Journal/Meme - "Unpopular Opinions and WoW Speak."

[leskuh]

Stolen from poisonivory:

If anyone would like to give me a fandom that you'd like me to share three of my unpopular (or "likely to piss off someone somewhere") opinions about, feel free to comment.

I like this meme because I get to be bitchy! Maybe!




I made a Tauren Hunter today on WoW and THEY ARE SO MUCH FUN TO PLAY. I don't even have a pet yet and I'm totes digging having such an awesome range to fight. Also, if Calvin (from Ternion) played WoW he'd totally be a female Tauren Hunter and he'd be AWESOME. AWESOME LIKE ME.

Still undecided about whether to keep playing or not. Tomorrow's the last day of my trial. :\

I hate that only Blood Elves can be Paladins on the Horde side. I was basically born to be a Paladin. Defense/Healing? Yeah. That's me. ALL THE WAY. But you have to pay moooore for Blood Elves and they are not the race I'd want to be anyway. Whatever.

The undead are my favorites, but I don't really mesh with the classes that they have under them. I love my Undead Warrior chick, but the Warrior class doesn't completely appeal to me? I do like being able to take a beating though. And when you're Undead you get to EAT CORPSES. It's awesome.

Um, sorry for being so boring and talking 'bout WoW. I will move on from this game soon enough (especially if I cheap out and don't buy it.....).

Anyway, GIMME FANDOMS SO I CAN TELL YOU WHAT I THINK ABOUT THEM.

Comments

[poisonivory.livejournal.com]

Hey Aaaaaaarnold!

[soopagrrl.livejournal.com]

MAKE AN ALLIANCE PALADIN ON VEK'NILASH. FOR THE ALLIANCE! *pumps fist*

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

XD

I was told to "NEVER EVER BE ALLIANCE OMG WE WON'T BE FRIENDS OR AT LEAST DON'T EVER TELL US YOU ALLIANCE ASSHOLE D:< " by my IRL friends who play. Well, no. One of my friends was actually mainly Alliance who recently switched so she could play with us, but the other two are hardcore Horde. And I do think I like the Horde more, but am mostly ambivalent. I just wish Alliance races weren't so boring to look at. :\

I might make one if I decide to keep playing. Otherwise it's kind of pointless. XD

[simgaroop.livejournal.com]

Let's go with the obvious one (for me), The Sims.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Stop playing WoW. D: You're getting sucked in! IT'S TOO LATE!

D: D: D:

(Also, my suggestion of "Sims 2" was already taken, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on some of the sims outside of Pleasantview specifically, since you usually focus on P'view.)

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... this one is tricky.

Would you like me to comment on:

- the fandom itself
- The Sims canon plotline
- SHWC storyline

As I have opinions on all of those things and they are also kind of separated from one another?

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

I'm not! Haha, I sound like it though, huh? It's fun when there's somebody with you (me and Favorite Whale are questing together to level up and it's really awesome), but gets kind of sad and lonely when it's just me. IDK. I have lots of mixed feelings about WoW in general. It's life-suckiness and how I have to pay to play EVERY MONTH (it's not a LOT, but $15 a month adds up quick).

:\

I just asked simgaroop which part of the Sims as a fandom would she like me to focus on. Because it's kind of... separate? There's my thoughts on your story, the PV/SV storyline, and on the actual Sims fandom itself and how it is the worst.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

You're back! *hugs*

I definitely have opinions on Avatar! Opinions that I will share!

I feel the same way. I don't know if I can really handle getting maybe-addicted to WoW. Plus, I hate spending money. HATE IT.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Okay, but be careful out there. It's easy to get addicted without even knowing it's happening.

I wouldn't dare play it. :P I know the limits of my addictive personality.

(And yeah, the monthly payments are no good. Sim games are expensive enough, when it's all added up.)

Well, I can't very well ask for your thoughts on my own story (Oh YES PLEASE stroke my ego! XD), so I'll go with "the actual Sims fandom itself and how it is the worst."

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Haha, I can usually tell when I'm hooked on something. It's a fun game, but I can't imagine letting it take over my whole life. I don't really play it anymore than I do any other game.

It's not really something that completely appeals to me (the worldbuilding they've done is pretty awesome, but I don't care for any of the canon stuff and that's kind of a deciding factor in what I obsess over).

I understand WHY they have to do monthly payments and you can also stop paying any time it gets to be too much, but it just makes me sort of itchy. Especially since I don't usually have a job during the school year. :\

Haha, I already started on that one. So, AWESOME.

I might comment on your story anyway if it doesn't get requested by someone else. I HAVE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT HOW PHI IS FUCKING AMAZING.

[simgaroop.livejournal.com]

Let's go with the Sims canon plotline, since you're talking about the fandom below :).

(And if you can include stuff about SHWC, that'd be neat too).

[homestar.livejournal.com]

I'd say play with meeeee but since I haven't played in months (oh, being poor is fun), it's not going to happen!

But if you find yourself playing alliance on archimonde, my NElf hunter loves doing instances. Be more than happy to run you through since they are FUN TIMES.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

1) I hate Arnold/Phoebe, Rhonda/Curly and Helga/Brainy. All of them make my blood boil in different ways and I have zero interest in drawing/reading/writing anything involving those pairings. You’ll never be able to convince me that any of them are decent pairings. They aren’t.

Arnold/Phoebe is boring. And is cruel to Helga. But mostly it’s just incredibly dull and I feel like it ruins what would have otherwise been a really great friendship between Arnold and Phoebe.

Rhonda/Curly is gross. She said no like 50 times. He keeps pushing it. It’s not cute or romantic. It’s disgusting and it ruins an otherwise fun character. Saying that she leads him on and brings it on herself is HORRIBLE and IT MAKES YOU A HORRIBLE PERSON.

Helga/Brainy just doesn’t sit right with me. It feels like it lacks something. She shows no interest in him during the course of the series. I just don’t ever see that changing. Plus, Brainy is not a martyr suffering in silence while he waits for Helga’s love. He’s a kind of creepy kid, that stalks Helga (possibly more than she stalks Arnold, even) and would have been weird even if he didn’t have that wheezing problem.


2) A lot of HA! fanart is really gross and creepy. They’re nine year olds, not pin up girls. Aging them up to draw nothing but pin up art is actually really creepy. I understand aging characters and giving them some development both physically and character wise, but treating them as sexual objects is just so so icky and will never be anything else, but icky.


3) I’m not really all that into HA! femmeslash. I do love that our fandom caters to the ladies, but it plays into that over-sexualization of the girls that is kind of… unpleasant. Also, I think there’s too much of a double standard in the HA! fandom. Everyone is gung-ho about the ladies making out, but suggest an M/M pairing and people get their panties in a bunch.

Bonus!) Curly/Eugene is CANON an excellent OTP!

Other Bonus!) Wolfgang and Harold are AWESOME and grow up to be DREAMY.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

1) The premades and ridiculous canon storyline are what makes the Sims interesting on a fandom level. The CC junk and Sims Stories that have no basis in the Maxis plot and all the other stupid Sims drama bullshit can go to hell. I’m totally enamored with the Strangetown/Pleasantview Sims and their storylines and that’s about it.


2) Almost all legacies are boring, unoriginal and done to hell. Sims fic, in general, is not all that interesting. I have a hard time taking a lot of it seriously. Plus, my dislike of non-premade Sims makes it sort of hard to get into a story. :\

3) People need to get the fuck over themselves. Their CC/story/etc. is not the greatest thing to ever exist. On the other hand, if someone is creating/writing/etc. something within the comm. be respectful of that. Basically, nobody seems to remember the Golden Rule and all they ever do is rub their stupid egos all over everything and it’s just stupid.

Basically: Sims Fandom is the worst ever.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Money is the main reason that I am trying to keep my distance from the game. $15 a month adds up quick! I did not know you had stopped though.

If I decide to get it for reals (maybe I'll just play for the summer? I DO NOT KNOW!) I shall def do that. I dig the Night Elves, but for the most part the Alliance races are not as fun to look at. Also, a good chunk of my RL friends (who are the reason I am playing at all) are like "FUCK THE ALLIANCE." and have basically programmed me to love the Horde. XD

[homestar.livejournal.com]

I do so love the Horde (I have many many horde alts runnin' round the Trollbane server, eee), but my NElf is the highest level character I have so she's my 'main'. XD

[thinveneer.livejournal.com]

AHAHAH I KNOW YOUR NEW SECRET CHARACTER NOW.
Are you a female Tauren? They always bothered me, because...they have human breasts instead of udders. I mean I guess they're supposed to be minotaurs so they're not really cows but askjfahsiud I just cannot.
I <3 the Tauren area though, it's so much prettier than the other Horde starting areas. That's something else I like about Alliance; their starting areas are generally more soothing to my eyes. But I am apathetic about Horde vs. Alliance. It's a game. I don't care.

Also: keep playing. At least for the summer. :3 Then you can quit. I'll probably quit in the fall again, because I'm gonna be hella busy as it is. But I mean, it's up to you.

Umm. Hm. I have nothing good for your meme right now, sorry.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Heheh. Well, then. Why don't you tell us what you really think? :P

I didn't realize you were "one of those" that wants a story to only include Maxis sims. I can see your point, but I've always thought the superior attitude that sometimes comes along with "using only Maxis sims and townies" in a story is silly too. I don't mind some original characters, and it's kind of hard to avoid if you're actually playing the game.

The thing is... most of the sims fandom isn't even really a fandom in the sense that many others are. The percentage of people who are actually fans of the game "story" make up a small percentage of the whole. To judge the whole fandom by that standard doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

*shrug*

I can't agree with your feelings that sims stories should only be about the sims canon. That's like saying painting should only be "about" the act of making marks on a canvas, and commenting on the medium itself (which gets pretty boring, in its own right). I think it's a great medium for being creative.

Original stuff may be harder to get into, since it requires more work, but I'm sure there are plenty out there that are very worthwhile.

Maybe I'd just like to think that it's a legitimate way to produce original work to share with others, since it's something I've considered trying, but I'm actually just kidding myself? I certainly don't see it as completely the same thing as fanfiction, but its interesting to consider the similarities and what actually draws someone to read a piece of sims fiction.

I like that you can create/compose/publish something so easily using the game. I suppose to command any real attention or legitimacy with orginal work, you have to make efforts to actually publish it? Like, in my case, try to produce a real, physical comic instead of a sim story. But then you also have web comics... does it make a difference to have something physically out there in the world?

I'm sure most original sim stories are less polished than anything that gets produced in RL, and more immediate, but it seems like an excellent way to "practise" for lack of a better word, and also to enjoy the process of creating and having people follow your work (even if you never ever create anything in RL). The way you get immediate feedback (in lj) is appealing too. I've always seen it as a way to grow your skills, and to just get something out there (however small it may be).

Maybe I see it differently because I used to be pretty into zine culture. Seeing self-produced original work is exciting to me. Sims stories follow this same ethos. The game makes it quite easy to create a whole 3D world and pose and capture images, so why not use this to create original work?

But anyway, I'm rambing. That's just my own two (twenty two?) cents.

I mostly agree about legacies. They're harder to get into for me too. There are exceptions, though. There are a lot of funny and entertaining ones out there.

And I defintely can't argue about the egos of the sims comm, and I'm sure I'm as guilty of that as anyone else, from time to time. Are other fandoms typically less ego-filled? I've only ever been involved in one other, and it was quite small.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

OH NO MY SECRET IS REVEALED. However, you don't know my characters name so I shall remain SEKRIT forever. FUFUFUFUFUFUFUFU.

I am a female Tauren! I am totally unbothered by the human breasts, because udders are ugly.

The Tauren area is super pretty! Also, they have some sort of birds in the starting area that CRY when you kill them and it makes it both TERRIBLE and AWESOME all at once. I actually don't know if I'd ever really play Alliance, because they have boring looking races and that's no fun.

I am pretty apathetic to the Horde vs. Alliance thing too.

I should. :\

Don't sweat it, poodle.

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

I'd be more into the Horde vs. Alliance thing if it wasn't decided by race.

Like, I think you should be able to pick which side you want to be on when you begin the game, but I doubt they can really change that now. :\

[leskuh.livejournal.com]

Well I'm not saying that the totally original stories/legacies/challenges shouldn't exist. They just don't appeal to me at all. I don't care about them or have any interest in reading them. It's mostly just a personal taste thing.

Also, I have a sort-of hard time taking Sims stories that are trying to be deep and 'realistic' serious, because the game... isn't. It's over the top and silly and I can't really see Sims as anything but sort of humorous. Like, yes you can have depth in a Sim story, but you shouldn't forget that your 'actors' are Sims and Sims are RIDICULOUS. That means there needs to be some silly comedy to balance out the INTENSE DRAMA. IDK.

Basically, people can do whatever makes them happy, but I only have a genuine interest in things related to the Maxis sims and the Sims 'canon'.

It's like... I'm not that interested in Sims as a fandom, because what I like about fandom in general is that it uses a story's canon and then explores it/twists it/etc. With the Sims, it's like... fandoms within the fandom and it doesn't always/often have anything to do the 'canon' of the games.

I do agree that there's always merit in writing/creating any type of fiction or artform, but I don't really have any interest in using the Sims as a visual medium/storytelling method. Obvs I am one of the few people hanging around the Sims community who would feel that way though.

I think it all just comes down to the fact that I do just skirt the edges of Sims fandom and I have a love/hate relationship with the community.

I really dislike Legacy style. I think it's a fun challenge to play, but a bore to read about.

There are egos in other fandoms, but I think the Sims Fandom has way more fan-entitlement issues than any other fandom I've been in (this includes the crazy Zutarians of avatar who thought the creators OWED it to them to pair two characters off at the end of the series). If people aren't bitching about EA, they're bitching about someone within the community not doing something the way they wanted them to do it. It's ridiculous.

I think it has to do with the size of the Sims comm (which is pretty damn big and also spread out) and the fact that it's so customizable, so that it's everyone's personal tastes conflicting all the time. :\

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's like I said... it's not really a traditional fandom in that sense. You seem to have come into this with more of a fannish viewpoint than most other people I know in the community. Aside from simgaroop, I think you were one of the only people I knew that even used "canon" as a term to talk about the premade backstories.

I'm also obviously a big fan of the canon and playing around with it in that sort of fannish way (that's what brought me here, afterall), but I also like that it's a bit more open-ended too. Though sometimes I'm not sure. :P I mean, we can even argue over petty details like "Tank wouldn't do that because he has 0 playful points" and then someone else says "but in MY GAME he's always ventrilo-farting, blah, blah, blah..."

(The first opinion being RIGHT, of course. XD)

For all I've said about liking the idea of original sim stuff (and I do), I don't really get into a lot of them either. And maybe that's because most of them DO take themselves pretty seriously and tend to use the same poses from the OFB animation box over and over again.

I like the wacky animations and it seems like a waste no to use them. I like drama (very much so), but I'd rather see all sort of zany melodramatic sim behaviour than an update that consists solely of pensive poses between two characters sitting in a cafe (usually with either coffee or a can of Guinness).

But the potential is there to use all the typical game animations. You could have an original sim story that was still very "sim" in its execution. If it was me, I'd still make reference to the premade stories and all that in an original story, even, so yeah... I'm pretty into the canon too.

At the same time, using the game to make any sort of machinima is also cool, even if you just want the environments and use the sims as dolls, completely out of context. To each their own, and all that. It's cheaper/easier than using animation software.

But yeah...

The sims fandom can be crazy. When I feel myself getting sucked into the bitchy, catty side of it, I try to back off for the sake of my mental health. It can be draining and unhealthy. Though sometimes it's fun to get taken along for the ride, like with the babby roaster. Those were good times. :P

Interesting discussion. I'm always sort of interested in the whole question of "why the fuck do we even do this?" For me, and I suspect others, escapism plays a role in it. It's pretty immersive.

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I'd like to hear what you have to say about Phi (whether it's from my story or in general). The popular opinion, like that of many female sims, seems to be that people are not that into her.

I've seen some other Phi-positive folks around lately, which makes me happy. Will_o_wisp is pretty into her.

(Again, I realize I need a Phi icon. I should do that...)

[thinveneer.livejournal.com]

What I don't like about Horde/Alliance is that you can't even talk to someone in another faction. Like, you can type words at them, but on their screen it will be unintelligible.

In the first expansion pack, they made a major city that's a neutral sanctuary, so Horde & Alliance can go there and you can't kill each other. Also once you get to a certain level (I think it's a little over 60 but I'm not sure?) you can choose to join a faction within the city (Aldor or Scryer) that has nothing to do with your race. And also the expansion packs are about fighting something that's bigger than Horde vs. Alliance which is why they share a common city, etc. So even though it would be too awkward to change the original game (they would have to rewrite the history of the world, basically, and that's based on previous Warcraft games so it would be kind of wtf), I think they're trying to make it less OMG HORDE & ALLIANCE H8 EACH OTHER 4EVER AND CAN NEVER MIX with the expansions.

Also I think it's stupid when people irl get upset about Horde vs. Alliance because I think they're missing the point.

Oh, I forgot to link this, lol

[thinveneer.livejournal.com]

http://www.wowwiki.com/Shattrath_City