#dickens hurt/comfort idfic about how he wants to cheat on his wife but he’s being so brave about it

[secretmellowblog]

Sydney Carton IS who the fandom wants Grantaire to be and you should say it!! Wisest words I have heard all week! (ready or not the fandom should hear this)

AJJSJDD thank you; thank you. 😂 I think the only reason no one else has pointed this out is because so few people care about a Tale of Two Cities anymore. : P

One day I Will write an overlong meta post about Sydney and Grantaire. For now I’ll just say….there are so many times when I read Les mis fanfic and am like “well this isn’t book Grantaire at all, but it is an absolutely perfect characterization of Sydney Carton.” XD ( I love the Les Mis fandom’s collective fanon universe though, it’s fun.)

I think it’s just. If you take Grantaire, and then sand away all his rough edges until he’s a handsome young scruffy clever competent kindhearted lonely friendless snarky witty ambiguously-fruity whumpy hurt/comfort alcoholic classic lit sadboi in unrequited love, you get Sydney Carton. He’s great. This is why I was obsessed with him in high school.

While this is another tangent, there are so many super interesting parallels between A Tale of Two Cities and Les Mis! I’m hoping to write a post on that eventually too so that my high school a tale of two cities obsession has meaning. The parallels are fascinating because it shows that Dickens and Hugo were attempting to comment on the same social issues (ex: Valjean and Manette are their attempts to comment on France’s harsh long prison sentences.)

The main difference between Les Mis and A Tale of Two Cities is that Les Mis is good.

OK I’m joking, I’m joking. As someone who can recite passages from ATOTC by heart— I dislike how it has become The iconic piece of classic lit about the French Rev when it really should not be, at all. XD it’s not a very deep political commentary, in the scattered moments when it’s trying to be— and for a great deal of the time it isn’t even trying to be. But that’s another tangent.

To me the thing about Dickens (having read nearly all his books) is that he’s great at doing character studies/writing weird memorable quirky characters! But his overarching plots are often pretty weak. His stories were like serialized soap operas, essentially, and the “plot” is rarely the point so it’s also rarely good. Like I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Dickens’ most well-loved popular work, a Christmas Carol, is literally just a character study. Because it’s what he’s best at! And his brand of social commentary also works a lot better when it’s just “show us the life of a character who’s been affected by these issues and let us draw our own conclusions” ahsjdjjdjd)

This is all a long winded way of saying….A Tale of Two cities may not be as “good” as Les mis BUT it does have some fun characters, including ultimate whump fanfic sadboi Sydney Carton. (Not to mention Madame “tell the wind and fire where to stop” Defarge.) and clearly people think Sydney Carton should be in Les mis too, given how the Fanon Grantaire we collectively came up with accidentally ended up being Sydney Carton 2. But eyy! One day I WILL write the fanfic idea that’s been kicking around in my head where an elderly Sydney Carton (who was miraculously rescued from the guillotine) meets Les Amis and helps give Grantaire some handy life advice…..one day 😔