#and also i am a musician who is non-practising at the moment so yes i am overcompensating

[alenaphale]

so guys a little while ago i came up with a les mis artistic au that I think would be interesting for you to acknowledge! so basically the idea of it is this:

everything takes place in modern france. les amis + cosette + eponine (basically the youngsters mentioned in the second volume (maybe even montparnasse)) are studying in the académie des beaux-arts on two different faculties, visual arts and music. i am yet to figure out who studies what, but some things are already obvious to me, so I would like to share some of them with you

• first of all the dean of the faculty of visual arts is valjean, the dean of the one of music — javert. their approaches to what is art and how one should give a proper education on it are quite different — opposite, even, because where valjean strives for freedom in self-expression and his students’ own unique understanding, javert is equally devoted to precision (which is, for every performer who I have a misfortune to be myself, is as beneficial as it is painful, sometimes even destructive to the very purpose of performing music)

of course it would be silly to expect such a confrontation would not affect their students.

• so, very vaguely: enjolras, combeferre, courfeyrac (because i couldn’t force myself to separate the great trio of The leader, The guide and The centre™), jehan, marius and cosette are all in the orchestra.

- enjolras is a conductor, of course

- combeferre is the first violin. sometimes when enjolras by some miracle is not present at the rehearsal, he fulfills his duties — and, believe me, his tolerating attitude really is a blessing to the musicians

- courfeyrac is either a timpanist or a pianist-accompaniator (both options make perfect sense in my mind and I cannot decide)

- jehan is a harpist (feel free to make your own suggestions, but I tried to express his passion for middle ages, romantism and his poetical nature with this choice)

- marius is a violinist because I thought it would be hilarious for him to play soppy melodies whenever he’s pining on cosette

- cosette herself is a cellist. at first, i was going to make her an opera singer (soprano), then i was contemplating on her being a violinist as well, but then I thought — goddamn it, i love women who play cello, and it would reflect her character so well (which i of course am planning to develop a bit from what monsieur hugo provided us with), and I just don’t want to see her as something high-pitched! the solemn and a bit sorrowful, yet so noble and beautiful timbre of cello seems to suit her image in my mind.

• as for the artists, here we have OBVIOUSLY my man grantaire, eponine, joly + bossuet, feuilly and bahorel. most of them are painters, with few exceptions: for example, joly is a sculptor in my mind, and feuilly does decorative art (also I am sorry he is also a student here and joly is not a medic it is all only for the sake of the composition)

i don’t want to make this post too long so I shall continue in the next ones! i hope this idea is entertaining enough for you my fellow readers. also i think it is pretty obvious that i have little to no knowledge at all about visual arts so please be free to comment your own thoughts

(also i am new to the fandom (although I’ve been into les mis for quite some time now) and I would really appreciate any sort of communication) :)