Yeah, there’s been some radio silence.

At the end of June I lost my job, and I’ve been staying at my parents’ house ever since. I will be back in my own house at the beginning of August (babysitting their dog for the next couple weeks), but since then I’ve been having a hard time with my writing mojo. I’m definitely making the attempt, but I just… haven’t had much to post about.

I have some stories on the burner, a few ideas tumbling about, but I apologize for the silence all the same. All things considered, it ought to be understandable.

[Storytime] Patchwork Sin’dorei

[ I'm not sure how I feel about this, to be honest, and may try to tackle it from a different perspective, but it was an idea I wanted to get out there. ]

It was not a Sin’dorei that ambled through those sweltering woods on that summer night. Perhaps, at one time, it had been one, but there were very few distinguishing features left save for the faintly glowing yellow-green eyes that were embedded in the creature’s skull. The figure that slowly made its way through the trees was vaguely female, though time and ghouls had ravaged the body to the point where it was difficult to tell, save by what remained of the shape of the hips and the slight bumps of the torn shirt.

The Once-Sin’dorei traveled for days, perhaps weeks, even months, slowly made its way through wood and over field and past tall, sickly mushrooms and through forest again until it found its way to a ruined farmstead. In the trees just at the edge of the clearing, just before what was once the house of the property owner, a makeshift wooden enclosure stood. Its beams were falling from the nails that held them together and the grass was tall, past the creature’s waist. The Once-Sin’dorei paused as it approached the cage and it sniffed loudly before ducking down into the grass. Something glinted in the moonlight, the creature’s head snapped to the right, and its clawed hand closed around something shiny that was embedded in the dirt.

A chain.

Soft whining carried upon the wind, canine, as the Creature followed the path of the chain to another, smaller chain collar – and then it pulled.

The soil came away, pulling up a vertebrae or two, and that was when the creature noticed the pale skull of a dog in the grass near where the collar had been. The Creature tilted its head, reached forward, and slowly, gently, petted the exposed bone.

Barking. It wouldn’t stop barking. The dog crashed against the walls of the wooden cage that held it in, but the beams were sturdy and would not budge. He whined, he paced, he circled, but nobody came. Nobody came. The air was heavy, he was hungry. He was thirsty. When he finally curled up to die, his last thought was of the master that had betrayed him and left him to his fate.

Each bone was carefully pried from the ground and gathered up into the tattered satchel that the Creature carried. Once it was sure that everything had been taken, the Creature slowly stood and ambled from the woods and into the overgrown yard of the farmstead. It entered the barn where it paused in the doorway and took in the sights – the hay that was strewn across the floor, the bones of horses that lay in the stalls and the tools that had been abandoned. The Once-Sin’dorei set its satchel upon the ground, selected an empty stable, settled down on the dirt floor and began to dig, and dig, and dig.

When a hole had been made that was of the appropriate size, the Creature pulled its satchel close and began to re-settle the bones within this new, makeshift grave. Each bone, starting with the skull, was put into its proper place, and then a small bag of black powder was pulled from the Creature’s clothing. It paused over the grave, grinding its jaws with thought, before fishing out a handful of powder and sprinkling it upon the bones. With that task complete, the bones were buried and the Creature left the barn.

- – -

Every week the Creature returned to the grave, dug the dirt from the hole, and stared at the bones within. Every day it muttered gutteral words in Thalassian, words twisted by Undeath into a horrible spell, and every day the bones changed. At first, the changes were gradual – the position of the skeleton shifted until it appeared as if the corpse lay upon its side and a red film formed upon the once-white bones. Organs and muscle and tendon slowly grew in their proper places. At the end of the third month, something shifted within that grave, and the Creature – more ragged than ever – lifted the results of its work from its resting place.

The corpse was that of a gray-furred dog, obviously of Worg descent, with patches of rot still visible on its hide and a ragged appearance that one would expect from a deceased animal. The Once-Sin’dorei tilted its head to an awkward angle and ran its clawed hand over the fur with jerky strokes.

“Live.” The Sin’dorei-Creature rasped in a voice that, in life, would have been female. “Live.”

The animal did not move, but the Creature had much patience, and repeated the word again, over and over, “Live. Live.”

It happened gradually. Muscles long dormant twitched beneath the beast’s fur, then its lips jerked back from its teeth in a silent snarl; the eyelids flickered open to reveal golden eyes and the half-Worg stood.

“Find… him,” the Sin’dorei-Creature hissed and pointed north-east.

The large dog took off with unearthly speed, its haunting howls echoing through the forest.

- – -

Thom Waite was a survivor.

He had managed to outrun the Scourge when they took over his farm, he had made it out of many a battle against the enemy and, that evening, he was recovering from another near-miss. His time, however, was running out.

He lay alone within his tent in the Argent Dawn camp. He was just on the fringes of sleep when he thought he heard shuffling outside his tent and he barked, “I’m tryin’ to sleep, kid, go back to your own damn tent.”

There was no response. The shuffling stopped rather suddenly and Thom rolled onto his side to try sleeping again.

Then he heard it – the low growl right next to his head, behind him, that made his hair stand on end.

He didn’t have time to scream. The beast went straight for his throat, and the last thing he saw was the very familiar Worg standing over him, its muzzle soaked in blood, watching him die.

- – -

A year passed.

For the Sin’Dorei-Creature, time did not exist. For all it knew, it had been a decade since it had awakened and clawed its way from the pile of rotting corpses that had been thrown into a pit somewhere in the Plaguelands. It knew nothing of who it had been in life, nor did it have any inkling of just what it had meant to be alive – all it knew was this, the open road and travel alongside the rotting Worg that it had raised from the dead.

One afternoon, as the sun ducked behind the sickly clouds, the Sin’dorei-Creature found itself in one of the abandoned towns of the Plaguelands. Curiosity overcame it and it made its way through each and every home, checking drawers and closets and every possible surface for shiny, interesting objects for it to collect. As it reached the upstairs bedrooms of the largest house in the village, it found itself faced with a very unusual object.

A full-length mirror sat upon the wall of the smallest room, reflecting to the Once-Sin’dorei, for the first time, its own appearance – and the Creature screamed, a horribly unearthly sound that seemed to stay in the air for an eternity.

Pale yellow hair hung in clumps from a skull that was barely covered in tattered, ashen flesh. Sickly yellow-green eyes stared out at the Creature, and the arms that were held up in a defensive stance were missing much of their flesh, as if it had been clawed and eaten away, leaving only a little muscle and tendon; the torn clothing that was draped over the Creature’s frame did little to hide any of the exposed bone and torn flesh that made up its body.

Her body.

Flashes. Brief, but certain, of ideas of itself. Female. Rot. Ugly. Single words, simple thoughts.

And she kept screaming.

- – -

Every day, the Once-Sin’dorei sat before the mirror to trace her image with one bony finger. Every day, she wracked her rot-addled brain to figure out just what wasn’t right about how she looked. Face? Wrong. Hands? Wrong. Arms? Wrong. Everything? Wrong.

She raked her claws through her Worg’s fur while he happily chewed – wait.

The Once-Sin’dorei’s gaze snapped to the Worg by her side and the human arm he was chewing, and with a single hissed Thalassian word he stopped and stared at her. She growled. He growled. They growled until the Once-Sin’dorei snapped her teeth at him and he backed down, allowing her to take the arm. She snatched a dagger from the floor in front of her and cut a chunk of skin from the human arm, then held it to her face over some exposed bone.

If she had the facial muscles to smile, she would have.

- – -

A sewing kit from an unfortunate Dwarf. Several limbs. Several sets of breasts (if others that seemed female had them, why couldn’t she?). A couple of torsos. Some legs.

The Once-Sin’dorei sat before her mirror many months later, needle and black thread in hand, with an odd smile upon her brand new lips. She could smile. Though the necromantic spells and spell regeants that she had used to bind muscle to bone and animate it were running low, she was satisfied with her work – for the time being. She set down the needle and stood up straight, planted her hands on her hips, and beamed into the mirror.

The image that beamed back at the Once-Sin’dorei was fully fleshed: patches of various shades of ashen, pink and tan were connected to one another with neat, black stitches; borrowed eyebrows sat a little too high up upon her brow; small, round-ish breasts sat a little too low upon her chest (and neither one was the same colour) and her thick lips were parted in a crooked grin made even more crooked by the fact that they had been attached a little too much to the right.

Female. Beautiful. Perfect.

The Now-Sin’dorei bent down to retrieve a set of dog tags from around the neck of an earless, lipless, browless Once-Sin’dorei woman and put them around her own neck.

Simone.

For the first time in her Un-life, the patchwork Sin’dorei, Simone, could not stop smiling – and perhaps she never will.

GearScore and the GearScore Add-on: My Final Thoughts

Over and over again the rants for and against GearScore are tossed about.

Let me be clear: I think it’s fucking stupid.

The GS Add-on studies the iLevel of the equipment a potential raider is wearing. It does not inspect their stat weights, their talents or play style. It can tell you that their gear is alright for the content, but so can a quick glance of the toon’s character sheet. So can calling them up on wow-heroes or a similar site.

If you are a raid leader that absolutely needs GS to figure out whether his or her raiders are capable of hitting a certain level of content, you fail.

If the very idea of GS being abolished makes you shit yourself, you suck. It is completely unnecessary. A single number cannot possibly replace actual brain power.

That’s it, game over. Go home.

Why I’m Opting In to RealID

First thing’s first: This is going to be rambly. I forgot my anti depressants at my parents’ house and am rather light-headed and nonsensical already – everybody’s affected differently. If I piss someone off, so be it.

So, there’s a lot of concern about privacy regarding RealID. I think y’all ought to read this post before continuing the incoherent rage and whining, first off, and secondly, I need y’all to think about social media.

If you’re signed on to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any number of other social networking sites, your privacy is already out the window. Even if you’re careful about what you post. If you order pizza, your information is already out there. If you rent movies from your local grocery store, there’s another batch of people with your information. If you run your own website, finding out about you is as simple as doing a WHOIS of your domain (if you didn’t put your domain under a pseudonym or something).

Privacy on the internet is a myth. If you put information out there, you cannot take it back. No matter how paranoid you are, someone, some company, somewhere, has something on you.

Scary, huh?

If someone wants to find something out about you and they know what tools they need to do so, they can. If you race-changed and name-changed and then server-transferred a character to get away from someone, they can figure out where you went (there are WoW detective sites that actually track transfers and race changes). Pre-RealID WoW is no more private than post-RealID WoW.

I will be opting in to RealID because a) Most people already know my real name by now (Parasite Eve, sets people on fire, sings, there you go), b) I’m not afraid to tell people “Not right now, I’m busy”, c) I’m not afraid to simply not accept friend requests from people I don’t like.

If people take my behaviour personally, that’s their problem, not mine. I already have someone taking my snarkiness as a personal affront whenever it’s her hubby (who, by the by, can defend himself he’s an adult for fuck’s sake) that’s snarked after he acts like a fuckwad (hey, he’s a dick to other people sometimes, too, I figure he’s earned it). The best part is that afterward he doesn’t take it personally. Why should he? Why should anybody?

If I don’t want to spend time with you, I’ll tell you. If I want to be left alone, I’ll tell you. If I don’t want you knowing where my characters are at all times, you’ll know. Do I give a fuck if you know my e-mail address? No. I use the same e-mail address for everything. I don’t have the attention span to have a different fucking e-mail address for each little thing that I do.

And chances are, if I let you refer to me by my first name, I’ll happily let you stalk add me (that means you, people with my cell phone number).

You have more power with this thing than you think you do, but if your freak-out is lack of privacy, darlings? You’re on the internet. You’re already without privacy.

I hope Blizzard’s enjoying my chat records~

Matojo’s Adventures in DDO

So, while I wait to get my account back, I’ve been poking at a game I’ve been wanting to try for a while – Dungeons and Dragons Online.

The gameplay is interesting and some aspects are rather clunky compared to WoW, but it’s enough to keep me coming back. I mean, I’ve wanted more D&D experience for a while and since I can’t get into tabletop around here, I figured, why not? Maybe I’ll have to check out some of the other single player games, too (the Forgotten Realms versions, I guess that’s all that’s out there?).

For a newbie like me, working with the targeting system is a little unwieldy. It does operate on D&D rules and requires more movement to be effective than what WoW does. The skill/feat system is different, too, with some classes not having much in terms of buttons they can hit until much later in the game.

I have mixed feelings on the DDO Store that mainly stem from the idea of how difficult the information is to even find at first. Prices aren’t too bad for store points, but I dont’ know how earning them via the Favour system compares yet so I can’t comment that way. I have no problem paying for some game features (like Drow and Warforged).

My suggestions to anybody that tries to pick up the game are: Pay attention to tooltips, read the tooltips on your character sheet, pick up a little D&D info before you start and adjust the keyboard turning speed/mouse look speed before going too far – the starting values make movement slow, unwieldy and almost made me drop the game. Also? Don’t try to play the game in windowed mode – DDO’s windowed mode is horrible.

Also, Jesus Jumping Murphy do not start with a bard.

I’m not used to mob killing not contributing to experience, either, so THAT is a bizarre thing for me.

At the moment I’m running a Wizard (Tuhina Dawngarde), Rogue (Kerriganne Shadowfoot), Fighter (Erbin Warglaive), Paladin (Greenshanks) and Cleric (I forget, no seriously). I don’t have much rogue, paladin or cleric experience but I am a big fan of the wizard and fighter’s pewpew.

TL;DR – DDO, though clunky and it feels more like a single-player dungeon crawl than an MMO, is still interesting enough to keep my attention while I wait for my WoW account to come back. I MISS MY HARBIES. ;_;

The Druid, the RNG and the Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal

My Druid, Varkev, hit 80 on… Wednesday night, I think. Two respecs of his Resto tree and 3k gold down the tubes later, his resto gear was better than his feral gear and I decided to attempt healing a regular. That went well (despite my lack of trinket and several greens), then I found Je’Tze’s Bell on the Auction House for 750g, quickly nabbed the rest of the money I needed for that, aaand… Varkev had his trinket slots filled. I had enough emblems from my daily regulars during the leveling phase that I was able to afford an Idol of Flaring Growth, then a handful of heroics later, The Egg of Mortal Essence to replace that pesky green trinket.

I was shoved into Heroic ToC, flailing and cursing, only to find that I managed it pretty well and walked away with several delicious drops. Oh, and a feral helmet.

Though, I’m thinking I’ll drop the feral off-spec and go Resto/Boomkin.

Needless to say, I was pretty damned proud of my little druid once all was said and done. I logged off feeling damned good about the bugger.

Then I signed into my e-mail this morning to see a ‘password reset’ notice from Blizzard and I knew exactly what was going on.

To be honest, I figured I’d be hacked eventually. I didn’t get an authenticator ’cause I a) just didn’t care and b) didn’t’ want to spend the money. I’d also lose my brain if it wasn’t in my skull, so the chances of it going missing are pretty high. However, I do know what got me – the flash vulnerability from last week. If I had known about it last week, however, I would have updated ASAP.

So, totally my own fault.

The great part is that the hackers wouldn’t have been able to get much worth out of my accounts because, um, I didn’t really have much left over from enchanting and gemming Varkev’s new gear, ’cause I was lazy and hadn’t been working very hard to make more money. They stripped my 80s, but none of my alts that were below 80 and not my hunter.

Derp Derp.

Aw well, I think that’s Djehuty telling me to take a break.

Thanks to Khydann for the screenies of my characters popping in and out of /tbdf, and for reporting the accounts – also, for letting me know and confirming my suspicions. ♥

Big Selling Point? Lol, Riiiight.

Path of the Titans has been yoinked. Apparently it was Cataclysm’s “big selling point”, or something, which boggles my mind. Really? Really?

Forget about the complete transformation of the world we’ve known for five years, the political upheaval and the brand new zones and dungeons! Ha! Those of us that thought all of those were the selling point were wrong – it was totally this unwieldy customization feature all along. Silly us, looking at the content instead of this … what the fuck was it, again?

Seriously guys, whoever was billing Path of the Titans as the selling point of the expansion was shitting themselves – and everyone else. The game will be just fine without it.

There’s going to be juicy new lore, amazing scenery, a new leveling experience and other toys to play with. The classes are being overhauled. Everything as we currently know it is changing.

If that ain’t what sells Cataclysm, I dunno what will.

Oh Lawdy, Loot Debates

Last night there was a debate in the local OOC channel regarding loot in random dungeons, and I am mighty proud to admit that I started it (tongue planted firmly in cheek).

I decided to run a quick random on Dawngarde, my holy paladin, who has no back-up spec but, at her level, still has enough tools to DPS with few issues. I queued as DPS and as a Healer. Lo and behold, I was dropped into ST with a pair of druids, shaman and a hunter. Once the tank realized that one of the Troll bosses (necessary for access to the Prophet) had been forgotten, he dropped, quickly followed by the shaman.

The remaining Resto (or Balance? I don’t know, he was healing and doing very well at it) asked me to tank – but I don’t carry a shield. So he took over tanking while we waited for a proper tank and another DPS or healer.

To re-iterate: My level 49 Paladin on Thorium Brotherhood does not have a secondary spec. I have other more important things to put cash toward, and in the leveling game I am not the only one occasionally DPSing in a healing spec before Outland. Frankly, at that point, I don’t care what your spec is as long as you do your job and you aren’t stupid.

Once I dig up the screenshot of what happened next I’ll post it and name names (especially the druid, because he was awesome and I want more people to acknowledge his awesome), but anywho.

As we ran around destroying shit, another holy pally and a prot warrior zoned in. We finished off that last Troll, dropped down to the next level and ran to finish the Prophet’s room. The warrior was trigger-happy and I occasionally had to stop and toss a Holy Light (with delicious glyphed AoE healing action), but otherwise I happily exorcised/holy shocked/judged/consecrated along. The Prophet wound up getting pulled before all of the trash was finished, the other holy pally died to ghosts, so I healed through what little trash was left (protip: Run from ghosties) and the boss fight. With the boss down, a caster chest dropped, which I rolled on and the other holy pally did not. I rezzed her and we moved on to the next set of bosses.

Fast-forward to the Shade of Eranikus. We were both DPSing through him and tossing the occasional heal, and when he died he dropped a caster shield. I, the Prot warrior and the other holy pally rolled need – and I won.

The other holy pally proceeded to bitch me out and call me a cocksucker for winning her loot, twice, then dropped as the druid and I explained that I’m a healer, too, and in just as much need of those items as she was.

What would she have said if a caster shaman had won the roll, or if the Prot warrior (why she was rolling on a caster shield I’m not sure, but hey, whatever) had won it? I bet they’d be cocksuckers, too.

Nobody ‘owns’ the drops in a dungeon. Just because one is healing does not mean they get all the caster drops, nor does the tank get every piece of plate with stamina on it. Yes, it’s nice when people automatically pass on a piece that can be considered an upgrade for the healer or the tank, but this isn’t always going to happen. DPS need loot, too.

My philosophy is this: If losing a roll on a piece of equipment in WoW is worth nerdraging over for you, it’s time to step away from the computer and visit the outside world. I do not care if the item went to somebody that only heals with their guild or only does DPS once in a pink moon, or if a ninja took it for the vendor value – it’s not worth busting a vein over pixels and the attitudes of people you may never see again.

Chances are, that item will drop again. Chances are, you may see that drop or get something better with emblems.

I have lost a healing upgrade to one of the people that was arguing against those of us who occasionally roll for off-spec loot (and, guess what? I tend to ask first – I’m rarely told ‘no’). That same person has frequently rolled on off-spec loot (why the fuck would that person argue against the concept? I don’t know, head up arse syndrome I guess). I may have said “Aw, darn”, but not once did I ever go off on them for daring to take my loot.

Frankly, that attitude is far more disgusting than any attitude that I cop.

Whether we like it or not, the very nature of dual specs and random dungeons have made how we roll for loot a little different – and really, it’s more the dual spec thing than anything else. Many of us have two specs that we’re trying to gear in our daily dungeon runs, so naturally we’re going to roll on shit that will benefit us. That’s the idea.

How do I handle loot? If I’m running on a tank or healer that has a DPS spec, and a DPS item drops for my DPS spec, I wait to see if anyone rolls need. If someone does roll need, I tend to let it go – unless the group is full of jerks, then I don’t let it go. Hey, I’m not gonna be nice to dickheads, okay? The same goes for running on DPS that have tank or healer specs. If nobody rolls need, I state my intentions – “I’m rolling on this for my off-spec” – and I roll for it.

Last night, I was playing a character whose only spec was one that benefits from spellcaster stats. Should I have passed? No. I have just as much right to roll on those items – which are upgrades – as anybody else that can benefit from them.

And, as far as I’m concerned, so do you. As I say in randoms, “If it’s an upgrade and can benefit you, roll for it. I don’t care!” We should be happy when our fellow WoW players win something shiny and helpful.

The real dicks aren’t those who roll for upgrades against others, but instead are those who get pissed off about losing a roll. That’s it.

Thoriumbrotherhood.net LIVES!

After all this flailing, thoriumbrotherhood.net is now sittin’ pretty on its new server.

I’d like to take this opportunity to be a pest and give the opportunity to the folks that use the site to help me out with operating costs by donating. The site costs approximately $110/year – not much, but on top of the costs of my new-old house, cat and car, well. Every little bit helps, right? It’s completely optional, of course.

So, thanks for the patience with the downtime, folks. You can stop being bored now.

ETA: Now with working button!

[Storytime/Journal] Delplas Rockhide: On Names

Our names have meaning. What they mean to us is what matters – whether or not they have meaning to those who speak to us means nothing.

Delplas Rockhide sat upon a hill that overlooked the ocean that bordered Ratchet. She only had a passing familiarity with the customs and beliefs of her Horde allies, but she had learned several things in her few run-ins with the other races. One, that the pink elves – Blood Elves – seemed to enjoy appropriating the cultural practices of others and two, that some Orcs seemed to believe that the vows they had made meant they could re-name others as they saw fit.

For Delplas, the refusal to use the name someone had been given was disrespectful.

Our ancestors received their names for the things they did and we carry those names with honour and pride because they make up who we are. They are not a lie. We make certain the meanings of those names are remembered in story and song, we pass on those tales so that others may be reminded. When we earn new names, those names have meaning, too. Some meaning is impossible to translate to Orcish – the Orcs’ tongue is too harsh, too unfamiliar, too primitive to truly understand.

The druid adjusted the tiny pair of goblin spectacles that were propped on the end of her snout and that she squinted through in order to write in the small leather-bound book that she held in one large hand. Everything was too small for Delplas, from the armour she wore to the charcoal she was writing with. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she added,

The Orc Gorteta is, I would wager, a child and lacks the understanding of an adult: the name one has been given or has given to himself is the name that must be used when communicating with him. To do otherwise is showing a lack of respect toward that person and to his ancestors, who have blessed the name. It does not matter what that name means to the speaker – but it is vitally important to the Named.

My name is not Druid, it is Delplas Rockhide. My first name was bestowed upon me by my mother at birth, Earthmother bless her, and my second name given by my Ragetotem elders when I sought to break from tradition. I am “Bear-Sister of the Impenetrable Hide”. My name means everything to me.

Delplas snorted as she pushed her little spectacles up onto her snout again and squinted at the words she had written. Her scrawling continued soon after, interrupted by occasional pause as she glanced skyward to track the sun’s progress on its trek across the sky.

It is extremely disrespectful to refuse to use the name that I, or anyone else, was given. It offends me that my name is going to be treated as meaningless by this woman because she does not understand it and because she disagrees with it.

The woman tapped her charcoal against the page. Since setting hoof among civilization she had found some very odd, but interesting, situations – and this one she was having trouble writing about. Delplas carefully closed her book and tucked it under her arm as she pulled herself to her hooves and made her way for the inn. Perhaps some sleep would give her some mental clarity and she could better form her thoughts later on.