wassup

a side blog for media criticisms content bc i didnt want to sacrifice my actual inbox

[maximumgraves]

to be honest, i only personally care about plotholes when they appear in writing i already have a bunch of other problems with. if i like something enough, i'll give it a pass/invent an explanation in my head. i can't find the exact quote, but roger ebert said something about this. to paraphrase: "the movie's problem wasn't [such and such inconsistency], its problem was that i was bored enough to be thinking about that."

[anglaised]

im starting to think fandoms dont like women

[gayestoffense-deactivated202601]

Or queer men unless they exist solely to indulge your fetish and not be treated like real people

[anglaised]

i was talking about women actually

[anglaised]

this guy deleted because byler from stranger things didnt become canon btw

[alittletrolling]

also i feel like i need to make it clear very fast that i, again, have very little stake in this series or fandom so if anyone comes back to this to argue with me

i dont like the show and i dont think byler was queerbaited, and also pales im comparison to some other "queerbaited" ships

[alittletrolling]

which was queerbaited worse

destiel

byler

Voting ended onJan 8

because i know byler will join the ranks of destiel and johnlock infamy and it's the funniest shit ever

[alittletrolling]

i have absolutely 0 skin in this game but everyone saying that byler was a worse queerbait than destiel needs to sit back for a few seconds

[oddygaul]

Alien: Earth

It’s a shame that much of Alien: Earth’s plotting is classic horror, passing-around-the-idiot-ball kinda stuff, because its character work is fascinating.

Nowhere is this divide easier to see than the show’s focus: the hybrids.

The whole concept of children’s minds implanted into synthetic bodies is as compelling as it is abhorrent. From the jump, we are met with themes of consciousness and selfhood. As their memories & personalities are transferred into synthetic bodies, the children’s frail human forms are made to hold flowers, as if they’ve been embalmed for a wake. The first thing Boy’s new creations see is their own funeral, yet in his own arrogance he thinks he can keep them placated with bedtime stories. These kids are forced not only to grow up, but to grapple with the fuckin Ship of Theseus before they even hit robot puberty.

Alongside this, Alien: Earth muses on transhumanism and the different avenues each corporation takes to pursue it:

-The synths, cold and emotionless, but containing within them the complete repository of human knowledge and achievement.

-Cyborgs, born of the human desire for the power and versatility of machines, without having to let go of the soul that sets them apart from tools.

-And the hybrids, smack dab in the middle, with all the strengths and weaknesses of the human mind shoved into a near-immortal superhuman body.

All three of these approaches are contrasted with each other and brought into conflict constantly… yet they all are inextricably intertwined with questions of ownership and control, since none of these new beings can truly be free from the corporate interests that created them.

It’s good stuff!

But despite all of this theming… first and foremost, it feels like the writers just thought this would be a clever way to get away with killing some kids. I can see the pitch: it’s a perennial horror frustration that all the characters act stupid, and yet, they have to in order to move the plot forward, right? Voila – just make all the characters literal children in the bodies of adults, and suddenly it’s in-character for them to make such bad decisions*! Plus, it solves the problem of an audience inured to the shock value of your franchise. Chestbursters are blasé in 2025, sure, but what about a chestburster killing a parental figure right in front of a ten year old so you can watch them acquire lifelong trauma in real time??

Blech.

*though this particular angle falls flat once the adult characters start acting exactly as stupid as the children. looking at you, Episode 5

Honestly, I have a laundry list of issues like this with Alien: Earth. I can’t believe that there’s finally an Alien story set on Earth, and we still spend a third of the series in cramped spaceship interiors. I’m not a fan of the full flashback episode, taking time away from compelling plot threads with the hybrids to show an Alien fan-film we already got the gist of in Episode 1. I’m not a fan of the cinematography and its constant superimposed shots – it’s a crutch that seems to figure boring cuts don’t matter as long as you stack two or three of them on top of each other. I truly despised the corny fucking rock outros, which managed to ruin the vibe each and every time, no matter how good the ending was otherwise. And the more I watched Marcy turn into a literal god, ordering around a xemonorf like a trained puppy and magically controlling door hinges with her mind, the more I became convinced the showrunners have no fucking clue what they’re doing.

this probably gets the "Most Baffling Out-of-context Screenshot" award

r/tvtoohigh

And yet… the show has a bedrock of compelling character writing and performances that kept me coming back. Marcy and Joe’s back & forth was frustrating and believable: two estranged siblings joyous to have reunited, but struggling to cope with how much they’ve each changed since they last met. Boy Kavalier is despicable in such a pointed, nuanced way I can’t help but respect the performance.

Morrow is a powerhouse, at once deranged and calm, manic and stolid. I did a full 360 on his backstory, too. It’s interesting from the get-go: a man out of time, thrust 65 years into a future where he knows no one, whose company’s fiercest competitor didn’t even exist when he left. Then, we’re hit with a dead daughter twist that doesn’t work for me at all. You knowingly left her, bud! You’re heartbroken that she died while you were on the sixty-five year mission you signed up for? How did you not reconcile this already??

After some reflection, though, I think his disillusionment is different. Morrow’s plan was never to return to her – it was to make a sacrifice he could be proud of. To run away and be absent, but feel like he was doing so for someone else’s benefit, that he was justified in doing so. Now, with his own future already written off and no one left as the beneficiary for his sacrifice, what could possibly keep driving such a man forward? This lack, this hollowness, forms the core of Morrow’s character.

And Kirsh, my beloved Kirsh. At first I thought he was just bafflingly sinister – why do these humans keep this guy around when all he does is constantly remind them, to their face, how frail and inferior their species is? The more I watched him, though, the more I found him to be one of the most unique takes on an AI I’ve seen. He’s not stiff and machinelike, and he’s not the servile, three-laws-of-robotics type. Neither is he the flavor of android who feels a tangible emotional disconnect, spending his efforts trying to recapture a humanity he’ll never have. No, Kirsh genuinely feels like an alien, unreadable and with motivations inscrutable to those around him – a truly convincing take on androids as a new branch from humanity’s tree, a wholly separate entity that was born from us, but which we will never quite be able to understand.

[alittletrolling]

for all my gripes about the series tho i do adore the synth hybrids i think they did really well portraying a bunch of kids in adult bodies

like smee and slightly were really well done. the way they freak out and talk over one another? the awkward eye contact and panic when they know something bad is about to happen but don't know how to handle it?

[welcometothehole]

in that first episode when we find out wendy talks to her dolls about joe while she actively stalks him… what’s supposed to be natural human inclination to love and protect one’s sibling got so fucking warped in wendy. she never got to grow up and draw those healthy boundaries. now she’s stuck obsessing over joe’s wellbeing even tho joe’s human and WILL die. i just don’t think wendy would be able to handle it, which is why i think the show will end with her killing him and forcibly downloading his consciousness into a synthetic body.

[alittletrolling]

also i didnt realize that atom being a non-human was supposed to be a twist i thought that was something everyone knew 😭

[alittletrolling]

i think whats bothering me the most rn after watching the finale is that i understand that wendy's supposed to be a parallel to the xenomorph, that she's no longer human nor synth nor whatever

she relates to the unknown that came from far away and does not fit whatever human cultural labels they put on her

but like. go kill the others then. let her be unflinching and kill all the humans and embrace the ruthlessness that the xenomorph displays, then hesitate about killing joe because she just cant eschew that part of her humanity just yet

then when yutani comes in the hybrids have to hide and are better at embracing being themselves while marcy's now stuck with that loose end or some shit

[winterrsold]

kirsh calling him isaac repeatedly . kirsh side stepping so marcy wouldn't see isaac's body. kirsh trying to warn marcy away from looking. kirsh saying "boys" before calling them behind him. kirsh grounding the twins . kirsh you're their dad. kirsh you are the parent

[peerless-cucumber]

unfortunately I do think boy kavalier goes hard as a name

[alittletrolling]

im honestly still really torn on how to feel about alien earth because i understand the message of "where does a machine end and a human begin" and its really cool to see how it plays out with the hybrids and the androids

but then theres stuff going on with the xenomorph and marcy's ability to communicate with it and like...cool, but i also dont like the mystic of the unknown alien evaporating over time

[kineticpenguin]

[alittletrolling]

god PLEASE please let them take their sweet time to write v10 please just take their time and make it better.

[marxism-transgenderism]

Its humbling to remember that I, too, can be the weirdo who misunderstood op and got too worked up about it. One only achieves Buddhahood when one realizes that anyone can be the weirdo who misunderstood op and got too worked up about it

[alittletrolling]

it should be known i have many enraged opinions about arcane but nothing will ever crack me up more than meeting isha and immediately telling my friend i hope she dies bc she was so sacrificial lamb coded