This is part of an ongoing series that reviews and attempts to deconstruct common tropes in the Blizzard Fanart Gallery. This is not a critique of the choices of individual artists, but a look at the choices Blizzard and those artists have made. For reasons of time/expendiency I am limiting this series to what is...
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This is a personal post, and somewhat rambly. This blog will return to elemental shaman stuff shortly. If you’re wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been co-hosting the Obscurecast along with Gazimoff of Mana Obscura and I left my authenticator at his house after the great Blizzcon weekend podcast-a-thon. I’ve also been extremely busy with...
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That headline pretty much says it all. They hotfixed shaman T10 so that the Elemental Mastery cooldown reduction is now 1sec instead of 2sec. This is an expected nerf, and might explain why our dps dipped a little bit overnight, but it wasn’t in the patch notes so you might not have noticed it....
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I’m sorry, I’m trying to get my existing guides replaced. So no 4.0.1 survival guide for elemental shaman yet. This is okay, though, because I already wrote a guide over at WoW Insider. Secondly you can check out the TotemSpot elemental guide if you want some variety. I also understand that Masanbol is beavering...
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So I was a bit upset about Real ID on the forums, back in July. I’m still not particularly pleased with the in-game functions either, although I do carefully make use of them. Today I’ve noticed a change. Pointed out on twitter by @NDMiko, the change enables users to hide themselves from friends of...
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I’ve been a bit quiet here at mentalshaman for a few reasons. One was that the Women in WoW stuff had ballooned in other places I frequent, and frankly I was feeling drained. Secondly my job has been extremely busy and stressful. nNormally I can whack up a post before I start work, or...
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This is my entry to this year’s Harvest Festival Bake-Off, run by Revive & Rejuvenate! I chose a fondue because they’re deliciously frivolous, and only very rarely do I ever get to try a savoury version. At our parties, the fondue tends to involve lots and lots of chocolate. I’m a big fan of...
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In lieu of a proper post, I present to you a couple of items from the Cataclysm build. One that is celebratory, and one that is quite frankly odd, and a couple of others. There are spoilers for Dwarf Cataclysm Lore and Archaeology in this post. I’ve been trying to write an article about...
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One of the most awesome things about being in the game and in my particular guild is being surprised. I don’t tend to like surprises in my real life. I don’t deal with them well, either due to disappointment or stress. In game (and in my ‘fandom’ life in general) I get to have...
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Arctic & Black Wolf When I first saw the first ever Shaman cosmetic minor glyph, Arctic Wolf, I was very happy. And then I spotted Glyph of the Black Wolf1 , and I was even happier. And then MMO Champ posted a picture of the Arctic Glyph, and I was distinctly underwhelmed. Black Wolf...
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This is part of an ongoing series that reviews and attempts to deconstruct common tropes in the Blizzard Fanart Gallery. This is not a critique of the choices of individual artists, but a look at the choices Blizzard and those artists have made. For reasons of time/expendiency I am limiting this series to what is...
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I am currently working on an Illidan and some Sylvanas Fan Art Profiles, I’d be very interested in hearing from anyone who is particularly keen on them as characters, but in the mean time here is some link love (or what I’ve been reading recently.) Being a Woman who Raids – Kurn of Kurn’s...
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Just a couple of things about the blog, which you might have missed if you’ve been reading through subscriptions. Also I just need a break from ‘real’ blog posts. Sorry about the outage a couple of days ago. Last month I just scraped by with my bandwidth allowance, but this month I smashed it...
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This is part of an ongoing series that reviews and attempts to deconstruct common tropes in the Blizzard Fanart Gallery. This is not a critique of the choices of individual artists, but a look at the choices Blizzard and those artists have made. For reasons of time/expendiency I am limiting this series to what...
Read more »
This is part of a new series I’m starting that compiles profiles of certain themes within the Fanart that Blizzard chooses to publish in their Fanart Gallery. I was going to start out with Draenei Women, but that post is going to take a long time to compile. Future themes will feature each race, and...
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In lieu of a full post, I’d like to offer up two slide shows for contemplation. Whenever someone objects to an over-sexualised character, commenters inevitably come out to cry “but that’s the demographic and that’s fine!” For me, however, that only carries us so far, and is only an answer if the gaming market...
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For those of you that would like to listen, I will be joining Gaz and Stu on this week’s episode of the ObscureCast. You can listen in live at 8pm GMT Wednesday 25th August (that’s 9pm EU Realm Server Time) on Ustream. The episode will also be available to download from iTunes etc afterward. Please...
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![[Discussion] So let’s talk about the men in World of Warcraft](/Code-https-web.archive.org/web/20101127014657im_/http://mentalshaman.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/thrall-300x172.jpg)
Warning: I don’t know how long this post is going to get. One of the things that inevitably pops up in feminist discussions in general is ‘what about the men’. Either it is a criticism cast at the whole idea of male privilege, or it is a criticism at the feminist tactic of shutting...
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