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[theregressionlibrary]

Agere/petre archieve promo post!!

Hi! Thought it was a good time to do one of these! So, if you don't know, this is The Regression Library! Here, we reblog and boost lovely age and pet regression related works such as fiction, headcanons, moodboards, audio recordings- anything!

A lot of people are too afraid to post their fandom regression stuff in the main tags and if a work is completely from scratch then it often struggles to get traction! So what TRL does is reblog and tag works accordingly and add them to our big big list so it's easy for people to find what they can enjoy!

Why send out a promo post? Well, to encourage people to submit more! As much as we love to go out and collect pieces ourselves, we can only search through so many tags. There are just so many different ways different people use tagging, and it's hard to think of all the different pieces of media out there that might have these themes! So! We would love for you and your friends to submit (by ask or DM) any works you have made or you have found. Original works or fandom related is great! Hope to see you soon!

*cough cough, please reblog*

[mllenugget]

Hey remember when Baghera adopted Dapper like 8 months ago or did I make that up ? ────────────────────────────────────────── Support all the admins that spoke out (& do your daily click) ──────────────────────────────────────────

[amplexadversary]

@disasterbijupiter @fighting-these-demons @thedragonchilde @youreaclownnow I've gotten a request to share my thoughts on DG cell headcanons, so I'm dropping a bunch of ideas that can be used together or on their own under the cut.

I do mention a little bit of information we got from the new gaiden, but it's pretty much only in relation to the worldbuilding stuff, so, discretion, you know what you want to see or avoid, you know the drill.

(I also go into a few unpleasant ways that people could die post-canon, and some crimes against humanity. Which, see above, discretion, I know y'all know the drill.)

Also unfortunately the interpretation that appeals to me the most implies a little transphobia on Ulube's part. Sorry about that.

So probably the most self-indulgent yet still canon-compliant headcanon I have is that Wong and Ulube are each very slightly wrong about what makes the DG cells so dangerous when operated by "Someone capable of giving birth" or "a woman," respectively. It's implied by how they infect various characters and lab rats and corpses that those things work by schlorping extraneous biological cells to convert to DG cells, which can maintain the ability to interface with the host's cells.

I think the only thing that DG cells need to get stupid powerful is access to a cell line with unlimited regeneration of telomeres, ie. a cell line it can cultivate indefinitely. The most common convenient source of this would be egg cells, especially if the DG cells could dump the nucleus of a thing called a polar body (byproduct of meiosis because the egg keeps most of the actual cell material) back into the egg to get a full set of chromosomes, just enough to create a steady supply of blastocyst cells it can casually vacuum material from. Another potential resource is cancer cells, which divide uncontrollably and could give DG cells a steady supply of material that's actually beneficial to the DG cells' host to consume. This creates two/three other demographics that could go mostly unnoticed as powerful hosts: cancer patients, and non-women who possess at least one ovary (through being transgender or intersex).

I don't think an actual uterus needs to be involved in any way because making a pocket of cells to keep their culture from wreaking havoc in the host's abdomen is probably fairly simple for DG cells to do. They can probably make their own organ and hijack some blood vessels given the extent to which they can do things like influence someone's very thoughts and increase their physical strength.

(the self-indulgent part is that I'm ... some kind of trans, and want to favor the interpretation that would make my ass relevant/dangerous for self-insert reasons. This does have the side effect of making Ulube very much not an ally. Sorry about that.)

DG cells are "self-evolving" (except for in the sequel, apparently), so it stands to reason that they would quickly develop into different strains, like a virus, depending on what they're given to adapt to. So part of the DG research that gets established is a strain map. This could be used in a story for interesting mystery solving purposes such as tracking a chain of infection, or determining how "close" one is to the "original" "D-Genome," if I may :P

They are also, effectively, obligate parasites, they NEED a host, so it stands to reason that some strains would develop in ways that really incentivize a host to keep them. So you end up with a lot of very confused people with minor disabilities, asthma, prosthetics (that suddenly work infinitely better), cancer (that suddenly isn't killing them), gender dysphoria (that suddenly isn't killing them), etc. whose bodies are suddenly doing a lot better than under conventional medicine after they get infected. Some of them also get weird powers from those adaptations, which can either benefit an OC or be inflicted on our heroes as a Problem in a fight, as desired.

You also probably get a black market of the stuff for people with more money than fear. So I have this idea of a conflict between people who are resistant to the colonies push to "cure" everyone of the DG infection, as well as unscrupulous types who will abduct people with "desirable" strains to use as a living petri dish (or cut up for parts if they know too much). The latter is not well-investigated, so people assume that the colonies are "making inconvenient people disappear," escalating the conflict.

In addition, it's never clear if/when the "beneficial" strains are harmless, because sometimes they erupt into another localized DG incident. Also, because information on how DG cells work is limited, there's also a conflict in medical facilities refusing to treat infected people (at least, without first thoroughly pumping them full of a stopgap anti-nanite solution, if you want to borrow which is an idea from On The Dark Side by deathbysegwayscooter on AO3)

(I can't take credit for all of the ideas about the people conflict here either, I take a lot of inspiration form a TTRPG called Eclipse Phase, which is also about a self-replicating, self-evolving nanovirus that seems to be related to a group of rampaging superintelligences)

I think that the DG cells within a particular host could be re-programmed into being benign, but with Rain and Dr. Kasshu being the only extant people with extensive knowledge of them, and both being incredibly busy, this isn't considered to be an option, especially if a less dangerous strain is taken over and rewritten by a more dangerous one.

(If you want to really stick Rain in a situation, she might conceivably face harassment from the colonies to submit to a hysterectomy/oophorectomy due to her previous infection, which, given her relationship with womanhood and her fairly new romance with Domon, would be very distressing for her. Maybe some legality struggles between the colonies wanting to get to be able to do that to infected people versus hold the fuck on that's a massive human rights violation, which Rain might respond to by trying to have a baby before she feels ready because she's afraid she might not be able to in the future. This could either apply ONLY to Rain, because she was in the middle of the thing, or it could potentially target anyone who gets infected and is a known risk (according to Wong's research, I don't think they find out the cancer thing right away))

The conflict of people actually wanting the things for medical purposes also gives me a very convenient "purpose" for Kyoji/Schwarz to serve in a continuation, making it more reasonable for me to make excuses that he/they (ha ha there's two of him) regenerated.

Particularly with Schwarz, his entire brain/mind/personality is stored inside DG cells (and has been for around a year). He's probably very well-equipped to reprogram them to behave how he wants. If he managed to get a second copy of the other "branch" or "fork" of himself during the brief time he was in the DG cockpit with Kyoji, both versions could regenerate, and either/both could potentially bring that solution to light. However (more conflict) they would definitely both be threatened by everything wanting to destroy or make use of DG cells, they'd be stranded on Earth with no ID and the need to avoid being screened for DG cells, and they both would need a battery or host (or another fresh corpse) in order to operate for an extended period of time. So that makes for a potential story if (for whatever reason :P:P:P) someone wants to use Schwarz and Kyoji without them being too overpowered.

(I broadly call any scenario where Kyoji &or Schwarz do pick up a living host a "Host AU," which did come to be as a saucy self-insert fantasy, but it makes a fair bit of sense for them to have those limitations. Especially if you decide to operate under the assumption that Schwarz was only had so much regen/time in him as things stood in the anime)

(I also like the horror of one of them finding out about the DG organ market before locating the other one, and fearing his "other" could be being sold for parts.)

I think one very fun thing to do with the DG cells is to potentially give the host different abilities based on the type of cells they most readily have available to feed on.

Someone with no particular "feed source" for their infection would mostly be able to staunch bleeding and slowly grow replacement parts, at the cost of being more fragile over all, needing to increase food consumption, and rapidly aging if their DG cells are particularly active (because their own somatic cells divide faster to replace what's being eaten, depleting their telomeres, and decreasing overall reserve and function)

Someone with an ovum supply would have a lot of leeway with what their cells could do; the specifics of what their strain "learns" likely depend on the person, their activities, and any other conditions they might have.

Someone with cancer would probably have rapid (not quite Deadpool-speed or degree but similar concept) regeneration as their DG cells can quickly source tissue to fill in damage. They likely have a "reserve" that can be depleted through too much damage, slowing their rapid-healing if they need too much at once. In addition, wounds that are closed with DG cells probably regenerate and are replaced by actual flesh to a degree not normally possible, because the cells learn to selectively induce cell reproduction (and can prevent infection and bleedout until they can be relocated out of the wound once new tissues are in place.)

Someone with an autoimmune disorder would become especially resistant to contracting another strain of DG cells (theirs taking on the properties of a greater-than average supply of macrophages), and their DG cells might be able to aggregate and re-shape themselves (through selective protein expression & re-purposing the properties of antibodies to quickly re-assemble themselves into a desired shape) granting cybernetic limbs the ability to shape-shift, or allowing someone to form a portion of the DG cells in their body into a weapon.

Someone with a prosthetic on one side of their body would find it remarkably improved in function until it matches or surpasses the abilities of their remaining one. Someone with a bilateral one would likely see theirs develop "novel" capabilities as they need, since the DG cells don't necessarily have another limb as a template.

Someone with gender dysphoria or severe body dysmorphia probably wouldn't get anything flashy, but would likely be able to influence what changes they want to their body as their DG cells react to their desires, and attach to certain tissues and affect their function (including increasing height by inserting themselves into the bone where one's growth plates have fused, and creating just enough of a gap that the osteoblasts start filling in the space. By which I mean to say the person could look completely different because the DG cells could probably change skeletal and muscle tissue.) This could get out of control if the person's issues aren't addressed by actually changing their appearance, though. You could also get people who turn into dragons or furries or tentacle monsters, because, people.

The problem with any of the "benefits" provided by one's strain adapting to their body is, of course, you kind of really really need someone to monitor and regulate the development of the DG cells since they're doing all the work, or else things could take a turn for the "oh shit I really don't want THAT to happen."

Rain and Dr. Kasshu could probably each keep tabs on a handful of people who *really* can't be cured (without dying or being paralyzed at least), but that's a problem they wouldn't be able to dedicate a lot of time to, having to solve along with figuring out how to detect (in-vivo), control, and document the evolution and movement of DG cells (the sequel's "CDGC" is SO apt I have to say lol)

Again, if Kyoji or Schwarz is in play, he might be able to program a longer-term solution into someone (meaning they'd need maintenance less often) as well as teach other people how to do most of the job (again, advantage of what is effectively his brain being made of the things intersecting with the fact that he helped invent them). So him getting out of whatever

[fishpondfish]

i'm absolutely obsessed with how oasis seems to have had beef with every british band in existence. you could literally never guess that by just listening to their music with no context. doesn't sound like that at all

[ectogeranium]

wanted a cool background, so I spliced together my own

[invinciblerodent]

I snoopes around your old tags aand I am a little in love with Harwen

Aaaah, thank you, I'm so happy you like him! ❤️❤️

I've been thinking about him a lot this Veilguard eve too, kinda revisiting him (and some of my other, "non-canon" guys, especially vis a vis the Themes™ and how they continue through the new guys), and for what it's worth... I think that for a character I made when I was only like 22, he still works pretty well!

I would probably do a few things differently now, more consciously, but, I mean... I still think that the "reclusive, introverted, gray-ace-but-specifically-demisexual Dalish assassin-strategist Experiencing Cultural Divide And Alienation" is still a fun concept that I really like!

.... I have also been toying around a bit with mods for the BG3 cc, to try and make (among others) him an updated face for the Veilguard timeskip too, and um.

the "Vallaslin" and the nose on this one are not quite right (the Vallaslin is supposed to be Andruil's, and his nose is supposed to be a bit hooked, kind of aquiline), but in his mid- to late forties? There's no way Harwen isn't gonna be dilfy. A positively dilfy elf.

(This is, I believe, is Shadowheart's dad's face, and he's an assassin-spec archer rogue in Dragon Age canon, but I think he'd be more of a hunter-, or gloom stalker-subclass Ranger in real DnD.)

[imaginerium]

My top three posts say it all really 🤣

[lunacchi]

I decided to make a notion board to organize all the artists I'd like to commission on Skeb...

This is just the top of the page without the info tables, since some of the info on there is a spoiler LOL

I managed to format it SOOOOOO cutely using some cute divider assets I found right here on Tumblr... Isn't it just so cute? 🥰

I already have 180+ different artists in my charts and I'm not even a quarter of the way down my list 😭

There's no way I could ever comm all of those people but it sure is nice to dream 😂

[dykecadence]

finally google users are asking the real questions

[aintitfierce]

of all things i wonder why i've always been insistently fascinated by crowns and crown-like head ornaments squints

[n9ph]

debated posting this to my other blog cause i am a little embarrassed to publically talk about how i have an insane intrest in anything beginners bible related due to mandela but at some point i will definitely make a larger post relating to intresting things i have found

[pals-tests-themes]

Just one more small tweak I promise bro

myself. I am stupid

[quiescentdestiny]

had to watch a compliance training at work for AI, and it kept going on about how, “people sometimes find searching for things difficult, which AI can help with and make lives easier!"

and I just.... sigh.

[chaoticwriting]

New Gotham Rouge

Okay, in Danny's defense, it sounds like a very good idea when he thought about it. Danny is currently laying on top of the clocktower looking at the smog filled sky. A few stars can be seen occasionally while he is staring and thinking about his decision.

When Danny is outed as Phantom. He ran away as his parents tried to capture and cut him open. He hid in a nearby cave for a few days as he thought of what to do when he suddenly had a brilliant idea. Let's fake his own death!

Danny stole a few parts and materials around Amity Park and made a makeshift bomb and rushed towards the GIW base. He freed all the ghosts and made a cinematic scene of exploding himself thus taking the whole building with him.

Danny also sends the ghost to set up a few bombs in his house after making sure Jazz, Sam and Tucker are not there. Just as he 'exploded' himself, the house also exploded destroying the portal and all the remaining research paper about anything ghost related.

Danny dove into the ground as the explosion distracted everyone and chose one direction to fly towards. A few hours later, he found himself in Gotham and surprisingly there is a lot of ambient ectoplasm in Gotham. He flies around invisible while looking for a place to stay and he lands on the clocktower to rest after flying for so long.

Now, Danny doesn't know what he should do because he realizes one key component in staying alive for him. Obsession. Contrary to popular belief (Sam), his obsession is not protection. It is love. Love as in any act of love will fulfill his obsession. Him protecting his town is an act of love towards his town people. Him loving and studying space is an act of love towards himself. Him not taking revenge against his family and people that wrong him is an act of love towards humanity.

So, long story short, he needs to find a way to fulfill his obsession. He is laying on top of the clocktower and suddenly a very good idea comes into his mind.

A few weeks later

-Batcave-

Dick: Are you still searching for the glitter thief?

Tim: Yes. And it's driving me insane how little clue there is of this thief. I even tried asking Selina and even she is impressed by this thief's MO.

Steph: Are you sure you need to be stressing about this thief? It's probably a group of kids stealing glitters just because they can.

Tim: Are you telling me a group of kids can do a heist better than Selina? And this thief or group of thieves for some reason only stole biodegradable paint and glitters from all across the city without us finding where they store them? There must be something I am missing.

Suddenly, an alert appears at the batcomputer and catches everyone's attention. A live broadcast is showing Joker standing in front of a switch as Commissioner Gordon hanging from a rope on top of a pool of acid. Every single batfam suits up and rushes into Gotham to find the Joker before anything can happen.

Joker: Hahahaha. Good evening Gotham and Bats! Today, I have a dear friend of yours playing my game. In front of me is a switch to activate a time bomb that will explode a whole district if not dismantled. You have 20 minutes to dismantle the bomb and with every minute that passes, I will slowly lower the Commissioner into the pool of acid.

Joker then walks slowly towards the switch and flips it.

Joker: Your time starts now! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Batman and the crew rushes towards Gotham as they turn Gotham upside down for the bomb. 5 minutes passed and they become desperate enough that they even roped in some of the rogues like Penguin, Harley, Ivy and Croc. But no matter what they do, they can't find the bomb.

Just as the last minute passes, everyone expects a big explosion engulfing Gotham. Except there is no sound at all. In fact, it is eerily quiet. Everyone turns on Joker live broadcast to see even the man is confused. He turns around and sees Gordon having his feet inside the pool of acid like nothing is happening.

Suddenly a giggle appears. Everyone that hears the giggles starts to get goosebumps as suddenly, a kid with a half clown facemask at the bottom of his face, a green leather jacket, black jeans and white hair appears behind Joker. His hands are holding his stomach as his giggles turn into laughter that is eerily similar to Joker.

???:Hello everyone. I am Trickster. And I am here to crash the party.

Everyone: ????

Trickster: Hehehe, it's so funny to see everyone's confused expression. But no worries I am here to have fun. See, I even have your toys with me.

The Trickster phases his hand into his body and pulls out a very familiar brick. He throws it to Joker and the Joker runs away screaming and trips on his feet falling down the stairs.

The Trickster: Hahahahaha. Do you see his face? Hahaha. Oh boy, I should have recorded this. Hey this is a live stream right? Someone clip that. Anyway, I have defused the bomb. And the acid isn't actually acid. It's just colored water with a light beam at the bottom. I still can't believe he doesn't check the acid pool first.

The Trickster then goes towards Gordon and pulls him down from the rope. After Gordon touches the ground, he unties him and pats Gordon's shoulder.

Trickster: Well I guess this is good enough for the apology.

Gordon: Apology?

Trickster: *Rubbing his neck* Yeah, about that. I was the one that glitter bombed your office last week. I mistook your office for another corrupt policeman and accidentally placed it on your desk. I am also technically the cause of you getting caught today. In my defense, you shouldn't startle me like that.

Gordon: Wait, you're the kid that punched me.

Trickster: I'm not a kid. I'm 16. Plenty old if you ask me. Whatever, here is your phone. Go call Batman to pick you up. I want to go back to sleep after having fun tonight. Adios.

Gordon: Wait-

Trickster then disappears into thin air like he is never there in the first place. If not for his phone in his hand and later confirmation from everyone that watched the live stream, Gordon might have admitted himself into Arkham.

That is merely the start of the many incidents involving Gotham's newest rogue the Trickster.

Part 2

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

My gosh this is beautiful and I have to reply because this is EXACTLY why I project onto him so much (a Very Healthy reason I know. When I first read Les Mis, I cried, bc I have felt exactly that pang). Ten million percent agreed with everything you said above!

I love your point about Cosette and Marius bringing up his (long-buried) feelings of envy: the tragic irony is, Jean Valjean--so often defined by his one act of theft--feels, himself, robbed.

Because ultimately, underneath it all, Valjean has a desperate desire for love--total, enduring love. Every time Jean Valjean has allowed himself to be truly known, people have immediately turned on him; all the goodwill he's built up over years of charity and suffering fades immediately. He feels that he will always be abandoned. So he's desperate for someone to stay. What first allows him to love Cosette is her helplessness: he is her savior, so she cannot leave him. And because of how enmeshed his identity is with Cosette, becoming anything less than her everything is a brutal extraction for him. He believes, since it is all he has known, that love is total and all-consuming; therefore, he believes Cosette can only really love one person, just as he only loved her, and that person (by Right™) is Marius now. After all he has gone through, and all he has done, he feels abandoned once again--even though Cosette may still claim she loves him--because he is not her everything, so he is nothing. And that literally kills him.

Valjean's perceived abandonment by Cosette is so devastating to him because in a way, he uses Cosette as a stand-in for God. He has never believed God could love him--in fact, even in the convent, he's described as kneeling before the sister "as though afraid to kneel directly before God." He has never allowed himself to see himself as anything other than the "miserable man" he was at the start of the story. And how could God love that? Instead, he finds Cosette, who is initially desperate and has no other choice but to rely on him (and he believes as soon as she does have a choice, or if she learns who he really is, she will leave him), and uses her as the foundation of his identity. She's also the center of his virtue; with someone to care for, to sacrifice for, maybe he can earn God's love somehow. And if someone so pure could love him, maybe there was something in him that could be loved. So of course when she begins to love someone else, Valjean crumbles--her love felt secure because it was desperate, but now she can choose. And he could never imagine anyone, including God, loving him willingly.

But I love Les Mis because he's wrong!!!! He's wrong about that, and he's wrong about himself, and he's wrong about what love is!! And the story tells him so!!!

From the start of the story to the end, God has always been with him, guiding his path. The narration throughout the story makes it clear--he even recognizes "the hand of Providence" in guiding him to the bishop and the convent, in bringing him finally to the trial to save the innocent man; to stumble upon Cosette in the woods was no coincidence, nor was it chance that Cosette and Marius found him (because they were looking for him!! Because they love him!!!) right before he died. He has always been loved, wholly and forever, even in the midst of his sin and suffering.

It's a love that knows him fully, and endures.

And I love that his story ends with that.

Jean Valjean's Canon Toxic Unhealthiness around Romantic Love

( alternate titles: “Does Jean Valjean is Gay?”, or “Does Jean Valjean is Asexual?” Or: “Why is it so difficult to slap an identity/sexuality label onto Jean Valjean?” Or “LGBTPTSD+”)

I was looking at the responses to this poll about whether people interpret Jean Valjean as gay/asexual/straight or something else….and it got me thinking again about Jean Valjean’s canonical intense, complex, awful, toxic, and overwrought emotions around identity/ romantic love. I want to talk about that for a bit because I think it often gets overlooked in fandom!

I've noticed that Les Mis fandom/analysis often tends to interpret Jean Valjean as being far more content, more "at peace with himself," and more "comfortable in his own skin" than he ever is within the novel. This is also a common change in adaptations. The musical's version of Jean Valjean is great-- but he also seems a lot more self-actualized, more like he's gotten himself completely "figured out" by the end of the story. Other, bad, Les Mis adaptations — the adaptations that generally portray Jean Valjean a worse more violent person — also usually make Jean Valjean more confident in himself, more confident in his own feelings/desires, more certain that he’s entitled to certain things, and more willing to demand or take what he wants.

But one major aspect of book Jean Valjean's personality is that he does not have a healthy relationship with anything about himself. He has a tortured broken relationship with his own identity. He repeatedly thinks about “Jean Valjean” as a person outside of himself, a person who he finds frightening, repulsive, savage, and horrible— like a wild animal he needs to sedate, or beat into submission. He is obsessed with self-denial and self-repression. He is fixated on the idea that he is subhuman, that he is not allowed to want things or to pursue having any kinds of relationships with other people-- and that the most heroic thing he can do is "grab himself by the collar” and violently force himself to stay away from the things he wants. He is desperate to be loved and fixated on being unworthy of love and on denying himself love. He is absolutely not at peace with his identity: to paraphrase Jean Valjean in one of the later chapters, he believes he can only gain inner peace by “eviscerating his own entrails.”

He is never truly content with who he is, what he wants, or what kind of love he wants— and he never learns to be. The novel ends with him cutting himself off from his only family, breaking ties with the only person who loves him, and essentially slowly killing himself out of self-loathing.

There are other characters in Les Mis who seem very content with who they are and what they want. Enjolras is self-assured in his identity, and doesn’t appear to feel like there is any kind of love that is missing from his life. Whether you interpret him as gay or ace or trans or w/e, book!Enjolras is written as someone who is extremely self-assured and has a loving support system that is enough to keep him happy. But I don’t think that’s true for Jean Valjean at all XD.

And that’s why it's hard to apply labels like “aromantic” or “ace” or gay/straight/etc to Jean Valjean, when talking about his canon characterization. Those labels imply the person has a basic level of comfort with acknowledging their own desires/lack of desire/identity. And Jean Valjean never achieves that level of comfort. What “label” do you give to someone whose relationship with their identity is “I do not belong in a family, I have no right to want things, I have no right to be happy, I am outside of life, and I will never be at peace until I eviscerate my own entrails?” Is there a “self-disembowelment" pride flag? XD I've seen a lot of interpretations that go "Jean Valjean never expresses any interest in romance, he's perfectly content just to have his relationship with his daughter" but I honestly don't think that's true. Jean Valjean tries to content himself with having only Cosette. But part of why everything explodes so catastrophically in the end of the novel is because he needs more than just a paternal relationship. He doesn’t try to have a “normal” father-daughter relationship with Cosette, he tries to force his relationship with Cosette to be literally everything and everyone to him, for her to be his entire world: and it doesn’t work.

There’s a passage in the novel that talks about how all the love Valjean is capable of ends up being suppressed/sublimated into his relationship with Cosette. The love of a brother, of a friend, of a father, of a husband, the love of everything he is capable of, gets repressed so that he can throw every part of himself into being a father. There are Bad les mis adaptations that incorrectly misinterpret that passage to mean that Jean Valjean is incestuous/grooming Cosette. But in context, that’s not what the passage means at all.

The passage specifies very explicitly that Jean Valjean “did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father,” that “no marriage was possible between them,” that his feelings for her are absolutely paternal. But the passage does show how Jean Valjean is doing a very different unhealthy thing: he’s relying on Cosette to fill every single emotional void in his life.

He’s relying on parenthood to fill the grief/emptiness left behind by all the other kinds of love that he has wanted, but never been given.

To quote a bit of that passage:

Jean Valjean did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father (…) Let the reader recall the situation of heart which we have already indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of souls; and yet, it is certain that their destinies were wedded. With the exception of Cosette, that is to say, with the exception of a childhood, Jean Valjean had never, in the whole of his long life, known anything of that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other had not produced in him those successive green growths, tender green or dark green, which can be seen in foliage which passes through the winter and in men who pass fifty. In short, and we have insisted on it more than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his country, his paradise.

Jean Valjean reminds me of a Failmode I’ve seen in a lot of different real-life parents? There are parents who cope with their own hard lives by telling themselves that parenthood is their sole reason for being alive, and who obsess over their child’s success as their only source of purpose, meaning, love, happiness, community, and validation. But it’s a bad idea to rely on one child to provide the emotional support that should be shared by friends, parents, siblings, every possible loved one, etc etc—- One child can’t actually heal you from your trauma, be a replacement for your broken relationships, pull you out of your grief, save you from your adult loneliness, etc etc etc etc.

When I see the common interpretation that Jean Valjean is perfectly content just to be the father of Cosette, I think of this line:

Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this crushing proof: “another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish of her life; there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her father, I no longer exist”; when he could no longer doubt, when he said to himself: “She is going away from me!” the grief which he felt surpassed the bounds of possibility. To have done all that he had done for the purpose of ending like this! And the very idea of being nothing!

On one hand, the terrible Les mis adaptations that portray Valjean as Incest Creep are incorrect and wrong. On the other hand, though, Jean Valjean IS unhealthy about Cosette— just in a different and actually sympathetic way.

He has made fatherhood his only purpose, to replace every other purpose he could have in life. So he can’t be “just Cosette’s father.” He can’t imagine her becoming an adult and leaving the nest, like children do. What does he have if he’s not taking care of her? What is his purpose in life if she doesn’t need him to be her parent? He's not just being her father, he's relying on her to be his entire reason to exist. He hasn't been allowing himself to have things outside of her.

And speaking of things outside of Cosette: segue time. This post was supposed to be about Jean Valjean and romance, so let's switch gears and talk about his canon 'romantic experiences' more:

We’re told that in his youth he “never had a sweetheart” because he “never had time to be in love.” There is no indication that Jean Valjean never wanted to be in love. The opposite is implied. Hugo frames it as a tragedy that Jean Valjean’s does not experience young love; it’s the horror of poverty taking yet another thing from him.

Within prison, Valjean is “gloomy” and “chaste;” when he traumadumps to Montparnasse about it, he talks about women looking on galley slaves with horror and disgust. Romance, at least “normal” heterosexual romance, is no longer something that is permitted for him. Jean Valjean knows very little about romance/love/sex and it repeatedly messes up his life. He spends 19 years in the all-male environment of prison, then about a decade in the almost-all-female environment of the convent. He has very little experience with how men and women are supposed to interact. The oppression Fantine faces as a sex worker, and Cosette's relationship with Marius, are both two big 'blind spots' that he struggles with.

At one point romantic love is described as “The only misery Jean Valjean had not yet experienced, and the only one that is sweet.”

In his massive confession to Marius, he agonizes over how he is not allowed to be part of a family, and is incapable of being part of a home. He compares himself to someone sick and diseased, that poisons good and normal people with his presence, and cannot be allowed to make himself part of their families.

So Jean Valjean doesn’t frame Romance as “a thing he doesn’t want:” it’s a thing “he is not allowed to want,” it is one of the many things he is banned from wanting. It's impossible to tell what kind of things he would want, if he were allowed to want them.

One of the most interesting things to me, however, is his general attitude towards Marius/Cosette.

Obviously his first reaction to Marius snooping around is fear and resentment— he doesn’t know to interact with romance, having never experienced it, and immediately begins catastrophizing. He views Marius as a privileged booby ruining his life for something as frivolous as a love affair: it reads to me as partially envy, envy of the fact that Marius lives the kind of safe comfortable life that allows him to experience young love.

Jean Valjean added: “What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg.”

But, even though Jean Valjean views romance as something he isn’t allowed or have or to want, views it as a threat and catastrophizes over how it will ruin his life……he seems to also put heterosexual romance on a pedestal.

The way Jean Valjean idealizes marriage is one of his weirdest character notes for me.

He views marriage as Cosette’s “happy ending.” It’s her “happily ever after” point where she won’t need him anymore, where she won’t need anyone outside of her husband. A Man And a Woman Are Meant to Get Married, It's Fate, and It Means They Will Live Happily Together Forever. Marius is “the goal of her heart, the wish of her life; her dearest one.” Nothing outside of that matters anymore.

He treats her marriage as if romantic love is inherently always more important than any kind of platonic relationships, and always takes priority over them. He later dismisses the unconventional family structure he has with Cosette, saying that despite his love for her he was only a "passerby" and was not actually her real father, because they were not biologically related.

There's a moment where Jean Valjean is described as someone whose ideal is to be angel on the inside and a bourgeois on the outside. Jean Valjean's worship of bourgeois social norms, norms he can never truly be a part of, is one of his character flaws. He has a similar "guard dog" energy as Eponine does when she defends Rue Plumet from her parents.....Eponine and Jean Valjean both become the guard dogs of a kind of romantic relationship they believe they are banned from having. Jean Valjean believes that getting Happily Straight Married in a Middle-Class Home with a Picket Fence(tm) is the ideal path for life....but believes himself broken/incapable of ever following that path. And so he instead throws his entire life into securing that future for Marius and Cosette.

In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness of Cosette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness, it was he who had brought it about; he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, and at that moment, when he reflected on it, he was able to enjoy the sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it, all smoking, from his own breast. Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette. They had everything, even riches. And this was his doing.

TL: DR:

Jean Valjean's gender/sexuality label is “idk but he’s super fucked up about it.”