You know, I’ve been reading up a lot on Garrosh in the build up to fighting him as a raid boss. We’re talking a laawwwwwt of reading over a tuuuuuhhhn of perspectives on the fellow, and up until this point, I’ve been able to squint my eyes and ride along as Garrosh has pitched himself into the sudden villain that we all love and hate. 

In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t been playing World of Warcraft very long. I’ll be celebrating two years of it come September, in fact. My first introduction to Garrosh came within my first 20 minutes of gameplay, where I sat on Mudmask and watched as Vol'jin crabbed at him for being violent and then threw in a death threat. 

“Okay,” I decided. “I’m a troll and Vol'jin’s my leader and I guess if this guy doesn’t like the new Warchief  then I probably don’t like him either.” Except Chris and I would talk about Garrosh now and then, and a lot of the time it would be stuff like “You know, the guy isn’t THAT bad, I mean, I see where he’s coming from.” and “Just because he’s not Thrall doesn’t make him a bad Warchief." 

And then MoP happened. And then Garrosh brought the hammer down on my people and I was all "Dammit! Garrosh, what the fuck?” But it’s not like Vol'jin didn’t necessarily deserve the assassination attempt - I mean the guy pretty much told Garrosh that he was going to kill him so I can see that. And I can… sorta see the mentality that the Horde needed possession of that damn bell on the grounds that we didn’t want the Alliance to have it. And, as a troll, who am I to care about how he’s treating the blood elves? A pox on them anyways. Destroying Pandaria? Oook…aay. Ignoring the fact that the bell was making orcs go crazy and just continuing to use it anyway? Well… Theramore? UMMM. Aaaand so on. 

BUT WHO AM I, in the grand scheme of things to challenge what’s going on here? There’s so much lore I’ve yet to learn about. Shit, I’m only just beginning to learn to not suck at being a feral druid. I’ve gotten through all of this by just accepting the Garrosh storyline is just a shitty thing that is happening and there’s nothing I can do about it. 

And yet, I’m reading all these wonderfully written articles about why Garrosh shouldn’t die, and how if he doesn’t own up to his actions that it negates friggin all of his character development over the years. I have honestly NEVER been one to get upset at the writing faults of the Blizzard staff, nor have I ever felt disappointed with my game play experience. So much of my enjoyment of the game comes from the individual journey I’ve taken as Mudmask, anyways, that I spent my first year playing and having virtually NO idea why I was doing half the things I was doing (lore wise). 

If Garrosh’s madness turns out to be at the hands of the Sha, if he dies without acknowledging his actions, if his sudden change in characters goes unexplained or has a cop-out of an explanation - I am legitimately going to feel disappointed over this. Like, I’m gonna get BUMMED. Oh, I’ve gotten bummed from playing before, but it was always caused by another player being a dick, or by me sucking at being a kitty. It’s never been because of something the game has done. 

What’s going to happen has already been written. I may not like what that turnout is, and no doubt I won’t be the only one. I’m just… worried, I guess, because whenever anyone rips on World of Warcraft I sorta… kinda… ignore those opinions because I. Friggin’. Love this game. But I don’t think I can ignore them if Garrosh’s take down isn’t handled with the respect it needs. …And that sucks. …Because it makes me a fantastically huge nerd. And I feel like my fears are going to come all sorts of true. 

I suppose we’ll see. In the mean time - Vol'jin for Warchief, mon. 

The last thing I expected when I logged back in here was to see notifications on a really stupid text post I made about Garrosh Hellscream. 

But clicking on THAT post, led me to THIS post. And hoooooooooboy. Boy did this one age poorly. 

So, okay, it’s been *checks watch*  almost ten years. And yes. Yes it hurt me very much to type that.  As it turns out, Jade did have a capacity for how much he was willing to put up with WoW’s lore fuckery. In fact, it was the direction of the lore that did me in, which absolutely included:  - The direction Garrosh went in - "a sudden changes in characters that had a cop-out for an explanation” - And then. You know. Vol’jin. 

Not that anyone ever asked for an explanation re: how I got so disenchanted with WoW, it’s just that past a certain point I got really tired of feeling like there was an overall lack of thoughtful intent when it came to the path the story was taking. One of my biggest moments in feeling this was when I got to the end of the War Crimes book - which was a story that was building and building towards Garrosh taking accountability for his actions, only to have him, at the last minute, go “actually you know what, nevermind, screw all y’all” just so the devs could drag us on a rehash upon rehash of Grom/The Burning Legion/so on so on, you were all there, you played the expansions. 

And I did play WoD, and I tried to get through LEG - I made the best of the experience that I could, but then considering they did absolutely *nothing* with Vol’jin as warchief, only to uselessly murder him one expansion later just so they could get Sylvannas in the seat was just....

It’s been 84 years and I still have this small part of me that wants to flip a table about it. 

I quit WoW shortly after that. 

Ever since it’s felt a bit like a breakup. When I hear there’s drama about the lore/community, of course I look at it. When a friend wants to tell me what’s been going on, of course I wanna hear about it. But I feel distant from all of it in a way that 2013 Jade never would have believed.  I did go back, once, last summer, because of some vestigial worry that my account might get flushed. I played for about a month, and honestly? It wasn’t a bad time. I loved seeing Muds again, I figured out what he’d be up to (he has a son now, wrap your head around that), getting to give him a proper blind eye was fucking nice. (I also, apparently, logged myself off at the Half Hill Inn just so I’d be hit the the kazoo music when I returned. PastJade was fucking on top of that.)

But it was very much still the same game, and I think I’m at a stage where I have to reconcile that both I and Muds have grown beyond it, and it’s okay. More than anything I’m just... both amused and humbled by the shift in perspective from me then, vs. me now. 

I’ve gotten hard and crusty, it’s something I gotta work on, lest I too fall to the follies of poor character development. 

Never did post this on its own, so I’m fixing that! Really excellent commission of my Maormer/Dunmer lad Dhamari, arted by the incredible @legionattack13

memes i made of arshadi (redguard werewolf) and a friend's bosmer assassin

they have a mother-child relationship!!! kind of!!! it's not the greatest and they're both a little awkward but they try very hard.

kestrel and arshadi, enjoying a moment of rest.

kestrel is a backwoods bosmer, and a forest steward/protector of sorts before a mourning war changed the course of their life. arshadi is a redguard mercenary who is out of touch with their roots, travelling where money takes them when they're not navigating the ins and out of alik'r nobility.

they both solve problems that arise in 2nd era tamriel, but for different reasons. and they like each other a little bit, during the few times they happen to meet each other

both of them use they/them pronouns

I hate every and any face or character physical appearance changing mod actually, for any of the fallout games. I think every character design fits the character really well and definitely all very beautiful faces

yes yes yes! i’m really late to the party but someone else gets it! the teeth mods specifically make me want to tear my hair out. there’s several mods to change maccready’s teeth so they “look nicer” and i may be biased but i hate them. his teeth in fallout 4 are a subtle reflection of the hard life he’s had, leave him alone 😭 most wastelanders would not have been taught oral hygiene like that, especially not a little boy raised by a bunch of kids in a cave.

on top of those, i despise the mods that change the female characters’ faces or bodies, especially the glory & dez and female companion ones. they rub me aaaaaaaall the way in the wrong way.

The only one I accepted was Valentine Reborn - because it kept Nick looking like Nick while giving him better textures and just making him subtly more distinguishable from the rest of the Gen 2s.

But NOTHING gets weirder than stumbling on the X6-88 mods. I don't recommend it unless you want to see a bunch of different options to turn him into a white woman.

I memed a meme. 

It’s been super relevant for rp lately, it just needed to be done. 

Half a dozen things I could reblog from my old art and here I am like "haha I did good with this shitpost"

I'm playing a lot of Jamir again lately. He's been good for me.

BRENDAN FRASER accepts the award for ‘Best Actor’ at the 28th Critics Choice Awards (January 15, 2023)

When I get a follower named some shit like “trinityhyett202“ and it’s a woman in a bikini

[video by dhtoomey. caption: Breaking news, short kings)

Some Dreamworks & Disney characters fan art I drew in the past couple of years. The most recent one is the Dr. Facilier art >:)

Who do you like the most?

Nick&Marty

this is one of my favorite reddit posts of all time