#les blorbeaux

[tealviscaria]

Another DTIYS of @dreki 's art!

The original

[ripeteeth]

my brain is just a lonely void waiting for a blorbo like an empty storefront waiting for a spirit halloween

[morgan-aleghieri]

The joke answer is that I like to take screencaps of Cessalie with everyone cause she's min height, and one day did this with Artoirel and immediately went, "hold up 🤔"

The serious answer is that I grew up reading things like Jane Eyre, and Pride & Prejudice, and various and sundry historical romance novels, and they slot into that quasi-historical niche very well. Especially with Artoirel being the serious, more reserved brother, and Cessalie being very adept at masking her feelings, there's a lot of potential for *pining*. I had one idea about Cessalie getting dressed up for the aymeric dinner date, so scribbled some sketches down...

...and before you know it I was drawing an 11 page comic. So, uh, it all escalated very quickly.

Another random WoLQotD/OC question

I thought I'd ask this while I worked on my other questions. :)

If you're a WoL x NPC shipper, what drew you to that ship and why? What makes that ship the pinnacle for you and your oc? Is it that you love the canon character you write them with, you find their dynamic interesting or something in between?

If you're not a WoL x NPC shipper, but you have a ship with another person, how did that come about? What makes that ship fulfilling for you? Has the ship impacted your relationship with that other person? Feel free to gush, I wanna hear it!

Oh, and pictures are a must (if you have them).

[secretmellowblog]

Valjean + 7 & 8 (game ask)

For this ask meme: #7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like? And #8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Thanks for the ask!!

#7: a thing fandom does with this character that you like:

I love fix-its (I just want him to live!) it’s great when Jean Valjean gets to have a happier ending than his bleak passive suicide.  

Fics that explore Jean Valjean interacting with Other Characters (outside of Cosette) are also  great. He has such a narrow social circle in canon — he has basically no friends outside of his daughter— so playing him off other characters is really fun. It’s especially fun if (as is canonically accurate) he struggles very hard to interact with people and comes across as deeply weird. Jean Valjean tends to get “trapped in his own head” a lot, and exploring the relationships he could have with other characters– or just how other characters would be utterly baffled by him, while viewing him from the outside– is always great.

I also love fandom stuff that acknowledges how deeply strange he is. Any fandom stuff that features Jean Valjean breaking into people’s houses to give them money is always chefs kiss.

#8: A thing fandom does with this character that you despise:

I  was originally going to answer this with a whole passionate overlong essay about fandom tropes around Jean Valjean that bother me, but…I’ll keep it short lol because it's not really a big deal, haha. Like, I don’t want to be mean or unfair, and I like being in a fandom so large I can afford to be picky about characterization. I don’t like holding fanfic  to a higher moral standard than big “professional” media properties that are doing far worse. The most popular Les Mis fanfic on ao3 has maybe a couple thousand readers; BBC 2019, which is an utterly vile horrible conservative take on Les Mis and on Jean Valjean in particular, had millions of viewers. Fanfic writers have no budget and often no editors, so we don’t deserve to be held to the same level of scrutiny as massive projects like a tv show . Like I don’t want to overstate harm– fanfic is fine! Les mis fanfic is a tiny niche of a niche, and so small no one’s really being hurt by it. If I don’t like something, I don’t read it, and all that. I'm not here to be the fandom police XD.

And I really don’t like ever positioning myself as an “authority” on these characters or the person who does them “correctly,” because I’m not. 

That being said, if I were to be petty and summarize my personal Problems with the way Jean Valjean is often handled in fandom really briefly–

My core "pain" is that I feel like a lot of fans miss that the police are the villains of Les Mis. The police are the villains of Jean Valjean’s story and they’re the villains of Javert’s. Prison is evil. The carceral system is cruel and unjust, as a system. It is not a problem of Javert “not being nice enough to Valjean,” the entire system is fundamentally violent and vile and needs to be burned to the ground.  acab, and all.

I think part of why that gets missed is that many fans are laser-focused only on Javert–  and often on a highly specific musical-inspired fanon reading of Javert where he Did Nothing Wrong. (I'm not throwing shade, this was kinda also me when I was 13 lolllll.) And then they don’t analyze Jean Valjean anywhere near as deeply, if they analyze him at all, and don't pick up on the larger themes of the novel. And that's a shame, because Javert’s characterization will also suffer if you don’t have that wider context! I think the “problem” is just that if you acknowledge the complexity of Jean Valjean's character and his trauma, if you recognize how deeply Jean Valjean was ripped apart by prison,  how he has not recovered from his imprisonment and never will, and how he doesn’t view the criminal justice system with ‘total forgiveness’ but actually does have complicated overwrought repressed useless grief and rage over the system that abused him and the injustices he’s undergone, how he actually doesn’t like Javert on a personal level and only saved his life out of the same pity he would’ve shown to any other person in Javert's position–  it is much harder to see Javert as a Good Person and the police as a Good Institution. So as a result fanfic!Jean Valjean often  kinda has to be written as a bland saint patiently agreeing that Cops Are Great and Prison is Fine and Javert Did Nothing Wrong...because if he isn’t, the author has to acknowledge Javert has hurt Jean Valjean in ways he will never heal from, and question the morality of both  Javert and the police. 

 I think lots of people take the line “there’s nothing that I blame you for/you’ve done your duty nothing more” from the musical, interpret it as a sincere compliment, and then graft that interpretation onto the book— to the point of making it the entire core of Jean Valjean’s character. But Jean Valjean complimenting Javert with the Nuremberg defense (“it was all fine because you were doing your job”), and this being portrayed as Correct and Wise, is just not a compelling take on the character to me XD. I do not like it all. So I just don’t read fics that head in that direction. I'm not gonna content-police people, I just don't read it, haha.

I’ve been recommended multiple fics where Jean Valjean becomes Javert’s cop partner, or enthusiastically encourages him to return to the police, and it’s always a big “He Would Not Say That.” XD Jean Valjean, the most well-known victim of police brutality in the history of fiction, the character whose entire personality is built on the trauma of surviving incarceration and attempting to save others from his hellish fate, would never enthusiastically participate in incarcerating people–not even if they were  ‘bad’ people! It’s literally the core of his whole weird little Deal. it’s his whole schtick. 

And it's not that I hate Valvert either. I actually think Valvert can be very compelling-- and also funny, which is the most important thing. But part of the reason I’ve often stayed away from the valvert  fandom despite enjoying the Funky Weird Little Relationship is that I’ve had lots of trouble finding fic that gives Jean Valjean an actual life or character outside of Javert, or that also acknowledges the anti-police anti-prison themes of the novel.  But! There are a tiny handful of people who do it occasionally! And that's enough.

And again, this isn’t like the biggest deal or anything! I’m not a fandom cop trying to police what people write, especially because most people are just extrapolating from the musical/lots of people change their minds on characterizations over time/it’s hard to write without a team of editors to help you navigate things. These are just some fandom trends I personally don’t like, that I personally avoid,  and that I hope change over time….so that I have more fanfic to read that lines up with my own feelings on the characters XD.

But yeah those are my (abbreviated) years of spicy fanon Jean Valjean hot takes!!!

[fangirlsovertoomanythings]

Oh and I think I know you like him but Sherlock Holmes ? Your fav interpretation/version of course

(unrelated, when i get them back, i should show you a very cool french comic about Sherlock Holmes i found back then...)

You gave me the liberty, so I hope you know I was thinking about Clive Merrison's Sherlock Holmes. I love him in the books too it's just that Clive Merrison's is trapped in an unrequitted love situationship with Michael Williams' Dr. Watson and I swear it's almost canonical, I could go on for hours as to why that is

A FRENCH COMIC ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES?

[hartshorn-and-isinglass]

Why am I such a ball of nerves leaving another comment for one of Les Blorbeaux? AAAAAA-

ISTFG, between the pandemic and being stuck packing/unpacking, I have lost what little social sense I may have possessed and I just feel so flailingly awkward every time I try to interact with someone I have a ton of esteem for. But at the same time, these days I really feel an urge to reach out and let people know they're appreciated for what they do, and I refuse to let my own self-consciousness prevent me.

It's a weird place to be!

[silima]

les blorbeaux

[gerceval]

j'aime tellement quand tu rb un random post ici en taguant les blorbeaux

mon addiction 🫶

[winkle-pickers]

🥳, 💭, 🤖 (tried to pick ones that weren't done before lol)

Moon Moon my dear Moon ♡ (￣З￣)

🥳 Why did you start writing fanfic?

I was eleven and had so many feelings about Donkey Kong 64 that I wrote poetry for the first and only time in my life. My first ever entry to fan fiction DOT NET is a Donkey Kong 64 angst poem about how Funky Kong and the other shopkeeper NPCs probably get really lonely when Donkey Kong and friends are not in there buying coconut grenades.

💭 What inspires you and your writing?

Just being like, really, embarrassingly, earnestly authentic. That comes first for me before any technical, stylistic or thematic considerations.

Having done music in various professional contexts for so long, it's really hard to play in a totally unconstrained way where I'm not keeping a running tally of notes-to-self and things-to-improve and technical minutiae in my head. Which is fun, and I really genuinely enjoy the geekery of being a musician! But I also needed an artistic outlet where I could spew my feelings about everything absolutely everywhere with abandon 😂

So I guess I'm inspired by all the usual things, love and nature and trauma and thematic parallels and les blorbeaux, but when I express those things through writing words it's not nearly as structured, process-oriented, or revised as it would be if I was writing music about it.

🤖 Are non-fandom friends aware that you write fanfic?

Yes. I've told people this on first dates! It's a good litmus test. I would never give out my AO3 to just anyone per se, but my friends are all very aware and very supportive of how much time I spend dissecting spiky card game people in my head.

[bloopdydooooo]

sérieux?! y a personne d’autre qui connaît mes blorbeaux préférés!!

Jean d’Able

Timothé Poudre-à-Canon

Anne Rasputin

Raphaëlle de la Pensée

Marius de l’Espace

Brian la Machine à Tambourine

Le Soldat de Plomb

Lierre d’Alexandrie

Cendres O’Reilley

j’adore ce groupe (même s’ils viennent de l’angleterre) de pirates immortels<3

oh ja meine lieblings Blorbonen, die Mechaniker

es gibt

Johannes von Toifel

Schießpulver Tim

Anna Rasputina

Raphaella zu Denken

Marius von Raum

Trommelroboter Gehirn

Der Spielzeug Soldat

Efeu Bücherei

Asche O'reily

was für tolle namen für eine Bande an unsterblichen weltraum Piraten

[ginkovskij]

my blorbeaux from the barricades

[corneliushickey]

can someone who knows more about 19th century French colloquialisms explain what's going on here

[skopostheorie]

Noooo fucking way holy shit. no way

[wistaliia]

les voilà: mes blorbeaux

do i post oc brainrot doodles

[galindathegay]

Mutual: "Tell me about your favorite character!"

Me:

[scary-senpai]

I’m always a little tickled to accidentally predict things… although I don’t know if this counts. I feel like whatever the universe, whomever the deities, Garou would be first in line to punch god.

This conversation actually had nothing to do with God (No ID), though—these were voice notes I took as I was exploring/spitballing a headcanon I had that eventually became a fic—specifically, Garou is mad at the fundamental truth that comes with being human: everything you love will leave you, unless you leave it first.

Although I’m almost certain the math doesn’t add up, I’ve always wondered if Garou was still at the dojo when Bang was sent to “defend” City Z from the meteor. In which case, he’s upset at the HA for sending Bang on a suicide mission and furious at Bang for simply accepting a mystery assignment, no questions asked.

In any case, it’s now firmly entrenched in my headcanons, like Garou and Genos being from the same village.

But as you can see, the dialogue for this fic is shaping up to be great:

(Just kidding, this is still the automated transcript of my voice notes, which explains the lack of punctuation / overall wonkiness)

Anyway, Bang is telling him is, “well yes, maybe it’s reckless but even if I knew the circumstances, I would go anyway, because I’m a hero and that’s my job.”

Anyway, Garou is understandably floored to hear Bang say that…although he may have suspected or anticipated Bang’s perspective, it’s another thing to hear it out loud.

Garou quietly asks, “well, what about us? what about the dojo?”

Bang gently touches his shoulder and says, “it’s in good hands” and that’s a hell of a way to learn that you’ve been appointed successor.

Anyway, this experience and crystallizes for him that he is more afraid of people leaving him than he is of people being lost, making the choice to leave to him.

Like, it doesn't really matter how much he loves someone or wants to protect them—at the end of the day, they’re going to make decisions for themselves.

I sort of imagine him locking himself in Bang’s office and maybe, like, alternating between breaking things and lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling as he goes through various stages of grief, mostly bargaining for Bang’s life.

So as he’s having this conversation with Bang, thinking about all the things he was prepared to give up (maybe has already given up, who the fuck knows how prayers work)… and realizing Bang doesn’t really understand any of it.

In that sense, “I won’t let you throw your life away,” hits very, very differently, because who knows? Maybe he’s done it already: the universe fucks you up in very interesting ways.

Also, I dug through my notes a bit and found this outline/how I imagine their conversation will go.

- Bang appears relatively chill despite his un-death, although he is waiting for someone (Garou) to notice him and say “I missed you, you matter to me” (but all Garou can do is berate him, because that’s all Bang has modeled)

- so the best Bang can do is say something honest (“I saw my whole life flash before my eyes”) and then kneecap it (“and I came back to all this nonsense.”)

- at which point, Garou probably blue screens

——

Bonus content:

I think a lot about the hero’s dilemma—take big risks and possibly die for strangers, or take the safer, more mundane path and live for people that love you…

I posted this along with a screen cap of Saitama and Genos (it was short, very short—literally just that one line) on my main, but during a self-indulgent reblog, i went on to pontificate a bit, because there’s a beautiful passage about this in Les Miserables (I still cry every time I read it), but I promised no blorbeaux from the barricades here and I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job