Insane in the Membrane

Insane in the Membrane is a Feat of Strength that rewards the title. This feat requires you to become honored with the Bloodsail Buccaneers and exalted with the Steamwheedle Cartel (Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan, Ratchet), Ravenholdt, and Darkmoon Faire. Raising reputation with these factions is typically very difficult, time-consuming, and costly—hence the title.

The achievement previously required becoming exalted with the Shen'dralar. This faction was removed from the game in Cataclysm and is no longer part of the criteria.

Bloodsail Buccaneers
Reputation with Bloodsail Buccaneers is gained by killing NPCs belonging to the Booty Bay faction. Killing Booty Bay Bruisers earns 25 reputation. Other named NPCs will give 1 or 5 reputation. This will, of course, reduce your reputation with Booty Bay and the other steamwheedle factions. When you reach with Booty Bay, guards will spawn at fixed points to attack you. Guards also spawn when you attack lower level NPCs, but not for attacking another guard.

A more detailed list of the NPCs that can be killed for reputation is available in the Bloodsail Buccaneers reputation guide.

When you reach or higher with Bloodsail Buccaneers, visit Fleet Master Firallon in his ship off the south-east coast of Stranglethorn Vale and complete  for the  title.

Steamwheedle Cartel
There is one common accepted method for getting with Steamwheedle Cartel without losing your Bloodsail Buccaneer reputation.

First, you can kill non-Bloodsail pirates or Venture Co. NPCs throughout the world. Each pirate or Venture Co. NPC grants full reputation for the "local" Steamwheedle faction to the end of and 50% reputation to the other three factions through to. For specific information, see the list of Mobs which affect reputation with Steamwheedle Cartel.

Everlook has no local faction that grants reputation. To increase Everlook reputation to, you must kill NPCs for the other three cities.

Ravenholdt
The Ravenholdt grind begins with killing Syndicate NPCs. These used to exist in great numbers at Durnholde Keep in Hillsbrad Foothills, but are no longer in that place as of the Cataclysm. Each Syndicate member gives 5 Ravenholdt reputation, to the end of.

Afterwards, you must to turn in 5 x to Ravenholdt Manor, for 75 reputation. These junkboxes are attained by rogues via the Pick Pocket skill from level 52+ mobs. If you do not have or want to level a rogue, you may be able to buy the junkboxes or hire a rogue to farm them for you. Lootable containers cannot be auctioned, but the boxes can be traded and/or mailed.

If you do have a rogue, the most popular location for farming is Lower Blackrock Spire, as any of the orcs and ogres inside can carry the junkboxes. See Farming Heavy Junkboxes for more info.

If you find you're being caught too often, additional points in Subtlety may help, specifically Master of Deception, Camouflage and Preparation.

Darkmoon Faire
Darkmoon Faire reputation can be gained up to 2000/6000 using the repeatable quests available involving item turn ins. There are many possible turn ins, which have various cutoffs based on your current reputation. The top tier of turn ins that will always be available are as follows:


 * 10 x
 * 10 x
 * 0 8 x
 * 0 6 x
 * 0 8 x

After 2000/6000, a different turn in for the same items will become available. This is so you can gain, which are not needed for this achievement. Continuing to turn in items will NOT give further reputation.

To reach, you must turn in Darkmoon Cards. By collecting full decks of cards, you can turn in the high level decks for 350 reputation during the Darkmoon Faire, or the low level decks for 25 reputation whether the Faire is running or not (they will summon a quest NPC, even if the Faire is closed.)

All of the Darkmoon Cards can be crafted through Inscription. Each card creation will produce one random card from any of the decks associated with that spell. It is not possible to select which card will be produced, only which possible decks the card may come from. You can trade or sell spare cards in exchange for or to buy cards you need to complete decks.

All higher-level deck turn-ins provide the same reputation. As the earlier cards require much less in the way of materials to create, it is considerably cheaper to stock up on the classic, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King sets, unless you also desire one of the newer trinket rewards.

The trinkets obtained from the card decks are BoE, so you can sell the trinkets to buy more cards. Also, if you know someone who is turning in a deck for a trinket, but does not need the reputation, they can trade you the deck to turn it in for 350 rep and you can trade the trinket back to them.

Steamwheedle/Bloodsail requirement
No clear consensus has yet been reached on whether or not you must be simultaneously with the Steamwheedle Cartel and  with the Bloodsail Buccaneers.

Initally, players needed to meet both of those reputation requirements at the same time to be awarded the achievement and title. More recently, some players have earned the achievement while with the Steamwheedle Cartel and  with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, as long as they were  with the Steamwheedle Cartel before they began the grind. However, some players still have to regain their Steamwheedle Cartel reputation, without losing their Bloodsail Buccaneers reputation, in order to earn the achievement.

Responses from Blizzard Representatives have been mixed. In-game tickets have received answers both ways about requiring the reputations simultaneously. There have only been two blue posts on the World of Warcraft Forums regarding this:




 * My understanding of this is that it was never required that you have these criteria met all at the same time. Once you reach the required reputation level with one of the factions, the criteria should be credited.




 * You shouldn't lose the criteria if you gained the reputation to obtain it.

Posters in this bug report thread returned with further evidence that the achievement is not working as intended (whether Blizzard intends it to be simultaneous or not), but no further response has been received on the forums from any Blizzard Representative.

Players can grind to with Steamwheedle Cartel before attempting Bloodsail Buccaneers, if they wish. However, it does not appear guaranteed the achievement will be earned this way. Until the requirements are clarified by Blizzard and any existing bugs are corrected, having both Steamwheedle Cartel and Bloodsail Buccaneers at the same time is the only way to guarantee the achievement.

History
Back in 2009, Ancilorn stated that this achievement would not be removed from the game with Cataclysm, and that "you don't have to rush to have this done before the expansion." At BlizzCon 2010, however, Greg Street was asked if it will still be possible to get the achievement, to which he responded: "The biggest problem are the changes to the bloodsail buccaneers, that kinda put a bullet in that feat of strength for now. It's fun to do painful things in WoW. If there's a huge outcry for it we'll try to put something equally brute in the game." Days later Bashiok indicated on the forums that it will be impossible for most people to complete this Feat of Strength after Cataclsym.

However, Beta Build 13277 removed Shen'dralar from the criteria, and then a short time later, a blog post on the WoW Community website confirmed changes which will allow the achievement to still be obtainable after The Shattering:

Trivia
This achievement might be a reference to the Cypress Hill song of the same name.