fun with kum

I got my Love is in the Air meta yesterday by sheer luck and antisocial behaviour. There was a pretty orc on a picnic blanket sitting near the Filthy Animal in Dalaran – so I did what anyone would have done in the circumstances. I threw myself down next to her and started stuffing buttercream chocolates in my mouth until I got the achi… and then I felt kind of grim and embarrassed (and faintly nauseous) and I didn’t know what to say or do to this poor girl I’d just assaulted without even a by-your-leave… although actually, thinking about it, a “May I have leave to assault you now, Madam” probably wouldn’t have helped either. So I slashed-bowed and ran away in mortification. Molestation is in the Air.

And speaking of molestation, I randomly signed up to the Secret Admirer Project over at The Physicians Log, out of a sense of healer solidarity. It’s all very complicated but I think I’m supposed to make a post about it here? <--post about it. It’s a very charming idea but in practice it just means that some poor bugger who would never in a million years want to read my blog is having to endure my dreadful, not especially subtle doggerel for three solid days. But the blog stalking has commenced. *champagne corks and restraining orders fly*

In other news … I accidentally rolled a troll the other day and, despite having failed him from the outset, I don’t quite have the heart to delete him. Basically what happened was this: I was trying to log in to Tam but, being a total spaz, I accidentally clicked the “create new character” button instead. I was presented with a randomly created very green troll with very orange hair, an amiable but completely gormless expression and tusks that looked as though he’d got his head trapped in the Great Lift as a child. I can only think my game was temporarily possessed by the spirit of Nomnomhealz.

But anyway I felt that this troll was in some way the godchild of fate itself … and deleting him would have been an affront to Lady RNG, and if I did I’d never win another roll again and have to spend the rest of my WoWlife wandering around STV in ilevel232 gear, sobbing over the lack of aged gorilla sinew. But I was late for a raid, and I couldn’t think of a name.

Well … he was orange …

What else was orange … ?

Orange? I couldn’t call him Orange, that would suck!

*blank*

*panic*

*alarm*

But then whimsy came to my rescue, and my newborn troll was duly christened. I went off to my raid, light of heart and of step.

It was only a day or so later, when I was proudly telling Chas about

KUMQUAT THE TROLL SHAMAN

and Chas immediately started pissing himself with laughter that I realised the true horror of what I’d done.

I’d created a WoW character doomed to spend his ENTIRE LIFE being addressed as Kum.

The worst of it is, Kum is inevitably going to become my main. And he’s blatantly going to be a resto shammy since I am about as successful at DPS as I am at naming my toons. And it’s going to be awful, just awful.

“Here are the healing assignments guys, Erc on the MT, Nich on the OT and Kum covering the raid.”

“Okays, there’s a lot of incoming damage in phase 3 so I want Kum all over the OT.”

And when our resident squealing mage started taking damage, the desperate cry would go over Vent: “Kum on me!”

WAH!!!

Of course, I should just delete Kum and create a character with a better name but … well … I’m kind of committed now. I mean look at his hapless little face and his gormless grin. How the hell am I supposed to erase that from existence and live with myself?

(God, I should never have children, I’m clearly going to accidentally call them Testicle, Boob and Poohead and they’ll never survive school).

So, following the path of least resistance, I took Kum to Durotar – and here chronicled I have his first moments of life, setting the tone for everything that followed:

The other thing is that Kum is actually, properly cursed.

Despite birthing him, Lady RNG has abandoned him.

The very first quest you get in Durotar is to kill a bunch of mottled boars. It’s identical to every other starting area quest: “Hello there young orc/troll/belf/cow, it is good you are here. Now go out and kill 8 dragonhawks/chickens/piggies for the sake of the balance/the earthmother/your people.” Now, normally Durotar is covered in mottled boars like the sun-scorched grass. You can’t move for bloody mottled boars. There are mottled boars stacked six inches deep, it’s like there’s a mottled boar spawning device stuck in a cave somewhere. But could Kum find a single lousy mottled boar? Could he?!

The next quest sends you off to do the exact same thing – except this time it’s scorpids. And guess what? Go on. Guess. SUDDENLY Durotar was the buffet table at the Mottled Boar Convention 2010, but was there a single goddamn lousy smegging scorpid anywhere. WAS THERE?! Not for Kum there wasn’t.

Finally, about eighty seven years later, Kum had killed the requisite 4/6/8/10 scorpids, and yanked out their eyeballs/tales/teeth. And, lo, he had powered up to level 2. Time for some training to make him marginally less shite. Except …

Somehow, in all the epic questing for level 1 mobs, Kum had failed to acquire any meaningful currency at all… or, if he had, he’d squandered it all on ganja behind my back. Penury obliged Kum to pawn the mottled boar hunter’s pants he’d just acquired from all that scorpid killing and re-equip his manskirt. But he was finally able to harness the awesome powah that is rockbiter. Increasing his DSP by 2. 2!!!! Oh those level 1 mobs wouldn’t know what hit them…well … they would … it would be Kum, grinning gormlessly into their faces … but, y’know…

The final nail in the coffin of Kum’s dignity, putting aside for the moment the twin disadvantages of being called Kum and not being subject the usual laws of RNG, is that the game won’t give him any armour that doesn’t look like he pinched it from his Grandma’s closet.

Still, I suppose I shouldn’t whinge. Times are clearly hard in Durotar, since poor old Alzubra there can’t afford any thread to sew her shirt closed.

So yes. That’s Kum.

Actually while I’m no the subject – I don’t know if it’s trolls in general, or just mine, but what’s with all the random … y’know … squatting. It’s really off-putting. I mean, couldn’t he have gone back at the village?! Srsly mon.

Speaking of which … what on earth is the female form of mon? Kum doesn’t know how to address himself to the laydees.

Further note: although poor old Kumquat is good for a cheap laff on a Friday afternoon and I enjoyed running around with him yesterday, I’m not going to blindly level him to 80 given the drawbacks of his nomenclature. Goddamn it … is no fruit sacred?

Further Further note: I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I get attached to things, and I can’t abort Kumquat. It’s not happening. And ultimately I think the only reason the “kum” part of Kumquat seems so overwhelming right now is because I made such a fuss about it. Ultimately when I see the word Kumquat I think of an exotic fruit, not ejaculation, and I think (I hope) that goes for most of us. Yes, “Kum” is a non-ideal nickname but we can’t go through life being terrified of the vagaries of language. I mean, the short form of Prickle would be “Prick” but that’s not say Prickle wouldn’t make a perfectly acceptable name for a character. So long live Kumquat.