To Imane, pt 79

Started 11 May 2026, 23:58.

Am afraid of forgetting what I want to say. A few hours ago,

"maybe I would have made a weblog post if I had found the PvP video with the song faster, but I might have forgotten what I was going to say and now I won't say anything until after Imane's birthday"

I'm going to find and copy the email I sent to Mei in early 2005. I think it might have been where I said something like "if you meant it, you wouldn't say it so much", but I'll copy it regardless of what it says.

When I said that I l*ved you, I wasn't trying to make you believe me. I also wasn't trying to make you think that I was trying to make you believe me. So can I claim to be upset if you aren't doing anything because you don't know whether to believe me?

It's a problem if there's nothing I could have said that would have made you share this idea. I hope that saying more won't cause me to forget things I was going to say: suppose that there is someone with nuclear launch codes in a briefcase. Even if it was possible for me to talk to that person, there is nothing I could say that could convince them to give me the briefcase. If it was a Mission Impossible movie and I looked like the US president and was surrounded by people who treated me like the US president (and the launch/authorization codes were for US missiles, and supposing that the actual codes aren't a series of 0's like they were at one point in US history), then maybe they would give me the codes. But in any other scenario, someone who didn't recognize me would ask for identification, and then confirm it with calls to trusted authorities. Just saying words would accomplish nothing.

If you thought that the best thing to do was to delay, and that your reason for sharing the idea could potentially be that you like me, then uncertainty over whether I was telling the truth gave you an excuse to delay.

I don't think it was good to delay.

Note relevance of speculations about the different decision-making process between smart people and stupid people, as described in a previous post. A smart person might question everything, like when they ask 'AI' a question and it confidently gives an answer that the person doesn't recognize, so they confirm it before asserting it as fact. (Like when I asked 'AI' for the name of Dylann Roof's friend who committed suicide, and multiple queries gave incorrect names.) A stupid person is more likely to attempt to classify sources of information as good or bad, and then not revisit those classifications until some interaction shows that their estimate was inaccurate (if they can still remember the source of the information that proved to be inaccurate).

So if you automatically distrusted me, you may have felt like you were acting like a smart person, but I think you were actually acting like a stupid person, because you were acting in a way that a stupid person might criticize since it isn't how they would act. Yes, I am saying that it can be smart to act like a stupid person, and so not acting like a stupid person is acting like a stupid person.

I made several guesses at the video that had the song I thought of, which turned out to be Shivan frostmage pvp 2, and it turns out the lyrics that I thought were "but in reality waking up is hard to do" were actually "forget reality, waking up is hard to do." I liked the comment (from a Cyrillic-name user),

 MY LEGEND, I FOUND YOU AFTER 10 YEARS OF MY LIFE!!! TNX!!!

I note that, regarding WoW PvP videos, the uploader of this video also uploaded other videos from Shivan. I have never seen any of these other videos, just this one, and am not interested in watching them now. I like this video, but it's all battlegrounds. Note the suggestion I made a couple days ago that requires being logged in to view, if it's already been approved: [Improve the death experience on non-Hardcore servers]The Classic+ Project. Compare the comments before the '5v5 roaming' section in Polzielol: The True Story, and Gegon featuring unusual locations in his videos like this fight in Azshara. Maybe it was only able to happen because all the participants agreed on the location beforehand.

Looking at clues: Gegon was buffed with Fortitude by a priest, two minutes before the fight, despite no nearby Alliance priest being in evidence. Mark of the Wild is eight minutes old, Dampen Magic is six minutes old. Gegon's ally, Araag, only has Dampen, but other buffs could have been dispelled before the scene started. Based on the chat, it does seem it was a pre-arranged fight, like many other fights probably were. (For example, the coordination for the Gegon vs Polzie fights in Blackrock Mountain, as featured in both of their videos, like the Ornate Spyglass zoom at 14:02 of this video.)

Some of the videos I checked to find that song were the paladin PvP videos by Jamaz, whose Warcraft Movies page showed that he posted a comment on Never2Late ... A Hunter Story by Andoryu. It's another video I have never seen, that says in the description,

Never2Late will most likely be my last video, due to the fact of how World PVP has died off in my server. Even with the new patches for World PVP I do not believe it would be as enjoyable as before.

It was released on 2006-08-17, while the 'PvP patch' mentioned here was a week later, on 2006-08-22. On the WoW Classic Project's PvP Survey, questions 17 and 18, 36% rated the Eastern Plaguelands PvP objectives 1 out of 5, while 41% rated the Silithus objectives 1 out of 5. This can be compared to question 13, where 30% rated the unplanned Southshore vs Tarren Mill battles as 5 out of 5, maybe because they involved actual PvP and not standing around a deserted tower. (I was going to complete that sentence with "even though they had a chance to experience it in 2019.")

Even if Gegon's videos required setting up the fights, and possibly the participants seeing but not attacking each other a minute before the fight started, it's not battlegrounds, so it's better. Sharing a video with world PvP shows what players enjoy and want a game (whether WoW or some other game) to have, even it isn't an activity that players can enjoy or even participate it in without coordinating out-of-game like for the featured fight. (Note that Polzie's video mentioned "roaming 5v5 PvP", which implies that exact locations were not agreed upon, and the bonus footage at the end is dedicated to the players who would spoil these events.)

(If I had correctly guessed the video, all of the above would have been a single hyperlink in a sentence.)

So anyway, the song that made me think enough for me to finally wake up was 【吹奏楽】華麗なる一族 メインテーマ M8 Ver.（服部隆之） [6yqgZWIQ_eM] (deleted), which started playing at 13:31. I've mentioned before, though not to you, that the two hard drives I got around 2010 were named Teppei and Mio. Teppei is the character from Karei naru Ichizoku who is in charge of a steel-making company. Note that via Wikipedia, the first character 鉄 in Teppei 鉄平 means iron. (Tangent: in the science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky, the text has a comment about how the names of the aliens, like Underhill, were still recent enough to have some meaning. Wikipedia lists common surnames in the US including Smith, names meaning "son of" like Johnson and Rodriguez, and Lopez "son of Lope" (wolf), aka "the scrubbiest scrub of them all": YouTube recommends this video which features this same Lopez, which I'm not watching.)

Spoilers, in the drama, this character dies. Just like my silver-colored hard drive named Teppei died, i.e. got dented when I had to carry everything I owned all at once and then stopped working after a month or two of heavy BitTorrent seeding.

Also, I liked this excerpt from a review of the drama that I found:

Teppei wanted to build his own blast furnace and produce higher grade steel than Teikoku. If that sounds like a plot that only a former steel company engineer could love, . . .

What about Mio, from the drama First Kiss? I felt she was another character who had a strong will to live. By naming a hard drive after her, I gave her another life.

In the first drama, the character Teppei dies because a certain other character didn't care about him. Whereas other characters did care about him: his wife can be seen weeping over his body after his death.

So anyway, this is the email I sent to Mei. I don't think I've read it since I sent it:

Subject: concerns

From: Misaki Tsukahara

Date: Friday, January 21, 2005 at [02:05 PM PST]

I've never been very tactful. I suppose the reason I
used to like you more was because I didn't know you as
well. You are hypocrytical about swearing and
roleplaying -- you accuse others of not trying to
roleplay when this would be just the right game for
it, but your character is obsessed with leveling and
doing instance runs for equipment. Besides you seem
somewhat boastful at times, and during the one raid I
went on with you, you seemed a bit power-hungry.
(Speaking of which, you seem to have changed guilds...
what's with that?) As for the whole `I love you'
thing, it's so easy to say, and if you really cared
about me you wouldn't say it, especially not with such
frequency.

misaki

 

From: Kagomitsu Hiratou

Date: Sunday, [January 22, 2005 at 11:26 PM PST]

How am I hypocritical about roleplaying? I used to like the idea of it on this game but no one else does so I gave it up. Even on the RP servers it seems to be no differant. Power hungry? No I just see myself fit as a leader for raids due to my experiance with them. Also, I've just stopped caring how people talk, It doesn't matter to me anymore. Maybe the reason I tell you I love you is because you never let me have a chance to express my feelings to you any other way, also on that note... having no prior experiance Misaki... how do you know in what ways it is appropriate to express ones feelings with only text to work with? I know I really don't know what I feel for you because you only wished to push me away.
 
The reason I left Knights of Eva is long and drawn out, nor do I wish to explain it. But if this is really how you think of me, I suppose theres no need for me to say hi every time I see you online, wish you luck and tell you to sleep well when you turn in for the night... Maybe the best choice would be for me to simply force myself to try and forget about you.

From: Misaki Tsukahara

Date: Thursday, January 27, 2005 at [04:16 PM PST]

Human psychology is complex, and I won't pretend that
I understand myself completely, but I will say this: I
loved how you respected me enough to say you wouldn't
act `like that' anymore, before that first time...

From: Kagomitsu Hiratou

Date: Saturday, January 29, 2005 at [03:16 AM PST]

I'm sorry if I've made you so uncomfterble you wish to avoid me, I guess it's a mistake I will have to live with.

A second email thread. The first sentence, "some things cannot be unsaid", is what Mei said about what I presume was an ultimatum that led to her older sister getting kicked out of the house by their parents and Mei deciding to accompany her.

Subject: words

From: Misaki Tsukahara

Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2005 at [10:09 PM PST]

some things cannot be unsaid. You once told me how you
had found the perfect way to vent your frustration --
for every time you got ganked, you went to Ashenvale
and killed 20 horde players. Once again, I am found
wanting in tact, but what is your explanation for this
type of behavior? (edit: this meaning ganking in
ashenvale, not when I decided to add after.)

Some time ago, while I was farming fruitlessly for
fishing poles in desolace, I was ganked repeatedly by
higher-level players... and to add to the frustration,
most of those deaths were the result of carelessness
or bad tactics or were otherwise preventable. To
compound it, I was trying to see how I could ever be
other than the `cookie-cutter' version of my class if
I was ever to avoid frustration in pvp. As I was
meditating on this (not real meditating, but just
thinking), a conversation started on the zone channels
regarding pk'ing horde. Eventually I took note and,
sick of getting nothing useful from the shellfish
traps off the coast, I volunteered to get revenge on
some of the gankers.

Several others also pledged their arms in revenge.
After requesting location and levels, the only
significant response was a ~36 warlock by Thunder Axe,
who had been ganked by a party of low 30's; the
support of others who volunteered to help was
enlisted, and we made our way towards the warlock's
location.

About 5/6 of the way there, I encountered a party of
horde, similar in composition to the one described by
the warlock. I was at the time lvl 41; said party
could probably have overpowered me, albeit at some
risk to themselves. After confirming the identity of
one of the constituents of the horde party, I
attacked, and managed to kill one of them before the
rest of my own party arrived to help, but one of the
horde was still unaccounted for.

Leaving my group (spatially), I travelled west,
seeming to recall that that was the direction one of
the horde had escaped to during the first few chaotic
moments of the engagement. Sure enough, healing up was
a 27 priest; logically a member of the shattered horde
party, since the mobs in that area are ~33. She ran
diagonally away, and I gave chase (no mount, of
course); I was making some small progress cutting
across her direction of movement when the 40 pally in
my revenge group caught up and stunned her -- what
happened next does not really need clarification. As
she died, she /spit on one of her attackers, the least
of which was 8 levels above her.

Mistaking the performer of the action and the target,
I made a facetious comment to the effect of it not
being very nice [to spit on someone you have just
killed]. The pally responded that yes, it wasn't nice,
and she felt bad... at which point I realized just who
had spit on whom.

Anyway, my point is, I didn't know the details of the
situation... even if that priest had participated in
the ganking of the warlock, it still wasn't nice to
kill her like that. Even worse if there was no
provocation. I guess I just would like some
clarification about your feelings on this subject.

misaki

 

From: Kagomitsu Hiratou

Date: Thursday, February 10, 2005 at [6:51 AM PST]

"Never let a man woman or child who can ever hold a sword walk free from your wake of destruction" as said before my character isn't the noble type... I see no reason to let them go, because what will they think when they see that ?? level. "Wow, high level.. would be an acomplishment if we got together and took that player down." You must realize that soon players will be rewarded for the killing of the enemy faction, all sense of fairness will be lost I am sure.
 
While I will kill just about any unlucky enough to cross my path, those who give me reason not to will walk away freely. And of course those who have crossed me will be on the top of my hunt down and kill list.
 
In my opinion, unless they really did something to you that deserves revenge... Attack them but if they truely make an effort to escape, why bother to chase? Chances are they will just rise up against you in superior numbers.. but isn't that one of the few fun parts of the game?
 
But hey, maybe that's just me. We didn't pick a PvP server to be nice to them.

 

The Firetree PvP server launched on 23 Feb 2005, and I made three new characters there; this might have been after the incident where I deleted my lvl 50 character to restart at lvl 1, and Mei sent me a potion recipe that could only be used by a high-level character, which showed that she wasn't paying attention to my character in her friends list. It used to be possible to track an individual character's leveling progress on warcraftrealms.com, and my original character on Kil'Jaeden US was not tracked there due to someone else making a character with the same name after I deleted mine, but my characters on Firetree were tracked. If the site was still up, I could have linked my characters to show how much I was playing on a different realm than Mei without telling her.

There was also the time when Mei asked the character I had said was a friend of my first character, to which she once sent some crafting materials, if I had seen Misaki recently, which may have been before or after the following email.

Subject: Haven't seen you lately.

From: Kagomitsu Hiratou

Date: Friday, March 18, 2005 at [08:56 PM PST]

You haven't been online in quite some time, nor sent me an email in ages... Just figured I'd say hi, and hope you're doing alright.
 
-Mei

From: Misaki Tsukahara

Date: Thursday, March 31, 2005 at [03:41 AM PST]

I appreciate your concern, but...

i'm not sure if it would have ever worked out between
us... Maybe I'm not ready for lifelong friends yet.
I'm too prone to criticizing what I see as faults,
without seeing how I am doing it from an idealistic or
self-righteous basis; I need to learn to be more
forgiving first. And then there's school... I really
don't know what I will be doing next year. If I don't
get accepted, I might even join the armed forces...

Maybe my unwillingness to have friends is due to my
uncertainty about my future. But for whatever reason,
it exists... I wish you well, mei-chan, and try to be
nice even if others are being selfish, and don't enact
retribution on those who are not at fault...

and think about why you do what you do! Sayonara...

I really do appreciate your email. Maybe I am selfish
not to show more concern for your feelings, but if I
was with you, I'd definitely give you a hug and maybe
even a quick kiss before I waved goodbye, which is
more than I would have done for any of my...
friends..? from school.

-Misaki Tsukahara, currently unemployed.

From: Kagomitsu Hiratou

Date: Friday, April 1, 2005 at [04:32 AM PST]

Well, I hope you can send the occasional email if it isn't to much trouble.  And I hope things for school and such go well for you! Take care of yourself, that's all I'll ask.
 
-Best wishes, Mei.

From: Misaki Tsukahara

Date: Thursday, April 7, 2005 at [08:24 PM PDT]

I will try to. I'm just not very good at that sort of
thing... I haven't learned what is important enough to
mention, so I end up not saying anything at all.

I got accepted to UC Berkeley. Spring term, but it's
better than nothing. Now all I have to do is figure
out how to pay for it...

misaki

 

Courier font in the below email preserved:

Subject: going to bed too early

From: Misaki Tsukahara

Date: Saturday, May 28, 2005 at [12:28 PM PDT]

leads to too many thoughts.

I hope you find someone you can rely on, mei-chan. I realized that the main reason I hated my high school was because I was lonely. I hope the same thing isn't happening to you...

On another note, I guess it is the uncertainty of my personal circumstances that have made me unwilling to commit to any kind of long-term relationship. Like right now, I don't have a computer :) .  I've been using the library computers here in Seattle, limited to one hour of use per day... -.-'

I am going to try to work on improving my thought patterns so I can be more friendly. Specifically, I need to work on the following:

• constructive critique, both giving and accepting
• jealousy. I'm too demanding of people
• diversity of friends. The similarity meme (and idealism... need to work on convincing myself that i'm wrong) is too strong in me
• assumptions and expectations, specifically as they lead to mirrored feelings towards that person

I'm in the process of looking for my first "real" job... it also looks like I won't be going to college anytime soon, as I can't afford it, and financial aid didn't work out. Again.

Try to be nicer to people, mei-chan! Even people you don't know, or don't like too much. Being courteous doesn't cost you anything...

misaki