The Queue: Let’s start a riot!

Man, I really love Arcane. The only way this show could be better is if everyone was a dinosaur.

The past year has been pretty rocky, but there have been some things I’ve objectively enjoyed this year. Cyberpunk 2077 was a top tier favorite game for me in 2021, loved that. Arcane was super great, loved watching it. I think Wrath of the Righteous is one of the best CRPG’s ever made and have absolutely loved playing that game. Had a lot of fun playing and running D&D and other TTRPG’s, including a fun homebrew Mass Effect game we did here on the site. And several of Diablo 3‘s Seasons have been great. Plus, all sorts of cool new dinosaur news came out this year, I discovered Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong and kept watching old favorites like Eons.

So yeah, it’s been hard, but there have been some points of light out there.

This is the Queue. It’s the last Wednesday of 2021. I am running on fumes.

It’s either hiraeth or saudade. I think I lean more towards hiraeth — I have Welsh ancestors and I feel keenly that sense of longing of homesickness and longing for those that are lost to you, whether it be due to death or simply because you’ll never see them again. There’s also a tiny bit of that sense that the thing you  miss never existed in the first place and thus can never be regained, and that hits me deep.

I mean, not only can’t you go home again, but even if you did it’s not there anymore, and maybe never was in the first place. That’s a feeling that sits deep in the gut like a hot rock, you know? Home is the people that are gone, and they can’t come back, and you yourself are the only place in the world they endure. You are their memorial, their cenotaph, their monument. You are all that remains of everything that made you who you are.

I think about it a lot.

Here’s a counter proposal for you.

Instead of more Sylvanas, or centering Sylvanas in this story, what if Tyrande goes back? And there’s a quest you can take, and that quest will alter the narrative, and it’s a simple quest based on a simple question?

She asks for your help. Her question is will you help me?

“The deaths at Darkshore were meaningless. Elune’s choice to send our people’s spirits to Ardenweald only strengthened the Jailer, and made him more powerful and increased our chances of destruction. This timeline is broken, champion, and it will keep spiraling towards destruction unless we fix it. Help me do that, and spare all those innocent lives.”

Now it’s about the people who died, not the feelings of the people that killed them. It’s not about Sylvanas, or Saurfang, or the Horde — its about the thousands of dead Night Elves and the survivors that loved and mourn them. And it’s about the player, and the choice the player makes.

This has been my major problem with the Burning of Teldrassil storyline ever since it started — I don’t care how the people who burned it down feel. I didn’t care about Saurfang’s orcpain at having yet again committed an atrocity, after really having sworn off them during that whole demon blood bender, and I don’t care about Sylvanas’ inner torment now either. It’s not poorly told, it’s not objectively bad, it’s simply not a perspective that I can invest much time in. I don’t want to read a book about the burning of the Library of Alexandria from the perspective of the guy who burned it down.

Center the victims. Tell their stories. That would be interesting to me.

Console because then I can play them in the living room while my wife hangs out and plays stuff on her Switch.

I can’t see out of my right eye.

Also, in a less ha ha I’m going blind and I’m flip about it to mask my real fear and pain response, I can’t snap my fingers or whistle. Just never learned how, have tried multiple times in my life, have never done it. No idea why.

I mean, I have Body Dysmorphia, and I’d love to be able to change my appearance to better reflect how I feel outside, so… a blessing? I mean, it would be like transmog for my face and body.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today. See y’all in 2022.