Grinding Rep with The Prancing Pony

From the LOTR trading card game

This post actually refers to a few people, not the inn in Bree, in The Fellowship of the Ring.  Now, it is a LONG and windy tale, to understand the origin of this odd name (not unlike the road to Bree), but I will do my best to start at the beginning.

Before my blog grew into what it was today, I used to read other blogs, mostly druid ones, and thought I would make a blog for myself like that - informative, great reference material, useful.  And then one day I came across a blog, that was not like what I had been reading before, and this one talked about friendship, fun times, pets, raids, mounts... and I would eagerly look forward to the next update.

Sometimes it was a bit like coming into a book halfway - there were so many characters, I probably needed to read the character development a bit more, but it took me a little while to read, and sometimes I would have to go back a few posts and read again so I could get my head around who was a tank, whose alt was that, and that the author was in two guilds and wrote about both of them to make it even MORE confusing.

So, I started to write more about my guild, and the silly things we would do.  I'd chronicle our kills and adventures, and my guildies started coming to my blog to read what I'd written about them.

So whose blog was it that inspired my blog to be what it is today?

The blog was called Reputation Grind. And I would every now and then leave a little comment, especially on those posts with something to congratulate, like a new mount or something.  And Rep (I didn't know what to call him her back then, I still call him her Rep) would come and visit me too and that was exciting!

So I felt like I knew some of his her guildies, from the way he she spoke of them.  Well, the ones that were most clear in my mind were Fayle Cayle, Sorak and Arvash.  His Her poor Crits guildies (his her alliance guild) I have a mental blank about them.. well because they're alliance.  You know how it is :)

Anyway, all this time, I never realised Rep was female.  All her toons are male.  Of course, I shouldn't assume anything from that, but girls tend to play girl toons, and boys play either.  So on my blog birthday, Rep left a comment on my blog, and I said that I would make a gift for everyone who left a comment on that post.  So I wrote her a poem.  And she wrote back to me saying this:
BTW, the toons are he, but I am she. To confuse you even more. haha. I figure if the guys can play sexy chicks and get away with it, then I can play hot dudes and it should be fine, right?
OMG I was SO embarrassed!!!  Anyway, I told her to edit the poem and replace all the he/him/his with she/her/hers ... but she didn't!  I mentioned some of her guildies, and Arvash got a special mention:


And then all his guildies!  So many stories!
Arv is that one who prances like ponies

Sorak’s a tank, And so is that Cayle

I wonder why, his nickname is Fayle?


Arv got that special line because they were all looking pretty and sitting on ponies in the post Did You Miss Me? They all thought I was referring to the War Party Hitching Post.  And now, Rep actually has a tag "Arv prances like ponies" LMAO.  Which she actually used in her latest post Whimsyshire which is a D3 thing about killer unicorns and rainbows and stuff.

Image from Repgrind's post Arv's new Toy.
OK, so now you have the background.  Of all the blogs I read, Reputation grind is the one most similar to mine.  Her guildies are her friends and she writes about them a lot, she loves mounts and achievements, and she has an amusing writing style.

Anyway, since then Arv has been popping around to various blogs, including mine, leaving comments every now and then :)  Hard to talk back to him though, because he doesn't have a blog!

Anyway, imagine my surprise one day when I got this in the mail:

So I quickly went to Drak'Tharon to look for anyone in their guild to say hi.  Of course, nobody was on.  They're all in SWTOR or D3!  Anyway, being level one with no money I couldn't even whisper or send a mail, so I replied the prancing pony and hoped I would get a chance to say hi properly.


So then, yesterday, imagine my surprise when I got a tell in game from Arv!  I was surprised and then he wished we could play cross server - I said you can!  So we swapped RealIDs and we decided to try some BGs, and I grabbed Shab to play too.

I had to check - was Arv a female or a male?  I suspected he was male, but after the Rep gender mistake I wanted to make sure.  Anyway, we had a good chat, and he talked about how the time difference was 14 hours - what a strange time zone I was in, he said!

Spurious Sarcophagus
Anyway, had some good BGs, and some bad ones.  Anyway, Arv in his amazing good natured and kind heartedness, offered me some pets!  Who knew he was a TCG collector?  So look at what he gave me because they were just "lying around" -




I asked why?  He said "Because I love reading your blog."  And I was so... humbled, so touched, so... BLOWN AWAY, that I could not contain it and had to write about it.  I hope Arv doesn't mind.

Arv showing me all his cool toys!

So I'm gonna blatantly plaguarise some of Rep's tags.  Arv is the Awesomest, Arv rocks, and Arv prances like ponies.  Well, I can take some credit for that last one :D


Thank you, Arv, for extending that hand of friendship.  It's funny you know, it wasn't like he was a total stranger to me.  Because I read about him on Repgrind, I feel like I know him already.  He probably feels the same way because he reads my blog.

I'm going to finish this post off with a passage from Saunder in his post That Sense of Community (where I was honoured with a mention that, to this day, I still smile when I read, and it was about connecting with people in WoW)
It came home to me very strongly when I logged on briefly this morning, that the game really isn't the main reason that I play - it is that community, the relationships you build.
Virtual or not, however you catch up with the people in your life, make sure that you don't just let things slide and they move out of your life. Take the time to catch up, to connect. and know that is far more important Azeroth, work or anything else in this life.  Why would you play a single player much game when you can't do that?

Comments

  1. What a lovely post and I'm glad you and Arv got to meet up, Arv does indeed rock!

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  2. It was fun to finally meet you in-game! I might have to free up some mornings on the weekend to raid/group/bg with you and the other Frostees!

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  3. Arv totally rocks.

    Sorry I'm so confusing. I write mostly for myself, so I have an internet history of my adventures. I have never really thought about how it might read to someone else. It's pretty easy to realize that Cayle and Fayle are the same, but then I go and call him Sorak, too, and of course the *guild* all knows he's the same. lol

    Ok, I gotta go send you my stalker ID info and check my auctions so I can get Arv to sell me a grell. ^.^

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  4. @arvash - it is great during these times of low numbers to find more people to play with. You might be getting dragged around more than you bargained for!
    @repgrind - hi rep! Oh I know you keep it for your own diary sorta thing, I am just still trying to know all these characters! And Sorak is Cayle? I didn't know that /revelation. Stalker ID haha! Thanks for being the inspiration for my blog! It's hard to write that as a comment on your blog coz all your guildies would say who the hell is that random person?

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  5. It's always been about the friendships for me-always, and am honored to count you among them!

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  6. @matty - and I you Matty :)
    @courses - Ty :)

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  7. Thanks for the mention, Navi ... "single player much game". Gotta *love* my complete lack of proof-reading there. :S

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  8. @Saunder - crap what does that say about me? Either I have lousy grammar, I don't proof read my own stuff, or even worse I didn't read your post properly. All options have me with pie on my schnozz! LOL

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    1. Oh no, that was the exact text from my post, which I have since corrected :) - but at the time of your post the only one with issues with grammar was me!

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  9. Oh you just reminded me I had a pst from Arvash one day but I was alt-tabbing at the time and didn't see he was on until too late =/

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  10. @Cymre - well go look for him on Drak'tharon and say hi :)

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  11. What a great sentiment: Virtual or not, however you catch up with the people in your life, make sure that you don't just let things slide and they move out of your life. Take the time to catch up, to connect and know that is far more important than Azeroth, work or anything else in this life.

    I couldn't have said it better!!

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