The Queue: What happened to the year?

I swear, we were just doing Halloween, and now we’ve just crossed the threshold to December and the final winding down of the year. Where does the time go? I don’t even have the Thanksgiving holiday madness to blame anything on! At best, I can point to the last week at work and our final large conference to run A/V for. Which went well and the clients were happy — cue applause.

While I go and do all sorts of things to get ready for Christmas, it’s time for — The Queue!

It does sound nice! However, various writers always have their own things going and can’t not be in a neighborhood with their guilds. That also adds a bunch of extra moderation work onto someone’s plate that they might not be looking for. So, while we always 100% want to see your houses and designs in the Queue, I just don’t see an official Blizzard Watch suburb being in the cards.

I’m also open to being overridden by Liz if she decides that this is something that Blizzard Watch wants to tackle — so ask her this on Wednesday.

Have you ever had to move a giant table? You need like a bunch of bodies to get that sucker moved properly and safely. Maybe not the same as a piano, but you don’t want to be putting bad stress on some of those legs. Maybe Anduin has just decided to leave it there and throw big feasts for Winter’s Veil, and Love is in the Air?

I was never able to rewatch the Netflix Defenders series’. I loved watching them the first time, and I liked how they showed that small view of New York with mostly surface level problems, nothing too wild and crazy and world ending. But on rewatch, I just kept wanting to get to the end for the big moments. Usually I have more patience, but I just spend the whole time that Kingpin isn’t on screen asking, “Where’s Kingpin?”

The problem with characters being jerks to each other in seasons is also one of those big, annoying things that, because we have the full picture, we can be like, “c’mon Foggy, cut Matt some slack, he’s trying to save the city.” But if you were actually in that position in real life, that’s probably a pretty reasonable reaction to things going on around you. It’s been a while since I saw it, so I don’t remember how justified he was, but in general that’s an issue with superhero media.

I uncooly had to work, which was less than fun. I did get to spend a whole bunch of time with my favorite person, though, so that was good. I even got a free slice of cheesecake at a restaurant!

It would not be a satisfying ending to her story. The whole point of keeping a villain around for a few expansions is to make them feel like a big, massive threat that absolutely must be dealt with. The problem does arise where, if they were so cataclysmic, why haven’t we stopped her entirely yet? Which is fair. I don’t have a great answer to that that doesn’t involve plot armor, but she has made a pretty good habit of leaving things in her wake that must be taken care of, so that does go a long way.

But this isn’t the same situation where Deathwing shows up and then is dead by the end of the expansion with basically no screen time. There’s no extra story hiding behind a redemption for Xal’atath that would be more satisfying in my mind than putting the problem to rest. Characters should be allowed to die! That helps build stakes and sell cliffhangers better. If we all always saved the day and nobody got hurt, it would be a narratively inert story, and we’d lose interest.

Here’s Bacardi getting in the way of the TV again, it’s like he knows that he can get more attention this way! Still, he’s a good cat and deserves boops, and if you treat him well — he’ll pay out in your weekly loot searches.

Would you rather

Backpack around the world for six months with very little money

Or

Stay at a luxurious resort, all expenses paid, for two weeks

Today’s Anna Earworm™: In The Air Tonight 

Have fun in December! I hope you don’t have too much snow yet. Make sure to bury Anna under an avalanche of questions for tomorrow.