I’ve recently become quite fond of a couple WoW blogs that don’t have anything to do with hunters. This is so out of character for me that I wanted to draw your attention to the blogs in question.
First up is the ‘mental Shaman, a blog that “explores Elemental Shaman, Feminism, Mental Health in WoW, and the World of Warcraft in general.” Author Pewter is also a founding member and admin of TotemSpot. The ‘mental Shaman has gotten some attention from outside the WoW blogosphere lately for a series of excellent posts on the gendered experience of WoW and the WoW playerbase.
I’m particularly fond of her grasp of intersectionality. In brief, intersectionality is the concept that different socially constructed facets of our identities interact in layered ways to shape our overall social experience.
In other words, I am female and a gamer and white and disabled and middle-class … and addressing only one of those facets while ignoring the others doesn’t give a full analysis of my experience or of the social environment (of WoW, for instance).
The second blog I wanted to highlight is SavageFury.org, which focuses on feral druids of the so-called kittybear variety. As author Gingershnaps explains: “A Kittybear is a feral that enjoys shifting between tank & DPS as required so is always looking at things from a myriad of perspectives.”
I actually stumbled across SavageFury.org in an interesting fashion. The Cataclysm beta realms are a fascinating mix of helpful, friendly players and (pardon my language) asshats. When you are leveling through a zone — particularly the new starter zones where there are a lot of questions — you quickly get to recognize who else in the zone fits into which buckets.
One day a few weeks ago when I was in Gilneas, I started chatting with a friendly and helpful new Worgen druid. We had a lot of the same interests: hunter pets, mounts, mini-pets, tabards … *grin* And we both have blogs! SavageFury.org is fairly new but already quite good.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed these blogs and perhaps you will also.
That you very much for the plug, and expanding on the intersectional bit. I think I tend to focus on purely feminist critiques at the moment, and I tend to be in danger of compartmentalising the intersectional bit, hopefully I will rectify that in days to come!
Thank you ma’am for sending some of your readers my way! I’m most appreciative :)
I’m really quite honored that you like it since the work you’ve done here and at your main pet site is amazing. Hopefully we’ll get to chat again in game some time!
And hi Pewter! I just stumbled upon http://mentalshaman.com a couple of days ago and really find the posts and comment discussions fascinating and informative.
From Pewter’s site, I followed a link to http://thestoriesofo.wordpress.com. The recent discussions between Pewter’s site and O’s on feminism and gaming have been great reads. It’s refreshing to see people discussing usually “hot button” topics in an intelligent and respectful manner, no matter how diverse the viewpoints.
Thank you again for the link!
Glad to hear it Gingershnaps :)