SCP Foundation

Quick background: I was scrolling through Wikipedia, doing research for an SCP that exists in Iraq because archaeology when I ran into the article on the city of Mosul. At first I thought about using the city as a semi-throwaway reference for location, but then I remembered that there is an ongoing battle to retake the city from, well, it's Iraq, take a guess.

I don't know if I have the skill as an author to properly represent the destruction going on there, involving both the human beings and the artifacts of historical relevance. As a fiction community focusing on faux-bureaucratic documents and a globe-spanning bureaucracy, occasionally it becomes necessary (or at least convenient) for us to address ongoing events. However, when it comes to events such as national tragedies or armed conflicts, it's easy to write fiction that comes across as political without author intent. And, if mishandled, it can skew reader understanding of the real events and depict real, living innocent people in a negative light (or depict living morally reprehensible people in a positive light).

Obviously, there are a couple extant works on the site involving current events (the sad clown refugees come to mind), so this discussion has already been ongoing in some form. And, it's probable that a couple threads similar to this one already exist. But basically, the short version is, I want to know the community's ideas and advice re: writing fiction that involves real, currently living people undergoing/existing in damaging, dangerous, and tragic situations (such as the citizens of the above-mentioned Mosul).

So, please share your thoughts.

I have a few thoughts on this. They're not great, but they're what I've got.
- Main rule is, don't take credit for human suffering. Making any negative (hell, or positive) event or feature of the real world the effect of Foundationverse organizations or an SCP only trivializes the real events, and the SCP or story will not hold that weight. (Historical events seem to be an exception, largely.)
- I tend to think it's better to acknowledge real events that to ignore them.

I touched upon current events while writing MEMORANDUM 009 REGARDING PROJECT 736, which ultimately is about the ongoing atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidis. Some thoughts I have about writing this article and others about current events:

• If you're going to mention current events, do your research. Having a solid understanding of the topic is crucial to provide a respectful treatment of current events.
• Write your article with an intent to educate, so that a prospective reader comes out with a better understanding of whatever issue you're trying to describe (for example, I had a paragraph in my article about Yazidi beliefs and how they are used to justify Yazidi persecution).
• Include fictional details in addition to real events, never in place of them. Replacing real events with fictional details will only trivialize those events in the real world.