I have created more than one female Darkspear troll during my many years of playing World of Warcraft, but I’ve never leveled them very far. I can’t remember my reasons why, but I’m sure I thought they made sense at the time. I’ll probably never make a male Darkspear troll because their hunching and crouching doesn’t work for me.
A couple months ago I decided to try again and created a female Darkspear troll druid. I have a very strong love for druids now and I didn’t in the past when I’ve created female troll druids. Plus, when I was playing my night elf druid Dax and he’d go to the Dreamgrove, I kept seeing Darkspear troll druid forms and really liking them. With all that in consideration, I thought she might stand a good chance of being leveled.
I named my new female troll druid Zenkaya as a nod to the troll druid Zen’Kiki who is somewhat inept and keeps shifting into the wrong form. I’m prone to doing the same thing on all my druids when I’m in dungeons and hit the wrong hotkey so I picture Zenkaya as a cousin of Zen’Kiki.
I played Zenkaya off and one for a while and then decided to let her build up rest experience like I usually do for my characters. But then the other night I was struck with a strong urge to start playing her again. She hadn’t built up full rest experience from the last time I played her but I didn’t particularly care because I just wanted to play her.
As I played her, I grew to like her more and became quite fond of the female troll personality. Their jokes and flirts are quite unique and it’s obvious they’re not a race to mess with. Both Zandalari and Darkspear trolls are very colorful in many meanings of the word and I find that visually appealing.
I’ve always appreciated their voodoo and their mojo and how “chill” they seem to be. It’s apparent they’re fierce warriors and survivors and I’m in a time in my life where I can use such characteristics.
You see, over the past year or so, I’ve kind of let myself become lazy. There’s various reasons for it, age, hormones, work, college, and so on, but really it’s mostly me being lazy. Excuses are always easier than doing the actual work and I know this, but I somehow let myself slack anyway.
But playing Zenkaya has helped me reverse that mindset. I’m starting to embrace my inner troll woman. It might sound odd that me sitting on my butt playing a character in a game has motivated me to become more active, but it’s the truth. All the races in Warcraft are strong and in good shape. Even the Kul Tiran humans are more brawn than flab in my opinion.
I have an odd but strong connection with Zenkaya all of the sudden and I’m channeling that into getting myself back in shape. My usual ways of getting in shape don’t appeal anymore so I’m switching things up with a treadmill and some home gym equipment. It’s still winter where I live and cold and snowy most of the time so outdoor walks won’t be happening for a while yet. With a treadmill I can walk inside while watching TV and a home gym can help me regain and increase my muscle.
Fitting working out into my schedule might reduce the time I have to play Warcraft, but not overly so. I was spending time sitting on the couch watching TV, but now I’ll be working out while watching TV instead. Playing World of Warcraft will probably always be a part of my routine because I find it fun and interesting. It’s just that now, thanks to Zenkaya’s inspiration, I’ll be in a shape closer to my in-game characters rather than that of a potato. 😉
Srinity 