#he gets enjolras on a whole other level and I love him for it

[justgayrevolutionnaries]

Sir how does it feel to have the most correct take ever

[flownintothesun]

 ⋆ ✰ ⋆ ───    𝟏𝟑. 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐚 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬?

                              ⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐧 𝐚𝐬𝐤𝐬. ( @imprvdente )

**Disclaimer : I'm not sure how 'weird' all of these will be, but they'll at least be headcanons and I shall do my best to make them silly if I can think of them !!

𝐈. 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐗

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── When Francis gets super duper flustered, he starts hiccuping. It's a very big tell and it's super cute. He'll try to stave it off or hold it back, and then it ends up shaking his whole body. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever and he has a glorious strawberry-red blush to match. So, if you make him hiccup, that means you're doing something to fluster him (good on you). Not that Fish would ever do that, nope, not ever. This headcanon was developed when my dear @olivierperrier was still active.

𝐈𝐈. 𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄𝐘 𝐌𝐂𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐘

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── In the rare verse where Westley has actually gotten to grow up with his mam on the farm in Scotland — he has an ongoing feud with a rooster named 'The Colonel'. It started when he was a tot and was chased around nonstop. Doris (his mam, @batteredoptimist 's lovely) tried very very hard not to laugh. The rooster lived to a ripe old age and when he was gone, Westley cried, but still curses his name.

𝐈𝐈𝐈. 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐍 𝐆𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── One of Marin's earliest (and only, depending on verse) memories of her mam is of her red hair, and of her singing in Scottish Gaelic to her. Song is a big influence in Marin's life. In quite a few of her verses now, I headcanon her to (unknowingly) be half-siren, if the verse allows for magic. She loves to sing, and it calms everyone around her. Also, no matter the verse, she wears a thistle necklace that her mam gave to her when she was very young. (For more siren!Marin headcanons, click the link.)

𝐈𝐕. 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐎 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐈

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── Hm, at first glance, this Italian badass has no flaws or weaknesses. In fact, he looks like he belongs on the cover of a Harlequin romance book — shirtless and sweaty and sexy all pressed up against some girl. There's just one thing preventing that from happening. Mariano is scared shitless of horses. Why? We don't know. He just told me one day, I laughed, we rolled with it. 11/10 will swear in full Italian fear and will try to play it off. Also, all of those things like 'don't break your spaghetti in front of an Italian. Yeah. True.

𝐕. 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐗

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── Probably my newest headcanon (not necessarily a weird one because of all the muses on tumblr, Luci's probably the most underdeveloped of my OCs) is that Luci has heterochromia, meaning that her eyes are different colors. One is a lovely shade of blue-grey (like her mother's), and it leaks into the other eye before turning a soft shade of brown (like her father's).

𝐕𝐈. 𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐍 𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐋𝐑𝐀𝐒

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── Enjolras is one I haven't gotten to write with a ton to develop yet, so I don't have a multitude of headcanons for him. What I do have is a little more tragic than it is 'weird' or 'funny'. For all of the ways he strives to help the underdog, and the poor — Enjolras himself was born into the upper class and a very wealthy family. In school, he learned of the struggles of the people in the streets and kind of tried to martyr himself down to their level to join the fight and use his voice. He cut off his parents and no longer sees them or acknowledges them. Nevertheless, both of his parents love him and want him to come home.

𝐕𝐈𝐈. 𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐘 𝐅𝐎𝐗-𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐍-𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐒𝐎𝐑

⋆ ✰ ⋆ ─── Henry is also a bit of a sad case, I think. Please mind that I have not seen the movie and it's been about a year since my last reread of the book — but I think that when his father died, he very nearly tried to run away and become a stage actor (think Shakespeare type thing) and writer in his father's memory. I actually have a verse for this. However, when his mother shut down, and Bea started coping in unhealthy ways — instead of pursuing grief in the way his heart called him to do so — he internalized everything and was there for everyone else instead.

[quidfree]

Regarding obnoxiously long books, which is your favourite - war and peace or les mis (and general thoughts please)

ooh, good ask, anon. this is a no-brainer for me because les mis is in my Books of All Time shortlist, but i'd never really considered them side-by-side despite the fact they're contemporary and weirdly similar novels.

quidfree's literary takes hours: comparing obnoxiously long classics edition

why les mis is superior: for me personally? i think les mis manages to do what war and peace does on a micro level (which is a funny thing to ever say about les mis)- sprawling tragic historical narrative, tapestry of characters, exploration of the self via specific protagonists, but with more focus so the read is less exhausting and more engaging. not to say i didn't enjoy W&P, because i really did- but i retained a lot more of les mis even on first read, because of hugo's tighter framing. i'm generally a lot more attached to the characters of les mis than i am to those of W&P. but at the same time they're almost all broke and/or revolutionaries instead of russian nobles so who's surprised....

also, only les mis has a detailed description of the paris sewer systems, so. (and a lot more puns, i feel like.)

actually on a more serious note that's probably something else that i enjoy more in les mis: the narrator's voice, being hugo's, is more charismatic to me.

points that W&P scores: a lot more women involved, including scheming and morally questionable ones. i think fair's fair in fiction- any and all gender represented should have a wide range of mores and personalities portrayed. it's more fun that way. and kudos to tolstoy: he manages to keep you more or less up to date with everything happening to his insanely enormous cast.

romantically i'm also a lot more invested in the dalliances of W&P than les mis, excepting marius' tree-bashing moment. natasha & andrei my problematic besties...

another thing: i can't read russian, but i can read french, which means i get to read les mis both in the original language and in its excellent translation. i'm sure i'm missing out on a lot by not being able to read the russian W&P. (for les mis it's a lot of puns.)

i'm hung up on this but it is crazy how much superficial similarity there is between both oeuvres now that you've brought this to my attention. not just the whole 'extremely long book by extremely assiduous and kind of unhinged social commentator author' thing, but the unusual choice of protagonist (pierre/valjean), the merciless depiction of war and conflict, the killing off of the most sympathetic/heroic figures, the complicated love triangles.... also napoleon is there

they're also both really funny although with W&P i'm less sure when it's intentional. like i know pierre post helene is having a complete breakdown but him joining the freemasons was so funny to me. the equivalent of becoming a scientologist because you got a divorce. elon musk moves.

i have great respect for both authors not just for their talents but for the unabashed confidence to constantly halt the narrative to drop their hot takes on life humanity and society. go off

i will say though that obviously in general les mis enjoys a far more pervasive reception across (western) culture in its myriad adaptations and particularly the musical, so there's a lot more opportunity to engage with it in-depth that probably plays into my biases.

if you have any les mis OR war and peace takes please share i would love to hear some random opinions on either. or even follow-up questions, like who would win in a fight between andrei and enjolras. or what kuragin and montparnasse make of each other.

[aromantic-enjolras]

The Amis as D&D players

I said I might do this and @a-little-fall-of-pain, @juliensorelisoverparty and @earthbound-in-doubt sounded interested, so.... here you go!! Enjoy! ^^

Combeferre is the one who introduces all of them to it. He loves it, he knows every version, he owns a bunch of manuals, he has read about the most obscure universes. He usually GMs [organizes and plays the role of game master], and he’s one of those GMs that has planned for every single eventuality even though his players still manage to take him by surprise sometimes with how fucking stupid they are.

Enjolras is one of those players who has been playing for years and years (he has been playing with Combeferre since middle school) but is still completely incapable of remembering any rules. Combeferre would go “do a DEX save” and he’d answer “a what?”. He’s not a bad player, he’s just... forgetful.

Courfeyrac goes all out at the character creation with his backstories. He regularly sends messages to Combeferre at five in the morning going “so, I’ve thought that my character, when he was five, stumbled on a stone....” His characters have the weirdest stats, because he does them based on character development and not on usefulness. “Hey Courf, why is your character insanely agile but frail as a twig?” “Well, you know, when she was in the Elven Kingdom five years ago...”

On the other end of the spectrum, Feuilly is a min-max player. The Amis have already understood that no matter the situation, Feuilly will always have the best stats for the role. He might not be as well-versed in the universe as Combeferre is, but he knows every obscure rule that might help with a quest. But on the other hand, half the time his characters don’t even have names before it’s needed for the game.

Jehan has a special love for weird characters and monster types. He always pesters Combeferre to let him play non-playable monsters, and his favourite class is definitely necromancer. Him and Bahorel have a tendency to brainstorm characters at their flat in between sessions, and they usually have very elaborated common roleplaying. Their favourite characters were once when Bahorel played a peaceful, kindhearted Barbarian, and Jehan played their childhood “best friend” who triggered the Barbarian’s Rage for their benefit and denied anything being off afterwards.

Bossuet has a whole bunch of characters on stand-by, because no matter what’s going on, if there is a critical fail that can kill someone, he will always be in the way. It’s a rarity to have him end a campaign playing the same character he started with. He has died by falling in a lake, stumbling and falling on his own sword, eating the wrong mushroom.... and in one memorable occasion, because a meteorite fell on his head.

Joly knew nothing about RPGs before the Amis, but he immediately became super excited about it and started researching. But he didn’t research the rules, or the universe, or the games. He found adjacent stuff. He has watched all of Critical Role and the Joueur du Grenier’s games, he has listened to the entire run of Naheulbeuk, he has t-shirts... Which means that he has a lot of references he doesn’t really understand. But he’s having fun, so...

Musichetta is ruthless. She doesn’t come here to be nice or have meaningful conversations, she’s here to unleash all the frustration of her daily life. She plays almost exclusively heavy-hitters, her characters are invariably Chaotic Evil, and her reaction to anything and everything is “I attack”. There is usually someone in charge of making sure she doesn’t kill important NPCs before they’ve finished talking to them.

Grantaire is a dweeb. I’m sorry, he just is. He only plays High Elves who are incredibly beautiful and have tragic backstories and his decision-making is entirely based on the Rule of Cool. Which is not a bad thing, except that... his character is a Level 3, he doesn’t have the stats to back it up.

Marius doesn’t really get the appeal. It’s too complicated, he gets lost. But he can’t really escape them, because Courfeyrac always offers his place for the games, so he just spends the evening cooking for everyone. He doesn’t mind, he really likes having everyone around while not having to interact with them! That’s all for today. If I get a good reception to this, I might do Cosette, Éponine and Gavroche!

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 3.4.1 ‘Group that almost’ part 11: Grantaire

All the other Amis are Legitimate Sons of the Republic, and so the first note we meet Grantaire on, following that, is a vague idea of illegitimacy. It’s hard to say why that feels so very right to me. This is pure headcanon, but I could easily see him as the actual illegitimate son of somebody--well cared for but aware of himself as a bit of a sore spot from birth, a reminder of the existence of corruption in a way he internalizes. It’s certainly the way he positions himself in the Amis family: he’s there, but off to the side. He’s there, but no one, least of all him, is quite sure why.

It’s been so long since I’ve come to Grantaire’s description in order, with fresh eyes. It’s a novel experience, and I’m going to give my impressions as they happen.

And... he's actually quite charming?

He’s charismatic, the one who always knows where the party should go next, naturally good at physical pursuits, and so on. He seems confident and conceited--which is not what I was expecting--and that can be charming or insufferable, depending on how it’s carried. Right now it’s striking me as on the charming side. He’s not in your face about it, but by pretending he’s in general demand among women, he’s carrying whatever he’s carrying about other people’s feelings about his appearance in a way that smooths the experience for everyone.

(It’s a dynamic that’s striking me as extremely middle school for some reason? God, I’m thinking of some terrible movie from the 80s aren’t I. I think I’m happier not knowing what this memory is.)

And then we get to the way skepticism has hollowed him out.

Hugo describes irony as a kind of disease, and Grantaire is the exemplar of that malady, demonstrating to the reader what it does to somebody. And, you know, I grew up in the 80s and 90s, I’m just going to straight up agree with that.

Then we get to his need for Enjolras to imbue him with structure and meaning. It’s a beautiful description, and it makes sense: Grantaire feels his own incompleteness. He feels the need to be something different, but he can’t find the change in himself, on his own.

But he keeps coming. He doesn’t know what it is he’s coming for, but he needs it enough that he can’t walk away from it. It’s a form of desperate hope, and it seems like the thing he hopes for is.. hope.

I appreciate how, again, there are no backstory reasons for this. There’s no past that explains him--other than the history of France--and there shouldn’t be, notwithstanding the rampant headcanoning I started this post with. Marius comes to the Musain because he’s working out some complex family shit; Grantaire doesn’t. He rejects the realm of ideals, but he also exists solely in the realm of ideals, in the sense that ideals are the reason he’s here. Yeah, Enjolras is the reason he’s here. But what is Enjolras but ideals?

Like Valjean kneeling before the bishop and the nuns, Grantaire doesn’t know how to touch the infinite except through an intermediary. But he’s trying desperately to touch the infinite.

I really like that after we get the description of everything about Grantaire attaching itself to Enjolras, the text explains that that phenomenon has nothing to do with Enjolras. It’s inherently something about Grantaire:

He was himself, moreover, composed of two apparently incompatible elements. He was ironical and cordial. His indifference was loving. His mind dispensed with belief, yet his heart could not dispense with friendship. A thorough contradiction; for an affection is a conviction. His nature was so.

Like we’ll see later with Eponine’s feelings for Marius, Grantaire’s feelings for Enjolras aren’t about him but what he represents in Grantaire’s internal journey. Though, of course, there’s much less of a power imbalance here--Enjolras and Grantaire share materially similar circumstance, and it’s only spiritually that Grantaire is lost at sea.

God, this has gotten so long and I haven’t even gotten to any of the queer references.

My sense from others is that 1) Hugo in life was absolutely surrounded by queer friends and 2) it’s not clear he ever realized that.

So, briefly: reference to Orestes and Pylades was absolutely used to refer to queer men in canon era, and used by people on complete opposite sides of the spectrum; I’ve heard Borel roll his eyes at having to use it in order to talk about queer men (a group he belonged to), and I’ve heard Vidocq use it with sneeringly vicious homophobia.

Did Hugo understand that usage? I really have no idea.

But I’m fascinated by the way Enjolras and Grantaire’s whole relationship is simultaneously completely one-sided--but also, it bleeds into the omniscient narration of the text.

Like, this O&P nonsense is all 100% entirely Grantaire’s thing. Clearly! But, then, why does the narrator invoke Antinous in Enjolras’s initial description? Why, in the literal last chapter of his life, is Enjolras given Orestes’ name, if “Orestes and Pylades” is just a thing happening in Grantaire’s head?

And yet, it IS just a thing in Grantaire’s head! It seems all very simple from Enjolras’s side: he’s willing to let Grantaire keep showing up, and he still hopes Grantaire will actually make himself useful, but this whole thing is pretty annoying. Which: very fair! Honestly, just letting Grantaire keep coming to meetings to stare at him must take quite a lot of patience.

But also: the text is holding Enjolras to a higher standard, and at some level it knows that’s not good enough, from either of them. As I’ve talked about before, saving people is a tricky business in this book, prone to a strange parasocial one-sidedness that amounts to ingratitude on the side of the person doing the saving. OFPD, if nothing else, rectifies that.

Anyway, I’m really excited. I’ve had so much trouble reading Grantaire before, and I’m so glad to be meeting him (sort of) afresh this time around.

[dannypuro]

congrats on your exams <3<3<3!!!! vis a vis something telling-verse: how does eponine fit into the marius-cosette slice of the story? + will we see gavroche?? for some reason i want to see him friends with jehan ~ <3

oooooh thank you!!!!!!!! (Something Telling-verse: canon era, time-zapped enjolras; modern era and everyone else)

one thing that i think really changes the dynamic between éponine and marius is the fact that éponine is a little older in Something Telling than she is in the brick--she’s still young, but she’s 22, not 17. and so i do think that she and marius were neighbors when she was younger and still living with her parents, but that was just kind of a weird coincidence thing--they didn’t stay in contact, and so when éponine meets marius again, in just a “roommate of the friend of my coworker’s boyfriend” type way, they’re both a little freaked out. but they’re happy to see each other! marius is glad to see that she got out of the whole situation with her parents! éponine totally had a giant crush on him when she was a teenager but she’s aged out of it and now she thinks it’s pretty embarrassing lmao. 

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY! i think that the thénardiers were cosette’s foster parents when she and éponine were little babies together. they grew up together, even if the thénardiers treated cosette really unfairly. and so when she and cosette reunite through the context of “girlfriend of the roommate of the friend of my coworker’s boyfriend” it’s a little weird at first but they’re actually very emotional about it and so happy to see each other again. they need to talk some shit through but overall i am firmly in camp Let Cosette And Éponine Be Sisters. let them bond. they need to very gently (or, in éponine’s case, not-so-gently) bully marius together. they all deserve it. (you KNOW that when cosette brings éponine home to her papa valjean would adopt her immediately. Child Acquisition. never mind that she is an adult now, he knew her very briefly when she was a little child and cosette says that they’re sisters and that’s that it it’s Dad Time Now. éponine takes a while to get used to this but actually really enjoys having a support system.)

and yes, you WILL see gavroche! probably only in passing in the xmas fic, but in the NEXT something telling fic, he will be there! mostly because i want to see gavroche enjolras interaction, which is objectively hilarious, even in the brick. enjolras has never interacted with a child before on any significant level. gavroche does not give a shit WHAT century enjolras is from--that’s his dorky uncle enj and he lets him put anything he wants in the microwave and doesn’t know how to text so he gives gavroche his phone, like, all the time. also, gavroche is in 6th/7th grade, and OBVIOUSLY he’s a trouble-maker, but also, he doesn’t really have anyone who’s super invested in his schoolwork. but enjolras is genuinely interested in his textbooks and what he’s learning in his science class and knows a ton about history (as long as it’s before 1832) and proofreads his essays for him and gavroche would never admit it but it’s totally making him more passionate about school. if he doesn’t pay attention in science class he can’t explain how electricity works to a 26-year-old with anxiety. history is WAY more fun when he knows a bunch of disruptive, irrelevant facts about the 19th century. vibes only. 

enjolras gets stuck on babysitting duty a lot (since he doesn’t have a job lmao) and sometimes he calls grantaire at work like “Hello! Are children permitted regular wine, or must it be watered down?” and grantaire is like !!!!!!! NO!!!!!! NO WINE IN ANY FORM FOR CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!! and enjolras is like......... :^/ weird but okay i love you

ANYWAYS, i am tipsily answering all asks tonight ask me anything u desire....... send me ur headcanons....... ask me ur questions.......... i have finished my exams and i am free....... 

[kjack89]

AITA

My bestie’s latest quarantine hobby is trolling through AITA on reddit and sending me ones she thinks will make me mad, so. I got inspired.

E/R, modern AU.

The sun was bright and the mood, all things considered, was high, as the crowd gathered by the river in preparation for the march downtown to call for defunding the police. Black Lives Matter was leading the protest, and Enjolras had volunteered Les Amis to serve as support and allies in whatever way they could, which mostly meant making sure folks were wearing masks and that no one decided to try something stupid with the cops.

“Good crowd,” Courfeyrac remarked, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as he glanced around before looking back at Enjolras. “As much as I’m sure it’s killing you that they’re only calling for defunding and not abolition.”

“Yeah, well, not even a year ago, no one was talking about defunding the police,” Enjolras pointed out, a little sourly, adjusting his mask, which was emblazoned with WHITE SILENCE IS VIOLENCE. “I’ll take what progress I can get.”

Courfeyrac smirked. “You sound practically moderate.”

Enjolras scowled. “Take that back, or—”

His threat was cut off by the arrival of Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire. It was hard to tell by the masks all three wore, but Enjolras was pretty sure that all three were grinning, and judging by the way Bossuet was swaying, just slightly, it wasn’t just because they were in a good mood.

“I’ll take it you three decided to hit up a brunch spot on your way here?” Enjolras asked, even more sourly than before.

“A man has to eat,” Joly said innocently, which would have gone over much more believably had he not giggled at the end.

“Besides, we only ordered one drink,” Bossuet assured him.

Enjolras pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me guess,” he said dryly, “you each ordered a bottomless mimosa.” He didn’t wait for any of them to confirm it. “And how many refills of said drink did you also order?”

Joly and Bossuet looked at each other and laughed, and Grantaire pulled his mask down to grin lazily at Enjolras. “Let me put it this way,” he said, “more than one and less than ten.” He paused. “Probably. I did lose track after about seven.”

Snickering, Joly and Bossuet headed over to join the rest of Les Amis, but when Grantaire made to follow, Enjolras blocked him, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You’re drunk,” he said accusingly, and Grantaire’s grinned widened.

“Well, I’m sure as shit not sober.”

“Put your mask back on,” Enjolras ordered, less concerned for himself, as Grantaire was part of his quarantine bubble, and more for everyone else milling around before the march started. Especially any journalists who might love to get a shot of BLM protesters breaking the mask mandate. “And go home, Grantaire.”

Grantaire slowly pulled his mask back up over his mouth and nose, smoothing it into place before looking at Enjolras plaintively, all trace of humor vanishing from his expression. “Let me stay here,” he said, his voice soft, and not just from the cotton that covered his mouth.

Enjolras shook his head, well aware that even if Grantaire might suddenly sound sober, he wasn’t. “Go home,” he repeated. “The last thing we need is your drunk ass picking a fight with the cops or something worse and turning this whole thing into a riot instead of the peaceful protest its organizers intended.”

“What, you think I’m incapable of going two or three hours without starting a brawl?” Grantaire asked, incredulous.

Enjolras arched an eyebrow. “I think you’re incapable of a great many things.”

Grantaire’s lip curled. “Like believing, thinking, willing, living and dying?”

“Only you seem to think you’re incapable of dying,” Enjolras said quietly, before repeating, one more time, “Go home.”

But Grantaire shook his head, taking a step toward him. “If you’re so worried about it, then send Bahorel home, too!” he insisted. “Send home Joly and Bossuet who are just as drunk as I am. Or else let me stay.”

“No.”

Enjolras said the word calmly, but Grantaire recoiled as if he had shorted. “And why not?”

“Because I trust them!” Enjolras burst, his temper getting the better of him, and he scrubbed a hand across his face before adding, what he hoped was a calmer way, “I trust them to actually listen to my instructions and keep themselves out of trouble.”

But something in Grantaire’s face clouded as soon as Enjolras had said that he trusted them, and Enjolras had a bad feeling that he hadn’t really listened to the last part. “Right,” Grantaire said, a little dully, already turning away. “Well. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras sighed, reaching out to catch his arm, but Grantaire shrugged him off, wandering towards the river, the hunch of his shoulders the only indication that he had any care in the world. Enjolras stared after him for a long moment, his expression troubled.

----------

Four days later, Grantaire rolled over in bed when his phone buzzed. He picked it up off his nightstand, saw that it was a text from Enjolras, and immediately tossed it down again, groaning.

He hadn’t talked to Enjolras since that morning of the BLM protest, and at this rate, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to. Not when he knew that Enjolras didn’t trust him.

Joly would tell him he was being dramatic, and Bossuet would tell him to just text Enjolras and apologize and move on, and since Grantaire wanted to hear neither of those things, he also wasn’t talking to Joly or Bossuet.

Instead, he rolled over onto his stomach, grabbing his phone and stubbornly ignoring the text message from Enjolras still sitting, unread, in his messages. Instead, he clicked on twitter, figuring if he was going to sulk, he might as well sulk while reading about someone else’s misery.

A half hour later, Grantaire had scrolled through what felt like half of twitter before he stumbled upon a random tweet that linked to an ‘Am I the Asshole?’ post on the subreddit of the same name, and he glanced at the clock before deciding he had enough time to waste a couple of hours on a whole new level of misery.

He might’ve kept scrolling for hours, when he stumbled upon an AITA post that was surprisingly familiar.

Suspiciously familiar.

Like he had lived it.

He hesitated for only a moment before clicking on the post.

Posted by u/RadianceoftheFuture 8 hours ago AITA for kicking my friend out of a protest?

So I (25M) was attending a BLM protest the other day with the social justice organization I run. One of my friends, who we’ll call ‘R” (28M), showed up drunk and, IMO, looking to start a fight. This was the last thing I wanted, since we were there to be good allies, and starting fights or inciting a riot as white folks who will get away with it ain’t it. So naturally, I told him to go home.

Now here’s where I may be the asshole. R started arguing with me, and pointed out that some our other friends who were also there were also drunk, and one of our other friends who was there has a history of starting fights, so he asked me why I wasn’t making them leave. I told him it was because I trusted them.

Which is true, but not exactly how I wanted to word it, and I could tell that he was hurt by the implication that I didn’t trust him. And I do trust him, but I also didn’t want to spend the entire time worried about him. Anyway, he left, and he hasn’t talked to me since. If I’m the asshole, I want to apologize so that we can go back to being friends, and even if I wasn’t, I still want to figure out a way for us to talk again. I miss him. So tell me, AITA?

Grantaire stared at his phone, torn between something warm spreading in his chest at the fact that Enjolras cared enough to ask anonymous strangers on the internet about this, and freaking out because Enjolras had posted about their disagreement on the internet.

The man had only two speeds, it seemed, and somehow, Grantaire always ended up dealing with Enjolras on the highest speed.

Numbly, and mostly in an attempt to gather his thoughts, Grantaire scrolled through the comments on the post, unsurprised to see a decent mix of judgements from the redditors. More than expected YTAs (you’re the asshole), plus a number of NTAs (not the asshole), and, predominantly, a smattering of NAH (no assholes here).

Halfway down the page, he paused, realizing that the person who had written the post had responded to a question.

u/oldcoats_oldfriends - 7 hours ago INFO: why do you trust your other friends and not R?

u/RadianceoftheFuture - 6 hours ago Because R has a history of getting himself in trouble, whether by running his mouth off when he shouldn’t or picking fights with guys twice his side, and the trouble he gets into tends to happen after he’s been drinking. So when you put the two together, I was worried he’d do something stupid and get himself locked up or worse. And since keeping an eye on the rest of the protest was important, I knew I couldn’t afford to be distracted by also keeping an eye on him.

And for the record, I trust R with a lot. He’s not as ideological as a lot of us, doesn’t even have a lot of the same beliefs, but I know he would never do anything to hurt the cause, or me. Of course, he might not HELP the Cause, or me, but still. I’ve never once doubted that R would take a bullet for me, if it came to that. I would just never in a million years want him to.

Grantaire swallowed, hard. Of course he would take a bullet for Enjolras, or more, but it had never occurred to him that knowing that might make Enjolras worried. Worried that Grantaire would do something stupid.

If only the man knew that Grantaire worried about Enjolras in exactly the same way.

Hesitating for only a moment, he decided to leave a comment of his own.

u/MyFullGlass1832 - 1 minute ago NAH. Sure your friend shouldn’t have been drunk and you were right to kick him out, but drinking doesn’t make him an asshole (though not talking to you might). I am curious why you would have been worried about him. He’s a grown man and not your responsibility.

He quickly closed out of reddit, not wanting to do something stupid and refresh until Enjolras responded, but he only half-paid attention to the tweets he scrolled past, glancing at the clock to see if it was still pathetic for him to check for a response.

But to his shock, when he finally gave in and checked forty-five minutes later, Enjolras had answered, and something in Grantaire’s stomach twisted to know that he was still checking the thread, still seeking a resolution.

u/RadianceoftheFuture - 39 minutes ago Maybe ‘worried about’ is the wrong term, but he’s my friend. I didn’t want him to get hurt, or worse, because he was drunk. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten hurt on my watch, and everytime it happens, it’s awful. And not just because he won’t shut up about it for the next six months - I always feel so guilty, like I should’ve been protecting him. I know that’s not realistic, so the very least I can do is send him home when I think he’s liable to hurt himself. That way I can sleep at night knowing I did what I could.

The breath caught in Grantaire’s throat, and his chest felt tight, especially as he read the follow up comments.

u/valiant.artisan - 34 minutes ago INFO: Are you and R gay?

u/tremble_b4apoppy - 26 minutes ago Dude you may be in love with R.

u/timidinrepose - 21 minutes ago OMG this is the sweetest thing I’ve read all day.

u/Lymantria_dispar - 12 minutes ago. Pretty sure this might go a little beyond just friendship. Either way, I’m glad you care about your friend, and even though you weren’t TA, you should call him and explain why you told him to go home. 

Grantaire couldn’t seem to stop his stupid smile as he stared at the computer, and this time, he didn’t hesitate, opening his text chain with Enjolras without reading any of Enjolras’s previous texts. He didn’t need to read them know.

NTA.

He sent the text and held his breath, wondering if Enjolras would acknowledge it, immediately, or try to play it cool. His one word answer indicate the former: Sorry?

But Grantaire wasn’t nearly as willing to play it coy. Not anymore. Your AITA post. I’m giving you my judgment. NTA.

In his mind, he could see Enjolras blush, that same way he did when he was frustrated, two spots of color rising high in his cheek as he stared at Grantaire. You saw that?

Even in his mind, it was a beautiful sight. Yeah

Then you should know, I agree with the majority opinion.

The image of Enjolras blushing disappeared, leaving Grantaire blinking at his phone, his brow furrowed as he tried to think of what the majority option would have been. Oh?

NAH.

Grantaire grinned, but before he could respond, Enjolras texted, Want to come over? I think I owe you an explanation in person.

I thought you’d never ask.

----------

u/ RadianceoftheFuture - 45 minutes ago UPDATE: AITA for kicking my friend out of a protest?

(Original.)

Thank you all very much for your feedback in the original post. There were a variety of perspectives on this, but some of the comments on the original post made me realize that I may in fact feel something more than friendship towards R, and it’s a good thing I figured it out, because he found the post, and even commented on it without me knowing! Anyway, we talked, I explained how I felt, and it turns out R’s had a thing for me pretty much since he’s known me. Anyway, we’re dating now, and while this isn’t exactly going to solve my problem of worrying about him, I also think he’ll be on somewhat better behavior now. For my sake at least.

We still have a lot to work on together, but we’re moving in the right direction. And to think, I probably never would’ve figured it out if it weren’t for reddit, of all the websites. 

u/MyFullGlass1832 - 3 minutes ago WIBTA for hijacking my boyfriend’s reddit post to tell him that I love him?

u/ RadianceoftheFuture - 2 minutes ago YTA for sitting literally two feet away from me and responding to a reddit post when we could be doing something far more exciting.

u/MyFullGlass1832 - 1 minute ago ...good point.

[fremedon]

Brickclub 3.1.13, “Young Gavroche”

About eight or nine years after the events told in the second part of this story, on the Boulevard du Temple and in the neighborhood of the Château d’Eau, there could be seen a little boy of eleven or twelve who would have quite accurately realized the ideal of the gamin previously sketched if, with the laughter of youth on his lips, his heart had not been absolutely dark and empty.

So that’s our introduction to Gavroche; and, like so many of Hugo’s introductions, it’s not exactly untrue but it’s certainly misleading--as is our reintroduction to the Gorbeau House, which “happened to be inhabited, extraordinarily enough, by several individuals who in fact, typically of Paris, had no connection or relationship with each other.” That part is an outright lie--Hugo is generally lying when he avers that anything is unconnected or irrelevant.

Before I dig into that, I want to point out that “eight or nine years.” The ‘now’ of Tome III is when Gavroche is 11 or 12--and Cosette, who is eight, or possible seven going on eight, when she arrives at the convent, would be sixteen or seventeen. This fits with the introduction we get to Gillenormand in the next chapter, where it says he was as alive as anyone could be in 1831. The first half of Tome III is going to backtrack to fill us in up to that point, but it’s setting up its “present day” as late 1831 and early 1832. (Tl;dr, the ages and descriptions of the Amis de l’ABC should be read as of 1828, when they meet Marius, since they enter the story in the middle of the explanation of how Marius came to be living in the Gorbeau House.)

Back to Gavroche. Bleak and empty of heart is...about as close to the opposite of how I would describe Gavroche as it is possible to get. It’s really making me look again at every other character introduction and wonder just how much I should be trusting it. And yet, it’s not just Gavroche’s introduction--IIRC, this chapter is the only time we’re going to see him for the whole of Tome III. He’ll come back in the very last chapter to find his family in prison, but I think he’s offstage for the entirety of the volume otherwise. So this is the impression Hugo wants us to sit with for a very long time.

When these poor creatures are men, almost invariably they are caught and crushed under the millstone of the social order, but as long as they are children, being small, they escape. The tiniest bolt-hole saves them.

We’ve had the millstone metaphor before--of Jean Valjean, in the bagne. We also get, possibly, our first introduction to the great literal metaphor of the sewer, in the description of the classes who live in the Gorbeau House: “...right down to those two beings with whom all the material things of civilization end up: the sewer-man who sweeps up the sludge, and the rag-and-bone man who salvages the rubbish”

So Gavroche is poised to grow up to be the seed of millet beneath the millstone--but for now, he’s small, and he escapes.

I will point out that the seed that escapes the millstone and rolls into a hole--germinates. The child may seem doomed, but he still has the potential to be anything.

Most of what else we learn about him here is his separation from his family, who don’t love him and have pushed him out onto the streets:

He was one of those children, most deserving of all of pity, who have both father and mother and yet are orphans. 

[...]

This child lived in this absence of affection like those etiolated plants that grow in cellars. It was not something he minded, and he did not hold it against anybody. He did not actually know how a father and mother should be.

What is more, his mother loved his sisters.

That last line is the only hint we’re going to get for a long time of the identity of the Jondrette family. It’s chilling enough to be noticeable; I can hardly remember now what it’s like to read this book unspoiled, but if one was reading closely I think it would be the sort of hint that you remember, just too late to brace yourself for the reveal.

Why was he called Gavroche? Probably because his father’s name was Jondrette. Breaking ties seems to be the instinct of some destitute families. 

And yet, forging ties is Gavroche’s instinct--with the mômes, with Montparnasse, with Enjolras, with everyone he comes across. He’s everyone’s friend and benefactor--but we don’t learn that here, and we won’t until Book IV. Why is Gavroche, who is so central to the story on both a metaphorical and logistical level, given an introduction that’s so wildly out of character from what we actually see of him?

I really don’t know. Partly, I think it’s to throw his resilience and capacity for community-building and affection into sharper relief--to make sure we’re seeing them in light of all the ways the deck is stacked against him. It would be easy, in his position, to actually have a bleak and empty heart; that he doesn’t is nothing short of miraculous (and more fodder for the headcanon of Cosette being his usual caretaker in Montfermeil).

But also...this is our introduction to the consummate gamin, the type specimen of the type we’ve just spent twelve chapters getting to know. That emptiness of heart is the thing that, we are told, keeps him from perfectly embodying the gamin--which is to say, Paris. Gavroche is Paris--but a Paris with an emptiness at the core.

And I’m thinking now of those bleak and empty house-fronts in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and the city that doesn’t wake.

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.5.10 “Outcome Of The Success”

It’s long, I’m sorry. There’s just so much in this chapter!

The chapter’s first paragraph is a description of the misery of winter weather, bookended by sentences about Fantine. It’s been nearly a year since she was fired. The bit about winter is a description of Fantine’s descent as well as the weather. Winter brings short days which means less work; Fantine’s position in society means she’s finding less work as well because she is essentially freelancing rather than working for an employer with steady jobs. “No heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning” is such a good description of the way everything is miserable and just blurs together when you’re trying to just stay alive. All the awful stuff is sharp and dull at the same time. “Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.” Fantine is starting to harden here; we see her become more shameless, tougher.

Fantine wears a cap after cutting her hair “so she was still pretty.” And this disappears so rapidly in this chapter. Her beauty is so important. Fantine is the only character aside from Enjolras who is repeatedly described as beautiful in a way that seems to really matter. (Cosette is also beautiful, but that description is almost entirely through Marius’ POV, rather than from a more general POV with Fantine.) The slow destruction of Fantines beauty--the discarding of her pretty clothes for peasant ones, her frequent tears, the loss of her hair and teeth, the torn and threadbare clothing--mirrors her social destruction. She desperately clings to her beauty by wearing a cap, but she obviously gives up pretty soon.

What fascinates me here is that Hugo mentions that Fantine admired Madeleine, like everyone else, but he also implies that she didn’t hate him straight away for her dismissal. In the previous chapters, her reaction is to accept the dismissal as a “just” decision. She works up her hatred by repeatedly telling herself it was his fault. It seems as though she lands on the right conclusion in the wrong way. She blames herself first, and only through gradually convincing herself does she start to blame Madeleine. He and his crap system are the ones to blame, but she comes to that conclusion in a roundabout way that feels like she still blames herself but is trying not to. Fantine has been a scapegoat for everyone up until now; Madeleine has become her scapegoat to avoid (incorrectly) blaming herself.

“If she passed the factory when the workers were at the door, she would force herself to laugh and sing.” She’s trying so hard to make them think they haven’t gotten to her, but it just makes it so much more obvious. The laughter and singing is the “wrong” reaction, and it makes everyone notice her even more, and judge her even harder. It’s just so sad because I can understand that behavior of trying so hard to act the opposite way of how you think people will expect you to, only it backfires and makes your true feelings all the more apparent, which gives even more fuel to the cruel people.

Fantine takes a lover out of spite, “a man she did not love.” There are a few things here that contrast with the grisettes of 1.3. This lover is someone Fantine does not love, her first relationship since losing Tholomyes, who she was in love with. The man is also a street musician, which reminds me of Favourite’s actor/choir boy. The difference being that Favourite’s boy had at least some connections through his father, and Fantine’s lover is only a street musician. Fantine takes this lover in for the same reason that she sings and laughs outside the factory: to try and show that she’s unaffected, which really only serves to do the opposite. She has this affair “with rage in her heart,” which seems to be the only emotion left for her for anyone besides Cosette (and maybe Marguerite).

“She worshiped Cosette.” My only comment here is that this is something that Valjean will later echo. Both worship and adore Cosette as a point of light, something to cling to and love and care for.

Okay maybe I’m missing something here, but Fantine can read but she can’t write? This is probably my “been good at reading/writing my whole life” privilege talking, but wouldn’t she be able to write if she could read? I suppose maybe it’s like how I can look at numbers and understand the numbers but I can’t do math for shit? I don’t know. That just caught my eye.

Fantine is starting to lose her inhibitions as she begins to lose control of everything in her life. She’s laughing and singing and running and jumping around outside in public, she’s acting loud and brash and odd. Her reactions to her misfortune and the terrible things that keep happening express the “wrong” emotion. It’s an attempt to cope, and a courageous one, but it’s drastically different from the quiet Fantine who barely spoke that we were introduced to.

“Two Napoleons!” grumbled a toothless old hag who stood by. “She’s the lucky one!”

This line really struck me. We’ve been tunnel-visioned on Fantine’s misery this whole time. Suddenly the focus pulls back a little bit and we get a little bit of perspective. Fantine is not at rock bottom yet. She could still go so much lower. To this toothless old woman, she’s lucky because she’s pretty and because her teeth have worth. Fantine is poor, and cold, and worried about her kid, and most of the town laugh at or scorn her, and yet this old woman still thinks she’s the lucky one of the two of them. It’s a much more subtle commentary on the levels of poverty and abjectness that exist. Once you’ve fallen through the cracks in society to the level of homelessness, to the level of selling your teeth and hair and body, to complete aloneness, anyone who has even a scrap more than you seems “lucky.” And Fantine’s not too far from that existence.

The conversation between Marguerite and Fantine about military fever is so weird. Is Marguerite just saying stuff? This dialogue sounds like a conversation between two people who have no idea what they’re talking about. It’s like those scenes in comedies where one person pretends to be super confident about something to impress the other even though both of them are completely wrong. Oh okay wait! I just did some googling and I’ve realized that neither of them know what they’re talking about because Thenardier did his bad spelling thing! “Miliary fever” is an old medical term for an infection that causes fevers and bumpy skin rashes. (Mozart’s death is attributed to it; it seems to have fallen out of use as it became easier to pinpoint certain illnesses.) I think this isn’t just Marguerite not knowing what she’s talking about. This is a misunderstanding due to Thenardier’s misspelling (whether deliberate or not, I don’t know) and neither Marguerite nor Fantine know enough to realize it.

ETA: Okay wow I’m keeping that whole “miliary fever” thought journey in just to record my thought process but I’ve just double-checked against the Hapgood translation and the original French, and the mistake isn’t with the Thenardiers at all! It’s entirely the fault of the translators. The original French says “miliare” and Hapgood has translated it as “miliary”; Fahnestock and MacAfee clearly did not notice that the French was “miliare” and not “militaire,” and neither did their editors.

“During the night Fantine had grown ten years older.” Off the top of my head, I can only think of three instances of not-old people being blatantly described as looking old. This description here, Valjean when he returns from Arras, and Eponine. There are probably more I’m missing, but the connecting factor between these three is severe, prolonged trauma. Trauma and a difficult life can prematurely age people (I always think of that Dorothea Lange photo of the migrant mother who was only 32 but looks 50) and Hugo uses this fact to bolster his descriptions of what they go through. But Fantine and Valjean both age almost suddenly; Eponine is already old-looking the first time we meet her as a character with dialogue. Fantine’s sudden aging is another level of departure from her old life. In Paris, she was the youngest of the group, and now she looks far older than she is.

“Actually, the Thenardiers had lied to get her to get the money. Cosette was not sick at all.” As readers, we know this. We’ve seen the Thenardiers lie over and over and we see Fantine sacrifice with no idea. But this one hits harder than the others. Partly, I think, because Hugo puts it so bluntly in a sentence that has its own paragraph. But also because this is the first sacrifice that is truly unalterable. Fantine’s hair can grow back. There may have eventually been some slim chance of a job opportunity or something coming up somehow, or an influx of things needing mending or something. But she cannot regain her teeth. This is also the first sacrifice that physically disfigures her in a visible way. She can hide her lack of hair under a cap, she can hide her lack of money by using and reusing things. She cannot hide her missing teeth.

It’s interesting that we do not hear about Mme Victurnien here. Rather than the last chapter, this would be the one where Victurnien would be “winning.” The consequences of Victurnien’s actions have now permanently affected Fantine’s life. Except I think the reason we don’t see her here is that she wouldn’t face it. She can look out her window at Fantine walking down the street in distress with her beauty intact and feel satisfaction, but if she saw Fantine walking down the street, toothless and hairless, I don’t think she would feel satisfaction, because she wouldn’t be able to connect her actions to this Fantine. Feeling satisfaction towards this level of misery would require acknowledging her participation in causing it. It’s one thing for the townspeople to laugh at or gawk at her, but I think claiming responsibility for her condition is something else altogether that I’m not sure Mme Victurnien would do.

Fantine throwing her mirror out the window is a strange sort of contrast compared to Eponine’s reaction to a mirror. Fantine cannot face her descent. Eponine is already there, and her excitement at Marius’ mirror is a weird sort of distracted examination of herself. Fantine cannot bear to examine herself because unlike Eponine, she can remember what it was like before this. Tossing away the mirror is tossing away the thoughts of her past life and her past self; she can’t ever go back to that.

“The poor cannot go to the far end of their rooms or to the far end of their lives, except by continually bending more and more.”

God I don’t really even know what to say about this line except ouch. It’s just so poignant and intense. The older you get the harder it is to survive, to get up with each new stumble. And we can also take into account things like the cholera epidemic that will occur a few years later in the book, which mostly affected the poor. There’s so little access to any sort of help or assistance. And clearly Valjean’s few little systems of aid aren’t good enough. He may have set up a worker’s infirmary and a place for children or old workmen, but there doesn’t seem to be assistance for single, unsupported women, or the homeless and unemployed. They’re left to bend more and more under the weight of life.

“Her little rose bush dried up in the corner, forgotten.” I can’t help but read this as a parallel to the Thenardier’s treatment of Cosette. As Fantine falls apart and falls behind on her payments, Cosette is growing up which means the abuse from the Thenardiers has probably increased. It also feels like a weird sort of throwback to the spring/summertime imagery of beauty and chasteness and modesty from back in 1.3, which has now completely disappeared and dried up as Fantine loses her beauty, her modesty, and her coquetry.

I love the little detail about Fantine’s butter bell full of water and the frozen ice marks. It’s such a small detail but so evocative. It also feels like a metaphor for each of Fantine’s new hardships. Every time the butter pot freezes over, it leaves a ring of ice for a long time; each time Fantine encounters a new trauma, she hardens and becomes tougher. She keeps her dried up, long gone modesty and youth in one corner and the suffering that has hardened her in the other. On a side note, I’m wondering if there is actually butter in her butter bell or if she’s now using it only for water? I would imagine water only; butter seems like something that might be expensive. Also, would the building she’s living in have had indoor plumbing, or would she have gotten water from a well or a pump somewhere? My plumbing history knowledge is lacking.

Hugo describes Fantine’s torn and badly mended clothes. At this point she’s working as a seamstress, which means she’s at least proficient in the skills needed to sew and/or mend clothes in such a way that they stay together. This means that the repairs done for herself are likely careless and messy. I think this is partly an indication of how little time she has for herself--if she’s sewing for work for 17 hours a day, she has very little time to mend her own stuff, and definitely can’t afford better quality material--and partly an indication of the ways in which she is falling apart. She doesn’t bother mending her things properly, she goes out in dirty clothes. She doesn’t mend her stockings, she just stuffs them further down in her shoes. It seems she has only one or perhaps no good petticoats, which means she’s probably walking around in just a shift and a dress. Not only is her stuff threadbare and falling apart, she’s also probably freezing due to the lack of layers.

“A constant pain in her shoulder near the top of her left shoulder blade.” This makes me wonder if Fantine’s left-handed. If she’s sewing by hand, by candlelight, in a shitty rush chair, for seventeen hours a day, that is absolute murder on the back/shoulders/neck. Whenever I do hand-sewing I’m usually sat on the floor or my bed, and my back and upper shoulders tend to get sore if I get in the zone and I’m bent over the work for a long time. I don’t know about French dressmakers, but I know around that time the English were really big on very small, neat, almost invisible stitches. Which would hurt to do for seventeen hours a day by candlelight.

“She hated Father Madeleine profoundly, and she never complained.” The Hapgood translation of this line is better, I think. Still, I think it’s important that it’s pointed out that she never voices her opinions or her complaints. It’s only when Madeleine is in front of her that she announces them at all (despite not speaking directly to him then, either). She hates Valjean, she blames him, and yet obviously some part of her still thinks that she deserves it, or that her dismissal was right.

“She sewed seventeen hours a day, but a contractor who was using prison labor suddenly cut the price, and this reduced the day’s wages of free-laborers to nine sous.” Reading this book is always a lot because aside from the still-relevant general overarching commentary about society and poverty and mutual aid and goodness and all that, there are so many smaller details that are so painfully, strangely relevant to the present day. Even today there’s fear that employers will come up with a new policy or a new labor shortcut that means less income. Employers who pay their employees less because the workers get tipped, or outsourcing that causes layoffs. Prison labor, too (and behind that, the fact that prison labor doesn’t guarantee a job in a similar field after release if desired).

In the next two chapters, we jump ahead somewhere between a few weeks to a couple months. What happened to Marguerite in the interim? Hugo describes her as a “pious woman [...] of genuine devotion,” but I have this sad thought that maybe when Fantine made the decision to become a sex worker, Marguerite may have turned her back on her as well. As we’ve seen with Valjean, being poor but modest is Good, and being poor and desperate enough to do something improper and “immoral” is Bad. Despite Marguerite’s canonical generosity towards the poor, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fantine’s decision overstepped some moral boundaries of hers.

“But where is there a way to earn a hundred sous a day?” I’m a little stuck on this. Would she make this much money? I’m basing the following information off of Luc Sante’s The Other Paris, so the monetary info might be slightly different a for non-Parisian area. According to Sante, someone like Fantine, a poor woman working without a pimp or madame and not in a legal brothel, would basically be working for pocket change. 100 sous would equal about 5 francs. If her earnings are basically pocket change, I don’t think she’d make 5 francs a day. Just considering the fact that a loaf of bread might cost about 15 sous, which seems like pocket change, or even slightly more than pocket change. Fantine probably becomes a sex worker and finds herself in the exact same position that she was in before, not making any more money than she would have if she had continued to be a seamstress.

[lesamisandlesmiserables]

For the mods- how are your characters similar or different to you?

...

Thank you for the ask, mon ami! 

Grantaire: i feel like i'm extremely similar to grantaire, before i even found Les Mis i was acting out my life exactly like he does in the brick. to this day i'm not nearly as active as the other Mods because i'm dealing with a lot of personal issues. I'm spending a lot of my time lately getting drunk and helping my local friends get out of my little reservation. I'm Plains Cree and it kills me to see everyone be so hopeless. all i want in the future is to see my people see value in themselves.

Babet: I don’t think I should actually admit to how similar Babet and I are.

Eponine: I’m fairly similar to Eponine, or at least my version of Eponine. I see Eponine as genderfluid, and yes that’s partly projection - but there is evidence for it in the book (Eponine repeatedly presents as male as well as female). I also love reading (Eponine is very proud of her ability to read in the book and likes showing off with it). I daydream a lot, and I love my siblings. I’m not exactly like Eponine, I don’t have the same experiences, but like Eponine, I dream of a better world. I’m not as brave as Eponine (I’m honestly a bit of a coward ha) but I admire their bravery. Like Eponine, I’d like to think I’d do anything for the people I care about.

Bahorel: In the brick Bahorel seems to be a kind of a social butterfly, he's like a link to other groups more than a known member of les Amis, and in the musical he doesn't even exists and it doesn't really affects anything, I feel I'm like that, for me is easy to connect with people in a superficial level but not feeling part of the group in a deeper sense, which isn't a bad thing because it's actually fun to just get along. I can be loud and easygoing. Also I feel we both got a sense of humour. I'm different tho in that I'm not as brave or bold , and I'm not *that* confrontative. But idk man, it's hard to say canonically with this characters we only get a few lines of, at the end most of it it's projection or straight up invented so who knows.

Javert: I don't think i'm very similar to Javert but i still have some of his attributes(or things i consider his attributes). I can be very very stuborn although not in a very negative fanatic way as him. I am passionate and can be dramatic as hell. Sometimes i can say very witty and dry sarcastic badass things. They are times that i seem weird when it comes to social interactions and sometimes i look restrained cold and closed (when i don't feel comfortable with some people) and i think he is too.Also my boy Javert is ace like me.It's just the facts.

Claquesous:

No.

Montparnasse: First of all, we’re both hot, jot that down. (We’re also vain, as you can see). Second of all, the line that described Montparnasse? “Gentle, effeminate, graceful, robust, weak, and ferocious”? ( Fahnestock and MacAfee translation). Yeah that’s me. We both like to be well-dressed and might or might not be willing to murder for nice clothes. To be fair, I’m nicer than he is and I am not exactly gonna... like... murder people for fun. (The 1%, on the other hand 👀). There was that one post about if you have a slider and you slide it from like, cute to dark you get Courfeyrac and Montparnasse respectively, I’m the whole spectrum of that :p I think our Feu is in denial how similar I am to parts of Montparnasse :p 

Feuilly: Monty is not like Montparnasse- Monty is baby Montparnasse is not. On the other hand, I’ve shifted the characterization of Feuilly a bit over these past few years. Of course, I kept the hardworking and creative aspects (things I like to think that I am), but Mr. Thicctor Hugehoe didn’t give me much to work with. I simp for iced tea, just like Feuilly, I am also a fan of The Memes™, but I’m genderfluid and Feu isn’t! Also, I am not the sibling of our Monty 😔

Montparnasse: See, in denial ;) Also I have adopted you my dear. We are family by anything but blood. 

Bossuet: I have taken to referring to my clumsy, accidentally self-harming daily nuisances as Bossuet-moments, if that explains anything? I am definitely prone to stupid, unlucky injuries and when I think things are going well, I can be pretty sure bad luck will spoil it. So there you go, check that off the list. Like Bossuet, though, I don't let it put me down permanently. I love my friends and I have gotten fairly good at getting my spirits up despite whatever doorframe I ran into or which favourite mug I dropped and scorched my feet. I'll be fine as long as my friends back me up.

Enjolras: I’m fairly similar to my character. I strive for equality and justice, I love my friends with all my heart, and I tend to take lead on things. There are places where I differ as well, but on the whole I feel Enj is the one I’m most similar to out of anyone in Les Mis.

Joly: I think I'm kind of like Joly! We're both known for being cheerful and optimistic, and I also use a cane to walk sometimes, which is part of why I love Joly! I also tend to write Joly as trans and I am too, and I love my friends very much, just like Joly!

Combeferre: The love of books and the tendency to always occupy the niche of the ‘Mom Friend’ are, I suppose, the most visible similarities. I have also been accused of spending too much on books, which is an outright lie, although, in the interests of transparency, my two most recent acquisitions did total £100+ and £62+ respectively.

I’m generally quite good at giving advice and am, at the risk of sounding arrogant, fairly intelligent. I can also be quite cutting with my words, although I’m rarely as polite as a simple “to be free”. I also share quite a lot of interests with Combeferre, both as he is in the book and in fanfiction. I’ve also somehow been infected with a love for moths and I hold everyone here completely and utterly responsible and am choosing to gloss over the fact that I have been obsessed with Mothra since I was a child.

I’m also relatively certain that I’m taller than most of this chaotic bunch.

[wilwywaylan]

The Artist above and the Revolutionnary below - Part 3

Fandom : les Misérables

Modern!AU, Grantaire x Enjolras, 3501 words

Next part of the thrilling adventures of Grantaire with his downstairs guitar-playing neighbor ! Complete with foot-in-mouth disease.

Warning : some allusions to depression nothing really graphic, but still. 

Contains some harsh opinions about protests ; that part has been written before the current events, and do not represent my views on the subject.

Beta-ed by the amazing @kujaku-myoo and read by the amazing-too @jesvisfarovche !

Also on AO3

- 

When he opened his windows next afternoon, Grantaire was met with silence. Of course. He should have expected it. The rally was over, and Enjolras didn't need to practice guitar anymore. Good, now he could focus on his work without any disturbances, and finally finish his assignement. Nothing but peace and quiet, at last.

Of course, he couldn't fool anyone, him least of all. He perfectly knew that he was going to miss the music, due to the pretty blond that was the source of it. But what could he do  He'd missed the opportunity to record his playing and use it as background music. He should get down, ask Enjolras to start playing again, maybe offer to teach him another song, They could sit on the balcony again, on those ricketty metal chairs that squeaked each time they moved, Enjolras' head so close to his, the blond curls tickling his cheeks....

Grantaire shook his head, trying to get rid of the pictures that kept flashing in front of his eyes. No, he was not going to step down for such a flimsy excuse, he was going to stay here, sitting on his stool, working of his painting, and nothing else. This was going to be a great day for his workload ! He could do it, he could totally do it !

He'd barely gave the first stroke of his paintbrush on the canvas when a voice rang out :

- R ? Are you.... are you there ?

It was Enjolras' voice, coming from the window.

- Are you there ? I can barely see your window open, so.... I think you're there ? Hello ?

Did he sound.... hopeful ? Impatient ? Grantaire really wanted to believe it. But he refrained his desire to run and throw himself at the window to see him faster. But defenestrating himself wouldn't really play in his plan of... what, in fact ? Sweeping Enjolras off his feet with his.... wit ? Presence ? Charm ? Something ? Or showing himself as the most stupid person in the whole building ?

Once assured he wasn't gonna flail or do a little victory dance, Grantaire leaned on the stony sill. To his greatest joy, Enjolras was looking at him, craning his neck upwards. And he was smiling.

Smiling.

At him.

Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was still sleeping and having the best dream ever. He discreetly pinched himself, and refrained from grimacing under the pain. Either he was dreaming the pain, or it wasn't a dream at all. It was real. It still had the same effect on him. And he needed to answer something.

- Oh, hello Angel. What's bringing you to my humble home today ?

Enjolras looked puzzled for a second.

- Your... oh yes.

- So what can I do for you ?

- Yesterday, you offered to discuss a few of my arguments with me. Do you still want to do it ?

- Right now ?

- If that's not a bother.

- I'm already on my way !

Grantaire didn't even spare a glance to his still very white canvas with absolutly no trace of work, just jumped in his shoes, and sprinted out.

Enjolras was waiting for him at the door, his cat held against his chest. He quickly let Grantaire in and closed behind him before letting go of the cat. The small beast trotted to Grantaire's feet, started sniffing at his shoes, then went to lie on the couch with obvious contentment.

- He seeems to like me, Grantaire remarked dryly.

- You're lucky. Usually, Jude isn't that welcoming.

Grantaire refrained to ask what he considered as "hostile".

- You called him Jude ? he asked instead.

- He likes the song.

Enjolras handed him a cup of coffee that Grantaire hadn't even seen him take. Maybe it was magic. Maybe he could materialize cups of coffee out of thin air. What a glorious super power. Grantaire took a sip to stop the enldess loop of his thoughts. And it was perfectly made, with just enough sugar, exactly like he liked. Enjolras had memorized how he drank his coffee, and he needed not to read too deeply into it.

- So, he asked, what did you need me for ?

- I have another rally...

- Another ?

- Of course, another. And another after that. We still have a lot to do.

- So you rally every week ?

- No. We have other activities, beside rallys, but those are the most effective to.... well, rally people to our causes.

- And what are they ? Beside maintening educational programs ?

- Stopping the systematic destruction of our labor laws, creating and upholding protection laws for all LGBT people, a distinctive diminution of racist, sexist, classist, homophobic and transphobic actions, at personnal and professionnal levels, and....

Grantaire nodded along, his eyes widening at each addition to the already long list. He was vaguely wondering if Enjolras had a deep secret, like an army of clones doing his bidding, or the ability to bend time and space, or travel back in time, or something. There was no way for a mere human to do all this and maintain a lovely appearance, or even a normal one. And still, he could bet there was no clone hiding in the bedroom. Enjolras was just that kind of person who flourished best when he took care of others.

- And what do you need my help with ? Grantaire asked when the list dwindled out.

- I'm planning a speech on the new retirement laws. But it needs to be perfect, and....

- I'm your man. Shoot.

Enjolras went to gather a handful of papers. Covered on both sides, in tiny script. Very, very tiny script. Grantaire rolled his eyes, trying not to show his distress. At least he got to stare at his vengeful angel while he walked back and forth, starting his speech.

After two minutes, though, the words started muddling in his mind. There was emphase in there, fire, intensity. It didn't make everything, of course, but it made for the arguments with conviction. Enjolras was the kind of person who could sway a crowd by the sheer strength of his passion, bring them to the point of rioting just by his words, his presence, his fervor. But fervor could onlt get you so far, and Grantaire could feel his concentration slip away from his grasp, slowly, slowly... until all he could do was stare at Enjolras' beautiful face. His hands were starting to itch, he needed a pencil, something....He spotted one half buried between the cushions, grabbed it and the nearest paper, and started scribbling.

- What are you doing ?

At the cold tone, Grantaire lifted his head. Enjolras was standing in front of him, hands on his hips. And frowning. Oh. Did he mess up, as usual ? Grantaire looked down at the half-formed drawing. Admitedly very nice, but he'd been totally zoning out, as he always did when drawing, and the past five minutes had been spent in a daze. Enjolras could have turned into the Victory of Samothrace or fly away by the window, he wouldn't have noticed. As he didn't notice that Enjolras has stopped talking, and was now glaring at him like he could set him on fire by the sheer force of his glare. Grantaire looked down, at the paper in his hands. It was quite good, he could tell, especially the eyes, and the curls on the forehead. Which didn't help at the moment.

- Did you even listen to a word of what I said ?

- You were talking about how unfair it was, that it's just a bandaid on a sucking chest wound and then....

- And then ? Enjolras repeated.

- And then.... something about statistics ? Maybe ?

- You haven't listened to a word I said.

Grantaire was half-tempted to deny it, but there would be no use. Enjolras had noticed, and he couldn't answer any question about his speech anyway. He just shrugged it off, trying to play it cool.

- What ? Enjolras asked.

- Your arguments aren't bad, but it's nothing I haven't heard yet.

- So I shouldn't bother, is that what you're thinking ?

- What makes you think they will listen, this time ?

Enjolras opened his mouth to answer, but Grantaire didn't stop.

- Because they won't, you know ? They absolutly don't care. They gave us a right to protest and a right to strike, but what good does it do ? Even when striking, there is still an obligation of minimal service, so the effect is lost. And the people you're bothering with the strike are not the people you want to reach.

- They can still join our cause, that's the goal ! Getting many people to our side !

- Do they ?

Enjolras glared at him, but didn't answer. Grantaire knew he should have stopped while he could still salvage something, but he couldn't, now that he'd started.

- They don't, he went on. They protest, and if the strike goes on too long, or if they start thinking you're impeding on their freedom of... going anywhere, or anything. They are okay with people striking as long as they aren't inconvenienced. But once it starts having an effect on them, their reaction is not to join in your crusade, it's to start complaining that you're ruining life, and to band against you, against your strike, your movement. And that's exactly what all those officials, all those who pass those laws, are counting on. Why do you think they always vote on them just before a holiday ? They know people will only care as far as allowed by their next trip, or their Christmas shopping frenzy, or...You get the jist. Then, when they are stuck because of you, they'll turn on you like rabid dogs, and they'll metaphorically tear you to shreds. In the eye of the public, you'll become the annoying pest, the one that spoils their projects, their holidays, the one who doesn't care about anything except their own goals. They'll brand you a selfish prick, they pretend you're the one curbing progress and the well-being of society, and in the end, things will go exactly as planned, but with the added bonus of people now being mad at you, and reacting negatively to anything you may do next. And you're back to square minus one.

Enjolras' frown had deepened as he spoke, and he looked angrier by the second. Grantaire already regretted his outburst ; his usual diatribe against strikes wasn't fit for all ears, and certainly not for someone he had just met, had a gigantic crush on, and was very, very passionate about world-changing. But it was too late ; taking all back wouldn't do any good. He would look like a liar. At best. At worst, someone who liked to agitate others for the sheer fun of it.

They stared silently at each other for an uncomfortably long time before Enjolras finally uncrossed his arms.

- I think you'd better go. I'll manage.

He picked up his cat and carried him to the balcony, craddled to his chest. There was nothing to add, so Grantaire just obeyed his wish, and let himself out without a word. The door closed with a soft noise that resounded all through his body like a gunshot. He managed to stay standing, and somehow, made his way to Eponine's door. His luck finally decided to kick in, because she was just going home when he arrived, saving him the trouble of knocking. She took one good look at his face, grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him inside. He found himself laid down on the couch, wrapped in a gaudy plaid, with a cup of coffee in hand. Eponine didn't ask anything, and that was good, because he really didn't want to talk right now. All he wanted was to forget about everything for a while, and a Fear Factor marathon seemed to be the best option. Maybe tomorrow, all this would have disappeared. Just another bad dream swept under the rug. Tomorrow, it would be all right again.

~*~

It didn't. The next day hadn't changed a thing. It became obvious to Grantaire even before he got out of bed. Yesterday's events were weighing on him, hanging above his head like a sword of Damocles, crushing every thought, every hope he could have had about the situation. It was awful, it was Hell, everything sucked, life wasn't worth anything today. He'd spoilt everything by opening his big mouth, as he always did. Why couldn't he have just nodded and shut up while Enjolras talked ? It wasn't as he hadn't any experience in this, his studies had made him an expert. Instead, he had taken that relationship, the fragile bond between Enjolras and him, this tiny thread that only wanted to grow, and he had stepped on it, crushed it under the weight of his stupidity. Real smooth, Grantaire. Really. When was he going to learn, and stop wasting everything ? Never, it seemed. He was way better here, under his comforter where he couldn't act like an ass, an idiot or any combination of the two, probably for the rest of his life.

Two days went on like that, between the bed and the coffee maker, with a brief incursion to the tub for a warm bath where he just laid and stared at the ceiling. As he did when he was elsewhere in his flat. That's all he did during those two days, lie down and contemplate, mainly his errors, his failures and the dreadful stupidity that was sadly his. He hated being like that, it brought back memories of darker days not too long ago. He had thought those days being far away behind him, but it seemed that they always lurked near, ready to engulf him in the darkness at the slightest reason. He felt empty, and sad, and useless, and above all, stupid, unable to do anything good. Everything he touched, he wasted, in a way or another. Maybe he should stay there, and stop interacting with people ? Better for everyone, and better for him too. No contact meant no hope, and no way to dash those hopes. So he pulled the blankets over his head, ignored the furious blinking of his phone, and tried to forget about everything.

He could have stayed like this for weeks, only getting up if he didn't have any other option, and retreating immediately after in his burrow, if not for Bahorel. Any other person, not seeing a friend for a week, would have called, or maybe knock on the door. But those considerations were way too low for someone as determined as Bahorel. No, Bahorel just materialized in his room one morning, a paper bag in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. Grantaire first thought of a hallucination caused by isolation, or maybe a night spent watching the worst conspirationist videos he could find, and just turned away. But hallucinations tended not to be able to grab and pull blankets, which that one just did. Bahorel sat on the mattress, pushing Grantaire's feet out of the way, pulled two cups out of seemingly nowhere, filled them with coffee and handed him one. Grantaire contemplated sending him away with a few chosen words, but finally, the smell of coffee and the sudden hunger at the sight of buttery croissants was the strongest. He sat up, pulling the covers back on his legs to keep his feet warm.

- What are you doing here ? he asked around a mouthful of crumbs.

- I haven't seen you around since the party, so I was wondering if you were sick.

- It's been only three days, you know. I could be busy.

- Well, are you ?

Grantaire gave his messy bed a pointed look.

- As you can see, he answered dryly.

- So, what's happening?  Bahorel asked, refilling the cups.

- What makes you think something has happened ?

- You've missed our boxing meeting. You never miss those, not even when you're at Death's door and almost coughing a lung.

- I did that once, and you'll never let me forget it.

- I'll never let you forget that I had to carry you home and Bossuet had to tie you to your bed because Joly almost got a panic attack just seeing the state you were in.

- Good days, Grantaire sighed.

- If you wanna call them that... So, what's happening?

- You're not letting go, are you ?

- Never. So ? What happened ?

Grantaire carded a hand through his curls, grimacing when it got caught in the knots. That was going to be fun to untangle.... like the situation, his brain helpfully provided.

- I've been an ass with Enjolras, that's all.

Bahorel didn't react at the mention of Enjolras. He'd probably witnessed their interactions during the party. He just grabbed another croissant and let him talk. Which Grantaire didn't really want to now, but once again,  he was on a roll. The whole story jumped out of him like it was just waiting for an excuse. Bahorel nodded, not once interrupting.

- So what do you plan to do ? he asked when Grantaire was done.

- What do you mean, what do I plan to do ? Haven't you heard a word I said ?

- I heard every word, even the ones you didn't say, which is quite a feat, if I must say. You've been an ass and said things you're not supposed to do especially on the one  you have a crush on. And don't "I don't have a crush" me. It could be seen from space.

- And yet he...

- He's kinda clumsy when it comes to feelings. He's really nice, and warm once you get to know him, and he'll go to the end of the world for his friends, but... Unless you're really blunt with him, he... not that he won't understand, but he won't assume anything. You need to tell him if you like him.

- Thanks for your concern and advice, really, but I don't think they'll be of any help now.

- Why, because you opened your big mouth and stuck your feet in it ?

- Thank you a lot, really. It's making me feel much better.

Bahorel ruffled his hair, not commenting on the difficulty of doing so.

- Come on, it's not the end of the world. No, it's not. First, because a cute dude being mad at you isn’t the end of the world, or we wouldn't have made it past being bipedal. Second, because if you stop moping and start moving your ass, I'm sure you'll find a way to be forgiven.

- He'll never forgive me.

- If you stay here, sure, he won't. But maybe if you start with apologizing, he will.

Grantaire didn't feel particularly uplifted by the advice. Bahorel grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a strong and somewhat clumsy one-armed hug.

- Come on. Use that big grey matter hidden in your cranial box. If you find something clever enough, he'll forgive you.

Grantaire wanted to protest, tell him that it was no use and he'd better not waste some precious time he could use to get ready to become a hermit. But already, his mind was starting to reel. Maybe... yes, maybe he could devise a way out of it.

Seeing him in better dispositions, Bahorel clasped him on the shoulder, hard enough to sink him five centimeters in the mattress, and got up.

- Godspeed, my friend. And please keep me informed, you know I like nothing more than gossip.

- It's only gossip when one is not part of it.

- Then good for me, because I'm not small, blond and angry. Now, as much as I'd like to know what's running through your mind, I must go. I have a small redhead expecting me with breakfast.

Grantaire held out the paper bag, but Bahorel just shook his head.

- Keep it. It's good food for the brain.

He was leaving the room, when Grantaire called out.

- Wait, how did you get in ? I didn't leave you my keys.

- Do you think I need keys ?

- You picked my lock ?

- Spending time with Jehan and Montparnasse is really formative, you should try it.

- I don't want to become jailbait like you.

Bahorel responded with fingers guns and let himself out, humming something that sounded like Jailhouse Rock. Grantaire barely heard the door close, his mind already working on the several steps his ambitious project would need.

[angedemystere]

My Rewatch of Les Miserables, 1998

Ah, yes, I have decided to revisit that much panned film version, directed by Bille August and starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, Uma Thurman and Claire Danes (and Hans Matheson and Toby Jones thrown in for good measure). This movie holds a complicated place in my heart by being the adaptation that introduced me to Les Miz, inspiring love for these characters and spurring me to look into the musical and the Brick itself .... only to then earn my distaste for all the inaccuracies from the original text.

So, now that I’ve revisited it with fresh eyes and a barometer by which to compare it to other adaptions, is it as bad as everyone says?

Well ... it depends.

Let’s start with how this stands as a movie.

First, the cinematography. In terms of setting and sets, this film is gorgeous. It starts with nature scenes (opens early on with a shot of the river ~ooohh~ foreshadowing) and provides a strong sense of location and space. Now I think in certain urban scenes, especially when the story moves to Paris, there’s a lot of washed-out grey that kind of blends together. It does have a purpose: to portray the desolation plaguing the poor that’s stirring l’ABC to action. Even so, it can be harder to focus on the details when color blends too much. Other than that (and some not necessary close-ups), the filming is dynamic, easy to follow, and overall really nice to look at.

Next, the script and pacing. The scenes within themselves are for the most part effective at getting across character and important information and making interactions feel natural. (The one bench scene between Cosette and Marius might be the exception - can no one write romantic banter well? Or is this true to how awkward romantic banter is in real life? Tell me, I have no idea). Of course you’re dealing with characters like Javert (and lovestruck teens) who make natural dialogue a challenge, but in the movie’s first half, there’s a strong reliance on exchanges from the book itself to make it work. 

Pacing within scenes keeps at a steady clip while giving time for important moments to breathe. But then the movie has to deal with time jumps, which can be awkward since we the audience are forced to reorient ourselves. The first jump works better because we’re meant to feel some suspense about what’s happened to Valjean between his encounter with Bishop Myriel and his being mayor. We instead meet Javert and follow him to his new post in Montreuil-sur-Mer I’ll ... get to that later. When he’s introduced to the mayor, we realize it’s Jean Valjean! That’s pretty satisfying. This movie most succeeds in the first half in giving us enough about Valjean, Javert and Fantine to get who they are, what their situation is and why we should pay attention. 

The next time jump brings us to 1832 and teenage Cosette. This time we’ve missed out on seeing Valjean and Cosette’s relationship grow, and not a whole lot is shown to solidify what their relationship has been like in the convent and what they stand to gain or lose by leaving that environment. We do get some insight, just not as much as I would’ve liked. 

Now, how are the actors? Everyone does at least a decent job, even sometimes a brilliant one. Liam Neeson brings warmth, shy awkwardness, and humanity to the character in ways that feel genuine. The awkwardness is most endearing when he’s interacting with Fantine, which is a deviation from the novel that I really don’t mind because, damn it, they’re just so cute! Speaking of which, this addition of a mild Valjean/Fantine romance (don’t worry, it’s as raunchy as kindergartners holding hands) actually plays a role in how Valjean handles Cosette and Marius’s romance. There’s a bit of lampshading when Cosette acknowledges that she has pretty strong feelings for a guy she’s known only a few weeks and it’s not rational, but her feelings are no less real. And Valjean respects those feelings because he experienced them in his own way with Fantine.

Hang on ... hang on a sec ...

Okay, I’m fine. BBC 2019 miniseries, eat your heart out.

Uma Thurman captures Fantine’s vulnerability without overselling it. She pleads for her case while flip-flopping between honest frustration and appeasing servility. But I must ask this: when her hair was cut, why wasn’t it cropped shorter? Maybe a clause in her contract? Also, no tooth removal. The filmmakers probably wanted Fantine to still look attractive enough for the little romance budding between her and Valjean. Points off for accuracy but still effective in pathos.

I remember not being a fan of Cosette when I first saw this film, not through any fault of Claire Danes or the writing but because I cared more about the Valjean-Javert dynamic than her romance (not predictable of me at all). And she can be pouty, but that poutiness is often justified by her cooped-up existence and a desire to live more freely. I also have renewed appreciation for the fact that Cosette 1) stood up to Valjean when he slapped her, especially given her abuse at Mme. Thenardier’s hands, 2) stayed fairly calm while lying to Javert’s face, and 3) held Javert at gunpoint while she freed Marius. For her sheltered upbringing, girl’s got nerves of steel.

This Marius, while still foolish (slipping out of the barricade that he’s supposed to be in charge of to visit Cosette and being not at all subtle while stalking her), has more sense than book!Marius. Granted, he’s undergone a fusion with Enjolras, but I understand the decision, which I’ll address shortly.

And Javert .... Javert is probably the hardest major Les Miz character to pin perfectly in any adaptation. This is for a couple reasons. One, because films have limited time, certain scenes that can establish an otherwise unseen facet of a character are often cut. This frequently happens with Javert’s later scenes: the police station (where he burns his coattails) and the Gorbeau house (twice - one when he’s disguised as a beggar, the other when he jokes about offering his hat and rebuffs Mme. Thenardier’s assault with his “claws of a woman” comment). Two, his frequent run-ins with Valjean are altered from being coincidences to international face-offs orchestrated by him, making him much more fixated, even downright obsessive, about catching Valjean. On both fronts, Rush’s Javert suffers from these cuts or alterations. But when it comes to the performance he delivers? 

This is the silhouette of a man who makes criminals wet themselves.

Is he my definitive Javert? Oh no. That dream has yet to come true for me. But I rank him in my top five preferred Javerts. I do have issues with some of his actions, like toppling the mail coach (just .....why?), smacking Fantine, and pointing a gun in Cosette’s face. That’s the wrong kind of asshole or creep for him. I do think it interesting, on this rewatch, to be reminded that this Javert’s mother was a prostitute, and when Fantine is harassed by Bamatabois and then retaliates, he first holds back from interfering (and stops the captain from interfering) and then “takes care of this” by slapping Fantine when she tells him the gentlemen started it. I don’t see Brickvert doing any of these things, but the purpose of this moment is to give us a glimpse into the depth of his hatred for the class of people his parents came from. We don’t know why he hates them so much apart from his overall moral and philosophical perspective, but you can’t help but wonder about what he experienced in his early life that would make him act violently toward a woman with the same occupation as his mother, but ONLY when she lashes out (understandably) at a member of good society. This outburst could also explain why he fixates on Valjean, a thief like his father. It’s not just his commitment to his ideals; he’s living a morality play with his parents as the criminals he needs to punish in order to prove he’s not one of them, that he’s risen above them, that he will not and CANNOT fall to their level. The fact this movie captured that nuance and had it carry out in subtext is a credit, even if I don’t agree with all the actions this version has him do.

No surprise that, given how much attention has clearly been given to Javert’s character by the film, this adaptation chooses to keep the center of narrative focus on Javert and Valjean, sacrificing a lot of other characters in the process. Eponine? Gone. The Thenardiers overall, gone in the second half once Valjean has rescued Cosette (except for Gavroche, but you wouldn’t know he’s a Thenardier in this). The Les Amis exist as a collective but have no individual identities apart from Marius and, arguably, this movie’s Enjolras, who is reduced to a team lieutenant and stripped of all other book!Enjolras characterization. Again, a good chunk of Enjolras’s charisma and commitment to the cause is lumped into Marius. The writers were likely interested in making Marius a more dashing love interest. This doesn’t always jive with the moments he’s actually Marius: stalking Cosette, writing her pages of love letters, ducking out of meetings early to see her when he’s supposed to be heading the planning of the uprising. The clash can be distracting. Still, Matheson tries to balances these two sides as well as he can.

This is where a lot of Les Miz fans have or will have problems with this version. If you’re anything other than a fan of Valjean, Javert, Fantine or Cosette, you’re going to feel deprived. I don’t actually consider this a major flaw of the film because the filmmakers were at least consistent in their focus, preferring to develop a few characters than stretch too thin with more characters who would have ended up with shallow portrayals anyway. But I will highly suggest that if you’re a diehard Les Amis or Eponine fan and are annoyed when adaptations reduce those characters, you might want to skip this version.

Now that the issue of character omissions or reductions has been dealt with, let’s get to what I have problems with that are actually on screen:

Valjean’s outbursts toward Cosette - this aspect of his character isn’t as prevalent as I remember, to be fair. There is one scene where he snaps at her as a child (and he immediately apologizes) and two scenes where he yells at her as a teen and/or hits her. Nonetheless, the notion that physical assault was necessary in his character toward Cosette of all people--please no. There’s no reason for it. In fact, there’s better reason to go against it to show contrast with how Valjean reacted to stressful situations in the past. Yes, those knee-jerk reactions can be hard to shake, but Cosette’s presence in his life is meant to show how much he’s grown. Granted, Cosette acknowledges that his outbursts are out of character, that he’s “acting so strangely,” and we do see tenderness between them most of the time. Still, it taints the relationship when his and Cosette’s book relationship, while plagued by secrecy, is entirely wholesome. Any hint of violence makes me wary of when Cosette says she needs to be there for him after learning about his past and plans to flee the country.

Javert’s suicide - again, more on Valjean’s end. Obviously this version is different from canon; Javert makes it seem like he’s going to murder Valjean and let his body fall in the river, only to free him and do it to himself, and Valjean is there to watch. And he fails to attempt saving him, which, given his actions at the barricade and the kind of man he’s become, comes across painfully out of character. So does the glee he expresses when a man has killed himself in front of him only a minute ago. Maybe if Javert had said something or done something to make saving him impossible or clearly against his wishes, Valjean’s inaction would’ve been more understandable. I do also question Javert’s wisdom in killing himself in front of a man who tried to save him mere hours ago. Why did he not consider that Valjean might try rescuing him again? Well, he seemed to make the right call.

Both of these choices point to an attempt to make Jean Valjean more flawed. This is a conversation the fandom has had before, and the question of slipping in a sharpness to redeemed!Valjean has come up in other versions, even some actors’ portrayals in the Broadway show. I see the argument on both sides--he’s human, he suffered years of conditioning that turned him hateful and willing to harm others. But it should be noted that, while Valjean is physically capable of throwing someone around like a sack of potatoes, he’s never demonstrated an inclination to do so, not even from what few details we have of his life in prison. The movie adds that violent edge to Valjean’s narrative, from when he first hits Bishop Myriel on the head to smacking Cosette in the face. Javert gets some of this treatment, too--never shown violent behavior in canon, smacks around Fantine and manhandles Cosette in the film. Maybe the filmmakers were worried a modern audience wouldn’t find a nonviolent ex-con and a non-violent policeman believable. Yeesh.

All right, some minor issues:

The changing of names - Montreuil-sur-Mer becomes Vigau. Fauchelevent becomes Lafitte. Champmathieu becomes Carnot. What’s going on? Were they scared of pronouncing French names longer than two syllables? Oh, and Valjean as the mayor never has a name. He’s just “monsieur le maire” wherever he goes. You think his alias is M. Maire? So he became Maire Maire? No wonder he was pushed to take office.

Child actors - they aren’t great. Hardly any get dialogue and it’s no surprise why. For those who do, it’s obvious they’re being prompted offscreen. The kid playing Gavroche is the exception and there’s too little of him.

Illiteracy - eh, I kind of give this a pass. It’s not book canon that Valjean is illiterate post-Toulon, and I don’t remember if book!Fantine is illiterate, but it gives them a little bonding moment and gives Neeson the opportunity to show off his first-grader-concentration face when he practices his cursive.

Having addressed the big (and not so big) problems of the film, were there good parts in terms of adaptation? Yes--I think Neeson and Rush have a scintillating Valjean-Javert dynamic. I like how they have some understated snark jousting in the Vigau scenes. The 2019 series wishes it could achieve that level of sniping. But then, Brickvert wasn’t very subtle when he brought up how he knew only ONE man, one CONVICT, who could lift the cart, and Valjean is trying to deflect or ignore him while Fauchelevant is being crushed. Maybe not book-accurate, but entertaining as hell.

Also, while I don’t ship them, the Valjean-Fantine scenes were cute and made my heart squeeze. I know it was gratuitous. Their bond provided a little spot of light in their miserable (hah!) lives.

Also also, I like Javert’s informant in the 1832 scenes. He’s funny, cynical (he complains how nauseating Cosette and Marius’s romance is and swears off having daughters), committed to his job (he catches a cold from watching Cosette and Marius in the rain on Javert’s behalf), and respects Javert without being afraid of him. They even walk together to the barricade so Javert can get in and not draw suspicion. And for some reason he doesn’t have a name! Guys, if you like Rivette from the BBC series, let’s give this unnamed informant some love. I want a buddy cop series with him and Javert.

To wrap this up, I’ll say that Les Miserables (1998) is certainly flawed as an adaptation. Jean Valjean and Javert get injected with violent tendencies, Fantine stays prettier than she should, Marius and Enjolras have undergone fusion, and 80% of the book characters have vaporized or barely exist as bit parts. But I wont say stay away from this abomination because it’s not abominable. It’s ... ok. It’s serviceable in capturing the main plot arc of Les Miserables and a couple of its crucial themes. I think Les Miserables is one of those books where you’re probably not going to get the screen adaptation you want, so maybe watch a bunch, pick a few that least offend you, and fuse them together into your own imagined adaptation. With luck, the components are more cohesive than those of Marijolras.

[wild-oats-and-cornflowers]

enjolras. because enjolras

First impression: well...he is rather A Lot and also. hot

Impression now: I really, really love his story arc and what Hugo did with developing his character: moving from a harsh “ideals above all else and we have no time for sympathy to personal feelings” to really understanding that the personal can be as important as the political and in fact can be a guiding light and motivation for the political. 

Favorite moment: I love the Quel Horizon speech a whole ton but the shining peak of his storyline is of course OFPD, when the fullness of the above theme reaches its climax

Idea for a story: We don’t see a lot of enjoltaire fics, requited or unrequited, written from his perspective; they’re mostly from Grantaire’s, which is understandable given it’s easier to get into his head, but I might like to eventually attempt something along the lines of that from Enjolras’ perspective based on his brick characterization. 

Unpopular opinion: I don’t think that brick!jolras, as written in canon, ever had any kind of romantic feelings for Grantaire. I think that was a one-sided operation. I don’t read OFPD as him coming to realize such feelings; I see it as him accepting Grantaire as a comrade on the level of the other Amis and welcoming him into full “communion” so to speak through his own, finally reached, true understanding of the elevating potential that personal attachments can create.

Favorite relationship: He, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac are winning combination always

Favorite headcanon: I like to imagine that he loves classical music and goes to performances as often as he feels he can justify it to himself

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 1.1.6 “How he protected his house”

I forgot to mention how much I like the last line of the preceding chapter:

Here we should give an exact idea of the Bishop of Digne’s house.

That and the title of this one are this faint intimation that somewhere, far off and still below the level of the horizon, the Plot is on its way.

I love the history baked into the Things in this chapter--that inconvenient layout where there are three rooms attached to each other and the middle one is a bedroom feels like people making do with the strange layout of a tiny hospital (which in turn was making do with the layout of some sort of meeting house).

And while Hugo isn’t stinting on the Simple and Holy Life of Privation aspects of the bishop’s life, I like how much in this sketch really isn’t that. These aren’t people from a poor background, they’re people from a wealthy and then a middle class background who are voluntarily poor. It shows in all the objects that are either very fine but decaying (there are SO many objects with the gilt or velvet almost rubbed off--surely Myriel’s arc in a nutshell), or else cheap imitations of fancy things (imitation lace on the altar, wood painted to look like marble on the mantle). Plus a few actually nice things (Mlle Baptistine’s nice chair, Myriel’s toiletries) that they still have with them. And, of course, the silverware and candlesticks.

(They’re HEEEEERE!!! Hello, beloved macguffins!)

I suspect this is all making an important point about how voluntary poverty isn’t the same as actual poverty. Even if you’re scrimping and saving the same amount day to day, having resources to fall back on and enough capital to set up a household comfortably before you start living thriftily is a VERY different life. And we’re going to see the difference later on.

This idea of nice things turned shabby and shabby things pretending to be fancy things--at some level the image reminds me of the two windows of the Gorbeau house. If I remember right: one is an improbably fancy window absolutely destroyed, the other has looked like the window of a hovel all along. There’s an image of two beggars of differing backgrounds accompanying the description.

Those Gorbeau windows feel like part of the whole between-impoverishment-and-respectability/liminal/transitional space that the Gorbeau house represents. But whereas there they’re meant to be scary and unsettling, this in-betweenness in the bishop’s house feels like a charming foible, and he’s gradually shedding it. I’m not exactly sure what makes the difference, or why these things should feel linked. There’s certainly a transition happening here, but it’s very much coded as positive.

On Mlle Baptistine’s efforts to save up 500 francs for a chair, of which she only ever gathered 42--

Hm.

To be honest, my entire feeling about this hinges on the question of how much she has a choice. Would her personal income (500 francs) let her live reasonably well away from her brother if she wanted? I still don’t love his day to day authority over her, but if she’s meaningfully choosing this life over other possible (not terrible) lives because it’s what she wants, and the slow saving up is an effort she’s enjoying within a system she’s fully bought into and is choosing, I get why the book’s tone about it is gentle and sweet and a little amused. I enjoy being thrifty for the sake of thrifty when it’s by choice rather than out of dire need, and it’s nice to have a small and inconsequential indulgence to anticipate and work towards. If this is that, than I support the tone with which it’s treated.

But if she’s falling back on Myriel’s rules because there isn’t some other life for her out there.... this is all instantly much less nice.

Hugo really wants me to be in the former camp; he’s written her as if she suits this life. I just don’t know that I trust him to have understood the consent issue I’m talking about.

I googled the two men on the bishop’s bedroom wall, but I couldn’t find anything but references to this text.

Also:

There is bravery for a priest as well as for a colonel of dragoons... only, ours should be peaceable.

There’s been a lot of talk of Myriel vs. Enjolras this readthrough, and this feels a little like Myriel addressing it directly.

[lumeha]

6, 10, 22, 23, 26?

6 - Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I was almost sure I had none but ! Actually ! There is ! And it’s Ninian / Eliwood. Teen!me was really not fond of their relation in the game, I just didn’t really like it, was way more invested in Eliwood and Hector, and was just not liking how it was written. I haven’t played Blazing Blade in a while, so I legit don’t remember exactly how it was written, but I was really not liking the whole thing.

But the way the FE7 fans handle the Ninian / Eliwood relationship has made me much, much softer on this pairing. I feel like they both gets much more development that they needed, and I’m just all for softness and ignoring the whole Durandal event, too, I would like to forget this.

10 - Most disliked arc? Why?

The Lost Agent arc of Bleach, but mostly bc I felt like it was either too short for what it tried to show, or going a bit in too many directions for a shorter arc of the manga. I don’t. like. hate it ? But I feel like it’s one of the weakest of Bleach’s arcs, with some interesting side characters that kinda just existed without really being more than background noise, and that it was a bit too unfocused.

Which, uh, I guess it’s a criticism I would level at a lot of Bleach (unfocused, lots of characters that don’t end up being more than background noise), but it felt especially strong in that one, short arc, probably bc it was short and the problems shone even stronger than usual, despite the good ideas.

(but the change of the style of the covers for that arc ? A+, I love the style of them)

22 - Popular character you hate?

Things you might not have expected today : Les Misérables. I’m not even going that hard for the fandom and I tend to stay away from it.

But for fuck’s sake I hate Enjolras. Okay, hate is a strong word, but I just really can’t stand Enjolras, and, in the time I was close-ish to that fandom, seeing him plastered absolutely everywhere made me even more hate-annoyed at him. I ! just ! can’t stand him !!! I don’t understand why he is so popular, I am annoyed at his existence, and I don’t find him as interesting as some other characters. It’s just A Pain.

23 - Unpopular character you love?

Gilbert from FE3H, who I didn’t expect to love as much as I did when I was going through the Blue Lions route and started getting his supports. I just wish we did get his C support with Annette during the pre-timeskip, I feel like that would have smoothed out their story a whole lot more.

I legitimately am extremely annoyed at the heap of hate he receives, especially considering other characters existing in FE3H itself. I don’t mind people not liking him and being not fond of him based on what hapened with his daughter, but the heaps of hate and misinterpretations the guy receive, ignoring the fact that he is as traumatized about the Duscur Tragedy as other characters directly affected by it, and the way his trauma is expressed in a vicious, self-feeding circle of avoidance and guilt and rejection of positive events because he feels he doesn’t deserve it bc he needs to repent for not having been there and having survived an event that killed so many.

And I am just

:)

Really pissed at the fandom for taking this older character who is clearly heavily traumatized, has survivor’s guilt, is just as much affected by his country’s culture and has taken bad decisions, but is someone who isn’t a bad person, and they just decided that he was the worst character in FE3H bc clearly he isn’t a victim of his country’s fucked up ideals, but just someone who perpetuates them without being truly affected by them, and who left is family for no reason.

Special mention to Rhea too, but I have been seeing quite the uptick in Rhea appreciation, and I am loving it !

26 - Most shippable character?

... I am legit drawing a blank, here. While I do multiship, I don’t. tend to think about it in terms of one character being shipped with others, more like ship dynamic, so.

Legit don’t really know what character I find most shippable in general in my fandoms. >///>;;

Salty ask list

[kjack89]

How Slow Life Seems

For @impetusofadream as a much belated fill for the @bishopmyrielfundraiser. The request was for a foreign exchange student AU, which somehow morphed into a study abroad AU, which somehow morphed into, well, this.

E/R, modern AU, developing relationship. Title is from the poem also quoted in the fic (in both French and English), ‘Le pont Mirabeau’ by Guillaume Apollinaire.

“How’s the research paper going?”

Enjolras glanced up from his laptop to blink at his mom, who was leaning against his doorway, looking almost as tired as he felt. “Fine,” he said noncommittally, before sighing and amending, “Ok, actually it’s going terribly. JSTOR’s great and all, but not being able to access primary source documents directly…”

He trailed off and his mom nodded understandingly. “Well,” she said bracingly, “hopefully it’s just for the rest of this semester. Once COVID calms down, you’ll be back on campus and able to look at all the primary sources your heart desires.” She paused. “And, you know, you’ll get to see your friends again, plan more protests, get put on academic probation again…”

Enjolras laughed lightly. He couldn’t pretend that he’d always gotten along well with his parents, rebelling in a million ways throughout high school and moving all the way across the country for school. But with COVID shutting down campus, he had reluctantly returned to his parents’ house, and he was surprised to find it wasn’t as bad as he remembered. 

Maybe absence really did make the heart fonder.

Or maybe it was because, on his second day back, his mom had casually dropped into conversation at the dinner table, “By the way, we’re taking in a foreign exchange student this summer. You’ll like him – he’s a non-traditional student from Poland who got a grant to come do research on populist uprisings.”

Enjolras’s mother worked with the Office of International Study at the local university, which meant as long as Enjolras could remember, there was always some random student or another who stayed with the family, normally when their own study or living arrangements got disrupted. But rarely had the student in question so perfectly matched just about every single one of Enjolras’s interests – even if he had to feign disinterest.

“Populist uprisings?” he had scoffed. “Here? Might as well come here to study Bigfoot.”

But as the days had gotten closer to the student’s – to Feuilly’s – arrival, Enjolras grew more eager. So it was with a genuine smile that he asked his mom, “Is Feuilly getting here soon?”

His mom’s smile faltered, just slightly. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, and Enjolras’s smile faded.

“He’s not coming, is he?” he asked dully, already able to see where this conversation was going.

His mom shook her head. “No, he’s not – his university canceled all study abroad because of COVID.”

“Oh,” Enjolras said. “Of course.”

“But there is some good news!” his mom continued, in that forced way she had when she was trying to get him to agree to something she knew he wasn’t going to want to do. “There are a number of foreign exchange students stuck here who can’t go home, so you will at least have some company, for a few weeks, anyway, until we’re able to safely get them home.”

Enjolras perked up, just slightly. “So who’s coming to stay with us?” he asked, trying not to sound so excited at the prospect of any company that wasn’t his capitalism-loving parents.

“His name’s Grantaire,” his mom, sounding relieved that he seemed open to it. “You’ll like him,” she added quickly. “He’s Canadian! You can practice your French!”

Enjolras considered it for a moment. “Well,” he said hesitantly, “I suppose it could be worse.”

---------

“Oh, sorry,” Grantaire said, somewhere in between bored and awkward. “I don’t really speak French.”

It was the second thing Grantaire said to him, right after “Hi” and right before, “Oh, I don’t really care about politics.”

Needless to say, Enjolras did not like him.

Grantaire was an art student, and slept until 2 in the afternoon most days, and sat out on the back porch smoking cigarettes while scrolling idly through his phone, and openly laughed whenever Enjolras tried to engage him in any kind of political conversation, and seemed to have absolutely no interest in going anywhere or doing anything.

It was hard to say which Enjolras liked least.

Granted, in the era of COVID there wasn’t exactly a whole lot to go do or see, but even outside of the immediate, Grantaire seemed to have no ambition towards doing anything. When Enjolras asked, a little stiffly, why he had bothered to study abroad when he clearly didn’t care about expanding his horizons, Grantaire just shrugged, ducking his head to light the cigarette in his mouth. “Free trip, I guess,” he said, blowing smoke out of his nose and grinning at Enjolras lazily.

Enjolras was not amused. 

His mom didn’t help matters, encouraging him at every given opportunity to spend more time with Grantaire. “He must be homesick,” she reasoned. 

“I’m not entirely sure that Grantaire cares enough about anything to miss it,” Enjolras muttered, and she gave him a look.

“Imagine being stuck in a foreign country during a pandemic with no knowledge of when you’re going to be able to go home,” she said. “He needs our understanding, and I’d hazard that he also needs a friend.”

But every attempt Enjolras made towards conversation – he wouldn’t go so far as to say friendship – was met with mockery at worst or disinterest at best, so Enjolras gave up, figuring they were better off ignoring each other.

At least until one night, when Enjolras was up even later than usual, sprawled out on the couch with his laptop balanced on his lap and books spread around him. He jerked upright when the door banged open, though he settled back down again when he heard Grantaire swear to himself. “Oh,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras didn’t bother looking up at him. “What’re you doing up?”

“Studying,” Enjolras said, pointedly vague, but Grantaire didn’t seem to take the hint, leaning down to rest his elbows against the back of the couch as he peered down at Enjolras’s computer screen.

“Thought your semester was done.”

“It is,” Enjolras said with a scowl as he shifted his computer so that Grantaire couldn’t read it. “I’m not studying for school, I’m trying to draft a bill to create criminal penalties for racially-motivated false police calls.”

Grantaire snorted, straightening and heading into the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge. “Of course you are,” he said derisively. 

On any other night, Enjolras might have ignored him, but that night, he couldn’t quite bring himself to, instead closing his laptop and sitting up to glare at Grantaire as he settled down at the kitchen table. “Something wrong with trying to bring a little bit of justice into the world?” he asked, his voice brittle.

Grantaire just shrugged. “Not at all, but if you think that’s what justice looks like, you’ve got another think coming.”

Enjolras scowled. “What are you even talking about?” he snapped.

“I’m talking about the irony of someone who I’m sure espouses the need to abolish the the police and the criminal justice suddenly being ok with using said criminal justice system to punish the local Karens.”

Enjolras stared at him. “I don’t know—”

“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” Grantaire scoffed, a small smirk lifting the corners of his mouth.

Enjolras ground his teeth together, irritation making his blood boil. “What, and you’re suddenly an expert in criminal justice?”

“Not even remotely,” Grantaire said breezily, draining his beer and standing. “But when I say Fuck 12, I don’t intend to turn around and say that they’re ok when they’re enforcing my agenda.”

Enjolras opened his mouth to retort before closing it again, the sinking feeling in his stomach telling him that, as much as he might want to deny it in the moment, Grantaire might have a point.

He hated him more than a little for that.

It took him a moment to push the feeling aside. “I didn’t realize you cared,” he said stiffly, and Grantaire paused on his way out of the kitchen. 

“I don’t,” he said with a shrug. “And it’s not like Canada’s much better when it comes to police brutality against Black and brown folks, especially indigenous folks.” He paused, his expression unreadable in the dim light “But I just figured someone like you should probably think through all the sides of things.”

Enjolras eyed him warily. “I don’t know whether to be grateful or insulted.”

Grantaire scratched his neck and shrugged. “Honestly, it’s a crapshoot either way.”

Enjolras couldn’t help but laugh lightly at that as he opened his laptop again. “Well, you’ve at least given me something to think about.” 

Grantaire made a mocking bow. “My legacy, monsieur,” he said, turning to go upstairs to his bedroom.

“My mom thinks you might be homesick.”

Enjolras didn’t know what possessed him to just blurt that out, and he couldn’t help but hold his breath slightly as Grantaire froze before turning back to him. “Does she,” he said noncommittally, more a statement than a question.

Enjolras jerked a shrug, staring down at his laptop as if he couldn’t care less if Grantaire was homesick. “Yeah.”

“She’s a nice woman, your mom,” Grantaire said, leaning against the doorway and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I get why you probably don’t get along with her or your dad, since they’re, you know, the bourgeoisie that you with your upper middle class upbringing disdain so much, but she is nice.” 

Enjolras nodded slowly. “Are you homesick, then?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” Grantaire said with a laugh, and Enjolras blinked up at him. “You haven’t leveled up far enough to access my tragic backstory or find out if I’m missing home.”

Enjolras scowled. “I wasn’t aware that asking you basic facts about your emotional state counts as unlocking a tragic backstory.”

Grantaire winked. “That’s because you don’t know anything about my emotional state.”

“Well, am I allowed to ask you about something else?”

“Sure,” Grantaire said easily, and Enjolras was taken aback for a moment. He hadn’t expected Grantaire to agree, so he fumbled for a question to actually ask.

“Where do you go?” he asked abruptly, and it was Grantaire’s turn to look taken aback.

“Where do I go?” he repeated.

“When you go out,” Enjolras said impatiently, waving a vague hand in the direction of the door. “When you disappear for hours on end – where do you go?”

Grantaire grinned. “That’s a good question,” he admitted, rapping lightly on the doorframe with his knuckles. “Good enough that you should ask me again sometime.”

Enjolras frowned. “Why?”

“Because one day I just might show you.”

He disappeared, leaving Enjolras staring after him.

----------

Something after that changed between them. It wasn’t like they were suddenly friends or anything like that, but Enjolras was beginning to sense that maybe they could be.

Underneath the cynicism, Grantaire actually seemed to share most of the same political beliefs as Enjolras – even if he chalked up said political beliefs to ‘wishful thinking’.

That used to piss Enjolras off, but somehow, it didn’t anymore. He told himself that it was because he now realized there was actual substance beneath the scorn and dismissal.

He also told himself that it had nothing to do with noticing the way that Grantaire’s eyes sparkled everytime he said it, as if it was somehow an inside joke between them.

Enjolras found that his usual late nights staying up, studying and working into the early hours, were now interrupted by Grantaire joining him, usually with a beer in hand. But it was becoming harder to see them as interruptions because somehow, Grantaire had a knack for finding ways to make Enjolras’s arguments better. Sharper. As if the teasing the torment was always intended to get him to this point.

Now that Grantaire wasn’t interrupting him, the only person that was when Enjolras’s mom would come downstairs to shush them for arguing too loudly. After one such time, a couple of weeks after that first night, Grantaire leaned back against the couch and remarked casually, “Your mom is nice.”

“You’ve said that before,” Enjolras said, highlighting something in the article he was reading before glancing up at Grantaire. “I’ll take it that your mom isn’t?”

He asked it casually, and for a moment, Grantaire looked like he might deny it. But then he just shrugged, staring moodily into the distance. “She was never cruel,” he said, something almost cold in his tone. “She and my dad didn’t beat me, or abuse me. They just—” He broke off, his expression darkening. “I dunno. Kids can tell, I think, when they were never really wanted.”

He said it plainly, matter-of-factly, and that somehow made it so much worse. Enjolras wasn’t sure whether to say something – or what to say, for that matter – but Grantaire saved him from having to. “My parents had me as an attempt to keep their marriage together. It didn’t work. And after that, I don’t think either of them was ever really that interested in being a parent.” He made a face. “Save for telling me how disappointing I was.”

“I’m sorry.”

Enjolras winced as he said it, but Grantaire just waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t be,” he scoffed. “It’s not a tragedy in the grand scheme of things. And all things, I’ve been lucky. I grew up with food on the table, a house over my head, excellent schooling– Well, until university, that is. They cut me off when I told them I was planning on getting an arts degree instead of something useful.”

He made another face and took a long pull from his beer before forcing a smile. “And there you have it, my tragic backstory. Congratulations on leveling up.”

Enjolras laughed, but only because it seemed expected of him. Grantaire relaxed slightly at that, though he froze when Enjolras added, in what he hoped was a casual way, “Neglect is still abuse, you know.”

“Maybe,” Grantaire acknowledged before smiling again, this time a genuine smile. “But honestly it may have been for the best. After all, regardless of whether it was a tragedy in the grand scheme of things, somehow or another, it still got me here.” He paused, his grin widening. “Where I can annoy you until all hours of the night.”

“Aren’t I lucky,” Enjolras said dryly, and Grantaire laughed, the moment between them ending almost as quickly as it had started.

But something about it lingered with Enjolras, and it took him a few days to realize what it was: he did feel a little bit lucky, all things considered. He was surprised to find that he liked Grantaire, liked spending time with him. Grantaire made him laugh, and rage, and on occasion, scowl and sulk when Grantaire knocked down one of his arguments.

Grantaire made him feel what previously had always been reserved for his causes.

And even though Enjolras knew Grantaire would have to leave eventually, when once he would’ve given anything to get rid of him, now he was surprised to find that he didn’t want him to go at all.

----------

“What are you doing tonight?” Grantaire asked abruptly, and Enjolras didn’t even look up from his computer.

“Same thing we do every night, Pinky,” he murmured. “Try to take over the world.”

“Hilarious,” Grantaire said dryly. “But I meant it.”

Enjolras sighed and looked up. “Well, I’ve got about a half dozen articles I need to read, not to mention there’s some really interesting case law coming out from Clay County, Illinois, regarding suing a governor over executive powers, and—”

“So nothing important, in other words,” Grantaire interrupted with a grin.

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed. “And what more important thing did you have in mind to do tonight?”

Grantaire’s grin widened. “Ask your question from before,” he said, and Enjolras stared at him for a long moment before remembering.

“Where do you go?” he asked, and Grantaire’s grin softened.

“Let me show you,” he said, holding his hand out to Enjolras. “With your permission, of course.”

Enjolras hesitated for only a moment before taking Grantaire’s hand and allowing Grantaire to pull him off the couch and out the door, face masks in hand.

The answer to Enjolras’s question, it seemed, was everywhere. Enjolras had grown up in this town, but he had never seen it like this, following Grantaire down alleys and through neighborhoods he didn’t even know existed. Their first stop was a little corner liquor store that Enjolras must’ve passed hundreds of times without every going in, and Enjolras even drank some of the wine Grantaire offered him, shifting their masks to drink straight from the brown paper bag-wrapped bottle as they made their way across town to some dingy dive bar.

But instead of going in, Grantaire led him over to a man selling tamales by the front door. “Best tamales in the city,” Grantaire assured Enjolras, who found that he didn’t doubt him.

From there, they crisscrossed the entire town, it seemed, pausing in a back alley to listen to a band playing some tiny venue Enjolras had never heard of, or swinging past the local movie theatre, which was projecting old films on the side of the building, turning their parking lot into a mini drive-in.

Enjolras didn’t say much, other than to comment a few times on mask compliance and social distancing, but he didn’t feel like the silence between them was uncomfortable, mainly because there wasn’t much silence. Even with a pandemic, there was still people on the sidewalk, talking loudly with each other, and cars crowding the streets, and even the sound of cicadas turning the quiet night into a cacophony.

They ended in a park, where Grantaire helped Enjolras over the temporary fence set up to block access to the playground, and they sat down on the swings, Enjolras facing one direction, Grantaire facing the other. “So this was…” Enjolras started, trailing off as he searched for the right word.

“Stupid?” Grantaire suggested, with a self-deprecating laugh.

Enjolras looked over at him sharply. “The opposite, actually,” he said. “I think I saw more of this city tonight than I have in my entire time living here.” He shrugged, glancing around them. “I’ve spent almost my entire life here, and I’ve never seen it like this.”

“You should try sometime,” Grantaire said, and there was something serious in his voice, so much so that Enjolras looked over at him, searching his expression. “Sometimes I think that you’re so focused on what needs fixing that you don’t stop and see the beauty in the brokenness.”

“Well, that’s your job,” Enjolras said, aiming for a joke but falling flat. “As an artist, I mean.”

“I knew what you meant,” Grantaire said quietly.

For a moment, they both sat in silence before Grantaire told Enjolras, “I’m leaving in two days.”

“What?” Enjolras asked blankly.

“Your mom told me today. I finally got cleared by my university to return to Canada.”

Enjolras’s entire chest felt like it was being squeezed. “That’s—” he started, his voice coming out a croak, and he swallowed, hard. “I mean, that’s what you’ve been waiting for, right?”

Grantaire jerked a shrug. “I guess.”

There were a million things that Enjolras wanted to say to him, but none of the words seemed to come. Instead, he asked, hesitantly, “Is that...is that why you decided to show me this? Because you’re leaving?”

“No.” Grantaire shook his head, something almost urgent in his tone. “I wanted to show you this because you needed to see it. You are so focused on changing what’s out there that you don’t take the time to stop and see what’s right here.”

“And you do?” Enjolras asked.

“Maybe.”

Enjolras was suddenly aware of how close they were, brushing against each other in the dark as they had twisted in their swings to face each other. “And what do you see?” he asked softly. 

Instead of answering, Grantaire leaned in and kissed him.

----------

It was somewhat of an answer in its own way, and judging by the chaos of packing that followed the next day, it was the only answer that Enjolras was ever going to get. He wanted desperately to talk to Grantaire, to talk about what had happened in that park, or about the millions of other things he had just assumed they would have time to talk about, but time was the one thing they didn’t have.

Not during the day, anyway.

But in lieu of their usual late night bantering, Enjolras crept into Grantaire’s bedroom after his parents had gone to bed. “Enjolras?” Grantaire asked, sitting up. “What are you—”

Enjolras kissed him, a little desperately. “I wanted to do that,” he said, his voice breathy.

Grantaire’s hands dropped to rest against his waist. “Is that all you wanted?” he asked, his voice low.

“I also wanted to talk.”

Grantaire groaned softly. “Of course you do,” he said with a sigh, dropping his hands and flopping back down on the bed. “Let me guess, about what this means, or what this is between us?”

Despite himself, despite not wanting to ruin what little time they had left, Enjolras scowled. “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”

“It’s not, it’s just—” Grantaire broke off with a sigh. “It’s predictable. Remember what I said about you being too busy trying to fix what’s out there to focus on what’s right here?”

Enjolras’s scowl deepened. “I don’t think this—”

“No, but I do.” Grantaire sat up again, his expression serious. “Look, if you can honestly tell me that talking about this will make the fact that I am leaving tomorrow easier or better, then I’m happy to spend this entire night talking.” He paused as if waiting for Enjolras to attempt exactly that. “But if you can’t, then don’t make me waste this night.”

Enjolras bit his lip. “Well, then what do you want to do?” he asked, hastening to add, “Besides, you know, that, because that’s not happening tonight.”

Grantaire half-smiled. “All I want is to hold you,” he said simply, holding his hand out to Enjolras. “Can we do that?”

The breath seemed to catch in Enjolras’s throat. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’d – I’d like that.”

He let Grantaire pull him onto the bed, curling reflexively against him and tilting his head up so that Grantaire could kiss him, slow and sweet.

True to what Grantaire said, that’s all they did, lying there together, wrapped up in each other and in the millions of unspoken could-have and should-have-beens. Enjolras rested his head against Grantaire’s chest. “‘M falling asleep,” he murmured, and Grantaire smoothed the hair away from his forehead.

“Then sleep,” he said, his voice low in Enjolras’s ear. “I’ve got you, I promise.”

Enjolras believed him.

And as he drifted off into sleep, he could’ve sworn he heard Grantaire whispering into his ear, “L'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante, L'amour s'en va, Comme la vie est lente, Et comme l'Espérance est violente.”

----------

Enjolras only just made it back to his own bed the next morning before his parents woke up, not that it mattered in the chaos of getting Grantaire’s stuff packed into the car so they could drive to the airport. Enjolras and Grantaire sat in the back seat, neither seeming to want to break the silence, though once, when Enjolras’s parents weren’t looking, Grantaire grabbed Enjolras’s hand and raised it to his lips to kiss Enjolras’s knuckles.

Still, the reality set in after Grantaire checked his bags and rejoined Enjolras and his parents, who tactfully gave them some room to say their goodbyes. “I spent most of my summer counting down until you left,” Enjolras told him, and Grantaire laughed.

“You sure know how to make a girl feel special,” he teased, but Enjolras didn’t smile.

“But now that you’re actually going—”

“I know,” Grantaire said softly. “But I have to go. Besides, someone’s got to be ready with a place for you to stay for when you inevitably try to overthrow the government and need to flee the country.”

Enjolras half-smiled. “Depending on how November goes, that may be sooner rather than later.”

Grantaire shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”

“Sorry,” Enjolras said, before adding, a little desperately, “I’m going to miss you.”

Grantaire ducked his head. “Who knows,” he said, “maybe I’ll look into transferring schools.”

“Really?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Yeah, it’s not like I have much to look forward to back home.” He nudged Enjolras with his elbow. “But I do have a really compelling reason to come back here.”

Enjolras shook his head, his throat tight. “Don’t transfer just because of me.”

“Don’t you have a high opinion of yourself,” Grantaire said mockingly. “I was referring to the tamales.”

But Enjolras didn’t laugh. “I mean it.”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow. “You and I both know that you need me, too. So it’s only half for me.”

Enjolras did smile at that, a little reluctantly. “Maybe.”

Grantaire nodded, and glanced towards security, his expression darkening. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “I guess I should be going. And I’ll, uh, see when I see you, I guess.”

Enjolras nodded as well. “Yeah,” he said, his voice thick.

Grantaire hefted his bag onto his shoulder and turned to leave when Enjolras said, “Oh, and Grantaire?”

“Yeah?” Grantaire said, turning back.

“Always joy comes after pain.”

Grantaire blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“From the poem you recited to me last night.” A slow grin spread across Grantaire’s face, and Enjolras said, mock-accusatory, “You said you didn’t speak French.”

“I lied,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras shook his head.

“And what else did you lie about?” he asked, putting his hands on his hips.

Grantaire didn’t hesitate, closing the space between them to kiss Enjolras. “Well,” he said, “I said I wasn’t going to do that, for starters.”

“I think I can forgive that,” Enjolras whispered, kissing Grantaire again before asking, “Anything else?’

Grantaire grinned. “Let’s save that for the next time we see each other.”

Enjolras smiled as well. “I’m gonna hold you to that,” he warned.

Grantaire pulled him into a hug, one that Enjolras was only too happy to return. “I hope to God you do,” Grantaire whispered in his ear before kissing his cheek once more.

“I will,” Enjolras promised, and this time when Grantaire turned to head into security, Enjolras didn’t stop him.

He didn’t have to, because for once, Enjolras saw things exactly as they were right in front of him.

But he also knew he’d find a way to fix it, and for them to be together again.

One way or another.