Corona-Cancelled

Frodo Baggins: I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf the Grey: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

-J.R.R. Tolkien 

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Like so many others, we have seen the events and conferences we had applied to for 2020 get cancelled. This is the only right thing in this situation to do to curtail the spread of the virus, and we applaud the conference organizers (Queerness and Games, DiGRA, Meaningful Play and many others) for making these calls. 

We do, of course, wish that none of this had happened. 

That the world and all those inhabiting it, particular those who are more precarious, weren’t facing this awful pandemic. Weren’t having to choose between going to work to keep a roof over their families heads, and potentially endangering their families by going to work. Some countries, like Italy and Denmark, are taking measures to ensure working class families will have the support or protection they need during this crises, that this does not lead to a housing, utility, debt crises as well. 

Our own country, the USA, on the other hand, has largely chosen to bail out the banks and make the stock market and investors feel better. Thankfully, private organizations and local state and city officials are taking the initiative and closing schools (and some providing free meals), moving work to remote locations, closing bars and restaurants, converting empty hotels to house the homeless and create extra quarantine space, and some cities are putting holds on evictions. All of this is something, but far too dispersed over our wide and deeply unequal and precious country.

So we are all stuck in our homes now, self-isolating, quarantining. 

What do we do with the time given to us? Some options:

• This is an emotional and stressful time for all of us. Talk with you family, friends and partners. Feel your feels. Place boundaries on how much news you watch/read. 
• Do some journaling and/or meditation.
• Go for an issolated walk/bike/run (still allowed and really good for you). 
• Do some work on the lawn/trees/garden bed. It’ll feel good to be active, have fresh air, no roof over your head, and the smell of earth around you. As we get further into the growing season, plant some seeds, help something grow that will later help you grow. This is mutual aid. 
• Do some spring cleaning (Please donate as best you can and recycle).
• Read a few books you’ve been meaning too. Read something you know is going to be emotionally hard but cathartic (Into the Forest by Jean Hegland, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera) or read something fun, not escapist but immersing (Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore, Tom Robbins). 
• Read an old beloved book (like LOTR) and rekindle that love, that immersion in that world, that story, and those characters that are beloved to you. 
• Or hell, use this as an opportunity to write that book, make that thing, learn that skill.
• Replay a favorite game. Play some fun “couch-coops” (local multiplayer games) with who you are isolating with, like Guitar Hero or Star Wars Battlefront (or comment with your other suggestions). 
• Seriously… bust out that PS2 and play Guitar Hero.
• Play some board games. Play some of our games (we recommend FoF (FREE!)!
• In our isolation we can reconnect with those we love and what we love.  We can reflect and remember what is important to us. What is worth preserving and protecting. We can dig deep into our boredom and our loneliness and find what it can teach us. 
• We can think critically about how our social order has exacerbated the consequences and control of a pandemic, and imagine how it could be different. 
• We can imagine how we can help others by organizing #covid19mutualaid efforts. We can imagine the help we could receive from others through mutual aid efforts, that we aren’t alone. There are some great resources out there for those looking for aid or those looking to donate, help out, or increase the list of mutual aid sources in their local area. 
• Go to/do your work…but don’t put the same expectations for your productivity on yourself that you would in normal times. These are not normal times and you are more than your productivity. And life is more than the economy. 

So what is our plan?

Well, Casey is still teaching classes, though now online. But we have already started working on a few projects and have ideas for others to occupy ourselves, and, we hope, occupy and possibly help others. 

• Making a guide for others to make their own FoF and HAZMAT decks.
• Releasing our development tools for FoF and HAZMAT for free (as in Open Source in the spirit of releasing the means of production). 
• Hosting a game jam on itch.io for people to make HAZMAT decks. We are thinking about a HAZMAT: Pandemic deck, but others are free to make whatever they want. 😉
• Making a new game (a dm-less rpg kind of like belonging outside belonging works like Dream Askew) called AnarchoCats (more on this as it forms, but you can follow @anarchocats on Twitter for funny [and radical] cat images for the time being).