#there’s an element to war that includes taking care of the injustice of slaughter. the death of the innocent

[impossible-rat-babies]

rotating Halone in my brain case tonight fellas

[justanotherwannabeclassic]

prompt 2: quarantine

For those of you who still pay attention to this nonsense blog, I’ve been working with @distant-rose on creating this wildly expansive second-generation Marvel AU. It’s pretty wild, has 20+ AUs of itself, well over 100 characters, and a timeline spanning 40+ years. These are their stories. 

Characters: Francis Barton, Kassandra Page, Matthew Natchios, Ian Rogers, Gerry Drew, Bekka LeBeau, Megan Frost

Prompt 2: Quarantine

Dates: November 10-24, 2019

Day 1

“Since we’re stuck together for the foreseeable, I think we need to establish some ground rules.” Francis Barton laid down a pad of white paper and pulled out a pen. “It should, hopefully, make this a seamless experience while the Richards figure out if we’re going to die horrible, painful alien-virus related deaths.”

There were worse things than being quarantined in a SHIELD facility after being exposed to some sort of alien virus. They could all be dead, for one. They could also be undergoing some weird mutations -- NOT THAT THERE WAS ANYTHING WRONG WITH MUTANTS -- and grow six or seven different limbs. That would be worse. Really, considering those two options, Francis Barton was certain that quarantine was the best case scenario. But he also knew however long stuck in one place with little-to-no outside interaction was bound to be hell. As such, rules needed to be established.

“That sounds like a very El thing to say,” Kassandra Page, absolute badass and love of his potentially shorter life, noted from her spot on the table. She didn’t even bother to look up from her book. 

“Well, she’s the one who gave me the idea.” So what if he wasn’t the one to come up with the rules thing? El was a smart cookie. El was also safe and moderately happy thousands of miles away in New Orleans. That didn’t stop her from blowing up his phone with several texts. He was sure she was doing it to the three other members of their quarantine cohort.

“Should I contact the Xavier School and have them send over their roommate contracts?” Ian Rogers asked drly. 

“That sounds like a great idea!”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“See? That’s not helpful in establishing positive roommate relationships.” Francis argued. “Where’s Matt?”

“In the bedroom trying to convince his pregnant girlfriend from murdering him before the virus does, by the sound of it,” Gerry Drew commented. “For what it’s worth, the ground rules sound like a good idea. I was going to suggest it myself, but grew distracted finishing the mission report. Work never ends, even in quarantine.”

“Has my brother-in-law punched you in the face?” Ian twisted in his chair to look over at Gerry. 

“No.”

“Wonders never cease.”

Kass glanced between the two men and back to Francis. “El might be right. Maybe we should establish ground rules.”

Day 4

Gerry Drew wondered if he had died and gone to hell. Perhaps the virus had actually gotten to him, eaten him away from the inside out until he perished, and this was his punishment. He could hear the unmistakable sound of a bed creaking from one of the bedrooms as well as Natchios talking to his mutant girlfriend from a different room.

“You would think they would have left us headphones,” Gerry groaned aloud, hoping the one other person in the room would agree; instead, Ian ignored him and continued to tap away at his laptop. Gerry turned on the television. He settled on ESPN, and looked over his shoulder to Ian. “D’you like sports?” Again, no answer. Gerry sighed deeply. “What the hell are you working on?”

“Lesson plans.”

“Lesson plans?” That was not the answer he expected. Gerry knew the other man was contracted by the Xavier Institute to assist in some training, but requiring lesson plans didn’t seem necessary. “They require you to do that shit?”

“Since I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future, I don’t want the kids to fall behind. I’m creating reports for the various cohorts. UV is capable, but she’s short staffed, meaning she’s doing to bring in someone like Jet to help,” Ian explained. He didn’t bother to look up from his laptop. 

“I don’t think a few weeks will make or break them.” 

“They’re mutants. Considering the targets on their back, it might.”

“I know it’s our job to be spooks and have contingency plans upon contingency plans, but the school hasn’t been attacked in years. They’re prepared. I’ve been working with them longer than you. The targets aren’t that big. Not on the kids.”

“The X-Men are now down several members, including their former leader. While they’ve been left in capable hands, enemies could view the perceived void as a vulnerability,” Ian explained gruffly. “Beyond that, society as a whole is still anti-mutant. Three states have banned human and mutant marriage. Congress still has very vocal members rallying for mutant registration. There are reports of several hate crimes against mutants this year alone. These kids have targets on their backs, Agent Drew. I am right to be concerned.” 

“You sound like your sister.” How many times had he heard Ellie Rogers expound upon the injustices mutants have faced over the years?

“I will take that as a compliment; however, coming from you, I assume you meant it as an insult.”

“I actually didn’t. I meant it as a neutral statement. Ellie is a pretty large advocate for mutant rights.” He wasn’t a fan of Ellie. He thought she was both entirely overrated and unprofessional, but he didn’t hold the mutant advocacy against her. “It makes sense, considering the mutant husband and kids.”

“Or she could be a good person. I know you think she’s blinded by her relationship with LeBeau, but there’s more to it than that. You don’t need to have a direct loved one be a mutant to care.” 

“But it helps. It is an influence. She wouldn’t have done half the shit she pulled for the X-Men if she wasn’t involved with their leader.”

“Former leader.” 

“Are you getting pedantic with me? He was leader up until three months ago.” Then he and Ellie fucked off to retire to New Orleans and raise their mutant kids. Whatever. Arguing wasn’t going to make his living situation any more tenable, but Gerry never met an argument he didn’t fight. “You mean to tell me your mutant niece and nephew don’t have any influence for why you’re working at the school?”

“They are influences, as are my friends, but they aren’t why I care about mutant rights. Not originally. Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t always a psychopath.” Ian shut his laptop. “I liked history and politics as a kid. No surprise, considering my parents. Some people are obsessed with studying the Second World War. Others are obsessed with different countries. England. Japan. China. Me? I was fascinated with Genosha. I grew up on my father’s stories of liberating concentration camps, and how we swore never again. Over ten million innocent lives, more than the population of New York City, were lost, slaughtered my Sentinels and the world hardly cared. The world turned their back on an atrocity and wants to put in place structures for it to happen again on a larger scale. I say ‘never again’. Where do you stand?”

He didn’t wait for a response, quickly standing and taking his laptop with him as he disappeared into another room, leaving Gerry alone to his devices. 

Day 9

She missed her dogs. 

They were currently staying with Barnes and Romanov, so Kass knew they were well taken care of, but still, she missed them. She missed a lot of things. She missed her apartment and her bed. She missed the cafe that was two blocks from her apartment. She usually stopped by for coffee most mornings. They knew her order there and called her ‘Kelly’ because that was the name she gave them. She always paid in cash, so nobody needed to know the fib. It was comfort built on a lie, but a familiar comfort nonetheless.

Nothing about the past nine days was comfortable. Kass chafed at sharing living quarters with four other people. Francis, she could handle. She had more or less been living with him for months. The others, not so much. Matt was like a brother to her, and few others understood her the way Ian did, but neither of those qualities made her want to share a living space with either of them. She didn’t trust Agent Drew as far as she could throw him, which was an added element to misery. 

It was only Day 9. Kass wasn’t accustomed to this much stimulus, not without any outlet. She couldn’t go to the shooting range. She was cautioned against excessive training. She couldn’t go to the park for a run. She was trapped in a quarantine pod with several other people on the off chance she was carrying an alien virus. Valeria Richards proposed isolation of two weeks. She had another week of this. Someone was going to die. 

Francis was trying to lighten the mood with ice-breakers and other games. It was mostly annoying. They played poker over celery sticks and passive-aggressive barbs. They argued over movie nights Matt and Ian spent most of the time engrossed texting whoever on their phones, which was fine, except for the excessive buzzing each time either one of them received a message. Matt, himself, had several loud phone calls with Bekka, his annoying, pregnant girlfriend. Kass wanted to shake him and scream that Bekka would be fine, her goddamn mother had flown up from New Orleans to spend time with her while Matt was trapped. Gerry had stupidly tried to institute a ‘No Sex’ rule, targeted solely at her and Francis. Kass, in turn, had threatened to break his face. 

May the alien virus take us all. 

Kass had decided to stay holed up in her room for the rest of the day. It was the only way she could keep from killing everyone, and even then it was a close thing. She could hear Matt having another loud phone conversation in the main area; however, instead of Bekka’s Southern’s drawl, she could hear El’s half-melodic voice over the speaker. From what she could hear, Ian and Francis were also joining in on the chat. 

That twisted something else in her, another emotion she had no desire to dwell upon. She hadn’t spoken to El in months, not since that last argument before she’d uprooted her life and ran away to New Orleans. Kass had called the action out for what it was, a stupid mistake. El hadn’t appreciated that, and since El was a stubborn bitch, she dug in her heels and argued back. They’d both said some shitty things, and that was that. The end of almost a decade of friendship. 

It was fine. She was fine. El was off to live her life with her husband and babies, and Kass was...Kass was trapped in a quarantine pod with several people she wanted to be exceptionally far away from. Most of whom seemed happily to monopolize the living area chatting away with her about....Thanksgiving plans? Whatever. She was fine. She didn’t care about Thanksgiving. Kass didn’t even want to think about Thanksgiving, not while she was stuck in this space.

She wanted to be alone. She buried her head under the pillow in hopes of drowning out the voices and laughter.

Day 11

Ian was on a beach. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in his quarantine pod, but he was on a beach. He could almost smell the salt of the sea and feel the sand underneath his toes.

“Relax. You’re dreaming,” a familiar voice floated behind him. Ian turned at noise to see Megan Frost standing behind him. She walked slowly toward him, as if she were afraid of startling him. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d stop by for a visit.”

Megan was a telepath, a damn good one. She’d been the one who had psychically reprogrammed his mind after decades of tampering and torturing. For the past few months, she had also been his lover. Now, she was invading his dreams and doing so while she was wearing a rather daring bikini. 

“I don’t mind at all.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and brushed her lips against his. It was exhilarating even in dream form. “You’ve never done this before.”

“Kissed you? Darling, we both know that isn’t true.” She began to place open mouthed kisses down the column of his throat. He groaned lowly, and tightened his fingers on her hips. She knew perfectly well what he was talking about. She never invaded his dreams before. As if reading his mind, and she probably was, sighed, “I missed seeing you, and since I can’t do that in person, I thought I would try the next best thing. Is that so wrong?” 

“No, it isn’t.” Ian was sure some people would mind the intrusion. He wasn’t some people. He also knew better than to take anything Megan was willing to give. Telling him she missed him was a monumental step in the right direction when it came to emotional displays of her affections. She tended to keep her feelings close to her chest. He supposed it probably had something to do with her fiance. 

Part of him wanted to ask what the Tin Man was doing now. Was he lying asleep next to Megan, while she mentally fooled around with him? The thought thrilled him. If Megan was carrying out a telepathic affair with Ian while her fiance was right there, surely she was steps away from finally choosing him.

The scene shifted around them, and they were in his studio apartment. Megan pushed him onto the bed, and he fell with a laugh. “The beach no good?”

“I suddenly thought you might like something familiar. The beach is lovely, but nothing compared to home.” Ian didn’t know what home was anymore. He barely knew who he was anymore, but he enjoyed everything more when she was involved, but he couldn’t tell her that. Not yet.

Instead, he pulled her down on the bed, and delighted in her laughter and the feel of her body next to his. “You should do this more often,” he whispered against his lips. A telepathic interlude paled in comparison to the real thing, but it was exciting enough. It meant she was here with him.

“Maybe I--” A crash shook him from his dream and pulled Megan away from him. He could hear shouting and the sound of glass breaking. What the fuck?

Francis poked his head into the room. “Sorry to wake you, man, but Matt and Gerry are having a fistfight, and I might need your help breaking it up.”

Day 14

“Your face looks terrible.” Bekka grimaced over the phone. Video chats had many benefits, but this was not one of them. “Not that he doesn’t deserve it or anything, but what got you fighting Gerry Drew anyway?

“Gerry’s an ass. That’s all. He said some shit, got hit.” It hurt to talk. His face was several different kinds of bruised. Worth it. 

“What’d he say?”

“What didn’t he say? He’s been nothing but a pain in the ass for two weeks.” That much was true. He’d been petulant and whiny over everything. Was it annoying hearing Kass and Francis fuck? Sure. Did Ian take extremely long showers? Yes. Did Matt call Bekka often? Also yes. But they all had their reasons for it and even if they didn’t, Gerry was a waste enough of a human that he didn’t care how he felt. 

Gerry might top Matthew Natchios’ List of People He Hated. 

It was an extensive list.

“I’m sure he’s been a pain. That’s baseline Gerry Drew, but he had to say something specific to see you off. Ian, I’d get. If Olivier were there, I’d get the punching too, but this isn’t normal you.”

Matt considered lying through his teeth. There was no way Bekka would know why they fought unless someone told her. She wasn’t a telepath. Her mutation was explosions. She didn’t need to know, but he was going to tell her anyway. That’s what relationships were built upon. Trust. “He just said some shitty things about you and us. That’s all.”

“Oh,” was Bekka’s reply. Prior to dating Matt, Bekka had been dating Gerry’s best friend. It had gone as south as a relationship could go before they split. Gerry held a lot of resentment about that, especially since Matt had played a very big role in Bekka and Damon splitting. “How shitty?”

Matt took a deep breath. “He implied Baby Girl wasn’t mine.” Bekka remained quiet. “Becks?”

“Didja break his face?” Bekka asked finally. “I’m gonna be disappointed as hell if you didn’t at least break his nose.”

“I’m pretty sure I did that,” Matt answered with a laugh, relieved that Bekka was responding with anger instead of tears. Rarely did she cry, but Matt didn’t want one of those instances to be when he wasn’t there to hold her. 

“Good.” She was quiet for a few moments more before she added, “You know Baby Girl is yours, right? No way possible she belongs to anyone else.”

“I know, it’s why I hit him.” He’d been angry about other things. All the shit Gerry had said about Bekka and she and Damon had split, the way he undercut El out of her job as SHIELD liaison with the X-Men, and how he went out of his way to make her miserable. Matt didn’t know much about family, but he knew who his was, and he didn’t like when others messed with them.

“I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Val swears that y’all aren’  infectious or whatever. She’s been running so many tests. I miss you something awful”.

“I miss you too.”

“Momma and I are baking you something special too. I won’t tell you what, because it’s supposed to be a surprise. I would trade anything to have you home, but it’s been nice having Momma here.” Bekka’s accent was thicker than usual, no doubt thanks to spending the past two weeks with her Mississippi-born mother. Matt didn’t mind at all -- he adored her accent. Truth be told he adored everything about Bekka. He couldn’t wait to be home and in her arms. “You sure you’re okay with her staying until after Thanksgiving?”

“It’s fine. I love you mother.” 

She’d been more of a mother to him than his own mother, not that it was a high bar. Elektra Natchios was a terrible mother, the complete opposite of Anna Marie LeBeau. Besides, it was clear how much Bekka enjoyed having her mother around. Much as she tried to pretend otherwise, Bekka was riddled with anxieties over pregnancy and becoming a mother. Having Anna around comforted her in a way no other person could manage. As far as Matt was concerned, she could stay around as long as she liked.

“Je t’aime. Tu es le meilleur.” She yawned deeply. “Your baby needs to go to bed, which means I am. But good news, I’m seein’ you tomorrow. That’s a win.”

Matt smiled against the phone. I can’t wait.”

He let her go, pleased to know that she was taking care of herself and getting some sleep. He needed it himself. One more sleep, and he would be free from quarantine. 

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales is so much more than a Gwent-based spin-off

I put about 150 hours into The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. It’s probably my favorite game ever. I tend to think that I’ve more or less done everything in that game that there was to do, but there is one glaring exception to that: Gwent. I tried a couple rounds of the collectible card game in the beginning of the game, didn’t quite understand what was going on, and certainly didn’t care to learn when the rest of the game offered a big, beautiful world to explore, full of great stories created with near unparalleled writing. I had never really gotten in to card games within video games in general, really - I remember reacting to Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad in much the same way. And I’ve certainly never attempted Hearthstone, or any such similar DCCG’s. This is all to say, I’m still a bit surprised at how thoroughly I fell in love with Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, a game built largely around Gwent.

CD Projekt Red’s newest game was released just a few weeks ago to disappointingly little fanfare. What reviews there are have been pretty strong, but let’s be real - this is an isometric RPG with visual novel elements whose combat is based around a card game, and it was released three days before Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s a shame, though, because the game really does offer so much to those who, like me, might be unsure about undertaking such an experience. It’s got a gorgeous, comic-book-esque art style that makes exploring the game’s detailed maps a joy. It’s very well written, with novelistic prose and strong characters delivered by Jakub Szamalek, one of the writers from The Witcher 3. Marcin Przybylowicz returns with another memorable and moody Polish-folk-music-inflected score. While combat is entirely based around Gwent, the rest of this game is devoted to exploring detailed maps and making hard, morally ambiguous decisions in the main story. In other words, the team behind The Witcher 3 made a brand new, full, deep RPG set in the universe of The Witcher, and you really should be paying attention.

Thronebreaker is a prequel-ish spin-off, set just before the events of the first Witcher game. It centers around Meve, Queen of Lyria and Rivia, and her quest to reclaim her land from a devastating Nilfgaardian invasion. The morally gray nature of The Witcher universe is an even more ever-present central tenet in this game than previous ones, as it deals explicitly with the inherent injustice of monarchical governance. Meve is, as queens go, a very good one. She’s brave, determined, and compassionate, willing to fight to the death for the good of her people. But war nevertheless makes for hard decisions, especially when you’re leading a small army with limited resources against a giant imperial machine, and attempting to navigate the complex politics of multiple lands.

The maps you explore in this game can include big cities and castles, but for the most part, you’re traversing through rural lands, passing by small villages and farms, grappling with the cruelty of feudalism. The peasants you meet have next to nothing to begin with, so often are they forced by the government you rule to give up their earnings, at least in part so that you can live in luxury. Now that war has come around, it only gets worse for them - you physically take resources from them for your army, and often conscript them to join. You stick your nose into local conflicts you don’t fully understand or appreciate. Mass inequality and injustice are everywhere, and try as you might to be a just and fair monarch, you can only go so far when your existence is one of the primary reasons for that mass inequality and injustice.

There are rarely “good” options to choose from in this game. A decision always involves a compromise, and no matter what, somebody is going to be made very unhappy by it - most likely including you. There are often more ostensibly righteous or noble options, but the consequences of those can sometimes have an effect that makes you wish you had chosen the other one. “You’ve chosen one evil over another” is a prompt that you get very used to popping up - it’s the game’s sole response to you making a story-altering decision. Sometimes this can feel pretty damn off. Sorry, game, but choosing not to kill a messenger when I’ve just been reminded of the rules of war, or saving an elf from a mob of racist humans attempting a public execution are just not evils, no matter how you look at them. The point of it is showing how your actions, even seemingly altruistic ones, have consequences, and the shades of gray thing works pretty well for the most part, but despite the game’s assurance to the contrary, not every choice you make is an evil one.

The more successful decision making comes when you really feel those consequences, either through a hit to your resources, or a bit of writing that explains what ended up happening. There’s a heavy dollop of Machiavellianism to these decisions, as it often comes down to choosing between what’s right and what’s successful. You need gold, people, and resources to survive. In the early parts of the game, you’re pretty desperate for all three of these things. So when you stumble across an already disturbed grave that has valuables in it, do you pillage it? You want to say no, and yet, you weigh the options - the only negative would be upsetting company morale, but morale is already high after saving a church graveyard from a monster, so pushing it down to normal isn’t a great loss in comparison to leaving behind gold. In that same section, you can chase down a group of bandits that stole gold from the church. After you retrieve it, you can either return it, or keep it for yourself. I returned it, but I didn’t feel quite as great about it as I expected to. Sure, I made a small group of nuns happy, but does this truly benefit the kingdom as a whole if we’re short on money to fight our enemies?

That’s not to say that the game encourages you to make the selfish choice. I’ve heard it claimed before that the Witcher games reward policies of non-interference and cynicism in the face of injustice, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Sure, taking the gold for myself would have made the game a little bit easier for me, but that’s temptation, not reward. There’s always a cost for getting involved, but it’s hard for me to see that as the game punishing me. There are consequences no matter what, and this is the rare game with a semblance of a morality system that often makes attempts at doing the right thing the most narratively interesting choice rather than the choice with the most practical reward. This becomes clear in the second chapter, where, after seeing the atrocities wrought by the opposition, you can’t help but become more willing to recognize the cruelty in yourself, to make decisions you never figured you’d make. This wouldn’t feel nearly as impactful if you didn’t start out trying to make Meve the most just ruler possible.

Though the game presents a complex world of bitter division and desperate cynicism, and thus engaging with it leaves little possibility of not getting blood on your hands, the writing rarely feels ignorant of the roots of injustice. The human lands that you spend most of the game exploring are deeply racist. The Elder Races - elves and dwarves, mostly, have been subject to countless pogroms across these lands, and even when they aren’t being straight up murdered, are never treated as equals to their human neighbors. So the fact that the Scoia’tael, a radical group of nonhuman guerillas, exist isn’t surprising, nor can you not have sympathy for their alliance with the invading Nilfgaard. Though the Nilfgaardians can be seen as a stand-in for any massive imperial force, from the Roman Empire to Nazi Germany, with all the delusions of racial superiority that tend to go with empire, their invasion of the Northern Kingdoms actually does seem to make life a bit easier for nonhumans - one of the chief complaints of the humans you meet living under occupation is how many more rights have been granted to elves and dwarves.

The Scoia’tael, fighting for Nilfgaard, thus become another enemy you must face. Some of them, justifiably thrilled at the prospect of overthrowing their oppressors, use the destruction of a kingdom like Aedirn as an opportunity to slaughter whole villages of humans as revenge. You see the mindless violence they’ve committed, then are faced with the threat of it yourself, and there’s really no other choice but to take the Scoia’tael down. It feels terrible. Every aspect of it. And I believe the game earns this trudge through moral quicksand. It recognizes the righteousness of the Scoia’tael, even as it forces you into opposition against them. It’s both awful, and a surprising relief from the social commentary video games so often fall into - the reductive and mischaracterizing Bethesda/Rockstar/Bioshock “both sides suck” approach. It recognizes the power differences at the root of the issue, and doesn’t hide from the ugliness that ensues.

That’s not to say that the writing is always perfect when dealing with this stuff. Cut a single corner with material this volatile and you can end up with a pretty off-putting scene, as Thronebreaker occasionally does. There’s one character, a human named Black Rayla, that joins your team in the second chapter. She’s a seasoned fighter of the Scoia’tel, and thoroughly racist as a result, and yet, she’s useful to your cause, so you allow her in. This is all well and good, and theoretically should make for some interesting internal conflicts, but there were several scenes where I was disturbed by Meve’s lack of response to Rayla’s nationalist bullshit. There was one scene where she was going down some real “I don’t have a problem with them, as long as they know their place” garbage, and I just decided to dismiss her at that point. I wonder what would happen if she stayed with my group till the end, if Meve would have more to say to her after she wasn’t quite as desperate for her help. I’d hope so, but considering the lack of mindful writing around her character I witnessed it, I wouldn’t exactly expect it.

For as fascinating as the narrative of this game is, the thing you’ll probably spend the majority of the game doing is playing Gwent, and for a solid two-thirds of my time with the card combat, that was something I was very happy to be doing. The system built for this game, similar to, but modified from its Witcher 3 iteration, is deep, strategic, and occasionally pretty challenging. It feels made for newcomers like myself, mostly unfamiliar with Gwent, or even the standard mechanics shared by most card games, in the way that it eases the player into it. The first hour or so of the game is the official tutorial, but really the whole first chapter feels like a fairly natural extended tutorial for beginners, starting you off with a fairly limited deck in order to solidify the basics. For the most part this is very well done, though there were some particular aspects of the game that didn’t seem to be entirely explained, and took me a pretty long time to pick up on exactly how they worked.

The biggest strength that the card game here boasts is real variety. So many of the battles have particular rules or cards in play that drastically change the way you have to approach your strategy. Many of these come in the form of “puzzles” - aptly titled special battles where you’re given a specific set of cards and there’s really only one solution that you have to deduce through experimentation and logic. These are largely fantastic, not only because they’re all unique and fun in their own right, but because they often serve as mini-lessons in how individual units work and the various strategic ways they can be utilized.

Then there are the standard battles, where you actually get to shuffle and draw your own deck. The designers clearly put a lot of effort into the variety here as well, so often do they throw in inventive special rules and objectives, a lot of which not only change the pace of battle in meaningful ways, but often weave narrative significance into play as well. One of my favorite feelings in this game was getting stuck on a battle because of its particular rules, banging my head against it for a little while, then just suddenly seeing it, and pulling a satisfying victory just before it would’ve started feeling frustrating.

For as much thought and care as was clearly put into the design, though, there’s really only so many ways to keep combat interesting and engaging through a campaign that can last as long as fifty hours. In the back half of the game, combat can too often feel like a grind. At this point, you’ve got a big, diverse deck with plenty of powerful cards that makes it too easy to brute force your way through most situations. I found myself repeating the same tried and true tactics over and over again to bring my game to a speedy end so I could just move on with the story, which I was still very much enjoying. It’s hard to know if more work could have been put in to truly keep the card game feeling novel - Gwent just generally loses its depth once you’ve got mastery over a sturdy deck. I think ultimately, the game is just too long - possibly by even as much as ten hours or so, honestly. That’s not to say that I outright stopped enjoying it at any point; this is unquestionably one of my favorite games of the year, but if I didn’t have to face that grind in the final couple chapters, it very well could have been a contender for the top spot.

It feels a bit too long in the narrative sense as well. Not necessarily the written aspect of the narrative - that all felt consistently strong and inspired throughout the course of this game. But the mechanics surrounding the narrative, in particular the hard decisions you have to make as a result of limited resources, fall flat once the in-game economy feels maxed out. By the final chapter, all my upgrade trees were completely filled and I found myself sitting on a growing surplus of funds, and suddenly making the “right” decision didn’t feel quite as hard.

Despite its cumbersome length, few games surprised and enchanted me this year as much as Thronebreaker. The challenging and compelling role playing, the satisfying card combat...hell, even if that stuff wasn’t as outstanding as it is, I probably would have been happy to spend a considerable amount of time in it for its art style and music alone, so thoroughly did it soak me in those intoxicating Witcher vibes. It made me very excited at the potential CD Projekt Red still has in it for finding innovative and novel approaches to fresh storytelling in a well-worn universe, and I just hope that potential can continue to be realized after the distressingly muted reaction to this game’s release. Here’s hoping that its recent addition to Steam, and its upcoming console release, allows it to find the audience that it deserves.

[eunsahn]

Whose Right/Who's Right?

For followers of the Way, one of the big differences between the Zen of today and the Zen of the days of the Ch’an Patriarchs is access to the Dharma in all its forms. We may have an in-person, three-dimensional teacher, a two-dimensional on-line video teacher, academic courses, the internet, and writings from the past 2,500 years. That’s quite a bit to sift through, and other than random stumbling onto something, my experience is that one source has led to another. Sometimes they even come in chronological order, though that’s never been Buddhism’s strong suit. The Pali Canon was divided into short, medium, and long discourses, so skipping around is hardly anything that can really be avoided without a lineage scorecard that puts things in some semblance of chronological order, though even any list is not entirely complete. Each branch will have its own lineage--the Jogye and Soto lineages branch off in the Five Houses era, for example. On any given day, anyone can read anything from any source, hear about anything from any time, learn about the Dhammapada one day, Dahui the next, followed by a little Huineng, a First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, capped off by a little ZM Seung Sahn, with maybe a little Robert Aitken Roshi on the side.

Back in a mountaintop Chinese temple in the Song Dynasty, the selection was a touch more limited, and not just because 1,000 years of writings hadn’t been written yet. I can’t really say for sure that the Abbott of this temple was as well-versed as a beginning poly-Buddhist is today. How much was translated, by whom, and at what year would be more of an issue for those Ch’an monks than it is for us. When did someone write it? Even if one were capable of reading all the scriptures, I doubt there would be any time left for any actual practice. Even a hermit has to plant, harvest, and eat. In a modern temple, there are other people with whom interaction takes place, chores, meditation, chanting, bowing, interviews with the teacher, and more chores. After all, dishes don’t wash themselves after food doesn’t cook itself. The rest of us in the marketplace have to do our marketplace things.

An undercurrent of today’s Zen practice involves what’s often referred to as “Engaged Buddhism.” If your sangha isn’t as actively involved as Zen Peacemakers or Upaya Zen Center, it may run a soup kitchen, run a hospice, maybe even meditate and chant for the benefit of all beings in the marketplace. All of them are valuable, not one more than the others. Some may have more immediately visible results, but the unseen results matter, possibly more. I say more, because when the result is just out there without my hand firmly controlling the soup spoon and my eyes seeing the gratitude expressed by someone who came in hungry and is leaving staed. It’s just out there. It’s kind of like mudita, the empathetic/sympathetic joy for someone else’s good fortune. I may have had nothing to do with the cause of the joy, the fortunate one may not even know I’m joyous for them. How not-validating!  How not-instant gratification can it get? But that’s no reason not to feed the hungry or run a hospice. After all, I did say  possibly more, not definitely more. Both types of actions put the benefit of others before our own, so it all generates merit that we can dedicate to all beings.

Where the Song Dynasty monk may not have heard much about the Eightfold Path while sitting at Linji’s feet, the monk received teachings nonetheless--teachings that were aimed at providing the opportunity to awaken, equally as much as the aforementioned Path. I daresay that the Zennist of today who didn’t know his Eightfold Path from a Six Pack would run the risk of being laughed out of the meditation room by the less charitable, and given some guidance in Buddhist basics from the more charitable. I wonder sometimes whether all the teachings in all their value and all their length and breadth may just be a distraction from the task at hand for the Zen practitioner who has taken the Bodhisattva Vows. The lay Precepts are based in the Eightfold Path. Right Livelihood, for example, mentions livelihoods that should be avoided: Trade in deadly weapons, trade in animals for slaughter, trade in slavery, trade in intoxicants, and trade in poisons. A couple Precepts are covered right there, and the other Seven of the Path follow suit in much the same way. Of course, in true Buddhist fashion, it’s a combination of what to do, and it’s what to avoid doing. If there are 84,000 choices of what to do, practicing Right Livelihood still leaves you with 83,995 other things to do. If we are living by the Precepts we’ve received and Vows we’ve taken, the “Rights” of the Path take care of themselves. If pondering the Path precludes practice, is it practical?

In today’s society, where do Right and right meet the road, and where they do, is there a headon collision? One interpretation of Right Speech is not lying, slandering, using harsh words and gossip, and I’d add in speaking in a tone of perceived superiority to the list. In the US and elsewhere in the world, there is the right to freely expressing oneself, and this often includes “the right to freedom of speech.” This right to free speech often doesn’t equal Right Speech unfortunately. As a Zen Buddhist in the US, how do we deal with what we perceive as right and wrong, harmful and helpful, lovingkindness in speech and hate speech? From an Engaged perspective, how do we tolerate the hate speech, and as Americans point out the intolerance perceived in this expression of at least perceived malevolence? Third Patriarch said the Great Way was easy for those with no preferences, those who eliminate love and hate. But how do we not prefer Right over “wrong,” how do we not love “love,” and hate “hate?” How do we “man the barricades” without engaging in the same vitriol as our perceived opponent?

As per usual, we make it more difficult for ourselves. Differing views (as opposed to Right View) are simply an element of relative reality. We accept that. We don’t even have to think of the differences as creating the two sides of the coin, it’s all just speech and opinions that cover a broad spectrum of greys, even if it looks black and white. We accept it, but don’t have to settle and leave it as is. It’s said that Right View is No View. If we maintain the view that those greys have evolved from previous greys, and will change into the next shades of grey, it’s a more accurate View, maybe even No View. We don’t have to attach to our view/opinion as incontrovertibly the correct one. To this end, Great Faith, Great Doubt, and Great Courage--three great legs of the Zen tripod--are used, and not just one of them. Great Faith without Great Doubt is falling into the hell of relying on dogma. Grreat Doubt without Great Courage can lead to nihilism and inertia. Great Courage (or Great Determination it’s sometimes called) without Faith and Doubt can manifest as anger or thoughtless action rather than thoughtful acton. Faith, Doubt, and Courage can manifest as correct action through No Thought, or put another way, before thought. Living in accordance with our True Nature can’t help but be right or Right.

Is it unawakened intention or awakened intentioned our “view” supplies? Sencan’s nondiscrimination is manifested through looking deeply at our motives and intentions, and what leads up to them. Even clinging to an awakened view is still a view, and therefore negates the awakened nature of it. Not thinking this is Right or right, but just acting, speaking of doing them in accordance with our True Nature. We doubt that our mundane views are necessarily right or Right. We have faith in ourselves--more accurately our True Selves--are innate and don’t need force to emerge. And we have the courage and determination that this manifestation, this unveiling comes to be. It hasn’t gone anywhere, and doesn’t come from anywhere, it just is. No birth or death, just there. But where is it in a protest march? It’s with us all the time, but maybe in the heat of the moment doubt is pushed aside by faith in our virtuous cause. Torching a car or throwing a brick may seem to be a good idea at the time, but will it stay the same after some introspective investigation? Participating in injustice, even through inaction, is complicity with the oppressor. It is no more correct than actively denying food to the hungry or incarcerating someone who is innocent. Fear is most certainly the opposite of courage, and to be in a state of fear is not great. Quite often, fear is what drive the lack of determination.

Not having a preference does not mean not engaging. Somewhere between fighting a “just war” and passive pacifism is awakened action. This could even take the form of having the courage to point out to the “opponent” that their thoughts, words, actions, views, etc. are open to question-- their faith without doubt. Likewise the skepticism they express toward your stand may be their doubt in you and your cause, but no doubt in themselves.  Their determination just to plow under the opponent and bulldoze the barricades may not be too courageous, just a manifestation of fear, hatred, or simply unawakened behavior. It shows disinterest in finding out what the awakened version might constitute. We don’t have to point out how unawakened “they” are and how awakened “we” are at the top of our lungs. Sometimes No Speech is Right Speech--silently man the barricades without engaging the other on their terms. If you’re on a football field, play football, even if the other team is cheating. We don’t have to play their game and cheat in return.

One thing Zen Masters have done is to allow their student to go down through their own path. They may see that the direction the student is headed will probably not work out so well, but having learned that heading South is not the shortest direction to North, but it is a way to get there. The teacher may give the student the compass of the Dharma, but if the student still decides heading South is the better course because directly North has an obstacle or two, the teacher will not forcibly turn the student around, just let them go, and “letting go” in more ways than one. The student has the right to be wrong in his or her own way. The teacher has faith that the student will right themselves eventually, and if he really crashes and burns, the teacher will be free to use the fire extinguisher of lovingkindness. We could take this approach with those whom we think of as going down the wrong path politically or socio-economically, but I have my doubts about this being Right anything. If one were to just let others cause suffering to another being, isn’t that being complicit in the harmful act itself. Even when justified by such maxims of freedom of expression or freedom of speech, letting injustice just happen because it might lead to the final goal of enlightenment may not be all that skillful if the reason behind it is fear or misapplied doubt.

In the final analysis, it’s a balancing act, as much of our work as concerned, engaged Bodhisattvas is. We must act quickly, decisively, and naturally as an awakened being would. That entails practice until instant where the awakening happens. It may be on the barricade, it may be on the cushion, it may be hearing a rock hit bamboo, or bamboo or truncheon being firmly applied to your shin or head. Awakening can happen if we peel away the firmly head beliefs about it, and everything else. We need to be able to discern whose right is being violated, and who’s right about standing up for the right. As I write this, it comes to mind that this may be the huadu of the barricade: Whose right/who’s right? Don’t know. Act from a stand of True Nature, there’s no knowing that matters.