Oh, Deadly Sinner!

I am vain about Sylly.  I’m not proud of it.  Or maybe I am… vanity being kissing cousins with pride and all.  Perhaps the distinction is that I’m proud of her, but not proud of myself for feeling all prideful.  Or perhaps I am proud of her, proud of myself for the work that’s gone into her and the results, while simultaneously somewhat embarrassed and guilty to be attached to the pixels that are Sylly to the point that they inspire pride and vanity in me.  I should call a therapist.  It’s complex. 

The point is… I really am vain about Sylly.  I LIKE her.  I like the way she looks and the things that she can do.  I like her forms and dances and emotes (mostly… there’s a reason that night elf never claps!). I like her stuff and go far out of my way to collect things for her… vanity pets for one.  Oy, vanity pets.  See the theme here?  And things… she’s got a crap ton of  ’em.  She actually has a 22 slot bag that’s devoted to nothing but toys.  Race cars, bunny ears, a haunted memento lurking around the dust and gum wrappers in the very bottom of the bag.  Sylly’s cup runneth over.  (Oh, and by the way… Gluttony, anyone? Avarice perhaps?) 

While I am an enthusiastic fan of World of Warcraft generally, the fact is that my alts rarely see the light of day.  Sometimes I play them, but largely they are dust catchers on a high shelf.  They have their good points.  My mage was a ton of fun to level to 71, but there she sits almost since Wrath released.  I roll them, I play them for a while, I shelve them, I forget how to play them, and they become largely unappealing to me for the most part.  I’m lazy about them, Slothful.  I actually just dug my level 20 hunter out of the attic, washed her down, combed her hair, fixed her woefully scattered UI, syphoned money off of Sylly to help level up her alchemy, first aid, and cooking (guilt tax, no doubt about it).  And I’ll play her some.  I’ll level her some.  She’s fun in her own right.  Maybe someday I’ll have a second max level toon.  Maybe it will be the mage.  Or the hunter.  Or one of the other baby alts (I think there’s a pally in there somewhere, weighted down to the bottom of my memory by all that plate).  The alts are fun distractions from time to time. Sylly, however, shines.  My game is mostly about her.

So there are the very innocuous, NOT vain things about Sylly that I love that make up a huge chunk of my affinity for her.  I love playing a druid, of course, and healing on one feels graceful and finessed to me, even to some degree when I’m locked into a 5 Rejuv 1 Wild Growth heal bot extravaganza.  Sure, the CASTING may get monotonous, but there’s still this idea for me of the HOTs themselves being lovely, powerful, subtle expressions of nurturing nature.  The healer role suits me very well generally.  I love playing end game and raiding and the group work involved, and it empowers my love of Sylly tremendously that she’s locked and loaded for this type of play.  She’s got the right spec, the right gear, the right guild (Apatheia ftw!); all the hard work is done.  I like that I understand how she works, how she accomplishes what she does, how I even get the maths to my small befuddled capacity.  She’s that proverbial old pair of slippers, that flannel shirt with the threadbare elbows that makes you so damn happy to wear.  So there is all of that, and all of that is not a small measure.

But make no mistake, the vanity is there, too.  I have suspected this in the past.  After all… Sylly used to look like this:

Woot!  don’t you miss that T4 set?  =P  Loved the look of that gear…  ahem!  More on this anon.

Anyway, coughing up $15 for a gender reassignment for my toon… yea.  Gotta be some vanity in there somewhere.  I mean, I rolled her as a male toon to ward off as much of the flirtaciousness that is hoisted upon female MMO players as I possibly could long before Blizz added voice chat to the game or I knew a thing about Ventrilo.  But then… so what?  Why care?  If my attachment to the toon was solely based upon the factors above, playing a druid, getting to heal, getting to raid, then obviously I wouldn’t have given a fiddler’s fart how the toon looked or its gender.  But Vent had long since been a part of my game experience when the gender change became available, everyone knew I was a chick anyway, so I made the largely vain decision to trade Sylly’s outie for an innie within, I believe 48 hours of that service going live.  I wanted her to be a HER and I wanted her to look GOOD.  /blush!

This whole vanity issue has really come into focus for me since Sylly gained her full T8 set.  Let’s have a look at her now, shall we? 

I LOVE the look of this tier set.  I have coveted the shoulders for months now (ah, Envy, there you are!).  I am tickled beyond tickled to have it, and I fully intend to skip over T9 unless dragged into it kicking and screaming.  First, the set bonuses don’t stack up to 4pc T8.  But also, and I have to admit that this part is important to me, it looks just god awful!  My vanity about this T8 set that looks so damn GOOD has actually trumped my normally practical and utilitarian nature.  I actually took the time to set up an “around town” outfit option in Outfitter so that I can put on my lovely gear even when I’m in Boomkin spec if I should happen to be running errands in Dalaran.  I blush as I admit this, but it is true.  I wear my T8 set around town.  I don’t want to replace it.  Vanity, thy name is Sylly.

So, readers of mine, have you ever been vain about your personal collections of druidic pixels?  Have you ever indulged in such shenanigans?  Do you turn the camera around to look at “yourself” when flying on a bird taxi?  Do you change shirts to match your current armor?  Tell me, what are your own vanities when it comes to your toons?  Do tell… the devil’s voice is sweet to hear.  =P

p.s. I managed to make it through the post without indulging Wrath or Lust.  5/7… I’m nearly as pure as the driven snow!  mwahahaha!!!!

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