Tuesday, August 30, 2011

What's in a Name

If I had to choose my pseudonym now, it probably wouldn't involve Dragon, because after ten years of being on the internet I think it's definitely one of those cliched names. And Rebel's probably another one...I mean, who honest-to-God puts Rebel in their internet moniker if they're not making a point of saying, "Hey, look at me, I'm a rebel. Rawr." Putting them both together is just...um...pretentious?

But it's really highly personal to me.

The name, Rebel Dragon, didn't evolve for me until sometime in 2005. I was living in Pennsylvania at the time and started writing a story. This story was about someone a lot like me who kept phasing into this other world that involved technologically advanced elves, homicidal squirrels, and a time-traveling fairy. In the first chapter the main character gets chewed by a dragon but manages to kill the dragon from inside it's mouth with a pocketknife, and in the process is transformed into a weredragon. In the nature of all antihero stories, the character fights against turning evil and manages to have lots of adventures.

All this evolved after I had seen Lord of the Rings in 2002, but about a year before I learned how to play Magic and D&D and all the remaining trappings of standard fantasy. If I had, this world of mine may have turned out differently...for one, I was not aware of shapeshifting and intelligence being standard properties of most dragons.

I think at that time the dragon was something I both wanted to be and was also my inner monster that I was striving to be in control of. Much like any werepredator in pretty much any story ever that has any sense of moral decency struggles to not turn into a murder machine. Hence the Rebel.

I referred to the weredragon character as my alter ego.

In 2005 when I made my first Runescape account, I was trying to decide on a name and I tried for Rebel
Dragon. It was taken already and I wasn't able to rename my account that until they implemented the name changing system years later.

If I was to rewrite that story today, it would be different. For one, I wouldn't try to cram all the marvels of my created universe into it at one go.

At the end of Part 1 of the book, the main character dies.

In Part 2, the character is reborn.

But in the Intermission between the two parts, we meet the Dragonling.

Most of the Intermission and Part 2 hasn't been written. I don't know if it ever will be.

The main character has changed. I may have changed.

But Rebel Dragon does not change.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Why God Died

"And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent (Matthew 27:51" 

Most of you are probably familiar with this particular tenet of the Christian faith--God sent His Son Jesus to earth, where he was crucified and rose again, leading to the salvation of humankind.

Traditionally, veil reference in the above verse is seen as God allowing humans to come closer to to Him...but what if that's not the case? What if, instead, it symbolizes God coming closer to humans?

According to the Bible, up until this point, the one thing separating God from humans was that He hadn't died. It's one thing to be a great, omnipotent being with complete control over your creation, and it's another for the same being to become a copy of it's creation and live through the daily struggle of being human.

Death was the ultimate separation. Normally, it's been seen as a negative for us--death separated us from God. But what if it was more--God's absence of death is what kept Him from humans?

What if God had to die so He could truly join with His creation? Maybe He had to come to this world as a human, live and experience life as a human, and, ultimately, die like a human, so He could truly understand us?


What if Jesus' death and resurrection was to bring God closer to us?

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

RS: 99 Mining

 I haven't talked much about Runescape lately, although it's probably what I've been doing the most of.




This also gave me 2300 lvl overall.



 
Now on to smith and craft.