A Little Advice From Someone Studying Extremist Groups: If You’re In A Social Media Environment Where

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

I think the Hunger Games series sits in a similar literary position to The Lord of the Rings, as a piece of literature (by a Catholic author) that sparked a whole new subgenre and then gets blamed for flaws that exist in the copycat books and aren’t actually part of the original.

Like, despite what parodies might say, Katniss is nowhere near the stereotypical “unqualified teenager chosen to lead a rebellion for no good reason”.  The entire point is that she’s not leading the rebellion. She’s a traumatized teenager who has emotional reactions to the horrors in her society, and is constantly being reined in by more experienced adults who have to tell her, “No, this is not how you fight the government, you are going to get people killed.” She’s not the upstart teenager showing the brainless adults what to do–she’s a teenager being manipulated by smarter and more experienced adults. She has no power in the rebellion except as a useful piece of propaganda, and the entire trilogy is her straining against that role. It’s much more realistic and far more nuanced than anyone who dismisses it as “stereotypical YA dystopian” gives it credit for.

And the misconceptions don’t end there. The Hunger Games has no “stereotypical YA love triangle”–yes, there are two potential love interests, but the romance is so not the point. There’s a war going on! Katniss has more important things to worry about than boys! The romance was never about her choosing between two hot boys–it’s about choosing between two diametrically opposed worldviews. Will she choose anger and war, or compassion and peace? Of course a trilogy filled with the horrors of war ends with her marriage to the peace-loving Peeta. Unlike some of the YA dystopian copycats, the romance here is part of the message, not just something to pacify readers who expect “hot love triangles” in their YA. 

The worldbuilding in the Hunger Games trilogy is simplistic and not realistic, but unlike some of her imitators, Collins does this because she has something to say, not because she’s cobbling together a grim and gritty dystopia that’s “similar to the Hunger Games”. The worldbuilding has an allegorical function, kept simple so we can see beyond it to what Collins is really saying–and it’s nothing so comforting as “we need to fight the evil people who are ruining society”. The Capitol’s not just the powerful, greedy bad guys–the Capitol is us, First World America, living in luxury while we ignore the problems of the rest of the world, and thinking of other nations largely in terms of what resources we can get from them. This simplistic world is a sparsely set stage that lets us explore the larger themes about exploitation and war and the horrors people will commit for the sake of their bread and circuses, meant to make us think deeper about what separates a hero from a villain.

There’s a reason these books became a literary phenomenon. There’s a reason that dozens upon dozens of authors attempted to imitate them. But these imitators can’t capture that same genius, largely because they’re trying to imitate the trappings of another book, and failing to capture the larger and more meaningful message underneath. Make a copy of a copy of a copy, and you’ll wind up with something far removed from the original masterpiece. But we shouldn’t make the mistake of blaming those flaws on the original work.

I'm sorry but "siri pause" in the middle of the heartbreaking reconciliation was too funny

you know i don’t think we often talk about how difficult it actually is to suddenly realize that a belief you thought was good and moral and correct was actually really fucking toxic. how you have to look at something and go ‘oh shit, oh i fucked up. oh this is going to take probably years at minimum to deprogram from my brain because of all the little ways this shit pervaded the rest of my beliefs’

so. to all the people picking up all the pieces of a recently shattered world-view and trying to figure out what is safe to keep and what has to be thrown away and started over

to all the people having to relearn how to even listen to other people

to all the people putting in the work to do better while struggling with the guilt that comes from finding out you were the asshole

i’m proud of y’all.

it’s hard to admit being wrong and even harder to change in the aftermath. just keep doing the best you can and just know that the effort is appreciated. everyone can change. everyone can do better. keep fighting.

Listened to Ava Max’s Kings & Queens 50000x and this is what came out.

I went to a christian funeral last week for an elderly person I used to go to church with and have been processing it for days. I didn’t know the person who passed very well (I mostly went to support their spouse), so I was able to see a christian funeral from outside the lens of personal grief for once and it was also the first one I’ve been to since deconstructing.

I have..so many thoughts.

There was just. So little emotion. So little sadness or grief was expressed. The pastor who led the service spent all of maybe thirty seconds talking about the man who had died, and the rest of the time warning everyone in attendance that they ought to get right with god before their own time came to an end. Repeatedly emphasizing how imperfect and sinful this poor man had apparently known he was deep down, and how wonderful that Jesus had bothered to save him in spite of that.

It felt disrespectful, to be quite honest. It felt so callous and cruel to all of this man’s grieving family and friends, to spend this time meant to be in his honor — a celebration of his life — talking about all his supposed flaws and sins and the inevitability of hell for the unsaved. And god, I know for certain that some of those people there were not christians. I’m not! And I wasn’t even one of the ones grieving. I can’t even imagine the pain of having to sit there through a service like that and be talked down to and chastised and scolded and threatened with never getting to see their loved one again if they don’t “ask god for forgiveness” immediately. All while mourning said loved one.

Just. The whole service! Every song, every anecdote, every prayer and poem, all about their god and their heaven and hell. That poor man was barely an afterthought in his own funeral, and what’s worse is that’s probably exactly how he would have wanted it! I just sat there and kept thinking, How does this help anyone? Who is this comforting?

It’s been a while since I went to a christian funeral as a practicing christian, but I don’t remember the sermons and songs being particularly comforting then either. It’s like every emotion is frozen, unable to be expressed, because you’ve been promised that you’re going to get to see them again. They’re not gone, they’re just with Jesus now, and actually that’s a good thing. That’s the real future you’re supposed to be looking forward to, if you’re a good believer, so there’s no reason to be sad or upset or angry. There’s no point in lingering over the grief. Better to use this great opportunity to save as many other souls as we can while we have a captive audience! ..It sounds ridiculous to me now.

I used to wonder why I never grieved the way people in books or movies seemed to. I thought it must be proof that I was secretly uncaring or broken, when I sat at my grandmother’s funeral and couldn’t shed a single tear despite how much I had loved her. But how many times was I lied to about death? To me, death wasn’t real. It wasn’t something I was allowed to get upset about, at least not for long. It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. And now I wonder how many deaths I have never grieved, how many losses I never processed because it wasn’t safe to do so. And I wonder when I will finally be able to cry without tricking myself into it with sad movies or angsty stories just to release a bit of all that pent-up grief.

The dissonances of all that masked loss and false promises were staggering last week at that funeral. I had felt it before, but never so acutely and with all the context I have now. Christians like to claim that they’ve overcome death, but to me it seems pretty clear that they’re just great at repression.

I just hope that I’m getting better at allowing myself to feel again. It’s a work in progress.

The most toxic people I know just got back together and it is AMAZING