There’s something absolutely fucking ghastly about World of Warcraft characters.

I’ve never liked the art style. But, given that, for a long time, World of Warcraft was my OCD medication— just like I use Twitter to calm my anxiety, I used to use WoW to calm my anxious thoughts, through repetitive actions— welp. It was sort-of kind-of like being stationed in Hell.

Initially, after my ‘friend’ made a comment that my World of Warcraft character 1. had absolutely no apparent skin color, being the Night Elf equivalent of, say, the ‘color’ ‘clear’, like how water has a ‘color’, and, 2., I looked like a fucking nightmare clown, I kind of rolled with it. I’d been made fun of for long enough that, when people made fun of me, I just kind of went with it. I knew they were being unkind. However, that was about as kind as anyone really was, to me, for a long time. So, I tried to make a joke out of it.

Eventually, I got sick of that, and I just started wearing a helmet.

The Lionheart Executioner was my favorite weapon. Given that nobody liked me after, oh, you know, catching a few pedophiles, it was pretty hard to get. I was pretty much alone, on a server that, at least I felt, hated me.

This is pretty much rote for me, at this point. When I first got on the Internet, I got into a Sailor Moon ‘community’; the 35(?) year old male ‘admin’ was grooming, like, 2-3 pre-pubescent girls. I was the only person who spoke up; I got banned. Same thing happened with the Marathon ‘community’, where a bunch of (now dead) old guys decided to harass a kid who was making custom Marathon levels. If I can remember correctly, they even banded together to make a Marathon scenario (set of levels), just mocking the kid. After they had baited him into posting his phone number, and, through that, they called his parents and said shit like they were gonna rape his mom, and kill his dad in front of him. It was pretty awful. Anyways, I ended up saying I was gonna call the police on them, the old guys tried to turn it around on me, and, boom: it felt like everybody hated me, and the community died overnight. Same thing, here.

I find it extremely hard and bizarre to try to ‘reminisce’ about the times I spent, playing World of Warcraft. After I found out that the GMs were pretty much ‘corrupt’, and my account was on its last warning, for trying to protect kids, I knew that I had nothing to lose. So, the only time I actually had fun, was when my family and I were actively exploiting encounters. We got a few world firsts, but nobody ever said they were ‘legitimate’. I didn’t care. I only had fun, then.

Looking back on it, now, I know I didn’t have a good time playing the game. One thing or another was always falling into my lap; and, I was the only one who really cared. There were two or three main incidents where only I gave a shit to try to get pedophiles to stop grooming kids. And every time, I risked my account. And I loved that game. I loved that game like I used to love my Twitter account: if I had gotten banned, at the height of me needing it? It would’ve killed me.

Like I said: only when I was playing with my family did I actually care about it. We did every single dungeon, from the Deadmines, to alpha things, to unused places that only we found, or made. Or extended. And, from that, we went all the way to Deathwing. Long after I stopped playing Retail, they kept pulling me back. I think I even fought against something called The Sha of Madness. I don’t really remember. I only care because Hana was there, and she was having fun. So was Rachel.

Back then, when I was so full of hope, and joy, and vigor, still somehow untarnished from the endless ages of being shit on, I think I remember a place where I felt happiness. Going through Blackrock Depths, over, and over, and over again; soloing dungeons, mostly by myself. I got Deathcharger, alone. And then, in better company, I got him, again.

The people who hated me are gone. The few people I actually still want to talk to, I barely remember their names. Or, I don’t know, or am afraid to talk to them, after so long.

There was one guy. Bonaparte. Made a YouTube video, a joke about how to make cocaine. I can’t find it anymore.

One night, sometime after it was all over, he sent me an e-mail, telling me that he believed me, about the space aliens. Said I should pursue it. I’ll always remember that.

I miss you a lot, Bonaparte.

I miss when I was happy.

---

Character Lore

I had a lot of things planned, for character lore. I suppose you could say that the character was one of my first ‘O.C.’s. I loved her. I still love her.

The vast majority of her lore was based on things that my family and I actually did. There were stories, and there are stories that will be released, in the future, about what we did. But I guess I can tell you the bare basics.

• Was patterned not really as an ‘unlikely’ hero, as much as she was patterned how I viewed myself, at the time: headstrong, doesn’t particularly think things through, but is monstrously strong, and courageous. In short, a female himbo. That part, at the very least, was patterned after my gender identity: a dude presenting as a woman who’s presenting as a man. It’ll make more sense, the more you know me.
• The ‘looks like a clown’ thing, after a year or so of never taking off my helmet, turned into ‘nobody knows what her face looks like’. I liked this. It presented a sort of Boba Fett / Darth Vader-y thing, that I really liked. In comics that I made, her face was never shown. And, if without a helmet, she was always shown from an angle that never gave anything away. Sort of like how Master Chief has been presented, in actuality.
• Gourry from Slayers.
• Presented as canonically always somehow ending up ‘ahead’ of the main, canonical party that slays things in the games. (Given that my family and I used to get world first’s on test servers, or world firsts in general, only for them to be declared ‘not legitimate’. Sigh. Bit of a trend, huh?)
• Not loyal to any faction, but friendly with the Forsaken. Viewed as an enemy by Durotar (for a reason she just doesn’t get), and guilty of just watching and laughing as Ironforge’s king and Stormwind got ransacked.
• Part of an ensemble cast: the character herself was the ‘ward’ of a very tall (taller than the night elf, herself) ‘Forsaken’ woman; the Forsaken woman; several Forsaken characters I don’t want to reveal, just yet; a Gnome Warlock; a Draenei Shaman; some Night Elf characters I don’t want to go into; a Night Elf Rogue, the main(?) character’s sister; a Draenei pretending to be a Death Knight; and, but of course, the functionally-mute Night Elf / Blood Elf(?) Paladin.

Knowing what I know about how to stage a shot, cinematography, and all that, I’d love to go back to my initial comic ideas. But I really do think, it’s too late, and I’m too old. I feel kind of embarrassed. I shouldn’t. Maybe I’ll do it, one day.

I should also note that everybody in the ensemble (we’re talking 50+ people, here) had a signature weapon. Mine were the Sun Eater, and the Lionheart Executioner, though I shared that last one with a few people. The mute Paladin lady had the Sun Eater. The Gnome Warlock had Thunderfury.

None of this was particularly ‘serious’. I’m not like that one lady who cosplayed Sailor Moon and got into fights with people, over how she considered herself to be the Sailor Moon. It was fun, and these memories bring warmth to my heart, once more.

In a way, the roleplaying, with multiple characters (I was at least like 4 people, out of the ensemble cast), was a lot like Arcadium.

Come to think of it, I think that’s why I was drawn to VRChat, toot.

All these places look like the inside of my imagination, when I was roleplaying, there.

I don’t miss it. But, I cherish those memories.

And I wish I could feel them, a bit more deeply, once more.