#i can't decide who's more nyles and who's more sarah

[seizethedeansofproduction]

I just know that troy and abed went insane when they saw Palm Springs

[monpanache]

Still thinking about the Palm Springs les mis au.

(Spoilers for the movie under the cut!! It's very good so I suggest watching it without spoilers)

It can be set during Marius and Cosette's wedding, or Eposette's wedding, or Courfius' or Epoferre's, there are so many ships to chose from.

My first idea was that Grantaire would obviously be Nyle: cynical, nihilist, resignated to the situation. It fits him perfectly. And while Enjolras is quite different from Sarah, they do share a tendency to act on things - as opposed to Nyle and Grantaire, who don't believe doing something would change things. And also, he could be Courfeyrac/Combeferre/Cosette's best man (can the bride have a best man or does she need a maid of honor specifically?), like Sarah is the maid of honor. In this version, E and R don't know each other, or are just acquaintances, like Nyle and Sarah in the movie.

BUT then I thought it would be very interesting to switch: Enjolras as Nyle, Grantaire as Sarah. In this version, they know each other, but (as in canon) Enjolras doesn't think higly of Grantaire. But he gets unesplicably caught in the time loop and, after trying all he can think of to escape, just gives up to pessimism; and during the umpteenth wedding day -he has lost count, at this point- he is particularly discouraged or drunk or angry and vents to Grantaire, telling him he was right: nothing changes, nothing ever will. Every attempt to go on is useless. Grantaire is understandably perplexed by this, because we all know Enjolras would never say something like this in a normal situation; so he follows Enjolras when he leaves the party, enters the cave and gets stuck in the loop.

Now, I don't know if E leaves the party because of this AU's version of Roy; I honestly can't think of a character we could give that role to, and I don't think E would purposefully trap someone in the loop. (But if anyone has an idea, please tell!)

Also, I know that this point in the movie Sarah and Nyles are about to have sex; but I think for Grantaire hearing Enjolras defeated may be weirder than being hit on by E, and therefore make him more curious to understand what's going on.

(Also, I personally headcanon Enjolras as ace. No sex for him)

From this point on we mostly follow the plot of the movie, although R is waay more relaxed than Sarah when he understands the situation. Trough the various shenanigans, they get to know each other better: R, who was already infatuated eith the idea of Enjolras, falls for the real man, even at his lowest; Enjolras, on the other side, is sorprese to find out how much he likes Grantaire when R is not putting on his most annoying facade. And they start to look at each other like this:

My ideas for the middle part of the story (what makes them drift away etc.) are more confuse, but I know that, when R-Sarah explains E-Nyle how to (maybe) escape the time loop, E refuses to go with him not only because, like Nyle, he's grown so used to this he's afraid of the real world, but also because he was already at a low point before getting stuck in the loop: i think even he could start to lose hope in changing things for the better, considering the state of the world. At least, he says, here in the loop he's made peace with the immutability of it all; why should he go back to reality, where fighting was just as useless?

Meanwhile R, after his end-of-second-act fight with Enjolras (the reason for which I still don't know), has decided to change. And so, like Sarah, he tries to understand how to get them out: I think it would be cute if, other than using books and internet, he'd ask Combeferre, who could be like an astrophysicist or wathever kind of scientist can be useful in that situation.

So towards the climax, we have the complete opposite of the canon E×R dynamic: Grantaire is about to move on, he wants to move on, while Enjolras is stuck and afraid of the future. Then we have the realisation, the race against time, and the love confession - and btw, this movie's long confession was amazing. Look at this:

So, after all, they enter the cave together and, before exploding, they kiss:

Fin.

Thoughts?