Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

"Three things make a post", as the saying goes.

1) ani_mama held a contest to give away five speed paintings ("quick 10-20 minute black and white sketches"), and eeee, I won one! She's the amazing artist behind my bestest commissions:

Haken and Morn <3
Haken alone (Look at those cheekbones! And ears! And eyes! Eeeee!)
Keen and Grace
Thistle and Squall (not WoW!Thistle)
The icon on this post.

So I was really happy to have won! I've been thinking about one of the first versions of Thistle, from the book and the MUSH, so I asked for a happy/cute saber toothed cat. "MY BONE, Mr. Butterfly!" :D :D

2) I have only one ep left of the best TV show ever. Misfits!


Simon would really like it if you gave it a watch. You can even watch it free on Hulu!

Remember the old Heroes show? It's like that, take out the silliness and plot holes and the lacking story line, add a bunch of darkness, a ton of seriousness, though a nice dash of humor as well, and the amount of sex you'd get on British TV instead of puritan American TV, and that's Misfits. Great writing, OUTSTANDING wonderful characters, dark and funny!

You really should watch it now. They're remaking it for American TV, which is going to ruin it. Don't wait until then! Watch it now, the real version!

3) I'm finally back over a million on WoW. People were right, when you cross that line, it feels like the new baseline. Million is the new zero! Now I feel like I finally have money again, which is just plain silly. I'm glad I made a new enchanter though, it's bringing in really good money.

Thank you, LJ's restore post function. I started writing this post last night, then closed the window because I was too depressed. Last night's writing is between the two --- lines.

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Years and years ago, back when I was still running the MUSH, I scoffed at people wanting a +roll command for RP fights. "Good, mature, adult RPers can talk about it! Decide what happens!". Well know what? Like a sadly high number of other things, I was wrong.

/roll or +roll makes it possible for things to happen that two people would likely never just decide to do if they were talking about it. My paladin and blightheart's DK were evenly matched, so we used /roll to decide things. The outcomes were so funny. My rolls were 10s and 20s, his were 80s and 90s. Basically, in the second(?) round of combat, the roll was something like 12 to 92 and so my guy basically ran himself through on the DK's sword. While greatly embarrassing IC (my guy lived through a war! He was in a warzone longer than most people! And he was an experienced fighter even before the war started!), it was really, really funny OOCly. "But Thistle! If they were so evenly matched, it shouldn't have happened!" But luck does come into play in RL. You hit a patch of ice, your phone rings and distracts you at just the wrong moment. Tiny little things that you wouldn't otherwise think to add into RP.
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I know there were lots and lots of good RP times on the MUSH, but it's really embarrassing to remember things like that. It's even worse knowing I'm still making the same sorts of mistakes, that I too often believe there's just One Right Way of doing things.

In TV news, I should have listened to fealubryne sooner! I LOVE the Misfits! I've only seen two or three eps so far, but I love every minute of it. It's like the Heroes TV show, but set in the UK and a ton darker, more realistic, and way more mature. I wish I had time to watch it more often!

WoW: For the longest time, I bemoaned trying to make money on a RP server. When I was in the gem market, our prices rarely hit triple digits and were slow to sell, while on other servers they were going for 250+ and flying off the AH. And then came transmogging. I've made So Much Money flipping RP item! Greens mostly, but now and then interesting higher items. Like Eye of Flame.

Eye of Flame is a silly little item. You can't hardly even see it on someone. On a belf, it makes the eye look white.

Know how many people RP missing an eye or having an engineering eye?

Lots. *rubs hands together*

I bought the eye for just over 2K, hoping to double my money. I listed it high, thinking I could slowly lower it when it didn't sell, but it sold on the first listing, just over 7K. :D

Most of the items I flip are a lot smaller profit (200-600 gold), but getting a nice one like that feels great. And I always worry that people think I'm saying I always pick right, always make a profit, but that's not the case. Now and then I try to flip a unique-seeming item, but it won't sell at all. I have lost some money, but all in all I'm way ahead of the game.

There are only two reasons I'm looking forward to MoP: More character slots and the fact that everyone will be rolling new alts and the AH will get hot again. I love that I can tell how active the game is by the volume of stuff moving through the AH. (I don't mean just my sales, I mean moving through the AH as a whole.) The game is so very dead right now -- my profits are down, yes, but I mean total postings. MoP will change that, at least for a while. People will be leveling again, alts will be leveling professions, people will return to the game. I may never, ever, ever want to see a panda character, but I'm looking forward to the increased activity that they will bring.