This isn’t a game related post. So for those of you who are here hoping for something fun, or even slightly funny, related to WoW or other game, you might want to move along. This isn’t one of those posts.

This post is deeply personal. I talk about this stuff pretty flippantly when it comes up, but I don’t delve too far into all the sordid details. What with a friend’s post about her divorce, and Allie Brosh’s (of Hyperbole and a Half) post about depression, I started really thinking a lot about things going on right now.

Not everyone knows this but I have no family nearby. It was super depressing to think about this when I needed to put an emergency contact on my “If found on the side of the road almost dead” bracelet. Who the hell should a random stranger call in case I had to be taken to the hospital?? My nearest family member lives hundreds of miles away. 7-8 hour drive minimum. I don’t have a lot of close friends because I find they only want to be friend’s with me when they need something, so I’ve stopped trying to keep track, or keep up.

But mother’s day is looming around the corner. It’s only days away and this holiday brings out a lot of frustration and emotion for me. It’s even more frustrating when I hear people say things like “everyone has a mother.” It simply isn’t true. I haven’t had a mother since I was 19 years old. I was born from someone, yes. But I haven’t had a mother in my life for so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s even like to say “My mom…” about anything.

My mother is a first generation Korean immigrant. She was a hippy when she came with my dad back to the States. She wore tube tops and had hair down to her butt. She wore big glasses. The person she was in the pictures I have of her don’t reflect the person I remember all of my life.

My mother showed up one day with a golden retriever puppy. Then a couple weeks later, after my sister and I had grown attached, left the front door open. The puppy was gone and never returned.

My mother liked to use her accent or lack of “English” as a reason for why we weren’t communicating very well, but couldn’t understand that I understood her perfectly fine. Her English was perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with the way she communicated, just the meaning behind her words, is all.

My mother spent the majority of my childhood telling me how fat I was, how I should be ashamed of myself and strive to look like my sister, emaciated thing that she was. I remember being about 16 years old and we were sitting around the table eating dinner watching Cops of all shows. It was my mom, her boyfriend, my sister and I. And there was a larger officer running. And the words that came out of my mother’s mouth floored me. Sickened me even. She said “That fat guy should never have become a cop. Look at him, he can’t even run!” I was taken aback, but these are the comments I had been hearing for years. I just didn’t sit back and take it this time though. This time I said something.

“Y’know, you don’t know anything about that guy! Why would you judge him like that?”
“But look at him, he can’t even run!”
“It’s a tv show. He’s running just fine. So what if he’s fat. That doesn’t mean he can’t do his job.”

This generally turned into a discussion about how I should marry a rich man who would take care of me.

My mother accused me of stealing some packets of M&Ms out of the cupboard. In doing so, she decided to lecture only me in front of my sister and the two daughters of some guy she was living with this time. It was all my fault, because I was the oldest. Which meant that I had to be the one who stole the M&Ms out of the closet. She decided to slap me, across the face, in front of everyone, because I refused to admit that I had stolen the stupid candy. I was 17 and slapped her back. The conversation quickly became something else entirely. It was about respect and how dare I slap her! And “I can’t believe you just slapped me!” It was the last time my mother laid a hand on me.

I lost track of the number of times my mother told me how ugly I looked when I was angry. I lost track of the number of times she told me she would kill me if she could. I lost track of the number of time she told me what a horrible daughter I was because I didn’t listen to her and do what she said.

I distinctly remember getting into an elevator one days and she made this off-handed comment “Oh look, two fatties just got on!” and since we were the only two, I knew she meant the two of us. My mom was never fat, and looking back, I wasn’t either. I am now, but I wasn’t then.

In high school I planned how I would kill myself. Where I would do it. Everything. I had the letters written. The one I would leave at home on my dresser for my dad and the one I would have in my pocket for everyone else. I remember how shitty I felt. How I never felt comfortable being me. I wore clothes big enough for an adult man, to hide myself in them. No one can see how fat you are if you’re drowning in your clothes, right? I wore a jacket all year long so that I could hide my boobs. Because my mom made me feel great shame for having them. Poking them and laughing when telling me how big they were. Calling them everything other than what they were… boobs. Once I turned 18, I went to live with her in Los Angeles. I thought it would be better than the small town I grew up in. I remember telling her about how I was once suicidal. I told her that it was because of how she made me feel about myself. How ugly she made me feel because I wasn’t tiny and skinny.

She told me, “That had nothing to do with me. It just mean you’re weak.”

I came home one day to the front door kicked in and several police officers standing in my living room. My mother apparently had tried to kill herself because her boyfriend had decided to leave her. She swallowed a bunch of Tylenol with codeine, called him and told him what she was doing. He called the cops. They rushed her to the hospital. She managed to convince the social worker assigned to her, that she was safe to go home… but they needed someone to watch her. I was 19 years old and in college. I had a boyfriend and things to do! I didn’t have the mental capacity to keep track of my mother at this point.

Two weeks later I came home to a strange man living in our house. I figured it was just a new boyfriend, but I’d never met him before. I had no idea who he was. But I wanted to light a candle in the house, so I went digging in her room for some matches or a lighter. I knew she sometimes smoked and would have these things. Instead I found a package of wedding photos. She had run off to Las Vegas and married this guy, this stranger. After another couple of weeks the guy was gone. She told me that he wasn’t living up to his end of the deal, and that was for him to help put me though school. I stared at her, drop-jawed, because why would I accept something like that from a guy I didn’t know!

My mother stole my car from me while I was at work, leaving me stranded. At this point I had moved out and was living with a boyfriend. The car was in her name, but I was making the payments on it. She showed up at my office building, went to the parking garage, and took the car, leaving me stranded there. It was a mess. And a nightmare. And the last time I spoke to my mom. She called me, months later, and left a voice mail on my work number saying she wanted me to call her but didn’t leave a number.

That was the last time I heard from my mother. She’s no where to be found now. My dad has tried looking for her. My sister blames me for my mother going off the grid. No one knows what happened to her. But I made a decision to not talk to her again. The fat comments were daily for the majority of my life. The “you look like the devil” comments came any time I tried to stand up to her for the way she treated me or other people.

So forgive me if I don’t want to celebrate Mother’s day in some trite, commercialized way. I don’t have a mother. I have a woman who gave birth to me, but a mother, the mother I would be if I wanted kids, is not the woman she was to me.

So forgive me if I don’t partake in celebrating mom’s on Sunday. I still have a few open wounds my mom left that refuse to heal.

What started off as a handful of us lamenting on twitter about the frustrating aspects of various guilds that drove us away from wanting to be associated with them (some more severe than others, mind you) eventually became me sitting down with Nyxy and Aero and putting a plan in motion. Seerail acquired a level 25 guild and set the ball rolling to get GMship and get ready to transfer it over… but where?

I took a few days to look at a few core things that were mandatory and necessary for picking a realm. Not a single one of us were happy with our current realms and all of us were willing to go elsewhere. Once a realm was decided upon based on population, economy, and how many anal jokes and/or references to Thunderfury occurred in 30-40 minutes (none at the time when I was logged in) we started transferring toons over.

We decided on a guild name. We discussed some guild policies that were mandatory. We talked about days and times for raiding and the sort of atmosphere we wanted while raiding.

And I set about writing all of those policies up. I admit to being a bit of a control freak, but I was utterly grateful that Aero decided to take the helm of running the whole operation. Then Nyxy and I hit the final stretch to our quarters in school, her with having real finals, and me with having lots of papers to write, things were put on the back-burner. It also felt really overwhelming, to try to predict and decide how to make it all work.

But, in the end, we created <From Behind>, and as of now we are actively recruiting for people to help us fill all roles for a 10m team. We’re looking to raid from 6:30pm – 9:30pm Pacific (-8 GMT) on Tuesday and Friday nights for main progression type raids, and Sunday’s will be semi-optional previous tier/gear farming type stuff.

We really and truly want the person behind the toon much more than the class and spec they are bringing to the table. Definitely check out the guild site and don’t be afraid to chat with any of us on Twitter or in game!

We want to get started with raiding as quickly as possible, but this might mean we’re running some CRZ T14 raids in the meantime to get some gear. So come, join us, and have some fun!

Mind you, my desire to be thin wasn’t ever quite enough to give up ice cream, rice, spaghetti, cheese cake, Nutella, Candy Cane Kisses, pizza, In & Out, and who knows how many other things I refused to give up. I was okay with my size for a number of reasons, but mostly I didn’t want to be buggered with watching what I ate and exercising.

It’s not fat-shaming, and I know there are some folks who are going to say that’s exactly what it is. I don’t think everyone needs to be thin. I don’t think I want to be thin so that I can get a man to like me. I don’t judge people based on their size and I certainly don’t ascertain their worth based on the size of their pants. I don’t look at my larger friends and think how unfortunate their lives must be. I don’t see them and think to myself “If only they were skinnier, they would be SO much happier.” But for me, it’s different. I’ve always wanted to be smaller, and instead I just found myself getting bigger over the years.

There’s a moment of clarity, though. When the doctor tells you that you have two choices… resolve to have diabetes and heart problems or eat better and exercise… you start making the touch decisions. I’ve spent years trying diets. I was always the “fat sister” who was smart. I exercised in gyms, and I tried running. Oh running! I’ve never been much of a runner. Even when I was young and healthy and not facing life-shortening conditions I hated running. I made myself feel insanely guilty for eating out, telling myself I had failed so what is the point! When I wanted some candy I’d stop myself from having any for weeks, sometimes months, until I broke. I never had a single piece of chocolate, I ate entire bags of chocolate. I made up for the months of deprivation and seeming starvation from the food I loved.

I’m not sure why this year, 2013, was the magic year. Why being 34 was my magic number. But I stopped telling myself that I had to be the best at everything. I can’t run a mile straight… SO WHAT?! I can’t really run much at all… so what. I’m still horrifically lazy, and I still enjoy sitting on my ass more than I do getting up to leave the house, let alone exercise. One of the best things I ever purchased was that $100 treadmill from craigslist.

I exercise 4-6 days a week depending on how I feel or how busy I am. Lately I’ve been inundated with procrastination-itis and then having to actually DO the school work I set out to avoid until the very last minute. I walked mostly, that first month. Sometimes for 45 minutes, other times for 2 hours. I bought myself some running shoes. And running socks! And both have made a world of difference in the pleasure I derive from running. I started trying a couple yoga moves to help stretch my long since atrophied muscles (okay not really, but damn am I not flexible for shit!).

I snack on Jelly Belly jelly beans throughout the day when I want something sweet. I reward myself with 5-10 Hershey Kisses if I’m feeling really generous. I have In & Out and pizza when I want. The difference is that I don’t keep eating these things. I don’t have In & Out every other day when I’m having a crap day. I don’t have 3 slices of pizza and instead draw it out and have it for a single meal over the course of a few days. I drink a lot less coffee and a lot more tea. I drink water with Mio added (because it doesn’t have aspartame or sugar, but adds some flavor).

Most of all, I don’t feel guilty when I eat what I want. I make better choices. Not the best choices, but I make better ones. I eat less in a sitting because I’m fat not because I always ate horrible food, but because I ate enough food for two people with every meal. If I skip a day because I’m sore, or tired, or really just want to veg out playing WoW for 4 hours… I still don’t feel guilty. It’s a funny little philosophy, treating each day like it’s a new one, but that’s really what I’ve done. If I make terrible food choices today, tomorrow is another opportunity for me to make better ones!

I’ve noticed that I choose less sugar-filled products. I notice that while my brain said I want the ice cream in the freezer, I don’t actually want the ice cream. I see it, every day, but for the last 5 days I chose not to eat it. Today I had roughly 8 spoonful’s of Ben & Jerry’s Red Velvet Cake and that was it. I didn’t need to finish it off. I didn’t even want to eat more than what I had. I keep the sweets around, just in case, but I find I don’t choose them as often as I once did. It’s not because I’ve reached some milestone in life changes and I just choose not to eat it. It’s because I just don’t crave it like I did. I don’t need the sugar for energy anymore.

I still get up from the chair sometimes, and the soreness is a reminder that I’m old, fat, and trying to stop being fat, and I’m tempted to hobble to the kitchen to make another cup of tea. Because in the past I always overdid it. I always exercised more than my body could handle. Today, I resolve in being sore every day, but knowing I can walk, and move, and sit, and the soreness sort of just disappears after a few steps.

Today I completed Week 2, Day 1 of Couch 2 5k. Without a break. I started and finished with no pauses. I ran every single one of those 90 second run segments (there were 6, btw, and for a fat ass that’s a lot of fuckin’ running!) and I wanted to quit and stop. I started off thinking I could do it and by the end I wanted to cry and quit. But I didn’t and I finished it. Sunday might be different though. But I’ll worry about Sunday when I get there.

I wake up every  morning and I look in the mirror. My stomach sticks out just a little bit less than it did a month ago. My shirts fit the same, but my pants are a little bit more loose. I can hold a plank for 10 seconds without collapsing in a heap on the floor afterward. Each of these milestones I accomplish I celebrate, because a month ago, if you told me I could run a total of 9 minutes in a 28 minute workout, I’d have attempted to have you committed.

Tomorrow is another day. I might not walk, or run. I might have more chocolate tomorrow than I had today. I might have a second cup of coffee, or have a Wendy’s Frosty after eating a burger. It’s okay. cause today… today I ran 9 fuckin’ minutes out of a 28 minute workout and fuck yeah, that’s worth celebrating!

Edit: Edited to add that if you wanted, you should join us on Sunday at 3pm Eastern for a Twitterland Running session! Check out the details on Jibbi’s post. It was fun, and we’re using hashtag #Twit25k

Lifestyle Change
The treadmill desk has been a huge success. I’ve worked myself up to being able to fun consistently for 3 minutes straight… which might not SEEM like a huge deal for many people, but when you’ve been such a lazy lump (as I have been) this is a helluva lot of exercise for such a short time. I also have managed to consistently walk at faster and faster speeds for longer distances.

At the request of many people on Twitter, I picked up some running shoes. I probably should have gone with walking shoes, but I wanted to do some running at some point and simply could not justify two pairs of shoes. I also bought some running socks which help give me cushioning and support. I rarely get blisters anymore (unless I push myself too far and walk 6+ miles in a day) and my feet don’t feel like they’re being set on fire anymore.

I’m more careful about what I’m eating and how much I’m eating. I didn’t realize until I started paying attention how much food I was consuming that I didn’t necessarily need. I wouldn’t wait until I actually felt full, so I’d just keep eating until that happened. By that point it was often too late and the over abundance of calories had been consumed.

I don’t have a scale, so I have little tangible evidence that any of the efforts I’m making are creating actual results, but I’ve hit a handful of milestones over the last few weeks. I can touch my toes and I can hold a plank for 10 seconds without collapsing or holding my breath. So even if I’m not losing any weight or changing my actual shape, I feel better. I sleep better. And some days I wake up and feel skinnier than I’ve felt in a long time.

Getting My Learnin’ On
School has been busy with taking 8 units a quarter (which is the same as taking 16 a semester for semester folks). Full time is a bit of an understatement for the amount of work and reading that’s required, but I’ve been managing to stay on schedule and get all of my assignments done on time.

The most interesting part of my classes this quarter is that one of them has to do with multicultural psychology and how to incorporate that into professional counseling services. It’s weird to watch as the other students learn about all of the -isms that exist. It’s appalling how many of them make racist, misogynistic, and homophobic comments without even realizing it. Or how many of them feel this need to point out how their god is guiding them through something or another.

I vent often on Twitter because my knee-jerk reaction is to tell these people that they’re stupid and don’t deserve to counsel anyone for anything ever, but then I remember that not everyone has a full, or even partial, understanding of the issues that people face out there today. While I feel like a lot of the information is stuff I’ve learned on my own without the guidance of a professor, I’m learning a lot about myself, my own biases, and how to handle myself in situations that infuriate me more than it should.

Balance and patience. I keep telling myself this… balance and patience.

Games and Time
In WoW I finally got [Double Agent] by leveling the warlock, and have been slowly working on getting her geared even just enough to run some LFR with friends now and again. She’s finally able to run all the current LFR’s, but come 5.2, that will change and it will be a grindfest again.

I’ve decided my hunter will be my next 90, though I doubt she’s going to get geared in any way. And then the Horde DK. That will complete my [Quintessential Quinet].

I started a little Hestiah on the EU realms, which has been kind of fun. The only downfall I hate is not having access to all of the beautiful mounts that I spent so much time acquiring. Otherwise, it’s a nice break. And it’s fun to get to chat and run lowbie dungeons with the UK folks I’ve gotten to know over the last few years on Twitter. I’m likely going to renew my subscription for at least another month or two. The experience has been rather fun overall… even if the random guild invite I took is being run by a guy who’s kind of a misogynist.

I’ve been playing WoW almost exclusively, even though I got Pokemon Crystal working with functional saving. I have Pokemon Emerald to work my way through. I still have Black/White to play through AND Black2/White2 to play through. I’ve got myself a LOT of Pokemon to play, it seems. I also picked up Fire Emblem: Awakening as a digital download. I should write about that experience all on it’s own.

Writing and Blogging
I’m trying to be better about actually reading blogs that I follow on a fairly regular basis. I’m going to try to use the iPad and a reader app for this, but I find that I spend a lot of time reading random things on the internet as they’re shared rather than following along with blogs. The writing, though, is something I’ve been really terrible about these days. I write less and less often. I did buy a new domain that I’d like to get started writing on at some point. It will be my ranting blog though. I’m not sure I want these two linked, but we’ll see what happens when I finally get it up and running.

There are also plenty of blog posts that I start but inevitably sit in the queue as drafts. I don’t know if it’s because my brain just wanders so much that I can’t put two coherent thoughts together in some sort of comprehendible way, or if I’m just a terrible writer. It’s likely both. Ha! At some point I do have a couple of posts I want to write that are about things I feel pretty passionately about. I feel like those are usually my best posts. But my thoughts jumble so often that I feel like I might need to create an *gasp* outline!

So I purchased a Fitbit One, mostly to help keep me motivated to do something. I snagged a handful of friends both IRL and WoW/Twitter in an effort to keep me accountable as well. You can see your weekly progress as it stacks against other people, which I suppose I meant for it to help keep me motivated by appealing to my slightly competitive nature.

As you can see, I’m not doing too fantastically with regard to keeping up with the others. And the 4 you can’t see in that friend list? Well, they’re well into the multiple thousands that because I rarely leave the house, I find I won’t actually ever catch up.

<queue the acquisition of a treadmill>

I started looking on the local Craigslist for treadmills to see if there was a working and functional one within a reasonable price range. Remember, I want to move to Australia, so the spending needs to be pretty minimal. The reality is that I simply can’t afford a gym membership at the tune of $35-50/month, and it is extremely cold for this very lazy, and very unmotivated overweight person to go outside and exercise, even if it’s just walking. I don’t fool myself into thinking that my health issues, though in their infancy stages, are enough to motivate me enough to go out in very cold weather.

I was told to try to make a standing table/desk contraption to go WITH the treadmill (once it was acquired) and play WoW while walking! This is an idea of brilliance I’m not sure I would ever have put together, but lemme just say, it’s really a great damn idea.

Now you add to the fact that at some point in the last two days I decided I wanted an European (EU) WoW account. Considering the way I’ve been spending most of my WoW time on Hestiah, this seems to be the exact opposite of what I was doing – Grinding reps, getting achievements, farm killing for mounts, and pet battling. Even though I accidentally found out that you can use the same bnet information for both a North American (NA) and EU account, all of the account-wide achievements and mounts would not carry over to the EU account. After much battling with the internet (and google), attempting to avoid having to wait for a nearly 20 GB download and installation of a second WoW client, and the missing addon button for UI necessities, I have a working EU WoW account that uses the same login and authentication (authenticator) as my NA account.

It is almost perfect timing, that everything sort of just worked out the way it did. With my finding a treadmill on Craigslist, and deciding I wanted to venture down the path of “New Player” status (without the nearly 15,000 achievement points, 170+ mounts, and 300+ unique pets), that it would all sort of just work out just right.

I don’t plan on actually running on the treadmill, at least not while I’m playing WoW. I was graciously gifted a EU battlechest license so I can quest and herb EU Hestiah up to level 80. It just seems apropos… new Hestiah, new me.

So this year I am planning to make a handful of resolution.

1. To make great strides toward saving and planning to move to Australia. Even if I don’t meet the February 2014 deadline I’ve set, I want to want to at least make the time between now and living there permanently shorter.

2. Take food choices more seriously, and make better ones. I’m not a horrible food decision-maker, but I allow my moods to dictate what I’ll end up eating. I had made some good efforts toward cutting out fast food, only to pick back up the habit out of laziness. I need to change this.

3. Exercise more. I don’t have a weight goal, but at this stage any exercise is more than what I did in all of 2012. I picked up a FitBit to help track not only my activity, but also my sleep. Hopefully it will also help me stay motivated and help me feel accountable for these things.

4. Write more. I did a lot more reading in 2012 than I had the previous few years. That was probably the only goal I set last year. I reached it, but only just barely. This year, I want to try to write more. Whether it be here and about video games, or elsewhere and about life, or even fiction. Either way, I want to write more.

And with that, I wish you all a wonderful year. Blizzard, for the first time ever, decided to give me a nice surprise. As often as its trolled me with reputations, never giving me mount drops ever, and just general frustration with LFR or PUGs, WoW decided to grant me with Ashes of Al’ar.

At various different points immediately after deactivating my account I had these “twitter” moments. Things that happen, or things I want to share, that I usually share on twitter. Ridiculous crap that often is only funny to me. Other times it’s only amusing to me. But I share anyway, just in case. My particular brand of ridiculous seems to coincide with other’s at times, so why not?

I’m used to internet strangers being assholes. As a female who likes to play games I deal with this often. As a minority (who’s minority status is often questioned because people can’t tell exactly what racial background I am at first glance) I deal with this often. My life is spend advocating on a pretty regular basis. My job is based in advocating for opportunities for children. My schooling will eventually land me in a position in which I will be able to provide counseling and therapy. What I never expect, and what is almost always the hardest pill to swallow, are those people who act like they’re on your side, or claim to be a friend (or acquaintance) only to turn on you the second here is even a hint you might not align with their particular brand of asshole.

Over the last year or so, as I’ve become more outspoken on feminist issues in the gaming industry, and in WoW’s subculture, I’ve gotten a lot of emails, private messages, and DMs on twitter. Many are to say thank you for speaking out. Other’s are to say that they appreciate the less dramatic way in which I present the issues and discuss the problem. Even still, others say that it’s nice to feel like there is at least ONE feminist that doesn’t immediately jump down people’s throats with accusations and labels if a person doesn’t realize that the broader sexism problem exists because they’ve never experienced it, or haven’t been paying that much attention.

In all of my feminist posts the one thing I don’t do is promote hatred. Of any kind. I am of the opinion that hatred is what landed the oppressed in that station to begin with. That a majority, privilege group decided to hate people for some demographic and began their tyranny of oppression. So when I’m told that oppressed folks are allowed to hate, I am very quick to say something. No. No one is entitled to hate. Hate is what got us here in the first place.

I feel as though people confuse hatred with anger. There is a lot of overlap between the two. Mostly because you don’t often experience hatred without a large quantity of anger. You also don’t often experience hatred without long-term anger. And while anger is mentioned a couple of times on that wikipedia page, note that it is not included in the “See also” section. Because they’re two very different emotions/emotional states.

It often feels like people just don’t understand that there’s a difference between hate and anger. As if there’s this unspoken rule that you have to have the one to have the other and that they’re not mutually exclusive.

One of the biggest issues I see is that there is a demand for systematic and ideological change from oppressed people (rightfully so, btw)… but with the use of hatred as tool.

Hatred is what got you here in the first place, whatever position of oppression you may occupy (or multiple positions, as it were). Promoting hatred is not the solution. Promoting hatred and demanding justification and absolution for your hatred is exactly the same thing that people of privilege are asking for and demanding. Also, hatred makes you an asshole. Let’s not attempt to recolor our intentions and motivations with big words and straw man  fallacies. When you rearrange what I’ve said to twist the meaning to represent what you’re attempting to project in order to promote the right to hate, you’re being an asshole.

If you HATE…

* women… you’re an asshole.

The list could go on and on and on. Really. You can put any descriptor or label in there and the rule still applies… you’re an asshole.

Hate is never the solution to oppression. Hate is what got us here in the first place. Hate is only an excuse to be an asshole. Hate will only be a means to an end in order to turn the tables on those with privilege in an effort to become the ones with privilege, rather than enact a change to the system that promote equality regardless of who you are and what label you associate with.

Being angry is justifiable. Being upset is justifiable.

Hate is still hate… no matter what side of the oppression line you stand on. And it makes you an asshole.

I don’t work in the gaming industry, but I know a lot of people who do, thanks to the powers of the internet and Twitter. Recently there was a particular hashtag, #1ReasonWhy, about why there aren’t more female game developers. Or a stronger female presence in general. This has been a far-reaching hashtag sparking a lot of conversation about what’s going on in the industry as a whole. My friend decided to have a conversation with some men on a gaming forum and came to me desperately wanting links to some of my posts.

I originally wrote the following entry as a Facebook email to this friend. Here’s what happened: She is an American who lives in Japan, as there are many others. They are “expatriates” or “expats” for short. She told me she was likely the only female on this gaming forum. All of this information was given to me after I noticed a huge influx of traffic to the blog from some forum. My own curiosity gets the best of me, so I joined the forum on the off chance that I might see what was being said. Turns out it was my friend sharing posts about how horrible people can be on the internet when they think they can hide behind anonymity. It stemmed from some discussion about boob groping, when it’s accidental or on purpose. It wasn’t a particularly academic discussion about the fondling of boobs, but it definitely reinforced the idea that men believe they are entitled to do what they wanted to women’s bodies because, well, “we’re genetically predispositioned for it”. This video was shared, and when I watched it I started to rage a little bit… no a lotta bit.

And really, here’s the part that really got me going… there was another poster who said he was with me up until the point where I called out a guy who was seemingly asking a fairly innocent question, at which point my anger and frustration with the way I was treated on twitter (and subsequently in real life) were moot. I was an “asshole” for lumping him into the sexist misogynists and calling him out on it in my “anger post”. Needless to say, here is the email I sent to my friend with the permission to share as much or as little as she wants. She promptly told me to blog it. That she couldn’t just copy/paste that for such a limited audience.

Maybe she’s right. Either way, here it is anyway.

* * * * *

I’m 34 years old. I’ve been on the internet since you paid for it by the hour. To say I’ve experienced my fair share of trolls is an understatement. The difference between what I experienced when I was 16/17 years old and today is the level of misogyny and vitriol. Let me be clear, there is no “degree” of misogyny. If you make rape jokes you are a misogynist. If you make “get in the kitchen” jokes, you are a misogynist. If you think that it’s cute to make fun of a female by asking her where her boyfriend or husband is, that’s misogyny. It doesn’t matter what your intent was, because when someone makes those comments the person you’re NOT thinking about is the one on the receiving end of the comment.

There’s a huge difference between having a bad day and rage table flipping by way of yelling into a microphone, or typing in a tweet. It’s a whole different ball game when you rally troops to come after a women because she made a comment about a terrible cupcake joke being offensive. Making a cupcake joke was well within his right to make. It was also well within my right to comment on the offensiveness of said cupcake joke. The difference was how both of us acted and reacted after all was said and done. I was prepared to have just said that it was offensive and walk away. He was not.

What I have stored in my pending comments log (that are not public) is a slew of hate comments dripping in sarcasm and vitriol. Paragraphs of this guy threatening me. Demanding he get a chance to make his words be seen on my blog because he was entitled to get to share what he wanted and how he wanted and why can’t I just stop acting like a child and not delete his comments! That because when you google “prosextips” my blog post comes up pretty highly ranked. Good.

What many men don’t realize is that they’re born with this privilege. As a male you are immediately signed up for the fast track on a road to success, barring making really terrible life choices. As a female, we’re stuck in the slow lane of life. Permanently. We have rev-limiters on our lives stopping us from accelerating. We’re rarely able to pass the person in front of us because our gender entirely defines who we are as people within society. Most modern societies. And especially in gaming subcultures.

When you’re born a straight man, you not only get access to the fast track, but you’re rev-limiter is set at an even higher speed when compared to women. If you’re born a straight WHITE man, then shit, you have zero limitations. No limitations on speed. No limitations on which lane you can choose. And you’re allowed to hop into the carpool lane whenever you choose without having any repercussions.

As an analogy, a highway seems fairly ridiculous. Because life isn’t a literal highway. However, the experiences of women will always, ALWAYS be different than that of men. I am rarely judged on my abilities, but often my attractiveness, my distractability to an all-male team, or my fuckability. Even if I were in a world first guild, killing shit as quickly as it’s released, I’m judged not by my ability to play games, but by my perceived gender. I was born a female. I identify as female. My life is the life that a typical female might live in the United States. I understand that other countries handle gender issues differently, but I can’t honestly speak for the experiences of women in other countries.

But in my time as a gamer I have chosen not to speak in mumble, vent, or voice chat because of my gender. For a long time I was angry. Like the typical feminist I was upset at the way I was treated. Told I should be raped by some NPC or my father, if you look at my tweets. That in speaking up I somehow deserved it, because what I really needed was to get laid. Or told that I’m being overly sensitive because I would like rape comments to stop being bandied about as though it were just “par for the course”. My answer to that is no. Never. Not okay. Will never be okay.

Why is it not okay?? Would you walk up to the barista at a coffee shop, not knowing them at all (gender doesn’t matter), ask them to help you change the tire on your car, and then exclaim “We totally just raped that tire!” No? Really?? Cause that’s essentially what you’re doing when you claim to have raped anyone/anything in a video game. It’s pointless and hurtful. Rape is horrible and dangerous territory to venture down for people who don’t understand what’s actually happening when rape occurs. Despite what men want to believe, the number of women who “fake” rape charges is minute in comparison to the number of unreported rapes. But, no one cares about that either. As a man, you have a point to make.

In the US, we teach women to be careful. Don’t go out at night. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t dress seductively. Don’t act like a “slut” or a “whore”. Avoid dark alleys. Don’t go out alone. Carry mace. Carry a gun. Know your exit routes. What we don’t do is teach men that it’s not okay to rape.

Do you know what the first question out of men’s mouths when they hear someone has been raped?? “What was she wearing?” As if anything that existed in the world basically says “rape me” by design! Not even walking down the street naked is an invitation for a man to rape anyone ever. Here is how Americans view rape. Just in case you don’t want to bother clicking the link, here’s the statistics for you. This is telling of rape culture in America.

Out of every 100 rapes:

• 46 are reported to the police
• 12 rapes will resort in an arrest
• 9 rape cases are prosecuted
• 5 rape cases lead to a felony conviction
• Only 3 rapists will ever spend a day in jail

In a survey of 11-14 year-old boys:

• 51% believed rape was acceptable if a boy spent a lot of money on a girl
• 31% believed rape was acceptable  if a girl had past sexual experience
• 65% believed rape were acceptable if a girl and boy had been dating for more than 6 months
• 87% believed rape were acceptable if the woman and man are married

A woman might not even have grown up understanding what rape is…because in a survey of 11-14 year-old girls:

• 41% believed rape was acceptable if a boy spent a lot of money on a girl
• 32% believed rape was acceptable  if a girl had past sexual experience
• 47% believed rape were acceptable if a girl and boy had been dating for more than 6 months
• 79% believed rape were acceptable if the woman and man are married

In a survey of college males:

• 35% admit – anonymously – that they would rape under the circumstances that they could get away with it
• 1 in 12 admitted to committing acts defined as rape, but 84% of rapists did not recognize those acts as rape

In yet another survey of college males:

• 43% of college-aged men admitted to using coercive behavior to have sex, including ignoring a woman’s protest, using physical aggression, and forcing intercourse.
• 15% acknowledged they had committed acquaintance rape; 11% acknowledged using physical restraints to force a woman to have sex.

[x] [x] [x]

This isn’t just about rape, I know. But it is about power. It’s about men having power over me because this is something they can threaten in a way that I cannot. Not in the same way. We’re physically built differently. Men are biologically predispositioned to be stronger, more athletic, and bigger framed.

Rape and gender issues are closely intertwined. And because it’s about power. It’s always about power. And control. And because you, as a male, had no idea the privilege you were given by simple way of being male, it’s more difficult for you to see this, and even more difficult to understand on a level that you can truly and completely understand what it’s like to feel this way every day. It’s also more difficult to understand this because in the end, women are asked to keep silent. We’re asked to shut up about it. Don’t talk about those dark things that are said to you when no one else is around. Our parents ignore us. Our teachers pretend it doesn’t happen. Our friends write us off as insane, man-hating feminists. “Shush, now, honey, and it’ll just go away.”

No. Because it won’t just go away. Not unless I continue to talk about it. Until people start to learn. Until men begin to stand beside me and start asking men to stop treating women poorly.

That guy, Aaron Lee Bentley, in his seemingly innocent tweet, was no different just because he didn’t tell me to “get raped”. His tweet was the equivalent of “what was she wearing?” It doesn’t matter whether or not I was following ProSexTips or not. It shouldn’t matter what I was wearing. Being an asshole doesn’t get excused because you see my actions as more horrible as a reactionary response than his were in execution. He was no different than the “get in the kitchen” girl. Or the guy who claimed I was a virgin and my first fuck would be my father.

Because what you don’t know and can’t understand is that this is what I deal with daily. This is my life. I have to remember that if I choose to wear pigtails in my hair, women will stare at me and think “slut” and men will think “hot, I’d fuck her”. I can’t just BE a female who likes to play video games. I can’t just BE a female who goes to the store to buy some damn nail polish with pig tails. I am a sexual toy for men. And it’s my fault because I have tits and a vagina. (Yes the pigtail thing happened on the day this was written).

It’s not my fault. It’s society’s fault for allowing it to reach this point of inclusion in the ideologies of people as a general rule. And it’s the gaming community’s fault for silencing women for years and years by embracing them into the inner circle when they’re willing to make sexist jokes. The gaming community has asked women to keep quiet about their experiences. Telling women to just “ignore the trolls”.

I’m sorry, I’m tired of ignoring the trolls. I’m going to fight back. I’m going to continue to tell my story (again and again and again) all the while asking men to speak up when they hear misogyny, sexism, and homophobic hate speech. Even if there isn’t a woman present. Even if no one has expressed discomfort. Because the ideologies need to change. And the only way to do that is to keep talking about it.

My fight is not your fight. It will never be. I chose this.

But don’t judge me and tell me I no longer have a valid point because the severity of one tweet didn’t carry the same hateful weight as the others. They are the same. In the long list of shitty things people have said to me over the years, it is all the same.

The difference between you and I? I’m not judging you, a man, based on his male comments. I try to talk to men. Women. People. And tell my story, again and again. And again.

One day, the little girls out there will feel comfortable saying “I’m a gamer. I like games” without their gender being a deciding factor of how seriously they can be a gamer. And they won’t have to justify their level of gaming by the types of games they choose to play or how many rape jokes they can take. They will be female. And they will be gamers.

That is my job.

In the end my choice to tell this story stems from the fact that I don’t play well with bullies. And I’m not letting the bully keep me from telling my side of the story.

This is your warning. It’s your only warning. And it’s gonna be a long post.

When last I wrote about my guild woes, I thought they had all but been dealt with. I had found a good place to call home with Undying Resolution, and I felt as though I was being included in this ready-made family of gamers. I felt like I had finally found a guild that was on par with the way I wanted to play WoW. They were a casual raiding group, but progression-minded. Perfect. I wanted to achieve hardmode boss kills, just not at the break-neck speed to compete for server first achievements. It wasn’t what I wanted and a major reason why I left Apotheosis. It wasn’t rose-colored glasses that I was viewing the guild through. I was a new person, and as with all things when I’m the new person, I tread lightly, trying to get a feel for how things worked here. It’s always going to be different with each group.

Things started to slowly fall apart at some point, though. I can’t put my finger on the exact moment, but there were all these smaller annoyances that led up to me not being very happy overall. I received an email on the morning of Saturday, October 27th, 2012 letting me know that I had a PM on the forums. Within hours of receiving this email, I was barred access to respond or reply or say anything on the forums, so a screen capture of what was said is unavailable. In essence it said that I was being asked to leave the guild, but no reason was given other than “we’re not the right fit”. I was asked to leave quietly and if in doing so, they would give me a positive reference to the next guild I might apply for. I was told it wasn’t my healing or play skill. I logged into WoW and without saying a word, removed all of my characters from UR’s ranks.

Then came the wave of emotions. A part of me felt like a failure. Like I had done something so tremendously wrong to deserve getting kicked out of a guild that touted they were so friendly and welcoming. I was given some cookie-cutter response that offered nothing to explain what lead up to it. I was also asked to keep my mouth shut. After awhile I started to think about this very point… the keeping quiet bit… and I wondered what I had done so wrong that they were asking me to keep quiet about it. That’s like the stuff of corporate take-overs and television shows where shady shit is going on in the background. So I sat on it. Complained about it. Was sad about it for a little bit. But then the real emotions came out. I was fuckin’ pissed the fuck off! How DARE they try to silence me and extort my silence with the promises of giving me a good reference! All of the smaller irritations culminated in me being really irate about the whole thing. I tried writing about it, but all that came out was a lot of emotional dribble that was much more closely related to a disgruntled employee than fact-stating. So here’s the breakdown of my experiences and observations. Please note that this is a perspective thing. This is my experience and may not necessarily reflect the experiences of others.

Raiding specific
At the end of Cataclysm, at least on two occasions that I can remember, people had asked if there was a deadline to hit level 90. Or when the guild expected to start raiding. No date was given on when they wanted raiders to be 90. Nor did they give a date for when they wanted players to be at a certain item level. The response I heard on those two occasions boiled down to this: “It will happen when it happens.” The only reason why this is even being brought up is that there were people who didn’t take vacation, or didn’t have the same amount of free time, and they were inadvertently being “punished” for these things which later became a quip at the end of a raid night about getting your gear up and doing what you can to be ready.

Within days a handful of folks had hit 90. Over the course of the first week there were many people who had hit 90 and were starting the trek to get through all the dailies and rep grinds. There were folks running scenarios and dungeons, only, it was the same group of people doing them. I almost never said anything in guild chat about needing people. On the occasions when I would ask if people were interested in doing runs, the only response I would get were crickets. No response from anyone. Not even a “Sorry, doing dailies, maybe later” sort of thing. It was getting frustrating. This kind of clique-making happens in guilds though, especially when there are enough people to man a 25-man raid. I remember dealing with similar problems in Apotheosis, so it’s not endemic of UR. But it didn’t go very well with the cries of “Help each other out! We’re a guild! Do it for your guildies!” when a core group of people weren’t participating in the behavior they were wanting to promote.

At those earlier levels, if you couldn’t get a guild group of mostly competent people, you were stuck PUG’ing groups. This is never fun early on. People don’t know the fights, but are frustrated by wiping. With guildmates it makes it easier to deal with those aspects of leveling and gearing, and you help each other come up with ideas on how best to handle them. Though, truthfully, the heroics were kind of a joke when it came to ease-of-execution. Considering the people who had complained to me about having the same frustrations, I was surprised nothing was done or said about this. Help with dailies was nearly non-existent. I had help with dailies from two people ever. They were the only two people who ever offered to team up to do it. No one responded when if I asked if folks wanted to do dailies together. At this time of the expansion, I was on an awful lot. (NOTE: I’m leaving their names off in case they don’t want to be associated with this blog post at all).

Then there were these “exploratory” raids. Which happened on Sunday’s and Monday’s. These were previously the alt runs during the latter part of Cataclysm content (and I suspect will be again at some point). In the beginning, though, they were the exploratory raids. A 10-man group of folks who went in to see how the mechanics worked. Makes perfect sense. No problem there. The problems came from the fact that it had been advertised as a non-EPGP event. It was unrelated to the 2-nights a week that were needed to maintain raider status in the 25-mans. The first one kind of happened on the down-low. I was asked to sign up for the second one in whispers. I did, because I feel like I’m a team player and wanted to help out. No where was I told that I would be charged GP for loot obtained out of these exploratory runs. No where. Not even on the night of the run! It wasn’t until I was charged for it that I knew what was going on. No EP was being earned, so logic told me that we wouldn’t be charged, but maybe it only made sense to me. Eventually the exploratory runs started earning EP at a 50% rate. Not sure when the change happened, since, again, there was no announcement. From where I was sitting, it seemed as though there were only a select few who ever actually got invited to go on these runs anyway. Maybe it was because their schedules were more conducive to raiding more often. Maybe it was something else. I can only speculate on what was really going on based on how I felt about it, and my own observation.

The issue of gear can ruffle some feathers and make enemies out of friends. The guild uses EPGP for loot distribution. Some of you may be familiar with it, some of you may not. It’s a type of DKP where EP (Effort Points) are earned for participation/availability/whatever else they choose, and GP (Gear Points) is the value of the loot that’s handed out. There’s some math in there and you get a PR (Priority) value. The highest person with PR gets the item. Except… sometimes that’s not the case with UR loot distribution. Apparently there was an unspoken loot council bit that no one bothered to discuss or explain to me. Basically, loot council is based on someone’s (or people’s) decision on how loot is distributed. This generally means that you show up for stuff when you say you will. But there are other factors involved. Such as who will benefit most from the item, or who’s going to get the higher upgrade. It’s a decision made by people based on whatever factors they choose, rather than math.

Now here’s where my hackles got raised when it came to loot. Boss dies. There’s a helm (ilvl 489) that is an upgrade for me (ilvl 476). In a whisper I get asked if I’d be willing to pass on the item because someone else was wearing a lower ilvl item (463) and our PRs were very close. I say okay, because really, no offense here, but do I actually have a choice?? I get to either be the “team player” who passes on the loot because it’s a bigger upgrade for someone else than it is for me or I’m a “selfish asshole” who says no. I had the higher PR anyway, so legitimately it was my loot. Because I play WoW, and I raid, to be part of a team, I happily passed on the helm. It wasn’t until a trinket dropped later that night when the same consideration wasn’t used. Everyone wanted that healer trinket. Of course we all wanted the healer trinket. And there was only one of them, so only one of us would win it. Except that the person who won it, won based on only PR. One trinket was ilvl 489 and the other one 476. The upgrade “strength” this person was getting was the same upgrade “strength” I was going to receive from the helm. I don’t know how everyone else’s trinket’s looked, but I had an ilvl 463. Regardless of whether it went to me or someone else because maybe they had a 435, or 450, or something, it should have been considered being passed to someone else who might benefit more from the upgrade. This isn’t about me wanting to be the one awarded the trinket, as much I highly DOUBT we were all sitting at equal trinket ilvls But that wasn’t considered. It was based only on PR. Only.

So I asked about the reasoning behind it. Why I would be asked to pass on an item that was a significantly better upgrade for someone else, but the same courtesy wasn’t extended for the other piece of loot, I got a response along the lines of, “I would rather have 15-20 relatively decently geared people, instead of 10 really well geared people.” Which is reasonable, but why make an exception and ask to loot council one item, but not another? Under this logic, it should have happened with the trinket as well, since if only speaking from my own perspective, it was a much bigger upgrade.

It happened again another night, but UR has a stipulation that tanks get gear first regardless of PR. Which Apotheosis had something similar during Dragon Soul with regard to tanks getting 4-set bonuses first, but otherwise there has never been this type of gear policy before or after (per Kurn). Now I understand each guild will set their own rules and guidelines. But let’s be clear, in order to avoid frustration, hurt feelings, resentment, and a sense of favoritism, you need to be very specific and clear about how you’re going to handle things. Especially loot. Kurn understood this and addressed the majority of those issues early on, and addressed them transparently if things came up. And you know what I remember? If so-and-so won and item and it was a bigger upgrade for someone else, the two people would discuss and trade accordingly. Ask for EPGP to be adjusted. It fosters camaraderie in your ranks if you let them initiate these things. No officer or raid leader ever asked for someone to pass on loot. If I remember correctly, eventually an additional button was added for “Minor Upgrade” to differentiate from “Major Upgrade” to solve some of these issues. UR didn’t, at the time of my leaving, have this option.

Guild Policies and Personal Issues
I understand how councils work. I understand how boards work. I get that there are discussions that go on behind closed doors that not everyone is privy to. Except one of the things UR failed at being was very transparent. They asked you to read guidelines and policies, but these were altered and changed on the fly. No explanation given. As opposed to the way things went in Apotheosis, where even though none of the raiders were told verbatim what was said in officer meetings, we were at least let in on those subjects that directly related to raiders. If a policy changed, or was in consideration of change, we were told of these things. UR, to the best of my knowledge, did not handle things this way.

One of these things that would have been a deal-breaker for me early on was the decision to transition from a casual, progression-minded 25-man raid team to a more hardcore-minded 25-man raid team. Everything that was being advertised, everything that was being said, still centered on the “casual”. Except there was nothing casual about how they were handling the MoP raids. People who didn’t level as quickly were sat, but with no deadline in place you left people to their own devices. In conversations I was told that “it should be understood that you do what you need to do”. I’m sorry, but no, this doesn’t work. Taking into consideration the range of work schedules, school schedules, people who took vacation and people who didn’t take vacation, people who like running dungeons versus people who would rather do dailies, etc (this list could go on and on), you have to set deadlines. You cannot arbitrarily expect everyone to have the same priorities and expectations as you if you don’t set them. It doesn’t matter now, this far into the expansion, but it would have been beneficial prior to going into MoP.

There was very blatant favoritism as well. I can speculate and theorize about why I was asked to pass on loot for someone else, as the timing was convenient to the email/PM asking me to leave, but I’ll never know whether or not it was intentional to ask me to pass loot to someone who was going to remain on the team when I was being let go. Beyond that, it was obvious when some people were invited to dungeons, exploration nights, etc. And it was obvious when people weren’t invited.

Semi-early on I got into a discussion on twitter with a guildmate about something feminism related. At multiple times in the discussion I said that Twitter was a terrible forum for that type of discussion, and multiple times he continued to engage. One of the officer-team reminded me of the social media policy, though I wasn’t rude or nasty to anyone. I didn’t name call or disrespect anyone. The social media policy was much more vague than what they wanted in execution, after all was said and done. In the end it felt like they wanted to control the content of my tweets. I never once disrespected a guildmate or bad-mouthed the guild. I added the disclaimer to my twitter profile that stated that my tweets were not a direct reflection of my guild(mates). But I wasn’t going to stop dropping f-bombs just because someone else doesn’t use them and thinks that it’s something I shouldn’t be doing. And I wasn’t going to stop being a feminist, publicly, just because of some invisible social media policy that did not specify to avoid all topics of controversy. The reasoning was to maintain an image, as UR does a lot of recruiting from twitter. So do a lot of guilds. Especially Apotheosis. The one blaring difference is that Apotheosis people are allowed to complain and voice frustration. You won’t see them say “Oh that shit ass frost mage sucks” when there’s only one mage, thus singling out the individual, but they drop f-bombs and the like. They called out previous guildies who were absolute tools stealing content from the forums and using them on their own. There are a lot of bloggers and people who tweet in Apotheosis. I figured I could handle myself fairly well in managing myself on Twitter. The people in UR did not. But other than the one discussion in which I was asked to remember the policy “but you’re not in trouble and you’re not being reprimanded, just a friendly reminder”, I was never told when or if I had violated their policies. I wasn’t even told that was the reason I was being let go. No, it was other people who told me.

The final red flag for me, which had been awhile coming, was about being an adult guild who handled themselves like adults. I told them at my interview there are three things that will set me off. Rape, gay, and fag jokes don’t play well with me. There are a plethora of other words available to use instead to mean exactly what they want to say. So one day, in guild chat, someone says that something is gay. I wait a minute, expecting there to be a “Um… wat?!” response and nothing. Not a peep. Usual banter commences. I say “I’m fairly certain that <thing> is not homosexual.” No exaggeration, I was told my comment was offensive. To which I responded with something along the lines of what I would normally say of “Actually using ‘gay’ to mean something bad or negative is infinitely more offensive than my pointing it out.” I immediately got a whisper from the person who said it apologizing and saying they knew better and can find another word to mean the same thing. Which I appreciate, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that I was told my comment was more offensive than the original “gay” comment.

I am a huge fan of boob, penis, butt, and poop jokes. I make them. I laugh at them. I enjoy them like many red-blooded human adult does. Hell, on occasion, I will even step over the line and find racist jokes funny, even though I know better. The issue I had wasn’t that it was said, but that I was told that sort of speech wasn’t something that happened, when in fact, it was. That wasn’t the first time I saw it. It just happened to be the most memorable because I was the offensive one. That’s not being an adult, that’s favoring your older members and forgiving their transgressions. That’s favoritism.

Conclusion
There is nothing more disappointing than finding you’ve made the wrong choice. Not just for yourself, but for the group. I feel like running a guild, and subsequently running a raid team, requires a certain level of understanding of human behavior. Including motivation and diplomacy. I started to feel as though there were those people who held back who they were in order to stay within the vague, but rigid, rules that were really more like hints than guidelines. That the interpretation of those rules were left up to the individual. Since my interpretation of the rules regarding social media/Twitter were vastly different than those who wrote them, I was cut off. Let go. Shoved out, more like. And I was asked to keep my mouth shut, no less.

I have a lot of respect for many of the members of UR. I don’t have much respect for the officers of the guild because they promote an unhealthy and unfair environment for their members. The feeling I was left with is that if you try to make suggestions to make things better (because these suggestions worked well for previous guilds) you’re rocking the boat to much. You’ll get cut off.

I helped guildies. I donated to the guild bank. I had an opportunity, at the end to actually profit from UR trying to make artificial amends and band-aid the problem. I said on Twitter that one regret I had was donating 5 Golden Lotus. In my mailbox were 20, from 3 different people. I sent them all back. I regret the money I wasted. But I don’t regret the chance I took. I made some great friends in UR prior to joining them and after joining them. I don’t regret them taking the chance on me when I was severely undergeared and inexperienced, throwing loot at me hand-over-fist.

Depending on the fallout of this post, it may mean I regret the loss of some friendships.

But I won’t be silenced. And I won’t be bullied.

But “you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away and know when to run”.

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I’m going to go ahead and throw this out there, in case anyone was unaware. I want to make sure we’re starting on the same page here before I start getting into the heavier stuff. Ready?? Are you sure you’re ready??! Here goes.

Everyone has bad days.

I know. I’m really pulling some of this stuff from out in left field. I get it. But just go with me on this one for a second. Once we establish some ground work in understanding basic human behavior and experiences, we can then work towards understanding our own experiences and how they relate to others. Then, we might even be able to make steps towards being better to ourselves and to each other.

All of us come from different backgrounds. Some of us have physical illnesses. Others have mental illnesses. Some are just socially awkward and prefer friendships over the internet instead of face-to-face. Some were raised by a single parent. Some were raised by grandparents. Some were raised by older siblings. Some live in big cities. Others live in rural, small towns. Some of us have pets. Some of us consider our significant others and spouses pets. Some of us enjoy dressing up in costumes. Others prefer dolling themselves up in make-up. Some wear tennis shoes. Others wear heels. Some of us obsess over purses. And others have a seemingly unhealthy obsession with nail polish. Some are boys. Some are girls. Some are gay. Some are straight. Some are transgender.

And you’re all wondering why do I feel the need to list all of these things… a list that can literally go on and on, for pages if I wanted. I think a lot of people seem to forget that there are a lot of factors that make up the human experience. Each of these points changes the way we interact with each other and how we talk to one another. It influences the types of people we gravitate toward in relationships and friendships. It changes the way we handle ourselves in certain personal situations as well as in professional situations.

Self-awareness shouldn’t just be for the enlightened. Being self-aware is understanding what triggers you for one reason or another. It might be feminist topics that involve sex crimes. It might be abuse on animals. Or children. It doesn’t really matter what triggers your bad moods, but being self-aware allows you, as a person, to understand yourself better and know when it’s best to just walk away.

The internet has bred a new type of person. Not just an asshole, or a douche bag, but the person who blatantly and intentionally tries to shit in other people’s Cheerios on a regular basis. This type of person has almost nothing nice to say… EVER! They constantly demean and belittle people. They constantly talk down about things. Overall these people bring other people down with them. You decide what the subject is, I bet we can all find someone who is the Cheerio Shitter regarding that subject.

With Mists of Pandaria, though, it’s brought on a whole new breed of Cheerio Shitter. The person who feels the need to get acknowledgement for the things they hate and dislike. They’re in a constant state of Cheerio Shitting that they don’t even realize how much they’ve changed the tone of the game… or people around them. This person also feels the need to point out that they’re allowed to Shit in Cheerios with great abandon, and if you don’t like YOU should GO AWAY.

Damn you for enjoying aspects of the game! Your Cheerios, I shall shit!

It is always the fault of the person enjoying something, not sharing in the negativity, that should be doing something else with their time. Who are you to say that I’m not allowed to be unhappy? No one, dude, no one. You can be unhappy all you want. But why do you feel this constant need to SHIT IN MY CHEERIOS?!

But what about snark, Hestiah? Your title mentions snark!

Yeah. So snark falls into this same category, really. In order for snark to be effective, both participating parties have to be aware that it is, in fact, snark and not Cheerio Shitting. This requires both parties to have even the slightest hint of understanding of the mood of the other person. In essence, it requires you to have an already established line of snark-ability.

Usually guildmates learn to be pretty good judges of when snark is okay and when it’s not okay. Friends also learn to gauge people’s moods and whether or not snark will be welcome or not. The thing is… and really the point of this entire rant… is that you can’t assume that the other person receiving your snark is always in the best mindset for it.

Back to self-awareness. I am very aware of when I’m not in a good mood. My bad moods don’t usually manifest in Cheerio Shitting as much as pouting and huffing about shit. I complain. I bitch. I moan. I might ruffle feathers, but the thing I don’t do is try to drag others down with me. If you’re enjoying something and having fun, I won’t go out of my way to point out that you’re stupid for enjoying it. I won’t point out that Fun Activity is Dumb and thus, by association, I’m saying You’re Dumb. I will wallow in my self-pity, sad party. I’ll take it to whispers with close friends. I’ll bury my face in my cat. I’ll turn off guild chat. It’s simple really. I know when I’m not in the best of moods. I’m not afraid to admit I’m not in the best of moods, and thus probably not the best to be around.

My closest friends will inquire about what’s going on. Sometimes talking about it makes me feel better, lifting the heavy weight in the telling of my frustration. Other times it requires that I do something else. Yup, you read that right guys. I sometimes just go DO. SOMETHING. ELSE.

I might play a different game. Watch a movie. Listen to music. Write. Read a book. Harass my cat.

It’s really very simple. If something makes you so profanely unhappy, maybe it’s time to find something else to do. If you hate WoW, or MoP, so much that there is nothing you enjoy… it might be time to stop playing. Cause being the Cheerio Shitter isn’t really the best thing to put on your gaming resume.

Learning to be accountable for your own behavior is no one else’s job but your own. Know what pisses you off. Know who piss you off. And know when it might be time to hang the Cheerio Shitting hat, or the Snark hat, and call it a day.

Whatever ruined your mood, though shitty, doesn’t give you license to Cheerio Shit. An apology is for when you really do something wrong. When an unexpectedly bad day comes along and blindsides you before you’ve had a chance to figure out what’s going on. An apology shouldn’t be the default response because all you ever do is Cheerio Shit.

Moral of the Story: Stop Shitting in Other People’s Cheerios. M’kay?