#But think about Cosette.

[lesmisscraper]

During making a gifset for today's chapter, I found this sentence.

Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she regulated their expenditure, which was very modest.

Vol. 4, Book 3, Chpater 2.

The nuns taught her housekeeping which literally meaning chores and other houseworks. But thinking about her childhood, I think this class would be one of the most hard classes for her, bring back the bad memories of that horrible inn. What would you think about this?

[queen-paladin]

I love you "boring" female characters. I love you ingenues. I love you female characters who aren't "modern" enough. I love you female characters who aren't "badass" enough. iI love you female characters who aren't "empowering" enough. I love you quiet female characters. I love you unappreciated female characters. I love you polite female characters. I love you female characters who "can't appeal to modern audiences." I love you frightened female characters. I love you female characters labeled as not complex just for being nice. I love you female characters who get criticism just for not being their tomboy or femme fatale counterpart. I love you silk hiding steel trope.

[secretmellowblog]

Before writing Les Mis, Hugo’s beloved 19-year-old daughter Leopoldine tragically drowned. As a result Les Mis is full of drowning imagery— drowning as a a symbol of impossible grief and loss, drowning as a symbol of being left behind by a society that doesn’t care about protecting your life, drowning as a method of suicide.

The les mis letters chapter today is the first chapter where Hugo highlights the drowning imagery that becomes central to the rest of the novel. The horrible symbolic death Valjean suffers as a result of being entirely isolated and forgotten by a society that doesn’t value his life is also foreshadowing of Javert’s eventual death.

Throughout the novel, Eponine also frequently talks about her desire to drown herself in the Seine; Thenardier monologues about how “the river is the true grave” and when bodies fall in it “justice makes no inquiries;” later Valjean escapes prison by faking his death by drowning, and so on and so on. There’s this emphasis that drowning doesn’t just mean death, it means erasing yourself from existence. It means you’re forgotten.

One of the saddest references to the death of Leopoldine is the way Valjean and Javert learn about the other’s death (or “death.”)

Hugo learned about his daughter’s death not from a family member/friend, but by reading about it in a newspaper. He was on vacation away from his family at the time. He was reading the news in a cafe and happened to stumble on an article about Leopoldine’s horrible tragic drowning, which was how he first learned that she was dead.

When Javert learns about Valjean’s “death” in prison (when Valjean pretends to drown in order to escape), he learns about it by reading it in the newspaper. When Valjean learns about Javert’s death by drowning, he learns about it by reading it in the newspaper.

So…yeah :(. Les Mis is full of all these agonized metaphors around drowning (as a metaphor for death/grief/being entirely forgotten by the people around you) and part of that comes from Hugo’s own deep personal trauma around the death of death of his daughter.

[erosyrup]

—To know that, despite it all, there will always be good men in this world, even if there are monsters.

***

Another Les Mis x Dracula AU doodle to close out Halloween 🧛‍♂️. Check out the fic below if you want any last-minute Halloween spookiness!

[24601orwhatever]

the improvement on her dress is INSANE!!! THAT LACEEEE THAT FIT!! AND THE COLOR IM OBSESSED

[fluentisonus]

something something

[awholelotofsad]

the amount of old men i draw are directly proportional to my stress levels so here’s a compilation of the most presentable old men i drew this year that i never posted, in no particular order

[spinostarz]

THE WELL AND THE LIGHTHOUSE PMV/ANIMATIC

very very jean valjean centric because i love him and he deserves the world <3 im not sure if pmv or animatic would apply better to this, but either way, i hope you enjoy it!

[nortism]

the fact that cosette and éponine met briefly as adults, with cosette not recognising éponine at all, makes me insane

[uponthebarricade]

so with the wicked movie coming out and everything..... where is the wicked au with enjolras as elphaba and grantaire as fiyero??????someone please get on this asap

[alphazed]

so this is what i've been thinking about... PLEASEEEE SEND ME ASKS OR REQUESTS FOR THEM!! I would love to explain as much as i can/draw more doodles of them... Also if anyone could come up with a name to call these designs i would appreciate it, because i'm not sure..

These are a collection of polished doodles from the last few days. I really liked the shape-y animals i could assign each charachter. Here are mostly Valjean and Javert, but Cosette's design is on here too!!! I assigned them the animals purely based on vibe and certain connections the brick makes. I also have a few designs for les amis and the thenardiers but i'm kinda working on those.... I have to admit if the Amis weren't such special charachters they would all have been beavers (barricade haha get it? Get it??) so:

A lark for Cosette

A wolf/Fox/shadow/thing for Javert

A Big Cat for Valjean

Also a valvert tidbit because it makes me happy

[lesmisscraper]

Valjean trying to give more soft bread for Cosette. Vol. 4, Book 3, Chapter 4.

Clips from <Il cuore di Cosette>.

[leascno]

redraw of these cosettes now that i have a slightly more solid grasp on how i wanna paint/do my lineless work in general

it’s interesting to see where i’ve progressed after 8 months :^O

[jazzyjuno]

take this wip from a silly lyric comic im making :)

[bogusbyron]

being new to the les mis fandom via the musical & having not read the book or any other media yet is crazy like who are all these people

[teddybearsims]

eat that girl for lunch