#Danielle Keller

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Beast Wars - Second Chances - Page 7

Originally posted on February 2nd, 2011

Story - Daniel Worsley Art - Danielle Keller Letters - HdE

deviantART

wada sez: See below for the original script for this one, which would originally have been Page 6.

PAGE 6: Panel 1: (Medium to small sized shot, Waspinator has succeeded in freeing the human, who is scuttling out of the way but now, the Fox Kids Tarantulas drone has Waspy on the ground, and is mauling him – bits flying everywhere – including Waspy’s gun (this is important, we have to see the gun fly off)).

Panel 2: (Medium shot. The drone has climbed the tree and has one of the male children by the leg. It’s panicking. Frankly, this shot needs to look like the scene in Psycho, when Janet Leigh is in the shower and we see Bate’s silhouette on the curtain. Because we all know what’s coming next for that kid).

Panel 3: (Small, but dramatic panel. The Protohuman male is holding Waspy’s gun. Pointed at the reader. It’s your classic “do you feel lucky, punk?” pose. He’s growling. There is a missile fired (so we see the smoke behind the missile, it’s approaching the reader).

Panel 4: (large and wide shot, we see Waspy’s body crawling towards his head, the protohuman with the gun, the FKT drone twitching on the ground with a large smoking hole in it. The remaining kids scared witless. There might be blood on the FKT drone. Or not, it’s up to the artist. The FKT drone is like a dying spider, legs in the air).

Panel 5: (Small shot, Waspinator is holding his head into place as he transforms. He’s mid-transformation, and it’s obviously painful) Waspinator:  Beaszzt MooorAAGGH!

Panel 6: (Large and wide shot. Waspy, looking very worse for wear, has the kids in his arms, they’re clinging to him and he’s being very protective of them. He is looked down at them, and has them protectively wrapped in his arms, creating a cat’s cradle around them) Waspy (to the kids):  Uncle Waszzpinator will make you szzafe.  Am very, very szzorry.

Panel 7: (The male protohuman is approaching with a bundle in his arms. It’s obviously the dead child (but we needn’t see it). Both the male and Waspy look very sad. There is a tear in his eye, just the one, rolling down his cheek close to the reader. It’s a significant scene, showing how deeply Waspinator is affected by the death, and what drives his later actions) Waspy (to the proto-male):  Take them home.  Will make Eight-Legszz PAY.

[diioonysus]

art aesthetics: gothic

[autistic-crypt1d]

[calimckay17]

[ghostlyfanparadise]

[bullet-prooflove]

A quick round up of updates on the blog including new characters added to the ASK LIST and a list of fics that went out last week:

Characters Added To Ask List:

Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (The Bear)

Chef Luca (The Bear)

Michael "Mikey" Berzatto (The Bear)

Richie Jerimovich (The Bear)

New Fics:

The Bear:

Pears - It starts when Carmy makes an order he doesn't remember.

Mornings - Carmy sleeps better with you around.

Bubble - You have no idea that you saved Carmy's life.

Crazy, Stupid, Fucked Up World (NSFW) - Carmy tells you he lvoes you for the first time.

One Night Stand (NSFW) - It was never meant to be more than a one night stand.

Old School - Richie and you prefer to do things old school.

Safe With You - Richie still has nightmares about how he found Michael.

Joy - The stabbing leads Richie to confront some of the doubts he has about himself.

All The Good Ones Are (NSFW) - Richie has never thought of himself as one of the good ones.

Gift (NSFW) - Richie has always thought of you as a gift.

Something Special - Luca knows you're something special from the very moment you meet.

Sfogliatella - Luca spends months perfecting your fav dessert leading to a surprise proposal.

Mess - Mikey tries to prove to you both he made the right decision by leaving.

The Diagnosis - Mikey recieves an explaination regarding his behaviour and addiction issues.

Chicago Med:

Live - Dean makes the right choice.

Not Enough - Mitch realises he won't ever be enough for you after you reveal what happened in St Clair.

Cobra Kai:

Clarity - Daniel finally gets some clarity on your relationship.

Honey (NSFW) - Terry eats lunch at his desk.

FBI:

A Losing Battle - Omar comes home distraught in the aftermath of a human trafficking operation.

Law & Order:

Bitter Sweet Symphony - Nick steps up when you realise you face a career ending illness.

Law & Order - SVU:

Boundaries - An ex-boyfriend throws you into a spiral when he begins to push your boundaries.

NCIS NOLA:

Roof Top - Dwayne knows exactly where to find you.

SOA:

The Chaos - Tig makes you a promise.

Supernatural:

With You - Dean tells you he's going to stay the night.

Tulsa King:

Love Song - Mitch doesn't expect to see you in his bar after all this time.

Clean - Mitch asks you why you're back in town.

Twisters:

Ocean Eyes - Tyler and you agree to one night together.

Yellowstone:

Voice Mail - After the attack on the Duttons, Kayce leaves you a voicemail.

Nightmares - Rip struggles in the aftermath of Gina's attack.

Home - Jamie makes a discovery which leads to him making a home for the two of you.

Broken - Travis recieves a phone call from Rip regarding you and Malcom Beck.

[unladyboss]

WHY THE NYC CHEF? CARMY'S CHOICE: Season 3 THE BEAR

CARMY had great chef mentors at

The French Connection

Ever

Daniel

Noma

So why when he felt he needed to make The Bear a success, did he choose the methods of the worst behaved, stress inducing chef? Carmy was already a big deal in California, chef Terry saw he was great at Ever and sent him to Copenhagen.

By the time he got to NYC he was in front of someone who saw he was great and wanted to capitalize In his greatness.

And lest he thinks more highly of himself, then NYC chef was more than willing to bring him down a peg.

And here Carmyhas Sydney who is nothing but helpful and supportive, and he just cannot communicate and vice versa.

I imagine it's because NYC chef was the last and the chef that was around when his heart got broken when Mikey died. So he's stuck there emotionally

That's the only thing I can think of.

Making things right means being ' the best' in this way.

Miscommunication is one of my least favorite tropes so this is eating me alive

[interactivosoft]

Flyer de convención de Slash Fanfic (sexo m/m) "ConneXions", 2002

Las parejas homosexuales (de las cuales solo una es canon) son, en sentido horario y empezando arriba a la derecha:

1. Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neil (Stargate SG-1)

2. Alex Krycek/Fox Mulder (X-Files)

3. Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin (Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

4. Darien Fawkes/Bobby Hobbes (Invisble Man)

5. Chris Keller/Tobias Beecher (OZ)

6. Starsky/Hutch (Starsky & Hutch)

7. Methos/Duncan McLeod (Highlander)

8. Blair Sandburg/Jim Ellison (The Sentinel)

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Beast Wars - Second Chances - Page 6

Originally posted on February 2nd, 2011

Story - Daniel Worsley Art - Danielle Keller Letters - HdE

deviantART

wada sez: When Fox Kids reran the Beast Wars cartoon, Hasbro produced a line of redecos to coincide with it; the so-called “Steel Force” Tarantulas figure is used as reference here. See below for the original script; as originally written, Waspinator’s plot thread in these pages would have been interspersed with the other character pages, making this Page 4 of the comic.

(Page 4) Panel 1: (Large panel, a trio of proto-human children are being threatened by a Fox Kids Tarantulas drone. They’ve climbed up a tree, but the drone is beginning to climb the tree as well. Waspinator and the proto-human are in the background (the proto-human is on Waspy’s back), racing to their rescue. Night is falling (or it’s storming. Whichever fits best. I want the setting to be ominous and dark. The children are two boys and a girl. I would rather they not be Jak and Una, because that clearly shows the third child as the “red shirt”, I’d rather there be a sense of threat to all three.))

Panel 2: (Small panel, the protohuman has leapt off Waspy’s back, and is flying through the air hammer/axe/club raised high. He’s screaming a silent battle cry. This should be a dramatic action shot)

Panel 3: (Medium Sized panel, the protohuman is on the FKT drone’s back, doing some slight damage. It’s bucking like a bull. Waspy is hovering near the tree, trying to rescue the kids).

Panel 4: (Small panel, Waspy is head on, the kids’ backs to the reader, they’re pelting Waspy with rocks and sticks. One is pointing “out of panel” towards where the FKT drone is fighting(over Waspy’s shoulder)). Waspy:  Why doing thiszz?  Am HELPING! Waspy:  WHAT??

Panel 5: (Medium sized panel, the FKT drone has the protohuman pinned down. We see it roughly from the proto’s POV (we see his head, and he has his arm up to protect himself), the FKT is HUGE and drooling ominously).

Panel 6: (Medium sized panel, top down shot of the above. Waspy has the FKT drone by the head, and is pulling backwards with all his strength. His wings are a blur. His face, which we can see because his back is arched out of exertion, is pained. He’s trying valiantly to protect the human). Waspy:  NO MORE KILLING!!!

[merv606]

sorry but those pics of tig and his wife mary remind me of terry with fem!daniel lmao. it's the small stature, the sass, and just the overall look of her haha. change the eye color and it works too well...

I have said it before and I shall say it again!

Terry Silver’s penchant for pretty petite brunettes is simply character bleed because that is also clearly TIG’s wheelhouse.

I mean, we talk about him and his good looks but she was a pretty little thing herself!

[pwhl-mybeloved]

[blackcinderella1]

Riverdale 7x14 “Archie the Musical” Promo Pics

[onedegreeofsoniccomics]

Archie & Friends: All Action: "Archie's Super Mecha Teens"

Cover Credits

Pencils/Inks: Ryan Jampole

Colors: Rosario "Tito" Peña

Story Credits

Writer: Daniel Kibblesmith

Pencils/Inks: Ryan Jampole

Colors: Glenn Whitmore

Color Finishes: Rosario "Tito" Peña

Letters: Jack Morelli

Editorial Team

Editors: Jamie Lee Rotante, Vincent Lovallo, & Stephen Oswald

[autistic-crypt1d]

Season 5 SGA live blogging:

S1, S2, S3, S4

Big ass cliffhanger, Teyla is still being held captive by Michael and the team is racing against the clock to find her before she gives birth only to have a damn building fall on them!

Updates:

- Ronon calling Sheppard buddy 😭

- good lord that was a long ass zoom out

- Ronon and Teyla love eachother so much dude

- "you don't have to do everything yourself" facts Ronon, facts

- awww Rodneyyyyy

- Ronon carrying Teyla and her baby is just so AHHHHH

- HOW DARE YOU REPLACE SAM

- OH NO, THE SEED

- I don't remember how Keller got infected in the first place, during the rescue op for Sheppard, Ronon, Rodney, and Lorne?

- Carson!!

- ahhhhh yeah it was that planet

- I missed Teyla so muchhhh

- poor Sheppard y'all

- it always gets me watching Ronon pace around aggressively when something is hurting people that he can't fight. You can literally see him wanting to punch whatever it is no matter what it is or the fact that it is unpunchable

- of course Rodney stays with Sheppard ♡

- also, does this mean that all wraith hive ships are people??

- love how Woolsey is immediately and very rudely awakened to the reason why "going by the book" on Atlantis does not work

- shouldn't the stuff be attacking Sheppard now that he's cured?

- well, now it is

- did the vine stab Sheppard or just break a rib or something?

- Broken Ties, if this is the episode I think it is I'm about to be very sad

- I love seeing Ronon and Teyla together so much

- Ronon's jacket is so cool

- wait no I think the episode I'm thinking of is one of the last 2

- for all of his faults, I really so love how understanding Woolsey is when it comes to Teyla and her baby

- oof ok I remember what this episode is now and while it isn't the one that I thought it was, I will still be very sad

- Tyre you're a back stabbing little shit and I hate you

- DAMN IT TYRE

- Woolsey really does become quite sweet in SGA

- Rononnnnn AHHHHHHH

- of course Sheppard is the person Rodney goes to when he gets stuck

- Lorne!!!

- Ronon's voice on the verge of tears, BRO

- Kanaan, supportive husband of the year

- WOOLSEY WITH THE BABY PFFFT

- Tyre gets points for helping them get Ronon back but I still hate him for everything else

- let's go Rononnnnn

- Ronon truly looks very coo coo bananas here

- god the acting is so good

- Rodney talking to Ronon while he's unconscious recovering 😭

- Ronon holding the sword after Sheppard gave it to him, AHHHHHH

- ah crap, The Daedalus Variations, this is one of the few episodes that I immediately know by title

- I always wanna yell "DON'T GET ON THAT SHIP!!!"

- The duplicate bodies, AHHHHH

- is Ronon wearing a cardigan? It's fantastic regardless

- I love Rodney's little rectangle backpack so much

- the alternate reality drive is reminding me of the spore drive from Star Trek: Discovery, I still need to finish that

- ok it's not a cardigan but the cut is very similar and I dig it

- Ronon is so good at talking Teyla through stuff

- this other alien race intrigues me so much

- how tf did that dart just zoop through the shield??

-poor Sheppard being the only one who actually knows how to operate the ship in any significant way, Teyla knows a bit but that's it

- Ronon really has a 6th sense y'all

- good lord it takes a lot to down those aliens!

- I wish we got to see more of them so badly. Maybe if we'd gotten another season?

- ahhhh Ronon and Sheppard are the most badass duo ever istg

- poor Ronon y'all, he is not prepared for operating this shit

- since when does Atlantis have F-302s? I mean I know this is an alternate reality but like, you'd assume they'd be jumpers

- alternate reality Atlantis came in clutch tho

- not Sheppard basically flirting with himself XD

- Sheppard and his ds, I love it

- the way Rodney absolutely adores Torren even though he's simatioualy terrified of him is so cute

- I wish we got to see more of the alien fauna so badddd

- Ghost in the Machine, oh boy

- Atlantis going dark is always so freaky and cool

- AHHHHH the Elizabeth episodes always hurt so bad y'all

- I really don't understand why replicators want to ascend so bad, they can live forever, why not just go explore the galaxy now? Why do they need to do it as energy?

- I hate that Elizabeth has this arc

- YOU TELL EM WOOLSEY

- ouch ouch ouch

- The Shrine, ouch ouch ouch

- y'all this episode breaks my heart

- Rodney calling for John, OUCH

- AHHH you can see the organism in the water!!!!

- I know the water would've come through too, but couldn't they have just gotten back into the water and they open the shield just long enough for them to swim through???

- Rononnnnnn, he's so caring and sweet and AHHHH

- the whole thing with Jennifer hurts, Rodney tells her he loves her and she has to watch him fade away

- I don't really understand why the jumpers can't be cloaked while going through the gate, the only reason I can think of is that they made it up to make it difficult

- y'all Rodney coming to John on the verge of tears, desperately coming to him for comfort breaks my heart

- GIVING HIM HIS JACKET

- "you're stuck with me Rodney" HELP

- Sheppard loves that arrogant, whiney man so much

- "I keep seeing a face, everytime I close my eyes. I think it's my mother" BRO

- Keller has come such a long way, I mean she went from a flailing mess on the Bola Kai episode to proposing brain surgery in a damp cave to remove an alien parasite

- Whispers is so cool, it freaks me the hell out, but still cool af. Everytime I see the intro though I think of the SG-1 episode where they can't sleep or they die

- also, love seeing Carson again

- Porter and Mehra irritate me so much though. When characters are supposed to be tough but are either written badly, acted badly, or both, it's just so bad. Same thing with characters that are supposed to be hot, like, yuck.

- pfffft, Sheppard and Carson bonding over being in stasis pods

- I really like Vega though, and Teldy is cool

- I also desperately hate the weird thing between Porter and Carson, like, it makes me WILDLY uncomfortable

- god damn that was a clean ass transition

- VEGA DIES???? BRO

- Mirellus I swear to god

- THE CRAWLING ON THE WALL, HELL NO

- these things are so scary y'all, I love it

- honestly Mirellus, you deserved that. Not only did you release these things but you started screaming about them, like, wtf

- he really could've just grabbed the rope to bring up the bucket instead of using the crank, then used it to lower it the rest of the way

- poor Carson, his first mission back and he gets this

- see Mehra is great when she's being a bit goofy, but the whole dead pan serious tough as nails thing is so bad. I've never once enjoyed a character like that unless they had something else going on. Like, Teal'c and Ronon have personalities on top of that. I just think she was written badly honestly.

- The Queen, oh boy this episode is wild

- I truly do not understand the whole surgery thing. What exactly are they doing to her and how tf is it not permanent or leaving any lasting effects???

- Ronon's little smile at saying they were getting their asses kicked is so cute

- at least they finally got a new actor to play the Primary wraith queen

- ahhhh Ronon loves her so muchhhh

- oooo and new actors to play the wraith dudes too! Let's goooooo

- nice work Teyla, god damn

- Todd, buddy, you're really pushing it rn

- it will never stop being hilarious that Ronon has to get stunned like 8 times to go down

- Teyla is the tiniest wraith I've ever seen and it's so funny

- Tracker, very exciting, I kinda love this eoisode

- Sheppard is so totally jealous about Rodney and Keller

- AH I hate the awkward tension between the 3 sooooo much

- Rodney, Ronon, please be normal for like t seconds please

- the thing I hate about this episode is that they suddenly bring back the thing between Ronon and Keller. They don't mention it for a long ass time and their interactions don't hint to it whatsoever and now all the sudden he's into her again

- also the fact that it's so obvious Ronon loves Teyla so the whole Keller thing is just super weird

- it's weird they don't have a life signs detector with them, or maybe Keller has it

- Ronon and Rodney are both like obsessed with Sheppard (for different reasons), but it's hilarious that when they're without Sheppard, they're just a mess of a duo. Like they cannot agree on anything, they're constantly bickering, it's a mess

- idk about y'all, but I ship Keller with Kyrik more than anyone else

- GET HIS ASS KELLER

- Kyrik is awesome man, I'm really sad we never see him again

- ahhh I hate the awkward love triangle shitttt

- DANIEL!!! First Contact is one of my favorite episodes, I'm so excitedddd

- Daniel and Rodney are so funny together, I love it

- pfffft, Rodney telling him to push against the wall as hard as he could XD

- good lord that attempted speech interaction was awkward as hell

- poor Woolsey XD

- god damn the hyperspace window opening over the water is SO COOL

- I may not like these Asgaurd but they are so damn cool, the way they just completely ignore every effort Atlantis tries to stop them is wild. Shield? Ignored, floors between them and their goal? Going through them. Gun fire? Shields.

- THEY'RE SO BADASS

- the way that the 3rd just no hesitation sacrifices itself so the other 2 can get away with the guys and the device???

- poor Sheppard man, he's been in charge for only like a couple hours and they've been invaded and 2 of their people are taken

- god those two are so sassy I love it

- AHHHH Sheppard and Rodney thinking the same thing is so gay I love it

- the self destruct feature so that no one can find out what they really are??? AHHHH

- y'all, the existential crisis Todd has thinking about who the wraith would be without the war is devastatinggggg

- pfffft Daniel and his immediate urge to talk it out with his kidnappers

- those knockout sticks Todd has are so cool wtf

- the power spike, AHHHH CHILLS

- Sheppard staying with Radek no matter what, he's such a good leader y'all

- the explosion FX is not great lol

- oh shit I forgot this was a 2 parter

- I recognize the travers lady from somewhere

- omfg Rodney stepping between Daniel and the gun, BRO

- oh right she was on One Tree Hill!!

- yeah idk how anyone could ship Ronon and Keller in my opinion, they clash so badly personally wise

- good lord that engineering room gives me and Zelenka anxiety

- PFFFT THE SASSY HEAD BOB RONON GIVES WHEN HE SAYS NO

- THE ASGARD REVEAL

- I can't help but wonder if the war would've ended differently if instead of hiding, the Asgard had helped the Ancients

- man Daniel is really getting tossed around today

- ahhhh I missed Daniel's silly little mannerisms so much

- Keller with a P-90 is dope af, way to go doc

- I'm like 90% sure those "empty suits" had people in them cuz I could kinda see them swaying a bit and I think that's hilarious

- Daniel looks cool af in that suit

- pffft Daniel's little shrug

- Daniel please stop standing right by the damn antenna you're giving me anxiety

- LET'S GO SHEPPARD AND TRAVELER'S

- Daniel you really cannot die again

- "wanna unzip me?" "I'll look for a can opener" PFFFFT

- Ronon may be very emotionally intelligent when it comes to other people's feelings, but when it comes to his own, NOPE

- of course Rodney and Daniel are immediately sassy with eachother now that they're not about to die

- Rodney, please

- Outsiders is such an infuriating episode y'all, the way the villagers turn against these innocent people is just so AHHH

- Jervis I hate you so much, please shut up

- Jervis you are actually like, the worst

- the fact that he thinks that there is even a chance the wraith will keep their word and not destroy their village anyway means he is a damn fool

- Safaris you are also the worst and a fool and I hate you too

- Todd is literally the only wraith we've seen to my knowledge that's actually ever kept his word but even then he steals shit or throws wrenches in the plan every single time

- ok Rodney left out the time they did in fact escape from one of those cells but Ronon had like 80 knives on him that allowed that to happen sooooo

- wraith facial hair is so scrungly looking

- LET'S GO CARSON

- dude has become such a badass since he came back to life

- "you're gonna have to hold them off" "am I now?" PFFFT

- PFFFFT Carson and Rodney shoved into the dart is hilarious

- oh damn

- way to go Rodneyyyyy

- awww, Carson realizing Rodney misses him and taking a break for him 😭

- Inquisition, I have no recollection of this episode so far

- oh wait, oh yeah no I remember this

- honestly the counsel isn't entirely wrong, but they've been trying their best to fix their mistake and they're the best hope this galaxy has of defeating the wraith

- plus the fact that they woke them up early led to the infighting which gave them the advantage to defeat them

- why're they showing clips of the wraith that was converted long after Michael with the consent of the queen instead of Michael's transformation when that's what they were talking about?

- y'all they are fully tripping if they think the Genii's nuclear plan was going to defeat the wraith, there are far too many for them to have succeeded with a plan like that. Working with Atlantis there could've been a really helpful alliance but instead they decided to betray them again and again

- Atlantis has been making a lot of unilateral decisions yes, but like they said, they're the only ones out there fighting them. The ancients failed and there was no one left with the tech or numbers to stand up to them until the expedition showed up

- a lot of their plans have made things worse in some ways, but that's what happens when you're taking action, you can't be sure how things will turn out most of the time but you have to do something

- SG-1 got shit for this too about how they went about fighting the Goa'uld, but again, they were trying. Granted so were the Tok'ra, but they were also letting people die, leaving worlds enslaved, and had completely written off the Jaffa

- not to mention the fact that they've been expending countless resources giving aid to every society in need they come across, most of the time with zero in return

- these people revere the ancients as gods even though they were quite literally the cause of the wraith and replicators existing and abandoned the pegasus galaxy when they realized they couldn't atop the wraith, but now they put the expedition on trial for accidentally stumbling across what they left??? It's not their fault that the ancients left a damn minefield of awful shit across the whole damn galaxy

- I just noticed that Ronon had to physically drag Sheppard away when Elizabeth was sacrificing themselves

- I know that these people are upset but if they didn't wake them and they had those 50 years to prepare, the lives would've been lost anyway, different lives but lives nonetheless. At least with Atlantis here they have the chance to win and save future generations from this ever happening again

- Woolsey you sly dog

- LET'S GO WOOLSEYYYY

- Pfffft wtf was that swivel John XD

- The Prodigal, oh shit here we go

- see, Rodney and Sheppard are literally always spending time together

- I feel for Rodney with the stairs y'all, they are my sworn enemy

- Teyla is so pretty

- god damn it Michael

- damn that door lowering shot was pretty sick gotta say

- Lorne!!!

- Michael's obsession with Teyla is horrifying, he truly does not understand why she won't just go with him

- LET'S GO BANKS

- we don't get a lot of Chuck and Banks but I ADORE THEM, especially her

- YOU GET THEIR ASSES RONON

- Ronon may have technically lost that fight but he gave Teyla the opportunity to run and that's a win in this situation, especially given the fact that that buys them all time

- god I love Sheppard and Rodney during these situations "what do you need? 15 minutes?" And Rodney just rolls his eyes and does it

- Teyla is so resourceful and smart, she can't fight because she's holding a baby but you bet your ass she can kick that mf down the stairs

- the jumpers chairs look so comfy, I want one

- MICHAEL YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH, TEYLA IS A WONDERFUL MOTHER

- YOU STEP AWAY FROM RONON RIGHT NOW

- yessss let's go Radek!!!

- ooooo the fight scene is coming!!!!

- it's soooo over for you Michael

- Sheppard what did I say about hanging off of towers

- MY GOD THIS SCENE IS SO COOL

- YES TEYLA BEAT HIS ASS

- you tried to hurt her baby, you were never getting out of here alive

- god Teyla is so cool help

- Ronon's mission report is so cute

- Remnants, poor Sheppard man, I'm stressed and it's been 2 seconds, I just knw what's about to happen to this man

- also, Rodney's immediate flustered reaction as to why Sheppard would volunteer to spend a night away from Atlantis (him) is so gay I love it

- y'all watching this episode knowing what's actually going on from the start is wild, especially from Sheppard's pov. Bro really just could not help torturing himself

- poor Chuck

- also, have the uniform colors changed a bit? Chuck's looks like a weird dark green and Rodney's is a different blue than I remember. I feel like this must have happened when they changed the uniform style but idk why I'm just noticing.

- are Amelia and Chuck both military???

- ugh, Brain Storm. Malcolm is the worst.

- I hate that they did Bill Nye so dirtyyyy

- the fact that Keller doesn't trust Rodney's instincts that this is a horrible idea is WILD

- "you're smarter than me" "I know" DAMN RIGHT RODNEY

- PFFFFT the Bill Nye slap

- LET'S GO RODNEY

- "I love you. Have for some time now." CALLBACK LET'S GOOOO

- Infection, see now this is the episode I though Spoils of War was initially. This episode is so freaky I love it

- I originally was remembering it as being caused by the Hoffan virus but it's Keller's treatment, I remember now

- the wall melting, SO COOL

- THE MASKLESS WRAITH WARRIORS

- I still ship Rodney and Sheppard, but I will still admit that Rodney and Keller are sweet

- my god the wraith eating people is just such a new horrific thing

- SO FREAKY AHHH

- the massive crater in the ship is so cool

- THE SHIP BEING INFECTED, AHHH SO COOL!!!

- I love wraith shit so much, it's so unique and so cool and freaky

- "we're too late, the pods are opened" AHHHH

- oh my god I love this scene, the hive tearing in half, Rodney freaking out, they're going down y'all!!!

- "impact in 15 seconds" "not if I can help it" AHHHHH

- THE SHIP ENTERING THE ATMOSPHERE, THE TENSION!!!!

- the cgi of the shop landing in the water is rough af but still

- Identity, ah hell I hate this episode

- poor Radek, he was just trying to help

- Vegas is such a weird episode

- Vegas feels like such a random place for them to be, the wraith being there I can understand, but why are John and Keller?

- man I remember watching this episode for the firs time so vividly

- the scene where the wraith is disguising himself is so cool, but also like totally confirmation that wraith would be emo, punk, or goth if they were on earth lmao

- a wraith playing poker will never not be funny

- and the damn finger conversation

- god this chase is so cool, taking the gunfire like it was nothing, leaping down the stairs, thr wall vault, and god damn that no hesitation leap off the roof only to stand back up after slamming into the pavement, AHHHHHH

- SHEPPARD'S FACE

- there is not a single reality where this mf doesn't get dragged into this shit somehow is there

- Rodney!!!!

- alternate reality Todddddd

- I guess Keller was there cuz the government sent her and she was brought back from Atlantis too? Idk

- I'm sorry but an emo wraith wielding dual machine guns is so cool

- rip John

- wait stop this is sad I hate it, his face when he lies down just broke my heart

- ENEMY AT THE GATE, LET'S GOOOOO

- I'm so excited, I may hate that the show ends like this, but my god are these episodes so cool

- I'm honestly shocked the finale isn't a 2 parter

- pfffft Todd in a Deadalus jump suit is so silly, they unfashioned him

- LET'S GO DAEDALUS

- Sam!!!!

- Atlantis is leaving the Pegasus Galaxy y'all!!!

- Davis!! Loved that guy in SG-1

- ah hell the converstaion between Woolsey, Teyla, and Ronon makes me tear up

- one would think they would've adapted some of the shield technology they've come across and used it to defend where the chair was being held in case of something like this. I get they can't protect the whole planet with it but they could at least cover that

- rip chair and area 51

- Sheppard's on yet another suicide mission

- oh shit this is the episode with Ronon that makes me cry

- RONON 😭

- Teyla and Rodney's yells for him break my heart y'all

- I love you random ass wraith for saving Ronon ♡♡♡

- Lorne supporting Ronon, ahhhhhh

- ATLANTIS LET'S GOOOOOO

- KICK THAT HIVES ASS CARSON!!!

- "it's Atlantis, they're engaging the hive!" CHILLS

- AHHHHH

- y'all I'm tearing up this is so cool

- "This is my home" AHHHH

- Ronon is so awkward when he thinks someone is cute I love it

- if it has to be someone other than Teyla, I'm glad it's Banks

- I'm gonna cry, I love this show so much 😭

I hope you enjoyed reading these live blogs, it made me really happy to do it 💛

[dweemeister]

Mars Express (2023, France)

When it came out in 1988, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira was one of the first Japanese anime films to have a seismic impact beyond its home nation. For many soon-to-be anime fans, it was their first experience with Japanese animation. Akira, along with Ghost in the Shell (1995, Japan), scared off feature film animators from even considering cyberpunk science fiction for decades. Was it a self-consciousness of attempting to make a sort of animated film that the Japanese had seemingly cornered? Or was it a lack of funding and knowhow? In any case (and I will surmise it might be all of those aforementioned reasons), stepping into that extremely limited animated tradition comes Jérémie Périn’s stellar Mars Express.

The film, surprisingly to me, comes from an original screenplay he co-wrote with Laurent Sarfati, and not from, as I thought while watching the film, any graphic novel, comic series, or any preexisting material. Périn and Sarfati are both best known for the 2016 adult animation television series LastMan (an adaptation of the French comic series of the same name) and music videos for electronic dance music (EDM) artists. For them, Mars Express represents a breathtaking leap in narrative ambition, pulling influences from its animated cyberpunk predecessors and classic film noir, as its story unfolds hurriedly in less than a half-hour. And in its mixture of hand-drawn and computerized animation, the seamless effects make the film one of the most fascinating animated works for a mature audience in some time.

By 2200, androids of different forms are an irreplaceable part of human society, which straddles between an impoverished Earth, a metropolitan Mars, and various other colonies. We first meet our two protagonists, private detectives Aline Ruby (Léa Drucker) and android partner Carlos Rivera (Mathieu Amalric), on Earth. Carlos is a “backup”, as he possesses the consciousness of Aline’s deceased partner of the same name. The duo (the film confusingly distinguishes the boundaries between private investigators and police) apprehend a robot hacker, Roberta Williams, who is wanted on a number of charges. But when they are going through Martian security just after landing, the warrant for the hacker disappears – forcing Alina and Carlos to release Roberta.

Soon after, on Mars, Aline and Ruby must find a cybernetics student named Jun Chow. Jun has illegally “jailbroken” androids (freeing androids from human control, a civil rights issue of 2200s human society). Instances of jailbroken androids can lead to the deaths of innocents and wanton destruction, and the very fear of jailbroken androids leads to widespread prejudice and preemptive violence. Before Aline and Carlos realize it, Jun Chow's disappearance and the case behind Roberta Williams' seemingly dropped charges have a connection – one that threatens the coexistence of human and android existence, their separate and shared societies.

Mars Express breaks no ground narratively, and many of its larger themes of android self-determination and human-automaton relations will not be new for science fiction fans. What separates Mars Express from its peers across artistic mediums (television, comics/graphic novels, literature, video games) is its fully realized world. Périn and Sarfati, without any source material to guide them, have constructed a futuristic society that always feels plausible, consistent, and alive. Residential interiors seldom look like a real estate listing photograph, laboratories have wires and machinery strewn about, and crime scenes involving destroyed androids are mechanically gruesome (almost all androids have some sort of purple hydraulic fluid that enables movement), with bolts, screws, and scrap metal mangled and twisted. Human capitalism extends its hand across society and, presumably, politics. Rather than explain the technology that surrounds our characters and comprises this futuristic society, Périn and Sarfati prefer instead to keep Aline and Carlos’ investigations moving. Explanations of how all of this technology works is kept to a bare minimum, keeping the film’s pacing brisk and allowing for the film’s most violent moments to retain an elevated sense of peril.

By this point in human history, technology is approaching a level where robots are nearing indistinguishability from humans. However, the androids in Mars Express range from the brand-new to noticeably outdated. They have a variety of appearances – from the most humanlike (Carlos, the nightclub androids), to something out of Boston Dynamics, to boxy clunkers – and functions. From backups like Carlos to industrial workers to sexual companions, the robots in the Mars Express universe form a fundamental aspect of life in the far future – separate, but not fully free from human demands and impulses.

Embodying this tenuous balance is Carlos. Despite his death, Carlos’ consciousness, now housed inside a machine, carries on while his previous life moves beyond him. Though Carlos remains in his old job as a private investigator, he cannot continue seeing his ex-wife and daughter. The details of their estrangement are murky – did it occur before or after Carlos’ death? – and his wife’s new boyfriend is openly hostile to him. The latter’s hostility is such that Carlos’ relationship to his daughter crumbles. Indirectly, this troubled family life leads Carlos to stray from his humanity and better comprehend the desires of his fellow robots.

By film’s end, perhaps reluctantly, he accepts that humans – at an individual and collective level – might never see him as a full being. Often in modern science fiction, a narrative will present sentient robots and humans coming to a partial or full understanding about the former’s sense of personhood. While this plays out between Aline and Carlos (Aline treats “backup” Carlos essentially the same as her late partner), we see little desire to move beyond using these robots for human self-interest. This lends Mars Express its tragic dimensions – one felt by both humanity and robots (and with very light sprinkles of satire) – and places Carlos as the primary conduit of that tragedy.

Aline, as written, is not as complex as Carlos, but her craftiness and street sense makes her a worthy addition into the line of private detectives in film noir and films derived from noir. Her inner demons are difficult to parse. Yet, as a recovering alcoholic who has a subdermal sobriety chip that is easy to override), she too represents a future imperfect. She has a total dearth of companionship outside her line of work, possibly afraid of commitment, and carries about her a cynicism that rubs her coworkers and others she encounters on the job the wrong way. This is no Star Trek-like utopia as Gene Roddenberry might have envisioned it while he was alive (to the consternation of his fellow producers who saw even the cosmopolitan United Federation of Planets as a future imperfect). Nor is Mars Express a fully dystopian narrative. Surrounded by endless amounts of fellow humans, computers and robots providing luxury that modern viewers can only dream of, and not wanting for anything, Aline remains jaded about her very existence. She would find emotional company in the private detectives that Humphrey Bogart, Glenn Ford, and Dick Powell played on-screen.

In general, any humans of human-appearing characters in Mars Express are 2D while any androids or backgrounds bustling with activity (the car crash scene) are CGI. CGI animation allows to more efficiently render the diversity of robots across the film – very few of them look alike. The 2D/CGI differences are perceptible, but the effects, miraculously, do not clash (as they might have had this film been released ten or twenty years earlier). The heavily CGI backgrounds of the Martian capital, Noctis, fuse well with the nervy electronic score from Fred Avil and Philippe Monthaye. And in moments where the filmmakers juxtapose 2D and 3D animation, the slight variances between the two can be psychologically unsettling and increase the tension in the film’s many violent moments – most notably the opening scene and the climax. Full credit to the animators for achieving such an outstanding visual (and aural) continuity among the two styles.

Jérémie Périn and his fellow crewmembers note that they made those decisions of 2D and CGI animation in respect to the film’s tight budget. European feature animation lacks the commercial foundations and stability seen among the major American and Japanese studios, and requires various public and private funding sources from across the European Union. In French animation (and this applies to live-action French cinema, too), regional subsidies provide a lifeline. Splitting work across five animation studios allowed the Mars Express production to acquire more subsidies, raising the budget (still modest in comparison to those major American and Japanese studios) to coincide with the larger staff necessary to animate the film.

Despite its breakneck speed to cram in all of its narrative and thematic ideas, Mars Express still finds time for reflection and consideration. It may not necessarily slow down to allow the viewer to collect themselves, but Aline and Carlos’ professional relationship and habits are enough for one to feel the weight of the film’s most pressing questions. Can even the most enlightened humans in a futuristic, interplanetary society ever see sentients robots as beings independent from human selfishness and desire? How does rampant capitalism and indulgence play into such a society? In science fiction and, more specifically, cyberpunk sci-fi, these topics are well-worn. Other works in this genre and subgenre provide answers with eerie prescience and compelling optimism. The manner in which Jérémie Périn and Laurent Sarfati approach and depict their society, however, distinguishes itself through its excellent characterization and worldbuilding. Mars Express is a worthy addition to the exploding science fiction milieu, in no small part due to lack of animated works daring to venture there.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[ainosgarden]

the bear s3 starring even more actual chefs and restaurateurs with actual dialogues about their real life careers......

this is not what i watch this show for... i get enough of that from food docs already... just stop...