#after his encounter with Zero he lost his eye and now walks with a permanent limp

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

Finally got around to drawing Dave’s ref in the HSH au!

[flowerflamestars]

Okay okay I just read your jaw dropping post about how acotar would be with Nesta Under the Mountain and now I’m curious: does Rhys meets Feyre? Cassian and Nesta’s first encounter, how does it goes like? LUCIEN AND AZRIEL SLOW BURN “STRANGERS” TO LOVERS? Nesta wouldn’t be stupid to let her sisters be kidnapped by Hybern, so how do they get changed into Fae? And DO they get changed? I’ve got a thousands questions now

OKAY YES- Nesta Under the Mountain, acomaf remix:

First, I just want to pause to highlight the chaos factor here. What happens after Amarantha and Tamlin die? Rhysand, bound by magical contract and also Dramatique, nopes out, bringing Lucien and Nesta.

And he’s a mess. It’s relief, it’s half a century of unimaginable torture. He needs a bath. He needs to lay in bed for a week before he speaks to another living person. Instead, he takes them to his moonstone palace.

Does he rest? Plan? Go find his friends who are screaming at his mental shields?

No. He gives Nesta and Lucien rooms, and proceeds to have breakfast with them while flirting with Nesta, so he can pretend everything is fine.

To say Nesta is feeling A Lot is an understatement. She has zero Tamlin murder regrets- and many, many, I came back to life and got kidnapped again regrets. She does take a bath. Washes off the blood, braids her hair, tries not to look at her freaky faery face, looks for clothes. Is unimpressed beyond measure at crop top sheer ensembles, and goes looking for Lucien.

Swathed in turquoise silks, doing that thing where he’s grinning but his eyes are flinty and just waiting for the next attack, he’s no better off. The robe in Nesta’s bathroom was a lace confection- the one in Lucien’s in quilted green silk. Nesta wears that.

Is still wearing it, when they show up to breakfast, Rhysand flirts- and because Nesta is an Archeron, she throws a teacup at his head.

(Lucien, beside her, buttering toast: yeah, that doesn’t work on her)

What really happens in acomaf? Love, trauma journey, betrayal. But Tamlin’s dead- and guess what family promptly sails back across the sea to seize power of Spring? Guess. No one is out here calling Nesta the Savior of Prythian. She’s not the mother, she’s the crone. Women love her, men fear her. She’s not the blessing, she’s the punishment.

Morrigan tracks down Rhys, and this is what she finds: 1 autumn prince, wearing a crop top and acidly explaining that he doesn’t give a single fuck if Spring burns. 1 devastating faery lady wearing nothing but a robe. Rhysand, with tea dripping from his hair.

Tears! Reunion! Nes & Luc, exit stage left faced with Emotions.

Nesta doesn’t need to learn to read- and she doesn’t need Rhysand’s fucking help, as she keeps saying, as he keeps doing nice things for her. Fuck off, she says, fixing her hair with the diamond pins that have mysteriously appeared on top of her book. Do not look at me like that, she threatens, catching him grinning at some insanely offensive thing she’s said about Beron.

Rhys likes Nesta. It’s not willing. Nesta...kind of hates Rhys still. Rhys is also still, A Mess- and Nesta just happens to be the sexy project in front of him. 

You didn’t make a deal for me to be a permanent house guest, she tells him.

Morrigan, to herself, a respectable wlw who, you know, met Nesta in a robe and learned ten seconds later she killed a High Lord as a human: PLEASE STAY FOREVER

Rhysand takes them to Velaris.

Lucien is devastated by the prosperity- Nesta goes straight for Rhysand’s throat- you protected one city? Rhysand says, one city, and four people. It’s the closest Nesta ever comes to respecting him, lasts three seconds. 

It takes one night for Nesta and Lucien to vanish. Dangerous and disconcerting for a few reasons- Prythian is singing songs of Nesta, and they’re songs of destruction. Lucien has a price on his head. 

But they’re not courting danger- they’re over the wall. Nesta knows a war is coming, knows she’s painted a target sky high on her back. She leaves letters for her sisters- she’s alive, she can’t come home, she’s sorry, she loves them, please please please be careful- and they spend ten hours straight setting wards around the slumbering Archeron manner.

With his usual sense of good timing, the next morning is when Rhysand trots out his work for me plan.

Hybern wants a war, and Nesta is a weapon. Lucien, who has been a rapid fire, info dump strength been trying to tell Nesta all the shit she needs to know now that she’s a faery, tells him to go to hell. 

Rhys feigns very much like that was uncalled for, unravels a few more layers of the I’m only bad as a ruse lifestyle before their eyes. 

Nesta more or less ignores him, but explains Lucien’s comment for them both: no fealty. No oaths. No games. No more fucking tattoos.

Rhys, eventually, repeats himself: work for me, I’ll pay you, you don’t need to belong.

Nesta demands a contract. Exact terms. Proof of salary. Tells Rhys, casually, that she killed one High Lord human and she’s perfectly willing to try for a second with immortality on her side.

Nesta and Lucien, private contractors. Nesta and Lucien, who also don’t really believe a word Rhysand says.

But then it’s time for dinner. To meet the Court- Nesta repeats Court of Dreams to Lucien with such lofty disbelief he’s still giggling to himself every few minutes when they get to the House of Wind.

A pause, a step back: Cassian. Cas lost his shit when Nesta died- Cassian felt her come back to life- Cassian, who has never met her, has no idea what that means. He’s been rattled around, feeling more than a little crazy- tense, unfocused, walking the streets of Velaris like he forgot something that can never be found- he also didn’t tell anyone.

Nesta Archeron walks into the House of Wind beside Lucien Vanserra, and everything stops.

It’s Rhysand’s stumbling, lightening struck, immediate oh-shit reaction, just on a very different balcony, with circumstance more different that Cassian allows himself to believe.

There she was. There was what he’d been looking for- there she was, taking a glass of wine out of Lucien’s hand.

There’s no personal story time at this dinner. There’s Cassian, dumbstruck, silent, staring. Azriel, whose good manners kick in and make him speak. Lucien, drinking. Nesta treating it like a business meeting and directly trying to establish what everyone’s jobs are.

(Also Nesta, meeting Amren, recognizing her name from fairytales she read trapped in Tamlin’s house: Do you really drink the blood of men?

Amren: Only very, very bad men who ask nicely.

Nesta’s nod in response took years off Cassian’s life.)

Nesta, child of every court. Nesta, who Rhysand keeps comparing to the Courts universal holy objects while she bites her tongue bloody. Locate, read, utilize, steal- Nesta wants it done now, wants to hamstring Hybern before he can set foot on their island.

But research takes time. So Nesta’s learning to be a faery- and breaking a ridiculous amount of things along the way- Lucien is hanging out in her shadow, free as he’s ever been in his entire adult like but also just waiting, waiting, for the axe to fall.

Everyone thinks they’re sleeping together- more importantly, even if they’re not, they’re In Love.

There’s no weaver in the wood moment- because frankly, Rhysand doesn’t want to risk that Nesta will somehow befriend her. Less Rhys in general, because Nesta doesn’t want to spend all that much time with him. 

Nesta is just in Velaris, waiting for the damn job to start. With Lucien. Sometimes Amren, or Morrigan. Often, extremely often, Cassian.

In canon, when they meet, Cassian is all set up to hate her- she didn’t protect her sister, she’s disloyal she’s- all of these terrible things that have to be proven untrue. That clash, that fighting shapes...basically everything.

This Nesta, he has every reason to admire, and it’s killing him. She saved Prythian- she killed a High Lord with her bare hands and knife Cassian wouldn’t want to use to cut an apple. She’s incredible.

She’s also the unfortunate, perfect receptacle for all of Cassian’s self worth issues. He can’t look away, which means she’s not looking. Of course she loves the son of a High Lord, who fought by her side- they survived together, they’re the same species.

So. He’s just going to quietly, miserably, love her forever. But he doesn’t actually talk to her- this is the only Cassian who has ever been quieter than Az- he just can’t. But he’s always there- passing messages from Rhys. Flying her to the House of Wind. Present. 

So he also ends up around when Lucien and Nesta decide to move on from magic training to physical training. 

And Cassian absolutely falls over himself asking to help. To train her. To make her stronger. To maybe, you know, punch him in the face.

The offering goes as badly as can be imagined, all the wrong words and blushing fury. Insulting. A mess.

Nesta does what Nesta does best. Asks him, you’ve trained how much of your own army? Cassians answer is halting but true- yes, yes the Legion’s are his lifes work.

And look, Nesta is mad at the implied insults to her and Lucien both. She’s also mad this asshole who clearly doesn’t want her here, doing the job she was hired to do and has made that clear with the silent treatment, is now intruding on her personal business.

She gets in his face. I’m not an Illyrian. I’m not a man. I will never be a soldier under your command and I don’t need your help.

(the vicious cultural sexism has, in fact, trickled down to Nesta’s knowledge quite easily. She doesn’t know Cassian’s back story.)

The knife sinks oh, so, fucking deep. Cassian who also, has never learned to back down, doesn’t fuck off. So he’s around, brooding and training himself, while Lucien teaches Nesta evil little tricks and how to move like lightening, to use weapons and magic as one.

Nessian keep fighting. Cassian also keeps finding every even slightly plausible excuse to be in her company-because now she’s looking at him.

So what, if she’ll never love him back? So what, if fucking Lucien Vanserra who flirts with everything that moves somehow earned her loyalty? Cassian is never-will never- judge or undermine her choices. Never.

He just wants to be around. To speak to her every day. So what, if the angst is burning him alive?

Interlude: the Summer Court. Rhys and Nesta go alone. 

Nesta likes Tarquin. Tarquin...is kind of more afraid of Nesta than Rhys. There’s no flirty montage, Nesta goes to hang out with Cresseida. Knows her for about a day, comes to understanding that Cresseida was the one who held Summer together under Amarantha.

Nesta tells Cresseida everything. Hybern’s coming back, they’re already making plays. They want the Cauldron, but control can be stolen with the Book. Rhysand thinks I can read it- all I want is Hybern dead.

It is, in the end, compelling. Helped along by the fact Nesta peppers in that Rhys isn’t going to ask.

There’s a fight, a battle, conditions: in the end Tarquin gives the book to Nesta. Only Nesta. For Rhys, this still works- for the Summer Court, the distinction is important. Nesta Archeron, Cauldron-blessed, the Sword of Prythian, will wield the book.

Not the blessing, the punishment.

Rhys says something very Rhys, and Nesta leaves. They’re winnowing to the same place, she can now, it doesn’t matter- but what matters is this: Nesta goes back to the House of Wind, and runs into Cassian.

She’s just carrying half the book- like that isn’t an insane, miraculous thing, and Cassian congratulates her, without saying anything stupid. 

But then Nesta sprawls down in a window seat, and starts looking at the book.

(Cassian is GOING THROUGH IT. he thought being around her was bad? Knowing she’s in another court where he can’t make sure she’s safe or okay or not having a bad day made him LOSE HIS MIND)

Which is fully what he blames for the fact that Cassian also, does not leave. Crosses his arms. Leans in the doorway like it doesn’t matter. Asks, like a moron, why Nesta isn’t looking for Lucien.

(Cassian to Cassian: SHE WAS GONE DAYS- SHE COULD HAVE BEEN HURT? WHERE IS THE CARE? THE CONCERN? THE- LUCIEN WAS AT A BAR WITH AZRIEL LAST NIGHT)

Nesta: No, I’ll see him later.

Cassian: Reunions...are important. The war is going to come faster than any of us think.

Nesta: I know?? that’s why I just spent a week in fucking sand- I’m doing my job-

Cassian: We all have so little time-

Nesta: You think I don’t know that??

Cassian: I just. I don’t understand- you have options. You have the entire world. You are the entire world, and you deserve-

Nesta: What. Exactly. Do you think I deserve?

Cassian, miserably ferocious: someone waiting when you come home. from battle. from stupid shit Rhys makes you do. You deserve everything.

Nesta, rising from the window seat, walking across the room: You’re here.

Cassian:

Nesta, rolling her eyes as she sweeps past and away: You. Were here. When I got back.

I’m going to cut this here and then post a part two! Thank you so much for asking, stay tuned :)

[gaytransgirl]

Outrunning the Universe: The Troubling Implications of City Seventeen (Sonic Riders Fandub Analysis)

That’s right. After the success of my 06 dub analysis, I’m throwing my hat back in the ring with a stab at the Sonic Riders (plus Zero Gravity) fandub. Originally, I had hoped to track the development of Sonic’s toxicity towards his friends over the course of the dub series. However, as I rewatched the Riders fandub, I began to notice something sinister. Or... Someone sinister, really. That person?

Jet the Hawk.

I understand that this initial pairing might mystify you. “But Lily,” I can hear you saying, “Jet is a wholesome friend who appreciates Storm and Wave! What’s so sinister about that?” And you may be right. The Babylon Rogues are a much more positive and uplifting friend group than Team Heroes. The trouble lies with everything else Jet does, especially his development from after five years have passed. First, though, we have to take a look at what Jet’s untamed power can do by sifting through the original Sonic Riders’s dub portion.

Three main scenes depict the truth of Jet’s power on its own. First, we’ll draw upon the scene depicted at 4:30. Sonic makes an illegal left, and Jet notes this before announcing the first sign of his boundless powers. “Revali’s Gale is now ready.” For those of you who don’t understand the implications of this, it shows that Jet either has achieved a massive level of control over his own flight that he is able to take off from the ground on his own, or that he has freed Divine Beast Vah Medoh from Ganon’s control. Neither is any small feat, but we can deduce that it is indeed the latter, since Jet’s take-off is done while riding his Extreme Gear. We know now that Jet has defeated Ganon. (Also worth noting, as it happens between now and the next Jet Moment™, is that Storm is shown to have immense power of his own, thanks to his possession of an enemy stand. More on this later.)

Jet’s next great display of power is shortly before the race at the Great Colosseum In The Middle Of The Desert, specifically the 30-second scene at 16:23. Jet recounts a Redbox encounter in which he almost drowned in quarters, and upon hearing Wave’s concerned rebuttals, he replies with a surprisingly sinister line. “Here, I’ll show you.” Cut to footage of Jet surrounded by money, laughing maniacally. This tells us two things. First, Jet laughs in the face of death, something not at all uncommon in the Sonic Dub Franchise. In fact, in the Sonic 06 dub, Sonic proclaims that he can never die. Second, Jet can project his memories directly into the minds of others. This is admittedly not as monumental a feat as defeating Ganon, but it shows a great level of control for someone as unrefined as Jet.

Jet’s next great accomplishment is in his control of the Chaos Emerald-powered Gamecube 2. This scene, taking place at 19:18, displays three rapid-fire uses of Jet’s untapped potential. In order, he turns up the graphics settings of the entire world around them, showing that he not only knows the limitations of his universe, but can manipulate the world around him at will. From here, he fires a laser into the distance, which is admittedly just his channeling of the Gamecube 2′s power; it’s the least notable of his three accomplishments in this scene, though that can only be said because it lacks a destructive impact. He then proceeds to dig up Pompeii solely with the power of his mind. Jet not only can locate Pompeii, which has allegedly been lost in this universe, but can raise it into a state of permanent levitation.

Only one more scene is notable from the Riders portion of the dub, and that is at 22:28. Jet fails to beat Sonic in a race, yet Sonic does nothing to physically stop him. What is it that tampers with Jet, sending him flying off his board? That’s right. The hand of God. Jet is only able to be physically stopped in this state by God himself. And that is with his powers not even fully explored. However, there is one flaw in this logic: Sonic himself. We need to stray briefly outside of the Fandub and draw upon local Sonic expert, Brian David Gilbert. He is quoted as saying that “... if a hedgehog could commune with the dead, be resurrected, run with infinite energy, and have his gospel prophesy the future, then either Sonic is a god, or could kill God, and I do not care if there is a difference!” Sonic lives in a universe of immense power, and while Jet’s feats are certainly not anything to be scoffed at, they pale in comparison to direct tampering with Sonic.

... that is, until the introduction of City Seventeen.

Up until now, all we’ve drawn upon is the original Sonic Riders, where Jet hasn’t taken five years apart from Sonic to live a toxicity-free lifestyle. This toxicity cleanse has clearly left him powered beyond belief, and while this power is not shown throughout the Zero Gravity dub as it was during the original Sonic Riders dub, one scene tells us all that we need to decipher the true scope of Jet’s power. That scene takes place at 56:21, and is the introduction of City Seventeen, The World Of Thematic Resolution. He feigns confusion, but this very city is a mindscape of his own creation, founded with the sole intent of imprisoning Sonic until he unlearns his toxic mannerisms. The very creation of City Seventeen is a feat entirely unforeseen within Sonic. Solely by his own means, Jet forces the gang to enter his own universe within the XBox of Friendship.

I know what you may be thinking right about now, too. That one man claimed to be the creator of City Seventeen, and thus the universe has nothing to do with Jet. However, consider the scope of great religions over the course of humanity. A true god never reveals himself directly to the universe as a whole; there is always a divine prophet. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad. This human man is simply the prophet through which Jet shall tell his cautionary tale of toxic masculinity and Adam Sandler movies. Now that that’s been covered in full, let’s briefly cover a comparative display of Jet’s powers to that of his own friend Storm.

When confronted by City Seventeen, Storm is fully unable to cope with his surroundings, and loses control of his limbs, his eyes, and his mouth. Left completely motionless, he is left to beg for death from Hatsune Miku. Before you ask about her, she’s just a universal constant. Anyway, in comparison to Storm, how is Jet able to move around? Perfectly freely. Storm, a powerful stand user who nearly drowned Knuckles in his own lungs, was completely dwarfed by Jet the Hawk. And with good reason.

In conclusion, while the scope of Jet’s power is admittedly still unknown, he reigns far supreme over any deity whose power has been showcased in the Sonic Fandub Cinematic Universe. Sonic may be a god, but Jet operates on a level above theism. Jet has full and complete command of not only this universe, but infinite others, and the fact that we remain in somewhat peaceful times is a sign of Jet’s mercy. We can only thank Redbox and his busy schedule for not allowing him to watch Grown Ups 2. If he had fallen in line with Adam Sandler’s toxicity, the multiverse would be walking upon a tightrope.

[forevercloudnine]

batman forever riddlebat ship meme

(This one was inevitable. God, do I love this movie. @heroes-etc​ gave me questions from this ship meme.)

2. Who is the most insecure and what makes them feel better?

The obvious answer here is Edward because he is... clearly and pathologically insecure in his identity and requiring outside approval. You could argue he gets over this once he adopts his flamboyant supervillain identity, but as soon as he steps out of it to be Edward Nygma again he’s as self-conscious as ever. On some level his Bruce cosplay at the Nygmatech party is probably supposed to be a dig at his former idol, but it’s pretty transparent that he’s paranoid about not measuring up, especially once Bruce actually walks in.

As for what makes him feel better, two obvious high points of his self-esteem right off the bat (lol) are when Bruce is giving him positive attention in his intro scene, and directly afterwards when he’s murdering his boss for ragging on him.

Of course, neither external validation or murder is, like, a permanent solution to insecurity. Obviously. If they ever got together Bruce would probably make him go to therapy, which would be incredibly hypocritical because, as Dr. Meridian points out in this movie, that’s not exactly something Bruce is doing. Although in Bruce’s defense, if you count the novelizations as canon for this continuity, the psychiatrist Alfred hired for him as a child basically wrote him off as a lost cause that was going to inevitably self-destruct at some point in adulthood. So I can see why he’d think therapy isn’t for him. 

"Young Bruce may seem quite the stalwart, but there’s still a child beneath that veneer of calm acceptance [...] The day will come when that veneer crumbles, and the boy reacts to the memory of his ordeal. Such matters may be postponed, but not indefinitely. And the longer this one is delayed, the greater the damage will be to his psyche.”

“Still,” Alfred pressed. “How do you think this will all come out? Off the record, if you prefer.”

Another pause. “I am not terribly optimistic,” the stout man admitted. “But I assure you, I will do my best.”

Alternatively, Bruce just lets Edward borrow his clothes and calls it a day. It’s less time consuming than therapy and both the movie and novelization demonstrate how into that Edward is.

He was murmuring to himself, “We’ll probably be dining at Wayne Manor together.” He envisioned Bruce sitting across from him, and began to launch into a narrative [...] “Yes. Yes. A Party in my honor? I should have rented a tuxedo. What?” he couldn’t believe it, “One of yours, Bruce?” He gave it a moment’s thought and then shrugged. “Why not? We are the same size.”

3. Who is the most romantic?

 Uh, not Bruce! Batman Forever is the most thoughtfully romantic he gets in the entire series, and even here his only two dates ideas are “whatever Gotham social event my secretary tells me I need a date for” and “coming on to my date in my alternate identity to see if she loves me enough not to cheat on me with Batman.” Also, he vacillates between staunchly refusing to do any flirting at all and dishing out the least romantic pick-up lines possible.

You say “bad writing,” I say “totally in character for a hot rich guy who knows that this is as hard as he has to try to get into someone’s pants.” Bruce might love his partner with the intensity of a thousand dying suns, but he’s still sending Alfred to buy all their Valentine’s Day presents. His idea of a romantic evening for two is finally trusting someone enough to tell them his secret identity. If he’s done that already, or they already figured it out, then his playbook is over. That’s clearly the only romantic fantasy he’s ever allowed himself.  

(I was going to say he does this once every movie, but he actually never does this in Batman & Robin specifically because he doesn’t actually care about Julie Madison. She proposes to him and he gets her name wrong while shooting her down. Add that to the “Bruce Wayne isn’t romantic” box.)

The ridiculous amount of magazine cut-outs populating Edward’s apartment indicates that he probably has a very vibrant and extensive set of fantasies involving Bruce, which is hinted at a couple times in the novelization.

Edward would certainly know him when he saw him. He’d spent enough time anticipating the moment, after all [...] Finally he was going to be meeting Bruce Wayne face-to-face, and he had every moment of the encounter scripted [...] He’d rehearsed it to perfection in his mind for weeks upon months.

In the grand scheme of things... in the fabulous, sweeping, intertwining destinies of Bruce Wayne and Edward Nygma, such a slip would not even rate a footnote.

He becomes suddenly and painfully aware that if Bruce Wayne walked away without Edward Nygma by his side, then that would be it. It would be finished. All these weeks, months... indeed, a lifetime of planning... and it was crumbling under him just like that.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean his fantasies are all romantic in the traditional sense of the word. This is a man who was charmed by Harvey holding a charity circus hostage with some kind of graffitied missile warhead. Tonally, there’s not even that much of a difference between his crush collages and his riddle death threats.

What’s weirder, using a magazine cutout of someone you hate to make a pop-up card of their face, or using a magazine cutout of someone you love to replace the anatomically correct heart in the cardiovascular system diagram you keep in your apartment/arcade/makeshift laboratory? Probably the former, since it was made with the express purpose of Bruce actually seeing it. Although presumably Edward was planning on taking Bruce to his apartment at some point? And in the novelization, he actually drags Bruce into his cubicle to look at his Wayne Shrine.

He grabbed Bruce’s arms and shouted “No, don’t leave me! I need you!” [...] Bruce was thunderstruck as he was pulled partway into Edward’s office... and then he caught sight of the shrine. 

Edwards’s head bobbed eagerly. Now, finally, Bruce would understand the depth of Nygma’s devotion to his idol. He would see how important he was to Nygma.

Notably, the only thing that upsets Bruce about the fact that one of his employees has a serial killer wall dedicated to him at their work station (@heroes-etc: realistically.... IS this the first time this has happened? i doubt it.) is the fact that the shrine includes a picture of him taken directly after his parents’ death, which is obviously a huge trigger for Bruce’s PTSD.

Wayne’s gaze zeroed in on the picture of himself as a young man. 

The eyes of Wayne the elder locked with Wayne the younger, and when he slowly turned his scrutiny back to Edward Nygma, Edward could feel the temperature in the cubicle drop to subzero.

Later, once Bruce isn’t being actively reminded of the most traumatizing day of his life, he reflects that he could probably relate to Edward’s specific brand of crazy, and hopes that it’s not too late to try again (it is).

He paused momentarily at Edward Nygma’s cubicle, thinking about the intensity he’d seen in the man’s eyes the other day. Nygma’s ideas might have been a bit odd, but that sort of passion—if properly channeled—could accomplish miracles. That was something Bruce Wayne certainly knew better than anyone else. Perhaps after this fiasco was the time to take Nygma aside under less-pressured circumstances. Start again...

With any other character, I would call bull on their being this unphased by someone being obsessed enough with them to build a stalker shrine, but, like. It’s Batman. He probably has a stalker shrine to Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman in his cave somewhere. When they start dating, Edward mails the weirdest magazine cutout valentines to his office on the regular, and every time Bruce has to assure his staff that it’s not a ransom letter and it’s just “his boyfriend being romantic.”

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other?

I mean, by most people’s standards, any one of the things that Edward does in front of Bruce could easily be the most embarrassing thing to happen to them in their lifetime. But for the most part, Edward seems blissfully free of that kind of self-consciousness. He accidentally introduces himself to Bruce as “[extended moaning sound] Bruce Wayne” and shakes it off without even registering his mistake. Even when he feels like Bruce has rejected him and his project, his emotional state is more shocked, saddened, and angry than it is ashamed. He does apologize to Bruce, during the scene where they first meet, for holding on to his hand too long during their handshake. And by “handshake” I mean that Bruce extends his hand to be shaken, and Edward just grabs on and holds it without any motion whatsoever for the entire first half of their conversation. Which might be the only time he ever apologizes in the entire movie. So I’ll say that was his moment of embarrassment.

Bruce only really embarrasses himself in front of Alfred, but Edward does manage to trick Bruce into getting scanned by his mind reading device at the Nygmatech party. Being tricked in general would be pretty awkward for Bruce, since this movie goes out of its way to show the audience how SMART and CLEVER and KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT BRAINWAVES Bruce is at every opportunity. But being tricked into getting your mind read is about a million times more embarrassing than just running into a wall like some kind of Looney Tune. Obviously having access to Bruce’s mind allows Edward to figure out that his former boss/current obsessee is Batman, but also it’s just got to be super weird in there. Bruce is a bizarre man.  

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious?

Whether he’s idolizing Bruce or plotting his destruction, Edward is still seeing the subject of his lifelong obsession as a larger than life exaggeration of the real man. Some of that pedestal would probably survive into the beginning of a romantic relationship, but by the time they got serious Edward would have had to recognize that Bruce has both positive and negative traits. He would also have had to grapple with the fact that the man he once assumed would make everything in his life better is a lot of work to be around, especially in this movie’s continuity where the trauma of his family’s death and his guilt over allowing enemies like Joker to die are genuinely affecting Bruce’s day-to-day functionality.

(A lot of things, Chase.)

Edward’s introduction scene demonstrates that he doesn’t see Bruce as having these kinds of problems. His Escapism Wish Fulfillment Device TM is clearly a very personal project for him, since he, you know. Is kind of already living in a Bruce-centric fantasy world.

When he’s pitching it to Bruce, however, he states that he doesn’t think someone like Bruce would ever need to escape reality (which could just be ingratiating flattery, but he barely seems aware of what he’s saying at the time because he’s too busy staring with his mouth open at Bruce putting on glasses).

(Side note: an interjection from @heroes-etc​

Anyway, moving on.)

Obviously we know he’s wrong, since Bruce escapes his reality every night by dressing up like a bat and scaring people. Normally that’s just subtext (or me being cynical and creating subtext), but Batman Forever introduced a hot psychiatrist who is constantly poking at Batman for being a power fantasy created by a traumatized mind to cope with intense feelings of helplessness in childhood. 

 The novelization makes it clear that it’s not the illusion of perfection that Edward is attracted to, however. The picture of Bruce in Crime Alley is what kickstarts Edward’s obsession, not because Bruce seemed flawless but because he seemed to be going through similar pain as Edward (whatever Edward’s pain even IS in this continuity). So I think recognizing Bruce’s issues would be less of a dealbreaker and more of a point of connection, were they to get serious.

He saw, there in Bruce Wayne’s face, an intensity that mirrored his own. An anger, a frustration at the hand that fate had dealt him. There were no tears on Bruce’s face. Instead there was a smoldering intelligence that Edward intuitively sensed was on par with his own. 

There was something in Bruce’s eyes, something in that gaze. There was Bruce, in a moment of raw emotion, his parents just having been cruelly taken from him. And there was no self-pity. Just cold, hard anger.

[...] Ed still had the newspaper with him when he was walking home from school. Not that he needed it to read; the contents were safely locked away in his skull, thanks to his photographic memory. But he wanted to clip out the articles and pictures about Bruce Wayne. He found the young man fascinating, as if he had discovered a soulmate of sorts.

For Bruce, on the other hand, getting serious presumably just means attempting to include Edward more and more in the found family he builds in the latter half of the 90’s Batman movies. Alfred approving a love interest is not quite as tantamount in this continuity as it is sometimes (Micheal Gough Alfred is pretty laid back), but Bruce is still spending all of his non-Batman, non-socialite time with his butler. So if Edward wants to hang out with Bruce, he has to either get on Alfred’s good side or prepare for a lot of “romantic quality time” where his boyfriend’s dad is glaring at him from the background.

Dick is less important to get on the good side of, since he and Bruce argue all the time in these movies (apparently one of the proposed scripts for Batman & Robin was Bruce kicking Dick out of the house and making him go to college, where Dick would cope with his dad-related anger by bullying his psychology professor Dr. Crane into becoming a supervillain. I personally feel like I deserved to see that Scarecrow origin). So if Dick doesn’t like Bruce’s new boyfriend, it’s just one more thing for them to be catty to each other about.  

Alfred’s niece Barbara Wilson on the other hand (who is adorable as a fusion of Barbara Gordon and Julia Pennyworth, do not @ me) would be absolutely vital for Edward to win over, because her opinion could easily either make or break his standing with her uncle. Also Bruce decided to adopt her within five minutes of meeting her, so he’s obviously fond.

19. Where do they go on their first date?

Edward’s fantasy sequence in the novelization makes it obvious enough that he would really, really like to have dinner at Wayne Manor. Hanging out at someone’s house isn’t really a traditional first date, especially if one of you is a billionaire who could have taken you literally anywhere, but clearly none of that matters to Bruce, because that’s exactly the first date he invites Vicki Vale on in Batman (1989).

It’s pretty painfully awkward (“You want to know the truth? I don’t think I’ve ever been in this room before”) until Bruce gives up on the formality and takes her down to eat the rest of their courses with Alfred in the kitchen.

I feel like his first date with Edward could probably go the same way, with a few major differences. One, Edward would have been super enthused about eating in the fancy dining hall, and Bruce would have only suggested finishing their meal in the kitchen because Edward clearly wanted to see As Much Of The Manor As Possible. Two, when Alfred offers to stop embarrassing Bruce and leave them alone for the end of their date, Edward would have insisted he stay and break out the baby albums. You cannot convince me that Alfred is not a scrapbooker. Actually, does what Edward’s doing count as scrapbooking? Maybe they could compare notes.

[tsuumu]

hq boys: would they go to jail?

headcanons on the haikyuu boys’ encounters with the local authorities... this was meant to be a joke but i put way too much effort into it so now i’m s q u i n t i n g

hinata shoyo: this boy was caught trespassing on somebody’s property after diligently trying to accomplish something as harmless as finding a lost ball or petting a small cat... he’d climbed the fence and spent a maximum of FIVE minutes there, only for the owner to accuse him of breaking and entering without any room to explain himself. imagine: the poor boy being dragged by the ear despite his protesting. he’ll get an earful when he has to ask kageyama to pick him up after the police release him with a stern warning

kageyama tobio: tobio and his tendancies to disguise himself for ridiculous reasons is going to get him in trouble because they’re shitty and VERY suspicious most likely he’ll be one of his investigative escapades with his hat and glasses, only to be stopped and asked what he’s doing. that’ll be real embarrassing for him to explain, though it doesn’t end up getting more serious than that when they realise he’s just a kid

tanaka ryūnosuke: can i say almost? TALKS SO MUCH CRAP, oh my god he won’t ever shut up so one day he’ll bite off more than he can chew. he’d get into a serious looking argument and someone mentions calling the authorities. cue a 180 personality change up where he’s scratching his neck and apologising to everybody that’s stopped to watch. tanaka is no criminal, he just has a short fuse temper and a mouth that likes to RUN faster than his brain can catch up. he’s had a few close calls

nishinoya yuu: he’s DEFINITELY told people he’s been to jail LMAO like it’s something he mentions to girls whilst picking them up thinking that’s somehow attractive, when in reality he’s never even set foot in a police station. he might have once as a child for harmless reasons, but got scared and started crying his eyes out so they had to take him outside. he’s lowkey TERRIFIED of ever crossing paths with the law

tsukkishima kei: he’d never end up in jail or even in a situation that involved the police but he’s definitely not going to answer your call if you’ve ended up there and need a ride home, keep calling and he’ll block you until morning comes

daichi sawamura: post time-skip he’s a literal police officer so that’s out of the question

sugawara koushi: absolutely not. unlike tsukki, he will pick up though. he’d be surprisingly scary when lecturing you all the way back but would ask you if you want to stop and get something to eat, since you’ve had quite the day

yamaguchi tadashi: he wouldn’t. he’s overly cautious about most things and is definitely that friend who tugs on you and asks if it’s really okay to be doing this. par example: wondering into a restricted zone because you’re convinced it’s a short cut. he’d adamant to turn back and if, unfortunately, you did get caught, cue some intense waterworks from this poor boy, begging them not to call his parents. you’d feel pretty bad after that one

bokuto koutarou: i read a post from somewhere else about bokutou not understanding that paying tax as an adult is mandatory and extremely illegal if you don’t and it cracked me up because i can genuinely imagine the bewilderment in his face when he’s told he, a newly turned adult, has to pay the government a certain sum of money

“but it’s my money.”

“yeah, but it’s taxation, you have to pay the government.”

“but the government paid me first.”

once somebody mentions jail, he’s quick to end the argument and just deal with it, much to his dismay

akaashi keiji: he’s the one doing the explaining to bokuto. they’ve had this conversation at least 17 times and show no signs of stopping. akaashi is sensible and seems like the type of guy most his friends reach out to if they’re in tricky situations with the law, he’ll /begrudgingly/ wake up at 2am to come get you

kuroo tetsurou: he likes to do his deviant work when he’s belligerently drunk. like, someone told him shotgunning beers at a public gathering wouldn’t do too much harm. they were severely mistaken. tetsu has absolutely ZERO filter when he’s that intoxicated, picking verbal fights in club bathrooms with anybody over absolutely nothing. though chances are, he’ll end up befriending them and sharing a few more drinks. if not, kenma is there to supervise him. he’ll feel apologetic in the morning

kenma kozume: you have kenma to thank when it comes to preventing things from getting serious. he’s cool-headed and knows how to drag you out of situations. he won’t scold you, he’ll just tell you to stop causing everybody trouble. it’d make you feel bad and you’d probably quit it

oikawa tooru: he’s probably been in a few situations that could’ve lead to getting a permanent criminal record. tooru is convinced he’s never in the wrong for ANYTHING and will not listen to any kind of constructive critism. pretends to be fine when he’s literally screaming inside.

“your car was parked incorrectly.”

“uh, no. i really don’t think so.”

“look at it.”

“i am. i’m looking.”

“it’s covering two parking spaces.”

“that’s simply a matter of opinion.”

asks kindaichi or iwaizumi to help. they straight up refuse, walking away respectively.

ushijima wakatoshi: this man is intent on keeping a clean record in order to reach his goal of playing professional volleyball. states that it also gives him a clear conscience because toshi is for some reason very big on morality. he’ll come get you because -and i quote- ‘it’s my job’ but he’ll try to lay down piece by piece why exactly having run-ins with the police is so crippling to your future. you’re forced to listen for the entire 30 minute trip home

tendou satori: nobody knows where this man is at 3am. he’s just.. somewhere. you’re certain he’s not doing hard crack under some passageway but he’s not at home with his feet up either. he’ll start to mention last night’s escapades and stop himself, mumbling that it was definitely illegal and that he probably shouldn’t tell you. you can’t coax information out of him, though he wishes he could tell you. he just can’t. maybe it’s cult stuff...

miya atsumu: speaking of cars, this man straight up ignored the letter he got from the local authorities telling him his court date for the speeding ticket he recieved a few days ago. thinks it’s utter bs and continues to flutter around it until they knock on his door. atsumu proceeds to ARGUE with them about his speeding ticket until they ask him to come with them.

“yer tellin’ me i have to pay for going a little too fast?”

“sir, you were going fifty-two in a fourty mph area.”

is it his pride? is he just a blithering idiot? he’s one of the only people to probably end up in a holding cell for a short duration of time. none of his friends let him drive anymore.

miya osamu: he likes to use atsumu’s misfortunes to embarrass him. it’s an easy way to one-up himself when things get competitive. at least HE never got caught shirtless and drunk with his friends at the outdoors swimming pool a little past midnight.

atsumu states that it was ONE TIME when he was newly eighteen and to stop bringing it up in every argument. osamu himself doesn’t really bother with recklessness, so you simply won’t catch him in situations like that.

rintaro suna: straight up not having a good time and leaves before anything bad arises. will respectfully hang up on you mid-explaination because he has other things to do than bail you out

sakusa kiyoomi:??????? no

korai hoshiumi: okay, he has to admit that he’s a little curious... like there’s no way he’d want to actually end up in jail but he just wants to know?? like yes, there’s consequences but human existence is temporary.. his friends have to check up on him just to make his enthusiasm hasn’t landed him somewhere troublesome

bonus

yuji terushima: currently in holding for posession of an unknown substance. might be protein powder, might not. he won’t tell anybody.

[littleogreboii]

Soleil

Summary: 

God of death with a gaze of woe, spoke to me and he told me so: "Fast, before I will lose control, please, have mercy and save my soul." 

If you were to ask Soul, Maka was the sun and Soul was the moon, and Maka deserved the world.

Warnings:

Major Character Death | Brief Description of a Dead Body

AN:

This is based off the song Soleil by Toraboruta-P and I used the English translyrics by JoyDreamer. You can find her cover here. I personally really like Lizz's cover. I just think Lizz's softer voice goes with the tone of the song a bit more.

It’s like midnight for me at the moment so I apologise if there’s any mistakes or if it’s just generally trash, but like it’s too late now.

AO3

God of death with a gaze of woe, spoke to me and he told me so:

"Fast, before I will lose control, please, have mercy and save my soul."

Maka looks upon the being that used to resemble her dearest friend. If she looks closely she can still almost see ribbons of pink hair bursting out of the darkness. The ribbons are fast decreasing and she knows it won’t be long until they’re fully lost.

Soul pushes Maka back, brandishing a scythe to protect them from the blades. “Maka. Pay attention.” He thrusts the scythe forward and leaps back, reaching out to pull Maka with him.

“But Soul…” She breaths, hand ghosting her mouth. “Can’t you hear?” It’s evident in the way Soul doesn’t hesitate to defend the two of them that he can’t, but it’s all she can hear.

“Save me.” The being cries. “Help.” They continue. And the voice is so familiar that Maka fails to suppress a shudder.

“Chrona.” She whispers and that catches Soul’s attention. He puts more distance between them and the being. They retreat into the trees, knowing the being will have a harder time manoeuvering the terrain.

“What do you mean?” He leans against a tree, catching his breath.

“It’s Chrona.” She collapses to her knees. Her hands dig into the dirt as the tears run down her face. “It’s Chrona.”

All the pain you feel, I am sure you didn't wish for that

And the looks that you bear are so grim, those you wear

Maka can remember a simpler time when the three of them were kids. Chrona’s wings had always been slightly darker than her’s and Soul’s, but Maka passed it off as a trick of the light. They hadn’t shared much of their childhood with Soul and Maka, but the flashes Chrona gave away suggested it wasn’t pleasant. They had that in common with Soul.

The most common occurrence in these flashes had been the name ‘Medusa’. Maka had quickly decided she wasn’t a fan of Medusa, but she thought that Chrona was free as long as they were with her and Soul. She’d been wrong.

One day, Chrona had been there, the next, they were gone. Maka had dragged Soul along to search for them and on the way they had encountered many different people. Maka spares a thought for those people whom she knows are waiting in the village for Soul to slay the being. It’s his final trial on his way to adulthood and he bought Maka along. She knows he regrets bringing her, but she can’t remember the last time they’d been separated. Still, with the knowledge that this is Chrona, she can’t bring herself to simply let Soul kill them. There has to be another way.

Maka’s mind flicks back to the woman’s body she’d found on the floor of Medusa’s house. The body had been tainted blue with blisters forming along the arms and face. Dried blood and rotting meat had flooded her senses. A large cut straight through the body’s chest was the last thing she remembers of that day. She couldn’t tell you how she got out. She assumes Soul had something to do with it, always better at biting back his emotions. 

She can’t bear the thought of Chrona looking like that woman had. She has to do something now and it has to be fast.

Shining bright, she is like the sun, waiting there for her fate to come

Holding out her hand with the flow, smiling as she then told you so:

Chrona breaks through the last of the trees and Soul rises to protect Maka. Maka rises too. She walks past Soul and pushes his weapon down. She reaches out her arms towards Chrona, allowing a soft smile to take residence upon her face.

She remembers the first time she met Chrona. They’d attempted to steal food from her and Soul. Soul had ended up with a gash from that encounter, but soon after, they’d met again. That time, Maka had offered up some food to Chrona with a careful smile. Chrona had broken down to her not long after that and she’d held their hand through it all. Chrona’s tiny wings had been so fragile back then.

Now, Chrona’s jet black wings cast shadows over Maka’s small frame. She ignores this, extending her arms closer to Chrona. 

"It is quite alright, I shall take the darkness that you hold

And I will change your shape, as a bird you can escape

“I’m so sorry, Chrona.” Maka begins, taking another step towards Chrona. “I should have been there for you, but it’s alright now.” She wraps her arms around Chrona, avoiding the blades threatening to dig into her skin. “Yes, it is quite alright.”

The darkness inside Chrona is infectious and the memories they carry with them stream into Maka. The times they all spent together seem so far away with the way Medusa seems to slither into every inch of them. All Maka can see is the harsh words and bitter manipulation Medusa instilled inside of Chrona.

She forces herself to look past that. She thinks of the games they all played together under the shining sun. “I can feel it all. I’m so sorry, but it’s ok now. I shall take it all away.” She bites her lip. “I don’t think we can return to how things were before, but it’s not too late.” She hugs Chrona tighter. “Yes, I think a bird would be perfect for you.”

You can fly to place far away, in the sky you are free everyday

If you don't have a goal or a prey, then it's fine 'cause with me you can stay"

Soul watches as Chrona begins to morph. For a moment, he catches a glimpse of the old Chrona. He sees the lilac hair and lanky stature that they always carried. It fades as more of the darkness seeps away. He watches the darkness make it’s bed in Maka’s arms, soaking them in ashen tones. He tells himself it’s ok. Maka is strong.

Maka continues her speech. “As a bird, you’ll be free to go wherever. Medusa will never find you.” She hesitates. “But, if you have nowhere to go, you’re always welcome to stay with me, Chrona.” She leans her head against Chrona. “Always.”

Maka is forced to release them as they shift even further. She shudders, a permanent chill settling into her spine. Soul comes up beside her and wraps her in a side hug. She leans into it, drowning herself in the scent of his sweat. Anything other than blood.

White as told, wings unfold, here it stays, following always

The black in Chrona’s wings bleeds out, replaced with a blinding white. They’re far whiter than Soul’s wings have ever been and he worries Maka has overdone it. Chrona shrinks down, seemingly into ash, until all that remains are their wings. Out from the ash a white dove appears and Soul can tell Chrona remembers everything now.

The bird flies out of the ashes, high into the air and the sunlight reflects off their wings. Maka faces Soul shooting him a reassured smile, but Soul can only watch Chrona. He’s enchanted by the way Maka washed away all of Chrona’s darkness with such ease. Chrona returns to the two of them, fluttering about at eye level. 

Soul’s eyes are drawn behind Chrona to the dark cloud approaching from the village.

Many more are wanting now her to save them all somehow

And the girl was reaching out saving them without a doubt

It’s to be expected that everyone flocks to Maka wanting them to purge the darkness from them as well. The greed only increases the darkness and people are becoming tainted faster than before. They wave off their sins, knowing Maka will be there to save them at the moment they lose themselves. Soul can only watch from the side as her wings begin to taint.

The first boy she helps is one she’s met before. He’d introduced himself as Kid back then. He’d been tainted by his obsession with symmetry. It had driven him to the point of wanting to reduce everything to zero to create a ‘perfect’ world. However, the first step for a perfect world involved eliminating humans as they are the biggest wrongs in the world. Maka takes that obsession with nothing less than a smile. She squashes it down when it threatens to overtake her. She thinks of the beauty that the imperfections of the world holds.

The next boy she helps is an obnoxious one. His desire to be the strongest had set him down the path of the demon and he’d thrown himself into the darkness full throttle. The girl that accompanies him, introduces him as Black Star. Soul knows the girl will soon follow Black Star into darkness and can only hope that she doesn’t come to Maka when that happens. 

Maka steals the desire to be the strongest away and reminds him that power that risks harming those he loves isn’t worth it. Later when Soul asks how she dealt with the darkness Black Star held, she’ll laugh and state that she has so desire to get stronger unless she’s getting stronger alongside Soul. Soul’s heart begins to break at the notion.

The girl finds her way back to them soon after, the darkness absorbing her. Her wings tainted by the lies she’d drowned herself in to keep others happy. Soul finds this one the most pitiful. Her lies made to keep others happy had only brought them misery. 

“Tsubaki,” Soul laughs, “Truly a pitiful flower.” He decides the name suits her. However, the laugh fails when he notices the lies that begin to slip past Maka’s tongue with more ease than they used to.

Two siblings appear next. They remind him of Chrona. A life full of misery, only the sibling turned that misery into weapons. Liz and Patty, the demon sisters, a name that the siblings don’t seem to appreciate. Maka struggles to take the darkness from these two. They’ve been holding onto their anger for so long that there’s barely anything left to save, but Maka, ‘perfect angelic’ Maka, does it anyway.

Slowly as all the birds were to fly, she was in there among in the sky

'Cause the birds were all covered in white, she had turned just as dark as the night

Soul finds it harder to be around Maka these days. She snaps over the smallest thing and he spends most of his time walking on eggshells. He can never bring himself to blame her though. He knows that there’s no stopping her and he also knows he could never bring himself to leave her.

More people come and she saves all of them without hesitation. They hardly speak to each other now and Soul longs for the days of their childhood where Maka would smile with all the light in the world.

The day comes when there’s no more light she can give. At that time, the sky is filled with beautiful white birds, but Soul doesn’t care for them. He only has eyes for Maka. He squints through the blinding light rays and finds her in the centre of it all. Her skin no longer glows and her eyes hold no light.

She's consumed by the darkness they bore, she will never wake up anymore

'Cause she used all the strength she would hold, now her body is finally cold

It’s Soul’s turn to remember the body they found all that time ago. He didn’t allow himself to react at the time, too concerned for Maka, but now she’s in the same situation and it’s all he can think about. But, instead of the body, all he can see is Maka led like that. It bubbles up inside him, until he can barely breathe.

He can’t imagine a world without Maka. She’s all he’s had for so long. He can’t remember what his parents look like and it’s been a long time since he heard from Wes. Chrona never stayed for him. Even now, he can spot Chrona circling Maka’s body. He wishes Maka had never saved Chrona. He wishes he had the courage to kill Chrona in the first place. But most importantly, he wishes he’d never brought Maka with him to the edge of the forest to face Chrona in the first place. He’s a coward and it’s cost him his light.

Grieving bird, gave his word, took the pain, darkness and all vain

Maka doesn’t deserve to be cold and empty. She should be full of life and warmth. He curls his hands into fists as he resolves himself. Maka managed to take all that darkness so why couldn’t he? What was stopping him from saving her? Nothing.

His wings had been small for so long, but he focuses all his energy into them, willing them bigger. He needs to be able to fly so he can reach her. He screams as the wings rip out of him, stretching out. Feathers fall off him, but he doesn’t care. The wings remind him of Chrona’s and he reassures himself that his wings remain white for the moment.

Through the clouds up he would fly, birds in black where all over the sky

Now you shine like the gold on the sea, all because you are Soleil

Hesitantly, he beats his wings. Once. Then twice. His whole body shakes under the force and he stumbles forward. He steels himself before running forward towards the edge of the cliff. He jumps up and beats his wings. Up he goes, past the sea of white and into the realm of darkness.

Black birds circle Maka and Chrona, still hoping she’ll save them. They charge him as he passes, trying to pass the darkness onto him. His wings are tearing and he fears he won’t make it. He reaches out his hand and it brushes against Maka’s back. He pushes up and lifts her higher. He keeps flying, carrying Maka with him. Chrona follows and Soul knows they’re encouraging him. 

He breaks through the clouds and the light washes over Maka. The darkness floods into Soul, but Soul just watches the way the light warms Maka. His hair dyes white and his eyes flash red. His body shifts and changes, but he’s content to watch the light bounce off Maka’s eyes. She’s finally in her rightful place, under the sun. Her light brown hair glows with the sun.

His wings give one last flap before breaking off. Soul wraps his arms around Maka and allows the darkness to finally take him. He falls, using his body as a cushion for Maka.

It’s a lost cause, but he doesn’t know that.

For just a moment, Soul’s eyes open and he swears he sees the three of them, him, Maka and Chrona, sitting under a tree together as children once more.

[stanthemanstan]

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒌𝒚 𝑰𝒔 𝒂 𝑺𝒂𝒇𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏 ❧ 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑰

A/N: thank you guys for a hundred followers! Sorry about the delay between the uploads, I haven’t been writing a lot lately and I’m still working on the chapter after this. I figured that posting this would be a good way to celebrate a hundred! Hope you enjoy the series, and remember that I’m always open to feedback, questions, etc :)

Word count: 1.4K

Series masterpost

It was twenty-seven years after your final encounter with It when you were called. It was funny, since, like you were of the passing of time, you were unaware of who was on the other line. It took a minute of recollection to realize what the Derry, ME on the phone screen meant to you, and who this man was saying he was. Then it all began to flood back.

“Hello?”

“Is this (Y/N) (L/N)?” you heard on the other line.

“Yes, who is this?”

“It’s Mike. Mike Hanlon, from Derry.”

Derry. The word was so familiar. So strange at the tip of your tongue, yet so… mnemonic. It was the name of your hometown.

“Oh my goodness… Mike, hi, it’s so good to talk to you again.”

It was the place that had seemed to escape your mind for almost twenty years. Where you grew up. Went to school. And, through odd circumstances, formed your strongest relationships and deepest fears. It also wasn’t just the odd place, you thought, that was flitting back into your memories; it was also the people.

“I agree. However, the subject at hand isn’t exactly the most lighthearted.”

It was also the events.

“Hold on… This couldn’t possibly be about—”

The dreaded summer of ’89.

“I hate to say it, but it is. It has returned, (Y/N). You need to come back home.”

The vivid image of that horrid clown pierced your mind for the first time in years. Those were the thoughts that were burned into your brain for the rest of your high school career, only fading when you escaped Derry to attend college.

“I’ll— I’ll make plans to leave as soon as possible, Mike. You’ve called the others? Are they gonna come?”

You remembered your friends, the Losers, the misfits that banded together. There was stuttering Bill Denbrough. Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier. Beverly Marsh. Eddie Kaspbrak the hypochondriac. Ben Hanscom.

“I’ve called almost everyone by now.”

And there was Stanley Uris, the boy who was there for it all.

He was your love and your fear— it was terrifying to realize. While the illusion of the tarantula towering over you was scary enough to your thirteen-year-old self, the thought that came after was much more shattering. The thought of losing him.

“…Do you have Stanley’s number?”

Even though you were deemed too young to have known what love was at the time, you knew that Stanley was too important to you to possibly lose. And that was exactly what you were shown. Being vulnerable, especially after Its assault on him, it was heartbreaking for you to see two of him.

One had begged for you to be okay, telling you that he was there for you, that he would never, ever, ever leave you, that you were everything to him. His voice was hoarse from his previous panicking, screaming, sobbing, and it was ever so desperate when he called out to you. He had blood and sweat and tears staining his face that was bent with fear and worry. He had fresh wounds on the sides of his face from where he was bitten by that horribly warped lady.

The other begged for you to save him, telling you to stop hurting him, that you were killing him, that he would be gone because of you. His voice was hard with disappointment and accusation, sharp enough to pierce your heart and break it permanently. He had blood dried in smears across his face and more of it leaking and sputtering from his lips as he berated you. He had the palest, most lifeless skin, and his eyes were even more so. This impression —Its impression— on your feeble mind was almost emotionally fatal.

The confusion and paranoia lasted a fair amount of time since then.

Completely unwilling to recover and clean up by yourself that day, you accompanied Stan home. You worried that if you weren’t there with him, he would be gone and you would see that deathly vision in his place.

You insisted on helping him disinfect his wounds, even as your hands were trembling, and he eventually had to take care of the matter himself. It was a bit of a predicament for the both of you. You did, however, manage to secure the bandages around his head when he finished. He then cleaned up your scratches for you. It was slightly difficult with one hand, for you were tightly gripping his other one in your own, but he was innovative and concentrated. You just needed to be sure he was beside you.

“Yes, I do. It’s four-oh-four…”

When the oath was made at the Barrens, everyone received a cut on their palm as a token of their promise. You winced as the glass shard pierced your skin, immediately cradling your other hand beneath the cut one. Soon, though, your bloodied hand gripped Stan’s.

You had felt him squeeze your hand, lightly and mindfully enough so that it wouldn’t hurt; a sign of comfort. You gazed at him with such a deep look of admiration in your eyes. The sight of his bandages made your heart ache.

On your right, you held Mike’s hand, and everyone together formed a circle. The eight of you stayed there for a few silent moments before letting your hands fall back to your sides. Your hold on Stan’s was more prolonged.

“Okay, thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Stan had glanced at you and then looked up at Bill, who was across from him. I gotta go. Your breath hitched and your heart dropped. I hate you, he told Bill. One by one, everyone cracked grins and laughed. Your smile was a weak echo of the others’. You were nervous.

When the laughter died down, Stan caught your eye. I’ll see you later, he said softly. He began walking, setting out towards home, but he also let himself linger a moment or two longer.

Yeah, same. Bye, guys, you said with a wave to the group. While you didn’t want to leave everyone so abruptly, you couldn’t be without Stan after what It had shown you. The Losers parted ways with the two of you.

“Bye, (Y/N). Be seeing you tomorrow. Travel safe.” Mike ended the call.

When you met up with Stan —you had to rush only a little since he had gotten a head start— it was oddly silent at first. You began overthinking. Does he notice how I’m practically following him around like a lost puppy? I’m probably annoying him really badly. Does he know what I saw? Why I’m so afraid?

You looked between your cell phone and the notepad that you had scrawled a cursory phone number onto. Stan’s number. You hadn’t even realized that your heart was throbbing until then.

Stan, I’m sorry, you told him on your walk. I just— I can’t be alone right now, after everything that’s happened. I should probably be going home, but…

With the foreboding weight of your fear on your shoulders and with shaky hands, you began punching in the numbers. Four… zero… four…

It’s okay, he said quietly in return. He didn’t prod or ask for an explanation, but it did seem like he already knew. However, at that moment, you had a tacit agreement not to ask each other what you had seen.

The dial tone sounded, echoing through your head. One ring.

You remembered spending that day at his house, practically locked in his room. Neither of you wanted to talk about what had happened —not then, at least— but it was evident that you both needed comfort and protection from it.

Two rings.

You made small talk as you sat about a foot apart on his neatly made bed. You learned more about each other. That foot was reduced to inches. You confided in each other. Those inches were reduced to closeness. You cried to each other. That closeness became contact— shoulder to shoulder. You consoled each other. That contact became an embrace.

Three rings.

You spent that night in his arms, needing the constant reassurance that he would be there. That he was real. That he was okay. That he still believed in you. There was always a raging mental battle going on— you could never tell if he was there or just another twisted illusion.

The line connected.

Was he there?

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Winged Arthur AU (part 9)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 

Part 10: here

The Lance POV:  

NOTE: I may have gotten a little carried away with the introspection, which kind of took over from the ‘Lance explains Lewis’ plan I originally wrote. 

.

Lance leaves Vivi with Arthur. The girl’s got a head on her shoulders so he can trust her to keep an eye on the kid in case he wakes from his- apparently- magic induced unconsciousness. Magic…Not something a regular person thought about, but, hey, it was quickly becoming a reoccurring theme in situations involving his nephew, so he should work on getting used the idea. Especially if the wings are permanent. Lance still doesn’t know what to make of that development. Wearily, he pulls a beer from the fridge before thinking better of it and replacing it with Arthur’s extra-strength coffee. This night is going to be a long one. He’ll need the additional energy. The herbal tea he finds pushed to the back of the cupboard in a stack of small coloured boxes. Lance spends a second staring at the odd assortment before rubbing his eyes. Arthur and the slowly expanding collection of drinks he kept around for his friends…Friend. A long sigh and he picks a box at random.

Never had he seen the universe have it out for two people more than his nephew and the girl. And his life hadn’t exactly been filled with sunshine and roses, so he has a sound basis for comparison. Lance slams two cups down with a little more intensity than is strictly necessary. What the hell is he going to tell Vivi anyway? The whole subject of Lewis is a bloody minefield. Sometimes, on the rare nights, when Vivi and Arthur decided to take a break from endless road tripping to just spend a quiet second relaxing in front of the TV, Lance would salubriously listen to them chat and act like ordinary young people. Mostly, the subjects were light and friendly, echoing a time from before the bullshit. Other times, he’d be subjected to Arthur’s heartbreaking attempts at describing Lewis to Vivi. A pointless endeavour, the girl’s memory was so scrambled she struggled to retain even the barest comprehension of Lewis for more than a few minutes. Not that that had stopped the boy from trying. Right up until Lance put his foot down, banning any talk of Lewis in the house for all their sanities. Not a popular move that one. Now Lance gets to be the one to explain how Lewis, a guy Vivi had been friends with -and probably dating but not like he had ever confirmed that- had been erased, taking half her memory with him. Also, Lewis might now be a ghost…wraith…or whatever, because sure, that made sense. Lance finishes up with his coffee and aggressively dumps a tea bag in some hot water, carrying the two drinks out into the lounge. Vivi is right where he’d left her, settled next to Arthur, working through more of the feathers. The wings don’t appear nearly as dishevelled as they had been. Both kids are covered in enough dirt and blood that he’s amazed, and insanely grateful, that they’re even alive. The room has dropped several degrees in temperature, which Lance attributes to the windows, empty, devoid of their glass. He’d have to work on boarding them up later. For now, he places the two cups down on the tv-tray, before shuffling over to the cupboard quashed behind the couch, pulling free a pile of old blankets. They are motheaten and musty smelling, but it’d do. When he shimmies back around, Vivi glances up and gives a strained grin, taking the offered blanket. She immediately throws it over Arthur. Lance snorts and doesn’t bother commenting, placing the pile at her feet, finding his seat in the recliner. “So, about Lewis. How much are yeh rememberin?” He starts, figuring he should first gauge just how much Vivi remembers before launching into the convoluted tale. The basics. He would start with the basics. An exhale of familiar frustration, “Nothing really. All I have is this feeling that I know him, the ghost that is, from somewhere. Maybe the Lewis you know is a different Lewis?… Did we meet on a case or something?” “Not quite….” Lance grunts. So that was a big fat zero on the memory front. Looks like he’d be telling this story from scratch. He leans back, crosses his arms, and gathers his thoughts. “Yeh know that thing… The thing Arthur’s been searchin for this last few years?” A suspicious, abet calculating, squint. “Yeah…of course I do. I mean I should, I’ve been here for most of it,” Vivi responds promptly. Her next sentence is a statement, “Lewis is connected to my memory loss isn’t he.” Lance nods, continuing bluntly, “That thing… not really a thing at all. More of a person. A person who went missing the night yeh lost ya memories and Arthur lost his arm.” “…and this person is Lewis,” Vivi finishes, catching on quick. He nods, “That’s the name,” leaning back to gulp down some coffee and watch Vivi silently work through the information. “That ghost…the one outside…is he the same Lewis?” Lance grunts, “No idea.” Vivi continues, her tone sharp, “Because he was pretty intent on hurting Arthur. Why would Arthur want to find someone who’d want to hurt him?” Lance doesn’t answer, considering the question carefully. He doesn’t know much about ghosts or wraiths or supernatural anything. All he knew was that he’d liked Lewis when the kid had been around. There wasn’t a person in Tempo who hadn’t. The boy had been polite, friendly, and good-natured in a way many people weren’t. Honestly, Lewis and Vivi had easily been the best thing to happen to nephew, what with how happy hanging out with them made him. After Lewis ‘disappeared’ - god forbid Lance suggest he was dead in Arthur’s presence- Lance had grown to quickly dislike the echo he left behind. Easy to hate a person who wasn’t around. Now, there’s some fire ghost claiming he’s Lewis, and Arthur is covered in blood and scorch marks. Never mind that Lance had walked in on the bastard threatening Vivi, who had looked two seconds away from lunging at said skeleton with only a bat as a weapon. All to protect his nephew. This…this wraith creature claiming to be Lewis? It’s very easy to hate. “The three of ya were close friends for years. Did everythin together. Don’t know nothin about wraiths, but if it wants ta hurt Arthur, then it’s not the Lewis Arthur is searching for.” A pause. That energy rush Vivi had described earlier appears to have been mostly physical because there is an aura of fatigue resting on her shoulders, showing the beginnings of mental exhaustion. “Surely, I would remember someone that important? Or Arthur would have mentioned him.” “The kid tried,” He says, toning down the bluntness, trying for more compassion, “Multiple times. Whatever got the memories, it targeted Lewis and stopped yeh from retainin any info about him.” Vivi hesitates at that, muttering to herself, “I knew it. There is a connection between all the missing memories. It's not random. No wonder Arthur always got upset when I asked questions.”  Then speaking louder, “…But I remember now. Well, I recognised the name at any rate…so that’s something.” She perks up in a way that tells Lance he’s about to learn a bunch of weird supernatural trivia. “A wraith is an embodiment of anger and pain. When a person dies, and the circumstances surrounding the death are traumatic enough, their negative emotions trap them between here and wherever souls go. That’s what the books say.” “You said Lewis disappeared the night Arthur…When Arthur lost his arm.” A physical shiver. “What if, whatever happened back then, it killed this person…Lewis. I mean, we already know the event was bad enough to give us both blackouts, and god knows Arthur gets enough nightmares from the incident. Maybe it was bad enough to create a wraith. Of course, that still doesn’t explain why it wants to hurt Arthur. If you are right about us being friends and stuff, it shouldn’t be targeting us.” Lance can only shrug, “The Lewis I remember wouldn’t have hurt either of yeh. Well, as far as I could tell at any rate.” It is odd hearing Vivi talk about Lewis with such dispassion. Frankly, it’s strange hearing the word Lewis again, period. Along with the name is that weight of frustration and minor irritation. Of course, it couldn’t be a normal, regular, wraith of a random stranger. No, that would have been too fuckin easy. This wraith just had to be the very friend Arthur was driving himself to collapse searching for. Of fuckin course it was. Because that’s what Arthur needed, a dead friend who wanted to burn him ‘to a crisp.’ Heaven help it if it’s pretending to be Lewis to mess with them because Lance is one more encounter with bullshit away from shooting the shit out of the next supernatural bastard he saw.

.

NOTE: Lance is decidedly not happy. 

Part 10: here

[dreamycastaway]

space to sleep

zrs2 is really destroying me so i wrote this little fic ... takes place between s2m4 and s2m5 and its just sam and five being soft lmao. thanks and credits to @zrtranscripts for the first line!!

ps i left five’s lines ambiguous on if they’re spoken or signed!! tried to make it so either could work. 

Sam’s voice crackles in your headset. “I’m not leaving you in New Canton, not after that. You need to come back to Abel. We’ll find space, even if it means you’ve got to sleep with Janine. Well, not “sleep” sleep… You know what, it doesn’t matter. Just come home, Runner Five.” 

“Well, good-bye, Runner Five. I’m sorry about Nadia. I’m sure she didn’t mean it? It’s snows of yesteryear now, right? Or, did it snow much, last year? I can’t quite remember...” 

Archie keeps babbling for a while. You understand Sam’s worry, but there’s no way she’s in on it. Archie’s always been nice to you, and you don’t even mind how much she talks. It bothers a lot of the other runners, but not you. You like to listen.

“Just come home, Runner Five.” The memory of Sam’s voice echoes in your ears, along with a terrible ringing. You’d better get home - before your body realizes you’re out of danger and allows the aftereffects to set in. You wave goodbye to Archie. 

“Yes, yes, you’d better get going. Bye-bye, Runner Five.” She hesitates  “I hope I see you again sometime.” Her voice wavers, like she’s really not sure if she will. It’s a weird sort of camaraderie between runners. The constant life-or-death situations force fast friendships. But you understand her uncertainty. Even these forged-in-fire bonds are no match for the New Canton permanent committee board, or whatever they call themselves, and they’re no match for Major de Santa, either. 

Now that you think of it, they may be no match for the righteous anger of Sam Yao. 

You squint at the sky - there’s probably a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes of daylight left. You start running - after everything today, the last thing you’re after is a twilight encounter with the undead. 

Luckily for you, the run home is uneventful. So uneventful that the setting sun even seems beautiful, as opposed to a harbinger of your imminent zombification. But it’s not as beautiful as the Abel gate, even though this new gate is obviously, well, kind of DIY. “A makeshift stopgap until we can rebuild,” Janine had said. Makeshift. What a strange word. The “make” you understand, but “shift”? Like shifty? You stop your thoughts in their tracks. Oh no, you think. Archie’s wearing off on me. 

“Raise the gates!” Sam calls out. His voice sounds broken - has he been crying? You’re running through what could have happened when the gate sirens start up. You suddenly realize that you have a pounding headache. You slip under the gate as soon as you can fit - you tell yourself it’s because you want the sirens to stop, but you know it’s because you’re relieved to be home.

“Runner Five!” Sam’s voice sounds like it’s echoing. Were the gunshots really that close? Sam’s body collides with yours, and you realize that the echo was because he didn’t even take his headset off before running out here. You stumble to hold your balance as Sam wraps you in a bear hug. You put your arms around him and feel tears well up in your eyes. It’s not until you remember how alive you are that you realize how close you were to death. Oh, G-d, oh G-d. You really almost died out there. 

“I - I thought I’d lost you.” Sam rasps. He sounds awful. He’s definitely been crying. 

You grip him by the shoulders and pull away so you can see him. “Are you okay? You sound terrible.” 

“You should have heard him screaming when he saw you heading towards that factory, Five.” Simon’s smirking, as usual, but you think he sounds relieved. You smirk a little yourself. Simon, worry about you? Aw, shucks. 

“Hey!” Sam starts to reprimand Simon, as if that wouldn’t make him more inclined to keep talking. 

“‘Runner Five, what are you doing? Stop, stop! For the love of G-d don’t run for once in your life!” Simon’s impression of Sam is shrill, but not quite as mean as usual. So he was worried.

“Well I didn’t know if Five could hear me!” Sam responds with indignation. “I didn’t want it to ... to be like ...” 

You shudder. Everyone remembers that night - when you almost got locked out of Abel. You definitely would have been zom-meat if not for Sam. That was undoubtedly one of the worst days of your life. But, if you’re being honest, today was right up there with it. 

“- Not like you would know anything about that!” Oh, right. Sam and Simon are still bickering. 

“Alright, cut it out.” 

“Yeah, alright. See you later, Five.” Simon pauses. “It’s good to have you home.” You smile and raise your eyebrows. Simon Lauchlan, express affection for you? “Well, only because it means I won’t have to do as much work! Don’t go reading into it.” He wanders off, but not without casting a glance over his shoulder. You know that glance - the check-that-they’re-really-here type of glance everyone gives anyone who’s narrowly escaped death. Yeesh. It’s awful how worried everyone must have been... especially with there being so much else to worry about. 

Sam starts walking away from the gate. “Okay, so the good news is you don’t have to sleep with Janine. Yaaay!” He drags out that last syllable - trying to emphasize the good stuff before he gets to the bad, you guess. “But ... unfortunately, the runners’ quarters aren’t rebuilt yet, so you’ll be stuck in the comms shack with me and, uh, Eugene. He’s got his own little room but he’s in a bad sort since ... well, you know.” 

You grimace. You haven’t seen much of Eugene since, well, since Abel was destroyed. But you know that no one’s seen anything of Jack, and you know Jack and Eugene were practically joined at the hip. Suddenly, Sam stops walking. Oh. You forgot how close everything was in Abel, after your stint in the comparatively sprawling New Canton. He reaches past you and opens the door to the comms shack. 

“Eugene?” he asks, softly. For a moment, nothing. You hold your breath; honestly, you’re not even sure why. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Sam is answered by a soft snore. “Oh good, he’s asleep. Bloody needs it.”

You step over the threshold. Sam closes the door behind you as you breathe in the comms shack - it has a distinctive atmosphere. Sure, it’s cramped and smells weird and is dimly lit this time of day, but the low hum of the electronics, and Eugene’s snores, and the sound of Sam’s voice help you forget the apocalypse a little bit; remind you what it should feel like to be young and alive.

“Okay, so,” Sam stands akimbo, casting his eyes about the comms shack as one might’ve cast eyes about a messy bedroom, before day zero. “The thing is -“ You put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from speaking. 

“You never answered me earlier. Are you okay?” 

Sam blinks at you. “What?”

“Oh, uh, you sounded like you’d be crying.”

“Yeah, of course I bloody had! I thought ... I mean, Nadia tried to kill you!” He pauses. When he starts speaking again, his voice is much softer, barely even a whisper. “You’re ... you’re my closest friend here. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” 

Oh. 

You aren’t quite sure how to comfort a friend about your own near death experience. You pause for a moment before deciding on a hug - a far more real reminder of the fact that you’re alive than any words you could muster. 

You think you need the reminder, too. 

Sam mumbles, his face caught up in your embrace. “There’s something wrong with you, Five. Nearly get blown to bits by Dedlocks and you’re still worried about me.” He chokes out a noise - you can’t tell if it’s a dry laugh or a tired sob. 

He pulls away. “I’m glad you’re home.” 

“Me too.”

You suddenly feel weak on your feet - as if your body just remembered how long it’s been since you ate breakfast at New Canton, how much has happened since then. 

“Whoa there, you okay?” Sam reaches out to steady you. 

“Don’t worry; I’m okay.” You smile weakly. “Just had a long day, is all.” 

Sam does his best to seem unimpressed with your joke, but you see the corners of his mouth turn upwards. 

“Yeah, bollocks. So, like I was saying before,” he puts his hand to the back of his neck, almost embarrassed. “We really don’t have a bed for you, and the Major said that since I was the one who insisted on bringing you back, I had to figure it out. But I’ve been pulling double duty sending communiques over to New Canton at night and transcribing all their responses, so i’ve mostly just been napping in my chair.” 

You look at him. He does look tired. But with Jack gone and Eugene a wreck, he’s really the only one who can work all this stuff, except the Major herself.

“So anyway, you can sleep in my bed until we get the runners’ quarters fixed back up.” 

You want to protest. You couldn’t possibly take Sam’s bed from him, not with him looking so tired. But as you look over to the little cot, barely fifteen centimeters off the floor, every muscle in your body yearns to lie down and sleep. 

Sam must see the conflict on your face. “Now, look, I won’t hear any arguments. You need to rest and the Major’s right, I did bring you back here, so I’ve got to take care of you.” 

You feel very weak. Too weak to put up a fight against the indomitably stubborn Sam Yao. 

“Okay, if you’re sure. Kick me out whenever, though.” 

“Of course I’m bloody sure! And I won’t be kicking you out. There’s some snacks in that filing cabinet; you must be hungry, seeing as you missed dinner...” 

You’re appreciative, but you’re hardly listening. You’re barely able to kick off your running shoes before collapsing onto Sam’s bed - the weight of the day suddenly hits you like a train, and sleep is the only thing you can think about. 

“Whoa. You’re worse than I thought. You’d better get some rest ... you’ll be lucky if the Major gives you even a day to recover.” He stands up straight and puffs his chest out. “It’s all hands on deck, Mr. Yao, Runner Five!” 

You crack a smile. “That’s a pretty good impersonation.”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on it. Get some rest. I’ll try to keep as quiet as I can, but I gotta keep working.” 

“Hey, Sam?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Thank you. You saved my life.” 

“Huh? No, I didn’t. I mean, I helped, but I’m sure you would have gotten out of there on you’re own! You are the great Runner Five, after all...” 

Sam keeps talking, but you aren’t listening. You smile, and let the sounds of the comms shack carry you off to sleep.

[sagarbiswas]

#MAR #MAKAUT #lockdownactivities #MandatoryAdditionalRequirements Name of Activity: Review a Movie Name of the Movie: Interstellar

My Review: To infinity and beyond goes “Interstellar,” an exhilarating slalom through the wormholes of Christopher Nolan’s vast imagination that is at once a science-geek fever dream and a formidable consideration of what makes us human. As visually and conceptually audacious as anything Nolan has yet done, the director’s ninth feature also proves more emotionally accessible than his coolly cerebral thrillers and Batman movies, touching on such eternal themes as the sacrifices parents make for their children (and vice versa) and the world we will leave for the next generation to inherit. An enormous undertaking that, like all the director’s best work, manages to feel handcrafted and intensely personal, “Interstellar” reaffirms Nolan as the premier big-canvas storyteller of his generation, more than earning its place alongside “The Wizard of Oz,” “2001,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Gravity” in the canon of Hollywood’s visionary sci-fi head trips. Global box office returns should prove suitably rocket-powered.

We begin somewhere in the American farm belt, which Nolan evokes for its full mythic grandeur — blazing sunlight, towering corn stalks, whirring combines. But it soon becomes clear that this would-be field of dreams is something closer to a nightmare. The date is an unspecified point shortly, close enough to look and feel like tomorrow, yet far enough for several radical changes to have taken hold in society. A decade on from a period of widespread famine, the world’s armies have been disbanded and the cutting-edge technocracies of the early 21st century have regressed into more utilitarian, farm-based economies.

���We’re a caretaker generation,” notes one such homesteader (John Lithgow) to his widower son-in-law, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA test pilot who hasn’t stopped dreaming of flight, for himself and for his children: 15-year-old son Tom (Timothee Chalamet) and 10-year-old daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy), the latter a precocious tot was first seen getting suspended from school for daring to suggest that the Apollo space missions actually happened. “We used to look up in the sky and wonder about our place in the stars,” Cooper muses. “Now we just look down and wonder about our place in the dirt.”

And oh, what dirt! As “Interstellar” opens, the world — or at least Cooper’s Steinbeckian corner of it — sits on the cusp of a second Dust Bowl, ravaged by an epidemic of crop blight, a silt-like haze hanging permanently in the air. (Some of this scene-setting is accomplished via pseudo-documentary interviews with the elderly residents of some more distant future reflecting on their hardscrabble childhoods, which Nolan films like the “witness” segments from Warren Beatty’s “Reds.”) And as the crops die, so the Earth’s atmosphere becomes richer in nitrogen and poorer in oxygen, until the time when global starvation will give way to global asphyxiation.

But all hope is not lost. NASA (whose massive real-life budget cuts lend the movie added immediacy) still exists in this agrarian dystopia, but it’s gone off the grid, far from the microscope of public opinion. There, the brilliant physicist Professor Brand (Michael Caine, forever the face of avuncular wisdom in Nolan’s films) and his dedicated team have devised two scenarios for saving mankind. Both plans involve abandoning Earth and starting over on a new, life-sustaining planet, but only one includes taking Earth’s current 6-billion-plus population along for the ride. Doing the latter, it seems, depends on Brand’s ability to solve an epic math problem that would explain how such a large-capacity vessel could surmount Earth’s gravitational forces. (Never discussed in this egalitarian society: a scenario in which only the privileged few could escape, a la the decadent bourgeoisie of Neill Blomkamp’s “Elysium.”)

Many years earlier, Brand informs, a mysterious space-time rift (or wormhole) appeared in the vicinity of Saturn, seemingly placed there, like the monoliths of “2001,” by some higher intelligence. On the other side: another galaxy containing a dozen planets that might be fit for human habitation. In the wake of the food wars, a team of intrepid NASA scientists traveled there in search of solutions. Now, a decade later (in Earth years, that is), Brand has organized another mission to check up on the three planets that seem the most promising for human settlement. And to pilot the ship, he needs Cooper, an instinctive flight jockey in the Chuck Yeager mode, much as McConaughey’s laconic, effortlessly self-assured performance recalls Sam Shepards as Yeager in “The Right Stuff” (another obvious “Interstellar” touchstone).

Already by this point — and we have not yet left the Earth’s surface — “Interstellar” (which Nolan co-wrote with his brother and frequent collaborator, Jonathan) has hurled a fair amount of theoretical physics at the audience, including discussions of black holes, gravitational singularities and the possibility of extra-dimensional space. And, as with the twisty chronologies and unreliable narrators of his earlier films, Nolan trusts in the audience’s ability to get the gist and follow along, even if it doesn’t glean every last nuance on first viewing. It’s hard to think of a mainstream Hollywood film that has so successfully translated complex mathematical and scientific ideas to a lay audience (though Shane Carruth’s ingenious 2004 Sundance winner “Primer” — another movie concerned with overcoming the problem of gravity — tried something similar on a micro-budget indie scale), or done so in more vivid, immediate human terms. (Some credit for this is doubtless owed to the veteran CalTech physicist Kip Thorne, who consulted with the Nolans on the script and receives an executive producer credit.)

The mission itself is a relatively intimate affair, comprised of Cooper, Brand’s own scientist daughter (Anne Hathaway), two other researchers (Wes Bentley and the excellent David Gyasi), and a chatty, sarcastic, ex-military security robot called TARS (brilliantly voiced by Bill Irwin in a sly nod to Douglas Rain’s iconic HAL 9000), which looks like a walking easel but proves surprisingly agile when the going gets tough. And from there, “Interstellar” has so many wonderful surprises in store — from casting choices to narrative twists and reversals — that the less said about it the better. (Indeed, if you really don’t want to know anything more, read no further.)

It gives nothing away, however, to say that Nolan maps his infinite celestial landscape as majestically as he did the continent-hopping earthbound ones of “The Prestige” and “Batman Begins,” or the multi-tiered memory maze of “Inception.” The imagery, modeled by Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema on Imax documentaries like “Space Station” and “Hubble 3D,” suggests a boundless inky blackness punctuated by ravishing bursts of light, the tiny spaceship Endurance gleaming like a diamond against Saturn’s great, gaseous rings, then ricocheting like a pinball through the wormhole’s shimmering plasmic vortex.

With each stop the Endurance makes, Nolan envisions yet another new world: one planet a watery expanse with waves that make Waimea Bay look like a giant bathtub; another an ice climber’s playground of frozen tundra and sheer-faced descents. Moreover, outer space allows Nolan to bend and twist his favorite subject — time — into remarkable new permutations. Where most prior Nolan protagonists were forever grasping at an irretrievable past, the crew of the Endurance races against a ticking clock that happens to tick differently depending on your particular vantage. New worlds mean new gravitational forces, so that for every hour spent on a given planet’s surface, years or even entire decades may be passing back on Earth. (Time as a flat circle, indeed.)

This leads to an extraordinary mid-film emotional climax in which Cooper and Brand return from one such expedition to discover that 23 earth years have passed in the blink of an eye, represented by two decades’ worth of stockpiled video messages from loved ones, including the now-adult Tom (a bearded, brooding Casey Affleck) and Murphy (Jessica Chastain in dogged, persistent “Zero Dark Thirty” mode). It’s a scene Nolan stages mostly in closeup on McConaughey, and the actor plays it beautifully, his face a quicksilver mask of joy, regret, and unbearable grief.

That moment signals a shift in “Interstellar” itself from the relatively euphoric, adventurous tone of the first half toward darker, more ambiguous terrain — the human shadow areas, if you will, that are as difficult to fully glimpse as the inside of a black hole. Nolan, who has always excelled at the slow reveal, catches even the attentive viewer off guard more than once here, but never in a way that feels cheap or compromises the complex motivations of the characters.

On the one hand, the movie marvels at the brave men and women throughout history who have dedicated themselves, often at great peril, to the greater good of mankind. On the other, because Nolan is a psychological realist, he’s acutely aware of the toil such lives may take on those who choose to lead them, and that even “the best of us” (as one character is repeatedly described) might not be immune from cowardice and moral compromise. Some people lie to themselves and to their closest confidants in “Interstellar,” and Nolan understands that everyone has his reasons. Others compensate by making the most selfless of sacrifices. Perhaps the only thing trickier than quantum physics, the movie argues, is the nature of human emotion.

Nolan stages one thrilling set piece after another, including several hairsbreadth escapes and a dazzling space-docking sequence in which the entire theater seems to become one large centrifuge; the nearly three-hour running time passes unnoticed. Even more thrilling is the movie’s ultimate vision of a universe in which the face of extraterrestrial life bears a surprisingly familiar countenance. “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” harks the good Professor Brand at the start of the Endurance’s journey, quoting the melancholic Welshman Dylan Thomas. And yet “Interstellar” is finally a film suffused with light and boundless possibilities — those of the universe itself, of the wonder in a child’s twinkling eyes, and of movies to translate all that into spectacular picture shows like this one.

It’s hardly surprising that “Interstellar” reps the very best big-budget Hollywood craftsmanship at every level, from veteran Nolan collaborators like production designer Nathan Crowley (who built the film’s lyrical vision of the big-sky American heartland on location in Alberta) and sound designer/editor Richard King, who makes wonderfully dissonant contrasts between the movie’s interior spaces and the airless silence of space itself. VFX supervisor Paul Franklin (an Oscar winner for his work on “Inception”) again brings a vivid tactility to all of the film’s effects, especially the robotic TARS, who seamlessly inhabits the same physical spaces as the human actors. Hans Zimmer contributes one of his most richly imagined and inventive scores, which ranges from a gentle electronic keyboard melody to brassy, Strauss-ian crescendos. Shot and post-produced by Nolan entirely on celluloid (in a mix of 35mm and 70mm stocks), “Interstellar” begs to be seen on the large-format Imax screen, where its dense, inimitably filmic textures and multiple aspect ratios can be experienced to their fullest effect.