#after the last comic i immediately got two asks about how their regeneration works and how much damage they can take

[itty-bitty-sunshine]

I really give y'all an immortal and you run off to find out how far can you break them, huh

#staring at my inbox and giggling #after the last comic i immediately got two asks about how their regeneration works and how much damage they can take #in detail #i dont mind and im already working on answering them i just think its a funny turn to take #sunshine talks #text post #three of them actually. but one of them i'll save for an art post

[captainpikeachu]

Differences between The Old Guard film & Book 1 of the comics (and how I feel about the changes)

Long story short, I actually do prefer the film version of the story, as I think it makes for stronger character dynamics established upfront and for greater character growth and arcs throughout the story.

I’ll list the differences here and I will speak about how each of these changes I think affects the story we saw on film versus the one we got in the comics, and how these changes may play into character dynamics and arcs if a sequel film were to happen.

1. No Baklava tasting scene.

In the comics, the team meets up at some outside cafe to speak about meeting Copley and teases Andy a bit about her “hall of fame” of bed partners. In the film, we have the Baklava tasting scene when everyone meets up at the hotel. The big difference between these two scenarios is that in the comics, it is to set up the job, and to comment upon Andy’s rotating door of bed partners which we are shown over the opening narration. But the film forgoes to the more sexualized focus on Andy’s love life to explore and show visually the bond of these 4 immortals. Using the baklava tasting, we immediately establish the character personalities and dynamics of the team, making us more invested in this group and their bonds with each other - all without sexualizing Andy, in fact, there’s more than a few times in the comics where Andy’s love life gets randomly brought up, including Andy saying Nile’s brother is hot upon seeing his photo. The film thankfully decided to focus on the character dynamics instead.

2. In the comics, it’s Nicky and Andy who meet Copley instead of Booker and Andy. (also Booker and Andy’s dynamic)

This change in the film where we have Booker and Andy meeting Copley instead is a continuation of the film’s intention to highlight Booker and Andy’s close dynamic. In fact, it begins even earlier as the movie opens with Andy and Booker meeting up first and Andy giving Booker the first edition Don Quixote. And this continues throughout the film where Booker basically acts as Andy’s right hand man, and this dynamic remains even through Booker’s betrayal and in the ending scene where they part ways. The little change with a different character swap doesn’t seem very important until you see the whole film and realizes that a lot of hinges on selling the audience of Booker and Andy’s relationship and Booker’s love for the team. And this is where the film, aware of each character’s full arc, changes things around to make sure every scene in the film is used to push character arcs into the right resolution at the end.

3. Killbox scene - in comics, team is still standing on their feet. 

I noted upon reading the comics that when the team gets shot by the soldiers in that killbox ambush, the team are still on their feet, and Andy verbally signals “it’s our turn” before attacking. In the film, our team actually falls and dies, the soldiers then turn away from the group as the team regenerates and between a few shared gazes, wordlessly get up and attack. This is another indication of the film’s intention to SHOW not TELL. Through the visual language the film uses, we immediately not only see that our team can fall and die and the healing takes time and is not pleasant, but also that they move as a unit without so much as a word. And just like that baklava scene in the beginning of the movie, it builds up the team’s relationship and speaks to their years together without having to dump any exposition.

4. No Andy and Nile fight scene on the plane. (also Andy and Nile’s dynamic)

Not only does Nile not have a fight scene with Andy, for pretty much the entire run of Book 1, Nile really does not exhibit much agency beyond just following along with everyone else. Sure she asks questions and such, but her relationship with Andy is not built up much, and Nile seems to only be there because she’s got nowhere else to go, she seems to just serve as a plot point that happens and less as a character. The film, on the other hand, carefully crafts an arc for Andy and Nile to go on, culminating in Andy and Nile sharing that scene where Andy expresses that she now knows why Nile appeared when Andy lost her immortality. We see their relationship grow and change throughout the film, we see Nile react to Andy and eventually teaching Andy about how to live again. 

5. Nile does not meet Nicky and Joe before their kidnapping.

In the comics, Nile does not meet Nicky and Joe until the very end fight when they’re all escaping from Merrick’s place. Nile basically has no relationship with Nicky and Joe, barely even knows them, because when she comes to the safehouse with Andy, Nicky and Joe were already kidnapped. The film instead changes scenes around where Nile does return with Andy and meet the team, spends at least some time with them before Nicky and Joe get kidnapped. I tweeted to the director Gina Prince-Bythewood to ask her about the decision to have Nile meet Nicky and Joe before the attack on the safehouse, and she confirmed my belief that it was to establish a stronger family/team dynamic to the audience. After all, if your main cast of characters don’t even know each other’s names until literally the last act of the movie, it is very difficult to make the team/family dynamic believable. This change of having Nile knowing Nicky and Joe establishes Nile’s further relationship and attachment to the team, that they aren’t just two random strangers that she doesn’t even know. And it builds up this team of 5 so that when they do go on to escape from Merrick’s labs at the end, we are cheering for this team to kick ass together, rather than wondering why Nile would care to go rescue two strangers she’s never met.

6. Copley is not sympathetic.

Copley in the comics is not a sympathetic character. While he is not necessarily evil, there is no motivation of grief and loss that drives him to act the way he does. He basically bails on Merrick at the end out of self preservation. In the film, we know that Copley watched his wife die and that pushed him to wanting to create a cure to end suffering, his backstory mirrors Booker’s struggles, in turn creating sympathy for both characters. The fact that Copley in the film is still a decent person makes Booker betraying the team and working with Copley a more palatable and understandable choice, especially as Copley ends up helping Nile get to Merrick’s lab and even ends up serving as the team’s tech/eye-in-the-sky person. This change for Copley’s character serves as another aspect where the film took great care to focus on character motivations and arcs. Copley’s research at the end serves to give Andy a reason to keep fighting, thus helping Andy and the team complete their arcs where they started jaded and tired, but now ready to fight another day.

7. Booker shoots Andy and Nile in revelation of his betrayal.

In the comics, Nile is also there with Andy when Booker turns on them upon meeting up with Copley again. Booker shoots both of them and doesn’t really say much as Copley talks about why they’re doing this. Then Andy basically kills Booker, threatens Copley, and jumps out of a window with Nile and Booker. They get to a desert where Booker and Andy proceed to shoot each other again multiple times until Nile stops them and Booker tells them why he betrayed the team. This chain of events is obviously different in the film, and this difference sharply contrasts Booker and Andy’s relationship in the comics as opposed to what they are in the film. In the film, when Booker shoots Andy and she’s tied up, he keeps on trying to explain to her why he’s doing this, Andy’s reaction is pained and heartbroken, and Booker is too and later on panics when she won’t stop bleeding. When Merrick’s men arrive, he tries to get them to leave her alone and fights to get to her when they take them both. This change, along with Andy’s more touching reaction to finding Booker injured at the safehouse, paints a more deep and nuanced bond between the two of them. Instead of them just repeatedly yelling and shooting at each other, we actually get to see them talk, we see them being gentle and physically caring towards each other. This shows to an audience a relationship that feels deeper and more loving than the comics which seem almost colder in comparison. And this deep bond the film creates plays into both Andy and Booker’s character arcs at the end of the film upon their separation. Again, the film takes care to focus on character relationships, and allow those relationships to fully form and fully reach the resolution that befits the character arcs. 

8. Merrick is far more despicable and murderous. (also his doctor character is toned down)

Merrick in the comics is literally psychotic. He not only stabs Joe once, but multiple times, and proceeds to do the same to Nicky. And he constantly talks about wanting to hurt them and takes pleasure in it. Merrick in the film is not only smaller in stature than his buff comics counterpart, he’s also less physically violent. Sure he stabbed Joe because he wanted to see the evidence himself and he’s hardly that caring about ethics, but he still seems like an otherwise normal if not just simply greedy CEO type, not psychotic serial murderer type. This difference in toning down the character ultimately I think serves the film better because as Copley is more sympathetic, having him work with someone who is clearly and obviously behaving like a murdering lunatic would be really hard to swallow. This toning down of characters also happens with the doctor. In the comics, Doctor Ivan is basically just stated to not care about ethics, while Doctor Kozak in the film does share a talk about ethics and morality with Nicky where she says she believes they can be used to save the world. Again, the film seems intent on giving every character an understandable motivation, even among the villains of the story, which grounds the film in a feeling of reality, because no one is so outlandishly just being an evil mustache twirling villain. This change also produces some possible loose ends for the film’s sequel, as while the comics version of the doctor is dead, the film version only got whacked on the head by Nile, not outright killed so she may pop back up again in the sequel.

9. Nile does not get her solo fight.

In the comics, because Nile escapes from Copley with Andy and Booker, she returns with them to go find Nicky and Joe at Merrick’s place in Dubai. So she is never actually on her own at all in the comics. As I spoke about before, Nile’s character in the comics just tagged along, never really getting to come into her own. There is really no arc for Nile, whereas the film did the opposite. Because the film lets her have an arc, and lets her making the decision to join the team be something she comes to terms with on her own choice, this agency affords Nile growth that the comics doesn’t give her. Her solo fight is the culmination of her coming into her own power and acceptance. Once again, the film is consistent on ensuring that the characters change and grow and have arcs. This character building makes Nile a much more interesting and complex character than one note. Nile also gets to kill Merrick while protecting Andy and mirroring the plane moment from earlier in the film, while in the comics, everyone kills Merrick together. That moment in the comics did not serve the narrative catharsis that Nile taking out Merrick did.

10. Andy is mortal.

In the comics, Andy starts immortal and jaded, and ends the story really not much changed at all. Other than defeating a villain, you really don’t get the feeling that she’s changed from the experience. There is no revelation of her purpose, she just kinda does what she has to do, even if that means threatening an old woman. Andy in the film clearly starts out feeling lost in her purpose, but gradually through Nile’s joining of the team and Booker’s betrayal and her own mortality, she starts to see what her purpose is and wanting to be alive again. The scene of Andy at the store with the employee who helps bandage her up doesn’t exist in the comics because Andy is not mortal, therefore there is no sudden questioning of why, of re-evaluating her feelings about humanity. But the film takes the time to make Andy confront this, forces Andy to not only face it but learn from it. This change not only gives the story more stakes, but also allows Andy to have a character arc that affords her growth and an answer to her opening narration. It also makes Nile more than a plot point and her joining the team be an important narrative that makes an important change.

11. We never see Joe and Nicky’s reaction to Booker’s betrayal.

In the comics, because Andy and Booker never gets captured, when the team meets back up together, Nicky and Joe has no idea of the betrayal. And we never see them find out because after they kill Merrick, the next scene is them exiling Booker. In the film however, we do see Joe reacting angrily to Booker, we once again get a look into their dynamic and Booker pointing out how Nicky and Joe always had each other, meanwhile Nicky is trying to calm Joe down to stop him from saying something that he might regret later. This change is a further way that this film builds upon the established character dynamics. We as the audience see their reactions, see their humanity, and see them behave as a family would when feeling betrayal. But also that Andy has changed from that jaded tired person into someone ready to fight again when she tells Booker that they’ve been doing a shitty job of living and he needs to get up and stop wallowing in his self pity and pain. This makes their separation hit harder at the end because there are real emotions on all sides. Like all families, feelings can be complicated but there is also care and love. At the end, we see Booker nod to Joe as they all leave, signaling that despite the anger and chasm between them right now, they are still family. The film once again reorients the story to focus on character relationship, on selling the audience this familial bond, because if we don’t believe in it, then Booker’s redemption falls apart, and the film in many ways falls apart.

12. Noriko and Lykon.

Now the obvious change here is casting. Noriko is Japanese in the comics and her film counterpart Quynh is played by a Vietnamese actress. And Lykon is white in the comics whereas in the film he is portrayed by a Black actor. In the comics, Noriko fell overboard during a storm. In the film, due to budget constraints, they went with her being dropped into the ocean locked in an iron maiden. In the comics, Lykon spent over 2000 years with Andy before he died during the Renaissance, meaning he would have met Nicky and Joe. In the film and the history clips that Netflix posted, Lykon died before Nicky and Joe were immortal. Obviously with Lykon, it ultimately does not affect the story either way since he is dead, it’s just clearly the film changed the years he spent with Andy to avoid any confusions and to make things a little more simple in streamlining the team’s history. But the change with Noriko/Quynh is a much bigger thing. Firstly, character motivation - it’s one thing to be lost during a storm and another thing to be purposefully locked into an iron coffin and left in the ocean to suffer. This difference could make the difference between how Noriko reacts to Andy and the team in the comics, and how Quynh will react to everyone in the film. Secondly, because of the way the film presents Andy and Booker’s bond and especially now with Andy’s mortality, which the comics does not have, this could spell a big divergence in what a sequel could do with Booker and Quynh’s interactions. Because Booker would still be guilty over Andy’s mortality, and he would be more reluctant to do anything that could hurt Andy and the team, leaving me to suspect that he is less likely to go towards a villain route in betraying the team again. Whatever Quynh may get him to do is likely going to be out of force/coercion, if Quynh’s intention is less than good.

---------------

So these are just some of the big differences that I feel like affects the story ultimately told in the comics and the film. I did enjoy Book 1 of the comic and I am planning to get Book 2 once the collection is out. But I think the film’s changes really made it a focus on enhancing the character relationships and allowing individual characters to have their own arcs of growth. The comic tells a great action fare. But the film’s changes effused more humanity into the characters in a way that I feel the comic lacked. The film also really make you question the issue of immortality and what it all means and how it effects people while the comic focused on more of the action adventure story with the immortality as more or less a tool than really a theme.

Ultimately, I think the changes in the film took what worked in the comics and really elevated the story.

#the old guard #andromache the scythian #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #sebastien le livre #nile freeman #james copley #steven merrick #the old guard spoilers

[thickwamuu]

i was wondering if i could request some yandere pillarmen including santana going after the reader

I hope you know the phrase “including Santana” may have translated into “mainly Santana” I’m so sorry, my love for Santana knows no bounds 

ALSO IM SORRY if this AU is something that nobody asked for and if not I have no qualms taking more requests for these hunks... wink wink nudge nudge. Also wasn’t sure what you were wanting so I went with one shot. It definitely could have had more yan I’m sorry, will make it up with plenty of yandere in the future!

So basically,,, this AU is a super self indulgent ‘lab experiments’!pillarmen AU with super duper light mentions of animal testing in passing. Expect the pillar men to essentially act like overgrown house cats

Pairing - lab experiment!pillarmen x reader

Words - 1280

“You promise to be good and not touch anything?” Your stepfather asked causing you to roll your eyes just a bit. “Yes, I promise...” it’s not like you weren’t an adult that could regulate yourself, dragged into your fathers lab as he grasped at the last fragments of your missed childhood for ‘bonding time’.

He seemed satisfied with your answer and slipped your guest pass over your head. “Okay, come back to meet me in the lobby for lunch. And try to stay in the indoor environmental biomes, the animals are fun to look at! Super cute!” He said the latter in a mock teenage girl voice before throwing up a peace sign making you cringe. “Yeah, Yeah, I get it dad!”

The added ‘dad’ in place of the usual ‘Tim’ seemed to butter him up enough to finally get out of your hair. You turned to walk towards the environmental areas, determined to see something noteworthy.

-

Much to your disappointment the glass wall was preventing much of anything from happening. So you couldn’t help yourself when your wandering fingers made it into some sorry saps pocket to nab their official ID. Slipping passed the doors that emblazoned with a massive “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” You saw an open supply closet full of lab gear. It was almost comical how easy this was.

Nobody paid you mind as you walked passed the several empty glass rooms, and It was only as you got deeper that you felt sick to your stomach as you saw countless animals that visiting tours gawked at lined up on tables, helpless. You pushed forward, snapping photos discretely. If Tim was still part of you’re family after all this-as long as you didn’t get caught and thrown in some sick government jail, you decided it would be him or you.

A certain window made you stop dead in your tracks. 4 absolutely massive men were strapped to the wall with all sorts of wires and liquids being pushed into their system. “What the fu-“

“And here you’ll see the latest progress in our age regeneration products-“

You decided you wouldn’t stick around to see who the voice belonged to, ducking into the closest room... which happened to be the man room. You ducked just out of view of the window and held your breath as the voice got more distant, breathing a sigh of relief. This was all too much to believe. Yesterday you were playing on your switch deciding what to order on ubereats, now you felt like you were somewhere in between a full on meltdown causing you to retreat into the wilderness and live like a survival guru, or turn this evidence to the media and become the martyr of animal rights before being under government watch for life. Your daydream was brought to a skidding halt as you heard a soft groan causing you to become painfully aware of the nearly naked doped up men.

“Shit, I...” You pondered what you should do, at this point the side of you that figured the likes of you walking out of here a free man were slim to none was winning out and you walked up to one of the god-like men.

You started with the random IVs, pulling them out of the most approachable looking one. A few moments later his eyes sleepily opened before shooting wide as his arm snapped out of its restraint forcefully brought his hand to your neck, lifting you well off the ground.

Your saliva bubbled out of your mouth trying to form words as you scraped at his rock-like hand. “Let..ggo.. set..ting you... free”

This seem to grab his attention as he dropped you to the ground before easily ripping off the rest of his restraints. His feet bounded towards you in minimal steps and as you cowered, he crouched before you forcing you to feel the huffs of his breathing as he...

Wait.. was he smelling you?

“Nnnn...nnot like oth-thers”

You looked up as he tilted his head curiously, his long red hair flowing with his movements. You scooted away, grasping at straws. “Nope! Not like others. I’m just an average joe.”

“Joe?” His deep voice rumbled as he pointed at you.

“Joe... wha.. no I’m Y/n”

“Y/n” he mimicked, his voice coming out more like a purr than anything else.

“I sure do hope your friends are as nice as you, let’s get you fellas outta here, big guy.”

He looked conflicted for a second, his gaze following yours to the sleeping men before meeting your eyes once more.

“Wait.” He said, making you look at him.

He got closer to you and you held your breath, jumping as you felt him rub his forehead up against your cheek. “Uhh..” you nervously laughed. “What are ya doin big guy?”

“Smell like me.” He said curtly.

It hit you. He was trying his best so that the others didn’t attack you like he did. You found it rather endearing and couldn’t help the knee jerk reaction of your hand reaching up to stroke at his hair like he was a domesticated animal of some sort. Much to your surprise, he leaned into your touch as more audible vibrations leaked from his vocal chords.

“You’re not scary at all, huh?” You said scratching lightly causing him to push more weight into you. “Let’s go get your friends, yeah?” You chuckled before getting up and walked over to the long, purple haired man. “No.” The voice behind you cut in. “I get him... last” You side stepped allow it him to stand in between you and the sleeping man. Turning your attention to the other two, your new friend bit at his lip before pointing to the one with ice coloured cloud-like hair “Him... I’ll get the others.”

You nodded and got to work removing the tubes. The man quirked his eyebrow before opening his eyes to look at you. “Human.” He chuckled. “ I see the child doesn’t like to share his things.”

An animalistic growl came from the long haired redhead.

“Oh come on Santana. Grow up.” He chided, condescendingly.

“Esidisi...” the man- Santana, you suppose- bit back.

The straps retaining him melted away before your eyes as he grabbed your chin, inspecting you. “Not bad.” You clenched your teeth awkwardly as you tried to get out of his grip but he pulled you closer, letting out a hearty laugh that you could feel from in between his pecs.

The other 2 men slowly became present and got out of their restraints. There was calm for a moment before red lights and sirens filled the room. Santana immediately covered you as personnel flooded in, guns ready. “Open fire!” Came the command as a wave of bullets was unleashed.

The bullets had little effect as the purple haired one hardly lifted a finger, slicing through the wall of men with a shiny blade protruding from his wrist. A last man, left over attempted to sneak up on him making you grab one of the strewn about guns before opening fire. None of the bullets managed to hit him, but you happened to alert the towering man to the attacker.

A hole through a chest later, the purple haired one turned to you, walking closer.

“Careful Kars, Santana likes this one.” Esidisi warned mockingly.

“Breaking us out of this dormant hell and betraying your own kind in favour of us?” He pondered for a moment before bringing his nose to your cheek, grazing it against you as he purred. “Perhaps you’ll make a nice pet.” As if having a pack mentality the other 3 closed in on you.

#jjba part 2 #pillar men #oneshot #x reader

[sandersstudies]

Quirky - Chapter 5

A High School Superhero AU - Sanders Sides

(Will add tag list in a reblog! If I miss you, please let me know ASAP - As always, asks, comments, messages, reblogs, and keysmashes are more than welcome.)

-> Chapter Six

<- Chapter Four

<<- Chapter One

You can now also find the fic with the same username and title on AO3 :)

Virgil kicked a stone in front of him as the class walked toward the bus. Next to him, Logan was going on about the history of U.S.J., their destination for Hero Studies class. Virgil wasn’t a fan of field trips. He almost envied Terrence, who had stayed home sick from school.

“Pick up the pace, gang,” Mr. Picani said. “Last I checked, none of you had lead feet as a quirk.” There had been no updates on Mr. Sanders, but Virgil and many of the other students had been watching the news religiously. All that had been released to the public was that Mr. Sanders had encountered an unnamed retired pro hero at the site of a recent vandalism, attacked him using his quirk, and fled the scene. Police officers had pursued, but initially lost the trail until Mr. Sanders was arrested in the early hours of the morning in his apartment. The date of his trial had not yet been announced.

“Am I boring you?” Logan asked, stopping mid-sentence.

“Oh, no, no,” Virgil said, spasmodically grabbing Logan’s wrist and then dropping it immediately. “Sorry, guess I’m a little caught up in my own head. What were you saying?”

“U.S.J. is a fascinating location, that is all,” Logan said. Mr. Picani checked their names off his list as they got on board the bus. “Think: a single building containing several ecosystems and terrains to prepare heroes for work in any field at all! Especially useful for disaster intervention, search-and-rescue...but I won’t go on.” He took one of the few remaining open seats, and Virgil sat beside him, on the aisle side. “What were you thinking about?”

“Mr. Sanders again,” Virgil said, lowering his voice and leaning toward Logan. He felt exposed sitting near the aisle. “Do you really think he attacked another hero?”

“Rumor has it the other hero was the Flying Falcon,” Logan said in an even lower voice. “But I don’t like spreading inconclusive evidence.”

“The Flying-” Logan shushed him. “The Flying Falcon?” Virgil whispered. “Roman’s dad?”

“Inconclusive evidence.”

Virgil craned over the back of his seat as the bus started. Roman was several seats back reading a comic book, the seat next to him empty.

His posse not hanging out with him anymore? Roman had seemed a little quieter than usual yesterday. Then again, everyone had. Roman was dwelling an awfully long time on his page. He’s no genius, Virgil thought, But I’m pretty sure he can read. Roman’s eyes did look a little glazed over, come to think of it—

Logan pulled gently on Virgil’s sleeve, and Virgil came back to himself as he slid back into the seat.

“It’s rude to stare,” Logan said. Virgil felt his neck flush hot as he bounced his leg. Logan must think he was a real ass. He stared down at his hands, and then toward the front window of the bus, watching for U.S.J. to appear on the horizon. Another disadvantage of sitting on the aisle side of the seat was limited window access.

“There it is,” Rafaela said a few minutes later, pointing. Students craned their necks to get a first glance at the dome.

“Please stay in your seats,” Mr. Picani said from the front of the bus. Students sulked back down.

U.S.J. didn’t look like much to Virgil. He’d gone on vacation once with his mom and visited the Omaha zoo, and the huge glass building reminded him of the desert dome that housed things like Fennec foxes and meerkats. He had a vague idea that once he entered U.S.J. he would be pounced on by a bobcat.

“The hero Glass runs the U.S.J.,” Kai whispered to Kenny from behind Virgil. “They’re so cool.”

Virgil vaguely recalled seeing Glass on television before. The hero could turn things they touched into glass, and also transform into a glass figure which, when damaged, could regenerate almost instantly. That cheesy action figure, Virgil remembered. The little clear plastic arm that shot off and could “regrow with the power of their Quirk!” (that is, be replaced and reused). How many millions did heroes make off of dumb things like that?

Kai was bouncing up and down, grasping the back of Virgil’s seat and shaking it back and forth as the bus pulled up to the building. Virgil winced. He’d noticed that when Kai was overexcited, his quirk goo could leak from his nose and ears.

“Let’s go!” Kai said.

“Just a minute,” Mr. Picani said. “Your names must be checked off the list as you get off the bus, so don’t rush, now.”

“You checked us on off when we got on!” Kai whined, draping himself over his seat. Roman was instructed to check off names so Mr. Picani could lead the students into the building, and the students started to file into the aisle. Virgil wondered for a moment if Roman would be petty enough to leave Virgil’s name unchecked, but the class president’s face was serious as the other students got off the bus.

“Are you thinking again?” Logan asked, alighting just behind Virgil.

“A little,” Virgil admitted. At least Logan wasn’t embarrassed by Virgil’s awkward staring anymore.

“I do find the construction of U.S.J. compelling,” Logan said again. “The ecosystems…” He was staring at the building with barely-contained delight. “I’ve read about their systems of environment regulation for the six main zones. It’s fascinating. Do let me know if I go on about them too long.”

Virgil felt his lips contort irresistibly into a smile. Logan sure was a nerd, but it was kind of funny how excited he got. “You’re fine.”

Logan continued, rejuvenated by Virgil’s consent. “The main zones are the Ruins, the Landslide, the Mountain, the Flood, the Downpour, and the Conflagration zones. As their names suggest, each is related to a different environmental factor.”

Logan sounded almost like he was reciting from a book. His quirk isn’t a photographic memory, Virgil thought. In fact, Logan was liable to forget things that didn’t interest him. But it might as well be when it comes to this stuff.

“The Conflagration Zone is perhaps most impressive,” Logan went on. “Designed to simulate a city on fire, a blaze is kept constant within the zone, maintained by the environmental factors which prevent it from spreading into the other zones. It’s actually a very delicate balance, the design took years to perfect.” He spoke as proudly as if he’d designed it himself. The class began to move toward the entrance of the building where there was a large sign with U.S.J. emblazoned above it in gold letters.

“Glass is the official caretaker and one of the head designers, along with Multi-Man himself.” Logan’s arms moved emphatically. “Glass’ quirk is quite astonishing. I would be very interested in seeing it in person. Of course, they are also a faculty member. Perhaps they would prefer to be referred to by their civilian name.”

Other students were also commenting on the structure and its caretaker, but none in such technical terms as Logan, who had paused to take a breath after a particularly long paragraph.

“We’re going to process into the front entrance,” Mr. Picani said. “We’ll stop there and you’ll be directed into the next location.”

The students jostled a bit, and Virgil shrunk into his oversized hoodie. Logan, on the other hand, seemed to have grown two inches taller since they’d left the main campus. He was scanning each part of the building as they went through the front double doors, and Virgil imagined once again that he could hear Logan’s synapses firing.

The class oohed and ahhed as they entered the building. The raised platform they entered onto let them see across the entire space, which was more massive than a stadium. From their height, it reminded Virgil of an arena. In front of them was a blue arch leading to the stairs that descended into the rest of the building, which had a dirt floor. Smaller domes encased two of the environmental zones, but a real miniature mountain rose to the ceiling on their right, with a landslide arching down to its base where rested a mock town, small but with everything to real scale. It was so realistic Virgil expected to see people peering out of the windows to watch their arrival. At the edge of the town was a series of collapsed buildings which came almost up to the edge of the raised platform, and across from those was a lake to the students’ right; Virgil had anticipated a pool, a simulated lake, but the body of water had grass and even small trees at the edge, growing happily inside the pavilion with a healthy diet of lake water and sunshine.

The building seemed all sunshine, in fact. Even the mountain was contained inside the massive glass ceiling, and on this sunny day no artificial lights were needed. A few metal beams around the edge were the only reminder that they were not really outside.

Forgetting Mr. Picani’s instructions in their excitement, a couple students began to rush for the stairs that led down into the zones, but stopped suddenly, as if prevented by an invisible barrier.

“Woah there,” said a new voice. In their astonishment at seeing the building, none of the students had noticed the figure standing before him. The person had outstretched their hands to stop Kai with one arm and Rafaela with the other. They were not invisible, but clear through their entire body, and it was only as they began to return to their ordinary form that Virgil could make them out.

They wore ordinary black clothing that looked casual and modern. In place of the mask that usually covered the whole round face was a smile under dark eyes and hair. Virgil realized that the action figure had exaggerated the hero’s age: Glass could not be much older than some of the UA upperclassmen. A few students muttered the name in awe and surprise.

“Here, I’d ask that you refer to me as Mx. Stokes,” Glass said. “Glass is for field work and going on Ellen and things like that.”

Kai was staring up at Mx. Stokes in astonishment, mouth slightly agape. Mr. Picani walked up to the other hero.

“Mx. Stokes is going to begin by giving you all a bit of a tour, and then you’ll be prepared when you start using this place for rescue training,” he said

“That’s right,” Mx. Stokes agreed. “Do any of you know how many zones are in U.S.J.?”

Logan’s hand shot up so fast he almost smacked Virgil in the face.

“Yes?” Mx. Stokes said. “And your name is?”

Logan had begun after the teacher’s first word, so the response went something like “U.S.J-contains-eight-zones-six-of-which—Logan—six-of-which-contain-specific-environmental-factors.”

“Thank you, Logan,” Mx. Stokes said. “That’s correct. All of you are actually standing in the first zone now. The entrance is itself one of the zones, and if you’ll look down those steps you can see into the central plaza, which connects the entrance to the six environmental zones.”

Virgil stared past the other students down the massive flights of steps, lined with guardrails and wide enough that the whole class could have walked down side-by-side. At the base of the steps was the plaza, in the center of which was a circular green space. Virgil hadn’t noticed it at first; it had been dwarfed in size by the other zones. It was little more than a fountain surrounded by plants, a typical park centerpiece. It looked out of place only because it was framed by fallen buildings, a mountain, and a lake.

“Let’s start walking toward the plaza,” Mx. Stokes said, turning for the stairs. The students began to follow, Kai leading the way. Virgil grumbled at the thought of having to go back up the stairs again before they left. He envied Patton, who Mr. Picani was directing to a small elevator — too small for the whole class, but Virgil could dream.

“Now, when lots of people think of hero work,” Mx. Stokes went on. “They think first of TV stuff like punching people and blowing stuff up, right?” A few students muttered agreement. “Right! But the most important part of being a hero isn’t that stuff. Even more important than knocking the shit out of villains—”

“Glass,” Mr. Picani warned from the top of the steps.

“Knocking the stuffing out of villains is caring for the people we serve, and that often means search-and-rescue operations. Plenty of heroes are known for this kind of work.”

There was a beat of glances among the students. Rescue was Multi-Man’s speciality.

If he wasn’t in jail, would he be giving us this speech? Virgil wondered.

“Now,” Mx. Stokes said, breaking the moment. “If the entrance is noon, we’re going to move around the zones clockwise. Does anybody know what the zone immediately to our left is called?” The students were halfway down the stairs, and the collapsed buildings began to loom to one side.

Logan’s hand shot up in the air again, but Mx. Stokes glanced over the students and called on Kai’s much shorter raised arm instead.

“The Ruined Zone,” Kai said.

“Ruins Zone,” Logan corrected in a whisper.

“Right, the Ruins Zone,” Mx. Stokes said. “Or the Collapse Zone. It probably looks a lot like the place where you guys had your heroes vs. villains exercise, and where you took your entrance exam.”

Virgil shuddered at the memory.

“However, the Ruins Zone is meant to simulate an urban environment in the middle of a disaster like an earthquake or tornado, and some of the buildings are not very stable.” They’d finally reached the base of the stairs and had landed almost among the buildings where Patton, just coming off the elevator, was waiting for them. Virgil was startled by the level of detail in the fallen city. Real road signs lay bent at the side of cracked roads. He could see inside individual broken windows and into the rooms inside. He could imagine himself, perched on top of a building in his mask. He could swoop inside the windows and rescue...who was inside the building? He imagined a crouched figure inside. Perhaps it was—

He cut off his daydream halfway. Unrealistic.

“Could...could one of the buildings collapse now?” Kai asked nervously.

“Nope,” Mx. Stokes said, hands on their hips. “The entire building is currently in safety mode. Nothing can hurt you right now so long as nobody goes messing around. But some of the beams and stones are very unstable and are liable to collapse if tampered with, so it’s not a good place to experiment if you don’t know it very well. Anybody know the name of this next zone?”

Since they’d reached the bottom of the stairs, Logan had edged closer to the front of the class and was directly in Mx. Stokes line of sight when he raised his hand.

“Logan.”

“The Landslide Zone,” Logan enunciated.

“That’s right,” Mx. Stokes said, turning around to lead then away from the buildings and toward the small town, surrounded by forest and half-buried under the edge of the mountain with mud and rocks. “I think the name is pretty self-explanatory.”

Virgil was astonished with how long it took to walk first to the Landslide Zone and then all the way to the Mountain Zone, around five or six o’clock on Mx. Stokes’ imaginary map. Surely the building didn’t look this big from the outside? If he kept his gaze focused on the mountain, he found he could almost forget he was inside a building.

“Quite a lot of cliffs there,” Mx. Stokes declared after ignoring Logan’s hand to allow Remy to say “Mountain Zone.”  

“Here’s a question,” Mr. Picani said, coming to stand beside Mx. Stokes. “I want each of you to think about your quirk strengths and weaknesses for a moment, and when we get back to the entrance, I’d like to hear which zones you feel work to your advantage and which would be most difficult for you.”

“Does this count as homework?” Remy asked.

Mr. Picani pointed a joking finger at the students. “Be lucky this is Hero Studies and not Literature or I’d have you write an essay on it.” A few students chuckled good-naturedly.

“We’ll take a quick break here,” Mx. Stokes said. “You guys can think about that question and take a quick look around the base of the mountain. No climbing though, okay?”

Some of the students practically sprinted toward the rocks, while Virgil and several others fell gratefully into splayed sitting positions.

“I am going to investigate the rock face, would you like to come?” Logan asked, leaning over Virgil.

“No thanks,” Virgil said. “Think I’m just gonna chill out here.”

“Understood.” Logan sped-walked away, paused to examine a root, and vanished behind a small clump of trees at the base of the mountain.

It is cool, having all this stuff indoors, Virgil admitted to himself. But he was no geology student. He flopped onto his back. The ground felt like real dirt, and he stared through the ceiling’s metal beams to see the clouds drifting lazily overhead. He hadn’t slept well after the news about Mr. Sanders. It was silly but—

He was distracted from his thoughts as Mx. Stokes leaned in to say something to Mr. Picani, too quietly for Virgil to hear except as a mutter. The glass hero touched the other teacher on the arm, and the two took several steps away from the class, though Mr. Picani’s gaze still scanned the students, most of whom had run some distance away or were now chatting amongst themselves. Kai had made a bouncy ball using his goo quirk and he and Kenny were tossing it back and forth, occasionally sprinting after it when it managed to slip through their fingers.

What was Glass saying to Picani? Half-closing his eyes, Virgil rolled onto his side as casually as possible to see the pair better. With the arrest of Mr. Sanders, maybe it was better not to trust anyone, not even the other UA teachers.

From Virgil’s distance, Mx. Stokes’ furrowed brows looked almost sympathetic as he spoke. Picani shooed the younger teacher away after a moment, and Mx. Stokes took a respectful step back.

Something’s going on between those two, Virgil thought. He glanced around to see if any of the other students were watching, but the only one nearby was Patton who was—

Looking at him.

Virgil quickly rolled over and went back to half-closing his eyes. He probably didn’t see that, he tried to convince himself. It didn’t work. He really didn’t like Patton’s eyes. If Virgil had had the courage, he would have watched to see if Patton ever actually blinked, or if his eyes were always staring just a bit. He didn’t look back for several minutes, and was nearly drifting into a nap when Mx. Stokes’ voice broke out again.

“Okay, everybody come back!” Mx. Stokes called. “Roman, you’re class rep, aren’t you? Run around toward the mountain and make sure we’ve got everybody back.”

Virgil pushed himself back into a standing position and dusted himself up without checking to see whether Patton was looking at him.

“Enjoyed your rest?” Logan asked as he approached.

“Enjoyed your investigating?” Virgil responded.

“Thoroughly. They’ve used an ingenious mix of sedimentary rock and artificial materials to create an accurate imitation of a genuine landmass. The trees are growing via an irrigation system routed from the lake under the tile.”

“Who knows the name of the next zone?” Mx. Stokes asked. Logan’s delight at the discovery of sediment and irrigations had distracted him long enough that he had not raised his hand by the time the question was answered.

“The Conflagration or Fire Zone.”

“That’s right, Roman,” Mx. Stokes said. “Let’s start moving that way. And before any of you freak out—” The teacher raised their hands defensively. “The safety settings make the location totally secure.”

A few students scoffed, but Virgil stifled a grateful sigh. The Conflagration Zone, situated near seven o’clock, was the first of the zones covered completely in a dome, this one red instead of clear, with drawn-on flames rising along the sides. Ordinarily, Virgil would have thought of it as a large building, but dwarfed by the entire U.S.J. it was much less impressive. Virgil could almost feel Logan shaking with excitement next to him.

“How does the Conflagration Zone work?” Virgil said, deadpan.

“Very interesting that you would ask!” Logan almost burst out. “Actually, the fire in the space is maintained via a chemical balance, not by burning materials, which regulates it while simulating real fire. Many of the materials inside are actually functionally fireproof. A ventilation system maintains a regulated amount of smoke, and—”

“So,” Mx. Stokes began from the front of the group. Logan trailed off his lecture to listen. “We’re about to go inside the dome now. We are going to stop right inside the entrance, where there won’t be any fire, so don’t break off from the group or run around.”

The doors looked as if they might lead into an ordinary pavillion or museum, but Virgil shivered (ironically, he thought) at the prospect of going inside. He pulled his hood over his head.

“The Conflagration Zone is an environmentally controlled space—” The teacher’s voice changed as he crossed the threshold of the dome, and Virgil was pushed along as the students followed. It was a good thing Logan had already told him about the zone, because he couldn’t hear Mx. Stokes talking over the roaring in his ears.

Like the Ruins Zone, the space contained rubble and several collapsed structures, all engulfed in fire. Standing just inside the door was like facing a raging campfire, and Virgil flushed in the heat. There was no lighting inside the dome besides the flames, so the entire place was illuminated in red and orange. A few mock streets between buildings were the only places away from the entrance that seemed to be totally clear of fire. The class’ brief stay inside was mostly a blur for Virgil, and he breathed deeply when they turned and proceeded back outside. Outside, Virgil realized, was how he thought of the inside of U.S.J., despite the domed ceiling above them.

“Everybody really likes this next spot,” Mx. Stokes said. “Who knows what it’s called?”

“Flood Zone,” a few students said at once.

“Right, sometimes called the Shipwreck Zone,” Mx. Stokes went on. “Nice relief after that heat, huh?”

The students muttered agreement. Near nine o’clock arched the clear blue water of the artificial lake, a large yacht bobbing like a massive buoy two hundred yards from the shore. Behind the lake rose up a small mountain on which perched wooden scaffolding to support a amusement-park-style waterslide, funneling water into the lake. The main slide twisted around several times, reaching the height of an office building, and was wide enough that the entire yacht could have slid inside it. An offshoot from the slide did not come to rest in the water, but jutted out over the zone, spewing water to form a waterfall.

“Looks fun, right?” Mx. Stokes said. “You can’t see from here, but rock formations stab out of the belly of the slide, and the way down is pretty dangerous. The slide and boat are fully functional, though. You guys can check them out when you come back for your first session of rescue training.”

They’d reached the edge of the water, and Mx. Stokes bent down on the mossy shore to reach into the water and cup it in their hand.

“Lightly chlorinated,” they said. “To keep out bacteria and the like. You can even—” and they slurped the water from their hand like they were taking a shot. “Though I don’t necessarily recommend it. Go ahead and touch if you like.”

Several of the students plunged their hands into the water. Kai slipped off his sandles and dipped in his toes. Virgil slid down to sitting and felt the wet ground sink slightly under his weight. When he stuck his fingers into the lake, he could still see them clearly, if slightly distorted in shape and blued in color.

Logan plopped down next to Virgil and plunged his arm in all the way up to his shirt sleeve. When he pulled his hand back out, he’d grasped a fistful of soil from the edge of the water.

“Incredible,” he said, rubbing the grains of sandy dirt between his fingers. “They’ve actually incorporated the lake directly into the ground of the location. The irrigation of the water must be highly advanced.” When he sat back up, the front of his shirt was blurred with mud, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“The lake is connected directly to our next zone,” Mx. Stokes said, gesturing to the dome near ten o’clock. “The Downpour Zone’s ceiling and floor are routed with pipes to and from the lake to create the constant rain without wasting water. Now, I can see you’re all enjoying the lake, but I’m not sure you all would like to walk into the eye of a storm.”

Virgil suspected Logan would enjoy that very much, if it meant a chance to learn about irrigation or whatever it was.

“So, we’re going to walk along the dome and take a look through the doors, and we won’t be getting soaked,” Mx. Stokes said, beginning to walk around the edge of the lake toward the second dome at a brisk trot. Some of the students took an extra moment to get up from the shore, and Kai skipped several steps as he tried to put on his left sandal. Mr. Picani brought up the rear.

“You guys still with me?” Mx. Stokes called over their shoulder smilingly. “We’re almost done, I promise.”

As they approached the final dome, there was a faint sound of thunder from within, muffled by the walls, and Virgil had an image of the Downpour Zone as a snowglobe on Mx. Stokes’ mantlepiece. The dome was indigo and dappled with large painted clouds of blue and purple, intersected with large beams. When the teacher swung the double doors in to let the students peer inside, Virgil remained suspended near the back of the group. He’d seen storms before, and he only had to wait through a few minutes of oohs and ahhs before it was the time he’d been dreading: time to ascend back up all those massive stairs to the exit. Do you want to be a hero or not? he asked himself in an attempt at motivation.

Not that badly, he responded.

The entire group sans Patton and Mr. Picani, who had returned in the elevator, slugged up the stairs. The only students still apparently full of energy were Kai and Logan, who had sparked a conversation in their mutual admiration of the space and were now gibbering away to one another excitedly.

Too discouraged by the stairs to keep up, Virgil walked a few steps behind. It looked like Logan had found a new, more willing set of ears, even if those ears sometimes leaked goo. Virgil found he wasn’t relieved to be rid of Logan’s lecturing, and managed to catch a few snippets of their conversation.

“The production of the building was a direct result of…that’s why I find it so interesting....me too!”

Kai was several inches shorter than Logan, and did pant for breath about halfway up the stairs. Virgil slowed even further, but still caught up to the pair.

“Hello, Virgil,” Logan said. He was smiling. “Kai also knows a lot regarding the history of U.S.J.”

“I’m a big Glass fan,” Kai said, pausing to catch his breath. “I figured.” Virgil hadn’t meant to sound so cold, but Kai’s nose was leaking goo again. The shorter boy sniffed and then suddenly tensed. “Oh no, don’t—” Virgil didn’t get a chance to finish before Kai let out a massive sneeze, splattering Virgil with flecks of goo like smashed Jell-O.

“Oh, gross!” he said instinctively, shoving Kai away from him. Whether the other student was already thrown off balance or whether he’d pushed harder than he meant to Virgil was never quite sure, but Kai tumbled back and would have fallen onto his butt if Logan had not been directly behind him. Too surprised to catch Kai, Logan fell back against the railing of the stairs with an “oof,” Kai essentially in his lap. His glasses went flying.

Kai exclaimed and threw out one hand as if to catch the glasses, and they were enveloped suddenly by goo shot from his fingers before they flew past the safety rail and over the edge of the tall, tall staircase.

Kai almost screamed. “I’m really sorry!” he said, covering the noise of Virgil swearing.

Virgil leaned down to drag Kai to his feet — he was very light — and take Logan by the hand.

“I think my glasses…” Logan muttered.

“They went over the edge,” Virgil said. “Gosh, I’m so so sorry, will you need new ones? Can you see okay? Should I—”

“Oh, they’re not broken!” Kai insisted.

“What?” Logan got back to his feet.

“They’re not broken,” Kai said. “My goo is a shock absorber, they’ll be protected.”

“Everything okay back there?” Mx. Stokes had been leading the group, but paused when Kai shouted, and had now turned around to approach them. Mr. Picani appeared at the top of the steps after exiting the elevator with Patton and was also peering down to see why the group had paused.

“We’re so sorry, Mx. Stokes,” Virgil stuttered. “It was my fault. Logan’s glasses fell over the side of the stairs.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Mx. Stokes said after a beat. They leaned over the guardrail to peer into the Ruins Zone below. “Can’t see much from here, huh? Well, why don’t you — and what’s your name, kid?” They planted their left hand on Virgil’s shoulder.

“Virgil.”

“Okay, Virgil, I don’t think Logan here will be much help to you down there.”

Logan had, in fact, lost his depth perception and was experimentally walking up and down the nearest three steps with only minimal success.

“You...you want me to go down there?” Virgil asked. He was unsure how to put confused emphasis on every word in a sentence at once.

Mx. Stokes tapped their thumb against their lip. “Here, Virgil, why don’t you take your class rep, he’s a popular guy, right? His light quirk will be a big help down there.” Virgil had no time to protest before Mx. Stokes was waving. “Hey, Roman! Hop down here a minute!”

Roman was near the front of the group but trooped down the steps at the sound of his name. Mx. Stokes slapped their right hand onto his shoulder so they stood in a T-pose connecting the boys (albeit a crooked T, because Roman was taller than Virgil).

“You’re gonna take a jaunt with Virgil here to recover Logan’s glasses,” Mx. Stokes said. “Think of it like a real hero mission, boys.”

Roman looked unimpressed.

“Now,” Mx. Stokes went on. “Safety settings are still on in all zones, so there’s nothing dangerous down there so long as neither of you messes with anything. Just go ahead and run down there and right back up and we’ll hold the bus for you.” They lightly smacked both the boys’ shoulders and jogged away, gesturing for the rest of the class to follow.

“I really appreciate it, Virgil,” Logan said, touching Virgil’s arm lightly before walking away and leaving Virgil facing Roman on the middle of the stair.

The two stared at one another for a second before Roman huffed and started off down the steps. “Well, are we going or not?”

Virgil bit his tongue. He supposed putting up with Roman was enough of a punishment for sending Logan’s glasses spiraling into a collapsed city, and began to follow the other boy down, loath to think that he’d have to climb the stairs all over again.

When Virgil reached the base of the steps, Roman had wandered a few steps into the city and was staring around the ground, occasionally swearing under his breath.

“Thought you and Specs were buddies or something,” he said, peering under some fallen beams. “What’d you knock his glasses off for?”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Virgil snapped.

“Geez, chill out,” Roman said, straightening up. “Just a question. Where did the damn things go, anyhow?”

“They fell over there,” Virgil said, pointing deeper into the ruins. There were a number of beams arching above the walk and though a strong sunlight was coming through the ceiling, it was difficult to see underneath them. “Why don’t you just use your quirk?”

“I don’t need to use it for everything!” Roman said a little too loudly.

“Geez, just a question,” Virgil said, imitating Roman and sticking out his tongue. “What, jealous since you’re basically quirkless anyway?”

“Hey, fuck off!” Virgil said, bristling. “I didn’t drag you down here or anything.”

“You said it was your fault the stupid things fell.” Roman took a few steps toward Virgil, his hands balled into fists.

“Yeah, but it’s not my fault that you’re acting like a massive ass,” Virgil snarled.

“Oh, fuck off, I’ll get the stupid things myself.” Roman whirled around. He stalked away, shaking slightly at the shoulders. Just as he was about to round the corner of one of the collapsed buildings, he took a furious swing at a low hanging beam, the impact of which created a hollow groaning sound. Roman kept walking.

Virgil was about to follow him when suddenly the groaning grew instead of faded, and the beam shuddered and collapsed directly over Roman’s head.

#studywritesstuff #sanders sides #fanfiction #fanfic #fic

[son-of-alderaan]

There’s a desert valley in southern Jordan called Wadi Rum, or sometimes “the Valley of the Moon.” There are stone inscriptions in Wadi Rum that are more than 2,000 years old. Lawrence of Arabia passed through there during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. More recently, J. J. Abrams went there to film parts of the latest Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, because it’s largely uninhabited and starkly beautiful and looks plausibly alien, and one of the things that has always made the Star Wars movies feel so real—as if they had a real life of their own that continues on out beyond the edges of the screen—is the way they’re shot on location, with as few digital effects as possible. George Lucas shot the Tatooine scenes from A New Hope in southern Tunisia. For Skywalker, it’s Wadi Rum.

They don’t do it that way because it’s easy. Abrams and his crew had to build miles of road into the desert. They basically had to set up a small town out there, populated by the cast and extras and crew—the creature-effects department alone had 70 people. The Jordanian military got involved. The Jordanian royal family got involved. There was sand. There were sandstorms, when all you could do was take cover and huddle in your tent and—if you’re John Boyega, who plays the ex-Stormtrooper Finn—listen to reggae.

But in a way that’s the whole point: you’re out there so the world can get up in your grill and make its presence felt on film. “It’s the things that you can’t anticipate—the imperfections,” says Oscar Isaac, who plays the Resistance pilot Poe Dameron. “It’s very difficult to design imperfection, and the imperfections that you have in these environments immediately create a sense of authenticity. You just believe it more.” When Isaac arrived in Wadi Rum for his first week of shooting, Abrams had set up a massive greenscreen in the middle of the desert. “And I was like, ‘J. J., can I ask you a question? I notice we’re shooting on greenscreen.’ And he’s like, ‘So why the hell are we in the desert?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ And he said, ‘Well, because look: the way that the sand interacts with the light, and the type of shots you would set up—if you were designing the shot on a computer you would never even think to do that.’ There’s something about the way that the light and the environment and everything plays together.” It’s that something, the presence and the details and the analog imperfections of a real nondigital place, that makes Star Wars so powerful.

It was powerful enough to bring 65,000 people to Chicago in April for Star Wars Celebration, a fan convention where you could see a giant Stormtrooper head made out of 36,440 tiny Lego Stormtrooper mini-figures, which is a world record of some kind, though I’m not sure exactly what, and where people were dressed up as Muppets who were themselves dressed up as Star Wars characters. But the main event was the launch of the trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, which was held in a 10,000-seat arena and was such a big deal that even though the trailer was going to be released on the Internet literally seconds after it was over, I—an at least theoretically respectable member of the media—was not only tagged, wristbanded, escorted, and metal-detected, but sniffed by a K-9 unit before I could go in.

J.J. Abrams, alongside Stunt Coordinator Eunice Huthart, directs the Knights of Ren; elite fearsome enforcers of Kylo Ren’s dark will.

I sat down with Abrams a couple of hours later. For the occasion, he was wearing a suit so black and sharp, he could have been doing Men in Black cosplay, but his most distinctive feature is his dark curly hair, which is upswept in a way that is only slightly suggestive of devil horns. Abrams talks rapidly, as if he can barely keep up with the things his racing brain is telling him to say. When I told him that not only was Star Wars the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter, but that all 10 of the Top 10 trending topics were Star Wars–related, and that he personally was No. 5, he was visibly stunned.

Then he recovered enough to say: “Well, I aspire to No. 4.” (For the record, No. 4 was the late Supreme Leader Snoke, who frankly did seem beatable. If you’re curious, No. 11 was pro golfer Zach Johnson, who had just accidentally hit his ball with a practice swing at the Masters. Life goes on.)

Disney executives talk about how important it is to “event-ize” Star Wars movies; i.e., to make them feel not just like movies but like seriously momentous occasions. They won’t have much trouble with this one: The Rise of Skywalker isn’t just the last movie in the Star Wars trilogy that began in 2015 with The Force Awakens; it’s the last movie in a literal, actual trilogy of trilogies that started with the very first Star Wars movie back in 1977, which began the saga of the Skywalker family. The Rise of Skywalker will finally, after 42 years, bring that saga to an end.

FIRST LOOK Vanity Fair reveals Keri Russell as the masked scoundrel Zorri Bliss, seen in the Thieves’ Quarter of the snow-dusted world Kijimi.

We all thought the story was over in 1983 with Return of the Jedi, and then we really thought it was over in 2005 with Revenge of the Sith. But Star Wars has always been an unruly beast, too big and powerful (and profitable) to be contained in one movie, or even in a trilogy, or even in two trilogies, let alone numberless novels, TV shows, comics, video games, Happy Meals, and so on. Now Abrams has to gather all those threads and bring closure to a story that was started by somebody else, in an America that feels a very long time ago indeed. “That’s the challenge of this movie,” Abrams says. “It wasn’t just to make one film that as a stand-alone experience would be thrilling, and scary, and emotional, and funny, but one that if you were to watch all nine of the films, you’d feel like, Well, of course—that!”

Like a lot of things that we now can’t imagine life without, Star Wars came really close to never happening in the first place. In 1971, Lucas was a serious young auteur just five years out of film school at U.S.C. He had only one full-length movie on his résumé, and that was THX 1138, which is the kind of visionary but grindingly earnest science-fiction epic that only the French could love. (They were pretty much the only ones who did.) Everybody expected Lucas to go on and make serious, gritty 1970s cinema like his peers, Brian De Palma and Francis Ford Coppola. At the time Lucas and Coppola were actively planning a radical epic set in Vietnam with the provocative title Apocalypse Now.

FORCE MAJEURE First Order leaders General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Allegiant General Pryde (Richard E. Grant) on the bridge of Kylo Ren’s destroyer.

But Coppola would have to finish that one on his own, because Lucas went a different way. “I had decided there was no modern mythology,” he said in 1997. “I wanted to take old myths and put them into a new format that young people could relate to. Mythology always existed in unusual, unknown environments, so I chose space.” Lucas tried to acquire the rights to Flash Gordon (that would’ve been a dark timeline indeed), but when he couldn’t, he came up with his own original science-fictional epic instead. He called it The Star Wars. Like The Facebook, it would have to shed a direct article on its way to glory.

Even though American Graffiti had made Lucas a bankable director, Star Wars still came together slowly. In the first draft, Luke was an old man, Leia was 14, and Han Solo was “a huge green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills.” Fox executives were baffled by Star Wars, and they squeezed Lucas relentlessly for time and money. We forget now how jerry-rigged the first movie was: the cantina aliens weren’t finished, and the monumental Star Destroyer that dominates the opening shot is, in reality, about three feet long. The Death Star interior is basically one set re-arranged several different ways. To make Greedo’s mouth move, the woman in the Greedo suit had to hold a clothespin in her mouth. “What I remember about working on the first film,” says John Williams, the legendary soundtrack composer, “is the fact that I didn’t ever think there would be a second film.” (He also, like everybody else, thought Luke and Leia were going to get together, so he wrote them a love theme.)

But wherever real mythology comes from, Lucas had gone there and brought something back alive. People wanted movies that gave them something to believe in instead of relentlessly autopsying the beliefs that had failed them. We’d had enough of antiheroes. We needed some anti-antiheroes. “I realized after THX that people don’t care about how the country’s being ruined,” Lucas said. “We’ve got to regenerate optimism.” Like American Graffiti, Star Wars is a work of profound nostalgia, a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate anthem of longing for the restoration of a true and just power in the universe—the return of the king. And at the same time it’s a very personal hero’s journey, about a boy who must put right the sins of his father and master the strange power he finds within himself, and in doing so become a man.

Star Wars is also an incredibly enduring vision of what it’s like to live in a world of super-advanced technology. Science fiction often ages badly, turning into kitsch or camp—just look at Flash Gordon—but Star Wars hasn’t. More than any filmmaker before him, Lucas successfully imagined what a science-fictional world would feel like to somebody who was actually inside it—which is to say, it would look as ordinary and workaday as the present. He even shot it like it was real, working close-in and mostly eschewing wide establishing shots, more like a documentary or a newsreel than a space opera. “It feels very grounded,” says Naomi Ackie, who’s making her Star Wars debut in Skywalker playing a character named Jannah, about whom she is allowed to say literally nothing. “There’s the kind of spectacular-ness, and the supernatural move-things-with-your-mind magic stuff, but then there’s also this really grounded, rugged nature where everything is distressed and old and kind of worn out and lived-in. And I think playing with those two ideas means that you get this feeling that it could almost be real. Like, in a galaxy far away, it could almost be the case that you could have this.”

When Lucas made the first Star Wars sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, he cheekily labeled it Episode V, then went back and re-labeled the first movie as Episode IV, as if the movies were an old-fashioned serial that the rest of us were all just tuning in to. Around that time, he also started talking about Star Wars as a nine-part epic—so in 2012, when Lucas retired and sold Lucasfilm to Disney, it wasn’t exactly heresy that Disney announced more movies. At the time, Kathleen Kennedy had just been named co-chairperson of Lucasfilm, and she tapped Abrams to direct the first Disney-owned post-Lucas Star Wars movie. It was a bit like saying, Make the lightning strike again, please. Exactly here, if you could. Oh, and could you also earn back that $4 billion we just spent to buy Lucasfilm? (Narrator voice: He could.)

At first blush, Abrams’s debut Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, looked like an elaborate homage to the original. Just like in A New Hope, there’s a young Force-sensitive person on a poor desert planet—that’s Rey, played by Daisy Ridley—who finds a droid with a secret message that’s vital to the Rebellion (or wait, sorry, it’s the Resistance now). There’s a villain in a black mask, just like Darth Vader, except that it’s his grandson Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), né Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia. Kylo has a planet-killing weapon, much like the Death Star but way bigger, which becomes the target of a desperate attack by Resistance X-wings. There’s even a bar full of aliens.

Abrams also insisted on keeping to the analog aesthetic of the original trilogy: those aliens had to be latex and yak hair, not bits and bytes, and everything possible was shot on location using film cameras, not digital ones. Even Lucas had abandoned that approach by the time he made the second Star Wars trilogy, but many fans consider those movies to be a cautionary tale. “Famously, the prequels were mostly greenscreen environments,” Abrams says. “And that was George himself doing that, and it ended up looking exactly how he wanted it to look—and I always preferred the look of the original movies, because I just remember when you’re in the snow on Hoth, when you’re in the desert on Tatooine, and when you’re in the forests of Endor—it’s amazing. If you put a vaporator here, there, all of a sudden almost any natural location suddenly becomes a Star Wars location.”

But the more interesting thing about The Force Awakens and its successor, The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson, was how they subtly complicated Lucas’s vision. Thirty years have gone by since the ending of Return of the Jedi, during which time the newly reborn Republic became complacent and politically stagnant, allowing the rise of the reactionary neo-imperial First Order, whose origins we will learn more about in Skywalker. “It was almost like if the Argentine Nazis had sort of got together and actually started to bring that back in some real form,” Abrams says. Just like that, the rules of the Star Wars universe changed. It wasn’t all over when the Ewoks sang. Obi-Wan Kenobi and all those Bothans had died in vain. Even Han and Leia split up. It’s all a little less of a fairy tale now.

The feather-haired godling Luke suffered the trauma of having a Padawan go bad on his watch. It’s an echo of what happened to his old mentor, Obi-Wan, with Anakin Skywalker, who became Darth Vader. But where Obi-Wan made peace with it, waiting serenely in the desert of Tatooine for the next Chosen One to arrive, Luke’s guilt curdled into shame. He hid himself away, so that his Chosen One, Rey, had to spend most of The Force Awakens searching for him, and then another whole movie convincing him with the help of Yoda’s Force ghost to keep the Jedi Order going at all. Star Wars arrived as an antidote to the disillusionment of the 1970s—but now, in its middle age, Star Wars is grappling with disillusionment of its own.

DESERT POWER Joonas Suotamo (Chewbacca), Ridley, Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), and John Boyega (Finn) await the call to action for a chase scene.

By dint of advanced Sith interrogation techniques, I was able to obtain valuable advance information about The Rise of Skywalker. Here it is: common emblem.

Anthony Daniels, who plays C-3P0, is the only actor who has appeared in all nine movies of the Star Wars triple trilogy, so if anybody’s entitled to leak, it’s him. Daniels says he loved the script for The Rise of Skywalker, but he didn’t get it until the last minute, right before shooting started, and for some reason he just couldn’t memorize his part. “My first line would not go in my head!” he says. In person Daniels is like a C-3P0 whose preferences have been reset to charming and voluble. “The line that I couldn’t say was two words: ‘common emblem.’ Common emblem, common emblem—I would say them thousands of times. My wife would say it back. I just couldn’t say them!”

Fortunately C-3P0’s mouth doesn’t move, so he could add the line in postproduction. Anyway, there’s the big scoop: “common emblem.” I don’t know what it means either. (Also I 100 percent guarantee that they will change the line before the movie comes out so that this scoop will end up being fake news.) Daniels also told me that C-3P0 does something in this movie that surprises everybody—but he wouldn’t say what. “He keeps his clothes on. It’s not like he suddenly does this thing, but …”

The only other member of the old guard on the set this time was Billy Dee Williams, who plays the charismatic Lando Calrissian. At 82, Williams has lost none of his roguish charm, but now it comes wrapped in a kind of magisterial dignity. People tend to remember Lando for the deal he cut with Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, rather than for his redemptive comeback in Return of the Jedi, and Williams appears to have spent the last 45 years defending him. “He’s a survivor. It’s expediency for him,” Williams says. “You know, he was thrown into a situation which he didn’t look for and he had to try to figure out how to deal with an entity which is more than just a human.” And, he adds, with the weary air of somebody who has spent way too much time justifying the behavior of a fictional character, “nobody died!”

HOT TAKE Members of the crew shade and shine Daniels, the only cast member to appear in all nine of the Skywalker films, while BB-8 looks on.

Chewbacca is still here, too, but it’s not the same man in the suit. The original actor was Peter Mayhew, a seven-foot-three-inch gentle giant who was working as a hospital orderly in London when Lucas cast him in the first movie. Mayhew retired after The Force Awakens, and he died on April 30 at 74. His replacement is Joonas Suotamo, a fresh-faced former professional basketball player from Finland who always wanted to be an actor but was hard to cast because he’s six feet 11 inches tall. “When I first met [Mayhew] he told me I was a wee bit too skinny,” Suotamo says. “But we also had a Wookiee boot camp, which lasted for a week. He told me all kinds of things about the moves that Chewbacca does, how they came to be and his reasoning behind them.” Suotamo has now played Chewbacca in four movies and enjoys it about as much as I’ve ever seen anybody enjoy anything. “It’s very much like silent-era film, with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin,” he says. “He’s a mime character and that’s what he does, and I guess in that minimalism comes the beauty of the character.”

Other things we know about Skywalker: We can safely assume that the Resistance and the First Order are headed toward a final smash, which will be a heavy lift for the good guys because, at the end of The Last Jedi, the Resistance was down, way down, to a double handful of survivors. They’ll face a First Order who suffered a stinging but largely symbolic loss at the Battle of Crait, and who, I feel confident, have learned something from the previous eight movies. The Empire built and lost two Death Stars. The First Order has already lost one super-weapon in The Force Awakens. Presumably it won’t make the same mistake twice, twice.

But the stakes go even higher than that, cosmically high. Sources close to the movie say that Skywalker will at long last bring to a climax the millennia-long conflict between the Jedi Order and its dark shadow, the Sith.

HORSING AROUND Finn and new ally Jannah (Naomi Ackie), atop hardy orbaks, lead the charge against the mechanized forces of the First Order. “It’s extremely surreal to be in it,” says Ackie, “and see how it works from the inside.”

STAR CROSSED Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Rey battle it out with lightsabers in a stormy confrontation. Their Force-connection—what Driver calls their “maybe-bond”—will turn out to run even deeper than previously revealed.

The hottest area for speculation, however, is the identity of the titular Skywalker, because at this point there aren’t many Skywalkers left to rise. One is General Organa, the former Princess Leia, Luke’s sister—but Carrie Fisher, who plays her, passed away in 2016. That was a deeply painful loss for Abrams personally, but it also presented him with an impossible choice as a filmmaker. He needed Leia to tell the story, but Abrams didn’t feel like a digital Carrie Fisher could do the job, and there was no way Lucasfilm was going to re-cast the role.

But then a strange thing happened. Abrams remembered that there was some footage of Fisher left over from The Force Awakens, scenes that had been changed or cut entirely, and he dug them up. “It’s hard to even talk about it without sounding like I’m being some kind of cosmic spiritual goofball,” Abrams says, “but it felt like we suddenly had found the impossible answer to the impossible question.” He started to write scenes around the old footage, fitting Leia’s dialogue into new contexts. He re-created the lighting to match the way Fisher had been lit. Bit by bit, she found her place in the new movie. “It was a bizarre kind of left side/right side of the brain sort of Venn diagram thing, of figuring out how to create the puzzle based on the pieces we had.” Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd, appears in the movies as a Resistance officer named Lieutenant Connix, and at first Abrams deliberately wrote her out of the scenes in case it was too painful—but Lourd said no, she wanted to be in them. “And so, there are moments where they’re talking; there are moments where they’re touching,” Abrams says. “There are moments in this movie where Carrie is there, and I really do feel there is an element of the uncanny, spiritual, you know, classic Carrie, that it would have happened this way, because somehow it worked. And I never thought it would.”

The only other member of the surviving Skywalker bloodline—that we know of!—is Leia’s son and Luke’s former Padawan, the fallen Jedi Kylo Ren. Kylo probably isn’t capable of actual happiness, but things are definitely looking up for him: by the end of The Last Jedi he has taken control of the First Order and killed or at least outlived his actual father and both of his symbolic fathers-in-art, Luke and Supreme Leader Snoke. Sources at Disney also confirm that his long-rumored Knights of Ren will finally arrive in Skywalker. “And then he had been forging this maybe-bond with Rey,” Driver says, “and it kind of ends with the question in the air: is he going to pursue that relationship, or when the door of her ship goes up, does that also close that camaraderie that they were maybe forming?”

SANDBLAST Camera operator Colin Anderson readies a take for a chase sequence spotlighting the heroics of Chewbacca, BB-8, and Rey.

Darkness in the Star Wars movies tends to come from fear: for Anakin Skywalker, Kylo’s grandfather, it was his fear of losing his mother and his wife. After two movies it’s still not so easy to say exactly what Kylo Ren himself fears, even though he’s as operatically emo as Vader was stoic. He’s fixated on the past—he made a shrine to his own grandfather—but at the same time the past torments him. “Let the past die,” he tells Rey in The Last Jedi. “Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.”

Presumably whatever’s eating at Kylo started in his childhood: maybe being the kid of literally the two coolest people in the galaxy isn’t as fun as it sounds. Driver—who has obviously thought this through with a lot of rigor—points out that, as cool as they are, Han and Leia are both obsessively committed to lifestyles (smuggling, rebelling) that don’t leave much room for kids. He also points out that, unlike Luke and Rey, Kylo never got to go on a nifty voyage of self-discovery. Instead he grew up under the crushing pressure of massive expectations. “How do you form friendships out of that?” Driver says. “How do you understand the weight of that? And if there’s no one around you guiding you, or articulating things the right way … it can easily go awry.” By the emotional logic that governs the Star Wars universe—and also our own—Kylo Ren is going to have to confront the past, and his fears, whatever they are, or be destroyed by them.

Where Lucas’s trilogies tended to follow the roots and branches of the Skywalker family tree—their personal saga was the saga of the galaxy writ small—the new movies have a slightly wider aperture and take in a new generation of heroes. There’s Rey, of course, who sources say will have progressed in her training since the end of The Last Jedi to the point where it’s almost complete. With that taken care of, all she has to do is reconstitute the entire Jedi Order from scratch, because as far as we know she’s the Last One.

If Kylo Ren can’t be redeemed it will almost certainly fall to Rey to put him down, in spite of their maybe-bond. Their relationship is the closest thing the new trilogy has to a star-crossed love story on the order of Han and Leia: a source close to the movie says that their Force-connection will turn out to run even deeper than we thought. They’re uniquely suited to understand each other, but at the same time they are in every way each other’s inverse, down to Kylo’s perverse rejection of his family, which is the one thing Rey craves most. “I think there’s a part of Rey that’s like, dude, you fucking had it all, you had it all,” Ridley says. “That was always a big question during filming: you had it all and you let it go.”

PUNCH IT! In a historic reunion, Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) retakes the helm of the Millennium Falcon, joined by Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Chewbacca, D-O, and BB-8. “He’s a survivor,” Williams says of Lando.

Rey is also, according to totally unsubstantiated Internet theories, a leading candidate to be the Skywalker of the title, pending some kind of head-snapping reveal about her ancestry. (For the record, the other leading unsubstantiated Internet theory has the “Skywalker” of the title referring to an entirely new order of Force users who will rise up and replace the Jedi.)

Rey seems ready for it all, or as ready as anybody could be. “It’s nice having that shot at the beginning of the teaser,” Ridley says, over avocado toast at a fancy Chicago hotel, “because I think it’s quite a good visual representation of where she is now: confident, calm, less fearful.… It’s still sort of overwhelming, but in a different way. It feels more right—less like inevitable and more like there’s a focus to the journey.” Focus is a good word for Rey: on-screen Ridley’s dramatic eyebrows form a wickedly sharp arrow of concentration. I asked Ridley what she’s thinking about when Rey is using her Force powers, and it turns out Rey seems focused because Ridley is actually seriously focused. “I literally visualize it. When I was lifting rocks I was visualizing the rocks moving. And then I was like, Oh, my God, I made it happen! And obviously there’s loads of rocks on strings, so, no, I didn’t. But I visualize that it’s really going on.” (That scene, which comes at the end of The Last Jedi, is another example of classic nondigital Star Wars effects: those were real rocks. “It was actually really amazing,” Ridley says. “It was sort of like a baby mobile.”)

There’s also Finn, the apostate Stormtrooper, played by the irrepressible Boyega, who in person practically vibrates with energy and speaks with a South London accent very different from Finn’s American one. In some ways Finn has gone through a complete character arc already: he confronted his past—by beating down his old boss, Captain Phasma—and found his courage and his moral center. He has had a tendency to panic, if not actively desert, in clutch situations, but at the Battle of Crait he proved that he was past that. “I think he’s just an active member of the Resistance now,” Boyega says. “Episode Eight, he couldn’t decide what team he was fighting for. But since then he’s made a clear decision.” (Cast members tend to refer to the Star Wars movies by their episode numbers: four is the original movie, seven is The Force Awakens, and so on.)

Finn still has to make a clear decision about his romantic situation, though. As Boyega put it at Star Wars Celebration: “Finn is single and willing to mingle!” The movies have been teasing his emotional connections with both Rey and the Resistance mechanic Rose Tico, played by Kelly Marie Tran, with whom he shared a fleeting battlefield kiss in The Last Jedi. Rose seems like the more positive choice, given that she stops Finn from deserting early in the movie and saves his life at the Battle of Crait, and that the precedents for romantic involvements with Jedi are extremely bad. Tran is the first Asian-American woman to play a major role in a Star Wars movie, and she has been the target of both racist and sexist attacks online. But she has come through them as a fan favorite: when she appeared onstage in Chicago, she got a standing ovation.

Finally there’s Poe, who has mostly struggled with his own cocky impulsiveness, because he’s a loose-cannon-who-just-can’t-play-by-the-rules. Poe will have to step up and become a leader, because the Resistance is seriously short on officer material. In fact, some of that transformation will already have happened where The Rise of Skywalker picks up, which is about a year after the end of The Last Jedi. “There has been a bit of shared history that you haven’t seen,” Isaac says. “Whereas in the other films, Poe is this kind of lone wolf, now he’s really part of a group. They’re going out and going on missions and have a much more familiar dynamic now.” Star Wars has always been about friendship as much as it is about romance, and as of the end of The Last Jedi, Rey, Finn, and Poe are all finally in the same place for the first time since The Force Awakens.

The Rise of Skywalker introduces some new players, too. There’s a tiny one-wheeled droid called D-O and a large banana-slug alien named Klaud. Oh, and Naomi Ackie, Keri Russell, and Richard E. Grant have all joined the cast, though, again, we know practically nothing about who they’re playing. Going from being outside the Star Wars leviathan to being right in its belly can be a dizzying experience for a first-timer. “I actually tried to do this thing while we were filming,” Ackie says, “where I’d go one day, walking through London without seeing a Star Wars reference somewhere. And you can’t do it. You really can’t. So it’s extremely surreal to be in it and see how it works from the inside.

WELL MET Jordanian locals play the Aki-Aki, natives of the planet Pasaana.

If anything, Star Wars is only getting more omnipresent. The franchise under Lucas was a colossus, but he still ran it essentially as a private concern. He could make movies or not, as his muse dictated—he was beholden to no shareholders. But Star Wars under Disney makes the old Star Wars look positively quaint. Between 1977 and 2005, Lucasfilm released six Star Wars movies; when Skywalker premieres in December, Disney will have released five Star Wars movies in five years. “I think there is a larger expectation that Disney has,” Kennedy says. “On the other hand, though, I think that Disney is very respectful of what this is, and right from the beginning we talked about the fragility of this form of storytelling. Because it’s something that means so much to fans that you can’t turn this into some kind of factory approach. You can’t even do what Marvel does, necessarily, where you pick characters and build new franchises around those characters. This needs to evolve differently.”

A useful example of that fragility might be the relatively modest performance of Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018. Solo was a perfectly good Star Wars movie that has made almost $400 million worldwide—but it’s also, according to industry estimates, the first one to actually lose money. In response Disney has gently but firmly pumped the brakes: the first movie in the next Star Wars trilogy, which will be helmed by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, the duo behind Game of Thrones, won’t arrive till Christmas of 2022, with further installments every other year after that. There’s no official word as to what stories they’ll tell, or when a second trilogy being developed by Rian Johnson will appear.

But even as the movies pause, Star Wars continues to colonize any and all other media. In addition to video games, comics, novels, cartoons, container-loads of merch, etc., there are not one but two live-action TV series in the pipeline for Disney+, Disney’s new streaming service: The Mandalorian, created by Jon Favreau, and an as-yet-untitled show about Cassian Andor from Rogue One. I have personally tried a virtual-reality experience called Vader Immortal,written and produced by Dark Knight screenwriter David Goyer. At the end of May, Disneyland will open Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, a massive, 14-acre, $1 billion attraction where you can fly the Millennium Falcon, be captured by the First Order, and drink a blue milk cocktail (it’s actually nondairy) and Coca-Cola products out of exclusive BB-8-shaped bottles at the cantina. It’s the largest single-theme expansion in the park’s history: Take that, Toy Story Land. The Disney World version will open in August.

You realize now that, under Lucas, Star Wars always slightly had the brakes on—we were always kept a little starved for product. With Disney driving, we’ll really find out how big Star Wars can get.

ENCORE Composer John Williams conducting the Star Wars score, drawing on themes and motifs he has woven across four decades. “I didn’t think there would ever be a second film,” he says.

When people talk about the new Star Wars movies, they tend to talk about how faithful they are to the originals. What’s harder to say is how exactly the new films are different—how movies like Skywalker keep their connection to the past while at the same time finding a way to belong to the world of 2019. Because regardless of whether or not Star Wars has changed since 1977, the world around it has, profoundly. “There’s a loss of innocence, a sense of innocence that existed in the 70s that I don’t think to any extent exists today,” Kennedy says. “I think that has to permeate the storytelling and the reaction to the stories and how they’re set up. It has to feel differently because we’re different.”

We know things, as a people and as an audience, that we didn’t know back then. For example: back then it felt sort of O.K. to like Darth Vader, because even though he was evil he was also incredibly cool, and the kind of fascism he represented felt like a bogeyman from the distant past. But now fascism is rising again, which makes the whole First Order subplot look super-prescient, but it also reminds us that fascism is not even slightly cool in real life. “Evil needs to feel and look very real,” Kennedy says, “and what that means today may not be as black-and-white as it might have been in 1977, coming off a kind of World War II sensibility.” In the Star Wars–verse, Dark and Light are supposed to balance each other, but in the real world they just mix together into a hopelessly foggy, morally ambiguous gray.

But the changes are liberating too. Star Wars doesn’t have to stay frozen in time; if anything it’s the opposite, if it doesn’t change it’ll die. It will turn into Flash Gordon. For Abrams, that means he can’t go through this process so haunted by the ghost of George Lucas (who is of course still alive, but you get what I’m saying) that he winds up doing a cinematic Lucas impression. At some point Abrams has to let Abrams be Abrams.

The Rise of Skywalker might be that point. “Working on nine, I found myself approaching it slightly differently,” he says. “Which is to say that, on seven, I felt beholden to Star Wars in a way that was interesting—I was doing what to the best of my ability I felt Star Wars should be.” But this time something changed. Abrams found himself making different choices—for the camera angles, the lighting, the story. “It felt slightly more renegade; it felt slightly more like, you know, Fuck it, I’m going to do the thing that feels right because it does, not because it adheres to something.”

There are a lot of small subtle ways that Abrams’s Star Wars is different from Lucas’s, but if there’s a standout, it’s the way that the new movies look at history. Lucas’s Star Wars movies are bathed in the deep golden-sunset glow of the idyllic Old Republic, that more civilized age—but the new movies aren’t like that. They’re not nostalgic. They don’t long for the past; they’re more about the promise of the future. “This trilogy is about this young generation, this new generation, having to deal with all the debt that has come before,” Abrams says. “And it’s the sins of the father, and it’s the wisdom and the accomplishments of those who did great things, but it’s also those who committed atrocities, and the idea that this group is up against this unspeakable evil and are they prepared? Are they ready? What have they learned from before? It’s less about grandeur. It’s less about restoring an old age. It’s more about preserving a sense of freedom and not being one of the oppressed.”

FROM THE ASHES Mark Hamill, as Luke, with R2-D2. Speculation is rampant about who will “rise” as the Skywalker of the movie’s title—and how that choice will reflect the way the world has changed since Star Wars debuted in 1977.

The new generation doesn’t have that same connection to the old days that Luke and Leia did. It’s not like their parents destroyed the Old Republic. We don’t even know who their parents were! They’re too young to remember the Empire. They’re just here to clean up the mess they got left with, the disastrous consequences of bad decisions made by earlier generations, and try to survive long enough to see the future. Is any of this resonating with 2019? Might there possibly be a generation around here somewhere that’s worried about the consequences of its own decisions for the future? Star Wars has never been and probably never should be a vehicle for political arguments, but to paraphrase Ursula Le Guin, great science fiction is never really about the future. It’s about the present.

You could even—if you’re into that kind of thing—imagine the story of the new Star Wars trilogy as a metaphor for the making of the new Star Wars trilogy. In fact, I was totally prepared—because I am into that kind of thing!—to try to push this overthought metafictional hot take onto Abrams … but I didn’t have to. Abrams got there ahead of me. “The idea of the movie is kind of how I felt going into the movie as a filmmaker,” he says, “which is to say that I’ve inherited all this stuff, great stuff, and good wisdom, and the good and the bad, and it’s all coming to this end, and the question is, do we have what it takes to succeed?”

Kylo Ren has it all wrong: you can’t bring back the past and become your own grandfather, and you can’t kill the past, either. All you can do is make your peace with it and learn from it and move on. Abrams is doing that with Star Wars—and meanwhile the Resistance is going to have to do that, too, if they really are going to bring this saga to an end. Because we’ve been here before, watching a band of scrappy rebels take down a technofascist empire, and it seemed to work fine at the time—but it didn’t last. The same goes for the Jedi and their struggle with the Sith. To end this story, really end it, they’re going to have to figure out the conditions of a more permanent victory over the forces of darkness. Their past was imperfect at best, and the present is a complete disaster—but the future is all before them. This time, finally, they’re going to get it right.

#star wars tros #the rise of skywalker #vanity fair #long post

[marveldc-imagines-hub]

Ice Packs (Wade Wilson x Reader)

A/N: This is one of the many non-requested pieces I’ve had in my drafts forever, and I was recently really drawn to finally writing the piece. It ended up taking a different turn than I expected, but I’m really proud of how in 

Warnings for swearing and some sexual humor because, duh, it’s Deadpool aaaaaannnd a little bit of angst maybe. Is this considered angst? I don’t know. Also, minor Deadpool 2 spoilers (mention of Cable, Domino, and the events regarding Vanessa) but Deadpool 2 spoilers nonetheless; this piece takes place after it.

Anyway, enjoy!

~~~

Tapping on the window of your (number) floor apartment drew your attention away from the evening activity you were pursuing. Upon further inspection--turning your head a few degrees to the right in order to peer out said window--you felt yourself relax as you recognized the white-eyed, masked face looking back at you.

“Hold on a sec, Wade--I mean Deadpool.” You hummed softly as you sat your things aside. Pulling the plush blanket draped over your shoulders closer against your person, you stood and shuffled over to the window. With the suited and warm-bodied antihero leaning close to the glass, probably to keep himself from falling down the apartment building’s side, the glass panes were becoming increasingly foggy.

“Heya, [Y/N]!” Wade greeted, tumbling through the window after you opened it. Now that he was in a lighted area, you noticed darker patches of red on his bodysuit, which was scuffed and torn in places. Still, despite his looks the smell of dirt and blood that clung to him, the behind-the-mask, avocado-looking man seemed cheerful enough.

That is, until he made his way to your couch, walking stiffly and softly grunting every couple of steps.

Immediately, your brows furrowed in confusion and worry. You had been friends with Wade long enough that he had incredible healing abilities and, even if he was in pain, he rarely showed as much.

“Wade, are you okay?”

“Hey, hey, hey!” The antihero, despite his currently distressed situation, was at your side in moments, tugging you against him and covering your mouth with a gloved hand. With comically shifty eyes in every direction, he continued, “The mask isn’t off, little troublemaker! Anyone could hear and figure out my secret identity!”

You rolled your eyes and swatted the undoubtedly dirty glove off away from your face. Using the sleeve of your sweater to scrub your face clean from any possible grime, you replied, “I’m the only one here, nutjob. Don’t contaminate me with your filth, jackass.”

Wade--Deadpool--gasped softly and placed an oh so delicate hand over his chest, feigning hurt. “You’ve wounded my soul, [Y/N].” After a moment of waiting for a reaction that wouldn’t come, he dropped the act and, chuckling, agreed. “Yeah, that fight was brutal. You’re probably right not to touch me.”

“Seriously, though, Livepuddle, what’s wrong?” Watching him continue his hobbling to your couch, despite the fact that you had just told him to stop his contamination, you were filled with concern again. Perhaps his healing abilities had disappeared somehow?

“Oh, yanno--” He waved his hand dismissively as he plopped onto the couch and stressed across it. “--just a little stiff after war. I may have been impaled once or a few times, and not in the fun way. Also, it’s Livingpuddle. If you’re going to insult my shitty superhero title, at least do it right.”

“Same difference, ballsack-lookin’ dipshit.” Sitting on the nearby end table’s edge, you tried to steer the conversation back to the topic of your concern, “Normally, that’s not enough to make you groan and hobble a drunk old dude. Seriously, Wade, what’s going on? Did you lose your healing or something? Is it bad?”

The blank eyes of the Deadpool mask shifted slightly as Wade glanced over your concerned face. After a moment, he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Dammit, [Y/N], why’d you have to do those sad eyes? You know I hate sad eyes. I don’t deserve sad e--” The man stopped in the middle of the phrase and jerked his head to seemingly stare at the wall in which the window he had climbed in was occupied. “Hey! Stop listening to 500 Miles by The Proclaimers when you’re writing something heartfelt and sad! At least listen to Cher or something!”

“Wade, now’s not the time for your weird, out of body bullshit,” you grumbled. You had been friends with him long enough to have witnessed these many of these strange, loud monologues; therefore, they weren’t very surprising but they could certainly be annoying when you were trying to have a serious conversation.

“I’ll admit, that song has a good twang to it but it’s way overplayed.”

You couldn’t tell whether that comment was in reply to you, or if he was still having an imaginary argument. In mild frustration, you reached out to grab his wrist, in hopes of also grabbing his attention once again--

Only to have him hiss slightly and yank his arm away.

The two of you shared a wide-eyed look, yours of surprise and his of… Well, you couldn’t be sure. As the realization of situation donned on you, you retracted your hand and instead rested it in your lap with it’s twin.

“Is it the cancer?” you asked softly.

Yet another soft grunt escaped mask-covered lips as Wade looked away and gently squeezed the wrist you had tried to grab.

You gave him time to choose his words and, eventually, he spoke again, “Sometimes it hurts. A lot. Especially after regenerating and healing, it gets really bad in places. The pain from a fight isn’t s bad.”

“I’m so sorry, Wade.”

“Don’t be. I don’t need the pity.”

“It’s not pity, it’s empathy.”

“I don’t deserve any of it.”

Thick silence bloomed again in the dim light of your apartment living room, and you leaned back on your hands as you tried to think up a way to help your friend. Slowly, an idea formed.

“I’ll be fine,” Wade murmured after a few more minutes of gruesome silence.

“What if we numb it out of you?” you thought aloud in response.

Even with the mask covering the antihero’s face, you could tell his eyes were glittering with a dark humor. “What? With death or alcohol and drugs? Maybe all three?” Then the humor lightened a bit, and you could vaguely see the grin and wiggling of eyebrows behind red fabric. “Or maybe another, more physical activity?”

“Shut up and undress, Wade.” You hopped up from the end table and walked towards the kitchen, hyperfocused on your fridge.

“Hah, fourth time’s the charm!” Wade jumped up after you, albeit slower than he normally would have, and marched after you. “The kitchen? How inviting, [Y/N].”

“Stop that. I’m getting ice.”

“Ice?”

You nodded. “And lots of it.”

When you gave no other response, Wade sighed and leaned against the kitchen doorway--only to grunt softly and pull away again. “Enlighten me, you teasing little minx.”

You visibly cringed at the pet name and, after grabbing all the ice packs and ice trays in your freezer to place then on the counter nearby.

“It might work, or it might not. Either way, it’s worth a shot-- Hey, that rhymed! Anyway, I know it’s unlikely that it’ll take away all of the pain, but people use ice baths to for muscles and pain and stuff pretty often so--”

“Waterloo’s good, but what about Super Trouper with that Cher appearance? Now that had tears in my eyes! When the old cast danced with the new one? Iconic!”

You huffed as you tossed the last couple ice packs into your bathtub, which was now partially filled with water, every non-food icy item from your freezer, and several bags of ice you’d accumulated after a trip to the gas station down the street. “Could you please stop talking to the voices in your head?”

Wade scoffed from his current perch. He was sitting gingerly on the edge of the closed toilet next to where you stood. He had stripped out of his suit and its dangerous accessories--you had to lend him a pair of boxers that you’d often but no longer would use for sleep shorts in the process--and now skeptically awaited the ice bath you were preparing for him. You had also helped him clean off the blood and grime from his battle earlier that night, and now you could tell by the newer looking scars and pinker patches of skin where Wade’s skin and a smaller appendage or two had regenerated.

“I’m not talking to the voices in my head,” he replied, as if that were assuring, “I’m talking to the narrator. See, Super Trouper’s a bop!”

“What the fuck, Wade.” Rolling your eyes, you stepped away from the tub to admire your work. After making sure it reached your standards, you gestured for Wade to stand--which he did unwillingly, followed by a low grunt. “Get in the tub.”

“I’d be much more willing to do so if I had a buddy to join me.” Despite the pain he was still in, the scarred man managed a toothy smirk to go along with his flirty words. “Perhaps, take a chance on me--?”

“Sir, get in the tub before I physically fight you into it.”

“Kinky,” was his only reply. Realizing he was getting nowhere in the current situation, Wade got to his feet and stepped into the tub. If he gained goosebumps, they weren’t visible on his scarred body from you vantage point; however, he gave a shiver and a quick “Woo!” in response to the cold before dipping his other foot in. Placing one hand on the shower wall and the other on the rim of the tub, he slowly lowered himself into the icy water and adjusted said ice around himself.

You took his place on the toilet lid and watched in anticipation. Of course, you weren’t expecting anything to happen very quickly; you weren’t really sure what you were expecting at all, considering the circumstances and the person you were trying to help. Still, if Wade’s pain worsened for some reason, or he started to turned purple and blue before the pain started to lessen, you wanted to make sure that he knew he didn’t have to stay in the ice bath if it was a useless endeavor.

However, as you watched, Wade began to relax in his icy spa. He was a little too tall to fit in the small apartment tub, so his feet rested on the edge and he sunk sunk down until only the tops of his shoulder, neck, and head were above the water. He rested his head next to the faucet, closing his eyes and sighing, and for a moment he seemed more serene then you’ve ever seen him.

He was in pain frequently, you knew, due to the cancer he still endured and the constant regenerating that he dealt with as a bodily defense against it. He was in pain more than frequently, actually, but some days it was worse than others and he hated showing the pain either way.

You were pulled from your heavy thoughts when Wade shifted, turning his head and opening his eyes once more. Seemingly calmer and a bit hesitant now, he shifted and raised one arm out of the tub. While reaching the wet hand out to you, he muttered, “Thanks for worrying about me.”

You responded by gripping his hand and squeezed. “I know it’s difficult to bounce back after losing someone. I also know that while people like Cable and Domino care but they’re smart enough to not get in your way. I, on the other hand, am dense and will continue to bother and irritate you out of affection.”

Wade Wilson didn’t talk. However, you could see the different kind of pain that bloomed in his gaze--before he closed his eyes and turned his head away again. You would have thought he was upset with you if he hadn’t squeezed your hand.

It was quiet after that. You continued to tightly hold Wade’s hand while he rested, keeping a close eye on his condition. It could have easily been some hours, and eventually, he began to doze off, his head slowly tilting back in your direction and leaning against the rim of the bathtub. You took that moment to rest your head on his--if it roused him, he didn’t show it--and mentally wished him well, as if the connection would take your thoughts and slam it into his own head to the point that the wish would come true. Then, you gently shook him awake to move him to a more comfortable spot as thoughts of napping with frostbite creeped into your mind.

Dramatic? Perhaps, but still a risk you weren’t a fan of taking.

#imagines-hub #marvel #mcu #deadpool #wade wilson #deadpool headcanons #deadpool imagines #deadpool x reader #wade wilson imagines #wade wilson x reader #wade wilson headcanons #deadpool 2 #marvel x reader #marvel headcanons #marvel imagines #mcu x reader #mcu imagines #mcu headcanons

[poisonbat]

Un-Fantastic: My problem with Nine

hi-ho! this is a post i’ve wanted to make for a while, but i’ve taken time to stew on it because i want my feelings to be communicated clearly and have my points hopefully make sense to people who disagree with how i feel but will at least understand where i’m coming from. Also, friends such as moot and penny-ana have made me pause and think about some of my criticisms which i’ve had to stew on to make sure i really hone on in what i think doesnt work for me and not being hypocritical

i’ll start out with saying that a this doesn’t really have much to do with Chris at all, i don’t have a problem with him, and i respect him a lot as a person especially for standing up for his beliefs in how things should go even if it got him blacklisted for a while, as well as wanting to make amends for past bullying and wanting that to change for people at large.

being a fan of the sixth doctor and the war doctor, that made me pause, so another thing i originally thought was a problem was feeling like people so attached to 9 weren’t ready for “real DW” and thats BS given the fact that three spent so much time stuck on earth and around it, as well as the fact that the autons appear in both their premieres, as well as like, hearing the issues moot and penny have with 3 and that era made me have to look deeper, which is how i really singled in on what i think my biggest problems are: My issues with nine comes from a lot of the things built up around him by super big early RTD fans, as well as the refusal of EU/other writers to really expand on much material outside of what was on the show as well as the refusal for people making content or doing anything to really criticize the time on the show for the fallacy of “short lived = good because theres not a lot to judge”

add in the fact that there are very few doctors who i take to immediately, usually taking a series and a half for me to be on board, 9 is stuck with 10 tv stories of average to eeeeeh quality in my opinion (I wouldnt’ really watch any of them again, except maybe the finale)

Nine never really stood out to me or made a lasting impression on me in the entirety of series 1, so not being able to understand all the hype has always frustrated and upset me. Fun fact: I was actually first exposed to doctor who via Dalek and the empty child two parter via a stream between friends when i was younger, but it never convinced me to watch it, nor did 10 later, only by series 7 was i interested and i jumped all in by 2013. After seeing those eps i was more interested in DWM 8 comics and izzy and destrii lmao

so by the time i was pretty into this, i started taking in all the extra material i could, including comics and audio and everything, and this is another wall with 9: People refuse to touch it because of how tightly bound rose is to him, refusing to touch on his pre-rose post-war doctor days and also people seem to not want to touch him until chris agrees to play him again, so i’m left again with less chances to redeem or find ways to like him like i did with 10, although my favorite ninth doctor story AND favorite slitheen story (yes) Doctormania was made by titan comics, but i wish there was more of that kind of thing with him that wasn’t cut short again, as well as the fact that, i haven’t finished that series of stories because of the bad way they treated martha in the next story, so much so i haven’t finished it because it frustrated me so much.

specifically on the fanbase: having a healthy love for your favorite portion of the franchise that is doctor who is fine! but sometimes nine fans can be so weird and pushy and dismissive of everything else it can be frustrating. I’ve seen some people hijack posts specifically wanting opinions about stuff OTHER than series 1 and they completely ignored him and started just filling it with that instead of what the user asked, also like just in general not being respectful of others tastes and just like, trying to convert people who just don’t gel.

I WANT to like nine, but the weird shielding of him from criticism as well as the lack of expansion on his character and the fanbase which can be kind of offputting, I can’t do much for that right now. I really hope that some day we can get the “FIRST” Ninth doctor adventure, post war doctor regeneration, and maybe stories to fill out his pre-rose time and some stuff inbetween. I don’t mind rose at all, and i like how she’s used in Doctormania which makes me wish we had more stories not afraid to have diff characters despite the limitations set by the shortlived incarnation here. I’ll always be the first one willing to try and reassess things whenever we get more. I may not feel the same way a lot of people do, but i try to appreciate every one of the doctors in some way even if i don’t enjoy them as much as my favorites.

#Fezzy talking

[furederiko]

Time is of the essence here! That's why we shouldn't waste another day, and hurry ourselves for the recap-view of Kyuranger episode 25!!!

- Why is the Horologium Kyu Globe so important? According to Tsurugi, it governs TIME throughout the Kyuranger's universe. With said ability, it will enable the team to travel back in time and figure out what truly happened in the previous fight against Don Armage. Basically, it's the most powerful Kyu Globe of all, right? - As shown in the preview, this episode also serves as a Kotarou focus episode. And it doesn't waste time to get into that side as well, as the young boy immediately shares to his big bro Stinger about his desire to see a special person from the past: his mother Akemi Sakuma (played by Mizuho Hata, who previously portrayed Mugi Grafton... a.k.a. the third former yellow in this show!). He reveals that she had passed away not long after his little brother Jirou was born... Aaaaaaaw -_-. Dang it, do we really have to start an episode in such a melancholic way? Even Stinger is on the verge of breaking down... NOTE: For the record, Kotarou's mother is never addressed by her actual name throughout the episode. Her name Akemi is featured in the credit, thus I'll be using that for convenience purposes. - Remember the closing bit of episode 24, with Spada and Raptor alerting the ORION to follow them to Planet Tocky as soon as possible? Is it because Tecchu has already arrived and is attacking them? Not really. The 'distress call' was more about solving the planet's peculiar 'system'. Which is where this episode gets really NEAT. NOTE: Starting this episode, I'll be writing the name of the Rebellion spaceship in all capitals. Just to further separate it from Tsurugi's comrade Olion, the other survivor of the legendary battle in the past. Beside, I just found out that 'ORION' actually stands for 'Offensive Resistance Interstellar Orbiter of RebellioN'. Yes, took me 25 episodes to land on that information! LOL. - Apparently, the flat-shaped planet contains 12 keys placed in 12 different, clock-wise locations. Basically, it's a giant CLOCK when observed directly from above the ground. These levers need to be activated within 30 minutes from one another, in order to make it work and bring out the hidden Horologium Kyu Globe. Failing to set them up on time, means restarting from scratch. Yes, as if borrowing that pesky time-based puzzles from the "Tomb Raider" rule book! Clearly Spada and Raptor alone are TOO shorthanded to get this job done. No way they can each trigger 6 keys in time. Hence they have no choice but to call on the other members! Fun fact: Horologium is the Pendulum Constellation, which is usually depicted in form of a giant clock. The planet's name Tocky/Toki, is clearly derived from the Japanese word 'Toki', that literally means 'Time/Hour'. As a verb, the word 'Toku' also means 'To Solve/Untie', which itself plays out as a nice pun for this episode's clock-themed contraption. Over-Time might be using Tocky as their choice of translation, as a reference to 'Tick-Tock', the onomatopoeia or sound produced by a pendulum clock. - Each Kyuranger departs towards their respective hand number, which is a truly neat little touch. So Lucky goes to #1, Stinger to #2, Spada to #9, Kotarou to #11, and so on. Unfortunately, things might not be as easy as it seems. How so? Because specters from their past/memory begin materializing to confront/distract them from their goal. Sort of like mini-bosses, if you prefer to compare it to video games. - And they are? In order of appearances: Eridrone for Lucky, Scorpio for Stinger, Gonessy for Hammy, original Madako for Spada, Kuervo for Tsurugi, Supreme Commander Big Bear for Commander Xiao, Virgo-Garu for Garu, Naga for Balance, Professor Anton for Champ, Otome game-esque Suitors for Raptor (nope, NOT kidding XD), and last but not least... Akemi for Kotarou. The last one shouldn't be a surprise, considering the boy was indeed thinking about her just before they arrived on the planet. - Before we proceed, let's do a quick analysis. There are THREE type of 'Memories' that come into play in these scenes. Pure comic-reliefs, in the case of Garu and Raptor. Clear cut antagonists, like the case of Lucky and Stinger. And the third is important/precious people of the past, like what's happening with Xiao and Kotarou. Some intersect one another. Intriguingly, there are TWO specters that are acting... somewhat oddly out of character: Prof. Anton, and also Kuervo! We know that both should've been allies, yet they end up attacking Champ and Tsurugi as if... they are antagonists. I know this might not mean much, and it can very well be a plot inconsistency at best. On the other hand, I also can't help but wonder if it's actually... foreshadowing about future developments? Just think about it. Perhaps, one of them (particularly the latter) might have been the true face of Don Armage all along? Hmmmm.... - Leo Red, Scorpius Orange, and Chamaeleon Green are the first to eliminate their obstacles. The others begin to follow suit one by one, through various kind of difficulties. For example, while Balance pretty much gets to his key without ANY resistance, Dorado Yellow is having tough luck due to Madako's regenerating ability. Ouch!!! To make things worse, Tecchu sends out another actual clone of the Octopus assassin. Precisely, Otaku-Madako (the version that I think is everyone's instant favorite... LOL) to basically 'annoy' the team with her... devoted love for Moe-Hammy (and later the whole team). How on Earth Tecchu was able to obtain her body part, is beyond me. But that can't even be compared to Naga, when it is revealed that NOBODY showed up in front of him. It's a personal heart-breaking situation for him, who immediately wonders if his lack of heart is the cause to that. This one's clearly foreshadowing to what's going to happen to him... soon. Which once again... brings the case of Prof. Anton and Kuervo into question. - Kotarou is having a different kind of dilemma on his own. He can't turn on the key, because that means his mother is going to be gone again! Aaaaawww. I think anyone who has a heart, would have no trouble relating to this situation. I mean, what will you do if you're given another opportunity to spend a second chance with the loved ones you've lost, right? Tsurugi notices this, and his response is admirable. He's leaving the decision in Kotarou's hands. And boy oh boy, not only Kotarou steps it up by fully understanding what he must do, he also proves his strong resolution for it. Seriously, Kotarou might be the youngest member of the team, but he is certainly one of the stronger (if not THE strongest) character in this show. He might be small, but what a big heart indeed! And it helps that his actor truly sells it organically. As I've said over and over again, this boy is going to be HUGE moving forward! - Time for a 12-members transformation and roll call scene then! Yep... it might be a tad long (from 14:25 to 15:29), but also as grandiose and thrilling as one would expect. I personally love how it shows a close up shot from both side of Reds. Really stylish! Moreso, to think that it's already happening in episode 25 when previous seasons saved it for the last few episodes, only makes me wonder: what else will Kyuranger have in store for its second half?!! NOTE: For comparison sake, Kyoryuger waited until episode 39 to debut their glorious all 10-members transformation scene. While Zyuohger saved its 7-members transformation until episode 45. - The team is then separated into two. First half (Reds, Orange, Black, Green, and SkyBlue) deals with Tecchu. While the second (Commander, Blue, BN Thieves, Pink, and Yellow) sends Otaku-Madako back to where she truly belongs... the Comicket. Ahahahaha. And then everyone join hands to put down Tecchu for good, with their "Ultimate All Star Crash!". WHAT. A. COOL. FINISHER! All the while, Akemi watches as her son gallantly fights as savior for the universe. She might not be real, but I'm sure she's feeling really proud nonetheless. - Of course, why stop right there, eh? The great Kyutamajin is summoned, and this time around, EVERYONE gets to be brought onboard. Yes... just the way it's supposed to. And yes, it's undoubtedly a glorious and exciting sequence that would make any Super Sentai fans geek out and lose all sense of sanity. Just look at how those Kyu Globes light up, while their pilots can be seen behind them. STUNNING! The formation is 'effective' now, as different limbs can perform even stronger feat thanks to each cluster governing them. The Kyu Globes can also detach to their own Voyagers to give air support. Don't forget its over-powered "Ultimate Meteor Break! Super Galaxy!" finisher move. Suffice to say, this is one great mecha battle! Definitely the best one that the show has delivered so far. Farewell Tecchu, we barely knew ye... - We got our thrills, and a heavy share of amazing action... so it's time to end the episode, in a sentimental note. Yes, Kotarou needs to turn his key as the last piece of the contraption. Which means... it's goodbye time. His mom entrusts her eldest son to the team, asking them to watch over him. At this moment, I'm sure all the mellow-hearted audience (like yours truly) is beginning to lose their ability to hold back the tears. Rightfully so, because it's nothing short of a moving scene. Dang it, first Stinger and now Kotarou. Why does this season keep on giving us all these feels? - Horologium Kyu Globe is finally obtained, so what's next? Discovering the truth. It won't be easy though, because Don Armage has decided to send out... not one, but BOTH of his remaining Vice-Shoguns, Kukuruga and Akenba. Looks like dark times are about to loom over the Kyurangers fairly soon...

Overall: This was the kind of episode that made Kyuranger such a fun show to follow. It had great action, thrilling spectacle, the right amount of humor, but more importantly, it had heart. It boldly showed why a large set of characters just simply works. But at the same time, it still managed to include a powerful heart-tugging moment for the youngest member of the team. Whom, in case you forget, also serves as the surrogate for its intended audience. I came expecting this episode to be a total tearjerker fest, but I got a rollercoaster of emotion instead. That's wonderful! Also, this episode was all kind of smart. Debuting a Clock-themed Kyu Globe as some kind of celebration to having 12-members (who can represent each number)... was undeniably brilliant. Yes, it could've been more 'perfect' had it took place in episode 24 (get it? 24 hours?), but we know the circumstances that prevented one (remember those Golf delays that happened twice?). So it's an amazing feat nonetheless! Interestingly, and I've repeatedly said this before: we're only at the halfway point of the show (coincidentally, only around 48 out of 90-plus Kyu Globes -around half- have been used in the show/movie until now). Yet it feels like so many things have happened! Naturally, the major question would be: what more can we expect from this show? I guess we'll just have to continue tuning in and find out... Next week: Is having emotions truly a good thing? Go ask Naga about it...

Episode 25 Score: 8,3 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: August 15th, 2017 - Version 2.10. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

#tokusatsu #SuperSentai #kyuranger #uchu sentai kyuranger #uchuu sentai kyuranger #review #melancholymoments #inspiration #awesome

[gorogues]

“Infantino Street”

Spoilers for tonight’s episode of the Flash!

It's 24 hours before Iris is fated to die, and everyone's working hard.  Iris secretly records a message for Barry in the event of her death, but Cisco learns that ARGUS has a power source with enough juice to fuel the Speed Force bazooka.  He and Barry ask Lyla Michaels-Diggle if they can use it, but she says no.  It's technology scavenged from a Dominator ship and thus highly dangerous, and she doesn't trust time-travellin' Flashpoint Barry with it.

So Barry and Team Flash make plans to break into ARGUS to steal the device, even though the facility is extremely secure and has power-dampening tech which will take away Barry's speed.  They'll need someone who's really good at theft, so Barry decides to secretly recruit Len in 1892 (during a mission with the Legends) to help out.  Len isn't interested, saying that he's already helping a bunch of "idiot do-gooders", but Barry says it's to save Iris.  Len congratulates him with "mazel tov" (strengthening the theory that the Snarts are Jewish) but still doesn't seem interested until Barry tells him the scenario: an intriguing mission to break into one of the most secured facilities in the world to steal a powerful device.  At that point, Len says that it's his kind of mission, but it'd have to be done by his rules.

Team Flash is upset when Barry shows up with Len, noting that he's dead and Barry had obviously time-travelled again to retrieve him, but eventually grudgingly acquiesce.

Meanwhile, Savitar-Barry is fixing his damaged armour, and Killer Frost kind of flirts with him and calls herself Caitlin, which is interesting.  She asks if he's ready to kill Iris and seems to doubt that he can do it, and almost seems like she's trying to talk him out of it.  Is that the Caitlin personality beginning to shine through again?  Regardless, Savitar is still mad because he was created to be a disposable life, and then he suddenly gets a new memory of his past self recruiting Len and planning to break into ARGUS.  That's bad news.

Len gives a lesson on this kind of theft, noting that the deepest part of the ARGUS facility will likely contain the device.  He offers his four pieces of advice: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, and throw away the plan.  After the lesson, Team Flash sends Iris to Earth-2 to keep her safe, while keeping the information away from Barry so Savitar doesn't get wind of it.            

At ARGUS HQ, Barry impersonates Lyla with HR's image inducer and pretends to be bringing in Len as a prisoner.  But the otherwise flawless plan fails when Barry doesn't know Lyla's secret code, so he has to knock out the soldiers.  Len didn't help because he was handcuffed, but he then shows that he's quietly gotten free of his cuffs.

They head to the lower levels of the building, where they find Grodd, Cheetah, and Cupid locked on the same level as the Dominator device.  The lock on the door with the device is allegedly nigh-unbreakable, but Len breaks through in only 37 seconds...to which he remarks that he must be out of practice.  And then they discover that King Shark is locked in the room, basically being used as a guard dog.  Len finds the existence of such a creature a bit surprising, but as usual doesn't lose his cool, though he says the name 'King Shark' is adorable.

Barry prepares to simply kill King Shark so they can take the device, to which Len remarks that he wasn't just recruited for his thieving skills, he was asked so Barry would have a partner who wouldn't mind if he got all murdery.  But he clearly doesn't like it, and tells Barry that great white sharks go into torpor when temperatures get too low -- suggesting that King Shark will fall asleep if they lower the temperature of the room, or that Barry can go in there and kill the poor guy to prove himself a badass.  He obviously doesn't like the idea of Barry killing people, and is trying to keep him from doing things he may regret.

So they do lower the temperature of the room, and King Shark falls asleep in the mist.  We can't see him, and as they walk into the room Len makes a wry meta comment that this reminds him of Jaws when "they didn't show the shark because they couldn't afford to make it look good".  Haaaa.  And then Barry wonders how long he'll stay sleeping, to which Len reminds him "I like Shark Week, I'm not a marine biologist".  That's Len bringing all the good shit this week.

Anyway, an alarm goes off once they grab the Dominator device, and Barry's able to slide under the door as it closes while Len's trapped inside with the shark.  Len tells him that this is Barry's chance to show just how ruthless he really is, but after a moment's hesitation Barry decides not to leave him.  He asks Cisco for help, and Len says that if Cisco saves his life he'll put in a good word for him with Lisa.  They get the door open and Len crawls under it, but King Shark starts dragging him back in; they slam the door on the poor shark-guy's wrist and he loses a hand...but don't worry, he regenerates it.  This part of Len's timeline obviously takes place after the LoT episode in which he loses his hand, because he says he can relate.

However, Lyla catches the two of them and questions them.  She notes that Barry could have left Len to die in there but risked everything to save him, so she gives him the Dominator tech.  Obviously she trusts him again.  

Barry takes Len back to Siberia in 1892 to return him to the Waverider, and Len tells him that the reason they get along may be because Barry sees the good in him, while he sees the bad in Barry.  They're more alike than Barry might think.  Len also offers the advice to stop trying to beat Savitar at his own game -- by being ruthless -- and that his goodness is his strength.  So obviously once again he's trying to encourage Barry to remain moral and admires him, and is trying to protect him from taking drastic actions which could harm/change him.  Len says "call me sentimental", which is an exact line taken from the comics when asked why he saved a statue of Barry Allen, and says that he thinks the Flash should remain a hero.  As they part, Len says "there are no strings on me", which of course is a callback to his last words at the Oculus; does this mean his history will stay the same, or does it hint that his history will change as a result?  He clearly knows what's going to happen, if only because Cisco said he was dead back at STAR Labs.

However, back at STAR Labs things kind of go to hell.  Savitar-Barry impersonates regular Barry (presumably while Barry's taking Len back?) and gets HR to blab the location of Iris.  He goes to Earth-2 and severely injures Wally while he's trying to protect her, and then powers down his armour to talk to them as 'Barry'.  They try to reason with him, but he abducts Iris and runs back to Earth-1 with her.

So there are 53 minutes left before Iris' death, and everyone prepares to go fight Savitar as Wally and HR beat themselves up for their perceived failures.  Cisco has a vibe about fighting Killer Frost, and goes to confront her in the hopes that Caitlin can be saved.  She says that she has to cure herself of Caitlin if she's going to become a god like Savitar, and says she wants to kill him.

Meanwhile, the confrontation with Savitar plays out as we've all seen it, although this time Barry fires the bazooka at him...and it seems to be working, but then suddenly it fails.  Savitar has the Philosopher's Stone, which is apparently made of calcified Speed Force energy, and that disrupted the attack.  So he stabs Iris, and Barry ends up holding her as she lies dead.  And then we see the message she left for Barry, in which she stated her wedding vows to him.

I've been trying to avoid the spoilers for the season finale that have been on the net for weeks, although I think I may have gotten spoiled.  But I'm not sure and don't want to blab this stuff for other people who may not have heard, so I'm not going to discuss speculation/spoilers for the next episode.  There'll be plenty of time for that next week.

An excellent episode, and Len was on point here.  Does this mean his death will be averted somehow, or they'll get around this via time remnant or something else?  I don't know, but I hope so.  It was great to see him back on this show again, and he really NEEDS to be here.  He's a major Flash character.  It was also pretty great that he cares about Barry even if he doesn't always want to show it; he plays a bit hard to get by not immediately agreeing to join up with Barry until the carrot of a major heist is dangled in front of him, but Barry and his moral soul (for lack of a better term) are important to him.

Strange that Julian wasn't here.  I'd imagine he's going to play into the finale in some way, however.

For those not familiar with the name referred to in the episode title, Carmine Infantino co-created Barry Allen and all the Silver Age Flash villains.  He passed away a few years ago, but was obviously integral to the development of the modern Flashverse, so that's why he's been name-dropped here.

#Captain Cold #the Flash #Cisco Ramon #Iris #Joe West #Killer Frost #spoilers: the Flash #Flash TV Series #Flashapalooza #episode recap