So technically it is now Saturday, but that’s hardly the point. I’ve not done a Friday five since my first one a while back, but I liked this one. As usual, due to the fact Ellaria actually has a personality, unlike Faulsey, I answer the questions for her.

• Does your character have any musical inclinations? Can he or she sing or play an instrument?
• If yes, are they trained or self-taught?  If no, have they ever tried to make music of any kind?
• What kind of music, if any, reminds your character of home?
• What kind of music would your character listen to, if given an iPod?
• If you had to pick a song or two to represent your character, what song(s) would that be?

1. Ellaria is a fiery lass – she loves to fight, to fly, and to tinker with unpredictable explosives. She appreciates music whilst doing all of those things, but she’s far too busy doing them to bother learning an instrument. As far as singing goes, she can’t really sing, though she isn’t terrible. Like most people, she’ll happily sing along to a song if alone, inebriated, or in a big enough group that no one will be able to pick her voice out from the rest.

2. No, Ellaria has never even tried to pick up an instrument… however, while it’s not quite making music, one of the silly little things I imagine built into her flying machine is a music player. You might think that doesn’t fit in with WoW, but does anything Draenei?

3. Traditional Draenei hymns, for one thing. (Nowhere have I seen any sort of religious singing tradition amongst the Draenei mentioned, but in my mind it makes perfect sense for people so devoted to the light to have Hymns much the same as Christianity does.) As Ellaria was fairly young at the time of the war with the orcs, she heard far too many of these in the aftermath, when the survivors laid the dead to rest, so it’s not a nice reminder. That’s why she spends so much time away from the Exodar.

4. This is where my tastes sort of filter over to Ellaria… No matter what, I cannot imagine a character that would not share my taste in music. So Ellaria would listen to a lot of rock and metal (the latter mostly of the power and symphonic varieties -cough-), though with an appreciation for classical, orchestral music. As an engineer though, I at least feel rock fits in… can’t imagine an engineer who would listen to cheesy pop nonsense.

5. Last of the Wilds, by Nightwish. Again, this is partly a personal thing, but you have no idea how much I love that song. It’s beautiful – an amazing blend of typical metal instruments with traditional Finnish instruments and Uilleann Pipes (In essence, bagpipes).
For me, it’s my “walking home along the river in the rain” song. It brings to mind vast, misty forests, high in the mountains, with gentle rainfall. For Ellaria, a Shaman, someone so in tune with the elements, that sort of image strikes me as perfect.

For some reason, the start of this video has the wrong song name, but the song playing is Last of the Wilds.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5n14obj4E8&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

So, recently, Ellaria has been developing a bit of a personality. I don’t really RP her, as A. I’m not on an RP server, and B. I’m no good at RP – but since she’s sort of developed her own personality, I thought this might be fun to do for the first time!

Anna’s Friday Five for this week:

1. What is your character’s most recognizable trait? (If someone saw your character in a pub/on the street, what would they first notice? What makes them immediately recognizable as themself?)
2. What does your character’s voice sound like?
3. Do they like to sing?  Can they sing?
4. Does your character have a noticeable accent of any kind?
5. If your character was spending an evening in an inn/tavern/pub, where would they sit? What would they be doing?

1. I’d say her hair – I’ve mentioned before I have this fascination with Ellaria’s hair. She’s very proud of her hair, and she does her best to keep it looking just right – She’s not above a bit of wind manipulation to keep it absolutely perfect! The spirits find such requests slightly bewildering, it must be said.

2. Ellaria has a pretty soft voice – it pleases the ear. However, when irritated, she can get rather sharp.

3. Ellaria can’t sing, but that doesn’t stop her trying! She’s equally comfortable with trying to sing along to classical Draenei music or bawdy pub songs.

4. This one amuses me slightly. I don’t know why, but I always imagine Ellaria speaking with a “Broad Scots meets Valley Girl” kind of accent. Given I’m Scottish, it seems I can’t help but give my characters a bit of a scots twang when I imagine them speaking, and the valley girl aspect… well, honestly, I can’t really think how that came about!

5. Ellaria would sit in the corner – that’s where the comfiest seats are, and it helps to somewhat limit the attention she gets from other patrons. This doesn’t necessarily mean she’s quiet though – as mentioned above, she’ll happily throw herself into any songs started by the crowd.

So that’s Ellaria when it comes to Sights and Sounds. I rather enjoyed giving Anna’s Friday five a shot, so maybe I’ll do it more often. We’ll see!

I’d also like to link to Naturalist, a new blog started by Kiaara, one of my RL friends who also plays WoW (get this; I know four people IRL who play WoW, three of whom are women. And they say women don’t play WoW!). She’s still tweaking the exact layout and stuff, but you should go over there and say Hi!