The end of a year... and an expansion.

My guild hasn't been doing anywhere near as well in Dragon Soul as we did in Firelands. After we reached the
DPShealidiot check that is Ultraxion and learned that a third of our team can't click a button that saves their lives, we lost a bunch of core members to a mass server transfer and had to fill spots with our
benchnew recruitsincompetent casuals for a week. We only just downed Deathwing on Thursday and it was... anticlimactic. I'd already seen the grand finale cut scene thanks to easy-mode LFR in which I "won the game" with thirty minutes of minimal effort. Even the comforting and encouraging words from Thrall didn't uplift my warrior spirit since I knew I didn't deserve them. Usually, it takes at least a couple weeks of dedicated teamwork to get some cool RP that makes the player feel like her efforts contributed to the safety of Azeroth. Yet, I got to celebrate the end of the Cataclysm with... random fucks from Whisperwind server. I couldn't even jump up and down and hug anyone without feeling like a creeper.

In real life news, I'm on winter break, so I have four weeks to
apply to internshipslearn a foreign languagecamp rare spawns in Outlands. I've also been trying to gear up my druid alt, but I've had little success due to the following well-known rules of RNG:

1. Your main will never roll higher than a 35 on important loot.
2. Your alt will roll better than your main...
3. But your second alt will get all rare pets and mounts and win gear upgrades that boost ilvl by 10 points at a time.

My fourth 85, a god-awful ret pally that forgets to use its cooldowns, is now better geared than my precious druid healer that I actually leveled to play rather than be my disenchanting slave. Every time my druid loses a roll, I sigh in knowing resignation, and every time I win a roll on my pally, I want to quit WoW and start buying winning lottery tickets for people I don't care about.

Anyway, in a few days, it's going to be my favorite holiday! I'll be doing my usual New Year's Eve thang of going out to
danceget fucked up and danceget REALLY fucked up and dance. Then the next day, I'm going to to bow to my elders and get cash.

Being Korean is awesome.

-Avia.

P.S. Aggra is pregnant. Thrall better watch his back.

Suddenly the future seems more promising. And fun.

Reader, I'm happy you've joined me as I journey into a gradual yet inevitable loss of my grip on reality, for today I have reached an important milestone in my descent: I saw myself of the future.

Obviously not me since my hair doesn't do that. And it's daytime.

Not in the future. We're not doing some time-travel-y crap. She was a customer at the restaurant where I am a hostess, a middle-aged Japanese woman eating dinner with her husband. But seated on the bench next to her was a stuffed teddy bear, and every once in a while, the woman would take the food in her chopsticks and hold it up to her bear's mouth for a second or two before she ate the bite herself.

Oh. my. god. That is something I personally should have grown out by now but have not, and I am so glad that this woman 10+ years my senior hasn't either. It was encouraging to see someone with my strange reality-bending idiosyncrasies as a functional member of society rather than a psychiatric hospital patient. Sure, she might get some weird looks, but she is living her inner life permanently. Perhaps I too can be free to act out my desire to throw paper leaves at the injured to crit heal them. Or walk around draped in fake tentacles to symbolize Cthulhu's grip on human consciousness. And be married too!

Besides, I'm sure there are people out there who appreciate and find joy in experiencing this woman's presence. Like the family that once caught me walking my stuffed dalmatian plushie Snarf in Central Park and asked me while laughing jovially if he "went."

I said, "Yes, he did," and then waved to the actual dog that they were walking.

Snarf waved too.

-Avia.

TRANSMOG SHOWCASE!

How does this match?

Patch 4.3 is finally live, and many players (including myself T_T) are finding out that what they had thought were amazing outfits for mogging are actually hideous to others. On Tuesday's raid, I got to see what my teammates considered high Azerothian fashion, and it led me to believe that much more than 8% of the human population is colorblind. Of course, fashion is subjective, and one can say that currently the whole WoW community is pushing the boundaries of avant-garde wearable art. Then again, some individuals are just in dire need of some womanly/metro assistance, like the "female" human mage who was trying desperately to wear Robes of the Guardian Saint in his main set but ended up the eyesore of Dragon Soul (see right). A member of Team Tits later helped him match his outfit appropriately, and now he looks pretty cute... or as cute as one can look in teal.

Unfortunately, I was not immune to the derision of such critics or, as I like to call them, "haters." A common comment that many moggers hear is that we look like low-level n00bs, but personally, I think my pally looks pretty "classic" in her recolored Valor. Besides, I would imagine this has high utility in a battleground since the enemy is unaware that the player coming at him/her in full Tier 1 is actually hiding full Vicious gear. That is... until s/he gets mysteriously roflpwn'd with what looks like an Arcanite Reaper.

For my druid's outfits, which I spent the last four months farming BC raids and 2-manning Ulduar to assemble, I received mixed reviews. My friend saw my "family-friendly" set and called me "Sailor Moon," which I took as a compliment. But then I showed him my "free-spirited/liberation of the female form" set, and he said I looked like a night elf hussy! I had to run BT every single week since news of transmog came out for that damn blindfold to even drop once, goddamnit!

So far, the only outfit that has gotten popular approval is my lock's "yup. that's a lock." set, complete with an actual Headmaster's Charge, the original "warlock" weapon! As my main, she has multiple outfits, which I'm a little hesitant to show off now that people have universally complimented the first one. I mean... my fragile ego might not be able to take a 25-man raid team making fun of the way I dress. I already get enough of that in real life...

For the record, I think I dress fine. >: (

-Avia.