inspired_mind

A bit later than promised, but IRL got in the way. Due to image hosting issues, I won’t be talking about my knitting projects yet. Instead, today’s post will be about storytelling.

As most know I am a big fan of books. I love reading a hardcover copy in bed or curled up in my fave chair, especially if said book also contains lovely illustrations. But I also love reading fanfics on my tablet, expanding on existing universes of various fandoms. Audio books never appealed to me, due to having my own voices and such for characters. It would seriously break the immersion for me. The exception would be fairy tales. I loved the audio tapes (yes I am that old) that accompanied the fairy tale books I would listen to as a kid. I can still recall the sound of the bell that would indicate when to flip the page.

With my rediscovered love for knitting, it’s hard to focus on anything beyond said knitting. I can talk fine with people while knitting and can listen to music without screwing up. Watching TV while knitting results in barely glancing at the screen, which makes it impossible to catch up on my TV shows, not wanting to miss out on anything that’s happening on the screen. So how to combine the knitting sessions with storytelling?

Audio dramas.

How did I end up there? Well…last year Blizzard published an audio drama that’s a prequel to the World of Warcraft: Legion expansion. Each chapter is 25-40 minutes, which made it hard to “watch” it in one go so I never got around to check them out until recently. It took some time getting used to a guy telling the story, doing most of the voices. But the sound effects and music made it interesting to listen to. Available on Spotify (and YouTube), so easy to boot up my phone and plug in a headset. Perfect for knitting. The next bunch of paragraphs will go into some detail on the 2 audio dramas Blizzard has published.

The Tomb of Sargeras audio drama takes place before the mini-cinematic with Khadgar warning Varian and Anduin about the Burning Legion and before the ingame scenario where we as a player storm the Tomb with Varian and company. It tells the story of Gul’dan (from the Draenor timeline) reaching the Tomb of Sargeras on the Broken Shore with the help of Kil’jaeden, intending to find a way for the Legion to reach Azeroth. Meanwhile Khadgar is doing his best to find Gul’dan to prevent said invasion. I found the interaction between Khadgar and Gul’dan to be quite interesting. I never really was a fan of Gul’dan, but seeing his side of the story did make him evolve from the boring 2D villain to something more.

A Thousand Years of War is the 2^nd audio drama, which focusses on the story of Turalyon (ermaged!) and Alleria after the Second War and the expedition to Draenor. Having been missing ever since, many lore fans have been waiting 12 years for news on this duo. The audio drama is basically addition/prequel to Patch 7.3, explaining how both heroes ended up on Argus with the Army of the Light.

What I especially liked about this story is how it went into some detail on how the Twisting Nether works, the struggles between the light and void and how dangerous the Burning Legion truly is. Both Turalyon and Alleria get plenty character growth. I love their love and trust for each other, but also for their son, whom have only seen glimpses of in the TBC expansion as a grown man. I admit, I am a huge Turalyon fangirl ever since I read Tides of Darkness, so I might be biased. I may have squee-ed when he made his appearance in 7.3. Alleria has always been far less interesting, despite being one of the Windrunner sisters. This audio drama changed my mind tho, as it gives her so much character growth.

So yes, if I you are up to date with WoW: Legion, it might be worth checking these out. If you can stand audio dramas that is. That reminds me I still got 3 WoW novels to read…

Trying out these audio dramas makes me want to check out more. It’s surprisingly hard to find interesting ones. Most of this stuff are podcasts or basic audio books, but I really want the whole experience with sound effects and music. I know there are various official Doctor Who ones out there, with voices from the actual actors. The only free ones I managed to find so far are about pre-reboot Doctors, which I never saw episodes of (not available legally here). I want the ones of the 9^th, 10^th and 11^th Doctors :(

Audio dramas won’t replace my regular books, but it’s an interesting variation to check out at times, especially when knitting. In a future post I will go into detail about digital/web storytelling. A small spoiler: there are various pretty cool web versions out there!

~*~Maru~*~

Due to clients going on a holiday and work not providing me with replacement clients (even tho I asked my boss for extra hours, willing to work full shifts), I had a lot of extra time to spend on hobbies. It should make me happy, but it just saddens me, as I could really use the money for my upcoming studies in September. It's a fulltime 4 year course, so I won't be able to have a job anymore, unless I find something on Saturdays.

But even MMO's get boring when you play them a lot. There isn't much left to do in WoW. Caught all the wild pets, don't feel like leveling more alts. So I'm mainly just logging to raid 3 evenings with the guild, slowly killing new bosses. For some reason everyone is sending me RealID requests...which all get ignored. I like some privacy, thank you very much. Only got a handfull of people on my RealID, mostly lapdogs fellow officers of my guild and some those friends whom tend to be altoholics themselves, thus won't constantly bother me when I am playing on an alt. I really don't mind helping people out...but if the first thing you see when you log in is someone asking you to help with stuff...it gets tiresome fast.

Played Aion briefly, got ganked by max level Asmodians, logged out again. Did have some fun decorating my ingame studio, crafting furniture. Spend some time in Rift, my Bard is level 47 now. It's quite fun climbing mountains to find treasure, fishing spots. Fished up quite some furniture and boats for my house in my dimension O.o Yep, I am addicted to decorating my house in Aion/Rift.

Went to the yearly book market in my city with a friend. It was the first time I ever went there, despite the fact said market has been around for 14 years or so! It was quite fun trying to find the books we were looking for, not too expensive and in a good condition. We ended up spending 5 hours browsing all the (supposedly) 600 stalls! The weather was lovely, so instead of traveling by bus, we went by bike.

I bought:
~ Mists of Avalon - Marion Bradley Zimmer
~ The Forest House - Marion Bradley Zimmer
~ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
~ Animatrix on Bluray (some guy sold a lot of Blurays for 5 euros a piece O.o)

And it only cost me 25 euros tops.

The books are translated into Dutch, which may seem odd for someone whom tends to read only English books nowadays, but I got a good reason for it. As a teen I read Mists of Avalon about 10-15 years ago. I ran out of fantasy/sci-fi books to read in the teenager section of the library, so I went to the adult section instead. And so I found a 950 page book about the Arthurian legends...but from the perspective of various female characters (such as Morgaine/Morgan Le Fay). I loved it. Now that I got a copy of my own, I definately plan on reading it again. I honestly hope the book will still impress me in the same way as it did all those years ago. It would be a shame if my memories of said book are just a case of rose tinted glasses... I plan on collecting the other Avalon books as well, hence why I got The Forest House (I bought Priestess of Avalon shortly after reading Mists, years ago).

As for the Harry Potter book...I started reading these books in Dutch as a teen as well. After the Goblet of Fire I couldn't stand the 3 month or so delay for the book to be translated to Dutch, so I switched to the English version. Did end up buying Halfblood Prince in Dutch later on, but never the last book. So picked up a cheap copy of said book to complete the collection! Now the proud owner of the entire series in Dutch and the entire English series in a fancy box! I very much prefer the creative cover art of the Dutch books tho.

So yeah, more books to read, huzzah! I'll add a booklist in my next entry, as I already spend way too much time typing this one =P

~*~Maru~*~

A while ago I went to Rise of the Guardians in the cinema. While the first 15 or so minutes made me wonder if the story would be any good, the remaining minutes were a blast. I simply adored the way all the characters were portrayed in a way I would never have imagined. A Russian santa? An Austrialian easter bunny? It managed to tickle some sort of childish wonder in me, which at age 28 is a pretty impressive thing to do. As a Dutchie, we generally are raised in a pretty down to earth matter. We aren't told of stories of the tooth fairy, easter bunny or santa. The only thing we basically believe in during our childhood is some sort of Dutch version of Santa: Sinterklaas. I shall not go into some debate about santa vs Sinterklaas, as that's an entirely different story that would eat up the rest of this entry.

Despite this down to earth nature, I have always been intruiged by legends and fairy tales. As a teen I would often read Greek and Roman mythology and even read some novels based in the Arthurian age (Mists of Avalon, I love thee). Later on I would dabble in Chinese and Norse mythology. And now, after watching Rise of the Guardians, decided to order the 5 books by William Joyce on Amazon: The Guardians of Childhood. I didn't expect them to arrive till mid Feb, due to picking the cheapest international shipping, but much to my surprise, there was a package for me on Saturday. Yes, they arrived way earlier than expected.

Now these books aren't exactly long novels. The first two books are actually picture books with some text. The other 3 books contain more text, but are also filled with various handdrawn images. And gosh, what an amazing images they are. I have only checked the Man in the Moon so far, which is immediately starts with colorful images. It's simply lovely.

And it made me wonder if maybe, just maybe...I should go draw again. Not my usual anime-ish doodles....but something new. The artwork in these books, could I create something just as pretty? I would certainly have to work on my anatomy, as my current skill is downright bad.

I also ordered two tickets for this years Elf Fantasy Fair, as aien_hime pointed out they were currently stilll sold at a discount. As usual, she also asked if we should go do cosplay again (last time being years go during an anime convention). Having declined this suggestion the past few years, I think I made her go in some sort of shock when I replied: 'Why yes, we could do that.' Sorry about that ^^;;

Normally I would indeed have said no, but since I lost 12 kilos since I changed my eating habits late September (still going strong, just a bit more to go till my goal!), I can proudly state I do not mind to dress up as some sort of fantasy figure. I got no clue yet what to go as yet (this years theme seems to be Dwarves and Hobbits, how original), but it also sparked some inspiration to come with something original. Maybe actually learning how to make my own cosplay outfit?

Could the dreaded Artist Block of Doom finally be gone?

~*~Maru~*~

Another birthday, another year added. Normally I would get some sort of midlife-like crisis, but this year I was oddly at peace, shrugging it off as just a year added. My sis had to rub it in on her birthday card that I was reaching the 30 years, but whatever, I'll get back at her when I get the chance. Grandma, uncle and his fiance (wedding in October, what to wear!) and one of my nieces came. None of my family from my mothers' side came, due to the fact they live 1+ hours away and it's a weekday. I don't exactly got a bond with them anyways, I see them far too little for that.

Loot wise, I asked for some Warcraft related books which happened to be for sale in a Dutch online store. Mostly got money tho, which was very much welcome, as I spend 100 euros on some books and manga this week on various websites that support iDeal payment. Did some counting today and seems that I got exactly 5 euros left now from my birthday gift money, so all is well =p

( Birthday Loot )

Also, aien_hime, your Pinkie Pie birthday card was epic. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. See you on Saturday. Shabu Shabu, here we come!

~*~Maru~*~