my computer, but for 6$, it was begging me to get it.

I Got Next - KRS-One
In recent years KRS-One has become one of the few rappers I would call myself a fan of. Again, it’s conscious rap. His new stuff is well informed and exists to put across a message; he’s been to school to study philosophy, and his lyrics are gold. This disk (with a warning on the back letting you know you need at least 4 megs of ram to run the cd-rom part) is a little less mature. When I was a kid my best friend Derek and I used to listen to this CD all the time. We played Final Fantasy 1 right through while listening to this CD. It holds sentimental value for me.

Dookie - Green Day
Haha, I owned this one as a kid. It suffered the wrath of my fervour when I became a Christian. It was a huge influence on me back then, and shaped my musical preference later in life. Plus, it’s Green Day in their prime. I was all by myself…

MTV Unplugged in New York - Nirvana
This is the first album I ever purchased, and to this day it remains my favourite Nirvana disk. It’s a must have for me, for memories, for the music itself, for everything.

Anyway, if anyone wants to sponsor me, I’m taking donations for the used-CD-stores-are-incredible foundation. Honestly, it’s legit.

Anyway, I have to go shower… low amounts of sleep and 3 hours of public transit have put me in the mood for a long one.

“Come on in, then. We’re feeling anxious to speak with you,” came the voice of the white robed man. We started walking back, “My name is Raigon, by the way: Omega level summoner.”

I followed him out of the square via a smaller door on the other side, and we proceeded into what seemed to be a sort of council room. There was one large table in the centre of it adorned with a dozen or so people, each dressed rather uniquely.

“Welcome,” exclaimed the man sitting at the head. “You have impressed us all, and some even think you were holding back. What is your story, boy? How did you learn to do these things?”

I explained to him my life before this point, about my master and his goal, and how I trained all the more after he died. There seemed to be a unease at the table while I was telling it, as if there was something more to it then I knew.

“I don’t recognise your master’s name,” he finally commented, “I suppose it is possible he was from another academy, but with the knowledge to train someone like yourself, well, it seems like we should know him.”

I got the feeling I was being accused of something, but I didn’t get a chance to defend my story. A guard rushed into the room, out of breath.

“Sirs, there is trouble. Please come.”

Everyone at the table immediately rose to their feet. I followed them out of the room, when the guard turned to one mage in particular and said, “We are under attack, we need to be in front of the building now if there is any hope.”

Almost before he finished his sentence I found myself standing in front of the academy staring at an approaching army.

“What the hell is this?” It was really all I could think to say. “Who is fighting you? Why are they fighting you?”

For the most part everyone ignored me as they talked amongst themselves. Finally Raigon answered me. “We’re not sure who they are. They have magic, we know that much. Whoever they are, they’ve been cloaked for days or we would have known they were coming. There has been a lot of whispers about overthrowing the current government going around recently. We didn’t think there was anything like this happening: but right now it’s out only guess.”

I guess I didn’t know what else to do, and I didn’t really feel like fighting someone else’s war, so I lifted myself up, and made haste to the front line of the approaching force. They were uniformed, whoever they were. I let myself down and walked up to the first person I found. “Where is the leader of this force? I’m not with the school, but I seem to be in the caught middle of something.”

As if he hadn’t noticed me up until that point, he plunged his sword at me. Expecting this, I didn’t let it happen. I split his sword into shards as it touched my cloak. “Where is he?”

“Right here!”

It was the voice of a woman right behind the man with the now useless sword. “I suppose you listened to what I said? What is going on here?”

“It saddens me that you must come at us with lies. Though I suppose it only fits. Ah well, so be it. My name, stranger, is foltica. I have come to seek revenge. My family was killed: assassinated by this academy. I have come to hold them to their own laws. They must die!”

“I see. I don’t know anything about how your parents died, or if it was the academy who killed them, but I do know one thing: even one of those people by that door, all by themselves, could halt this whole army. This battle is not winnable. Turn back now, kill the headmaster while he sleeps if you want revenge. End this foolishness.”

She spit in my face: the guard for which I had unfortunately let down. “I cannot believe how you would dishonour yourself with such suggestions. This may be the type of thing you do here, but it would make me no better then you. And what makes you so sure we cannot win this fight? Not all forces march.”

“Very well.” So I went back over to the door, where my testers were still looking on, unsure of what to do.

“What did they say to you, then?”

“Apparently this army is led by a girl whose family was assassinated by this academy. Personally, I have no reason to disbelieve her. If you don’t mind giving me my cert, I’ll be going.”

You, that is right, you reading this now, you are defined by what you watch on TV, and what you play in your stereo. If you listen to music about Satan, well, you must be a Satanist. But take heart! For if you listen to Christian music, it will make you a good Christian! You, in fact, are whatever you enjoy, and the best way to change who you are, is the change what you enjoy.

Don’t misunderstand me, I will be the first to admit the fact that there was a time in my life when I needed very badly to get away from certain things in order to be close to God. I concluded from that fact something false, however. I though somehow it was getting away from those things that was responsible for my getting close to God; or more to the point, I though the alternative I found to them was my spiritual food. In hindsight, I can see that this alternative became something of a hindrance itself. But when it came time to let it go, I couldn’t, it defined me.

It took a fall to get away. And as I climbed out of the pit, I realised my mistake, and separated myself from it. I am always foolish though. I did it again. I defined myself by it, separated myself from something because I didn’t want to be it. I am not who I was, so I must not listen to what I did.

And now I sit hear and realise… It’s a lie. I can read Christian books and listen to Christian music without transforming into myself of years past. And years ago, I could have listened to secular radio and watched movies with sex in them without becoming the person I was before I knew Christ. I, believe it or not, do not have to be defined by these things, it does not make me. I can let myself be defined by my maker, let myself do what is right, and not what will make me feel right.

I also got a new Discman, which is hella tight. In lament of my lost money, I wandered over to an electronics liquidation centre, and found a fairly nice Discman with mp3 decoding and battery charging for about 40$. I figured, what the hell, at least I’ll go broke listening to music.

Speaking of music: damn you Missina, look what you’ve done to me.

See, now I’m even making up my own words. It all seems to me a far cry from that rather imaginative story I posted the other day. Maybe I should write more about that… nah, I’m really not feeling very creative.

Haha, you know what I was thinking earlier? That burning guy sort of looks like he’s worshiping. And the guy in the back? Certainly kneeling. Consuming fire anyone? Haha, I’m sorry, that’s probably a bad idea. Anyway… umm… cheers?