A Pride Of Pandas

Based on evidence, rather than expectation, I think it's fair to say I'm no longer that guy. The one who's willing to log in every last character on every account, just to grab a freebie for each of them, even though they know it will never be used. 

I know. It surprised me, too, when I found out but the facts are had to argue with. I keep posting about this, that and the other wonderful offer I'm going to be sure not to pass up and then that's exactly what I do.

Okay, I don't miss out completely. I'm not that far-gone, yet. If I've mentioned it on the blog, I always at least log in whatever character I'm currently playing, in whichever game it  happens to be, to blag the free loot and take a few screenshots. And usually I get as far as logging in any other characters I play, at least semi-regularly, as well. But my days of going  through every last character, on every server, on every account, something I really did do more times than I'd probably want to admit, do finally seem to be over.

I was thinking about that when I logged into EverQuest II a couple of days ago to do my Overseer dailies. (There will be a post about those very soon. Probably this week. Or a paragraph in a portmanteau post at least. I'm not sure I have enough to say for a whole post.) 

Daybreak are extremely good about posting links in the patcher to whatever's new and this time they had something up about Pride Month, so while the game was loading I clicked through and had a look at that. I found it very heartwarming, particularly the subtext. The phrase "Help show your unwavering support..." seemed to me to be particularly astute and well-judged.

Anyway, politics aside, Pride Month in EQII means free stuff, specifically free familiars, and no-one wants to miss out on those. Not only do they look great, they're really useful and you can never have too many of them

I am of the opinion, however, that it is at least theoretically possible to have too many rabbit familiars, which is what the Pride ones were for quite a while. The Darkpaw devs obviously agreed because a few years back they swapped from bunnies to lions (A Pride of them - geddit?). 

I wasn't as keen on the lions if I'm honest. The bunnies were there or thereabouts real size but the lions, by necessity, were a lot smaller than lions usually are and I thought they looked a bit chintzy. Still nice but not sure if the pun was worth it. 

This year, though, the devs have really done us proud (God, now they've got me at it...) with a whole new set of familiars to collect - red pandas. What a great choice!

Red pandas (Aka firefoxes) have to be one of the cutest creatures on the planet. They look like they were designed in the Jellycat testing labs (Although weirdly the actual Jellycat red panda doesn't really look that much like the real thing...) They'll make excellent companions for posing at the bank and the great thing about familiars in EQII is that you can have a hideously ugly blob equipped for the stats while overwriting its appearance with something much cooler  and better-looking from your collection.

Based on previous Prides I think we'll have pandas for three years at least. There are nine gender identities represented in the celebration and we get three different ones each year. 

I guess that does mean that if you have a particular identity you want to acknowledge or display support for, you might have to wait a couple of years before it comes around, which isn't ideal, but all the variations are available in the Store for free for the duration of Pride Month so anyone who has to wait for the right panda to arrive can at least make do with a bunny or a lion until then.

The familiars aren't supposed to be tied inextricably to specific identities in any case. The descriptions are intentionally vague but the colors, which are taken from the Pride flag, indicate the specific alliances. The EverQuest Show produced a very handy visual guide last year. I don't know if they plan to update it but I  guess they have until 2027, by which time we'll have the full complement of pandas.

The three on offer this year are Boundless, Trueheart and Proudheart which, according to the guide, are the colors of the bisexual flag, the transexual flag and the rainbow Pride flag itself. Given the current climate, I think I'm going to be traveling with the Trueheart beside me, if only to annoy J.K. Rowling (Not that that's hard to do. A lot harder not to, really.)

I am also going to make the effort to log in all my characters in EQII for which there's a realistic chance I might actually play them once in a while, so they can claim their three pandas. That means everyone on the account I pay for, so that's fifteen times I'm going to have to do it.

And a final note - I just equipped a panda for the first time to get some screenshots and whoever designed them (Ttobey I'm guessing.) went the opposite way from the lions. The new pandas look like they have to be at least twice life-size!

And a final, final note... since it fits the theme, here's the excellent and extremely NSFW new song from the great Kate Nash. She's flagged it as Age-Restricted so I don't know if it can even be embedded.

 GERM - Kate Nash

Apparently it can but you have to go to YouTube to watch it. Which I very much hope you will. It's not  so much a song as a lecture you can dance to and all the better for it. 

Sadly, I suspect the only people who'll see it will be those who already agree with what it has to say but you have to do what you can, don't you? Thanks to Darkpaw and Daybreak for doing their bit.