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When I Was A Rakghoul

Apr 18th 2012

By: Apple

4 comments

So, I’ve been playing a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic lately. Partially because, y’know, I just finally bought it, partially because my WoW sub finally ran out and I’m not renewing it (for now), and mostly because I’ve been mildly miserable the past few days and thus have done pretty much nothing but play SWTOR. I have a handful of alts at level 10ish, and my main (a Sith Maurader named Aellis, who is going to be the materfamilias of my legacy family) is just shy of 25 and getting her speeder license.

And right now in SWTOR, there is an event thing going on. The Rakghoul Plague. It’s really a lot of fun even if I haven’t done any of it yet, because walking around spontaneously exploding is kinda fun, to be quite honest.

But while stuck on one of the EPIC LONG LOADING SCREENS (they take forever on my computer, no clue why) a couple hours ago, I picked up my ukulele and was randomly strumming some chords when I found myself doing a little sequence and going “when I was a Rakghoul, I ate all my friends’ faces off because that’s what Rakghouls do…”

And suddenly I was writing a song. TOTALLY BY ACCIDENT. I mentioned it on twitter and, well, there was some minor enthusiasm.

The initial reaction

The follow-up.

After a bit of technical difficulties, however, I got it written and uploaded! The folks who run the @SWTOR twitter don’t seem to have had the chance to listen yet (not surprising, it’s like 3am here), but they’ve been linked to it and hopefully it won’t get lost in the shuffle – I’ll probably send them the link again tomorrow if I’ve gotten no response, since they seemed interested, heh. AND, you folks get to listen to it, too!

I now present, with no further ado, Mapple’s first foray into songwriting.

UPDATE:

Uh... Apparently they liked it. O_O

I’m… just gonna… go over here. And be mildly in shock.

General, SWTOR

behind the keyboard, i'm the music man
In Which Apple Says Important Things

Mar 27th 2012

By: Apple

No comments

Not TOO much srs bznss though, thankfully.

The thing is, as I said on Twitter a week or so ago, when I changed my Twitter name from @azerothapple to @windandstardust, I’m growing away from WoW. A lot of my friends have moved on. Not all, but a lot. I’m just honestly not that excited by Mists of Pandaria. My big sister is probably not going to be buying MoP, and will be moving on to other things.

And, the big deciding factor, I had a 7-day free trial of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and that plus the fun I had in the beta weekend I was part of has made me fall in love with the game. And once I save up the money to buy the actual GAME… well, I just don’t have the money to pay for two subscriptions, so something has to give. And what’s giving is WoW.

Once I have some money on a credit card, I’m going to be registering a new domain to forward azerothapple.com to until this domain expires next January. I’ll definitely keep blogging, though it’ll be more about gaming in general and not WoW specifically. My hijinks in TOR, why I started yet ANOTHER playthrough of Dragon Age 2, the comedy of errors that is me playing Assassin’s Creed or Mass Effect 2. The games I wish I could play and why. Why I like or don’t like this or that aspect of the new game I got. Etc.

I know there are some of you who followed me here from my original wordpress blog, and probably more who picked up this blog in the time since I got my own site. If you don’t want to follow a non-WoW blog, I am totally ok with that. It’s not like I am the most prolific these days, anyway. :) BUT if you want to keep up with my ridiculous gaming life, we’ll be moving… probably in the next couple of months. I’ll be sure to put up an announcement before it happens, and then the site will stay up for a couple weeks before I replace it with a redirect page.

This’ll probably be the last post up here before the moving announcement (though I am not positive), so if we’re parting ways here, then it’s been a trip, and Maker watch over you. If you’re coming with, though… well, let’s hope this ride is interesting, if it’s bumpy. ;)

General

behind the keyboard
Holy Sh*t He Lives!

Mar 8th 2012

By: Apple

6 comments

Lisan and a little girl with balloons float over Stormwind

EDIT: I’ve got a couple of images that… aren’t loading for some reason. Can you guys see them? Anyway, it’s 6.30 in the morning, I’ll fix it after I sleep. :P /edit

So, I disappeared for a few months there, huh? Barely even been on Twitter, for shame. Lots of stuff has happened while I was gone – though very little of it is interesting. Still, some stuff’s changed! And I’m here to tell you aaaaaall about it.

Lisan, in the fantastically stylish tabard of the Rainbow Bears

As you can tell from her guild tag, Lis has left the loving embrace of <Eff the Ineffable>. It was not entirely unexpected that a large chunk of the Effer raid base left for greener game pastures around the time the new Star Wars MMO came out. Sad, but not unexpected. Things shifted around, and in the end, it was just time to move on, with my trusty sisterthing Fizzy at my side. Or, really, with me at HER side. We rolled up a little guild for ourselves and she gave it THE MOST AMAZING TABARD.

Seriously, take a good long look at that thing. It is ACE.

Lis has, thanks to LFR, actually downed Deathwing a couple times, something I never thought would be possible with her this expansion! Now, I’m sure many of you know that Lis has a lot of backstory to her – she is a character in her own right, with history and relationships and so forth – and from a story perspective, she wasn’t actually able to be part of the assault on Deathwing. She had trauma issues, and a bad injury that was taking time for her to recover from, and she was basically forceably retired. She now lives on a bear ranch with Fizzy Stouthammer, where they are attempting to set up a bear breeding program.

Lis isn’t quite sure how she ended up doing this or why it’s something they need to do, but Fizzy’s a friend, and if she’s not being dragged around to boring archaeological digs by That Draenei (hi, @whatsatotem) then she’s apparently breeding bears now. And being informed how much she’d like Fizzy’s brother, despite her complete lack of interest. On the whole, she’s as happy as she’s going to be, for the moment. And from a gaming perspective, I’m healing from time to time and having a ball.

Molly, badass and angry after avenging Gerk

Mollie has grown up. She’s level 75, trucking through Northrend at a pretty steady clip, and has gone from bouncy kitten to FIERCE BEAR. She still can’t punctuate worth shit in her letters home, and she still hasn’t crossed paths with that big sister she doesn’t know she has, but she’s capable, opinionated, and glad to be able to be a bit closer to home than Outland.

I LOVE FLIGHT FORM. I also love being a bear. RAWR. But OMG FLIGHT FORM. After levelling on Mollie for a while, going on any other character is just depressing. I HAVE TO CAST MY FLYING MOUNT. I CAN’T GATHER AND FLY AWAY. WAH WAH CRY MORE.

I just did the Gerk quests in Zul’drak (I think?) on her tonight, and read that post if you haven’t already, Rades is amazing at getting across the amazing emotional impact of the quests if you haven’t done them. Fizzy remains the best sister, she logged in and flew her ass out to me just so I didn’t have to do the quests alone. Seriously, it’s a punch in the gut, just like the end of the Grimclaw questline in Darkshore.

I do not want to tank on her. Or, shockingly given my plans when I originally rolled her up, heal on her. I do damage as a bear because questing in Northrend as a cat is just suicide, and because bears are fun. RAWR.

Katy, for the first time in ages!

And last but not least, a face that I don’t know anyone has seen on this blog. This is Katy. She’s a fury warrior who was stuck at level 55 for years, my first WoW character sadly abandoned when she unlocked Death Knights for my account, and played so little since that she hit 56 a few months ago and never hit 57.

But then the new Scroll of Resurrection promotion kicked off. And my account had lapsed at the end of February because I was broke. And Megs (hi @whatsatotem) shot me a SoR invite, that came complete with a free boost to level 80 for any character I had.

And I could’ve chosen one of my lowbies, but I thought… I don’t want to level through Outland again, that’s half the reason I haven’t played Katy for ages, it always seems like when I feel like playing her, I’ve either just dived into Outland or just escaped, so I don’t.

But that picture right there is Katy waving to all of you from Vashj’ir. I don’t even care that I didn’t level her all the way there – Katy has hit level 80. My very first WoW toon has finally hit level 80. And before too long, she’ll hit 85.

I am a happy Mattie.

Here, have a random screencap of the beautiful scenery in Howling Fjord

So that’s what I’ve been up to! Not much, but a few fun and interesting things. I haven’t really livestreamed at all in months but I plan to do it soonish, and I’ll try to do it in the evening for all you North and South American peeps, sorry my Aussie and Kiwi crews. I have a shiny new mic, a few new songs, and I miss having those crazy times with you kids.

I hope y’all have been well, and I hope to be a little bit more active here in the near future.

General, PvE, Roleplay

apple's got da voodoo, apple's wayward attention span, bear goes RAWR, blogging, eff the ineffable, friendship ftw, kicking ass and taking names, leet heelz, levelling, lisan, mollie, rainbow bears
Rape Culture and White Ribbons

Nov 17th 2011

By: Apple

No comments

I am so beyond pissed right now that I can’t even put together a proper post on this. Not even a short one. As a survivor of sexual assault, though nothing so horrific as what this woman has gone through, I am just… AUGH.

So I’ll link you to Apple Cider Mage’s writeup and Flavor Text Lore’s post and just… leave it at that for now.

Alyzande, I am so sorry, and I’m standing with you.

General

apple wears the srs hat, pulling out the soapbox
You are not prepared!

Nov 14th 2011

By: Apple

5 comments

So I’ve joined the #GnomeClone army and have become one of over 100 Lilli clones on Durotan-US.

Lillidan is my name. I have dubbed myself Clone #42. I am a warlock.

I haven’t been playing much WoW due to various things, but I’ve been slowly levelling up my little ‘lock. She’s 4 levels away from XP lock and then I will go about getting her geared. I doubt I will be very good at twinking, but it’ll be fun all the same. :) I was part of the awesome Lilli Dance Party in Stormwind last night, and generally I feel like I’m part of something awesome and bigger than just a bunch of identical gnome twinks running around.

I’ve been sick of late, which derailed all my Nano plans, but I’m not too heartbroken about it – I’ll still write, even if I’m not going to hit 50k. My computer’s hard drive died and was replaced, so I lost all the preferences and screencaps I had from ALL my games – I’ve been replaying Dragon Age (both Origins and II) to regain my saves. Plus work, and sleep, and my RP stuff, and cleaning up the house after the mess that always erupts when either of us is sick for any length of time… well, it hasn’t left as much time for WoW as I’d like. Still, it’s enough, and I’m having a good time.

Maybe I’ll even realise I really love PvP and/or really love being a warlock! I’ll keep you all posted. ;)

General, PvP

behind the keyboard, gnome clone army, warlocks do it with demons
What a thing to come back to

Oct 27th 2011

By: Apple

6 comments

So, I get my laptop back and re-install WoW… right after Blizzcon. Right as there’s a bunch of uproar about there being a video played at the concert that was EXTREMELY homophobic and shame on Blizzard for fucking playing it, etc.

Now, I have not seen the video in question. I don’t want to watch that shit. A lot of other WoW bloggers have weighed in on this, and honestly? They say pretty much everything that needs saying.

But I’m gonna say this, because this is a subject close to my heart. I have been called a faggot before. Not even only in a game, but by college guys driving past me on the street. I watched in guild chat back in my first guild as a new raider from Russia expressed disbelief that anybody would stand up for “fucking faggots” and that “in my country, we’d fucking kill them” – and he wasn’t joking. (Though I didn’t always get along with him, the GM earned my respect that day when he told the guy to shut the fuck up and never talk like that again or he’d get gkicked, and then whispered me to make sure I was okay.) Do I let things like this get me down? Nah, not for long, life’s too short and I’m probably happier and more loved than they are. But it still hurts, and it still pisses me the fuck off.

So no, Blizzard, that video was not fucking funny. It’s not a joke to us “faggots” who have to deal with shit like that on any given day. It’s not amusing to say that “gay people are the lowest of the low and the worst insult I can think of is to call you gay”. That video was fucking disgusting, and if you are going to fucking DEFEND it, then in my mind you’re as bad as my Russian ex-guildie who said that all “faggots” should be killed.

Man up and fucking apologise. Not “if you’re offended, I apologise”, but “that video was really inappropriate and we shouldn’t have played it, and we are sorry”. No strings attached, no attempts at explaining how you thought it was funny etc. Just “That was wrong and we are sorry”. Period. Full stop. Post.

Jegus fucking crackers. At least I have my pocket bear to make me smile.

General

apple wears the srs hat, blizzcon, pulling out the soapbox, wtf blizzard!
Missing WoW

Oct 18th 2011

By: Apple

2 comments

So, as most of the people on my twitter know, about… 2 weeks ago now, my hard drive died. I finally sent my laptop off for repairs, and am dreading the inevitable re-installing of a minimum of 3 steam games and 2 MMOs, as well as the re-installing and reconfiguring of my WoW addons.

Unfortunately, this means that I have no WoW. I can check email and do internety things on my wife’s netbook, but gaming is out until my laptop is back. Thus why I’ve been more scarce than usual.

The problem is that I’ll likely be getting my laptop back near the beginning of November, which is National Novel Writing Month. Even if I don’t have my laptop back in time to kick off I’m going to re-tool my goals and work on the project anyway. In order to focus, though I’m not going to be renewing my WoW subscription until I hit December 1st/50k words/my updated goal. So, y’all will be missing me in-game for at least another month and a half.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE when I come back to EtI, there are apparently new guildies to meet, that Fizzy has spoken well of. New guildies are fun on their own, but if Fizzy approves, I am uber-excited to meet them. Yes I trust my sister’s taste explicitly.

So yes that’s where I’ve been. I will probably update towards the end of November with some plans for my re-entry into Azeroth, and I might distract myself with blogging if I’m being lazy and trying to procrastinate on writing my novel. But never fear, I will return with a vengeance come December! I’ll see you then. >:D

General

apple's wayward attention span, behind the keyboard, lag sucks eggs, your mom's interface
IMPORTANT! A personal announcement

Oct 1st 2011

By: Apple

34 comments

I am a coyote girl. I’m a queer little fae one who likes to walk barefoot in the grass. I love urban fantasy and a little sci-fi, and sometimes trashy romance novels. I am a gamer (though I kinda suck at ‘em) and a blogger and an RPer. I am poly and in love with two amazing women who make my life better just by being themselves. I like Doctor Who and Glee and Criminal Minds and Fringe and My Little Pony. I work in an adult bookstore and love it. I love to write, and I live to sing. And I am trans*.

…Yeah, in my first draft of this post I had this bit about how you’re probably surprised, and then Aub and Jaqui proceeded to be ABSOLUTELY NOT SURPRISED AT ALL (Aub called me anticlimactic. ANTICLIMACTIC!) so I won’t presume to know whether you’re surprised or not.

And yeah, I am a bit of an odd duck, even among the odd duck trans* folks I know. I love my breasts and my feminine curves. I still consider myself a coyote girl despite the fact that I am not, in fact, a girl (figure that one out). I have no desire or plans to have surgery or take hormones.

But just because I am not a “normal” guy doesn’t mean I’m not a guy. When I was 13, my favourite activity was to wear a too-small sports bra, dress in baggy cargo pants and an over-large hoodie, go to the mall with my guy friends, and basically get “mistaken” for a teenaged boy. It felt good. Not just fun, not just amusing, but good. And back then, I didn’t even know what being trans* WAS, so unlike my attraction to girls, I never really fought it. Especially ’cause I still liked pretty things, girly things, dresses and makeup (sometimes), so even after I learned the very basics of what being trans* entails, I still didn’t feel like it applied to me. I mean, would I LIKE to be considered a guy? Yeah, I thought, that’d be awesome, but I can’t be trans*. I like being a girl too much.

It’s taken some time, but over the past few years, I’ve grown more and more sure that I’m just a guy who happens to enjoy having what is generally considered “female” anatomy. And still I haven’t said anything. But a few things have happened recently to push me to actually coming out.

The first is the simple feeling of new beginnings permeating my life, with Aub and I moving into our new house, getting our new car, doing domestic stuff like cooking dinner and painting walls and pulling up carpet.

The second is that my wonderful friend O, one of the sexiest women I know, recently came out to the WoW blogging community as trans. This has changed not a thing about how I think or feel about her (she is a sexy lady, full stop), but the fact that she just sat us down and told us meant more to me than I could express when she posted that.

And third, earlier today I came across a tumblr (which I’ve lost since) of a guy who felt no need to “pass” as traditionally male. He, like me, has no desire for surgery or hormones. He wears some clothes that would generally be considered “girly”. He has longish hair, dyes it fabulous colours, and wears amazing theatrical makeup. He doesn’t look like what I would usually peg as a guy, but looking at his pictures, he very much is. Maybe it’s just my habit of interpreting people as they want to be interpreted, but even with his long pink hair, lipstick, eyeshadow, barrettes, and a corset showing off his cleavage, he read as absolutely a guy to me. Not a MASCULINE guy, because he doesn’t want to be, but still a guy.

And damn if it didn’t make me go “…well, if he can be out…”

So, after much much much debate and waffling and flailing and needing moral support from my girls (you know who you are), I have decided (obviously) to come out as a transgendered man, with all my quirks and unique takes on what it means to be a guy.

So I have two requests for you, my friends:

1) My name is Matthew. You can call me that, or Mat (note the one T), or Mattie.I do go by Apple in a few places, and personally I do not feel weird about being called Apple while being a guy. If you want to keep calling me Apple or call me Mat, that’s up to you, I’ll take either one. :)

2) I’m a guy. Please use male pronouns when you’re talking about me. He/him/his.

I know this is kind of a lot to just suddenly announce. I know it’s gonna take some work to remember to use the right name/pronouns, especially for anyone who’s never had a trans* friend or family member begin whatever their form of transition was. And I’m not gonna bite your head off if you slip up every once in a while, so don’t feel bad if it happens. I do it, too, to friends that I KNOW don’t belong to those pronouns, but it just slips. All you need to do is correct yourself, try not to slip up next time, move on.

Anyway… yes. I love you all, I’m still me. Same me as I was this morning when you thought I was a girl. I was terrified of making this post earlier. I’m glad I got to talk to my girls, because I’m surprisingly not afraid of making it now.

If you’ve got any questions, leave a comment, I’ll do my best to answer. And though I would be shocked if any of you guys were douchebags about this (I know you guys and you rock!), if anyone IS, I’ll sic my attack squad on you. Trust me, you don’t want to piss them off.

General

behind the keyboard
Apple on Twisted Nether, 9/18/11!

Sep 16th 2011

By: Apple

8 comments

For reasons beyond my comprehension, as I mentioned earlier, I have been invited onto the Twisted Nether Blogcast! I’m going to be on this Sunday, Sept. 18th, at 8pm PST (that’s 11pm my time). You guys can find all the links and information here on the TN site. Please submit any questions you might have, and share this link around! I’d like to see as many of you there as possible! You can obviously listen after the fact if you’re in a raid or busy Sunday night, but as there’s a live chat during recording, I hope that you guys can come! :D

Thank you all for your love and support. This is seriously exciting for me. Especially since I can’t figure out what they see in me. XD Still, it should be amusing if nothing else! Rades and Fizzy have promised to come, so if nothing else, they’ll probably ask some ridiculous questions. ^_^

General

behind the keyboard, For the Lulz!
Apple on the Twisted Nether Blogcast!

Sep 9th 2011

By: Apple

2 comments

Hey guys! So I am really psyched to let you know that I’m going to be on the Twisted Nether Blogcast next weekend! Specifically on Sunday the 18th. :D

I’ll make another post later in the week with more details and a link to the info page on their site, but I wanted to let y’all know so you’ll know to be ready! ^_^ Hope to see you guys there!

General

Apple's an internet celebrity, behind the keyboard
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