#they are fundamentally misunderstanding it

[abracazabka]

I've seen a lot of these. Don't put Sue on your fucking "wicked smiles of horror" lists. Her smile is tragic and desperate and beaten down in submission to systemic misogyny. She is not a crazy "wicked" serial killer. Sue is Elisabeth. They are One. This is a film about beating yourself down, killing yourself for men who will never accept you. She is not an "omg baddie killer 😍" to place beside Norman Bates. The only killer here is going to be me if I see anymore of this shit.

[sexhaver]

funniest misunderstanding/bad definition i've personally seen on this site over the years is a tie between:

a Britbong arguing that Marxist analysis of "class" was fundamentally flawed because in their country "class" refers to noble titles that are mostly hereditary and there are (theoretically) "poor lords"

a pro-lifer i argued with in my replies who i eventually (after hours of extreme confusion on my end) figured out was interpreting "viability" not as "ability for a fetus to survive outside the womb" but "ability for a newborn infant to survive on their own in the woods". they genuinely thought pro-choice advocates were saying that a 24-week-old baby had a 70% shot of surviving a Hatchet scenario

[ploppythespaceship]

So to absolutely no one's surprise, the new Section 31 movie is quite bad. Critics are tearing it to pieces, and rightfully so. As IGN said, "Section 31 will infuriate Star Trek fans and bore everyone else." And... yeah, that's about right. I don't know if it's the worst Trek movie ever made, but it's certainly in one of the bottom slots.

This post has no major spoilers, but I am putting it under a cut because it turned into a long rant.

The core problem here is the cast. It's an ensemble piece consisting of characters ranging from mildly boring to actively irritating. There's no depth or interesting dynamics at play here. Just a bunch of characters trying to be zany and edgy.

Which brings me to the next issue -- the tone. Basically, this movie wants to be James Gunn's Suicide Squad, but it doesn't understand the careful balance needed to pull that off. It wants to be the edgy, gritty Star Trek movie where people get to murder and be bad, while also having wacky side characters that get to joke around. The result is that half the cast feels like it's in a gritty drama, and the other half feels like it's in a bad comedy.

To emphasize how bad this issue is -- the very last line of the movie is a yo mama joke. No, I am not kidding.

The pacing is pretty bad. You can tell that this was conceived as a miniseries before being cut down to a 90 minute film. The whole thing feels choppy and uneven. They spend too long in some sections and then not long enough in others. At one point halfway through, I literally said out loud, "Oh that's where episode one would have ended," because you could practically feel the entire film switch gears.

We also don't see enough of Georgiou and San's relationship, which the climax sort of hinges on. All we get are flashbacks of them pressing foreheads together in a backlit room, saying that they're one.

This either needed to be stretched back out to a full miniseries -- which probably still would have been pretty bad -- or it needed to be drastically reworked to better suit its runtime.

The style is also absolutely all over the place. It's trying to emulate something like Suicide Squad or Guardians of the Galaxy, but with a laughable incompetence. The first scene left me gaping in awe of how terrible the editing was. There are so many badly placed cross-fades, extended establishing shots, weird almost-music-sequences that aren't willing to commit... then other scenes will just be filmed normally. If they wanted this film to have its own distinct style, they needed to fully commit to it, and make that part of the story's core identity. This just feels like they tacked things on without fully understanding how to actually utilize them.

And the QUICK ZOOMS. This might be a weird thing to fixate on, but I genuinely felt like I was losing my mind. This movie would not stop doing quick zooms, on everything, for every scene. You'll be watching two characters exchange quiet, calm dialogue, and the camera just keeps cranking in closer to their faces. It's just another stylistic choice that they're doing without any real understanding of why.

Perhaps most irritatingly, this movie fundamentally misunderstands the concept of Section 31. First, they just don't get the most basic premise of the organization they based their entire movie on. A Starfleet officer is an official part of their team, expressly there to serve as their Federation oversight. Excuse me?? Did you watch a SINGLE previous Section 31 episode?? The entire point of this group is that they exist beyond official oversight.

But even worse, I'm not sure these writers understand that Section 31 are the bad guys. One of Georgiou's lines is, "Section 31 is just the place for officers who bend the rules, never quite break them, until they do." The final scene has Garrett fondly calling Georgiou a "bad bitch." And the team doesn't really do anything all that morally questionable -- they all just crack terrible edgy jokes the whole time. In this movie, Section 31 genuinely is just Starfleet but edgy, and it pisses me the hell off.

Genuinely, the utter misunderstanding of Section 31 is one of my least favorite things about modern Trek. I really hope this movie's reception will convince them to just shelve the group entirely for a while.

I do think a decent version of this movie could have existed. Cut the entire side cast to have a tighter focus on a trio of Georgiou, Alok, and Garrett. Georgiou and Alok have a similar enough backstory that they could develop a really interesting dynamic with more screentime. And Garrett can be there as the Starfleet officer who stumbled into the situation against her will, and tries to maintain her moral compass while also recognizing that drastic action is needed to defend the Federation.

Then you could actually explore the meaningful differences in morality between these characters. Touch on the core themes of what Section 31 was originally meant to be. Do the ends justify the means? At what point have you gone too far? And with Georgiou specifically -- is it even possible for someone like to her to seek redemption? Can she truly earn it?

Instead, we get a bland movie that isn't interested in exploring any deeper meanings. It just wants to be an edgy Star Trek version of Suicide Squad. And that's a damn shame.

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Can you please tag transmasc vs transfem discourse stuff it makes me feel really bad :(

there's no versus anon, i think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the discussions around transmisogyny

[stevethehairington]

everyone i see saying "omg oliver really said eat the rich!!!1!111!!!!" are COMPLETELY missing the point of that movie. it was not an "eat the rich movie", it wasn't about class in that sense AT ALL. it was very much about desire and obsession and consumption. not class!!

[the-wandering-wayseeker]

Repeat after me:

The Jedi taught emotional control, not repression.

The Jedi took kids with parental consent, they did not kidnap them.

The Jedi did not hold people against their will, they could leave the Order at any time.

The Jedi were not "just as bad" as the Sith.

[deepseasmetro]

i feel like youre really again misunderstanding fundamentally what is being said here. in an ideal, communist, post-psychiatry future, you or i would NOT be socially designated as "having ADHD" and thus "being Disabled tm" or "Neurodivergent tm" or , Wrong tm. we would have Our Specific needs tended to - in mine and likely your case, access to stimulant medication - without that designation being necessary. because those designations as they exist now exist to delineate Normal, Healthy People from Sick, Abberant People. we will just be People, whos particular individual needs involve stimulant medication or specific labor accommodations or whatever.

what do u think ab the whole ‘mental illness wouldn’t exist under a different political economic arrangement’ line of thought

this is a really common point of misunderstanding with regards to both anti-psych critiques and the 'social model of disability'. although there are some specific forms of affective distress that would probably be drastically reduced or eliminated in a communist society (for example, stress and alienation that people experience as a direct result of poverty), anti-capitalist critiques of psychiatry are not promising to eliminate all mental / emotional suffering through political action.

rather, if you hear someone say that 'mental illness' per se wouldn't exist in a communist society, they're usually making the following argument: all humans experience distress, including mental distress, and have limitations, including mental and emotional ones. what makes these things disabling, or an 'illness', is living in a social context in which we are denied support or accommodations for them, and are expected to function in specific ways and conform to specific social expectations, particularly standards of capitalist productivity. in a non-capitalist society where people are valued intrinsically rather than on the basis of economic productivity, we should provide for one another and accommodate each other's unique needs and experiences.

therefore, things we currently identify as 'symptoms' of 'mental illnesses' (eg, anxiety, hearing voices, self-injury, &c) would still exist as part of the spectrum of human experience, but would not prevent us from having our material and social needs met. rather than (as we do now) assuming a very specific set of experiences and abilities as a 'baseline', with a wide range of other behaviours designated as pathological aberrations, we would expect human mental experiences to be varied, including sometimes in ways that are potentially distressing or that limit certain abilities and functionality. so, this line of critique isn't saying that the experiences we currently identify as 'mental illnesses' would all vanish outside of a capitalist context, but that we would treat them as value-neutral variants in the incredibly wide spectrum of human experience, and would create a society that is not hostile to them, or to providing for people's many and varied needs.

[myprongsfootera]

I cannot stop thinking about that "Sirius killed for James, died for Harry, but lived for Remus" post

No.

Stop it.

I want to squirt water like "bad fandom"

Sirius stayed sane in Azkaban solely to avenge James's murder and try to protect Harry. It was about the two of them and Peter. If Remus ranked on the list it was a very distant fourth.

When Sirius came back, his *sole focus* was how to protect Harry. He lived alone as a dog feeding on scraps for most of his time post-Azkaban. He was only with Remus a tiny fraction of the time at the end, and even then it was with a primary focus of how to work together to protect Harry.

James's son.

It all comes back to him for Sirius.

He killed, lived, and died for James. All of it. Over and over, he was willing to do all of it for James.

Fucking Remus, who?

[generallemarc]

In a bubble, this isn't necessarily wrong. However, as applied to this instance, it represents both a massive slippery slope and a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution. Constitutional rights apply to everyone on American soil, regardless of citizenship. You get a fair trial regardless of if you're not a citizen, you get protections from unreasonable search and seizure and cruel and unusual punishment regardless of if you're not a citizen, and you possess all First Amendment rights regardless of it you're not a citizen. Literally the only rights citizens have which non-citizens do not are the rights to vote, run for office and serve on juries. For Trump to actually do this would be to violate the First Amendment rights of these students, because this is not a country where the government has the power to decide the truth or to criminalize disrespect, and so free speech applies even to hateful, bigoted and objectively wrong views.

Gonna be a few absences from the colleges and universities come next week.

[knightobreath]

people need to stop being so toxic about the dsmp. i get it isn’t everyone’s thing but it isn’t this super evil minecraft server of groomers. that was one guy and the allegations came out at the end of the dream smp’s lifespan. also, despite being in the title, dream hardly played on the server and never streamed or recorded his gameplay. he was basically just there for promo!! the vast majority of dream smp fans weren’t dream stans, they were there for the dozens of other creators playing on the server. in fact, there has even been beef between dream smp fans and dream stans!! anyways, it’s just a roleplay series, and i don’t see people sending death threats to fans of streamed dnd campaigns.

[robinwithay]

you guys understand that if aziraphale had to go undercover in hell, his demon disguise would be just as silly as crowley's angel disguise, right? right???

[facelessoldgargoyle]

I hate seeing the tags “female rage” “female hysteria” “coquette” “girlblogger” etc. on a picture of Laura Palmer. I can’t find the words to describe why exactly but it’s the worst. She’s a complicated person for whom no one would intervene. She’s not like, an empowering figure.

[bonefall]

Clear Sky threw his son in front of a fox?!

YES!! He SHOVED him in front of a fox! It's in fury from the fact Thunder refused to kill Frost. This entire section is VERY poorly paced and glances over it in two paragraphs, so most people don't fully register it.

Clear Sky dragged Thunder down off the stump and shoves him at it, blaming him for bringing the fox to camp with his loud disobedience.

He then leaves Thunder to fight this fox on his own. Leaf and Falling Feather jump in to help him of their own accord. Clear Sky then tries to praise him for being strong and Thunder tells him to shove off for the first and last time.

It's not the last baby of his he knowingly and consciously endangers to prove a point. In Moth Flight's Vision, he refuses to allow Acorn Fur to get medical help for Tiny Branch's fox-inflicted injuries until his condition worsened, bellowing, "SkyClan does NOT ask for help unless there's no choice." AND didn't allow her to complete her training after he caused Micah's death.

Clear Sky is a serial child abuser. He is willfully neglectful, emotionally abusive, and physically violent.

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

A lot of you need to sit the fuck down and remember that cis women and trans women can be butches. because at this rate y'all are acting like it's a solely transmasc identity by conflating the experience of going on T and having top surgery as a universal butch experience. or god forbid, y'all equate butch to being a trans man

[nyxi-pixie]

'omg dazai treating akutagawa like he did literally makes no sense he just did it because he sucks and i hate him for it'

can we. have a conversation about this without being fucking stupid please. yes dazai fucks him up and its really awful and sucks so bad. yes it isnt necessary for akutagawa's improvement. but like everything with bsd, theres nuance to it that you are ignoring.

the initial meeting between dazai and aku is aku wanting a reason to live and dazai wanting to give him one. a repeat of what mori wanted to give him. (this does not mean those two relationships are the exact same. please guys. please things are different sometimes). Now. dazai assumes the way to give aku a desire to live is to give him purpose. he ISNT training aku to be a mindless killer - thats literally the Opposite of what hes doing. he wants aku to be More than a sword without a sheath. hes teaching aku to be efficient. not just killing people, being smart about it. being what the mafia wants. giving him a purpose through making him useful.

it also probably comes back to the fact that dazai is WRONG about what made him want (barely) to live. he believes it comes from being surrounded by death, thus making the mafia the perfect place for him. booo hes stupid boo hes wrong!! bc it doesnt. hes bored by it and he says that directly in dark era. that he thought being around death would content him with life and it HASNT. bc he was wrong in fifteen. he didnt suddenly become interested in life bc he was doing violence and masterminding for the mafia. it was bc Someone intrigued him.

dazais whole problem stems from apathy, he wants to die because hes Bored with life. nothing interests him. Except people. so he meets chuuya in fifteen and is Interested by him. and that happens to coincide with his first mission for the mafia so he thinks its the death aspect. but it isnt. and we see this repeated with the other people he cares about (oda and ango most obviously). dazais motivations for his plans arent fucking around w death for his own personal entertainment. its looking after his friends. thats the same no matter what canon material ur looking at. and that same reason is why hes alive.

his misinterpretation of that leads him to be wrong abt aku too. aku needs people, he needs a gentle hand to develop best (beast). dazai says himself that aku needs to find someone to be his sheath and that dazai cant be that person (he doesnt know how to be). ofc, the sheath is eventually atsushi and now that we see aku gain strength both with his ability, with strategic thinking, and just emotionally in general its bc of the development hes gone under w atsushi. but guess what? this is more to the thing of bsd being based on human connection. dazais alive bc of the people he cares for. aku does better around people he cares for.

this isnt to say dazais actions are at all justified, and thats not the point of this. bsd is full of grey characters. but i do wish that u guys at least understood the dynamic u want to complain about.

[gayedmundo]

eddie being gay is vital for his arc to make sense because the majority of his queercoding hasn't been built on his attraction to men but rather his lack of attraction to women just btw