Some of you are staring at the screen not knowing quite what to think after a statement like that, so I'll clarify:

It’s basically a blog-content gift exchange (and it really needs a catchier title), and here’s how it works. If you’d like to play, leave me a comment and in return I’ll give you a subject, or ask you a question … and then you go away and blog about it. It doesn’t have to be a whole blog post, this is meant to be low pressure gift-exchange, but, you know, a comment or a paragraph, or a corner of a post (or a full post, if you want to really indulge me, or feel inspired). And if I suggest something crap or boring in which you have no interest, you can look at it as the equivalent of a pair of novelty socks, say “thank you very much, Tam” and throw it away entirely, and I’ll pretend not to notice and make a mental note not to get you novelty socks next year.

(For the record, in the less-selfish version it worked the other way around: I invited questions / subjects from you, and then I went away and blogged about them. But I decided to go with the version that provided the most interest for me. I am a bad bad person)

And then, if you feel like it, you can throw it open on your own blog, inviting people to comment if they’re will to blog on a subject of your choosing (and I promise I’ll come and do the same, thus offering blogging gifts of my own, instead of just demanding blog gifts frome verybody else) … and thus the blog-content gift exchange programme will spread … like a disease … the nice sort of disease … kind of like syphilis in the 17th century, when it was viewed as evidence you had Done Sex Properly. I think I just failed singularly to sell this plan.

BTW Tam - after putting "syphilis" in there, I don't think it needs a catchier title.  It's catching enough as it is  ;)

This has been a bit hit in the blogosphere and if you wanted to see exactly how far the disease spread you could hop on over to Tam's post to see all the trackbacks or just browse your favorite wowblogs - chances are, they've posted as well!

Tam's question was:

What makes a character “the one” for you, and why do you think you haven’t found it, what makes you stall in levelling and what makes you keep going?

Oh boy.  I know I've mentioned quite a few times here that I am a "one main" kinda girl and that I need to find "the one" before I can settle down.  I don't know if any of you took me seriously or even understood how literally I meant it.  I have long desired to be one of those people that can have a main and then a stable of alts that they pull out to play as the mood strikes and are happy to work on them a bit, then put them away. 

Even just recently there have been two instances of my searching for a main that some fellow bloggers have seen first-hand.  My RP experiment on Feathermoon with Arrens, Tartdarling, LoreliAoD, Aoirselvar and Kharendos, among other Stormwind University students.  I think I went through at least five or six iterations of my "RP character"/potential new main.  They were witness to all sorts of new names coming up in guild chat and me saying, "Hi, it's Anea!" 

Then there was the whole warrior to Death Knight transition that I remember only vaguely (thank goodness) but poor Naithin can tell you all about.  He was also witness to my decision making regarding my RP characters too.  You ought to drop him a sympathy card or something.  My guildleader Elleiras of Altadin also saw this transition, inviting three different characters to the guild - but her sanity is still intact.

But to get to the point of the whole thing, it's largely a feeling that dictates whether a character is a main or not.  And not to be cheesy, a feeling of contentment if not happiness with the character and what I'm doing with it.  I envision what the character would do at 80; I think about whether or not her professions "match" who/what she is; her race/class combo is very important; whether her name conveys things that are important about her class (or a nice juxtaposition of them); I could just go on and on.

If at any time of play something doesn't feel right - this could be anything from her hair not looking right, her name not sounding right, not liking class mechanics, her end game vision not matching up with what I want - she's gone.  If not deleted, then relegated to gathering dust on the login screen.  If I'm wavering around an "unsure" part of whether or not I like her, I'll not level her.  I'll log in and stare at her as if I discern somehow whether or not she's telling me she's "the one".  Another thing that stalls leveling is if I don't know what her professions will be - I can't pass level 5 without knowing professions and training them.  Can. Not. Do. It.

In a masochistic twist of things, sometimes if I feel unsure and am more on the side of, "I don't think this is going to work" I will play a character anyway in an attempt to force myself to like her because I am so tired of switching all the time.  It never works though.

But sometimes there is a click and things feel right and I have found my main.  Under normal circumstances I don't declare them early when I am playing or still in the "we'll see" phases because I am a superstitious person and I don't want to jinx it.  (Shut up.) It's actually been cursed multiple times - please see my Tauren warrior as an example.

When I look forward to logging in - when I'm still happy with the end game vision - when I am able to fight off the "ooh, this class would be fun as an alt!" thoughts - when it feels "right" when I am playing her - that is my main.