(Reposted from DW)

So I try not to make these rambles too powered by salt but considering Impactor is very near my favourite character in the franchise and as a result I read a lot of badfic featuring him out of sheer desperation for something, I'm seriously devastated by the way I've never seen it explored just what a harrowing and accurate description of moral injury and reflexive self-loathing he is.

Like, it's wild to me that we have it in the text, actually on page, that Impactor outright thinks he's a monster. We see it on page! It is written with plain words! He's stuck thinking like "can't survive if the other guy doesn't die", "your life is bought with the blood you spill, and you want to keep living so you best learn to like killing" to the point where he doesn't even want to live anymore and yet he can't stop, he's stuck, there's no safety for him to retreat back to because nobody taught him to value himself in any other way except in balance against someone else.

Like we know. Exactly what Impactor considers horrible, what he considers ugly and unseemly and corrupt. And it's all stuff that makes sense. It's all stuff the most of us probably find a little bit horrifying. We know that his perception of the world is so utterly bleak that there is no way but down, the only trajectory he sees for himself is to slip further and further from that surface because this is just his life now, this is what he is now, this may be what he always was, so isolated in his self-loathing that he can barely see the surface of where the horrible things end, and sure as hell doesn't think he can reach it. He's been cut off from his access to the sublime, to the fortifying, to the beautiful and wonderful and safe, this is all he has left, this is just what he is now.

I think the massive overriding misreading is assuming Impactor has any regard for himself. He may have the ability to act confident and move through the world with intellectual assurance over his own skill, and it's easy to take that as a sign that he has some kind of a core, undivided wholeness of personhood that lets him keep acting like he knows what he's doing. But I don't think that's it at all. His sense of self has been so completely fractured and damaged by the horrors he's committed and been isolated with that they've attached themselves to the space where his sense of self would otherwise be. Again, I'm not even extrapolating -- this just is the text of "Escape".

And then there's the negative influence of Guzzle, another person who thinks the way to deal with your trauma is by committing massive violence on it who has no idea this should maybe be something to discuss with people -- like, we see the way his abandon and reveling in having power and returning the violence drags Impactor down, too, because it's familiar, it makes sense, and then Impactor locks him in a box and goes "I can't fucking do this anymore". It's literally the most unsubtle death wish, it's a textbook flight arrest response, he doesn't want to keep doing the thing he's doing but he doesn't know what else there is, he sees no way out other than down.

And IDK I don't want to cast blame, honestly as a recovering abusive asshole myself, the terrible things he does to other people out of a sense of "this is how it has to be, don't be naive, don't be stupid", the loop of self-justification and grasping for value in his identity as an anonymous source of violence and ruiner of lives is a big part of why I love him so much, and his victims are really visible in the text, their mess deserves exploration and their pain deserves narrative validation, if only for completeness' sake

but like goddamn I just feel for this trash mech so much. He was left locked up with only his own bad thoughts for company, forced in a situation where becoming a worse person was the only way to escape further pain to the point where he's just completely cut off from his access to the sublime, to the fortifying, to the beautiful and wonderful and safe. Like where is there to go when the only things you know what to do are all fucked up? What do you do when all you've been "taught" is that living means killing, but you're getting extremely sick of the killing, when you're tired of your whole life being stained in blood and gore and the traces of the grotesquerie that is living with the knowledge that having power over other people is the ultimate act of survival when you never wanted that?

So, non binary or maybe trans mtf sirius through their Hogwarts years, Sirius comming out and James being the best boyfriend ever and those things...

James grinned at Sirius, bright and wide. "We're going to be best mates for the rest of our lives." 

"We are?" 

James nodded. He was so earnest. So sure of himself. Sirius copied him about half the time because he wanted to be that confident too. "You'll see." 

Years later, James asked him on a date. Sirius worried that it would change their friendship, but James assured him that they were still going to be best mates for the rest of their lives. He sounded so sure about it, that Sirius didn't let it worry him too much. 

*

Sirius didn't know what to do. Looked at the guys in Gryffindor Tower and didn't feel like one of them. Look at the girls and felt more like them. The trousers of the school uniform felt strangely constricting. 

Didn't know what to do. Didn't know what to think. Didn't want to talk to James about it, because if this was a phase or summat, it would be a really awkward conversation for nothing. Besides, what could James do or know that Sirius wouldn't be able to figure out? 

*

Sirius stood on the first step up to the girl's dormitory. Boys couldn't get on the staircase, or it turned flat like a slide. Sirius was standing on it, and it was staying firm as a staircase. 

This didn't help explain anything. Sirius still didn't know what to do, all this did was seem to hammer in that something had to be done. Frankly, it was a miracle Sirius had managed to get any sleep since starting to worry about all of this. 

"Sirius?" Lily asked. 

Sirius pasted on a grin and turned to face her while taking a step down to the common room level and hoping that she hadn't noticed. "Hey, Lily. What's up?" 

Lily had a serious look on her face, but not like Sirius was in trouble-- not a combination Sirius was used to, mind. "You want to talk?" 

"About what?" Sirius asked, hoping that she wasn't talking about the staircase thing. Sirius's heart was beating nervously hard, the traitor. It was more difficult to pretend everything was fine when it had reactions like that. 

She didn't answer at first. She had a look like this was a delicate situation, and the slightest provocation could send Sirius running. She turned to the side so that there was enough space for someone to pass by. "You want to come up? Little more privacy that way." Not that there was anyone in the common room. Sirius wouldn't have tried it if there had been, but there was always the risk of someone coming in. That's how Lily had snuck up-- Sirius had been facing the portrait hole, watching that way. 

"Blokes can't go up the girls' stairs. Everyone knows that." 

"Are you still a bloke?" she asked, her voice free of judgment. 

Sirius still flinched. It was one thing to think about it; it was quite another to have someone else say it aloud. 

"It's not a big deal," Lily said gently, but that had to be a lie. 

"Maybe not to you," Sirius muttered, then wanted to vanish. That had been as good as saying she was right. 

"What I mean is, it doesn't have to be a big deal. Just... if you're confused, talking to someone might help. And I think that if you were going to talk to your mates, you would've done it already." 

"I haven't talked to any of them because I don't know what I'd say," Sirius said defensively. 

"Right. And we're... I mean, friendly but not friends, so I thought it might take the pressure off." Expression open, she motioned up the stairs in invitation. 

Sirius glanced at the boys' staircase, then nodded. 

Lily smiled comfortingly and led the way. 

Each step should've felt more monumental-- and in a way it did, but for the most part, Sirius felt like the first one had been the hardest. If Sirius had been able to stand on the first one for that long, then the staircase wasn't going to even out ten or twenty or thirty steps later. 

*

Sirius had talked with Lily. Lily hadn't convinced her of anything except to be confident, like she used to be. Who cared if she made a mistake in saying she was a girl? Thinking it, saying it, living it, made her feel better. Happier. She talked to Lily a couple more times before deciding that she wanted to do something. 

Not that she'd really done anything about it, yet. 

Sirius talked to Lily some more, then the other girls in the dormitory, and they were all cool with her moving in there. Before she went and asked McGonagall to move dorm rooms, she wanted to talk to James about it, though. It would just make things easier, plus she was used to talking to him about everything. Sirius was paranoid about all sorts of terrible things happening, but most of them werne't realistic. Worst case scenario was... was... well, that James broke up with her. Technically, James had asked Sirius to be his boyfriend, something he was no longer capable of doing. If they broke up, then at least Sirius wouldn't have to hide all the crying she was going to do. 

Not, she reminded herself, that it was a given. James had never expressed interest in women before, but there was a first time for everything. Of course, because the universe wasn't willing to do her another solid-- not so soon after giving her Lily at the opportune moment-- James wasn't in his dormitory when Sirius went up. None of the guys were there. 

Sirius sighed and figured that talking to McGonagall first wouldn't be so bad after all. She wasn't about to chase them across the castle to talk to them when she didn't even know what she wanted to say. 

Professor McGonagall took the request pretty easily once Sirius said that she'd already talked to the other girls about it-- whether that was a piece of acceptance that was necessary, or that bit of information convinced her that it wasn't a prank, Sirius didn't know and she didn't care to guess. Professor McGonagall also asked if a different name needed to be down on her roster which... honestly had not occurred to Sirius. Maybe she'd change her mind about it later, but for now, her name was the only thing that still really felt like her. Professor McGonagall said she'd have the house elves move her things, which meant Sirius had to get back there as soon as possible to head off any of the Marauders seeing it and panicking. For a group of supposedly pranksters, they sure did worry a lot-- not that Sirius minded or was immune to it herself. 

She was too late to prevent it from happening entirely. In the time since she'd last been in the dormitory and getting back, the rest of them had gotten in there. By the time she opened the door, they were gathered around the empty spot where her bed had been. James, in particular, looked to be freaking out. 

"There you are," Peter said. 

"What the hell happened?" Remus asked. 

James just gestured to the empty space emphatically, clearly having trouble getting his thoughts to form words. 

"Erm." This would be the moment were she said it. Whatever 'it' might be. She'd tried to think of something to say on the entire walk from McGonagall's office to the Gryffindor Tower and come up with absolutely nothing. 'I'm a girl' was probably her best bet. Straight to the point, and nice and short. Very little space for her to get too nervous and not be able to finish. Three little words. She could do that. 'I'm a girl.' She could say that. Hell, usually when she started talking around them, she never stopped until someone interrupted her. Sirius took a breath. The words stayed stubbornly in her chest. She felt like throwing up. She took another breath, but that only made it worse. "Merlin," she muttered miserably. "James, can I talk to you for a second?" Maybe that would take enough of the pressure off that she'd be able to get it out. 

"Sure," James said, looking slightly more put together but not any less worried. He followed Sirius out into the hall, and she shut the door on their friends. She took a quick glance and didn't see anyone coming on either side of the stairs. 

"I'm moving dorms," she blurted. 

"I-" James frowned, thrown, and utterly confused. "What? Like you're in a new House? Can they even do that? And why would you agree? Being a Gryffindor kicks arse, there's no reason to leave it, even though Moony doesn't make it easy by leaving his bloody socks all over the floor-- think I even found one in my bed once. But really, there's no reason to leave over that." 

"I'm not moving Houses." 

"Then where are you going?" 

"To the girls' dormitory." 

James blinked at Sirius. "But only girls live there." 

"...Yeah," Sirius said, looking at him meaningfully and hoping that her point was getting across. 

James blinked again. "Oh. Oh, okay. Is that- I mean, y'know, permanent?" 

"What do you mean 'permanent'?" 

"I- well, I dunno. Like you're never going to share a room with us again?" 

"Not during school, no," Sirius said, even though she hadn't really thought about it that way. She'd gotten used to falling asleep next to James after a nightmare; she didn't know what she was going to do now, when that happened. Walking all the way over wasn't a viable option. 

James's throat worked. "Alright. I mean, I would've liked to know about it before it happened, but... yeah. Okay." He moved like he was going to give her a quick kiss, then froze. "Are we- I mean." He motioned between them. 

"Still dating?" Sirius supplied, and he nodded. "I'd like to be. I get it if you want to break up, though." 

James immediately shook his head, and it was instant relief to Sirius's nerves. Everything was going to take some getting used to-- for both of them and the rest of the Gryffindors in their year-- but at least Sirius didn't need to worry about how James felt for her. It might change later, but she sort of doubted that. The worst reaction was the beginning one. At least, according to Alice. Sirius was inclined to believe that she knew what she was talking about, since it's not like Sirius had any better guesses about how this was going to go. "I love you. This is going to take some getting used to, but I can do that. I have to start thinking of you like a girl. Can't be too hard, right?" he asked, a touch nervously. 

"I managed it easily enough," Sirius said with a crooked smile. "Anything I think is easy can't be too bad for you." 

*

Sirius had thought of the possible bad reactions-- none of which had happened with her friends because they were great-- but she hadn't considered the weird reactions. She sat down next to James the next morning, across from Peter and Remus, just like always, and the conversation paused. They froze for a moment. Like they didn't know what to do now that she was there. "Something on my face?" 

"Other than makeup?" Peter asked, peering at her mouth curiously. 

"I've worn makeup before," she said defensively. Of course, back then, it had only been eyeliner and the occasional brush of eyeshadow. 

"Not lipstick," Peter said. 

Sirius rubbed her lips together self-consciously. She'd thought that it looked good. Marlene had said it worked. 

"You look great," James said, smiling at her earnestly. He looked at her the same way he always did, which did wonders for making her feel better. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, which had the effect of both warming her stomach and making her wonder why he hadn't kissed her on the mouth like he usually did. 

"One kiss isn't going to bugger up the lipstick," she said with a smirk. 

James blinked, then chuckled, a little self-deprecating. "Right." He kissed her again. 

"You okay?" she asked quietly. 

"Yeah, I just don't know what I'm supposed to be doing differently." 

"How about nothing?" 

James didn't get it. "What do you mean? I thought- well, I thought that part of the point was that things are different." 

"It's different because I'm not a bloke. We're still mates. We're still dating. I'm your girlfriend, not your boyfriend. That's pretty much it. Maybe later, we'll change shite, but right now, just... treat me like you always do." Sirius glanced at Peter and Remus. "That goes for you two as well. I'm still a Marauder, even if I'm living in the girl's dormitory." 

*

"You sure you're okay?" Sirius asked, a touch breathlessly. She moved her head to one side to give James better access to her neck. "I know you liked how I looked in the other uniform." 

James chuckled, his breath puffing warm against her skin. "Right, because that was my main attraction to you: your clothes." 

"You never know." 

James bit down, and she whimpered, hips jerking. "This is better actually," he said, one hand going up under her skirt to squeeze her arse. 

"How so?" 

"Easier access." 

Sirius laughed, pushing her arse into his hand. "Nice to know there are perks to being myself." 

Liminal

[Follow up to: The Door for Him Backstory for Context: The Curious Case of Apartment 547 Musical Embellishment: Go Tomorrow]

1.

Two and a half years. Two and a half, long, bloody years. Through war, famine, and the chaos that proceeded in their aftermath, Zharia had looked for her father. The Sunguard had said that he was deserter--that the final lead they had of his whereabouts was the ship that had smuggled him out of Quel’thalas at the very height of the Phoenix Wars.

But she knew Arrenir better than that. Her father did not run. When backed into a corner with nothing to lose, he’d have thrown himself into the fire over and over again until he or his enemies were dead. He must have taken that ship for a good reason, she just needed to figure out why.

For two and a half years, she had searched. Now, at last, her leads had finally brought her to Apartment 547.

Technically no one owned it anymore. All three co-owners were dead or presumed dead. Even so, getting the keys from the City Council of Dalaran was no issue, seeing that she was a blood relative to one of them. But when she slotted the key into the front door, she realized that it had not been locked.

Zharia swallowed hard, both excited and afraid of what she might find here. She prayed, Light upon Light, she prayed that she would not find her father’s corpse upstairs. Not after everything they had been through together, not after she had brought him back, and not after almost losing him to misery during The Fall. 

But Apartment 547 seemed normal. A layer of dust had taken residence upon the sheet covered furniture. The pots that Lirelle had left in their conservatory had become soil beds for new life. The kitchen and dining table, where there had been so much laughter and joy in the past, stood still with a contented silence. There was no death to be found here. No blackened stains of old blood, no smells of rot.

Zharia made her way up the stairs as rays of sunlight pierced the frosted windows of the apartment. It highlighted the dust that she was disturbing, coiling and floating upwards as she slid her palms over the guard rails. She had never visited personally but from the way Arrenir used to laugh at the time, she knew that the best years of his life were spent here. The rooms on the second floor were empty, save for the smell of sunbaked linen. Excitement had begun to fade as the fear that this was yet another pointless lead filled her heart.

But her fear quickly turned to dread when she made it to the top floor and saw the door at the end of the hallway. It was ajar.

No you fool. No, no, no.

Arrenir had told her about the doors long ago. He had wanted to get her opinion on their nature, seeing that she was a woman of logic and reason. Zharia had told him that they were the workings of a man who could not let go of a past--much like he used to be. She had warned him to be careful with them, lest they tempt him with their empty promises.

She was immune to the alluring claims that they could take you back in time, because unlike many others--often the ones who were time obsessed--she was not as naive. Zharia knew that in order to get where she was today, many things needed to have fallen in place exactly as they did. 

Even so, she could not deny that the thought of going back and fixing past mistakes was attractive, but the idea also opened up the possibility of so many other things going wrong. So in the end, she was glad to leave the past behind. It meant that the mistakes she could have made could no longer touch her. It was as Arrenir had told her, once upon a time, ‘that to fix one’s mistakes, it needed to be done in the present, not within the reach of the past.’

The man who had left the door ajar, the door at the end of the hallway, was not the man who she thought her father was. The Arrenir she knew would have never run--not from war--never from life. In a way, this revelation was so much worse than finding his body. It was suicide, only of a different kind.

Zharia stormed towards the door and pushed it wide open. The walls of the hallway seemed to narrow around her, but she ignored it. Dead, alive or something in between, she was not going to let the apartment stop her from tracking down her father.

As if sensing her intent and picking up on her desires, the hallway beyond the door warped and changed. Space seemed to compress until there was but a singular door for her. One that looked exactly as the one that had been left ajar.

“Much obliged,” she muttered as she opened it up to a hallway that led back into Apartment 547. Another Apartment 547.

2.

Everything was wrong. Because everything was right.

She could tell by hopeful chatter in Silvermoon’s streets, and by the way that eternal spring clung to the air of Eversong woods. It was as if the winter, born from the Phoenix Wars, had been nothing more fleeting nuisance instead of the catastrophe her people had suffered. Heading to the Dawnspire, Zharia passed Goldsea where its fields remained unblemished by the ravages of war, and through Autumnvale whose residents had raised a monument to the heroes who had so courageously given their lives for it.

As she gazed upon the alabaster towers of the Dawnspire Citadel, it was clear that the years had been kind to the Sunguard, this Sunguard. Here, following the war, they seemed to have the gratitude of the entire Thalassian nation in their debt. Here, they had been the Honor Guard of a new era of peace. But as abundant as it had been for the guild, the talk of passersby made it clear that it wasn’t nearly as bountiful as it had been for its leader, who apparently was expecting his third child in two years.

The old Guard had retired. Zharia gathered that from the bored receptionist who had been staring at the gates that were never breached, in the courtyard that had never seen blood. According to the girl that manned her uneventful station, the officers had all stepped away for a new generation of leaders. Officers Shadowsunder and Stormsummer had married and now looked to mend the House of Sunders of Shimmervale. The Sunfires had turned their duties to their children once more. Sunshard received a lordly commission of her own: a fleet from the crown itself. And as for Firestorm, the old man had finally settled to administer his realm of Shallowbrook. 

When it finally came to the topic of her father, after much gossipping, the receptionist was all too happy to inform her that he had too settled away from the Guard. Marrying one Lirelle Dawnbrook.

3.

Zharia paused at a lovingly crafted door to a cottage by the sea. A part of her didn’t want to knock. It would be so easy to turn around now, head back through the door at the end of the hallway and consider her father dead. But she needed to know if it was him. Really him. The man she had sought for so long.

Is where you went, you old fool?

The door swung open, revealing a war-scarred man with tied crimson hair. “Oh, Zharia? I didn’t realize you were visiting your father today,” he said with a smile.

“Sederis?” Zharia cocked her head involuntarily.

“We’re having a little reunion dinner tonight, but I suppose it wouldn’t be too much trouble if you joined us,” Sederis said, looking back into the cottage where a woman toiled away in the kitchen. “Right dear?”

“We’ll have more than enough food for her if you just leave her some!” she replied with a laugh before joining Sederis at the door. The woman wrapped an arm around her husband’s growing waistline and extended the other to shake Zharia’s hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met dear,” she said. “Ny Dawnbrook, Lirelle’s sister.”

Zharia stood still for a moment, stunned by the sight of the man who had long been dead. She hadn’t known him personally but Arrenir had spoken fondly of him, once upon a time. “Zharia,” she croaked, before shaking the offered hand. “Arrenir’s daughter.”

“Well come in,” Sederis said, welcoming her inside her father’s cottage. “He’s at the beach with Lirelle, probably catching crabs or some other nonsense!” The crimson haired man chuckled. Zharia had never seen him so happy. The times she had seen him in her own time, Sederis had always seemed to carry a weight about him. A burden that he no longer carried in either world.

She made her way inside as the couple returned to the kitchen, aiming to fill the house with the aromatic smells of roast meat and baked garlic before the sun set. It was a quaint place, with exotic plants around every corner, each of them flanked by display cases filled with beetles and bugs. 

You never put anything you loved on display. You never wore anything on your sleeve. Why now? Why here?

Her thoughts were cut short when she reached the back door to the cottage, one that opened up to a pristine beach. There, amongst white sands and gentle waves, she saw him. Arrenir Silversun, treading lightly upon rocky tidepools and pointing things out for Lirelle who followed in his wake.

He waved at her.

She waved back.

4.

“Your father will be along shortly,” said Lirelle as she arrived back at the cottage, thrusting her thumb behind her. “He got caught up wrestling a mudskipper for an aquatic crustacean he wanted.”

“Hasn’t changed a bit,” Zharia replied. “How are things?”

“Things are good, The Crows are having a well deserved break after putting down a rebellion against Lord Dumbass’ vassals over there.” Lirelle gestured in Sederis’ general direction before adding, “I told you so!”

“Yeah, yeah I know,” Sederis waved her off like a bad smell as he continued grilling dinner.

Zharia shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve...I’ve been away. Expedition overseas. A rebellion?”

Lirelle sighed as she leaned against the doorway. “You met my sister? I assume she failed to mention that she’s next in line to Dawnveil after my father eventually croaks it. Anyway, the only way she’d marry was matrilineally, and Sederis decided that he wanted to marry her.”

Sederis cleared his throat, carrying two skewers of meat in each hand. “Long story short. A few nobles got uppity because the Emberglades could end up with the Dawnbrooks in a generation. So we crushed them. End of story.” The Lord of the Emberglades leaned in to kiss his wife who batted him away, already preoccupied with a pan of paella. Seeing that he wasn’t wanted, he shifted over to Lirelle offering a peace kebab. “Thanks by the way.”

“Your gold was most welcome,” Lirelle replied with a smirk. She took a bite of her peace offering as she joined her sister in the kitchen when Arrenir finally appeared at the doorway to the cottage.

“Zharia, I didn’t know you were coming!” Arrenir bellowed as he wiped his boots on the welcome mat before taking them off.

“Neither did I,” Zharia responded.

A long silence followed, filled only by the chatter of the other guests in the kitchen as it slowly dawned upon Arrenir that something there was something amiss. She watched as the realization spread across him like fire.

“Zharia?” he said at last.

“Hello father,” she couldn’t bring herself to smile. A storm of emotions circled within her as she tried her best to speak.

“Dinner is served!” Sederis called out to them, interrupting the moment as he set a spread of food on the table.

“We’ll talk later?” Arrenir asked, as if to confirm that she would be staying long enough for them to speak.

Zharia nodded.

5.

“We visited Thandiel’s grave,” Sederis said somberly as the evening began to wind down, and drinks became uncorked. “Esheyn came with a bouquet of flowers. Biggest and brightest she’s ever grown. Personally I think the old Bloodknight would’ve much preferred a good bourbon, but I’m sure she’d appreciate the gesture nonetheless.”

“We’ll be sure to leave her some the next time we go,” Lirelle replied. “Have something decent in one of your stashes we could borrow?”

“Stashes?” Ny raised an eyebrow at her husband who merely shrugged.

“Look, I committed to drink less, not banish every hidden cache of alcohol I have,” he said.

Lirelle snorted. “He probably doesn’t even remember where half of them are. And I can tell you where the other half is hidden.” She started ticking locations off on her fingers, “Way behind in the back of the cabinet in your bathroom, under the huge pot in the kitchen that Elan never uses, in the corner of my shed…the usual.”

“Well,” Arrenir interjected. “Highdawn’s death anniversary is coming up, so that’d be the best time for us to visit. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind a second visit from the two of you,” he said with a smile.

“Will do,” Sederis said with a nod, and as the dinner drew to a close, the mellowed out Lord of the Emberglades rose to his feet and insisted on doing the dishes despite Arrenir’s protests. “Guest, or not guest, seeing that my brother is buried in paperwork and is not here...I’m the only one without more catching up to do.” The Pilgrim of War donned an apron, rolled up his sleeves, and with a weightless smile began to clean up.

“I’ll leave you two to it then,” said Ny, standing with her husband. “I’ve got to scold my sister here for not visiting home often enough.”

Lirelle stood up. “I visit plenty!”

“Ever since you two built your cottage, you’ve been coming back here between leading your campaigns with the Crows...” Ny trailed off as she left for the living room with Lirelle who chased after her elder sister with an incredulous look on her face.

Arrenir laughed at first, waving the both of them off until he was left at the dining table with Zharia. His Zharia.

She sat as she had throughout dinner, in a daze. Surrounded by the living dead, she wondered how differently their counterparts would’ve been if only they had lived.

“We should talk outside.”

6.

They sat upon the deck that overlooked the seaside. Stars dotted the skyline, reflecting off a dark and undulating sea below. Zharia couldn’t bring herself to speak at first, unsure if doing so would lead to catharsis or a gaping wound that would never close. But she needed to.

Arrenir broke the silence first, staring at the night sky as he did. “I--I never thought I’d see you again. It’s good to see you Zharia.”

“Is it?” she spoke at last. “You ran. Away from it all. Away from reality. Away from me.”

“I did,” Arrenir replied, staring at the night sky. “I’m sorry.”

She scoffed. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Arrenir spoke quietly as he turned towards her to look her in the eyes. “I’m sorry for abandoning you without a word. I’m sorry I left you without a body to bury and with questions, millions of questions, left unanswered.”

Zharia saw that there was genuine pain in his eyes. Her father didn’t do what he did lightly, that much she could see. And as Arrenir reached over to embrace her, she flinched at first, but quickly leaned into his shoulder and descended into tears.

“Why?” Zharia sobbed, shedding tears of grief and anger. “I never mourned you because I knew you weren’t dead. But this, this, is so much worse than that! Do you understand what you’ve done? You chose to go to a place where I can’t follow. Do I mean that little to you!?”

Arrenir held her as she yelled into his shoulder. “You mean the world to me,” he said softly. “I thought by coming here, I could do better. Be a better father. Be a better soldier. Be a better man. It was only after everything--the war, the life I built here--did I realize that you wouldn’t be a part of it.”

“And yet you never came back,” Zharia sneered as she tore away from her father’s embrace. “I guess it’s because you found what you were looking for.”

Arrenir looked back at the cottage he had built. The life that he had earned for himself through fire and blood. From each plank of its construction and each display case filled with the collections he had gathered. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I did.”

“Good for you.” Zharia said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Because this, all of this, is wrong. It belongs in another life. To another Arrenir. A life you’ve stolen it from him by coming here.”

Arrenir shook his head. “He’d have made the same mistakes I made. Nothing would have changed.”

“Would it?” Zharia shook her head. “I’m going now, back to where you ought to have been. Where your friends are dead and where your daughter is missing a father.” She rose from the deck. “This will be the last you’ll see of me.”

Arrenir swallowed hard, trying his best to choke back his tears. “Goodbye Zharia,” he said. “It was nice seeing you again. I was hoping that you’d stay--”

“Save it,” Zharia spat and turned to leave her father behind. “You raised me well enough to know not to run from my mistakes.”

7.

After long moments spent in deep thought, Arrenir finally returned inside to find that it was quiet. The kitchen was spotless, plates and pans drying on their respective racks. The living room still bore the scent of tea, but it was clear that his guests had already gone.

“Lirelle?” he called out to his wife but received no response. After checking each room of the cottage he finally found her on the front porch that overlooked her garden.

“Who the fuck are you?” She asked.

“How much did you hear?”

“Hear? Do you think I’m blind? I figured something was up the moment she spoke to me,” Lirelle glared at him. “She came through the apartment, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Arrenir said, knowing better than to mince words with her. “And so did I.”

“I always wondered why you became less insufferable to be around all of a sudden,” Lirelle said. “I thought it was because you finally understood who I was.”

“You aren’t wrong, though the only difference is that the realization happened elsewhere.”

“So I married a dupe,” Lirelle rested her face in her hands. “You’re not even my Arrenir.”

“I am your Arrenir,” he said, folding his arms. “Your Arrenir would’ve continued to be insufferable. Trying too hard to be something he thought you wanted him to be. And failing.” “Speaking from experience?” his wife got to her feet and folded her arms. “Fail with one Lirelle, but wait, don’t worry, there’s an infinite more to choose from! All you need to do is keep crossing fucking dimensions until you succeed in pinning me down. God I’ve got to be the worst Lirelle of the lot,” Lirelle spat as rage welled up inside her. “So is that it? Is that why you came here!?”

Arrenir looked her in the eyes and held her ire-filled gaze. “No,” he said. “I came here because you died.”

“What?”

“Sunstrider Isle, fighting Dame Everleigh’s forces. But instead of crushing them together, we had parted on poor terms. You died there, with Sederis.”

Lirelle’s demeanour changed and she sat back down. “And the Crows?”

“Died with you, save for a few. Garris sent me your death letter.”

She ran her fingers through her hair and shook her head, trying to wrap her head around how differently it could have all played out. “So you came here, because your Lirelle died.”

“You’re my Lirelle,” he responded without hesitation. “The Lirelle where I came from was never mine. Neither were you until you gave yourself to me.” 

“Really?” she said skeptically. “I bet if I had died on that field, like she did, you’d just have jumped ship again. Gone to another door. Tried again. Again and again until I lived.” 

“No.”

“No?”

Arrenir shook his head. “I didn’t come here because I wanted you to live. That wasn’t my regret. My regret was that I didn’t ride out with you. I came here, to this world, because I wasn’t there with my friends when everything came to an end. I should have been. I would have been, if I wasn’t so damned selfish.” He brought his hand to her cheek, brushing her hair back behind her ear. “I came here to die with you. If you had fallen, I’d have fallen with you. Because I love you. You.”

Epilogue

“Take me home,” said Zharia as she climbed the final steps to the top floor of Apartment 547. The door at the end of the hallway waited for her, already open. She took one final look at the world she was leaving behind. A better, brighter world, but not her’s. For better or for worse, this one belonged to her father now. She had hoped for catharsis--to bring her father back--but it was clear he was no longer the man she remembered. But even so, Zharia was content with closure.

I’m glad you found what you were looking for. I’m glad you finally found yourself. I just wish I could’ve been a part of that.

Goodbye, father.

She stepped through and the door to this world closed behind her, never to be opened again.

-fin-

I’ve been meaning to write this for a long long time. First, I told myself I’d do it after the Phoenix Wars. Then I told myself I’d do it after the Guild’s last day. Again, when I told myself I’d do it after The Emberglades Civil War.

I guess it took so long because I’ve always meant for this story to be a symbolic goodbye. As the last story I’ll ever write for WoW and it suppose it was hard saying goodbye to characters that I’ve role-played as for 5 years. Some even more than that. It isn’t the end of course, I’m still game to keep role-playing them from time to time. But as for the arcs that I’ve been doing since the Emberglades Saga go, this will be the last one.

I want to thank everyone who has made these last 5 years probably the best ones of my life. Guildies, raiding buddies, friends, and everyone who suffered with me through my Emberglades Civil War Campaign. Special shout out to Sean for not only for letting me use his Roll20 system to bring that story & campaign to life but for leading the Guild that has left so many fond memories for so many people over the years.

Photo Credit: Toast_91

DnD session recap - Towers and Tribulations

Guess who’s bad at doing things? It’s me! Hence why I’m currently 3 sessions behind on these writeups and this one’s taken me too damn long to finish this one.

We start the session with everyone wandering back towards the main city and splitting up for now, Drackuss goes to spend the night at his favourite temple where he has a free room, Eridol and Merla are camping in the forest outside of town because of the whole “Merla’s wanted for murder” thing and the rogues trudge back to the barracks to crash for the night. Partway through the night, Emmi gets woken up by Eridol and Merla’s dogs, Pickle and Flufferbuns, scratching at one of the bedroom doors upstairs. She decides to let them in because it’s not her room if they destroy anything. Pickle goes and sits on Eridols bed like the good boy he is, but Flufferbuns gets a whiff of something that reminds her of Merla and starts digging at the floor, this of course gets Emmi’s attention so she dramatically rips the rug off the floor and sees the slightly warped floorboard that Flufferbuns has started pawing at. Cracking it open she finds a very bloodsoaked blanket hastily hidden in the floor. So the obvious thoughts come to mind “This must be Merla’s … but Merla’s too proud and not smart enough to hide something like this. Eridol’s hiding something” So with this knowledge she replaces the floorboard and takes the blanket to the only other lawful person on the squad, Drackuss to figure out what to do about it.

After climbing the frankly ludicrous amount of stairs to the temple, she finds Draccus deep in prayer and offers up the mystery she’s found. A blood soaked blanket, hidden by one of the tiny folk in the group. Either it’s got something to do with Merla or Eridol’s been taking his frustrustrations out on something and trying to hide it. Drackuss looks at all the available information and decides they’ll get their answers in the morning, satisfied with that plan, Emmi heads back to the barracks to sleep and we get to spend some time with the tiny ones in the forest. Eridol and Merla have a quick heart to heart about how Merla’s doing with the whole murder thing and it’s starting to sink in that there’s no getting her way out of this, Eridol sadly brings up that actions have consequences and we need to be held accountable for what we do, even if he understands why she did it. With this final nail in the coffin, Merla breaks into a sprint to escape her friend turned reluctant prison guard. By the time Eridol realises, she’s out of the way of most of his abilities. In a panic he releases a guiding bolt, which hits too true and causes Merla to trip over a root ... sending her neck first onto her axe. After a string of gnomish cursing he runs over and stabilises her before getting in touch with Core to fill him in on the attempted escape and very near murder. Receeving instructions to tie her up and bring her to the gates, Eridol strips Merla of the majority of her weapons and begins carrying her towards town. Feeling deeply conflicted between following the teaching of his god which require justice above all else and having had attacked someone he cares deeply about, Eridol doesn’t notice Merla slipping her bonds and taking off into the woods until it’s too late and she’s too far away to catch up. He sends a bolt of divine energy after her knowing full well it’ll dissipate before reaching her. With a solitary fuck and his fondness for a friend winning over his sense of duty to Tyr he sits down in the road and for the second time since waking up in a prison cell with no memories, Eridol fully opened himself up to Tyr to meditate on whether he did the right thing trying to stop Merla. Drifting off, he finds himself surrounded by an expansive white void, he blinks and before him is a monumental set of scales unmoving as a statue. Perfectly balanced and behind it a single, all encompassing blue eye staring down on the frightened gnome. It takes 30 minutes to come out of the trance, ample time for Merla to have made an escape. Eridol gets up and wanders back to Principium. He meets Core at the town gates and mumbles that Merla got away before straight up lying to the government official about not knowing which way she went. Eridol shrugs off Merla’s pack and her axe, gives them to Core and wordlessly heads back to the barracks and oozes into his bunk to sleep off that “I nearly murdered someone I care about then had to face down my divine sugar daddy to see if I made the right choice” migraine. He awakens to the telltale sound of Drackuss stomping towards his door wearing full armor, fighting the instinct to grab his weapon Eridol stands and really hopes his trust in Drackuss can outweigh his fear at being cut down by that flaming sword again. The door slams open and the ever imposing figure of Drackuss fills the frame, Eridol stamps down his fear before noticing the slightly less imposing figure of Emmi behind Drackuss. They know about the bloody blanket under the floor and that Merla didn’t put it there, they need answers. WIth no reason to hide it anymore, Eridol tells them the truth. He found Merla had used the blanket to wipe off her axe after killing that peasant, he was going to look into it when he had a chance but they had to all leave in a hurry for their last assignment so he hid it so Merla couldn’t get rid of it in the mean time ... but that’s not really of use anymore and he retells how Merla failed to run before succeeding to run away. Everyone receives a message from Core to meet him later in the day and we all get dressed up to head over. With a quick stop over at a local tavern, eager to get drunk enough to deal with whatever fresh hell Core points us towards and never talk about it ever again. We enter to find Veiraen already there making a scene trying to swindle some drunk out of their money before he comes over and with the deftest of fingers manages to steal a control to what equates to a fantasy shock collar he’s currently wearing before legging it out the door with a cheeky grin and a brief “Fill me in later” before setting off for solo shenanigans. Knowing nobody can catch the man when he’s like this, we settle in to have a few drinks to generally grumble about life which leads to drunkenly exclaiming that Core is secretly a devil and an argument over what kind of devil he would be. This gets the attention of a particular dwarf sitting at the bar, a wizard named Tornur specialising in transmutation who up until this morning had been working for the large fight pits in the city helping to maintain their incredibly complicated magical fields but had been sequestered by our wonderful sorcerer patron for an unspecified amount of time

We drunkenly accept the newcomer for a few rounds before heading off to Core’s place for our next group assignment. Which is very similar to the last assignment, head back to the mistress’ underground temple and finish the last ritual to unlock the towers of perdition and hopefully find a way out of the country before population control becomes a necessity. But first some good news! For everything we’ve done so far, Core has gotten the ruling council to agree to give us a plot of land and have a keep built, he just needs everyone to sign some paperwork first to say we agree and being the drunkards most of us are, Emmi, Eridol and Drackuss eagerly sign and cojole Tornur into signing as well. With all the members of Tacty’l Ymon who were present signed and accounted for we head off back to an accursed underground temple that was used by a weird hag and several cultists which is a sobering enough thought to ward off the booze haze everyone except Drackuss was in on the way there. We make our way towards the underground temple in relative silence to finish what we started. A ritual to possibly find a way out of the country, the ritual goes off perfectly and everyone feels a earth shattering kaboom as somewhere in the country, a gleaming tower appears in an instant. Everyone treks back to the city and Core once again tries to get Eridol to open up about the frankly worrying amount of emotional stress he’s putting on himself and receives a quiet “There’s more important things to worry about”  before Eridol moves further away from everyone.

As we exit one of the large forests between the towns, we see it. A single break in the horizon, impossibly tall even at this distance. A tower of perdition. With nothing else to go on, we trudge towards the tower and the small crowd of people who had come to see the new addition to the landscape, a flash of Core’s credentials and the gawkers disperse as we enter the tower to a frankly underwhelming experience. The tower is a singular room containing the usual stuff you expect in an interdimensional hell tower, some books, a skeleton, a stone well, a weirdly animated brick that paralyses whatever it touches. You know. Stuff. As we all look around, Tornur finds a hidden compartment with a singular vial of pearlescent liquid inside and calls it out to everyone. Core demands that Tornur gives it to him immediately, going so far as trying to snatch it out of the dwarfs hands. Without hesitation, Tornur refuses and asks what it could be to get Core so possessive. Core says he doesn’t have time for this and points Drackuss towards our new companion with a dismissive “Get the vial and don’t kill him”. Before anyone else can react, Drackuss has his flaming sword out and strikes Tornur across the side of the head. The distinctive flair of divine magic empowering his strike and making the damage so much worse. Drackuss peels the red hot steel out off Tornur’s fractured skull, taking several sheets of flesh off the mortally wounded dwarf as it goes.

In the few seconds it takes Eridol to make his way over, he is already chanting words as he transfers part of his essence into Tornur. He gives more than he means to in a panic. But still bone fuse, muscle repairs and breath returns until all that is left of the wound is a large red band of scarring running mostly into the dwarfs hairline. Drackuss hands the vial over to Core and apologises to Tornur, he didn’t mean for that to be so much. Core explains that this is a vial of allmagic. Highly unstable, transformative, concentrated magic that shouldn’t be able to exist and is too dangerous to be left in unprepared hands. While the fantasy Mexican standoff eases up between the men, Emmi is searching the room and finds something in the well that gets everyones attention. A figure made of a silvery liquid appears and exits the well. Calling themselves a slyph and asking who wishes to partake,  we have a maddeningly circular conversation with the being who gets the majority of the group to let her test if they are able to travel except Eridol who thinks someone should not let the weird water person mess with their head that they met 5 minutes ago in the weird otherworldly tower. The slyph mentions that this continent was quarantined from the material plane centuries ago for reasons beyond their knowledge, but for a price she can allow travel. With this, everyone decides to break for the night. Tornur and Core return to the city to finish some business and research their respective needs while Drackuss, Emmi and Eridol stay in the tower for the night as security. While Drackuss and Eridol take turns whipping coins and books down the well to pass the time, Emmi dreams of her life.

A silhouetted figure she knows is her mother

A broken ship sinking into the ocean

Things slipping away under a veil of magic

Game of Thrones at 10: The Series That Changed TV Forever

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During the Game of Thrones series finale, there’s an exchange between Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister that is as much about the series’ legacy as it is the characters’ inner turmoil. Only a handful of scenes earlier, these same two men conspired to murder the woman they called their queen, Daenerys Targaryen. Now living with the consequences of that heavy deed—with Jon again banished to the white hell Beyond the Wall and Tyrion conscripted to a lifetime of public service—a tormented Jon asks his friend was it right what they did?

“Ask me again in 10 years,” Tyrion says tersely. After all these years, the craftiest of Lannisters finally has learned he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know—and who really knows how the decisions in the here and now will appear to posterity? It’s easy to speculate that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt the same way about their controversial ending to Game of Thrones. And like Tyrion and Jon, they probably could not anticipate the entire fallout that was to come.

It’s been two years since the contentious farewell to the series that defined its pop culture decade. But define it, it did. Running from 2011 to 2019, the show’s rise and fall traces eerily close to the rhythms of its era, perhaps more so than any series ever produced. It launched as the biggest gamble in premium cable history, and it ended as the most popular televised phenomenon of the 2010s. Some have argued Game of Thrones was the last of the “watercooler shows.” Even the divisiveness of its finale was monumental, shaping the next era of TV in still unseen ways. Pop culture really does live on in the realm forged by HBO’s fire and blood.

So while it hasn’t been a full 10 years since Tyrion dodged Jon’s question, a decade has passed from the moment three riders in black emerged from an icy gate, and Game of Thrones premiered on HBO. That’s more than enough time to ask what did Game of Thrones mean to us and the television landscape it shaped?

The Coming of Winter

Television was a different universe in April 2011. Netflix was still that mail rental/streaming company which didn’t produce its own content, storytelling was full of cynicism, and cable television remained king. But within that fiefdom, HBO was facing a problem: the once undisputed ruler of premium cable drama was now seeing challengers for its throne.

“HBO was still coming out of The Sopranos, The Wire, and Deadwood,” Michael Lombardo, then-HBO programming president, told James Hibberd for Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, an oral history on the making of the series. “We were getting questions like, ‘Why did you not get Mad Men? How come you didn’t pick up Breaking Bad?’ We had been the place for all things quality drama and were looking to regain our footing. But Game of Thrones didn’t seem to fall into our category.”

In retrospect, it obviously should have. Based on George R.R. Martin’s sprawling A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the show was pitched (somewhat inaccurately) as The Sopranos meets Lord of the Rings. Martin may have written his novels to be unfilmable, but at HBO, Benioff and Weiss would create an impressive facsimile of his Westeros on a budget.

Very much a product of its time, Game of Thrones came out at the tail-end of the “antihero” era of television, the period where HBO led the way in populating TV with flawed if not outright repugnant protagonists. A reaction to television being defined by network censorship for all the decades before the 21st century, the sliding spectrum of lapsed morality between Don Draper (Mad Men) and Tony Soprano was exhilarating in its time. But unlike all those series, Game of Thrones was offering a vast tapestry of protagonists in its ensemble, which provided an even greater range of moral complexity than most popular American shows at that time.

There were fantasy stalwart heroes like Lord Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) and his oldest sons, but also enigmas such as Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), antiheroes who were introduced as full-on villains (read: most of the Lannisters), and young heroines whose nigh transcendentalist adventures belied darker traumas, such as Arya Stark (Maisie Williams). It was both of its moment and a far cry from the cynicism of other popular shows, not to mention the popular image of fantasy, which on the small screen was closer to Xena: Warrior Princess than Lord of the Rings.

“There were a fair number of reasons not to do it,” Carolyn Strauss told Hibberd about the show’s early days at HBO. As the former HBO programming president who first greenlit the Game of Thrones pilot, and then became executive producer on the series, Strauss can recall the apprehension she felt toward the idea of making a fantasy series for adults. “There are many ways a fantasy series can go south. Any show that relies on a mythology that isn’t thought out in enormous detail can go off the rails. You’re maybe good for a season or two, and then after that you start running into brick walls.”

Yet it was Thrones’ moral complexity in such a dense, heightened world that caught Strauss off-guard. “The way [Benioff and Weiss] told the story in the meeting made it sound much more involved and character-driven than I usually feel from fantasy stories. It was not good vs. evil, but characters who had elements of both things.”

That level of nuance was shocking when Game of Thrones premiered in 2011. Nowadays the series is often reduced by TV critics as being simply the show that introduced convincing blockbuster spectacle to the small screen. But in its early seasons that really wasn’t the case. While Benioff and Weiss were quietly aware of how massive in scope Martin’s novels eventually became, they sold the series to HBO as a “chamber piece,” not a symphony. It’s about intimate family drama—at least in the first season/novel—not magic and battles.

In that first episode, there was hardly an unsullied viewer who didn’t gasp when sweet 10-year-old Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) was pushed out a window by Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). The thrill wasn’t seeing dragons lay waste to armies; the excitement was found in character moments or decisions with drastic repercussions on every other scene that followed. At its heart, it was a fantasy series drenched in human psychology and human history (particularly that of the English War of the Roses), and those hooks made the eventual ice and fire spectacle that much more extraordinary five years down the line.

Game of Thrones didn’t come out of the gate as a culture defining event—its series premiere netted just 2.2 million viewers, about 1.6 million less than HBO’s similarly epic and ill-fated Rome—but like the armies of one silver haired queen from the east, it’s rise seemed blessed to gradually, and unwaveringly, build until the bloody end.

A Golden Crown

The moment that personally got me wholeheartedly invested into Game of Thrones, however, wasn’t Bran’s fall from a Winterfell tower, nor was it Peter Dinklage’s Tyrion verbally humiliating his demon seed nephew. The scene where the show fully clicked was in the sixth episode, “A Golden Crown.” Up until that moment, the series was dense on world-building and lore, but the narrative was so finely tuned, and hidden in such a tightly wound coil, that it could feel impenetrable at first blush. It also seemed to be built on a certain set of fantasy archetypes, such as the noble hero Ned Stark and the old fat king, Robert (Mark Addy).

Another seeming archetype was Viserys Targaryen, a malicious blonde-haired misanthrope played so ably by Harry Lloyd that one would recoil when he was on screen. Technically, he’s a lonely exiled prince whose family lost its dynasty. But as seen through the eyes of Clarke’s put-upon and abused Daenerys, Viserys’ younger sister whom he mercilessly abused, Viserys was really just an ugly bully. The kind you might imagine Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy growing into, except with the creepy addition of a leering, incestuous gaze. Also like Draco, I feared Dany would have to endure his pestering for the rest of the series.

Then “A Golden Crown” occurs, and Viserys is plucked from the series like leaden dead weight. Moments before his death, Viserys has realized that no matter how much he calls himself king, no one will follow him. Meanwhile Dany has won the hearts of the Dothraki, a nomadic warrior culture. She now rules as their Khaleesi (queen) alongside Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), the husband Viserys sold her to. Viserys expected Drogo to become his mercenary, but by episode 6, that obviously is never going to happen. So his simmering resentment seemed to suggest Viserys would undermine Dany’s fledgling power and character growth at every future opportunity. But at the end of “The Golden Crown,” the self-styled king threatens Daenerys before the whole Dothraki court, and perhaps more chillingly in Dany’s eyes, threatens to cut out the baby growing inside her womb if he does not get his way.

Drogo ultimately gives Viserys what he wants: a crown. Only it’s made from the molten hot liquid gold he’s melted down to pour on the wretch’s head. Daenerys watches the gold slowly boil before the deed is done, and she sees her brother begging for his life. But the moment he raised her hand against her unborn child, the man was already dead to her. After Viserys’ head is crushed by the burning gold running through his skull, she doesn’t even blink. Rather Clarke says with maximum disaffection, “He was no dragon. Fire cannot kill a dragon.”

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This hard left turn in the plotting was so sudden and shocking that it signaled what the series would become: a narrative where every character’s action and decision (at least pre-season 7) had potent consequences. Narrative conventions could be cut short in an instance. In this case, it was one that left viewers thrilled, but a few episodes later the same creative instinct would shatter them when the series’ main lead, poor Ned, lost his head. Such twists led me to buy all of Martin’s books and read them within a few months.

However, there was something more unsettling about the sequence. Daenerys Targaryen, our ostensible hero in her own storyline, did not flinch or bat an eye at her brother’s demise. He was rotten to the core, but Dany was no more affected by his death than she would be at the sight of hundreds of strangers crucified along a road on her order (an event which would occur later in the series).

The ambiguity of some of these characters, including Dany who in the early seasons was initially presented as an impending threat to the Starks and Lannisters a world away in Westeros, is what gave the drama so much life. There were reasons to root for nearly every faction and reasons to have pause with each character. You knew, eventually, your favorites would be in mortal conflict. While featuring a greater array of heroes than any of the other popular cable shows of the early 2010s, Game of Thrones also wallowed in moral relativity and bleakness. In 2011, it was like a high; in 2021, that kind of televised storytelling has largely fallen out of popularity.

Thrones also had a hand in that shift.

“Tits and Dragons”

For all of Game of Thrones’ good qualities, they cannot be extracted from its sins. Ten years ago, premium cable networks indulged in heavy use of obligatory nudity (mostly of young women) to keep viewers watching. Game of Thrones didn’t invent this, but it pushed it to its limit in the early seasons, even leading to the new term of “sexposition,” which describes when a show cynically includes images of naked women, usually portrayed as prostitutes in Thrones’ case, in the background during dry exposition.

Even before Thrones ended, these elements had aged badly, and were notably toned down in the later seasons. But they still occurred, even as gags, up to and including the final year. Neil Marshall, who directed two battle episodes on the series, even recalled in 2012 a disquieting note he received from an executive on the episode “Blackwater.”

“This particular exec took me to one side and said, ‘Look, I represent the pervert side of the audience okay?’” Marshall said. “‘Everybody else is the serious drama side, [but] I represent the perv side of the audience, and I’m saying I want full frontal nudity in this scene.’”

This cavalier attitude about using (some might say exploiting) young actresses who are anxious for a job on a popular series in such a gratuitous way contributed to the creation of a new profession in Hollywood: the intimacy coordinator. The actual HBO series which finally triggered this was The Deuce, not Game of Thrones. Still, Thrones most famously contributed to that sensationalism on television. So much so one of its most lauded guest stars, Ian McShane, deadpanned the show was only about “tits and dragons.” It became the figurehead for a media culture so problematic that there needed to be a reckoning at all networks and streamers in the post-#MeToo era.

That those elements on Game of Thrones were so often used in association with rape or sexual violence has led to a long overdue reevaluation of how stories with women are told in popular media—particularly from writers’ rooms dominated by men.

In truth, Game of Thrones has a litany of fascinating and complex female characters, many of whom end up in positions of power during the final seasons despite the grueling restraints of a medieval patriarchal society. Stars like Sophie Turner, whose Sansa Stark concludes the series as Queen in the North, has argued the series is actually quite feminist in its depiction of a wide range of nuanced female leads navigating medieval misogyny. And Clarke has said the show has taught her to “embrace her feminism.”

Yet both actors’ characters were forced to endure scenes of rape and sexual assault on the series, quite graphically in Clarke’s case during the first season. Even 10 years ago, viewers were rightfully disturbed by that. Clarke’s own thoughts on the use of nudity in the first season have also evolved. These elements, which only seem more glaring to the modern eye, have inspired a shift in how all “adult” stories are told, as well as how fantasy stories and historical dramas are received by audiences increasingly critical of one-sided titillation.

Those scenes likely contributed to the fan backlash when Clarke’s Daenerys, who suffered so much early on only to remake herself as a godlike savior, was revealed to be painfully mortal… turning into the villain of her own story.

A Legacy of Conflict

Game of Thrones began as a gamble for HBO, but even in its first year the bet was paying off when the fantasy show with dragons and ice zombies was nominated for Best Drama Series at the Emmys. Dinklage would go on to win his first of four Emmys for playing Tyrion that year, and even as the show lost the top prize then, it would eventually win Best Drama Series in four subsequent years.

It’s also worth noting that Dany’s dragons were barely present in the first season. Before the 2011 finale, they were creatures of a bygone age that, we’re told repeatedly, have long gone extinct. But in the final minutes of season 1, her ancient dragon eggs hatch, and a scene of biblical import plays out when she emerges from ashes as the Mother of Dragons. With each following year, Dany’s children grew larger in size, as did the pyrotechnics they unleashed. They were not much bigger than cats when they burned down a city of slavers in season 3. By the show’s end, they were the size of 747 jets while laying waste to Lannister armies.

As the creatures grew, so did Game of Thrones’ budget and, just as importantly, its audience. No other series in the modern era grew bigger with each season, from the cradle to its grave. In an age where Netflix invented the term “binge watching,” Game of Thrones remained the rare holdout of old school appointment television, with most audiences simultaneously watching live when the episode premiered on Sunday nights. Entire cottage industries based on fan speculation were born, and reading Martin’s books like they were sacred texts with hidden meanings that only the most learned scholar could translate became a pastime.

The first season premiered with 2.2 million people watching; the final season debuted with an audience of 17.4 million viewers. The finale brought in 19.3 million viewers. By comparison, the most popular scripted drama series on network television in 2019, This is Us, was averaging around 7-8 million viewers.

Yet as its popularity grew with its dragons, so did a vocal sense of dissatisfaction. There was a confluence of factors involved, many of them having to do with showrunners Benioff and Weiss running out of Martin novels to adapt. While they had a rough outline of how the series would end, the final two seasons of Game of Thrones arguably felt at points like just that: an outline the series was hitting by bullet point in each episode, often without the intricate plotting that made the early seasons and novels so addictive.

Yet it was really only during the series’ final two episodes, as a long built-up dragon fulfilled his destiny, that the rift between audience expectation and artistic intent erupted into a social media outrage. After watching Dany’s power build and build, and spending the final seasons with her pivoting from a threat to the Starks and King’s Landing to their ally against the Army of the Dead, Dany did what the series had long been famous for: she took a hard left turn.

In the final few hours of the series, Daenerys burns down the Westerosi capital, kills tens of thousands of people, and takes the Iron Throne in fire and blood, just like her ancestors. It was not the ending audiences, including myself, wanted for Dany, and it was an ending that disappointed even Clarke. Especially Clarke.

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In many ways, it is one of the most Martin-esque elements of the series’ final years. You were promised high fantasy excitement and then got the cold, harsh reality of death and suffering. The fairy tales and fables which inspired modern fantasy are often derived from uglier histories and troubling sides of human nature. This is what conquest looks like, be it by dragon or sword.

Unfortunately, the execution of the ending left something to be desired. And there are plenty of write-ups out there to unpack the problems with the final season. Nonetheless, it is fair to wonder if for the first time in the series’ whole run, the show was finally out of step with the zeitgeist, and the subversion that was celebrated a decade earlier was no longer of the moment? When the show premiered, it was a realpolitik fantasy about the corrupting influence of power and how it can be wielded. When the series ended, corrupt abusers of power were on the rise around the world. Even Martin noted it was like King Joffrey had come to the White House.

The series not only denied viewers their favorite theories for the series’ end, but also a sense of escape from a world that was feeling uncomfortably closer to Westeros than it had eight years earlier.

In its own realm though, Game of Thrones was a series that shaped the modern television landscape. Spectacle on a scale comparable to Hollywood blockbusters is now deemed as attainable by content creators with deep enough pockets. Amazon paid $1 billion for the television rights of Lord of the Rings alone. But the industry has also reacted to Thrones and the antihero era it came from with a growing sense of wariness, too.

One of Game of Thrones’ contemporaries from its heyday was The Walking Dead. As another gritty, violent, and at times nihilistic genre show that became a mainstream hit, The Walking Dead started in the same TV season as Thrones. And one of its most pivotal writers from those earlier glory days, former showrunner Glen Mazzara, recently tweeted about the change in the industry’s tenor.

“TV development today is all about optimism,” Mazzara wrote. “Buyers don’t want anything dark or bleak.” While he then went on to add that he’s nonetheless writing the “darkest [and] scariest” thing of his career, the point remains that what was once the most popular thing on television, first as austere dramas and then as gory spectacles in shows like Thrones and The Walking Dead, is out of step in a modern TV landscape that has reacted to those shows.

Ironically, genre is more popular than ever, but the moral ambiguity and relativity that attracted HBO to Benioff and Weiss’ pitch is not. Rather than antiheroes, television is increasingly dominated by good natured and heroic individuals (Marvel Studios is even making the most popular shows). Characters, meanwhile, are proactively trying to solve social problems, not reveling in how broken things are. Creative spaces are also thankfully becoming more inclusive, giving a platform to a wider range of voices, including writers’ rooms where someone might be able to say the equivalent of, “You know, maybe Sansa shouldn’t be raped by Ramsay Bolton?”

This environment is a reaction to the popularity and then backlash endured by Game of Thrones. Which means our relationship to the series is far from over, even as the show’s run becomes an increasingly distant memory.

And yet, there’s (clearly) much to be said about what Game of Thrones accomplished in its time, right down to ending the way it did. It’s hard to imagine a show becoming that popular again and existing with such artistic freedom, and for its creators to be allowed to end it where they would like. Even in the 2010s it was rare, hence The Walking Dead lumbering onto an eleventh season this fall as a pale shadow of its former self. When that series ends, it also really won’t be the end, with more spinoffs, movies, and other forms of content planned.

Under new management, HBO has signaled they’ve developed a similar temperament, even with Game of Thrones. Benioff, Weiss, and apparently Martin saw their story end exactly the way they wanted to (even if few agreed with them). But the network has announced five live-action spinoff series in various stages of development, plus an animated one on HBO Max. In the age of endless streaming content, it’s easy to imagine that every corner of Westerosi history will be explored if WarnerMedia thinks there is an appetite.

Our feelings toward the legacy of Game of Thrones have evolved over the last 10 years, and will likely continue to do so for another 10. But it was a show that hit the right beats at the right time, and changed the culture while doing so. It burned brightly and then snuffed out its candle on its own terms. You don’t have to wait a decade to appreciate how rare, and unforgettable, that really is.

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A bad day (a long tale by Talviel)

Loredas, 1st of Sun’s Dusk, 4E 208. “Stop right there, criminal scum!” A guard shouted, and a little figure dressed in black whizzed past Brynjolf and I so fast that our robes fluttered. The guard, who was tubby and flustered, looked like he had been running for some time now. He paused to take a breather, and looked up at us. “Did you see where he went? That Khajiit scamp in Thieves Guild armour, he must have run past you.” He panted. Brynjolf raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “No, lad, he might have climbed a roof. Khajiit are sneaky like that. Best of luck with your search, though.” The guard sighed, thanking Bryn and walking off looking peeved. When he was out of sight, we immediately set off at a quick walk in the direction the thief went. One of ours had drawn attention to themselves, and getting caught by the leader of Tamriel’s Thieves Guild was equal parts bad luck and sheer incompetence. Whoever the kid was, he would need a talking to.

Brynjolf immediately went to the Waterfront to wait in the Guild hideout, while I ambled innocuously through the Nobles District, hot on the heels of the Khajiit. I turned a corner into a small rose garden, and sure enough found him attempting to pick the lock to a sewer entrance and failing miserably. “Shadow hide you, friend.” I said loudly, so he wouldn’t take off. The thief dropped his lockpicks and squeaked, turning around to face me. “Khajiit is innocent! This one has done nothing wrong!” He protested, his bulging pockets indicating otherwise. I sighed and approached him carefully, making the finger sign of the Guild that Delvin had popularised over the years. The thief finally relaxed, dropping his shoulders. “Shadow hide you, sister. This one was most afraid of getting caught by the fat guard, oh yes. Please, keep the area clear while S'druz picks this lock.” “No, S'druz, you’re doing it wrong. Watch how I do it. See how I’m feeling for the movement of the tumblers? There we go.” I opened the sewer entrance, handing back the undamaged lockpick. S'druz smiled in wonder. He was only a few inches taller than I, and slight of build. A pointed face with keen amber eyes and striped grey fur peeked out from beneath the Guild hood. “This one thanks you, sister. Please, meet me at the hideout and I will have ready a token of my thanks for you.” He said, scurrying down the manhole and out of sight before I could say anything else.

I met Brynjolf at the Waterfront, eyeing a large cargo ship with masked greed. “There’s only one Khajiit in the Imperial City Guild, and he’s apparently out on a job, so we know who needs a smack across the knuckles when he gets home.” He sighed, looking stressed. Ever since we’d arrived in the Imperial City to celebrate our honeymoon a few days ago, all Brynjolf had done was whip the local Guild into shape instead of relaxing, promising to make the time up to me later. “He’s on his way back. Had to teach him how to pick a lock. Try not to be too hard on him, he’s just a kid and a rookie at that.” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and looking to the harbour. “Aye, but you didn’t even attract the attention of a guard during your trial, lass. I don’t know who’s doing the recruiting around here but at this rate I’ll be stuck in the city for months trying to get this lot up to scratch. The Grey Fox must be turning in his grave.” Brynjolf put an arm around my shoulder absent-mindedly, fiddling with a ribbon on my sleeve while staring at the cargo ship as though it were a tasty steak.

“We’ve got information that there’s an auction about to take place in one of the houses in the Nobles District. That ship is apparently transporting at least half a million septims in art and rare goods for it. The Guild want to go on a heist but none of them are up to scratch for the task. It’s been a while since I broke into anything, so I think I’ll show them how it’s done.” Bryn mused to himself, stroking his beard. I rolled my eyes. “My love, sorry to say but you’ve lost your touch when it comes to sneaking. I see at least four guards on the deck there, and there are definitely going to be more below deck and probably security enchantments as well. With the racket you make, they’ll be onto you in…I’ll give it five minutes, to be generous.” “Well don’t you have a smart mouth on you today, Vi my love? Want to place a wager on it?” He snarled, grey-green eyes shimmering with the delight of a challenge. “Two weeks of three meals a day. Hope you’re ready to do some cooking, dear husband.” I grinned back, and got a slap on the arse. We taunted each other all the way back to the Guild hideout, enjoying the feel of the old days coming back, when I was ready to spring to a job- the more challenging the better. I was back in the game, and it felt good.

We were waiting in the underground complex the Guild had made beneath an abandoned hut when S'druz finally crept in, stinking of sewer water. He squeaked again in alarm and dropped to one knee when he saw Brynjolf, who was recognised more or less as the Emperor of the Guild of Tamriel. I choked back a laugh. The poor Khajiit was well over his head in the matters of Guild business, though his counterparts weren’t much better at this stage. Brynjolf barked at him to get up and gather everybody in the stone hall. Within minutes the Imperial City Guild was rallied, while Brynjolf and I stood at the front of the room, scanning our motley crew. “Right, all of you. I’m more than just a little peeved at conduct here, as little S'druz nearly ran my wife and I over while being pursued by the city guard earlier today. In Cyrodiil you stick by your old motto: Shadows hide you. Well, you can’t expect the shadows to hide you if you’re bloody running through town in broad daylight can you? Where is stealth and finesse? Why are you attracting attention we don’t need? And for crying out loud, we need to do something about the recruitment around here because letting any old fool into the Guild, as you’ve evidently been doing, isn’t going to do.” Brynjolf  said, his usually soothing voice replaced by a commanding snap that only ever happened when he was really peeved (or playing rough in the bedroom). The Guild members were silent and their facial expressions ranged from uncomfortable to embarrassed.

“This one must apologise to Master Brynjolf and his most esteemed wife for my foolish conduct in the streets.” S'druz stuttered, his tail swishing nervously. “S'druz has been a member of the Guild for but a week now, and only knows the ways of the street. We have no mentor, no training as we have heard of your famed Skyrim Guild. Please, S'druz asks of you, let us learn your ways, and how best to serve the Guild and Lady Nocturnal.” The chamber echoed in agreement, and Brynjolf and I glanced at each other. Since the time of the Grey Fox, the Cyrodiil Guild had more or less vanished since the legendary theft of an Elder Scroll from the White-Gold Tower. The meteoric rise of our little Riften branch over the past several years had inspired copycat groups who were no more than bandits, and aspiring branches who wished to be officially affiliated with the Thieves Guild. We were the most formidable association above the laws of every province, yet without the strict ground rules we had implemented and honed in Riften, it was to be expected that until Brynjolf had completed his monumental task of overseeing every Guild branch in Tamriel, things were going to need to be shaken up to reach our standards.

Brynjolf stood in thought for a moment. “I completely agree, lad. It isn’t fair of me as a leader to come barging into your territory and tell you how to run a business, but for as long as you want to be affiliated with the real Thieves Guild, you play by the rules we laid out in Skyrim. And yes, if it’s training you’ll want, it’s training you’ll get. From now until the end of the month, I’ll be teaching speechcraft, pickpocketing, and business operations. Talviel here will be in charge of lockpicking, sneaking, and bypassing traps and enchantments. I have faith in all of you, but we have a tight ship to run and places to be so I expect all of you to put in the work you need to make the Guild succeed. Are we clear?” A chorus of nods and “aye” went around the room, but I stood there miffed. A month? Training the Guild, when all I’d agreed to with Brynjolf just a few days past was to act as a diversion and an occasional accomplice on special jobs? I smiled and spoke freely with the members who approached me, but inside I was seething. Honeymoon, yeah right.

I refused to speak to Brynjolf until we got back to our hotel room, where I nearly shouted him into a wall out of fury. “All you ever think about is work and your reputation! And to rope me into this when I barely said yes? You’re absurd! I’ve got my own career to uphold and without my permission you’ve just decided to delegate me for a month to training a group of buffoons who barely know how to pick a lock? Honestly Brynjolf, you are insufferable sometimes. Unbelievable.” I yelled, when he tried to cajole me into better spirits. “Lass, calm down-” He tried, which only infuriated me more as I hurled a vase across the room, where it smashed satisfyingly. “No, fuck off, Bryn. All I’ve agreed to was the heist on that ship and that’s all you’re getting unless I say otherwise. You’re the Guildmaster. I play my role as a Nightingale and anything else that relates to Guild business is what I choose to do, not you. I am your wife, not your minion. Go teach that lot yourself because I am done here.” I snapped, and stormed from the room before he could make me even angrier, if that were possible. With my mind a haze of red, I stormed my way through the city without thinking to the Akatosh Tavern, where my career as a chef beyond the borders of Skyrim began.

Garrus, the Breton chef and my former mentor, was pleased to see me, but his brow wrinkled in worry when he saw my stormy expression. He knowingly slid a bottle of Firebrand Wine across the bar to me, where I poured a goblet to the brim and chugged in down in a breath. “Bad day, little one? I heard word that you were here on your honeymoon, don’t tell me there’s trouble already.” He said sympathetically, pouring me another glass. “I wouldn’t be having an awful time if my stupid husband would just leave work alone for a minute and enjoy the first time we’ve ever had alone together.” “Ah, merchants.” Garrus nodded, and I played along with the tale I’d woven long ago, that my love interest was a potion merchant in Skyrim. “Well, I’ve always got time for you. Say, I know what’ll cheer you up, Talviel. Drink up and follow me.” He threw me a kitchen apron and I smiled wanly. Several hours later, my dress ruined with flour and syrup, Garrus and I had made hundreds of little pastries ready for the Sundas crowd and the week ahead. I was in a decidedly better mood after baking, with the help of a free flow of wine and nibbles. I had supper with Garrus, then went on a walk to clear my head in the night air.

I headed to the night markets at the Market District, browsing the wide array of unique ingredients on offer. I was sniffing a sample of saffron from Sentinel, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around, and found S'druz standing there meekly. “Look, S'druz, I’m really not interested in Guild business right now. I’m here on holiday and I just want to spend some time relaxing.” I sighed, crossing my arms. “Oh, no. This one does not come with business. S'druz was so enraptured by the honorable Talviel’s husband’s speech earlier that I forgot to pass you my token of thanks. For you, a staff I found. One of its kind in all of Cyrodiil, maybe even Tamriel.” The young Khajiit smiled, handing out a wooden staff with an odd carving at its head. Not wanting to be rude, I accepted it with thanks, despite never having used a staff in my life. We parted ways, but I kept my eye on him until he had pickpocketed his way out of sight. I stared at my gift, thinking to pawn it off, yet something about it stayed me. I decided to take it to the Arcane University in the morning, as they would probably have more use for it than I. With my satchel full of delicious things, I decided to go on a stroll beyond the city gates before heading back to the hotel.

I walked along the lake, throwing pebbles in the water as torchbugs darted overhead. The silence was delightful after the bustle of the city and the bad mood I’d spent the majority of the day stewing in, yet of course my luck was at an end again. From the edge of the forest, a howl rose up from the trees, followed by another. My hand went to my sword, only to realise I’d left it in the hotel. I braced myself for the wolves to emerge from the trees. Only, they weren’t wolves. Two hulking beasts sprang forth on their hind legs, spindly arms outstretched with long claws swiping at me. I leapt backwards in shock- I had never seen a werewolf before, though rumour was that my former lovers Aela and Vilkas were werewolves themselves. They were quick, yet clumsy in their movements from their gangly limbs. I set them on fire with a shout, which threw them off my trail for a moment while I sprinted back towards the city, but one of them clearly hadn’t been flambéed well enough as it barrelled towards me with renewed rage, its fur still sparking with embers. Without thinking, I took the staff S'druz had given me and cracked it across the face, sending it reeling. The werewolf roared and swiped at me, and I rolled to the side, scared that this was the end of me. Staggering to my feet as it crawled towards its cornered prey, I pointed the staff towards it without thinking, and it let out a blinding blast of light. The slobbery breathing of the werewolf suddenly stopped, and was replaced by a single heavy thud. I sighed with relief and rubbed my eyes, only to find a wheel of goat cheese where the werewolf had been.

“What in Oblivion?” I exclaimed, staring at the cheese, and then at the staff in complete bafflement. “Well, to be precise, where in Oblivion is what you should be asking, and that place would be the Shivering Isles, in case you weren’t aware.” Drawled a sing-song voice from behind me, and I whipped around so fast I almost fell over. A tall, lean man in a purple suit stood there, grinning widely at me. He clapped his hands with delight and pointed at the were-cheese. “For a first time staff user, I must say well done on turning that little beastie into such a delightful wheel of cheese on your first try. You may want to take up magic aside from those dull dragon shouts you use, imagine how much jelly you would be able to conjure!” The man giggled. My jaw dropped as my brain finally put two and two together. “You…you’re Sheogorath?” I choked out, unable to believe how bad my day was. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I could be Hermy Mory, for all you know. But of course you know, what am I saying? You’re the little mortal that he took such an interest in yesterday! And of course you’re the underling of that old witch Nocturnal, though who knows why. Boring old hag she is, sitting alone in the dark with those silly birds of hers. No, I can guarantee that I am lots more fun.” Sheogorath said, shaking my limp hand enthusiastically. I snatched it away, shaking my head. “Look, Sheogorath, lovely to meet you and all, but I didn’t summon you. Or maybe I did, with this staff, which I guess is yours. Please, just take it back, don’t send me on a quest. I don’t have the strength for it and I’ve got a husband to get back to.” I pleaded, shoving the staff at the Daedric Prince of Madness. “Whaaat? You don’t want my lovely Wabbajack? But you love cheese! And I never said anything about a quest, though I may be needing your help for the little pickle you’ve just put both of us in.” Sheogorath pouted. “You see, the little pup you just blasted with the Wabbajack is a servant of Hircine. You know, my fellow Daedric Prince. Not a very fun guy either, I might add. He’s not going to be happy that my little fun-stick here turned one of his followers into a frankly divine wheel of cheese, and since you’re the one who blasted the wolf boy, you’re the one who’s going to do the explaining on my part.”

I groaned. “Can’t you just change him back or something?” “Me? Now why would I do that? I plan on bringing this lovely cheesy home for tea, hee hee! And of course changing him back wouldn’t be possible anyway, changes in molecular structure and all that, quite complicated. Anyway, come on, time to talk to Hircey!” Sheogorath waved a hand and summoned a portal, which he then threw me into before I could protest. I landed hard on my rump on the rough ground in front of a shrine, surrounded on all sides by trees. Sheogorath and his portal were nowhere to be seen. “Fuck!” I yelled, thoroughly done with the hell of a day I’d had. “Is that the way you greet the Prince of the Hunt, mortal?” Growled a disembodied voice that echoed through the thicket. I took that as my warning and immediately dropped to my knees, not wanting to add the wrath of a Daedric Prince to the list of crap I’d been through in the past several hours. “Apologies, Lord Hircine. I…I was sent here by Sheogorath because-” “Yes, I’m well aware you turned one of my coven into a wheel of cheese because of that buffoon’s trickery. I saw it all, and how he has tried to dump the responsibility on you, when you were simply defending yourself. It is nothing to be ashamed of, to shift your position from being prey to hunter. I have no quarrel with you. My anger lies solely with that clown I have to share Oblivion with, and I will have my revenge.” The voice thundered, and the trees shook with a sudden breeze.

“What will you have me do?” I sighed, realising that there was no escaping the will of the daedra when they wanted something, even in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere. “He took one of my children from me, and he will pay by giving me one of his.” “I will do no such thing!” Sheogorath’s voice shouted indignantly, from who knows where. “Sheogorath, you fool! You know better than to enter my domain! Bring me a sacrifice and leave!” Hircine said. I stood helplessly as their bickering escalated, unsure if I should interject. The wind in the clearing blew frantically and whipped leaves and branches every which way. A luminous pink rain began to fall (definitely Sheogorath’s), which was counteracted by a torrent of blood from the sky (definitely Hircine’s). I shrieked, holding my hands up to protect myself from the stinking deluge, and felt a soft whack against my cheek. It was raining cheese curds, and then bones.

Clearly the daedra didn’t need me to mediate their little spat. I stood to leave, and a maze of thorns erupted from the ground around the shrine, trapping me in. I had had enough and thoroughly lost it. “Both of you, stop right now and let me go! You obviously don’t need my help hurling various substances at each other and I have had the worst day since escaping Oblivion so let-me-out!” I bashed the thorns with the Wabbajack, that shot blasts of light here and there, presumably turning trees into food items. Hircine and Sheogorath continued yelling at each other without acknowledging that they’d heard me, so I did the only thing I could in that moment. “Strun Bah Ko!” I screamed, and the sky crackled with thunder and lightning, bringing down a nice torrent of hail and rain made of water for a change. The Daedric Princes had gone quiet. “What? You wanna damn my soul or something? Fucking go for it, I have had enough of this bullshit day with the bullshit Thieves Guild and bullshit magical staffs and bullshit daedra bitch fights! Either let me go or I’m calling a dragon to take me to Sovngarde because I am finished!” I roared. “Be on your way, mortal. This has nothing to do with you and is entirely the doing of this fool Sheogorath.” Hircine said, and the thorns retreated. Before either of the Daedric Princes could change their minds, I dashed for the trees as fast as my legs could take me, worried that my lovely hailstorm diversion was about to be replaced by flying frogs or pudding next.

Glancing up at the stars, I positioned myself as south of the Imperial City and set off on the long trudge back. I finally crawled back to the hotel before dawn, to find Brynjolf pacing frantically back and forth in our room. “Lass! What on earth happened to you?” He shouted in shock, taking in my dishevelled appearance. I caught a glance of myself in the mirror and winced. I was stained head to toe with blood, and covered in leaves, cheese curds, and who knows what else. “Run me a bath, Bryn. I don’t want to hear another peep out of anyone right now.” I groaned, dropping my ruined dress on the floor. At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Brynjolf drew his knife and opened it carefully. There was nobody there, except for a wheel of goat cheese on the ground. There was a note on top of it, that Bryn picked up and read with confusion. “We finally called it even. Thanks for being a sport! -Sheogorath. Vi, what on earth were you doing with Sheogorath?!” “Let’s put it this way, my love. Why stop at just having a bad day when you can get Daedric Princes involved too? Now run me a bath, or I’m going straight to bed covered in animal blood.” I growled, and Brynjolf raised his hands in peace, heading to the tub to run the water while glancing at me fearfully. Despite everything, I cracked a grin at the idea that my husband was labouring under the idea that I’d summoned a Daedric Prince simply because I was in a foul mood. It was far from the truth, but it would be fun to watch him squirm in return for teaching a group of inept thieves how to sneak.

How to: Fresh Salmon Processing

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How to: Fresh Salmon Processing

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How to: Fresh Salmon Processing was written by Russell Porsley , 2019-05-13 17:26:33 be sure to visit their website, source link is at the end of the article

How to process fresh salmon

Processing your fresh salmon at the end of the day can be a daunting task, especially if you have a lot of other things to do. However, it is probably the single, most-important thing you can do to ensure quality. A few things need to happen on the river and at home to ensure your catch is preserved and ready for the freezer.

One thing I have noticed from my many years of guiding for salmon is how important it is to take care of your fish once you have landed them. Gilling your fish immediately and letting the salmon bleed out ensures that the meat will not be bloody when filleting them at the end of the day. I like to land the salmon in a net, then bonk them.  You don’t want them flopping around while trying to use a knife to gill them. Personally, I like to use a pair of heavy-duty scissors and cut both sides of the gills.

Once you’ve dispatched and bled the fish, keeping your catch cold throughout the day is very important. If I am on the shore fishing, I will keep my fish on a stringer in the river, and if I am fishing in a boat then my catch is in a fish box so I can dump fresh water from the river over them ever hour. Whatever your method, keeping the salmon cold makes the meat stay firm and helps prevent spoilage; the other benefit is your fish will be easier to fillet.

Before filleting your salmon at the end of the day you, should be really meticulous. I will wash all the blood off the outside side of the fish, try to wipe most of the fish slime off and then fillet the fish on a clean surface. Once I fillet one side, the fillet immediately goes in a bag and does not touch any water or debris. Washing your salmon fillet off in the river is a bad idea; it can wash some of the oils out of the meat and could potentially add bacteria onto your fresh salmon. If you get blood on the meat when you are filleting, just wipe it off with your hand or a towel. The next step is to get your fresh-filleted salmon on ice until you can process it. Keeping fish cold is very important so it doesn’t spoil. I generally throw some ice in a cooler in the morning and when I get back it will be nice and cold for your catch.

Once you’re home, the real work begins. The sooner you can process your salmon and get them in the freezer, the better. I usually have a large, clean table; a vacuum sealer and quart-sized vacuum sealer bags that I use to package the fish. If you can have an assembly line of people to help it speeds the process and gets your fish in the freezer faster.

First, I cut my fillets into meal-sized portions. I like to pat the fillet dry before putting it in the vacuum seal bag. I center the fillet in the bag before vacuum sealing because that ensures it gets vacuumed all the way around and seals correctly. After the salmon fillets are sealed in individual bags, I inspect each bag to make sure it is holding a good seal. Once you have done your inspection it is important to lay all packaged fish flat, in a single layer if possible, so it freezes quickly. The faster it freezes, the better the quality.  Laying the fish flat will help ensure that it stays vacuum-sealed. A single layer will also freeze faster than if you have several layers of fish on the rack.

This is only one way to preserve your fresh salmon, but it has been very effective for me. Following this process will cut down on the amount of spoiled or freezer-burned fish you might otherwise have. It seems like a long process, but when you go to open a package of fish to cook in the winter, you will thank me.

  Nigel Fox has been partners with Jeremy Anderson and Nick Ohlrich at Alaska Drift Away Fishing for over a decade. He is a lifelong Alaskan and has been fishing on the Kenai River since he was a young boy, and each year he learns more about the intricate world of catching trophy fish on the Kenai and Kasilof rivers. 

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Read Original How to: Fresh Salmon Processing Article Here

A Vacation In Alaska

You probably agree that the most informative information are not sweeping esoteric research projects but anecdotal viewpoints highlighting individuals and small communities. However, unexpectedly frequently it’s the largest organizations that provide the more entertaining and informative anecdotes. Clearly there is also a place for hospitality and travel statistical reviews or policy analysis. Content about going to Alaska such as How to: Fresh Salmon Processing help us to discover the far reaching ideas of sustainable travel and tourism.

Whether it is a product of influencers or social trends in general customers have a preference for sustainable tourism and want to think of themselves as responsible visitors. Alaska is a travel destination in which responsible travel is mandatory.

People have varying opinions but among suggested attractions for every person touring Alaska is

Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is the largest national forest within the United States. It obtained its name from the Tongass Clan of the Tlingit native people and goes back to 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve. In 1908 the forest had been re-named and expanded and today the 16.9 million-acre Tongass National Forest runs from the Pacific to the vast inland ice fields that edge British Columbia and from the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island to Malaspina Glacier five hundred miles to the north. Approximately 80 % of Southeast Alaska is in Tongass and with it’s thousands of islands, fjords and bays the national forest has 11,000 miles of shoreline. Tongass’ huge coastal rain forest includes towering hemlock, spruce and red and yellow cedar. The undergrowth underneath themassive conifers is composed of young evergreens and shrubs including devil’s club, blueberry and huckleberry. Moss and ferns cover the ground, and lichens adorn numerous trees and rocks.

Wildlife is plentiful all through Tongass. Sitka blacktail deer and it’s 2 main predators, wolf and brown bear, are located here. Black bear are common as well as mountain goats and some moose. Marine mammals seen along the coast line consist of Dall and harbor porpoises, seals and humpback, minke and orca whales and an increasing population of sea otters. The water teem with fish such as halibut and all five species of Pacific salmon. More bald eagles live in this area than in any other place in the world. Though home to the world’s largest temperate rain forest, nearly half of Tongass is covered by ice, water, wetlands and rock. It’s most well-known ice floe is the Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska’s “Drive-in glacier” since it is just thirteen miles from down-town Juneau along a paved road. A boat trip from Petersburg or Wrangell can bring people near the face of LeConte Glacier, the southernmost tidewater glacier on the continent. Just thirty miles north of Yakutat is Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in the world and very easily Alaska’s most energetic. The 76-mile-long glacier has crossed Russell Fjord several times, lately in 2008. The rip tides and currents that flow in front of the 8-mile-wide glacier are so powerful they lead to Hubbard to calve almost continuously. The Tongass includes nineteen wilderness areas, including the 545-sq-mile Russell Fjord Wilderness, as well as Admiralty Island National Monument and Misty Fiords National Monument. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve and the general area surrounding Haines and Skagway aren’t part of the national forest.

A Vacation In Tongass National Forest in the State of Alaska

Light Lost in Shadows Part I

           A still mist hovered over the forest floor unnaturally thick. Imara'el wasn't intimidated. Mist had as many advantages as it did drawbacks. If his opponents could hide and strike while concealed in it, so could he. He fondly remembered the training the Blood Knights put him through. This particular training was done in early morning, when the mist was still thickest. Recruits were barely cognizant in the early hours, Imara'el among them. He adapted to that, anticipated it every morning. It was good training for discipline. He learned to function on as short as four hours of sleep when necessarily. To experience a week straight without sleep gathering Ghost Iron on Pandaria was taxing. He slept like the dead for three days straight after that.            "Company, halt!" the commander bellowed. The ranks came to a dead stop, where the mist seemed thickest. This was not a good place for them at all. The trees of Darkshore towered over them menacingly on all sides but one. The ground broke in front of them, sloped downward into a quarry of sorts that pushed anyone on its path to the shore. There was an obstacle in this quarry, unveiled and slowly excavated from the ground as a blighted monument to antiquated times. It could very well have been its own hill, were it remained buried and forgotten by the Twilight's Hammer; its lower half buried still in the ground while its upper half was exposed. These remains of Soggoth the Slitherer watched the Veiled Sea for countless centuries. At the remains of this herald of the Old Gods, Imara'el stood in its shadow.            What a place for a foothold, he thought, staring at the gigantic blade just visible protruding from the massive skull.            "On your toes, Horde!" the commander barked again, drawing Imara'el from his distraction, "Those knife-eared pansies are sure to attack us while we secure the area!" Imara'el grimaced and thought better of speaking out against the Orc's derogative comment. It could very well have been meant for Blood Elves with the same capacity of disdain. Imara'el vented a cleansing breath. His senses tightened on his surrounding. The mist felt more populated. His company wasn't alone. Brush rustled by the trees. Whispers of an imminent coordinated attack reached his ears. He could smell the unusually fragrant perfume of the forest. No forest smelled so strong of its own. On instinct, Imara'el threw his shield in between two trees, the distinct CLANG! of it striking targets resounded loudly, and the company jolted with a start at the deterrence of the ambush.            "Everyone, move!" Imara'el shouted the warning as the ambush commenced. Three Orcs went down with barbed arrows striking through their harnesses. Imara'el began work, removing the arrows and channeled the Light to ease their wounds. The mindless soldiers of the company charged into the mist to engage, only for their screams to silence. Idiots. Their deaths were neither glorious nor honorable. Imara'el was healing the third struck with arrows. The shots were accurate and fatal. The Orc clutched Imara'el by the shoulder, smearing blood on his polished plate.            "The Horde must....live on," the Orc released his final breath, his bloodied handprint painting Imara'el's armor and tabard. The Blood Elf stood, unable to do more for the grunt. The battle moved into the quarry, the Night Elf forces brought in glaive-throwers to hold the line. Troops clashed, Orcs overpowering their foes with brute strength, Night Elf retaliated with swift disciplined martial prowess. Imara'el charged into the quarry to the captain's side, shield raised to deflect a Night Elf's fatal blow. Imara'el drew sword, gutting the Night Elf where she stood. Entrails and blood spilled, and she died as she crawled away from the onslaught. Imara'el helped the captain to his feet, tended to his wounds.            "Good timing, Doomguard," the captain named Imara'el's unit.            "Not bad for a knife-eared pansy, huh?" The captain glanced aside sheepishly, unaware of the archer behind him poised to shoot. Imara'el pushed the captain to the ground out of the archer's aim. The arrow struck Imara'el in the side between ribs. The force of it knocked the Blood Elf off his feet, sending to collide with the suspended armor of the dead servant of the Old Gods. The arrow pierced deep and impaled him through the side. Drawing blood and connecting to the large monument of madness' servant. It was but an instant, but in Imara'el's mind, the presence loomed far longer. The feeling of smothering madness overwhelmed his mind, staring long into the unblinking eye gazing into him. Fear and instinct set in to preserve Ima's sanity in the eye's presence, but its grasp of him had sunk in deep.      You will be a fitting servant.  The voice thundered in the distance of Ima's mind, like rumblings of a storm on the far side of a mountain. It echoed deep and resonated with his soul, almost, as though a part of him. He fought against these vibrations. He resisted the allure of the voice in his head.      You will serve. He couldn't shake the voice, not even when the Light flared round him for protection. The presence lingered on the rims, waiting to engulf him. It was patient, and Ima's discipline was only so limited.            "Lightsong!" another voice roused Ima from his internal struggle. He stared down to find a source of lancing pain to preoccupy his attention now. He refocused on the Orc he saved not a moment before. Hr grabbed Ima by the shoulder and lifted him into the Wyvern's saddle.            "Get to Orgrimmar, go recover," the Orc ordered. He thumped a fist against his chest to Ima in salute. Ima made no protest; he needed to recover from this. He would return again.            The voice only grew in coming days. It grew stronger and louder with every moment in Darkshore. For something dead so long to still be a conduit of the Old Gods, it was no wonder to Imara'el the Twilight's Hammer excavated it. The voice persisted in its attempt to bring him to its side, and still Ima resisted. In all of this, the Horde moved further north up Darkshore, dominating holdouts the Night Elves clung to desperately in defense. Imara'el made sure to evacuate the civilians caught up in the conflict. They lashed out at him, even as he explained to them in Common. Several came close to taking his life, but those that fought were taken care of as any other. That pained Ima more than losing the Horde soldiers too wounded beyond his healing.        This is war. Is it not most beautiful?            The artillery arced through the air in a flaming streak. Clouds of flame spread against the strong bark of the great tree. Screams of outrage from Kal'Dorei and even Horde became deafening. Pillars of smoke writhed and coiled rising skyward, carried by a strong wind. The knot in imara'el's stomach tightened. Thousands upon thousands of innocent lives burned with Teldrassil.      "There is no honor in this!" Distant, the words seemed, but Imara'el looked over at Varok Sourfang shouting them to the Warchief. He was right. Windrunner made no reaction. Not even the slightest flinch as she watched her pyre. Imara'el felt tightness in his chest. He spun on his heel away from the view of the blaze into the battle-scarred forest. His legs carried him a ways to a river's shore, and he collapsed under the weight of his armor. His scream was that of a broken heart's, a sound he only made once before in his life, a sound he never wished to hear himself make again. He stared to the cloud-choked night sky, the few stars that appeared glinted down upon him.            Light, what have we done? The thought was desperate for Imara'el, it was all he could think in that moment.      More souls to feast upon. The voices had another thought. The damnable voices delighted in the carnage and horrors. Imara'el drove a fist into the sand, sickened of the words.            "Get out of my head," he said quietly.            You are our servant. We have need of you.            "If you won't leave my head, someone will know how to get rid of you."            Oh? We could use more servants. Could they possibly spread from ima to the rest of the Doomguard? If a dead servant could still be their conduit, a live one was more dangerous. If that was true, he couldn't risk to bring himself into contact with the others.            "Then I do this alone," he resolved.

To be continued...

Cairo, Egypt. The most challenging trip I’ve ever done, yet the most rewarding. Every crazy taxi ride through mosques and tiny alleys, every breathtaking and polluted sunset, every good and bad deal made with local merchants, every step into the desert with the Pyramids behind you. Cairo’s beauty resides in this unlikeness/divergence, as if the shades made the lights brighter.

What brings you here, to read about this city? Cairo is not for all, I should tell you that. Recent political and social changes have made the Egyptian capital a place where many Western Countries’ Ministers of Foreign Affairs strongly advise their citizens not to go, although I believe this is a little farfetched. “Tourists don’t know where they are, but know where they’re going. Voyagers know exactly where they are, but have no idea where they’re headed to.” Who are you exactly?

Cairo. Its official name is al-Qāhirah, “the Conqueror”, but is also known with other nicknames, like Kahire, which in Coptic means “place of the sun”, Umm al-Dunya (arabic for “the Mother of the World”), and often even Maṣr, which in Egyptian Arabic is the name for Egypt itself. With a population of 20 million people (some say even 30 million though), the current capital city used to host Pharaohs, Ottomans, British, French, and witnessed both bloody coups and golden periods.

Anyway, you might be here to actually read what to do in Cairo, so let’s stop beating around the bush and let’s get to the point.

Pyramids of Giza

Let’s start from the pyramids, which is probably the most famous attraction in the city. And there’s a reason or that: because they are wonderful.

To get there, take a Uber or Careem (I’ll talk about this topic at the very end – check it out to save a lot of money and hassle) direction Giza. From the city center, the trip lasts around 40 minutes, and because of its buildings and views, it is also part of the entire adventure. Beware of the people that at the entrance will try to convince that a guide tour on a horse or camel is fundamental for you. You can decide to listen to them, and you probably won’t be disappointed either (just make sure to set the price before you start the ride), or you can decide not to listen to them and enjoy your time with your travel buddies or by yourself in one of the most impressing places on Earth (if you haven’t noticed it yet, we recommend the second option). The area ticket is 40 LE (around 2€) and you have access to the area of the pyramids and the Sphinx, but to get really into the pyramids you have to buy further tickets (200 LE / 10€ for the Great Pyramid of Giza or Pyramid of Khufu, 40LE for the Pyramid of Menkaure, the one in the middle is not accessible). Is it worth it? Yes, for three reasons: 1- you’re entering the freaking pyramids that nobody knows exactly how were built and that are enormous and awesome; 2- it’s cheap, for the entrance and the two tickets you end up paying around 14€ (price for a lousy museum in Europe probably); 3- being there without getting in is a little funny isn’t it?

It’s also amazing to see the perfection of the tunnels, if we think that were built 4500 years ago and nowadays engineers and architects have all but a common theory about their construction.

Besides entering them, what else is there to do? You will be approached by different people with camels and horses, as it happened at the entrance, that will offer you a ride around and towards the Sahara, where you will get a fantastic view over the Pyramids and the desert itself. It’s a great experience, but look for someone who has a good relationship with their animals (even though you can never know): a lot of them are not treated very well.

Another thing to beware: the heat. If you go during summer, it’s going to be hot. Very hot. So take plenty of water with you (but you can find there water too for the price of 10 LE).

Coptic Cairo

Coptic Cairo is a relatively small part of Old Cairo that contains Christian churches and monuments. For example, the Hanging Church, built in the 3rd century AD on a Roman fortress. After visiting it, go to the patio and you’ll find a wooden door. Open it up and climb the stairs that bring you on top of a small tower, where you can have a nice view over the patio and beyond.

Since you’re there, visit the Church of St. George and the nearby cemetery.

Mosques

But most importantly, visit the mosque Amr Ibn El Aas, which is very close to the Hanging Church. Its original structure was the first ever built in Africa! Albeit its complete renovation through time, the atmosphere inside is impressive. Don’t forget to take off your shoes every time you get into a mosque, and to tip the guardian once you leave (10 LE is more than fine).

Because of the number of mosques present in the city, Cairo is also named “the city of a thousand minarets”, the tall and slender towers of mosques, with a small balcony on top where the Mu’adhin calls the prayers. Besides Amr Ibn El Aas, go to Ibn Tulun, the oldest mosque in Cairo surviving in its authentic form and structure. Make sure you get in from the left, and once you surpass the external gate turn right and keep walking. You’ll see a door on the wall in front of you. Climb the stairs, and you’ll be on top of a minaret, the oldest in town probably, looking over Islamic Cairo. It really is the city of a thousand minarets.

Tip: make sure you visit a mosque (or even better, a minaret) at the Afternoon Prayer call, which is around 15.30: being on top of a mosque whereas the whole city’s mosques call prayers is an experience can’t forget.

Other mosques you can’t miss: Al-Azhar Mosque, or the “shining one”, The Great Mosque of Muhammad Ali, which is situated in the Citadel of Cairo (a medieval Islamic fortification with different museums as well), Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan, Mosque of Sultan al-Muiayyad (if you give the Mu’adhin 30-40 LE he’s going to take you to the rooftop, the view from there is breathtaking).

But be ready to discover more and more as you walk around in Islamic Cairo (and don’t forget to share your discoveries with us).

Khan al-Khalili

This is likely to be the most famous souq, or marketplace, in Cairo. Here you can find scented and colorful spices, exotic silk, and much more. The market was built in the 14th Century by Al-Khalili after the Black Death. Constructed on the the site of the Za’afran Tomb, the burial place of the Fatimid rulers, it aimed at symbolizing a new start of the city and its life after the plague. It’s literally an immersion in the Egyptian folklore, and you’ll be amazed by the small shops and the activity in the area.

I highly recommend Khedr, the oldest house of herbs and spices in Egypt. This is the heaven for spices aficionados.

Zamalek

It’s the district located in the upper part of Gezira, the island in the middle of the Nile. This area is populated by expats, and you can find nice restaurants, bars and cafes. Have a Koshari, the typical Egyptian dish, at Zöoba, a shisha and some black tea with mint at Rooftop Zamalek, or a great view at the restaurant Sequoia.

Extras

Depending on how long you’re staying, you might consider visiting other things as well.

The Pyramid of Saqqara is located a little far from the city, and it may take you almost 2 hours to get there. But if you decide to hit the road, you’ll also have to check out Djoser and the Red Pyramid.

Al-Azhar Park, near the homonym mosque, was a gift by Aga Khan to the citizens of Cairo, and it’s place where to get away from the buzz of the city and admire the skyline from a different point of view.

There’s something magical in the suburbs of Cairo, ideated and designed by eL Seed, a French/Tunisian artist. “Perception”, that’s how he named it. In the neighborhood of Manshiyat Nasr, well known for the city trash collection, the French artist painted over 50 buldings an anamorphic piece of art that evokes the words of a Coptic bishop lived in the 3rd century: “anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eyes first”. However, it’s highly advised to go with someone who knows their way around, since one can get easily lost.

  Tips

Taxi – Make yourself a favor, download that app everybody is talking about and use it. Uber is hands down the best way to move around the city. It’s extremely cheap (so is Careem) and, to be honest, it’s also part of the experience. Besides driving through the crazy streets of Cairo (and thinking about their refined driving skills) you’ll see the city from within.

However, if you want to take taxis, or you don’t have any other choice, make sure you set the price before you leave, as most of them don’t have a taximeter and you risk to be charged way more than usual.

Also, don’t take phots of governmental stuff – Cairo is extremely photogenic, but don’t take photos of governmental buildings and people, since this is not very well seen from soldiers and police.

As regards hotels/hostels/flats: check out Airbnb or booking.com to save some money, you’ll definitely find something cool in the city center at a good price. Otherwise, we suggest staying at Kempinski or Semiramis, luxory hotels located along the Nile – you will love them!

Wrap up

Citis are to me like people, they have personalities. You build a relationship with a city, a give-and-take relationship – like friendship, for example. There could be mutual love, hate, sympathy, depending on how we are.

For tourists, Cairo can be a very nice city. A city where to spend a nice week, immersed in history and legends. But just a city to insert in the bucket list.

For voyagers, Cairo can be something else. It can be the city of adventures, of discoveries, of awe and wonder. It can be one of those cities that you know, once your flight takes off and, from your tiny seat you look down through the window, that someday you’ll come back to.

So, are you tourist or a voyager?

  The city you’ll fell in love with – Cairo, Egypt Cairo, Egypt. The most challenging trip I’ve ever done, yet the most rewarding. Every crazy taxi ride through mosques and tiny alleys, every breathtaking and polluted sunset, every good and bad deal made with local merchants, every step into the desert with the Pyramids behind you.