Digital Alterity

Yet another back story for one of my World of Warcraft characters. Bargor is the sort of character that would be really conducive to playing in a D&D group. He’s team-oriented and has a lot of history without being disruptive.

“Mugwort” is actually the nickname of Bargor Corpsehammer, a soldier of Orgrimmar and single-father. Bargor and his wife Chok’la joined with the orcish forces to help repel the Scourge after the orcs fled to Kalimdor (i.e. during the events of Warcraft 3). Chok’la was killed in the fighting, leaving their young son Guksal with only Mugwort to care for him.

During the time of relative peace that followed, Bargor earned an extremely meager living as a day laborer gathering herbs. Upon realizing that he didn’t have enough money for Guksal to be educated, Bargor joined the military and used his stipend to put Guksal into boarding school at the Orgrimmar Orphanage.

During his first tour of duty as a guard in Ashenvale, he earned his botanical nickname by picking flowers and herbs to sell when he returned to Orgrimmar for leave. Using his son’s old schoolbooks, Mugwort taught himself to read and write well enough to earn some extra money as a scribe during his off hours. Mastering the written word has given Mugwort a love for writing long letters home to his son, a past-time he frequently indulges in while other soldiers go out drinking.

Mugwort looks forward to the day when he can retire from active duty and return home to open his own business and take care of his son.

1. Roll up an Alliance alt of a new character class that I haven’t really tried before so that I can “see the Alliance quests”.
2. Play the character up to level 20-30 and really start enjoying the class.
3. Think to myself, “I miss being with my guild. I wish I had an alt of this class on the Horde side.”
4. Wistfully roll an alt of said character class — usually an orc — on a dumping ground RP server.
5. Play said alt up to level 5 or so.
6. Wonder why I didn’t start the alt as an orc in the first place.
7. Delete a character to make an orcish version of said character class “just to hang with my guildmates”.
8. Forget about the Alliance version until it gets deleted to make room for yet another orcish alt.

If I’m to be a narrative, I shall be the kind of narrative that I enjoy — largely pointless with little deliberate attempt at theme, with clear continuity, yes, but a continuity so largely irrelevant that you’re left questioning how the obvious character development ever actually happens.

I’m often possessed by an urge to go dancing. There. Now, I’ve outed myself. I can’t listen to anything by Crüxshadows, Moby, or The Smiths without wishing for a club where they played nothing but such music all night long. I dream of dancing by myself out there on the darkened dance floor like some kind of drunken, gleeful fool with all of the glee and none of the drunkenness.

I want to connect with the music in a physical way. I love listening to music with my eyes closed, so that I can focus every bit of my attention on each of the layers in the sound. I love pondering the lyrics in a way that leaves my mind’s eye free to conjure up images that synthesize into a pure and wonderful gestalt. The only way I can imagine making this any better is to allow my body to move with that imagination, to elevate the sublime experience into an even higher and more vital experience.

I never picture myself dancing with anyone else. I want to dance with the music itself. Catholics have Communion. Muslims have their daily prayers. This would be my communion with something larger than myself, my own private altar call, my chance to be completely surrounded and enveloped by the music that connects with me with a larger humanity, a kinetic koan pointing toward a higher, more vital truth than language could ever express.

I wouldn’t care that I’m fat. I wouldn’t care about the gender constraints that say that straight men aren’t allowed to enjoy dancing. I wouldn’t care whether I looked silly because I have no idea how I’m supposed to dance. I would dance my heart out and not care who knew it.

And on that day, I would revolutionize the fucking world.

“Don’t you fucking understand, Fordring?! We’ve failed!”

Hemlock felt the rage, the bestial wrath, welling up inside him, and he felt no urge to stop it. His heart began beating faster, a tribal drum summoning the darkest violence in his heart. He took the tiny ring the dying crusader had given him and threw it directly at the paladin with enough force to make Tirion Fordring wince as it hit him in the face.

“Bridenbrad is dead, paladin. All your precious Light could do was offer was a light show. He died all the same.”

The rage was no comfort. Nothing could shake the paladin in front of him. Those damned calm and accepting eyes…That look of understanding concern on his pale human face…Hemlock wanted to punch him squarely in the face if that’s what it took to get a reaction from the aging paladin. Did he care so little for his comrade that he could face his death with such a lack of passion?

Hemlock fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Crusader Bridenbrad in the fight at Crusaders’ Pinnacle as the Scourge attacked in countless waves. The still forms of the beaten undead fell at their feet in numbers sufficient for Hemlock use them as cover as he burned down the ghouls with a frenzy of rifle shots. When the vyrkul came, Bridenbrad didn’t even hesitate. He leapt after them with his giant warhammer held high, drawing the beasts’ attention and shielding the other defenders with his very body.

Was that when disease first took hold? Did some ghoul bite him in that struggle, infecting his blood with the ichor of undeath? Or did the infection take place later during his honorable actions during the siege at the Broken Front, when Bridenbrad singlehandedly drug a dozen of his unconscious fellows back into territory held by the Crusade? If he had fallen in either of those battles, it would have been an honorable death – a warrior’s death! Warriors didn’t have to turn frail. Warriors didn’t have to cough their very life fluids out onto the frozen snow. Warriors didn’t have to have their very strength eaten from the inside.

Damn Arthas! And damn the humans that spawned him!

Hemlock sank into a crouch in the cold snow, and his wolf Fenrir licked at his green fingers sympathetically.
When Fordring calmly picked up the fallen signet ring, Hemlock wanted to strangle him. When the aging paladin calmly walked over to him, he could feel himself quivering with a mixture of rage and grief. When he felt the human’s hand come to rest on his broad shoulders, he wanted nothing more than to pull away from the touch, but something kept him quietly there, feeling the heat build in his face and seeing the blurriness of his own eyes as he gazed intently at absolutely nothing.

“He should have died a warrior’s death, Fordring. He should have died on his feet, dragging his foes with him to the afterlife.”

Fordring said absolutely nothing, and he made no motion to take his mailed hand off of the orc’s shoulder. The hustle and bustle of the camp seemed miles away. For one endless moment, there was only the orc, the paladin, and memory of a soldier who they had both fought so hard to save.

“You will take this ring, Hemlock. You’ll take it, and you’ll honor Crusdader Bridenbrad’s memory. You will strike down the unliving things precisely because he can’t anymore.”

Hemlock felt his fingers reach up and grab the ring. He felt the cold metal of the ring slide down over his finger, but none of those actions felt like things he actually did. Everything felt dead and cold and pointless.
“If you stick with me, I swear to the Light – I swear on the graves of the fallen – I will point you in the direction of every cult enclave, every servant of Arthas wearing the bodies of our dead.”

Hemlock wrapped his hands around the cold steel barrel of his hunting rifle, felt the cold trigger under his index finger, and blinked away the blurry moisture in his eyes.

“And then, my orcish friend, I will stand with you as we cut down each and every one of them, so that brave men can stop fighting and dying out here in the cold. And maybe one day, soldiers like you and me will be merely the legacy of a hell that our children will never have to live through.”

They stared out over the frozen wastes, two soldiers in a war that seemed like it went on forever. The biting cold felt good. It felt numb.

After about an hour of genocide, I finally got Ashwin the gnomish warrior rogue her Red Defias Mask.

Isn’t she the cutest spy/assassin, you’ve ever seen?

I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who contacted me after yesterday’s post. Every single person that contacted me was positive and affirming. Some of you said that I inspired you. Some of you said simply that you loved me just the way I am and that you’re with me every step of the way. I’m saving every response as a pick-me-up on days when it seems like I can’t possibly tank what’s in front of me.

Today was the first full day confronting my problems head-on. I started my day by playing WoW for a bit and then taking a nice relaxing pre-work bath. Having successfully woken up and relaxed a bit, I started two lists that were going to serve as the focus for my day:

• Shit I’m Nervous About. These are the things that make me start feeling the stirrings of nervousness, panic, and general ickiness. These are exactly the sort of things that I would be tempted to ignore until they turn into full-blown crises. These items are officially marked with a skull. They come first in the kill order. I have to face them, and I have to make some progress on getting them out of my way. I’m allowed to delegate these tasks to someone else if I think they can help, but I absolutely cannot ignore them until they become someone else’s problem by default. Some things on this list might not even be proper tasks that can be done or things that can go away in any tangible sense. In these cases, I look deeply at them, try to figure out why they make me so nervous, and think of one tiny thing I can do to make them less scary or life-breaking.
• Shit I’d Like To Do. These are things that are either fun or that genuinely sound like an unscary but productive task. This is the easy stuff. When I feel my resolve slipping, I hop over to one of these items to build my confidence back up. I’m not scared of these tasks, so I don’t feel an obligation to confront them. Some of them might even be safely ignored.

These lists are only for me. They’re not preserved for posterity. At the end of the day, I’m going to throw the damn things away. Tomorrow is going to be a completely new day with completely new lists. The quest doesn’t seem nearly as big that way.

The lists worked out great today. I had six items on my “Nervous” list, and I dealt with four them before lunch. On a less tangible but still important level, I felt far more in-control today. I was actually tanking my problems on my terms instead of letting them run around my head all willy-nilly. That feeling of control goes a long way toward keeping my calm and collected.

Today, I had a lot of victories. They’re small — hell, they’re even microscopic — but they’re the trash mobs that tell me that, yes, I can complete this instance if I perform to the best of my ability.

It’s time to start tanking my life.

In World of Warcraft – hell, in most any game – I play the tank, the guy designed to run up in the middle of everything and face it head-on. Give me a game mechanic that lets me run up, directly confront, and leave others free to go about their business without distraction, and I’ll inevitably choose that option. So why the hell haven’t I been doing this in real life – you know, the one shot that any of us has on this planet?

I’m clinically depressed. I have been my entire adolescent, young adult, and adult life. I’m over this. This isn’t my armor designed to protect me from all the scary things that lurk outside my door. This isn’t an excuse for why I do or don’t do anything. It’s part of the terrain, and frankly, if it stands in my way, then it’s just another monster to tank on my way through life. Fuck depression.

I weigh over 300 pounds. This is a logical result of the pathetic way I’ve lived my life. I’m not going to skirt around this fact and ignore it for one more day. I hate being fat, so it’s time to take charge of that and actually change the shit that makes it happen. And while we’re on the subject, yeah, I know I’ve lost weight before. I’ve dropped a hundred pounds in a year. I used to run 5 kilometers every morning before most of you woke up. I can lose the weight again, and I’m going to. The difference is that this time I’m going to tank it. I’m going to keep fighting every day until the obesity is gone and will never – can never – come back. Fuck obesity.

Social situations often cause me to have panic attacks. If you only know me casually, you probably have no idea that this is even the case. I’m extremely socially adept. I can small talk. I can chit-chat. For that matter, put me in front of an audience, and I’m not even the slightest bit bothered. But ask me to go hang out with a small group of people and there’s a 50-50 chance that I won’t show up. I’m afraid to pick up the phone to order a freaking pizza. I’m too nervous some nights to even queue up for a random dungeon in World of Warcraft. I’m going to stop being afraid. I’m not going to force myself to become an extrovert, but dammit, I’m not going to let myself avoid things that actually sound good to me just because I’m scared or nervous. I’m going to own my life. Fuck social anxiety.

I am the tank. I’m going to run up every single one of these problems, and I’m going to punch it in the face. I’m not going to stop fighting until the problem is down. Then I’m going to dust myself off and move right on to the next problem standing in my way and do the same damn thing. And if at any point I feel like I’m too tired to keep it up, I’m going to get some help because I refuse to quit and I’m too mean to die.

I’m going to ignore every single voice in my head that says I’m not good enough or that I’ve screwed this up in the past or that maybe I just shouldn’t even try. I’m going to do this because that’s the person I want to be, and excuses have no right to take that away from me. I won’t let excuses or obstacles take that away from me.

I’m no longer just some poor white kid from a rural background. I’m not a slave to your gender norms. I am not bound by the rules that some old geezer wrote down before I was ever born. I am not a checkbox on a form. I refuse to be merely a digit in your spreadsheet. I’m not a demographic in your weird focus group cult. I refuse to be someone else’s semantic construct. I am a force of nature, and I hereby refuse to be contained. Think you can try? I dare you.

Special thanks to my wife Allyson, Bear, my guildmates, and everyone who has taught me what it means to be a tank. I dedicate my upcoming successes to you guys. Because I’m going to win.

Alliance

1. Dwarf. Hard-drinking stout people with Scottish accents, a desire to explore ruins that puts Indiana Jones to shame, and an affinity for projectiles? Sign me up. Dwarves also have possibly the best lore on the Alliance side and some of the best emotes in the game.
2. Draenei and Gnome. You’ll have to forgive the tie. I simply can’t pick between the two. I love draenei for their ties to the orcs, their class choices, and their excellent starting area. I love gnomes because of their diminutive size and obsession with engineering.
3. Night Elf. I like the Night Elves from Warcraft 3. I don’t really have a problem with the ones in WoW, I guess. They just don’t speak to me. I also hate their starting area.
4. Human. I like the Defias quest chains, but the humans themselves just bore me silly. Also, the human males look retarded.

Horde

1. Orc. The orcs are by far my favorite Warcraft race. I love how much like Klingons they are. I love their ties to shamanism and (unfortunately for them and all of Azeroth) witchcraft. The orcs did some pretty horrible things while under the influence of the Burning Legion, and they’re having to deal with that legacy of attrocities as they strive for a peaceful coexistence in their new homeland. If orcs could be every class, I would only play orcs.
2. Tauren. I primarily like taurens because of the spiritual assistance they offer the orcs. Also, they can be druids. However, male taurens scratch their butts far too much for me. As a result, my druid is girl.
3. Undead. I love their lore. I love their starting area. If I could somehow cover their bony elbows and knees with armor, they would probably be above taurens on this list. Undead were my race of choice in Warcraft 3.
4. Blood Elf. I love the notion of magic-addicted elves. I love how ruthless the blood elves have become. They would probably be higher on the list if they didn’t constitute over half of the Horde population on every damn server.
5. Troll. The trolls have just never appealed to me. Their quests are the same as the orc quests. I don’t really dig their accent, and I wish they had better hair options. As an aside, I would like the trolls better if they used the more feral-looking femaletroll models from the beta.

Overall

1. Orc.
2. Dwarf.
3. Draenei and Gnome.
4. Tauren.
5. Undead.
6. Night Elf.
7. Blood Elf.
8. Troll.
9. Human.

• Meeting Stones: To use any Meeting Stone, it is only required that the character’s minimum level be 15. There is no maximum character level requirement for any Meeting Stone. In my guild, we often run lower level and/or younger members through non-Northrend dungeons. There’s always a significant time investment involved in actually getting everyone to the instance. This should cut down on some of that.
• Many of the tail sweeps with knockback effects will no longer hit players’ pets. My pet isn’t very smart. He just parks himself right behind an enemy and then gets knocked back when the inevitable tail sweep comes into play. As a (stubborn) Beast Master hunter, those few seconds away from the boss constitute a significant DPS loss.
• Orc and troll shamans now have their own unique totem art. I seriously can’t wait to log onto Rokhar and see what his new totems look like in action.
• Players no longer need to kill the final bosses in all four wings of this dungeon in order to teleport to Sapphiron. Maybe Besom can finally down Sapphiron now. She healed through KT as an emergency replacement but never actually got the big dragon.
• Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Having a quicker recharging battle rez makes me that much more valuable as a healer.
• Call Stabled Pet: Cooldown reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. I have a full stable of pets. I like using them all. This way I don’t have to feel guilty about using my spirit beast in raids/instances. If we need mega-DPS, I can switch out to my wolf just for a boss fight.
• Players can now track quest objectives on the map (‘M’ key). I’m hoping this will be a suitable replacement for Quest Helper, allowing me to free up a bit of add-on memory.
• [Dungeon Finder:] This feature has replaced the Looking For Group tool and provides all-new dungeon party creation functionality. I can’t wait for this. I have visions of logging in, queueing up for dungeon, and then going about my business until it pops. Half the reason I used to PVP so much was the convenience of it establishing groups for me. This should also make things a little easier for my guild since we rarely have a full 5-man group anymore.
• Consolidate Buffs: Enabling this adds a buff consolidation box near the mini-map. When I’m raiding, the top part of my screen gets a bit insane. This should hopefully free up some screen real estate.
• Tutorial System: The tutorial pop-ups are now larger, contain images, and better try to direct players to the relevant locations or user interface elements on the screen. In addition, several new tips have been added, while some existing tips will now appear at more appropriate times for new players. My friend Jason is currently playing WoW for the first time. Hopefully this will make his life a little easier.
• The following reputations have been sped up by roughly 30%: Amen! Now Hemlock can get a red drake mount 30% faster and finally get rid of the damn funky-looking wind rider.
• Top-level helm and shoulder faction-related enchants are now available as Bind-on-Account items that do not require any faction to use once purchased (they still require the appropriate faction level to purchase). Because Besom is exalted with everyone, I no longer have to grind reputation on my army of alts. This is possibly the best change on the whole list. Well, you know, if it weren’t for…
• Bind-on-Account Items: Players can now mail Bind-on-Account items to characters on the same account and realm regardless of faction. Can I get a Hallelujah?! I can now trade that my Bloodied Arcanite Reaper, shoulders, etc. between my Alliance warrior and my new orc warrior! This makes everything beautiful in my life. There are showers of rainbows and fluffy kittens made of pure effing joy in my life now.
• Power Word: Shield: This spell can now be cast on non-raid/party friendly targets. I like this not because it affects my play really at all anymore. Rather, I love it because I remember when it worked this way, dammit. My very first WoW forums shitstorm was when they restricted this to people in your party. The priest forums had a collective fit. Glad to see it’s back.
• Drain Soul: This spell now deals 4 times the normal damage for all ranks. Previously it was only ranks 6 and above. This should make Allyson’s belf ‘lock that much more powerful.
• Rewrote OpenGL implementation for Intel Macs with Mac OS X 10.5.7 or later. Please make my framerates go up. Especially in Dalaran.
• [Mac:] Added support for mapping all 15 buttons on the SteelSeries WoW Mouse via the in-game key bindings. Now I’m even more tempted to buy the damn thing.