E PLOITSISSUE 27 JUNE 2020 X an UN WINNABLE publication END the POLICE STATE Editor in Chief | Stu Horvath EXPLOITS A Magazine Dedicated to the Reasons We Love Things Managing Editor | Melissa King Music Editor | Ed Coleman Books Editors | Noah Springer, Levi Rubeck Movies Editor | Amanda Hudgins Television Editor | Sara Clemens Games Editor | Khee Hoon Chan Copyright © 2020 by Unwinnable LLC Unwinnable 820 Chestnut Street All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may Kearny, NJ 07032 not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher www.unwinnable.com except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For more information, email: Unwinnable LLC does not claim copyright of the [email protected] screenshots and promotional imagery herein. Copyright of all screenshots within this publication are owned by Subscribe | Store | Submissions their respective companies This machine kills fascists. A N O T E Black lives matter. Dismantle the police state. Strip all oppressors of the weapons of war and hold them accountable for their brutality. For resources and ways to help and donate: blacklivesmatters.carrd.co (com- piled by @dehyedration) * * * It felt strange, assembling this issue of Exploits. Nearly all the words here were written back when we were only (!) dealing with a deadly global pandemic. When you’re sheltering in place, it makes sense that folks are going to want to read, play and watch things, and our specialty is suggesting and thinking about those things. But the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McA- tee and others – the latest in centuries of unaddressed injustice created by a violent police state – and the righteous howl of rage that rose up in response, made all this seem so trivial. When heavily armed fascists are firing on peaceful protesters a couple miles down the road, the need to appraise the merits of a Star Wars novel or whatever drops below zero. Then there are the protests taking place in other parts of the world: the renewed tensions in Hong Kong against the brutality of its riot police, the protests outside the US standing in solidarity and calling for change, and the movements against racism inspired by the bravery of these pro- testers. But folks can’t fight all the time. When exhaustion sets in, when you need to dial out the terrible static and take care of yourself, we need the stuff that often seems trivial in the face of horror. Beyond this page is a regular issue of Exploits, a series of brief essays and very short media recommendations. In a perfect world, we’d have scrapped it all and put together something that is more reflective of the moment. But if the events of the last several days have revealed anything, they have screamed out the truth that the world is far less than perfect. Regardless, we hope that you can find something here that renews your energy and resolve. Amplify black voices. Be a good ally. Share calls for aid and resources for support. Stay safe out there. – Team Unwinnable FEAR, LOVE and BROTHERHOOD in LIFE IS STRANGE 2 by Chase Carter obody teaches you how to be an older brother. They don’t publish books Non winning most fights but losing the right ones. You can’t take classes on why an adolescent sibling’s adoration sours into an indefinable and inconsolable grudge. No pamphlets will explain the odd loss when they find their own friends and stop constantly bugging you. Instead, you learn these lessons through trial and error. You say the wrong thing, overreact and under-appreciate. You sit in your room, liberated from bunk beds and shared closet space, wondering how someone you thought you knew could change seemingly overnight. You apologize halfheartedly, wishing for normalcy if not understanding. Sean Diaz, the protagonist of Dontnod’s Life is Strange 2, had only begun these struggles when his father was killed by a police officer, forcing him and his little brother Daniel to flee for their lives. Players follow the pair on a journey to find solace and safety, making decisions that drastically alter their evolving relationship. Sean tries to be both brother and father, protector and friend, to Daniel, suc- ceeding and failing in equal measure. I grew up best friends with my younger brother, two years my junior, and then watched as he stepped out of my shadow and into his own light. Sean’s fears were my own; maturation is a river that depos- its as much as it erodes, and it is just as impossible to control. What else could I do but empathize? Yet, the Diaz brothers claw through a world that fears and distrusts them. They are the children of a Mexican immigrant and a working class man, and my life could not be more different. When I feared losing the respect and love of my brother as a teen boy, I did so while attending public school in a majority white, rural town and never having to worry about how a cop might misinterpret my actions. What right did I have to empathize? Days before picking up Life is Strange 2, I had completed the melancholic Disco Elysium, wherein you play a detective with amnesia. By interacting with the world, other people and your own discordant chorus of thoughts, you gradually recon- struct the psyche of a very particular man. But you start from a point as blank as they come, a far cry from the melange of emotions between Sean and every small moment of his life before the player takes the reins. This contrast troubled me, at first.Disco Elysium’s detective had been designed to reflect choices the way a canvas does brushstrokes; major elements conveying form while tiny moments add depth to the final image. It felt easier to embody a character I had built from the ground up, and my decisions were all the more confident. The jump between each game’s approach to a player’s effect felt much more stark. In the beginning, I wanted Sean to avoid what I had felt at sixteen, when my own brother started making friends and developing a life that didn’t stick me near the center. I wanted to infuse him with my hard-won wisdom the way I had invested stat points in Disco’s protagonist. Wherever possible, I made him kind, patient and understanding. I thought hard about the ramifications of not spend- ing what little money they had on an extra hot dog for Daniel or sitting around a campfire with his crush instead of helping his brother to bed. It was a vicarious dance, a lie. And try as I might to shape Sean into myself, I could not shape Daniel. He was, like many nascent teens, a force of chaos uproot- ing everything around him. He tore himself away from me in scenes of wrenching arguments and bitter tears, moments I had once feared but never experienced firsthand. I wanted to prove my own worth as a brother by saving their fraying relationship. But this was never truly a game about my choices. My brother grew up, regard- less of my intentions. As Sean discovers, the only meaningful decision we can make in the lives of our siblings is whether we want to be a part of it. The ability to “game” relationships has a powerful appeal, and many games gleefully indulge. Life is Strange 2 reminded me that choice, that common whipping post for critics of the melodramatic, more often affects the relationship with ourselves. You cannot control how other people feel. I’m still very close to my brother, despite the physical distance between us. Like Sean, I still worry about my choices but know that mistakes, sometimes grave ones, are inevitable precursors to growth. U MUSIC WYE OAK – Wye Oak’s new EP, Walk Soft, “Walk Soft,” with its themes about the mys- shows a breezier, more acoustic side of the tery of others’ perspectives and a repeated duo. On most of their previous albums, songs line that “beauty, it is frightening,” is a song that began with mid-tempo strumming and that considers enormity. Perhaps that partly stripped-down beats often gave way to a fire- explains the softer instrumentation on the cracker of screeching guitar. Alternately, on tune, from Stack’s brushed snares and cym- tracks like “Holy Holy” from 2011’s Civillian, bals to the tinkling, wandering keys of its Jenn Wasner’s heavy riffs kick off from the outro. Its themes are also consonant with Wye start. From those early releases, Wasner and Oak’s other contemplations of immensity. the similarly multi-instrumental Andy Stack The lyrical differences between some of their built on their earlier, more guitar-and-drums earlier works and their small releases in the sound on Shriek and The Louder I Call, the last few months have been how they approach Faster It Runs. On those albums, they em- immense feelings, from love to the pressures braced moodier and more electronic key- of idealized creativity. boards and beats, with vocal and string wail- Reflecting on “Evergreen,”Wasner describes ing emerging cathartically within more dense her writing process for the song as coming arrangements. In seeming contrast to this, the from a desperate place, immersing herself titular “Walk Soft” is appropriately named. in rote tasks to take her mind off the pres- Nowhere is that shift more present than dur- sure to creatively produce. In sweeping up ing the saxophone outro to “Fear of Heights” needles from a Christmas tree, she found (which titled an EP released last month).