Which, by the way, healing is a bitch, especially when you get idiots. Poor Wuko got saddled into an UK run with the promises of an 80 runing them through. I ended up healing 2 pet tanks before the group finally split. Definitely my worst healing ever, but as a friend told me, they should have gotten a tank instead of playing hunter-lock-pet games.

The mage has finally gotten his epic flyer; my first ever epic flyer since starting the game in July of 2007. Once again… immensely proud.

In general, I’m proud of my mage several times over. When I started playing the game, my schedule made it impossible for me to even hope of raiding. Beltravi, my rogue (Who sits at level 71 on Silvermoon) seemed to be forever doomed to vague Karazhan weeklies, and the occasional ZA. Most of her gear came from badges, and from doing the Sunwell dailies.

When we came to Sisters to roll as Horde, I’ll admit, I was disappointed. When word for the new expansion was coming around, the idea of being on the same level as those around me with my rogue was exciting. But I have to say, I don’t regret it anymore. Rolling Telkire was definitely a huge change for me. And I’ve come to enjoy playing a mage more then I ever thought I would. I’ve come to know the class, and I know I’ve come to play it well. There’s still a long way for me to go. But hey, I know I can get there.

Something that often astounds me as well, is the fact of where I’m raiding at. Before, I wasn’t really proud of my gaming. After all, to all appearances, I assumed myself to be a mediocore rogue compared to everyone getting T5 and T6 and god knows what else. And there I was, stuck slugging through Karazhan and praying that my boyfriend’s guild would take me through Zul’Aman. But now, here I am, in a great guild that’s not doing 10-mans, but 25-mans. Something I would have never even thought myself capable of doing back in the days of TBC. To be blunt, and possibly a bit immatureish/dorky, it just feels totally awesome to realize that I’m in a raiding guild that’s raiding the top available content. Sure, we’re not on Yogg-Saron yet, but hey, we’ve down two of the keepers, and our 10-man teams (Which, due to my work schedule, I can’t participate in) are already in Descent into Madness. (Or whatever it is.) I’m not just the casual-rank sitting on the sidelines watching, I’m actually participating.

Yeah. My thoughts are kind of rambling on and on tonight. I’m actually typing this as I’m auto-running through the Eastern Kingdoms on Keir to get the Flame Keeper title. Poor Keir, she’s my achievement whore, and my money whore. If I need a run-through for characters on my other account, I whore Keir out and run myself, Kungaloosh (Formerly Fear.Win), and my boyfriend and others through Outland dungeons.

Thankfully, other people have been talking about doing alt Naxx-10 runs, so poor Keir might actually get geared up soon. For now though… I do my dailies, use that money for other toons, and whore her out for EXP.

There’s just one question I have to ask… Why the hell did I just fly down to Booty Bay when I need to go to Grom’gol?

Fuck this noise. I’m going to grab some mountain dew game fuel and try to stop thinking. Otherwise I’ll keep rambling!

The Books of Glyph Mastery are really just adding to a whole new level of ninja’ry. It was me, Fear.Win, another guildie, and two pug hunters. I was tanking on Keiraline, Fear was on his… I think warlock, and I believe our last guildie, Shadow, was healing. I think.

One of those damn books dropped, and immediately, Shadow and one hunter hit greed. Fear hesitated then hit greed. So it was left with me and the hunter. The other hunter told us, in bad grammar and no punctuation, that she was going to need it. Like a dumbass, I didn’t hit need. Instead I told her that it was greed unless she could link her profession. Then I hit greed. There was a pause. Then.

“lol”

And the bitch hit need and took it. So, I passed the leadership to Fear.Win and gave him the pleasure of booting the bitch from the group. So a book that could have gone to Blog of Light was now no doubt being auctioned off for 1k gold for that stupid slut. Now if she was really an Inscriptionist and had linked her profession like a good girl, I’m sure that none of us would have had a problem. But instead she just said ‘lol’ and needed it.

Now naturally the next day we won a new book for Blog of Light. But still. These stupid new books are just giving people another chance to rip people off on the Auction House and give us all reason to do dailies again. Like trying to get duelspecs and get epic mounts wasn’t enough.

Ah well. My rant for the evening.

On an IC note, I may attempt to write a new journal post for Keira soon. The story is still that she lost her original diary in a fire and hasn’t quite replaced it yet. I did hit Sons of Hodir and she spent the day wrestling with a wyrm and falling on her head, which lead to her heading to Silvermoon to spend the evening with Zanafar.

In Silvermoon, she caught sight of the warlock who violated her and showed comendable control over her anger. She walked away and only left a small dent in a wall. Zanafar had to still calm her down and she left to go wear herself out wrestling and trying to kill more wyrms. What better way to expend rage then to wrestle something ten times your size or more? And she had the promise of Zan waiting for her in their special picnic spot.

Of course, an offhand remark of Keira complaining about creatures immune to ice had me get into a fight with some asshole who apparently decided that one’s not allowed to make jokes and quirks that hinted at breaking the fourth wall.

Ah well.

Time to go write some posts for one of my forums while watching Disaster Movie, again!

Primary Spec:
Frost Tank
7 /55/9

Major Glyphs:
Icebound Fortitude
Unbreakable Armor
Disease

Secondary Spec:
Unholy DPS
12/0/59

Major Glyphs:
Ghoul
Scourge Strike
Icy Touch

I don’t even want to know how much gold I’ve spent in the past couple of days but it’s so totally worth it. I love playing as my Death Knight, and I love the fun of Duel Spec. My minor glyphs for both are the same: Pestilence, Horn of Winter, Raise Dead. Army of the Dead has been a blast, and has even saved my ass on some boss fights.

After I cleaned the AH out on pre-approved DK tanking gear (Pre-Naxx, list here) the first thing I wanted to do was test it out, whether in a level 80 instance like Pinnacle, or in Heroics. Thankfully, Fear.Win, as well as a few other Guildies, were willing to run with me.

So my first day of level 80 tanking has passed, and I’ve learned a few things.

1) Make sure you’re in Frost Presence!
2) Mages suck at waiting for you to get aggro, so you’d better get on it
3) Death and Decay is pretty amazing
4) Having to only waste one rune to refresh all diseases is pretty awesome. (Some people aren’t in favor of the new glyph, but I’m absolutely loving it.)
5) Running with other DKs is a pain and a blessing. If you fall, they can pick it up for you quickly, but you just know they’re wondering why you suck so badly!

Overall, the runs weren’t too bad. Cumulative repair for H. Nexus and H. UK was less then 20 gold, and I left with off-spec waist/pants, and 8 emblems of Heroism.

What I also noticed, is that you know something wrong when the tank is doing more DPS then most of the DPSers!

Also, I’ve noticed that it’s a pain in the ass to keep aggro away from Fear.Win when he decides to pull out the big spells. At that point.. it quickly becomes a faceroll match in desperation to keep him from dying.

The fruits of the labor weren’t in vain. As well as picking up 2 DPS pieces, I also hit honored with Wyrmrest, which means at least one piece of tanking gear that I can pick up. Huzzah!

After the tanking fun, I hopped over to Undercity, and began working on my DPS joy. Having snagged the Staggering Legplates and Strategist’s Belt from UK, I popped 2 Bold Bloodstones (+12 Strength) and 1 Rigid Autumn’s Glow (+16 Hit Rating) into those. If I had 50 gold more, another Bloodstone would have been popped into an Eternal Belt Buckle. But alas, not today. I could have chosen another Strength gem in place of the hit, but there’s one thing that I’ve heard quite often that reminds me of priorities:

“Doesn’t do jack shit if you can’t hit it.”

So with that in mind, I popped those into my gear and leapt and bound over to the regular level 80 Training Dummy.

Even though I forgot to hit horn and had to interrupt my DPS to check that, and I forgot to summon a ghoul, AND forgot about Army of the Dead, I was still quickly reaching up to 1400 dps off the bat, and with only three pieces of actual DPS gear! (Cloak, belt, and pants) Considering that the rest of my gear was tank still, I’m actually extremely optimistic for this spec.

Next though, because I’m never one to just stop there, I summoned my ghoul, blew my horn, cracked my knuckles, and attacked the big bad ?? Training dummy. Of course, AFTER I stopped attacking, I realized I had forgotten one thing… Bone Shield, which boosts my damage.

/facepalm

Still, even with that minor setback, I was actually pretty pleased when my DPS reached and actually broke the 1600 mark. (1605 DPS) Which proved a few points to me:

1) Army of the Dead kicks ass
2) Ghouls are good
3) Unholy is amazing.

The rotation for Unholy DPS is something I’m still getting used to.

IT – PS – BS – BS – SS – UB

Summon Gargoyle whenever I’ve got enough Runic Power, and I’m still looking for the right place to pop in Pestilence to just refresh my diseases off the bat. That, or I may just tough it out and keep hitting IT, since PS damage isn’t too bad, and it refreshes the other two on it’s own. And of course, I was in Blood Presence for that added DPS bonus.

Overall, I’m pretty proud that, with that much tanking gear instead of DPS, my DPS still wasn’t too bad for a recently turned 80. Not to mention, this is only my second 80. Excluding the fact that I roped in guildies for Heroics, I still tried to do nearly everything myself. I naturally asked a few questions of the guild, especially my boyfriend (Who has a really awesome tank, Catalysta) but once I was pointed in the right direction, I did the research myself, found the specs (After Fear.Win told me some pretty kickass sites!) and bought my mats myself. Instead of asking guildies to craft a gem for me, I bought it on my own. Same went for the gear. I could have asked the guild blacksmith to craft it. But instead I bought what I could off the AH, and made note of quest rewards that were good, and poked around for anything I could get on my own.

So overall, an excellent day for Keira. Poor Telkire has been a bit neglected. After a bit more of work on Keira, I’ll probably pull him back out, since the Argent Tournament has some pretty nice looking gear. That, and I really need to start pugging 25s. I’ve got some guilds who have agreed to put me on their Invite list, and I plan to take them up on any offers that come in in the next 2 weeks while I’m out of commission from work.

My goal, though, is to hopefully be able to pug as a tank for Naxxramas on Keira.

End of the day? I’m feeling pretty accomplished. Right now I’m going to head out to do some dailies on Keir, and to check out the Argent Tournament. That, or continue quests to get gold to pick up some new tank equipment.

• Read up on how to spec a Holy Priest
• Test my actual healing abilities in something that isn’t a run through.
• Run Heroics on Telk, and tweak my gear a bit more
• Lrn2PVP
• Get Keiraline to 75.
• Begin the layout for an Unholy Tanking spec at 80, just to see if I can.

While I love the holy spec, I’m giving some thought to at least playing around with Shadow once I get Wukong up some more. I love the priest class, and I’m actually finding myself immensely curious as to the different specs. I want to make a Smite DPS spec, I want to play around with the Disc. tree, and I want to tear things apart with Shadow.

Maybe when I’ll get home, I’ll attack Fear.Win and see what his blog can give me.

And one of my major goals coming up is to actually update this sad little blog. I really want to do a post on the mechanics of Frostfire that I’ve learned from gameplay. I may also pug a Naxx to see how my DPS is different now that I have 4 pieces of T7, before the reset tonight… Yeah actually no time for that. I’ll run some heroics and like… Sarth/VoA and see how I do. Maybe mage PVP love will drop for me.

For now… work calls and I must obey. /salute

….Give me a break. It’s nearly 2:30 am!

Anyways. So… I shall now tell you all, my lovable readers, about my character names, describing how I came up with them, and then, after I’m done… I’ll have to tag three peopl-

Aw crap. I’ve only got… like… two people on my happy friend’s list, and one of them tagged me… then tagged the other person. SNAP!

In any case, this will actually be rather interesting, for me at least, as I struggle down memory lane. Most of my names I just start pronouncing something, and I type it out, and usually it ends out sounding alright. I’ll try to choose names that I just didn’t mutter under my breathe until it sounded cool.

Keiraline (73 Blood Elf Death Knight [Sisters of Elune])
Keiraline is actually a variation of a character from a book series I’m writing, named Keiralina Denore. Originally when I made my first little lovable Death Knight, I intended her to take after the character in my series, a cool, calculating woman of power. I came up with Keiralina by taking my real name, Kayla, and using the variation I was always called in Japanese Club in high school: Kei-ra. Then, to make it fancy, I added a ‘lina’ at the end, and switched the pronounciation of ‘kei-ra’ to ‘keer-rah’.

Unfortunately, the name ‘Keiralina’ was taken, so I ended up switching the last syllables, intending for her to be “Keer-rah-leen-eh” but instead, she became “keer-rah-line”. And quite obviously… she did not follow the path of her predescesor in personality.

Beltravi (71 Night Elf Rogue [Silvermoon], 6 Blood Elf Rogue [Sisters of Elune], 1 Night Elf Rogue [Spirestone])
One of my most ambiguous names, I can’t even remember where I first came up with it at, but I’ve used it for years. I believe I was searching on a baby-name site, or something of the sort, for a name for a character, and found it as a variation of the name ‘Beatrix’. [Hence why many of my characters have an alias of Beatrix/Beatryx, and why the Night Elf has a twin sister named Beatryx.] Beltravi actually ended becoming one of my favorite names to use, and when I made WoW a few years later, I had to name my first character ever that. Beltravi is mostly used for my characters that are of the Rogue/Thief type, as you can plainly see. And because she was my first WoW character, Beltravi is now often my name online.

My Sisters of Elune incarnation, the level 6, actually does not go by Beltravi, and in fact, I’m planning a name change for her soon. At first I was going to have her be my Nelf under a warlock’s curse, who got turned into a- GASP!- evil Blood Elf with amnesia. But then I changed her history around, tweaked a few things, and now, she has no relation to my first WoW Beltravi.

Quiessa (8 Human Warlock [Silvermoon], 22 Blood Elf Warlock [Shadow Council], 32 Blood Elf Warlock [Sisters of Elune])
Quiessa was a name based on wordplay. The original Quiessa, a human warlock, I intended to have the personality of, well, quiet death. So Quiet minus the ‘t’, and a feminine ending to it, pronounces ‘kWAY-sah’. Definitely one of my names that has lasted longer, since I’ve shifted her around to different servers. My favorite of all the Quiessa’s is still the original, though it’s fun to play a hot-headed bimbo, aka, my Sister’s of Elune incarnation.

Telkire “Zhirej” (80 Troll Mage [Sisters of Elune])
Yeah… this one was kind of weird. I never intended to make a troll. But when we switched servers, I said I wanted to make a male toon, because most of mine were always female. Everyone started joking that I was going to make a male belf, because they’re so pretty… and like the rebellious brat that I am, I had to choose something else. >.> With no idea of what Troll names were, I chose “tehl-keer”. I thought it sounded alright.

Of course, when I started playing as a troll, and after I did a bit of research on the lore of trolls, I decided it didn’t sound troll enough, so I turned Telkire into an alias, and decided that “Zhirej” [zheer-rehj] was his real name, to go along with the overly-complicated history I was making for him. Gameplay, and vent talk has now turned it into “Tehlk-eye-r”.

Beatryx (58 Night Elf Death Knight [Silvermoon])
Beatrix, or other versions of this name, have always been a huge hit for me, ever since I played Final Fantasy 9 and was introduced to the Beatrix in that game. She still stands out to this day as one of my favorite video game characters, with her awesome eyemask, her kickass skills, and the fact that she held onto duty so well. That… and you have to have some appreciation for the character that whooped your ass through most of the game.

Before WotLK came out, I tried to reserve “Beatrix” but was forced to change the i to a y, as Beatrix was already taken. And because the name looked weird now… I decided my Death Knight, with all her kick ass skills, had to be a Night Elf. And because I’m an overachiever, I decided she had to be the twin sister of my Rogue, which gave me a chance to elaborate on the history of what is still one of my favorite characters of all time.

So… Beatryx, because Death Knights are overpowered, just like that one bitch from Final Fantasy 9. <3

Wukong (35 Blood Elf Priest [Sisters of Elune])
Blame Dan. When she made her priest Bejita as a variation of Vegeta, and her Shaman Radditz, I had to jump on the bandwagon. I knew Goku would probably be taken already, so I was thinking like… Goka or something, to make it female. But Dan told me that the Chinese version of “Goku” was… “Wukong”. So… to the disgust of most of the guild… Welcome Wukong!

Charmandar (8 Gnome Mage [Silvermoon])
When Space Goats was attempting to raid Karazhan on it’s own, back in the good old days of TBC, a rogue by the name of Bulbasaur was recruited. I immediately had to jump on the bandwagon to annoy my guildmates. Unfortunately, Pikachu and Charmander were taken. So I switched the last syllable out and made a mage. And to really mess with things, I decided to level her frost.

Mokuba (1 Blood Elf Paladin [Sisters of Elune])
Ah… poor poor pally. When Dan introduced us to her hunter Kaiba, I immediately recognized the Yu-Gi-Oh reference, and decided to make Kaiba’s annoying, good-hearted little brother. And since then… he’s been utterly ignored. I always forget to level/play/RP him.

Tevaristrasz “Telvaris Noirstrike” (60 Blood Elf Death Knight [Sisters of Elune])
Blame Dan! Like I could resist the idea of making a dragon after her pally “Sandormu” and her mage, “Setdormi”? I originally made my Death Knight as “Telvaris” after the patch came out that allowed you to make a Death Knight on any server as long as you had a 55 somewhere. And with no one to stop Dan’s bad influence, I ended up re-rolling my Death Knight as Tevaristrasz, a… dead member of the Red Dragonflight, the Dragonflight of Life. The irony was too good to pass up.

Because most dragons have some name to go by in the mortal world, I used Telvaris as his day name. Eventually I chose “Noirstrike” as his surname, after I was trying to help Blog of Light name her Death Knight, and I fell in love with the idea of ‘noir’ in a name. All dark and fancy sounding… Overdone… it was perfect!

Chaer (20 Night Elf Druid [Silvermoon])
Through hilarious RP events that make no sense, my Gnome Mage got turned into a Night Elf druid. At the time, I really wanted to level and I really wanted to level a druid, so I decided to keep both. I tried to go for ‘Char’ but it was taken… So I added an ‘e’ and made it sound fancy. Yes.. it’s pronounced “Chair”. So much for my attempts to make it fancy. GIT ‘EM, CHAIR!

Valkire (4 Orc Shaman [Silvermoon])
I wanted to try a Shaman, I wanted to try playing Horde to get a break from Alliance, and I wanted an awesome name. So I tried a variation of ‘Valkyrie”, and came up with “Vahl-keer-ray”. I thought it was awesome… and so did like 20 other people, when I armory’d it and realized like 50 billion other people had that name. It got lonely on the Horde side so I never levelled her.

Fyeria (5 Night Elf Warrior [Sisters of Elune])
When we started the Triple Experience and switched servers, I was hoping to level some Alliance on the side. At the time, I was also really obsessed with the musical Wicked. In Wicked, there’s a character named Fiyero. I tried Fiyero, and it was taken.. so I cut off his wang and made him into a her. Unfortunately, I never got time to level her.

Ivarte (4 Blood Elf Paladin [Shadow Council])
Before we switched to Sister’s of Elune, I was RPing on Shadow Council, and getting involved in with the guild, The Order of Belor Falla. The name is pronounced “Ee-vahr-tay” but you should be able to recognize the roots. Flip it around, and add a ‘b’ in front. That’s right, Beltravi. The only incarnation of Bel that wasn’t a Rogue. Originally, I was going to have her be an Alliance spy. Unfortunately, we switched servers and I forgot all about her.

Velarius Lighthelm (6 Human Warrior [Sisters of Elune], 1 Human Warrior [Silvermoon])
Curious is often what bites me in the ass, and I was curious to see what RP was like on the Alliance side of Sisters of Elune. So I tried to find something that sounded ‘Noble’ sounding, and created Velarious Lighthelm, a minor nobleman. I decided his name needed to have some irony, because he’s actually a bit of a brooding character, and he’s so definitely not a Paladin. However… he inherited his estates from a Paladin, and took on the surname of the House that he became Head Noble of.

That is the end of the characters that I actually thought about and actually figured out names for, that had some back story. The following characters, I just started randomly saying things until I hit something that sounded good, and fit what I wanted for the character. Example.. Thisorius. (this-soar-ree-uhs, ‘th’ as in ‘thistle’, not ‘th’ like in ‘that’.) I wanted something that could be almost evillish, somewhat uppity, and just reeked of Elf. So that’s what I came up with.

Devitra (40 Night Elf Priest [Silvermoon])
Lavera (18 Draenei Paladin [Silvermoon])
Laristias (7 Blood Elf Rogue [Silvermoon])
Thisorius (8 Blood Elf Warlock [Silvermoon])
Naradias (30 Blood Elf Hunter [Sisters of Elune])
Itinara (3 Tauren Druid [Sisters of Elune])
Veraste (1 Blood Elf Paladin [Sisters of Elune])
Tevarilka (1 Blood Elf Warlock [Sisters of Elune])

…To be honest, the list is much shorter then I thought. So, since it was Fear.Win that tagged me… I’ll tag…

Blog of Light
Random Person #23
Invisible Bob

Like most of my raid days, my dear, beloved mother had to start drama in the middle of it. Usually it’s because I won’t empty the dishwasher in the middle of Heigan or something like that.

“GET YOUR FUCKING PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!”
“You’re just becoming fucking fat and lazy.”
“You won’t fucking do ANYTHING around here anymore, I want you off that fucking machine. No more god damn raids every fucking day.”

I have to ‘lol’ at the ‘raids every fucking day’ bit. I raid one day a week.

But, tonight, I was not the focus of it. Still… it ended up being pretty bad. The one thing I hate most about raids when she starts pulling shit, is that it gets so quiet over Vent. Usually I use music to just drown it out. But with no music, since I have enough problems hearing over Vent, I had to listen to every. fucking. moment. of her little tiz.

It was just overly ridiculous. She was threatening to take my dad to court, threatening to take everything, screaming at him, accusing him of trying to stop her from moving out. And my dad, sick of being walked all over and talked all over, argued back. My mom has a really nasty habit of only hearing what she wants. If you counter her and take away the focus her her argument by solving the problem, she refuses to listen to you, just so she can have the last word.

I won’t get into it much further then that. I’m getting sick and upset just thinking about it. Truth be told, my head is feeling really lightheaded and I want to throw up. Probably going to have a headache tomorrow.

But in any case, tonight, in the middle of Sapphiron [First Attempt], I broke down in tears, screaming and shaking.

I had a fucking breakdown in the middle of the raid, and spent the rest of the raid crying and shaking and trying not to throw out. I barely even told Drim how bad it was.

I think what really hurt, was how she started going off on how her affair on her ex-husband, er, affairs, were the worst things she’s ever done. One of the affairs was with my dad. And gee… guess how I came into existence?

My mom’s full of shit, I just ignore most of what she says… but that still really just cut too fucking deep.

I can’t wait til this is done and she’s gone and some of this stress will end. I hate having breakdowns because of her. I hate her guilttrips. I hate being miserable at home, to the point where I actually prefer work over home, because there is no way she can affect me there. When she tries to bug me at work, I ignore her, I treat her like any other customer, and I have made it clear to her that giving her ‘special’ attention could get me fired.

Though, when I was in high school, she was threatening to force me to quit if I didn’t get straight A’s and do what she wanted.

Anyways… my final point, and the end to this thread before I throw up…

I never want to break down in the middle of something I enjoy because of her.

What spec did I chose? What else? I chose to tank.

All through Wrath, I’ve been DPS and DPS only. With everyone starting to level faster for Alt Naxx, well, what else would a girl do? I love the raid, I love the mechanics, and I have no problem with any of it. Still… I’m really curious to see what tanking’s like. Not to mention, the faster I level, the faster we have another tank, and not force Drim or Chad to tank this time around again, heh.

I had a laugh when I got asked to join a Kara group. I joined.. and it was me, a 72 Rogue who was party leader, a 70 priest, a 69 Paladin, a 70 Shaman, and an 80 hunter… that was D/C’ified.

And hence one of the stupidest party’s I have ever had in forever.

It had been the priest that had found me and asked me to join, as OT. I could do that. However, when I got into the group, the rogue, who barely spoke english, informed me that we were six-manning, and that I would be the only tank.

…What?

“We got two good heals. We be fine.”

Oookay… I mean I know everything got nerfed but I doubt that much. Well as long as we have an 80.. I mean I’ll probably have a ton of trouble holding onto aggro, but maybe his pet can secretly OT? Then the priest pointed out the obvious… Wait a minute, the hunter’s D/C. And has been D/C for quite some time.

What followed was one of the most ridiculous conversations I’ve ever had to deal with.

“He come back.”
“He’s not coming back, he’s d/c.”
“He come back. He d/c three times and three times he come back.”
“He’s been offline for way too long now. He’s not coming back.”

Repeat that, switch a few words around, and add really really bad grammar. The priest managed to get Assist so she could invite other people. Two DPS, and an OT. Then she asked who had the key.

“Hunter has key.”

…You mean the hunter that D/C’ed, and hasn’t come back?

“He come back.”

…Yes. That hunter.

So the priest, who is officially hero, finally got pissed, and told him, “He’s not coming back. Let me illustrate that for you.” And promptly kicked him out of the group. The rogue took about three minutes to realize that his hunter was missing.

“wtf”

Now, with me being such a smartass and having no patience for stubborn idiots [even though I am one sometimes] I had to jump in.

“The game boots you if you d/c for too long in a group.”

The priest whispered me, laughing.

“I hope I never get on your bad side, you liar!”

I just winked at her, as the rogue went into a fury.

“that’s bullshit. I d/c tons of times and never get booted”

And of course… I had to continue.

“I think it came out in the last patch. I don’t know, I don’t know the game mechanics.”

And the Priest jumped in again.

“Why the hell are you d/c’ing in a group?”

Yeah probably not a good thing to say… but wait! Listen to what the rogue said next!

“I d/c four hours and not get booted.”

Okay by now… I’m torn between staring at the screen at this guy’s little avatar in shock and horror, and laughing my ass off. I’m pretty sure the Priest was in the same boat.

Me: “I don’t know, I don’t understand game mechanics. Probably a bug or something that allowed you to stay.”
Priest: “Why the hell would you d/c for FOUR HOURS?”

We started to get everyone to Kara when we realized we still had one conumdrum. Who the fuck had the key?

“It okay. I got friend coming.”

So he invited someone… who immediately dropped group. By now… Yeah forget this. I could be doing Nexus and getting some hot new tanking items from quest rewards. So like the theatrical smartass that I am, I hit my hearthstone, said,

“Give me a call when you open the door.”

And promptly left the group.

The priest and I joined up for Nexus, and she grabbed a hunter, while I grabbed Call and Drim. Drim gave me pointers in the Vae Victus OOC channel, and told me “Don’t die.” a ton of times, while Call went nose to nose with the hunter, who won the fist weapon that Call wanted… and didn’t equip it. Then the priest and hunter got into a tizz about the herbs. The priest also got into it with Drim, who she accused of doing nothing because it looked like he was doing nothing.

We didn’t wipe on any of the bosses. No, we wiped on the mobs. One was the stupid VW types that sapped away mana and sapped away our healer’s mana. I think we wiped 1-2 time beyond that, both when too much got pulled.

When Keristrasza came around, Drim and Call decided to fuck with the hunter, asking him if he knew what Tranq shot was, because Drim was sure I’d need it, and that I’d get my face eaten. The hunter responded sarcastically with such like “lolol” “What’s Autoshot?”

I swear to god, I wanted to just smack the three of them upside the head. But I just shut up and started Keri, and got punched in the face… er… pardon me… Swiped in the face a ton.

The good news…

I didn’t eat face. I survived Keri’s enrage. In fact the only person that died was the priest, and that was like at the very last second.

Considering this was my second time tanking a dungeon, and the first time had been full of guildies breathing down my neck [Just kidding!] I felt pretty proud of myself.

And Drim had to have the final word.

Drim: levelling as lolprot sucks :/
Nat: oh she’s tanking?
Drim: yeah >.>
Drim: there’s hope for her yet

Thanks a lot, dear <3

Still.. I’m pretty happy.

So… My first day as a full-blooded Frost Tankzorz, and I didn’t fail too badly.

Anyone wanna run UK/Nexus?

The spiderweb of how a character is changed through his or her interactions with other characters in an environment just completely fascinate me. Whenever you create a character, you have a sort of set idea of how they’re going to move on. But something comes, knocks you off orbit, and opens up a whole new chapter, a whole new environment, for you to explore.

This will now sound very silly, but it’s really the only way I can explain this. After this happens, you begin to see your character as not just a flat, two-dimensional creation of your own, but as a person. You begin to wonder what they’ll do, how they’ll react. It’s no longer you playing a character, it’s you learning what this character would do.

That, to me, is one of the most enjoyable things in a roleplay. Probably no wonder that my ultimate dream is to become a writer, right?

So, in light of my currently philosophical and analytical mood, I’ve decide to just sort of brief over some of my characters, and the way that they’ve changed, from the way I had originally planned them.

Keiraline Sunwalker
Keiraline I originally intended to be the typical Death Knight. Pretty badass, pretty cold, pretty brutal. Her coolness would have been reflective of the main character of a series I’m writing, Keiralina Denore. When I first began to play her, she was quiet, neutral, and not really caring. But as I began to play her more, she began to show her unique traits: Her naivety, her shyness, and her nobility streak. And, in a sort of mirror image, she began to develope a past, even if she didn’t remember it, in the little actions.  A Blood Knight who, while she was of the typical “I’m of the Light and better then thou” character, she was also strongly dedicated to the world around her, and helping those around her, which ultimately lead to her downfall, and her death.

Keiraline has grown from just another strand of grass into a bright yellow carnation in the middle of a field. Outward, she seems simple enough. Naive, childish, and, well, dead. But beneath each layer of petals is another, and another layer, and yet another, and it keeps going until you lose count. Keira’s character developement has been steadily positive, as she rises above that which keeps her down, and fights to become stronger. Each day in Northrend, and among those she calls friends and loved ones, she becomes stronger in mind, body, and spirit. She still has her problems… but she’s working. A previously unstable character that I planned to be a dark and deceptive character is becoming well-rounded, and, despite the lies and manipulations around her, is becoming, well, a hero. Her spectrum of emotions has become vast, and each day gives her another ounce of maturity. She’s begun to think more, reflect around her, and act on what she can. Duty is no longer a word, it’s something more to her.

Red
One of my least played characters, for certain. Out of all my characters, Red has recieved the least character development. But what she has achieved makes me rather proud. Originally, Red was to be the typical amnesia case. Bitter, unstable, and eventually rising above it, having others feel sorry for her. Her personality was also based off one of my other characters, none other then Beltravi the Rogue, Night Elf, Alliance Hero. Sometimes playful, sometimes cracking a joke, and having her own childish moments, similar to how Keira developed.

What I ended up with was a character that was content to watch the world around her. Red is frequently a character that my own characters turn to to speak to, to confide in, and so forth. She’s grown quieter, more speculative, then Beltravi ever was, and her personality is that of someone far older then her years. She’s still a rogue, and has no problem with the Shadow Arts. But she’s also content to sit on a stoop and just observe. Because of this, Red frequently knows more then most of my other characters. Other characters often learn their information from her, because her quiet temperment often has her overlooked.

Telkire [Zhirej]
As many know, Telkire originally was to be nothing more then a drunk playing with fire. (Or frost, or arcane.) But then I did something I rarely do: I really focused on his background. Who was Telkire? Was he really a drunkard, or was he something more? Quite obviously, for those who have read his profile, Telkire is far from an idiot drunkard fumbling around. But neither is he the perfect character. Zhirej has more things pushing him on then any other character. His character is one of the most deceptive that I have ever played. It is completely typical for Zhirej to push himself aside for others, playing a facade in order to protect others.

He is, in some ways, the farthest from a typical troll that he can be. He’s cosmopolitan, he’s not really much of a meat eater, and he has recently attained the rank of ‘Archmage’ through roleplay. At one point, he was a typical troll.

In some ways, Zhirej didn’t change from what I expected too much. I wanted a character to be deceptive, when I began to ‘research’ his history. But I still find Zhirej refreshing. Outwardly, he’ll say one thing, but he thinks another. He’s far more observant then others give him credit for. His relationships with those around him are complex and sometimes completely off-track. With Zhirej, it’s his relationships with other characters that I tend to enjoy over his development. A rarity, but it’s still fun to see how he skillfully merges all these identities people give him into one complex being. I can honestly say that Thaelis the Hunter is probably the only character to have ever glimpsed the real Zhirej, and that was only for a brief moment.

Naradias Sirenstrike
Probably my greatest change in how I expected to play a character. Naradias was intended from the beginning to be the character everyone hates: A bitch. She was never to have any friends, never to do anything herself, and to be condescending to those around her.

My roleplay life has been the shortest with Naradias, but the changes are just profound. Naradias has shown more shadow, more depth, to her character, then any of my others, and that’s not even touching her past, which I haven’t even discovered yet. Sadly enough, Naradias is also my tragic character. In Character, her bodyguard, Cavus, was driven away by her, and returned to the grave. Those around her in the beginning of Vae Victus, what I dub the ‘founding members’, also split apart, something that deep down, Naradias blames herself for. But she’s not just driving everyone away because she’s so selfish and needy. She is doing it on purpose, to protect herself and those around her. Before, she didn’t want anyone to come close to her. Her duties to her House and Lands, as she is a Noblewoman, meant that she could never love, and she would eventually marry to please some faction or another, and never for love. In fact, as she quoted,

“Someday I’ll marry for the good of my House and another. I’ll have to give up what I love in order to bear my husband’s childrne, who will no doubt be several centuries older then me. And if I refuse, then those who depend on my power, the people on my lands, will be in jepoardy.”

She frequently calls herself a coward, and has an extremely bitter, low opinion of herself. And yet, despite all her faults, she actually proved herself to be the most honest of all my characters, and the strongest, in a way. Naradias has, and will, give up everything for her people.

What I also love about Naradias is she also brings to light the society that World of Warcraft really is. It is a medieval environment, where such things like this are rather commonplace. Arranged marriages, unhappiness, bitterness. Most people see World of Warcraft as a Hero’s Ballad, full of adventure, happiness, and the guy/girl getting the girl/guy. Naradias is a realistic character, looking past the fables, and seeing the truth of her existence. By playing Naradias, I often feel like I’m seeing into the politics of Silvermoon City, and what it means to be a Noblewoman. Yes, she is working and doing quests and levelling and travelling. But she’s also juggling her duties to the land with her duties as Lady Naradias.

Naradias has also touched depths of love and heartbreak that just astound me. Like any female, she did end up developing feelings for Stryke, who has the personality of a lady’s man. But Naradias also turned her back to him for her duty. This in turn caused Naradias to become involved in the affairs of the Nine [Cevialus, Val'Thren, Miyuuki, Taael, etc] and to touch a world she should have never seen.

Naradias seemed incapable of love. And yet she has one of the most deepest wells I’ve ever seen of just emotional maturity. Her feelings for Stryke grew profusely when he passed on and became Tyice Vodecus, the Death Knight. However, when Naradias betrayed Cevialus, she knew her time to say good-bye had come. But by then, the dragon Tevaristrasz had meddled with life again and restored Stryke to his Rogue state, with the Death Knight part of him just like a smaller, different personality, that was overpowered by the Rogue in him.

This is the part where Naradias has really become my Tragic Character. As long as she’s alive, anyone she’s near is in danger as Cevialus seeks to hurt her, any way possible, whether emotional, physical, mental, or so forth. She returned to the city one last time to say good-bye, only to find Stryke the Rogue instead of the Death Knight.

Despite everything that Naradias had gone through to grow, she still ended up losing everything. She’s gone through the most emotional depth, shown the greatest character development, and she still has the greatest downfall in front of her. Any friends she once had are gone, she’s cut ties with all of them. The man that she loves she didn’t even get to say good-bye to, and instead had to say her farewell to his living self. And to protect her people… she’s giving her life.

Dramatic? Yes. And yet, astounding. There is so much of Nara that I can’t put into words. Not right now anyways. I just hope that someday, I can make a return with Nara, despite the death that’s rapidly approaching for her.

One of the things of 2009 that I look forward right now, is to see how these characters develope even more. I can’t wait to see Keira mature and become stronger. I can’t wait to see if anything will effect Red anymore, as she observes the world around her, and if she can be moved from her stoic personality. I can’t wait to play on Telkire’s intricate deceptions even more. And I really can’t wait to see the fate of Naradias, and what the depth of personality that she’s taken means. Cevialus, unfortunately, usually only comes on the weekends.

So. To those who have wondered how I can stand roleplay… it’s not the individual roleplays I like. Rather, it’s the effects. I love seeing how a mere splash can ripple, change the course of what would have been into what will now be.

• Got waaaay too busy to be able to get the type of in-depth posts that I like
• Too much kept happening to Keira for me to keep up
• Stress scared away my muse.

In honor of those lame’ass excuses, my goal is to attempt to maybe catch up on some of the events, or at least get a Keiraline post up soon.

Major events I intend to cove-

FUCK! WordPress deleted the rest of the post!

Here’s a fast run down.

• Made a new DK on my second account named Tevaristrasz. If you don’t get the reference… /fail. Yes, he’s in all red armor >.> I’ll screenshot him soon
• Been playing my Hunter for RP kicks
• Got professions on my troll finally. 245 Herb, 230 Alchemy right now. Going for Elixir spec since the guild only has Transmutations.
• Cleared Naxx-10.
• Getting ready to go on vacation, which will cause me to miss… 2 raid weekends. /cry
• Went through the ladder of a job promotion.
• Didn’t get promotion… but got my name on the list for the next one that pops up.
• Forgot to file my W2 last night.. SHIT!
• Under extreme stress from forum, work, and some bitchy lady in the background in my homelife.
• Boyfriend’s birthday is coming up, and I feel EXTREMELY guilty for not being able to slip down and go see him.
• Made an Arena team with Zanafar, the Phaels. Still thinking up RP reasons for that!

See? Fast.

Alright so that’s not everything… but the rest will have to wait for when I’m not running late for work!