Liebster Award Challenge!

I've been nominated for a Liebster Award by Gnomecore over at the aptly named Gnomecore.  Thanks for sending this over my way.

So lets get on with them questions.

Rules:

1.     Write a blog post about the Liebster Award
2.     Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog
3.     Display the award on your blog
4.     Answer the eleven questions that the blogger who nominated you gives you
5.     Give eleven random facts about yourself
6.     Nominate five blogs that you think deserve the award
7.     Create eleven questions for them to answer
8.     List the rules in your post
9.     Inform the bloggers that they’ve been nominated and provide them the link to your post

Blogs I Nominate:

Being many of the blogs I would have sent this to already have done it I am going to try and pick some I don't think I have seen do it yet.

Fianoor at Misdirections.
Del irium at Thrill of the Wild.
Elkagorasa at Elkagorasa the Casual.
Bob at Altaclysmic.
And maybe I can bait Taitrina back, formally of Still Searching.

My Questions For Them:

1. What is your favorite expansion of warcraft and why do you think its your favorite?
2. What is your favorite fantasy book of all time? (fantasy, sci/fi, horror, they all fit)
3. If you could make one change to warcraft what would be it?
4. Where would you have your character/(s) call home?
5. Have you ever met anyone in real life that you met online first?
6. If you could add one race not currently in game at all to the game as a playable race, what would it be?
7. What inspires you to write a post?
8. What other types of games do you like?
9. Do you snack while gaming, if so, on what?
10. If you were stranded on a desert island with three CDs and they were the only three you would ever have, which ones would you bring?  (no greatest hits or live, only standard release)
11. What is your favorite lore moment and how would you inject your main character into that story?

The Questions Given to Me:

Note:  The answer to the last question is a little fan fiction I made up right on the spot.  It was fun, maybe I will stretch it out a bit and clean it up and make a post of it.  Let me know if you think it is worth the effort.

Q: What was the shortest and the longest time you spent on writing a blog post?

I've written some really short posts in my time even if I am well noted for my long winded posts.  So shortest might be a surprise to some, I'd say 5 minutes.  Longest is a horse of a different color.  I consider all the garrison posts I wrote to be one post really, even if it was something like 20 or so of them, if not more.  If I can count them, as they really are one long post broken into parts, I would say that took me the better of of 100 hours, if not more.  It took a lot of research, playing on beta to find things on my own, looking up links on wowhead, etc.

If you mean a single post, it could very well be one of those garrison posts as I am sure many of them took over 10 hours on their own.  But lots of my posts end up taking that long, even if I do not try to take that long.  I tend to write while I am at work, which means frequent breaks.  That also means going back and reading what I wrote to try and find where my train of thought left off, so it is not surprising that most of my posts take a least 2 hours to write and sometimes much longer.  This one was nearly three hours from first line to last.

Q: Name 3 best Race/Class combinations – considering lore, not gameplay?

Night elf hunter, human paladin and gnome mage.  While they are all in game and all fit lore that is not why I decided on them.  They all just feel to be the most natural connections between race and class based on the fantasy we have all grown up with.

For three best race and class combinations horde side I would have to say orc warrior, tauren druid and troll shaman all seem the most natural fits.

Q: Have you ever applied or associated smth. from WoW with IRL situations, people or objects? Tell about the funniest one.

I can't say I ever have.  I am sure there have been times I have noticed something in real life that reminded me of something in game but I do not think I have actually done something in a real life situation that I would directly connect to the game.  Unless you can count dreams.  I have had a few dreams about the game.  Nothing really funny about them however.

Q: Which is the most attractive (or sexiest) race in WoW? You may name 2 – for males and females separately.

Attractiveness is such a subjective thing.  Anyone can say draenei female because that is the expected "beauty" in terms of build in the human mind.  I tend to find "different" to be more attractive.  I think the troll females to be beautiful in their way.  Orc males probably most closely resemble what most men would want to picture themselves as if they were some husky warrior in some fantasy world with all the muscles they would need to save the damsel in distress.

Q: How many toons have you deleted throughout your WoW history?

I've deleted a slew of them, mostly low level ones so I can make one on a different server. The highest I've deleted was maybe in its 40s, a hunter on a PvP server.  After they added CRZ and I could not leave Org any longer without being dead instantly, I deleted it.   No use having a character you can not even play thanks to cross realm zones and bored people 40 levels higher with nothing better to do than kill you on a PvP server.  Deleted a few DKs in the 60s, but being they start higher they do not count as my highest deleted.  If I had to put a number on it, somewhere in the ball park of 40 maybe.

Q: Name your personal perfect location to grow old in WoW and IRL.

I am a new yorker through and through so my perfect place to live in real life would be new york.  I might move to the burbs to grow old however as the city can get overwhelming with age I guess, but new york is the best place in the world.

In game it would be a much harder decision.  There are so many beautiful places I would one day love to settle down with just me and fang.  I've often thought of this when thinking if I were to quit were would I have my hunter and his first pet to live their life out in peace after fighting for so long.  The answer is I would go back to where it all began and maybe get a cottage near dolanaar.  It is still a very peaceful place seemingly untouched by the cataclysm and there are always young adventures that this old elf could give advice to.

The one piece of advice I would give to every one of those new adventures is one of my favorite quotes, from actor Micheal Caine.  "When I am old and sitting on a rocking chair in front of my house I would rather regret the things I did than the things I didn't.", slightly paraphrased because I didn't feel like looking up his exact wording.

Q: Name the 3 coolest movies (cartoons) you recently watched.

Recently? Can I do TV instead of movies and cartoons?  I will guess so.

I watched the premiere of iZombie the other night and the acting was rather stiff and the cast seemed very uncomfortable with their parts and there were very few bright points in it at all, but the concept of the show has such huge potential that I think, with some love and care and a little attention spent on it and maybe aiming it more in a drama angle instead of the comedy it seems to be trying to be, it could be an excellent tv show.  The idea is cool, even if the premiere episode really wasn't.

Gotham has been one of the break out television series in my mind.  The story telling has been great, the actors really seems to be so well chosen that the casting director deserves an award and speaking of awards the set design is amazing.  It really gives off the perfect vibe of both old and new, or new enough.  It has to be the most well done all around series I have seen in ages and I would suggest it to anyone.  It is the definition of cool.

I can't think of a third.  It takes a fair deal to impress me.  Even most of the things I do like I am rarely left saying, that is cool.  If you wanted older cool stuff I could go on for hours, but recent, nothing really cool out there right now worth sending attention to that I can think of.

Q: Imagine you LFG for 5-man Dungeon and all of your party members happened to be celebrities! Tell us which celebrities are they and what toons do they play?

Well, I would be the hunter, so we need us a tank, a healer and two damage dealers.  I would be on my troll hunter and would have an orc warrior as the tank.  I'm thinking Vin Diesel as the tank, just seems like that would fit him and I know he actually plays the game.  I really can picture Mario Cantone as a gnome mage, but for this he would have to be playing a goblin one.  For some reason I am picturing Patrick Stewart as a female troll priest as our healer.  The group would be rounded out by Johnny Deep RPing as if he were a captain jack sparrow act alike, but in the guise of a drunk blood elf rogue instead.

Q: Name two beverages: the one you love – the one you hate.

Love, Coffee, or as I refer to it, crack.  I drink way to much coffee, day and night.  I have at least a dozen cups a day and most days that is the only thing I will drink at all.  Just coffee after coffee after coffee.  Black, no sugar, real true coffee, none of that starbucks garbage.

Hate, there are many I hate, but one stands out because we are talking warcraft and that is mountain dew.   It tastes like what I could only imagine drinking urine would taste like.  It has to be one of, if not the most, horrible soft drinks ever made.

Q: Spring or Autumn?

Either, both, doesn't matter, as long as it is not winter or summer.  Don't like winter, don't like summer.  But if I were forced to chose one it would be autumn.  There is something about the air in autumn when the slightest nip of cold has just entered the air but it is still very nice out.  A smell, a feel, a freedom in the air.  Autumn just has that feel.

Q: We don’t see Jaina Proudmoore much of now – what will she do first on her return?

Meanwhile back in Theramore when we next see Jaina...

"Many years spent harnessing these powers, studying the artifacts I gathered back on the isle of thunder and I think I am ready now to combine it with the knowledge we have gained from this alternate draenor."

Jaina begins her decent down into the crater that was left in the center of Theramore, her home city, the city once filled with civilians that trusted her to keep them safe, the city she failed.  Using her stave as a walking stick she walks down avoiding pits, rocks and derbies that still remain.  The thoughts run through her head knowing what she plans to do has little chance to succeed but feeling as if she has to try, she has to do anything she can to make it right. 

She is no necromacner, she is a mage.  No one should ever try to resurrect the dead and no one should try, not after how long it has been, but that is not her intention here.  She does not intend to bring the dead back to life, she intends to bring the living back to life.  No reanimated corpses, no rebuilt buildings, no changes, nothing of the sort.  She intends to bring Theramore back, as was.

The heroes of Azeroth went to a different world, a different time, a different dimension, all while she stayed here and harnessed power, studied, and learned, knowing that different times exist, as fact, no longer as simple belief.  There are two draenors to her knowledge now, one we call outland now and the other the heroes went to.  So that must mean there is another theramore out there, one where there was no Garrosh to destroy it, one where the goblins never invented a mana bomb, one where she did not fail her people, did not fail to protect them as she had sworn to do and failed to do.

"You will all be home soon."  She whispers to herself as he continues her way down the crater.

Once she reaches the exact center, the deepest point of the crater she lays her staff down beside her and falls down to her knees.  Her pristine hands, ones that were never one to do manual labor, began to dig frantically at the dirt.  She could have used magic to do the labor for her, she could have sought a helper to come with her, but no, this was her failure, hers alone, and she would not let anyone else dig for her.  She needed to get her hands dirty this time, both figuratively and actually.

Once she was done digging deeper, deep enough, she picks of her staff and places it in the hole, now nearly a foot deep, and then fills in around it with dirt, to make it sturdy, as if she were planting a tree in this spot expecting something to grow.

That analogy was not far from the truth, she did expect something to grow.  Threamore.  After she finishes planting her stave she wipes her hands aside her blue dress leaving dirt marks and finger prints on it.  Something someone of her stature would never been seen walking around with.  No dishevelment for her.  At least not normally, but today was different, today she had work to do, she had a city to build, she had followers to rise, she had civilians that she let down to see that she did not let them down in the end.

"En tu, garanta evenettue... tavis."  She shouts.

Not even she understands the language she is speaking, but she knows what the words mean.  She puts her arms out and lifts herself in the air as a thick blue bubble appears at the tip of her stave.  She mumbles a few more words and the bubble begins to grow.  Inside of the bubble you can not see anything, it seems as if it is dirt, just dirt.  Dirt in the bubble, nothing more, packed tightly dirt.

Her mind can not stop thinking while she continues to channel the power she has been working to build.  Thinking of all the people that were lost, of what they meant to her and each other.  How she had let them down.  She has went through so much on her journey to where she is now.  From wanting revenge, revenge on garrosh, all orcs, the horde as a whole, thrall for making her believe peace was possible.  From wanting to curl up and cry, to curl up and die, to wipe her mind so she could not remember the voices and faces of the people she loved, her people.

The blue bubble keeps growing in size and there is something to be seen now, more than just dirt.  You can see the side of a building, the tower, her tower, you can see the cobblestone roads and feet falling upon it walking past.  Feet of civilians with slippers on, guard with boots on, horses and goats and others modes of transport.  Inside the bubble you can see a vibrant city, one that is alive, with people in it.  They are just outlined in blue, like shadows landing on nothing and walking, but they are there, they are really there.

"En tu..." She shouts once more and the image within the bubble seems to change.

Many sets of boots on the ground, looks like a scuffle, but being you can only see from the thigh down at best it is hard to make out a scuffle between whom.  Then those people and their disagreement disappear and you see a little girl, blonde, playing with a tiny blue ragdoll.  You see some feet walk up to her and a hand reach down and pick her up and walk away.  The picture changes once more and theramore looks as it does now, a pit in the center of what was once a city.  Then once more with the legs of what seems like two guards walking by and stopping to chat for a while a they stand there.

Every few seconds the scene inside the bubble changes.  You see straight paved ground, you see cobblestone streets, red brick ones, the crater we have become used to, dirt roads, even trees and wildlife only from time to time.  Each time the image changes the bubble gets slightly bigger and each time the bubble get bigger the picture becomes clearer, in a way, until it changes again.

What is Jaina doing?  Is she creating a passage way to the past with what we have learned from time travel?  Is she spanning alternate realities, as we have found them to exist looking for one that resembles the one she most remembers?  Is she planning on creating a doorway where Theramore once was to this world, does she plan on stealing this worlds Theramore or just copying it?

Jaina has been through so much pain, so much heartbreak, and felt so much love, so much hate, there is no way for anyone to tell where her mind really is. It has been all over the place, just as her emotions have.  Jaina has always been a very emotional woman, even from the time when she was a young girl.  Oft times her emotions led her to do things some might deem questionable, just as what she is doing now is even if we do not know exactly what it is that she is doing now.  But none would confuse what is going on here with simple emotions of loss.  This is bigger, much bigger, there has to be more than just Jaina being emotional again.

But maybe, just maybe, we can tell something from one of the worlds as the flashing images seemed to stop at for quite some time.  Maybe Jaina was just peeking into what could have been.  Arthas and Jania, together, oboviously in their senior years, walking down the streets of Theramore.  In some world that happened, and if Jania wishes, maybe in this world it will.  Or could it?

As she chants her incantation to keep the bubble growing you can see blood dripping from her finger nails.  One might believe this is from the digging, the manual labor she was not used to, but it is not.  The fact a tear drop of blood flows from her eye as she lets the image of her and arthas from what seemed to be a very happy life pass by is proof that it is not the digging.

A passer by, looking down from their gryphon, sees what is now a nearly full, even if transparent blue, Theramore and makes haste off the the king to let him know what he sees.  At the same time an orc patrol takes notice and heads off to inform their warchief.

There is no doubt the world as we know it is about to change, no matter what Jaina ends up doing, something is being done and responses to that are going to be in the planning stage soon.

Coming soon, 6.4, Theramores Rise.