Materia Hunting - Strife's Epic Quest to Level Up and Defeat the Jenova Cells of Complacency

[Strife]

I have seen the face of death. I have seen the alluring visage of the destruction of the world as I know it. It is a beautiful and seducing creature, complacency. Like Sephiroth to Zack Fair, it lulled me into a sense of security and trust, only to reveal its true nature, and its true mission: The undoing of the world as I know it. This proverbial Sephiroth dreams of my unravelling, and would have me left in a chair, drowned in my own thoughts and dreams, bereft of all motivation.

I do not intend to allow this to happen. I am reclaiming my world. I am living my own life, one of Dreams and Honor! But in order to do that, I need help. Not only in the form of an adventuring party (my friends and family) but I intend to create an arsenal of momentum! Much like the Materia provided Cloud with the power to overcome Sephiroth, I intend to collect my own "materia" in an effort to create momentum to overpower any obstacles in my own life!

In order to accomplish this, I have enlisted a group of adventurers to aid me, including my very own Vincent Valentine, and have created my list of Materia to master in order to be ready for the final fight, and to acheive Level 50.  Items marked with an asterisk (*) are epic enough in my eyes that they bestow an immediate level. 


Materia

Summon

Summon Materia conjures creatures from thin air to help you do battle. While I can't summon a dragon, there are a number of things I would like to create myself. This category wil cover these things.

• Make a studio album
• Make an EP
• Market my own Wine, beer, or liquor
• Make a music video
• Write a manga
• Make a TV show/web series
• Make a Movie
• Do a remake of the movie Oresama
• Do a modern take of a Kurosawa classic film
• Make my own board/card game
• Create my own clothing line
• Make video documentary of an epic road trip or tour
• Build/own a castle*
• Voice an anime character
• Act in a movie
• Build a 24' miniramp in my backyard
• Build a Ninja Warrior training course in my backyard
• Build Bunsylvania Castle (a castle-themed habitat for my rabbits)
• Build my own piece of furniture

Additionally, I would like to own a number of exotic animals (and know how to take care of them!) I feel this fits well within the idea of creature summoning!

• Iguana
• A flock of chickens (or other large birds)
• Fox
• Llama/alpaca
• Goat
• Flamingo*
• Big Cat (Likely a snow leopard)*
• Koi Pond

Magic
Magic Materia is used for casting spells. And we all know that spell casters have to be smart! This will be my chronicling of scholarly pursuits.

• Get a Bachelor's Degree
• Get a Master's Degree
• Get a Ph.D*
• Learn Japanese
• Learn Tolkien Elvish

Command

Command Materia provides extra commands in battle like Throw or Steal. While I have no desire to go about beating people up for money, I do have some skills I'd like added to my own screen.

• Master Kenjustu*
• Learn to play drums
• Learn to skateboard
• Learn Parkour
• Learn to play a shamisen
• Learn Wood Working
• Learn Metal Working
• Learn Leather Working
• Learn to Snowboard
• Learn Armor Making (Leather, Chain, Scale, or Plate)

Support

Support Materia is typically linked to other materia to create a greater effect. This category is for goals that will likely hinge on the aid of others.

• Tour in a band
• Tour with a band I admire
• Collaborate on a music project with an artist I admire
• Work with Greg Graffin in any capacity*
• Be a hero
• Tour in a foreign country with my band
• Perform on the Warped Tour
• Take my mom somewhere incredible
• Spend an entire weekend playing through the compliations of Final Fantasy VII. (Could be done alone, but much better appreciated with friends)
• Play an impromptu concert and get shut down by the police
• Play an impromptu concert and get away with it
• Compete in The Tough Guy Competition in Staffordshire, England*
• Help with a major environmental cause or initiative*
• Swim with sharks
• Record at Jingletown Studios
• Record at the Blasting Room
• Take my wife to an Awards Show (Grammy's, etc.)

Independant

This is typically a stat increasing or auto-ability providing materia, therefore these will all be fitness goals, and also goals that I can complete completely on my own.

• Have legitimate 6-pack abs
• Be at 10% Body Fat
• Run a full marathon
• Do 25 pullups
• Do a muscle-up
• Do a flag hold
• Do a hand stand
• Stage Dive
• Smash a guitar after a performance
• Sign a legitimate autograph
• Take a full week (seven consecutive days) off of all responsibilities to do nothing but record music
• Do stand up comedy
• Compete on American Ninja Warrior
• ^Complete Round 1 (then 2, then 3, then 4...)
• Compete on Sasuke (the amazing original Ninja Warrior)*
• Play in a Magic: The Gathering Worlds Tournament
• Do a completely absurd, yet successful punk cover
• Buy a shit ton of land for natural preservation purposes*
• Score a film or video game soundtrack*
• Sponsor an animal (at a zoo or otherwise)
• Hear one of my songs on the radio
• See one of my music videos on MTV*
• Be featured in a newspaper or magazine for my work
• Be a musical guest of honor at an anime convention
• Be entirely debt free
• Tattoos.  Lots and lots of tattoos.

Enemy Skill

This Materia functioned outside the realm of any others, allowing you to assume the powers of many of the various cratures found throughout the world. Therefore, as an avid Cosplayer, I feel it is the perfect representation for the lofty number of cosplay costumes I hope to someday create.

• Vash the Stampede (Trigun Maximum version)
• Updated Gaara (Naruto Shippuuden)
• Genesis Rhapsodos (FFVII:CC)
• Cloud Strife (FFVII)
• Cloud Strife (FFVII:AC)
• Alucard (Castlevania: SOTN)
• Shido (Night Walker: Midnight Detective)
• Eva Unit 01 (Neon Genesis Evangelion)*
• Ashram (Record of Lodoss War)
• Klaha (Malice Mizer, Beast of Blood video)
• Priss Hardsuit (Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 group Xplay)*
• Bahamut summon (Advent Children version)*
• Ryuk (Death Note)
• Snow (FFXIII)
• Kougaiji (Saiyuki)
• Sebastian (Kuroshitsuji)
• Allen Walker (D.Grey-Man)
• Hector (Castlevania: CoD)
• Hagi (Blood+)
• Jin (Samurai Champloo)
• Kyuzo (Samurai 7)
• Gantz Suit (Gantz)
• Gabriel Belmont (Castlevania: LoS)
• Trevor Belmont (Castlevania: LoS: MoF)
• Prince Lotor (Voltron)
• Noctis Lucis Caelum (FFXV)
• Kakashi and Pakkun (Naruto)
• Sith Lord
• Darth Revan

World Map

One other facet of any worthy Final Fantasy is map exploration! If you haven't explored every nook of every continent, you have clearly missed something encredible and it will be your downfall in that final battle. As such, I intend to explore my world map with ferver!

• Visit all of the continents
• Visit all 50 states
• See the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan
• Walk the Great Wall
• Play a concert on all of the continents*
• Visit The Shire in New Zealand
• Tour Scotland's castles
• Go on a Three Sheets drinking tour
• Visit both of Vlad the Impaler's castles
• Go to Greece and see the various temples and monuments
• Go back to Japan
• Have a permanent residence in Japan*

 

Vehicles

One of the defining moments in any Final Fantasy is when you get a new ride.  Whether its getting access to the airship, or getting your chocobo license, at some point in time you get the ability to ride around in style and traverse said world map a lot faster.  There are a few items of the vehicular persuasion that I have a particular desire to own.  

• Working Replica of Cloud's Hardy Daytona motorcycle*
• Working Replica of Cloud's Fenrir motorcycle*
• High-performance Mustang
• Lamborghini

 

Side Quest: The Weapons

I am a member of an awesome community of positive people focused on fitness and living life to the fullest (Not unlike our wonderful Nerd Fitness community!).  I'm speaking about a health and wellness company called AdvoCare.  Along with incredible products, there are leadership levels within the company that you can earn by helping others achieve their own goals.  Amazingly enough, they are named similarly to the FFVII Weapon creatures!

• Silver
• Gold
• 3-Star Gold
• Ruby*
• 6-Star Ruby
• Emerald*
• 9-Star Emerald
• Diamond*

 

As life is a constant work in progress, so to is this list. I'll continue to add to it over time and hope that someday I can look back at this initial list and laugh at how easy some of these goals were, regardless of how difficult they may have seemed at the time.

I have already completed one item that was on my list, and it was an amazing experience, so I hope to ride this recent momentum and crash into the rest of this list with a level of tenacity typically found only in video game characters!

Current Level: 2
Progress toward Level 3: 60%

Level 1
Go to Japan (10/18/12)

Run a 10K (3/16/13)

Run a half-marathon (10/20/13)

Complete a Tough Mudder (5/10/14)

Run a second half-marathon (10/19/2014)

 

Level 2
Completed Cosplay: The Joker (12/31/2014)

Be A Hero (01/10/2015)

Go to Greece and visit the temples (06/01/2015)

[catscratch]

We share some of the same goals, my brother.  I will gladly stand by your side in battle!

[Strife]

While I continue daily/weekly to work toward many of these goals I am currently going to focus expressly on two of them. Doing 25 pullups and Creating a studio album. In order to accomplish this, I have set the following goals:

By Feb 10th I intend to have 4 tracks recorded

By Feb 24th I intend to have 7 tracks recorded

By Mar 10th I intend to have 10 tracks recorded

By Mar 17th I intend to have my first studio album done (and throw a bitchin' release party to boot!)

By Feb 17th I plan to be able to finally do a pullup following the suggested guidelines here on Nerd Fitness. I hope to add two pullups per week until I have finally hit 25 pullups on May 12th.

I plan to update weekly with my progress!

[Strife]

I've set out a solid plan for the next 6 months, breaking it down week by week.  Thus far I'm not quite meeting my weekly goals, but I'm catchingup from a rough start a few weeks ago and building steam.  I can literally FEEL how close I am to a pullup.  It. Will. Happen! 

 

I've had some problems with my guitar interface, so recording has been a bit of a problem.  I'm making due and working on what I can in the meantime.  I'm hoping to have it sorted out this weekend, wherein I have 48 solid hours to myself and I'm hoping to hammer down on the recording aspect of my list. 

 

I've signed up for my second Warrior Dash which is part of my road to the Tough Mudder in September!  And I've found a 10K on St. Patrick's Day that I think I'm going to shoot for as well.  That's two more items I hope to knock off my list this year!

[catscratch]

I love it!  I'd love to do Tough Mudder as well.

[Strife]

I am pleased to state that I was able to do a pullup today!  HAROO!!!

 

I'm still behind on my recording goals, due in part to a faulty hard drive, and also admittedly in part to a lack of time management.  I'm still plugging away though!  At the very least, I'm pleased to have gotten the first star in my "Pullup Materia."

[Strife]

I have also added to my World Map!  I want to visit both of the castle's of Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a. Count Dracula.

[catscratch]

WOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!  Love everything I'm seeing here!

[Strife]

I need to go to Greece and see the various temples and monuments.  Thats a MUST.

[Strife]

The BP Trial started a few days ago, and it got me thinking about how whenever I see pictures like this-

 

 

or this-

 

 

it makes me 1. hate the human race; and 2. want to drop absolutely EVERYTHING and race to the fron lines to help.

 

Therefore, I'm putting that on my bucket list.  Now I truly hope that a tragedy such as this never happens again, so I'm going to leave it somewhat broad.  Something like "Help with a major environmental cause or initiative" should cover it.

 

I've also always wanted to purchase (once I've made my millions, of course) a large quantity of land for preservation purposes.  I think I recall reading some time ago that Harrison Ford has a massize strip of land that stretches the U.S. top to bottom.  I think thats an amazing idea. 

 

On an entirely UNenvironmentally charged note, I just watched a bunch of Voltron.  I now desire to cosplay Prince Lotor.  As a small child the age of six, I would watch Voltron before kindergarten and first grade.  This was my very first encounter with anime, something that would become a huge part of my life later on.  And Lotor was my first introduction to the idea of the awesomely badass bishounen villian archetype that I love so much.  It only seems fitting that I cosplay him. 

 

Strife out.

[catscratch]

I'm down for a roadtrip to save animals!  Or help in general! I'm a helper, I'm helping!  Also, when I cosplay Voltron, you can be my arch nemesis at cons!

[Strife]

I couldn't be happier to say that I knocked another one off the list today.  10K race ran in 52 minutes!  Now to start training for a half marathon and Tough Mudder!

[Rooks]

I couldn't be happier to say that I knocked another one off the list today.  10K race ran in 52 minutes!  Now to start training for a half marathon and Tough Mudder!

 

Well done sir!  Keep up the good work.  I can't say I'm not excited to see you start knocking out the "Enemy Skill" portion of this.  Cosplay outfits are pretty darn awesome.  

[Strife]

I just snatched another Materia on my adventure! I completed a Half-Marathon! I ran it in 2 hours and 23 minutes, and my legs are still a bit sore today, but I'm positively STOKED.

[Strife]

This has been a productive month!  I ran another half-marathon AND I made a new costume.  Here's me with my lovely partner in crime.

 

[Strife]

I just booked my trip to Greece for June of 2015!  Here's to knocking an awesome one off the list!!

[Strife]

I checked another one off the list the other day, and in a way I never expected.  Item achieved: Be a Hero.

 

Being a hero doesn't always mean swinging a sword or casting a spell; and it doesn't have to save a princess or free a nation.  I friend told me the other day that my actions literally saved his life.  I was left somewhat speechless.  All I was doing is what I felt was right.  But I guess that how these things work...