One Day

I keep myself from thinking
Which helps

I keep myself from imagining
Which helps

I keep myself from wondering
Which helps

No thought
No imagination
No wonder

One day I'll wake up
And fifty years will have gone by
I will sleep for the last time
And it all won't have mattered
I will die a servant to those I love
to those who need me
and that is enough.
There is no one left
who I need
in return
That is as it should be.

Reading- Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

I love Thrall. I wish he were still clan chief. ~sigh~ I'm enjoying the book very much, and I especially love all the revelations Thrall experiences when journeying through the timeways. It's making me want to play WoW so, so, SO much, though! And I told myself I would take a break. Very. Difficult.

Mimis

I am sleepy. I could curl up in a ball and drowse the rest of the day away. But I have to work. And other things. So I'll drink caffeine and keep my eyes open.

Apathy

I have apathy for so many things that matter. I pretend to care, for society's sake. It's fine. It's out of my control, really. I don't choose to be apathetic.

So many things I just have no feeling about, and don't care. But there's one thing I do care about. Naturally, it's the one thing I wish I could figure out how to stop caring about. The world works that way, I guess.

I should sleep

Or something. It's late late laaaate in the night, early in the morning, and oops, didn't I put a ban on internet use late at night?? But I think I lift the ban, yay. Tonight I've been listening to some of the most beautiful instrumental music by Joe Hisaishi... and then I switched it to ragey Dir En Grey, bahaha!! I like any music that makes me feel something powerful, I guess. It isn't about the genre; it's about the emotion behind it, and my connection with that emotion.

Or something. ^_^

I surrender.

Life is pain, Highness.

There is Joy in Surrender

Today I have no memories, and my smile is easy. My spirits are high, my gaze is soft, my heart is full and my mood is vibrant. Today I have no ties to the world. The slate is wiped clean. I'm an empty canvas. The past as meaningless as a dream. I am my own. I am free.

Dreams

Sh-sh-shh.

It was only a dream.

I shake my head. Despite my best efforts, my mouth doesn't form words. But my eyes stop her.

She returns to my bed and pulls up the blanket. Her gaze is direct. "Only a dream."

My lips part. But, it wasn't a dream. 

Moments hang in the air. She looks tired as she watches me. "Dreams aren't real. They can feel real. They can scare you. Tell yourself over and over, it wasn't real, and it'll be as if it never even happened." She kisses my forehead. Her face comes close to mine and she whispers, "It wasn't real."

I try to speak. 

"It wasn't real." The words carry the force of all the mothers before her. "You will forget."

My voice slips away from me. 

It wasn't real.

Dreams aren't real.

She turns off the light. And I forget.

An Offer (Let Me Be)

I can't always smile
I can't always be cheerful
I can't always be charming and sweet
I can't

Let me be morose
Let me be wicked
Let me be moody
Let me be

and if you do
I will also be charming and sweet in turns
I will be cheerful and I will smile for you in earnest
I will offer you silliness to temper your somber moods
I will offer you teasing when you feel wicked
And if you need it,
I will offer you a soft hand against the harshness of your sorrow
A gentle touch in the midst of this long and arduous life
But first
Please
let me be me

Taking

You make me smile
It feels good
I delight in your company
I look forward to it
But I'm sorry

Lessons learned will keep me out of reach

I'm sorry

But this time, I'll be taking.
I will share nothing
I will give nothing
My words will mean nothing

You want my name
You shall not have it
You want more from me
I will give you an illusion
And I will take all that you so eagerly give
Every charming turn of phrase
Every small silliness that lifts my spirits
I'll enjoy you while you're there

Because you do make me smile
And I do delight in your company
I look forward to it, now

But when you tire
You will leave
And I will forget your name

I'm There

The reality of another day

I seek my numbing agents

Treasured tricks begotten in youth

With them I am untouchable

I maneuver past emotions

I subdue what lies 

beyond my control

Night falls

Once it was my veiled fortress

Even here I reach for my numbing agents

in the darkness that is now,

like the day,

an enemy

And always, the gears of another day 

propel me forward

I'm a disengaged participant

I make feeble attempts to leave

I make feeble attempts to stay

There is no safe haven in this world

Least of all, within myself

Another day

and yet another

And each time

I apply more numbing agent

In whatever form I can find

There, in the words of others

There, in the worlds of others

and always there

in the shallow affection

and empty comfort

of all the Others

who believe me

when I say I'm there

Reins of the Netherwing Drake

My main now has a Netherwing Drake. The Netherwing has an awesome roar when a character first mounts. It also glows and has this mystical smoke that rises around it. I love it so much.

It took me around two weeks but it was so worth it. I chose the violet drake as my character's reward, but I couldn't resist and bought her the others as well. When I level up my priestess I know I'm going to want her to have this mount, too, but I'm sure she'll pick either onyx or azure. Or all of them, hee. Here's how I got mine:

First, I read and referred back to these sights OFTEN-

WoWhead, in the comments section there are a lot of player tips and links to each specific quest.

By far the most helpful site was WoW-Pro. Super easy to follow guide, even though I didn't do every single daily this will show them all, in order and by day, to give you the fastest way to complete this rep grind.

Note that it was written back when only 10 daily quests were allowed per day; now 25 daily quests can be done a day. Also note, you don't pay for the first Netherwing Drake, one is given to your character as a quest reward (your character speaks to whichever Netherwing he/she wants to keep, so choose carefully). You can buy the other mounts for 200g each (six mounts altogether, including the free one) but you'll have to fly from Shattrath back to Shadowmoon to do it (the vendor is in Shadowmoon).

Netherwing Eggs

Each one is worth what an average daily quest is worth: 250 rep. They spawn on the ground, on the tops of crystals and on hills, although finding them was tough because everyone seemed to be grinding for rep when I was on. I've heard logging on at night helps. Even with all the other grinders I managed to find around two a day and then I looted another two a day, usually. Here's a site with some of their spawn locations:

Netherwing Egg Locations

The eggs are also rare drops from killing anything on the island, and they also rarely drop from herbs and ore veins, (only for herbalist or miners). Because of this, I killed everything and gathered every herb in my path. About half of the eggs I found were from looting or herb gathering. The other half came from the towers in Dragonmaw Camp (mainland), the mine, and very rarely anywhere else.

Getting the Drake

Basically, it's a reputation grind. Going from Hated to Neutral happens instantly when the starting quest chain is completed. The quest chain begins with Kindness given out by a Scryer named Mordenai wandering around Netherwing Fields. There are nine quests in the Kindness chain and they're fun and have a good story.

I completed them up until Zuluhead the Whacked at level 76... I just couldn't solo him even with a gorilla, traps and a lot of trying. I came close, but finally gave up and returned at level 80. I finished Zuluhead off easy-peasy and started my dailies.

Looking back, the dailies in the mine would have been a hassle at 76 because everything aggros so easily as it is. At level 80 in Cata greens the Mine Flayers were all one-shot kills with Chimera and even Arcane Shot almost always brought them down. It was fun zipping along killing everything in sight, but I suspect at 76 I'd have been in a world of frustration.

Gathering Crystals, Herbs (Pollen), Ore and Hide

Like I said, I killed everything in sight and gathered all the herbs I could find, and usually had two rare drops a day (it took me around an hour and a half to two hours to complete all my dailies doing this). Because of this, I had a LOT of extra crystals and pollen than the dailies required. The crystals stack to 250, so I dumped the rest to save bag space. The herbs aren't soulbound so I mailed off the extras to an alt and then mailed 40 back to myself every morning so I could start the day with the gathering quests completed.

Don't Skip This One

The quest called Overseeing and You: Making the Right Choices is very annoying. If you're not a skinner you'll have to pay for knothide leather, and it isn't cheap on AH. And no matter what, you'll have to fly out of Shadowmoon and all the way to Netherstorm to the very northernmost dome to find and kill the (easy) tyrannosaurus who drops the hide you need (this isn't a skinnable hide, so you can't just buy it on AH). This is all worth it, though. It opens up an easy daily that's kinda fun and gives 350 rep- The Booterang: A Cure for the Common Worthless Peon.

Quests I Skipped

I'm sure others could reach exalted with Netherwing faster than I did, but I skipped the quest chain Building a Soul Canon because buying the materials on AH was way pricey! I also only did the first two quests in Earning Your Wings because I suck at this kind of precision flying. By then I had a good egg-finding system and enough dailies going on that I felt my rep was moving up fast enough without frustrating myself over failing at flying. If you finish all six flying quests though, the final one gives 1000 rep; each of the earlier ones gives 500 rep, so they're worth trying.

My Favorite

When you reach revered a quest called The Deadliest Trap Ever Laid opens up. So easy, and 500 rep each time. It's a 3-man quest in case you do this at the right level instead of four levels above like I did. I don't know how you could kill the flying Dragonmaw without a ranged weapon, though.

Finishing Up and Buying Additional Drakes

When you reach exalted a quest takes you to Shattrath where you're rewarded with a Netherwing Drake of your choosing. You're also capped to 999 exalted points. The Dragonmaw Orc disguise still automatically works on the island back in Shadowmoon, so if you have the gold and want another drake (or another five drakes...) fly back, speak to the NPC near the landing strip and buy the others for 200 gold.

And that's it.

Realm Maintenance, Oh Noes!!!

So Lame!!! I've been up since 12:38am and I finally feel like going on my laptop and... I'm so, so, sad... realm maintenance. Q_Q

I knowww... it's not like it's anything new. I should have been ready for it. I guess I was hoping it would just be a server restart like last week. Boo hoo, sad me. I guess I'll go back to sketching. Or maybe I'll read.

Sleepy secrets

I'm writing a poem called Sleepy Secrets, but I'm too tired to think it over right now. Just... back to my old ways of falling asleep around eight and opening my eyes for no reason at 11pm-ish, wide awake, with the whole empty night ahead of me. And lately I hate going on my computer at night. Despise it. So, I'm awake at night and I don't know what to do with myself. I read, or draw, until finally, close to dawn I end up on WoW or youtube (Pokemon, broadway, what'll it be today?!) and then??? I have to work and I'm so sleepy... I can't sleep at night but --ha!-- I can always fall asleep at six in the morning and that's exactly when I need to be awake!!

Most people assume something is wrong when I say I can't sleep at night. And then, why don't I want to go on the computer at night? Questions bother me, so, the sleeplessness is a secret. Which makes it kinda lonely. Then again, most of my life is a secret... note the anonymous blog. I like it that way. If the cost is feeling a little lonely, so be it.

I like having the nights to myself, though. I just mentioned this to a friend who's "in" on my sleepy secret. I told this friend ... and to (again) be honest, despite the tiredness and the feeling of slight loneliness that comes with being awake all night, there's also a stillness and peacefulness to the solitude. I have the entire night to myself. ...ultimately, night is when I belong most to myself. I wouldn't be me if I didn't have these strange sleepless nights.

Do Girls Play World of Warcraft?

YES.

This is a rant. /beginrant

I'm bored of the near-daily discussion in Trade that 99.999 percent of the female characters in WoW are actually male players. Or if they're female, they MUST be fat and/or ugly.

The people in chat who say this declare it as the gospel truth, and there's no point arguing-- they demand Facebook evidence and as is obvious from my header, I'm a private person who won't be giving out my picture to strangers on the internet.

One person suggested that the only normal-looking girls in WoW must have issues and deep-rooted problems, and they use WoW as an escape.

So... a normal female who happened to grow up playing video games as a kid, and who read a lot of fantasy as a kid, and grew up to discover a world that incorporates the two in an amazing, immersive way... that's just completely out of the equation? Why are girls who play video games thought of as somehow broken?

I'm female. I play WoW. Why?

Because it's F-U-N.

Do I have an inclination toward gaming and fantasy? Yes. I read the Narnia books in third grade, started playing The Legend of Zelda in fourth, and have loved both fantasy and video games ever since. It's just part of my personality. As for my looks, I'm a regular-looking girl and I have a happy life.

Could it be...? Is it possible that normal-looking, happy girls are playing alongside guys in World of Warcraft?

Yes. And sure, maybe more guys than girls play WoW (and video games in general), but have you noticed? There are more male-characters than female-characters in WoW. I'm not saying that guys don't play as female-characters, but just like some guys have rolled female characters, some girls roll male ones (I did, and leveled him to 34). So, it's all proportional. Anyway, there are enough pictures of females at Blizzcon to show that there are TONS of women playing WoW. It's fun, so why shouldn't we? :D

/endrant

WoW: My First Epic

While on my Death Knight in Blasted Lands, collecting spider legs, bear skins and bat brains for the demonic vessel (I was level 59 and I wanted to hit 60 before going to Hellfire), something amazing happened. A random world drop of a level 54 epic helmet; the Helm of Narv.

It's mail, with agility, stamina and hit... no good for my Death Knight but perfect for my level 55 huntress.  I almost don't want her to level out of it.

The Boy in the Tree

Once upon a time there lived a boy who spent his days sitting in a tree. This boy's name was Archer. Archer watched the world from above but wasn't overly preoccupied with the goings on of everyone below. He had all he needed in the tree. Food from the fruit on its boughs, shelter from winds and storm, and best of all he was hidden from view; safe from others.

Until one day, another boy chanced along a path that led near the tree. This boy's name was Quentin. Quentin looked up into the branches and decided he was in the mood for an adventure. He would climb to the highest branch and declare himself king of all he could see.

Archer paled at the sight of the boy now climbing his tree. He realized too late the difficulty in hiding up a tree, namely, that there was no escape if someone came up after him. The only thing he could think to do, at first, was remain very still. Still as the branch beneath him. Still as the leaves growing 'round him. He would remain unseen.

But like the branch beneath him and the leaves around him, Archer shifted and moved, and the other boy came ever closer. Branch by branch the climbing boy rose higher and higher, grunting with effort and making the tree shudder and shake. "I shall be king of the world!" the boy declared.

Archer gripped a stick he kept nearby. Would this other boy want to fight him? The boy's dirty fingers appeared on the branch below Archer, followed by the boy's leg as he swung it over. At last the boy forced himself up and stopped with raised brows, staring right at Archer.

Archer lifted his stick. "Don't come any nearer. I'll swing this hard on knock off your head if you do!"

The boy glanced at the stick before returning his gaze to Archer. "That's a great stick. After I become king of the world I'll find one to match, and we can jump down and battle."

Archer lowered the stick. He glanced at the grassy floor beneath the tree as a fine sheen of sweat formed along his neck and down his back. "N-- no." He steadied his voice, lifting his chin as he added. "Not because you would win. Just because I shouldn't like to battle you. I don't do anything I don't like."

The boy frowned. "Not even to have fun?"

"I don't need to have fun."

"All right."

Archer watched as the boy continued his climb and reached the very highest branch.

"I'm the king of the world!" The boy yelled this several times in every direction. He turned and looked down at Archer, breathless and smiling. "Come, climb to the top and be king of the world with me."

Archer noticed the way the branches bent under the boy's weight. He saw how anyone might see the boy as he stuck his head out of the top of the tree. He saw how he might not be strong enough to reach the highest branches, and then the boy would think him weak. "N-- no," Archer said. He cleared his throat and added more forcefully. "Not because I can't do it. Just because I shouldn't like to climb. I don't do anything I don't like."

The boy frowned. "Not even to be king of the world?"

"I don't need to be king."

"All right."

Archer watched as the boy swung down the branches and jumped onto the grass below.

"I'm going to journey to that mountain and reach the top," the boy said. He turned and looked up at Archer, ambition and passion smoldering in his eyes. "Come, be my companion and reach the top of the mountain with me."

Archer noticed the long path that led through dark woods. He saw how very far the mountain was, how high. He thought about goblins and giants, ogres and trolls and any number of wild beasts they might meet along the way. "N-- no," Archer said. "Not because I wouldn't make it. Just because I shouldn't like to journey. I don't do anything I don't like."

The boy frowned. "Not even to be my friend?"

"I don't need a friend."

Quentin set his sights away from the boy in the tree. "All right."

Safe in his tree, Archer watched the boy start down the path to the mountain. He wondered if the boy would make it to the top. He told himself he didn't care.