Who truly is in charge?

We Petopians (many of us, anyway) often find ourselves catering to the whims of our pets and hunters, taming pets we wouldn't've given a second glance otherwise.  This is normal to us.  We understand that our pets have their own needs and that our hunters have their own preferences, separate from our own.  I've been pondering Atalanta's recent change of heart over the past few days, sometimes aloud.  My bf pointed out that it really was me making all of these decisions.  While I knew that on some level, he was right, I still couldn't help but feel that the choice was never truly in my hands.  I had to figure out how this was possible.

As it turned out, the truth presented itself to me readily, though I wasn't totally thrilled to realize it.

This is all a convoluted form of roleplaying.

I admit it; I have a bit of a bias against the label of "RP."  This is mostly because there's so much bad roleplaying out there, and, writing snob that I am, it drives me crazy to see poor characterizations and structure.  I know it's not all bad, but that doesn't stop the bias from pinging around my head.  Forgive me, dedicated RPers who have some actual ability and talent.

I digress.

Though our pets and our hunters are a part of us, they have their own personalities, some of which evolve without our direct involvement or control.  That's just good writing.  The characters take over and develop organically.  For a character to truly be "real," it needs to detach itself from its creator in that sort of way.  It's the pinnacle of what I consider to be proper character creation - complete separation from the subject, despite it still being part of you.

And this is why I take my pets' personalities so seriously.  They speak to me in their own voices (though not always with words), something that not all characters born of my mind or heart do.  Not all of them, of course; just the ones that are well-defined.

They are definitely the ones in charge here.  And that is completely fine by me.

My double life as a hunter (or: why I'm an internet secret agent)

My hunters have different vibes, and therefore, different personalities and pets.  The same is true for many die-hard hunters who couldn't contain their love of the class and/or pets to one character.  PetEmote enhances many of their collective bonds.  This is where my path differs from theirs.

Kalliope was born on a PvP server, where addons like PetEmote would be subject to ridicule, and users of said addons would be subject to worse.  With this sort of pre-established bias against PetEmote, I didn't find myself using it until the Petopia forums took off and Teigan created her "patches" for the addon.  Her style of writing and clever use of evocative descriptors threw PetEmote into a whole new light for me.  Indeed, I downloaded the addon myself and even helped pitch in a few emote suggestions afterwards.  Suddenly, I was able to appreciate the lengths Jorna (the creator of PetEmote) had gone to in order to make the mechanics of the addon work, now that the emotes were getting some much-needed window dressing.

So my alt hunters all had PetEmote.  But Kalliope still didn't use it.  I was ballsy enough to not care at one point and tried running with it, but I will never forget the Eye of the Storm where Orpheus and I were trying to take Fel Reaver Ruins....and he randomly emoted.  It wasn't even an appropriate sneaky sort of emote; it just didn't fit.  We were ever so thankfully alone at that point, but I was very disturbed.  What if he'd given us away? He would never do that to us willingly.  So I disabled the addon for her.

Not having PetEmote isn't the only difference between Kalliope and my alt hunters, but it is the biggest one.  I really feel like my personality is split in two, since the experiences are so different, just in terms of my own mentality and perceptions.  I almost feel like a secret agent sometimes, since I feel like I'm hiding parts of myself from both sides.  The thing is, I don't have a secret identity - I have two that trade places with each other.

The Lone Hunter

I've noticed in my years of playing WoW that hunters tend to lean more toward solitude than groups.  Part of this is due to our incredible soloing abilities as a class, but I wonder if part of this drive to wander off alone with our pets stems from our own personalities.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy grouping with others - I doubt I could stand to play a healer otherwise.  But I go through bouts of wanderlust, where I just want to go off alone with my pets and just do quiet things, like fish or farm.  Since I can't gather on Kalliope anymore, I occasionally do this on gatherer alts, like my druid or rogue, but the habit started on Kalli.  I don't tend to sit around and stare into space in scenic areas on other classes either, even if I stay mounted and technically don't have my pet "with" me.  I'd say it was due to Kalli being my main, but my alt hunters get some of this sort of time as well.

The funny thing is that there are plenty of other classes that are self-sufficient, but plenty of hunters are just drawn to that class in particular.  Ease of play might be it for some.  Love of pets might drive others.  And for a small group of us, well....we just vant to be alone.

Types of pet personalities

No, I'm not going to get into the MBTI typologies of my pets.

I love examining how pets can evolve differently from each other. Here's my breakdown of pet personality types:

1. The Diamond in the Rough

The Diamond in the Rough is one that jumps out of a sea of similar tameables and speaks to you. Some hunters, like Sochi from the Petopia forums, look for one who does something different than the others, like running off and killing a critter. I tend to find mine based on their spawn location. I like "fringe" spawns. A number of my pets who are ordinary types of their species spawned a bit away from the others. My Ursa was the first grizzled black bear on the east side of the Loch in Loch Modan before the Shattering. Kallisto is the first rabid blisterpaw hyena outside the Caverns of Time. These pets look the same to everyone else, but they have a strong sense of self, which they reveal to their hunters before they're tamed.

2. The Chameleon

The Chameleon remains the same species, but undergoes color changes within the same species. Often, this is due to the pet "aging" or "molting" to a new skin. This can cover the hunter's desires to change their pet's look without having to give up their little buddy. Hector, who began life as Old Cliff Jumper, will be changing to Deathmaw in patch 4.0.6 to become the brown-skinned wolf he was always meant to be. MaqueChoux, Kallimon's formerly jittery Haarka the Ravenous, grew up into the much more mature Harakiss the Infestor.

3. The Changeling

The Changeling can take on the form of any species as their hunter needs while retaining their personality. My dear Orpheus has been my loyal PvP pet since back in BC, starting out as a pink scorpid, then became Nuramoc, the pink and blue chimera. He turned into a blue crab for a long time, but it was Chatter's brown tarantula form that he chose to take on permanently. Until he chose Chatter, he was a Changeling, ready and willing to change his form as functionality required for PvP so he would never have to leave my side.

4. The Rare Breed

There can be a strong bond between the hunter and the named/rare spawn or difficult tame they pull off as well as to their pet. King Krush was an epic adventure to tame and his personality is forever bonded with that of my Theseus. DaBeast, Kallimon's Beast, couldn't be named anything else because of how deeply connected the two of them are. These Rare Breeds tend to define themselves.

5. The Lone Wolf

However, not all rares are instantly bonded with their pets. Sometimes, there's no chemistry. I originally camped for Old Cliff Jumper for my Hector, but while I felt a connection to Hector, I didn't feel anything for OCJ. Hector was only OCJ in that he was the only pet available to tame. This makes Hector a good example of a Lone Wolf. Lone Wolves are basically polished Diamonds in the Rough; everyone can see they're special, but will usually misunderstand why.




Pets can sometimes change categories as their moods suit them. Orpheus already had his own personality from when he was a Changeling, but when he became Chatter, he merged with the little guy, becoming a Rare Breed. He lost his flexibility in terms of morphing to the pet family needed for taming, but he gained a stronger sense of self. No other form will ever suit him again.


My pets fall into every category, but that's not the case for every hunter. One size does not fit all, and your results may vary, be it between pets or even hunters.