I already brung it, bitch. I brung it, opened it, and set it on the table, bitch.

[sarea]

I finished my part of IYOK7. It was apparently so inconceivable that when I called Jade to say that something exciting was waiting for her in her inbox, it took her over ten minutes to guess what it was. She had even narrowed down her guessing to something related to "fanfic" and still she couldn't imagine that I had finished it. She even guessed that Cassie had posted DV16 (I said "no," not realizing that Cassie had, in fact, actually posted DV16). But anyway, now we have to edit each other's parts, make sure that we've got all the details in that we need to get in for the chapter, and then do a final sanity check. Only spanner in the works is that Jade is going to be out of town basically from tomorrow through the weekend, so any delay can be placed squarely at her door. *shifts blame easily*

Know what else I do easily? Cry. Movies, TV, books, all can get me fairly emotional and the tears just well up. Fanfic, however, doesn't make me cry. I can't think of a single occasion in which fanfic has made me cry -- I'm not sure why that is, exactly, as there are certainly talented writers out there who write angsty situations. But man, DV16 came as close as anything to it!! I actually teared up! Which for me and fanfic, is saying something. Also, Blaise might be my new favorite character. Maybe she should take up with Ginny if things don't work out with Draco. ;) My two favorite passages were...

[Hermione and Blaise are talking about Ginny's plan to go back into the past to find a cure for Draco. Hermione is against the idea, saying that the last time Ginny did something so foolhardy she brought Tom back and disaster befell them all.]

"Granted, that went poorly," Blaise acknowledged. "Although I do believe everything happens for a reason." She touched the barrette that held back a lock of her hair. "But the time before that, didn't she use her time magic to bring forward an army that defeated Slytherin and saved all your lives?"

Hermione gaped. "How did you know that?"

"From Draco," said Blaise. "He told me about it. Many times. About how she flew that dragon and saved him, too. I used to think he was just making it up to annoy me, or worse, that it was some perverse sexual fantasy of his. He could be very strange. Did you know -"

"No," Hermione interrupted hastily, "and I don't want to, either. It is true. I mean, of course it is. It was very brave and clever of her, and if anyone could do this..."

Her voice trailed off.

Blaise looked at her expectantly. "Draco used to say," she said, "that there were the kind of people who would fight for you until all hope was gone. And then there were the kind of people who would fight for you even beyond that. I know he thought Ginny was one of that kind."

*gets choked up* *then rereads the part about the whole Ginny riding a dragon thing being a perverse sexual fantasy and cracks up*

[And now, here's Ginny's defense for what she wants to do.]

"Dumbledore let you go back in the past, in third year," Ginny said urgently, "to save a life, and that's what this is for-to save a life. If he were already dead, it would be different, but he's still alive, and he's dying because of all of us, you know that? He told Harry to choose the world or choose him and Harry chose him, but Draco wouldn't let him. He made him choose the world, and now it's time for someone to choose him, to choose to save him. I don't care if he ever knows it was me, I don't want anything for it, I just want him alive. And you and Harry have kept him alive so far, and now it's my turn, this is the one thing I can do, the one thing I can give that no one else can give. And I'm telling you this because I want you to know it, but not because I want your permission. I'll do it anyway, whether you like it or not, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

*SOB* You go! What I really like is that Ginny is doing what she's doing for the right reasons. Before, it was all about selfish intentions, and she acknowledges that. And despite the fact that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, it's still satisfying for a reader to see the growth of her character, to see that her love for Draco is, in fact, selfless. In fact, at this point I would be okay with them not ending up together. I mean, I'd prefer they DO, of course, but if they don't ... that would be okay. It would really 'prove' that her love for him is pure, wouldn't it? Particularly given that Dumbledore apparently has warned her against making a return trip, basically. Ginny's got a one-way ticket to the past. If she decides not to risk her life by returning to her own time after she's done what she has to do, and lives out the rest of her life in the past, and never gets to see Draco again or even know whether he knows she's the one who helped save him, then we'll know that her sacrifice was genuine, and made with a pure heart. :-S

Wouldn't it be weird if Draco et al actually got to read about her in the history books or something? Whatever happens to her, I hope she gets to live a full and happy life, even if it's not in her own time. Maybe she IS Draco's great great great great great grandmother after all. O.o Hahahahahaha!

Another option, of course, is for Draco to recover, then travel to the past to either fetch her or be with her. That's the shipper in me talking, but it's possible. It would also conveniently take care of the Harry and Hermione angst, as none of them would be around each other any longer. But that seems too 'easy,' and yet also messy, so I'm not sure I'd really want to see this. Weird that Ginny living her life in the past (hopefully happily) is the preferred option at this point.

Want to hear something ironic? The thing that might make me actually stop playing World of Warcraft is the game itself. I've been too obsessed with it, and this is life's way of saying, "Stop playing that damn game." You see, after last night's patch, the game just started crashing on me. I could not stay logged on for longer than 5 seconds. It was frustrating to the extreme. I made all sorts of adjustments, downloading new drivers, etc., but nothing helped. I wanted to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt, but it seems clear that there was something wrong with the patch they issued (which is annoying because they were trying to fix some other problem for Macs, and now they've killed MY playing). I couldn't find anyone on the boards with my same problem, so I hijacked this thread, and then people started coming out of the woodwork. Gotta hand it to their support staff, though -- someone was actually there trying to troubleshoot.

Problem is, they identified my problem as being a hardware issue, from the crash info I posted. Which, okay, except what about the fact that I have NEVER, EVER experienced this problem until the latest patch? In fact, I was on just the night before, waiting for 3+ hours at Alterac! They said it seemed that my CPU was getting too hot. Well, I don't know what the CPU temp SHOULD be, but mine was 46 degrees C when idle, and 49 degrees C when WoW crashed. Is that abnormally high?

In any case, it now sounds as though they may have identified a problem with certain configurations of the Athlon XP mainboard, which is just fantastic, since it is, of course, the one I have. But I'm also glad, because at least I'm not alone, and with this many people up in arms they're sure to do something about it (hopefully). Also I'm glad because it sounds to me like there IS a problem with the software, which might then affect my hardware (and CPU temp). Because the last thing I need is MORE problems with my hardware.

If they don't get it fixed soon, I'm canceling my account. I can't even freaking PLAY the game, so why should I be paying for it? *fumes*

Comments

[akscully.livejournal.com]

Making Ginny Draco's great to the nth degree grandmother would make the whole fanfic circle complete.

:( about WoW. I can't believe it's because your CPU is running hot or because you overclocked it. You just put it together so everything should be clean. :(

We could always play Guild Wars. Or, you know, get to sleep at a proper time.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Making Ginny Draco's great to the nth degree grandmother would make the whole fanfic circle complete.

It really would.

Yeah, the fact that I put it together is actually what makes me more willing than usual to accept that it MIGHT be a hardware problem on my end -- except for all the people who are having similar issues.

The latest reply from a Blizzard rep, when I said something about fixing things for 10 people and creating problems for 100:

Speaking as someone who has seen the technical support side after every patch, I can assure you that this patch is no different than the previous ones in the quantity of players having difficulties. It is also only affecting a small, but not unimportant, minority.

It is not a problem affecting a large percentage of players, almost .5% approximately.

As I said, that does not mean that you are unimportant, it just puts the problem in a more accurate perspective.

1) Holy crap if you see this kind of negative response after every patch. What the hell are you doing in your coding? Have you ever heard of testing the crap out of something before releasing it to the public?

2) Since I've been lucky enough never to have had any problems until this one, I'll just have to take their word for it that the volume is the same.

3) How much do you want to bet that the .5% or whatever is still higher than the number of machines they actually fixed with the patch?

Anyway, even if my CPU was getting overheated (still don't know what the temp SHOULD be), it just seems too much like a freakish coincidence that I've never had this problem before the patch, and now am only having it along with dozens of other people.

I haven't heard much about Guild Wars. Maybe we SHOULD move on. Though I'm sure it'll come with its own set of problems. Sleeping is of the good, though. I actually fell asleep before midnight last night, which hasn't happened in I don't know how long!

What's your mainboard, btw?

[akscully.livejournal.com]

There's always going to be some problem with patches. People have weird setups and the patch is going to wonk out on someone. .5% out of 2 million subscribers is 10000. It sounds like a lot, but it's not.

Anyway, seems like Athlon CPUs run have critical temps of anywhere from 65 to 90 degrees C so your board definitely isn't overheating. It's definitely something with the patch. Although, did you say you had done a Windows update recently? Maybe that switched some things around?

Guild Wars thing is that most of it is instanced and you don't pay a monthly fee, so that's kind of neat.

I've got an Athlon processor as well. Er, Athlon 64, I believe. ABIT motherboard.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

No, 10,000 users is chump change. I agree with that; I just didn't realize it was really so few of us. Maybe that's why I have this fear that they're not actually going to do anything as fast as they can, because what's $150,000 to a company that makes millions and millions? But I do wonder how many Mac users were having the Battlegrounds problem who had their problem fixed by the hotfix -- are there even 10,000 Mac users playing WoW? : )

I only asked you about the Windows update because early on, I was looking into FAQs and what not, and every one of them was like, "make sure your system updates are up-to-date" etc. I was already crashing. So then I went and got the new Windows Updates, but it continued to crash after that. So pretty much I've ruled that out as well.

Mine is also ABIT, but Athlon XP, not 64. That *one* rep said something about there possibly being issues with Athlon XPs, but I haven't heard anything definitive about it since.

What I'd love is for them to roll back the latest patch, especially if it did create more problems than it solved. Sure, the people whose problems got fixed with this one probably wouldn't like that too much, but it's just really frustrating to experience for myself -- and read about all the other people who are experiencing it -- a game that worked perfectly until they tried to fix something that had nothing to do with me or my machine. To quote Stan, "Dude, that's pretty fucked up right here."

[akscully.livejournal.com]

Sigh, WoW, sigh. I wish it had been doing some sort of Windows update. That would have made life much easier. Them getting back to you when they said they would would also be cool.

It is very frustrating. :( Here look at an adorable old couple. Sure, he's dead now but come on, how cute is that picture?

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Yeah, anything that would have been something *I* could do to fix the problem would be nice. But now I'm dependent on someone else (which I hate), meaning who the heck knows when/if it'll be fixed. I need to go look at my account settings and see when they're going to bill me next. No way am I letting it go on if it hasn't been fixed.

If only WoW and I could have had a marriage like that. But no, I find out that it's an inconstant whore, being totally unreliable, saying everything is my fault, and having affairs with Macs on the side. If it doesn't shape up, I'm filing for divorce.

[akscully.livejournal.com]

I enjoy how you made that article all about you.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

EVERYTHING IS ABOUT ME.

Also, my account just got reupped three days ago.

To quote Cartman, "Goddammit!"

[akscully.livejournal.com]

To quote Nelson, "Ha ha!"

I'm going to buy Guild Wars and check it out. With no subscription fee, I have little to lose.

OH! Also! Haha, remember the D/G romance novel? Hahahahaha, so there were secondary characters who were obviously getting their own novel and I did grab it off the library book donation table (where I get all my trashy novels) and guess what? They ALMOST put the eight ball in the side pocket too! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Clearly the author has a thing for billiards tables. And they were also like D/G. She even had red hair!

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

To quote Kenny, "Mhrm hrmr mrh mrrhr!!"

OMG who is the author of these trashy novels you keep getting that are like D/G??? I might have to look her up. GOD KNOWS I WON'T BE DOING ANYTHING ELSE, LIKE PLAYING WARCRAFT.

True re: no subscription fee. I'll look into getting it, myself.

[akscully.livejournal.com]

I wish I had the novels here. Of course, you probably won't think they're anything like D/G at all but who cares. TWO novels with sex on a billiards table. What are the odds??? However, the sex scene wasn't that great. One, he was delirious with fever so wtf. Also, the phrase, "she felt his firm, fleshy tip at her opening" was in it. Yikes.

Wait, I just googled the title--Ann Elizabeth Cree is the author. Sometimes I really love rotting my brain.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

It is done. I bought a new/sealed copy of the game off eBay for a total of $43. Not too bad of an investment, even if apparently the level cap is 20. O.o And also apparently we have to play together all the time. But if I sedate myself it might be okay.

[akscully.livejournal.com]

I just picked it up. It's fun! It's weird getting used to the controls though.

It doesn't look like you have to play together all the time but if you're on at the same time and you want to see each other outside of the towns, you'll have to be in a party together.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Ack! What's weird about the controls?

And which "profession" are you playing? It's going to take some getting used to this new lingo. I had all the WoW classes down, but I don't know if it translates really well; like, would I enjoy playing the mage-like character on GW the way I do on WoW?

Also, I've written my "Dear WoW" letter. I've canceled my recurring subscription, and was about to cancel my account entirely, only when you do that they give you all this "pleeeeease give us a second chance, don't make the peon cry!" language, so I've emailed them to do just that. If they're still being ostriches, and all, "it's your problem, not ours," then I really have no choice BUT to cancel. I mean, it's not even in retaliation or anything like that, it's just common sense. I mean, I can't PLAY. What good does a subscription do me?

The very latest, btw, was even more disheartening than previous posts. I had thought that they were working on a fix this whole time, and instead what a rep posted was the following:

The other common misconception is that the latest patch has caused some sort of problem. We have heard this from a subset of customers with every patch we have released since beta. The reality of the situation is that while there are 50 or so of you who had a problem that popped up after the most recent patch, there are 2 million others who did not. With those numbers, the group of people who started having problems immediately after the most recent patch is 0.0025% of the player population. This is easily small enough to be accounted for by coincidence.

Because users see 20-50 people posting that they're having a problem, the impression is that there is some global issue that Blizzard needs to acknowledge. Perhaps there is, and we take every error report very seriously, but again remember that those people account for a tiny fraction of a percent, so it is just as likely, or even more likely, that they are just experiencing a hardware or driver failure.

I have no words for that. I mean ... even if it were true, that it's just a freakish coincidence (which I don't for a moment believe), the fact remains that it's a PROBLEM and that we. can't. play. I've already exhausted all avenues in which *I* could fix the problem; if they won't acknowledge any culpability or issue any fixes, then it'll just remain perpetually broken.

Which ... I so wish weren't the case. I miss it already. It's like breaking up with someone! It feels like there's something missing from my life. *sob* But I shall soldier on ... somehow ...

[akscully.livejournal.com]

No, it's not like, wtf weird, it's just weird in the sense of learning a new game weird.

I've started a Monk/Ranger thing. I get to heal and have a pet! Neat! I also started an Elementalist thing just because. That seems most like a mage in WoW. You can have multiple characters so if you want to mess around with a few, you can. Hahaha, but omg the female elementalist dance! Just...omg. I cry because it's so me. I mean, not the real me but the vivacious, even more fabulous version of me that I project online.

Also, fuck you to Blizz for posting that. Good Lord. Still, maybe if another patch comes out, you'll be able to play then. Sigh.

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

What?! You can choose different elements of different classes (I'm just going with WoW lingo for now)??? Healing and having a pet sounds awesome! So do you have like, 3 characters or 2 or what? God, new games are so confusing.

Can't wait to see the dancing. It must be very whorey indeed.

[akscully.livejournal.com]

It's like have a primary and secondary class. The monk is a healer type so their primary skill adds to their healing but if you choose it as a secondary class, you don't get the benefit of that skill. A ranger's primary skill adds to their ranged attack I think (obviously they're the hunters) but I don't have access to that. It's actually pretty interesting in how you can combine classes and use the secondary class to supplement your primary class. I have two chars right now. I actually don't know if there's a limit or anything.

There's shaking and shimmying and bending forward and it's just great. And the outfit!

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally, it sounds really cool.

I actually went and read some of their online manual after you were like, I'm a priest with a pet! :)) The max number of chars we can create is 4 per account.

I'll have to use this time while waiting for my copy of the game to arrive to think what combo I want to get. Do you think I should go for something complementary to yours, since ostensibly we'd play some together, or should I just go for whatever the heck suits my fancy/something that would be good for soloing?

I guess I'm going to bed now. It's not even 11. That's just not right. :((

[akscully.livejournal.com]

I think you should get whatever you want. Elementalist/Mesmer might be cool. It's like a mage that puts the whammy on people. Or, if you're feeling particularly goth, go with the necromancer. They're very pale and angsty looking.

It's pretty easy to get groups, I've heard and even if we don't want to join with a group, they have bots that you can use to come along on big quests.

:(( on going to bed at 11. That's too early.

[hannah-kim.livejournal.com]

If I could express in words the joy and anticipation that has overtaken me from the thought of upcoming IYOK, I would be the greatest poet ever. :D
I just realised I haven't commented in this side of forever - RL has been bitch slapping me all over the place! How've you been m'dear? I don't think I've seen you post comments on Batman yet...though I might have missed it. Have you seen it yet?
Oooh, and how's the ipod going?

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

So good to hear from you! As for IYOK7... Eee, well you haven't read it yet. That's the problem with posting something after a year of not posting -- expectations might be too high, and then it'll just be disappointing. Well I'm stating right here and now that it is just your basic, average chapter! It's just, you know, complete.

I haven't seen Batman. I think it might only be broadly released today, or maybe this weekend, I don't really know. I know that Jade went to a midnight showing of it last night, though, so hook up with her if you want the skinny! :D If it's out this weekend I'll probably go see it. But I'm afraid of it being like a long-unupdated fic; my expectations might be too high.

The iPod's (aka Tiffany) great! I only recently slowed down on the massive uploading of songs, so I think now I'll get to see how it'll be to use it on a more 'normal' basis. It'll be really sweet when I'm on a plane to New York, though. I uploaded the audio book of one of the Georgia Nicolson books, and I'm thinking of loading all the HP books on there, too. But that might take up too much room.

[lissannej.livejournal.com]

OMG! HURRAH FOR IYOK 7. Geez, anyone would think I'm excited or something ;)

[sarea-okelani.livejournal.com]

Seriously, don't get too excited. I know it's been AGES since our last post, but the story is going to progress as if we'd only updated last week. Don't get your expectations too high! :( I'm afraid of what will happen.

Also, I've just seen your latest entry. Take care of yourself. *hugs*