Shadows and Light

I've been slowly working my way through Assassin's Creed: Shadows again. After the debacle that was Valhalla and then Mirage (I will spare you all the usual rant), I was hesitant to trust Ubisoft not to break my heart and honestly wouldn't have even picked the game up if some wonderful soul hadn't gotten it for me.

I admittedly, got absolutely derailed by Helldivers shortly after I'd started AC:S and so I chose that instead for a good chunk of the year. I'm still having fun saving Super Earth but schedules change and some of the people I really enjoy playing with, who know me better than others, haven't been around as much. Which, I totally get and don't begrudge people having lives and other things to do, obviously. I've been trying to get more work done, and hockey season started so I've been on less myself. Plus I really want to play Ghost of Yōtei but my brain decided I needed to finish Shadows first so here we are.

I love a number of things about Shadows. I love the dual character play. I love the open world. I love that they've finally gotten themselves back into the whole assassin thing after wandering so far away from it. The story is fine, if a little....weightless? It doesn't have a lot of heft to it, if that makes sense. (I am nervously waiting for them to drop the ball here given past experiences.)

It's devilishly difficult to play open world games sometimes with ADHD. * laughs * And that's probably the biggest issue with Shadows. The world is almost too big. There's too much stuff to do. The subplots are interwoven so you have to abandon things halfway through and progress the main story before you can finish them. If you remember to finish them. It's probably one of the major reasons it was so easy to walk away from in the spring and go shoot bugs, and robots, and aliens while yelling about democracy.

I do love the little meditative sidequests for both Naoe and Yasuke. (the kuji-kiri and kata spots respectively) and did one a while back where the end of it had this:

"To walk out on a limb I must trust the tree, the wind, and myself ."

It's been rolling around in my head since then. I wrote it down in a couple of places and came across it again last night while I was looking for something else in my planner. And it got me thinking again.

Trust is a huge thing for me. It's not easily given. It's far too easily broken. And while you can fix things and even pretty it up with kintsugi, the cracks are still there. And yes, "there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." But it's a constant struggle to learn to trust people, or more importantly trust myself. Because of how my brain works at the end of the day when my trust gets broken I blame myself for not realizing it sooner. Fucked up, I know, but that's life.

I realized last night that one of the major things holding me back right now is several of the writing projects I want to do are really challenging and out of my comfort zone and that's likely what's causing me so much difficulty in getting moving on them.

So how on earth do I get myself to trust the tree, and the wind, and myself and just get this done? I honestly have no idea at this point, but I'll let you know if I figure it out. Keep your fingers crossed for me. * weary laugh *

I did finish up Yagoro's quest line with Naoe last night, including a really touching scene in the kofun where they found an assassin's blade and Yagoro asked Naoe to do something formal to present it to him. After some resistance, because she insists she's not his mentor (she totally is), Naoe had this to say:

"Today, a brother joins those of us who work in the shadows to welcome the light. Wearing this blade comes with a promise and a path, fraught with difficulty. Sooner or later, you will lose your way. This blade cannot tell you where to go, it will only answer with more questions. But that is our journey. Trust in the promise you made to yourself and your home, and the path will show itself again. In the name of those who are lost, but whose spirit remains, I entrust this blade to you, Yagoro. Welcome to the Kakushiba ikki."

And I love it. I love the reminder that it's not the blade that makes the assassin, it's the path they walk, the promises they make to themselves and the people they're protecting. And the even more important reminder that you're going to lose your way, somewhere, somehow. That part is inevitable. It's how we choose to find our way back that matters.

If you've lost your way, know that I trust you'll find the path again. In the meantime, we're here if you need help because at the end of it all community is what's going to get us through all this. Take care of yourselves and those around you.

Love,
K

Where you can find me these days:
Bluesky: @kbwagers.com
Instagram: @midwaybrawler
Discord: @greenskywarning
Patreon: kbwagers