The most memorable emotional posts from around the Blogosphere and WoW

WARNING: TOUCHY FEELY POST ALERT!  STOP READING NOW IF THAT STUFF MAKES YOU GO EWWWW

I spend too much time reading WoW blogs.  I know when I write my blog, I try to temper my thoughts a little so I don't offend people, but I don't have very emotional posts either.  I don't think I've ever written a post while crying (in game), or had any major real life catastrophes during WoW.  But there are a lot of them out there, and every now and then I read something that really brings out emotions in me.  I love evocative words and emotions, and I put them here so I can remember the feelings they brought out in me every time I read them.
Picture by Mongrelssister

The post that I thought was brave to share with the community was Azeroth Apple's Personal announcement:
I am a coyote girl. I’m a queer little fae one who likes to walk barefoot in the grass. I love urban fantasy and a little sci-fi, and sometimes trashy romance novels. I am a gamer (though I kinda suck at ‘em) and a blogger and an RPer. I am poly and in love with two amazing women who make my life better just by being themselves. I like Doctor Who and Glee and Criminal Minds and Fringe and My Little Pony. I work in an adult bookstore and love it. I love to write, and I live to sing. And I am trans*.
Now I don't wanna hear an queer jokes and snide remarks.  This is my blog post and I'm gonna talk about what I wanna talk about!  The emotion this brought me was Admiration.  This post really made me think about how when you are online, the whole anonymity thing is out there and you can pretend you are someone you're not, or you can hide things about yourself like being fat, ugly, hairy, scary... you get the idea.  And Apple came out and just said it.  Just like that.  Obviously after a lot of deliberation, and I am still not sure why, but it may have been due to the fact that he just did a Twisted Nether Blogcast and people may have been confused about his gender with his feminine voice.  Anyway, this one moved me because I thought it would have been a difficult thing to say, and I truly respected him for being brave and upfront about it.  Because I am sure he felt confident enough about himself to say it and he was supported and loved by those around him, who may have felt that his huge following should know the truth.

Beruthiel of Falling Leaves and Wings often uses her blog as a diary to vent her personal feelings of triumph and failure and this post was no exception - Rock Bottom.
I cried all day, I couldn’t help it. I felt hopeless. I felt like no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t matter. I cared so fucking much about getting this done for people, I had been stressed for so long, and I just broke. I couldn’t take it anymore. This one thing was the last chink in the armor that I was desperately holding onto. I wasn’t even pissed that the guy was bailing, because as cruel as it sounds everyone can be replaced - I was pissed that he was selfishly potentially shitting on so many people and seemingly didn’t care. And because I cared so much, it was more than I could take.
Do you know what she's talking about?  She is talking about heroic Ragnaros.  She has so many posts about her frustration with it, wanting to get it killed on 25man, dreaming about killing Ragnaros and then trying to analyze the dream, trying to get people to care as much as she did about killing it.  Not just for herself but for her guildies.  Because they deserved it after all the effort they put into it.  If you read her posts, lots of people say things like "Why are you torturing yourself like this?  Why do you keep doing it?  You need a break.  You should stop trying to do it and be happy where you are."  But that's NOT what Beru wanted, she wanted to get it down, she wanted it for everyone, a group achievement, hard work paid off.  And she wasn't afraid to share the emotion that she went through for it.  People might think it's weak she was crying about it, but it's the exact opposite.  She is strong because not only can she admit she's doing it, and show she's doing it, but she just gets back up and continues and marches on doing it.  Dedication, determination, admiration... though I could not cope with that kind of stress from the game probably (crying?  OMG I only cry when I fight with my guildies, and that's stressful enough...), but obviously Beru can and she is not afraid to let people know it.  This post brought out a feeling of Absolute Frustration in me (though I do feel that emotion from time to time already without having to read this post!).

MissPewPew wrote about her experience with her disability (she is deaf) and raiding without Ventrilo and should she put that on her guild applications in her post Disabilities and WoW: Do I tell or not?
When I first started playing WoW, I was very reluctant to divulge this information and  my then boyfriend, who also played, was the only one who knew.  When I first started raiding on a casual level in pugs, I often declined to join in ventrilo or mumble with excuses that I didn’t have a mic or whatever.  I did the same thing when I tried to apply to guilds because I did not want to be turned down because I couldn’t hear.  I heard a lot of stories of people being griefed about their disabilities, and I did everything I could to avoid having that happen to me.  It is truly a terrible thing to go through and it can really hurt people.  I know, because it hurt me too and it caused me to have serious doubts as a player.
I really liked this post, because the emotion it stirred in me was Pride.  MissPewPew could raid without Vent, and she wanted to prove to people that she could do it and she did!  I love giving people the opportunity to do something, and if they are successful at it, all the better!  This post reminded me of Souglyy doing Firelands as Survival - not that it was a disability, but because people said she couldn't do it and she set out to prove them wrong.  And when she was successful I was so proud of her.

LilPeanut of Heal Over Time wrote what one of the most sad and painful experiences I would never want to face, in her post about Letting Go: Conquering my WoW addiction.
My daughter – just two years old – was forced to fight a devastating bone marrow disorder called Aplastic Anemia. Her bone marrow was unable to produce new blood cells. My husband and I were left helpless and we agonized as our baby girl fought for her life.... shortly after she turned 3, my daughter lost her battle and I lost what I quickly realized was my reason for getting through each day.

It took a chance gift from my brother to give me something I could really sink my teeth into; a true way to escape. I don’t remember any other gifts I got that year, only his: World of Warcraft...  The rest of that year was a complete blur to me. Looking at my life was like sitting on the couch with someone else’s photo album. All of these still memories that weren’t mine. They could have meant something, but I wouldn’t know. I just couldn’t remember..
What I do remember was playing WoW on my laptop while my 2 year old son played with his trains on the carpet. Now every time I hear the Thomas and Friends theme song it reminds me of questing on my hunter in Feralas with a guildie while my son watched his DVD on repeat.


It wasn’t until later that I learned I was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. In order to compensate for pushing aside the more harmful memories, the brain just decides to place anything that has a remotely similar trigger into a neat little basket that it promptly hides under the coffee table. And because almost everything in my day to day life was a trigger for me, everything got swept into one big haze. Everything except World of Warcraft.
Now THAT really brought tears to my eyes.  The grief she must have felt losing a child, and pushing everything away and then getting caught in the Maelstrom addiction of World of Warcraft... it is such an easy escape, and admitting and sharing that really must have brought back terrible memories.  I don't want to hear people saying, oh what a bad parent, neglecting her child to play WoW, I am talking about the pain that you have losing a loved one and then having to face the emptiness of your days without them.  Some turn to drink and drugs.  Lilpeanut turned to World of Warcraft.  This post really made me think about what it was like to feel Despair.

That post also reminded me of a guildie lost his fiance in a car accident and WoW happened to come out at that time, and he submerged himself in it.  He wasn't addicted but in a time when there was nothing else to do, it was a great filler.  He told me that every day without her felt so empty.  Every time I read about it I cry (and that includes now).  I even remember the anniversary of her death, because his words were so moving.
There was a period of time just after L died that I would wake up and forget that she was gone, I'd wonder what we were going to do that day and I'd picture movies, picnics, going to the beach, just sitting next to each other, then my head would clear and I'd realize she was gone. That went on for weeks, it was like coming down from a high every day. People I hadn't spoken to in months or years would come up and say sorry, I never understood why, they didn't have anything to do with it, why were they sorry? It wasn't that I didn't understand the sentiment, but how could these people be sorry? Barely anyone knows what it's like, she was my other half, she made every day a joy, even the days when I couldn't see her, just knowing she was out there made me feel good.
People have told me for years that I need to move on and I've tried, really tried, I've put photos away, I've tried being with other girls. Trying to date has has made me bitter, all these women that have said no, actually none of them have just said no, I could handle no, it's that they all give me that fucked up "You're a great person", "Let's be friends", "Sorry I can't be in a relationship". Just say no for the love of god. They all end up going out with the same spineless wimp of a guy after I ask them out, the guys with no personality and no prospects.

All I can think now is that maybe thats the way this was meant to be, I had something very few people will ever have even if only for a short time. I think thats all I was meant to have. I'm not going to try anymore, I'm just going to be with me, when I don't think about relationships or love I'm happy. Some of us are meant to be alone.
OK I can't comment on it, it makes me cry.  These posts about losing people you love just make me weep!  I'm not gonna say that oh he's a great guy, he deserves to find someone, because finding someone, just anyone, doesn't make you happy.  He was happy, he's been happy.  He doesn't want pretend happy.  He makes love sound so pure and uncomplicated.  And it sounds weird, but I read this and I feel Love, of all things, even though it's so sad.

Well the last emotional post I have today was a happy one, a lovey dovey one.  Vidyala wrote on Pugging Pally about her 5th wedding anniversary on her post Vows.
I take you to be at the top of my friends list, and part of your permanent group. No matter what mobs aggro on us, we will tank them together. In rez sickness and in 70 K HP, through hard modes and awful pugs, in boss kills as well as wipes. I promise to support your achievement goals – even if they involve something mind numbingly boring. I will always respect your aggro, laugh at your bad jokes on vent, and cry at them too. I will cherish and respect you until the day the servers go dark.

...I’m talking about my strategist, favourite main tank, partner-in-crime, raid leader, husband and best friend. I’ll always have your back, no matter what we’re beating up. I promise to run Omen, but I probably won’t move it out from underneath Recount. Here’s to many more internet dragons, whatever the years may bring us!
Awww, isn't that beautiful?  Now I discovered this when it dawned on me one day that Vid + Voss were an item (she writes about him an awful lot on her other blog, Manalicious) and she linked me that article in Twitter which I favourited since I thought it was so lovely.  Love is a many splendoured thing.  So I read this and it makes me feel Happy.

Well, if you made it this far, thank you for reading my post about emotional posts.  Why did I write it?  Because these words from around the internet about emotion - happy and sad, anger and love, despair and rejoicing, were so memorable to me, I didn't want to forget them in my old age years later.  And I was tired of going to my bookmarks to read them.  At least now I can read all my favourite bits of feeling in one blog post.

Comments

  1. Ok that last one made my eyes water a bit... but you know I'm sappy like that

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  2. @bubblesofmischief - I know you are Cym :) You should have seen me when I was writing >.<

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  3. baw. <3

    Seriously, though, I'm glad my post touched you. I made it for me, because I was sick of hiding who I was, and I made the same post on my personal blog as an announcement to my friends. I just... had reached a point where I wanted to just be who I was instead of who everyone thought I was.

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  4. @Apple - and I truly TRULY admired that Apple. You have no idea how many times I reread that post.

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  5. Ty for posting this Nav. It was a very touching read.

    -Rosh

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  6. @Roshii - Ty Roshii, but it's the authors of the original work who deserve all the credit :) I'm just the collector :)

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  7. *applause* This is better than a Thank You, Thanksgiving post any day, I think, Navi.

    This was from your heart admitting to those things that touched you deeply. And as writers, is that not the finest compliment we can receive? - that someone read, understood and even FELT, to an extent how you felt when you thought about it, when you wrote it.

    Bravo! Both to you Navi, for bringing attention to what we may have missed, and to each of you she sited, because I think any of us who got to the end (correction: got passed the Disclaimer) felt similar to Navi. We sympathize and empathize , and we value your willingness to bare your soul in hopes of understanding and healing.

    ~ Effy

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  8. @Effraeti - It makes me so glad that somebody understands and can imagine why I wanted to share these thoughts of others. TY for reading to the end Effy! And I can only hope that others like you were as moved by those touching words written by others. I only hope that one day my own words will move someone in the same way these words have moved me.

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  9. Thank you. There's absolutely nothing more I can possibly say in regards to such a wonderful post. It just wouldn't be just.

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  10. @arcanewordsmith - I am so glad you came by to read it. I think their words were so good it had to be shared.

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  11. Very touching posts. All of which have an individual, and meaningful, effect :)

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  12. @Jamin - I'm glad you liked them! I can only hope everyone was moved by them :)

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  13. We should never, ever forget we are human -- flawed, loving, imperfect, and sublime. Each and every one of us.

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