Sidetracks - February 21, 2019

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. For more links and commentary you can follow us on Twitter, Tumblr. You can also support us on Patreon.

KJ

In light of recent high-profile layoffs at many game companies (Blizzard being the latest example), Kotaku published this open letter from the AFL-CIO on the benefits of unionization. (According to the editors' note, Kotaku's writers are affiliated with the Writers Guild of America, which I hadn't realized. Glad to hear it.)

I enjoyed this interview with romance writer Jasmine Guillory, in which she talks about the importance of writing enthusiastic consent. Consent is a particular theme in her latest novel, The Proposal, where I thought the issue was handled very well.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Final Fantasy VIII (which was on February 11th, holy cow is that even remotely possible, I guess it must be), Legends of Localization looks at the various incarnations of Squall's most legendary line in Japanese.

Susan

#ReviewPit might have ended, but there are some amazing sounding books in the tag!

There's going to be another Tea Dragon book! I adored the first one, because it was so cute and sweet, so I'm really excited about this!

While I disagree with their interpretation of the ending, I liked a lot of this review of Gris, and it picks out some of the metaphorical aspects that I really liked!