Links: disturbing but good

[sonia]

This game contains absolutely no triggering material by Ben. Patreon link, but the pdf of this game is freely available to download and read. Not sure the game is actually meant to be played, except in the ways we're all playing it all the time when we are "innocent bystanders."

This game contains absolutely no triggering material. This is both the title of the game, and the first rule of the game. Nothing that happens in this game is triggering to any of the players in any way. [...] P.S. To my fellow sufferers of PTSD: You probably have a creepy feeling about this game's title. Please allow that creepy feeling to serve you as a warning.

The Bible's #MeToo Problem by Emily M.D. Scott (who is a Lutheran pastor). Maybe if we asked church-goers about the women's perspective when they're raped in the Bible, they (the dominant men) would learn a little empathy.

Queer Time: The Alternative to “Adulting” by Sara Jaffe. "What constitutes adulthood has never been self-evident or value-neutral. Queer lives follow their own temporal logic." I hadn't thought about this, although it's self-evident once she says it. It give me a little more breathing room in my own life path.

Story! "The Minnesota Diet" by Charlie Jane Anders. Great illustrations. Inclusive, non-violent, and a chillingly possible vision of the future.

Wheat and Broccoli by kore which is mostly a lovely encouraging blockquote from How to Survive [the current] Presidency Without Losing Your Mind by Dahlia Lithwick. Contains a parable about surviving times of madness. (Gave some thought to ableist terms, and I think this one is earned. *winces* Maybe.)
"I want to scream at random people in the grocery store: How can you just be there, buying broccoli??? Can’t you see our representative democracy is on fire?

And then I realize I need broccoli so I go and put some in my cart."

And a couple of ways to help in these disturbing times:
VoteRiders helping people get voter IDs.

How You Can Support Detained Immigrant Families by Catherine Lizette Gonzalez.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

I loved The Minnesota Diet so much! CJA is so good at casually creating new worlds from tiny details. And this paragraph:

Jolene’s mother was an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who loved Dolly Parton with an unwavering fierceness, and she’d decided to name her firstborn daughter after the best thing about their new home. Growing up with an unusual first name helped make Jolene more of an introvert, and left her with less tolerance for a hundred people in a row asking her the exact same question.

Is just one example of her interest in interiority, not something I can count on in sff.

[sonia]

Yes, the world-building was amazing! I loved the long-suffering marginalized point of view like the one you quoted.

My favorite part, and the part that seemed unlikeliest, was the paragraph starting "There’s a new etiquette...". I can't imagine people being polite to each other on starvation rations. They must be way more evolved than we are.

[jesse_the_k]

Aspirational, and lovely in that aspect.