Ivory Cloud Serpent Pink Pain-in-the-Neck

I mean, I like that it's pink. But, holy shit, is this mount ever not worth the trouble. I should have kept better track of the amount of time I wasted on it, but at least after the last mogu invasion ended, followed by several days of Black Empire assaults and Mantid invasions, I thankfully was able to get it this cycle instead of waiting days just to sit around and wait for hours.

This is a screenshot from a group I was in last night. No, it doesn't get that dark in Pandaria at night, but I used an Inky Black Potion to see if the Ivory Cloud Serpent would show up better against this background. "Does it?" I don't know! I waited below the worm's range, planning to join the others when the serpent spawned, but I saw them yelling in chat during one of my breaks from spamming the macro, and I never even saw it! Haha, so fun. By the time I joined them (within seconds, as I didn't have any worm debuff) it was already gone and they were congratulating each other on their new mount.
Today I had a different strategy: stay in the group gathering worm stench, keep spamming the macro, and just hope the spawn point is within range of someone in the party.

Incidentally, I never did see the worm this time, either. My addon announced it, I clicked the macro and waited for it to channel, noticed it wasn't channeling and panicked, then saw the mount was already in my bags. I'm guessing someone else lassoed it and everyone in the party got it? I don't know. I'm still kind of mystified by the whole thing. This guide linked on Wowhead was useful, but I do definitely recommend joining a group. I've been in groups twice now where most* people got the mount.

*Wah, wah, wah.

Hey, Ivory Cloud Serpent*

 Spawn right here for me,

Worm stench is stacked, there's no way I'll catch up to you,

 Hey, Ivory Cloud Serpent, won't you spawn for me,

When the Mogu are invading, I'll be waiting for you

Just let me get close to you, within the lasso's range,

Don't let your spawn point change,

My patience soon will wane,

It's driving me insane,

I don't know why I want this mount I'll never use.

I wish the lasso hadn't dropped, 

this chore's not a "reward".

But I'll do it 'cause I'm bored,

And it frees one bag space more, 

I want this to be over with.

Hey, Ivory Cloud Serpent, c'mon and spawn for me,

When the Mogu are invading, I'll be waiting for you.

*Not pictured. Obviously. But isn't this Great Worm From Beyond with a freaking ivory stripe down the side just a punch in the gut?

If you need the tune: Mr. Tambourine Man, Bob Dylan

Da Ba Dee Da Ba Daa

I got the Void-Touched Souvenir Totem in a chest from running a Horrific Vision of Orgrimmar. I'm a fan of any critter-related toy, and the first place I thought of to try it out was the patch of hillside in Thunder Bluff with oddly violent critters running around.

Pros:

1.  Works anywhere. So many Pandaria toys were nerfed to be usable only in Pandaria, so I was really glad that I didn't have to use this only in the Heart Chamber, or something stupid like that. I'll have to try this in Pandaria, though, so I can use the Panflute and see if the void-blue critter becomes my minion for ten minutes.
2. Makes regular sized critters larger and combative. 

Cons:

1.  30-minute cooldown is a bummer, particularly for setting up screenshots. The cooldown wait could be mitigated by making the totem effect last longer and/or increasing the area affected, especially given the critter's pathing swath can be large and difficult to predict for totem placement. 
2. The large violent critters in Thunder Bluff don't seem to increase in size from the totem (beyond their enraged growth, that is), as far as I can tell. 

We're off to See the Withered

Apologies. But this post just came together beautifully. How did I never come up with this before? (I'm not going back through posts to check if I did or not.) I was going to change the title to "I'm" when I realized that I always have a companion in the Broken Isles, and I just love that Rehgar's mount looks like the Cowardly Lion.
I've been avoiding the Nightfallen ever since my computer crashed and I had to reload my addons from scratch on my new one. I was just sure that even if I did happen to manage to get the flying carpet in my paragon cache, the "on your 1st try!" message from Rarity was going to make me murderously angry. With the 100% rep bonus, though, I had to try. Now I'm up to 30 (2) paragon caches with zero flying carpets, so now at least I'm back in a comfortable failure grind.

Lightning Bolt

I don't know what I did to get this vantage point in a recent pet battle, but it allowed me to get a really good view of the pet's spell effects, and I thought the lightning in the Cyclone ability was a nice touch. I don't know how to ever get this close up view again, but it was pretty cool.

You Don't Say?

I just realized the other day, though, that if Coronavirus had happened at the end of Warlords of Draenor, during the lull before Legion when the garrisons began to feel like prisons, I would have lost my mind. The Horde garrison is so depressing anyway, and I just remember at the end feeling trapped and isolated (hearty LOL) in the garrison day after day. Which isn't to say Warlords was a bad expansion, the questing experience was one of the best, or that Battle for Azeroth is such an amazing expansion, it's been pretty meh for the most part. But for me, the garrison depression would have been unbearable coupled with the reality of isolation/social distancing, compared to the feeling of having places to go and things to do in Azeroth.

Pretty Fishy, If You Ask Me

That's it. That's the post.