The Queue: You guys invite me to the worst parties

Seiously, Alleria, I appreciate when you invite me on these things, but every single time I come along you find us more and more angry spiders and that’s not a relaxing holiday trip for anyone.

Okay, yes, Faerin loves it, but I’m…

Well, okay, yes, I did bring my giant axe but come on…

The armored crop top is a concession to fashion! I did not bring it because every day is a party when you’re in Ahn Kahet! I never said that!

I don’t have any snark for this, I just legitimately love the way that they got Faerin’s expressions down.

I am hardly a successful writer, but I still have an enormous amount of sympathy for G.R.R.M for the following reasons:

• He’s right about Tolkien. Hell, go ask Michael Moorcock if you want to hear real, savage and trenchant hatred for the man’s fantasy writing. (Now, disrespect Tolkien as an essayist at your peril.)
• I was on the cusp of actual, tangible success as a writer — my first book got published by Monkeybrain, and I had two stories in Postscripts and was a nominee for a British Fantasy Award. Then, from 2003 to 2016, I wrote nothing. No short stories, no novels, no essays, Nothing. The only work I got done during that entire time period was for a website that doesn’t exist any more and this one. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. I tried every day. I tried and tried and tried and I could not write anything good. Just drek that I saved in awful documents of failure and still have lying around. Reminding me of how I disappointed myself. Now just imagine what it’s like to be George, to have written books that have become world famous, to have all these fans waiting for him to finish what must surely be his great work… and nothing.
• Writing is awful. It is a task that draws upon your inner world. It is sometimes so light, so easy, you feel like a god — a crafter or worlds, a teller of stories, a maker of dreams! And then, for no predictable reason, it’s like ripping out your own heart and beating it on an anvil, desperately trying to forge something worthwhile out of your own soul while you bleed and bleed and bleed all over the damn forge and nothing is your reward.
• If not for George, we wouldn’t have the Wild Cards series.
• Tolkien ruined generations of fantasy. Authors like C.L. Moore, James Branch Cabell, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, Ursual K. LeGuin and so many more were eclipsed by the shadow of a man who was writing his work mostly as a means to justify how much he enjoyed making up languages (don’t get me wrong, I love that about the dude, how much he just loved making up whole languages) and George isn’t wrong to be really critical of the dude and his impact on modern fantasy.

I cannot in good conscience put up serious answers here because that’s what Lorewatch is for, but here are a few less serious.

• Alleria and Xal’atath sitting in a tree, F I G H T I N G. Like seriously, it’s not even subtext anymore! It’s text! That ex-knife Elf has straight up dumped every Shadow Priest in creation and is straight up hate dating Alleria now.
• Magni decides not to go back to being King of Ironforge and just retires to solve ridiculous occult nonsense with Dagran. I’m sorry, but I love the Grandpa/Grandson bonding adventures.
• My Warrior (and whoever you’re playing) end up having to do all the work.
• Anduin and Faerin are either going to be superfriends or she’s gonna end up Queen of Stormwind at this rate.
• The Arathi Emperor is a half-Human child or grandchild of Anasterian Sunstrider and one of Arathor’s daughters, sired when Anasterian helped teach magic to Humans as part of the pact to win the Troll War. When Arathor died and the Arathi Empire began breaking up into what are now the Seven Kingdoms, this child led some of the Arathi west just like Anduin Lothar’s ancestors took some Arathi south to found Stormwind, and for similar reasons because the Arathi Emperor (or potentially their parent) was an heir to Arathor.
• Dalaran gets rebuilt as a submarine city in the last patch of the expansion.

I for one welcome our double axe shoulders and axe helmet overlords.

I’m also kind of psyched about Dracthyr Warriors, new forms for Shaman, and the idea that patch 11.0.5 is going to be entirely devoted to the 20th Anniversary and I’m curious to see if I get sick of the anniversary with two full months to play around with it. Honestly think my Shaman may be my next character to hit 80.

I’m a little sad that original Upper Black Rock Spire isn’t on that list, but it’s still cool to see original versions of dungeons return.

Okay, that’s the Queue for today, I love all you crazy kids. Take care of each other.