#mi talk

[aaronstveit]

today i am thinking about the eight bullets that kill enjolras, and how i always see people saying they represent his eight friends to die at the barricade, but when i first read his death what came to my mind was the eight men to escape the barricade alive: valjean, marius, javert, and the five men who are given the national guard uniforms. i think of those eight bullets being meant for those eight men, and enjolras taking them all. he did not change the world in the way he meant, but he changed the world for eight men, and that has to be enough.

[uncharted-constellations]

The entire ALBW team

Links about to become Lorules #1 hytopian fabric exporter

[tinyplanetss]

extremely funny btw. gavroche is like wait this adult is telling me i CAN smash streetlamps??? and valjean is like go wild kid. here's five dollars

[hater-era]

the quality is 2 pixels but red coat is enj and the other guy is grantaire. t hey kis s

[ronniesart]

[kenchann]

missing him hours

[lesbianmariuspontmercy]

life lately

[lesbianralzarek]

approaching the creche and was reminded that wyll and shadowheart have the best interactions in the goddamn game. the way that wyll talks about his superhero alter ego in 3rd person is the cringiest and most earnest shit. been off on his own for so long hes gotta be his own hype man and by god does he take that job seriously

[wetcatschwartzy]

yeah

[secretmellowblog]

Another reason I dislike Les Mis adaptations that make Jean Valjean constantly openly angry/violent is because they miss that Jean Valjean is not allowed to be angry. The fact he is forbidden from expressing anger is, I argue, actually a very important part of his character in the novel!

One of the subtler political messages of the story is that some people are given freedom to express anger, while others are forced to be excessively meek and conciliatory in order to survive.

Wealthy conservatives like Monsieur Gillenormand can “fly into rages” every five minutes and have it treated as an endearing quirk. Poor characters like Fantine or Jean Valjean must be constantly polite and ingratiating to “their superiors” at all times, even in the face of mockery and violence, or else they will be subjected to punishment. If Gillenormand beats his child with a stick, it’s a silly quirk; if Fantine beats a man harassing her, she is sentenced to months in prison.

(Thenardier and Javert are interesting examples of this too. Thenardier acts superficially polite and ingratiating to his wealthy “superiors” while insulting them behind their backs. Javert, meanwhile, is completely earnest in his mindless bootlicking. But I could write an entire other post on this.)

The point is that….Jean Valjean has to be submissive and self-effacing, or he puts himself in danger. He can’t afford to be angry and make scenes, or he will be punished. The only barrier between himself and prison is his ability to be so “courteous” that no one bothers to pry into his past.

Jean Valjean is excessively polite to people, in the way that you’re excessively polite to an armed cop who pulls you over for speeding when you secretly have a few illegal grams of marijuana in the your car trunk. XD It’s politeness built on fear, is what I mean. It’s politeness built on a desperation to make a powerful person avoid looking too closely at you.

It’s politeness at gunpoint.

Jean Valjean has also spent nineteen years living in an environment where any expression of anger could be punished with severe violence. That trauma is reflected in the overly cautious reserved way he often speaks with people (even people who are kind and would never actually hurt him.)

So adaptations that have Jean Valjean boldly having shouting matches with people in public and beating cops half to death without worrying about the repercussions just make go like “???”

Because that’s part of what’s fascinating about Jean Valjean to me? On one hand, he is a genuinely kind compassionate person, who cares deeply about other people and behaves kindly out of altruism. But on the other hand, he was also “beaten into submission” by prison, and forced into adopting conciliatory bootlicking behaviors in order to survive. And it can sometimes be hard to tell when he is being kind vs. when he is being “polite” — when he is speaking and acting out of earnest compassion vs. when he is speaking and acting out of fear.

The TL;DR is that I think it’s important that even though Jean Valjean is very (justifiably) angry about the injustice that was inflicted on him, his anger is harshly policed at all times— by other people, and by himself. He has been told his anger is wrong/selfish so often that he believes it. His anger takes weirder more unhealthy forms because he has no safe outlet for it. His rage at society becomes a possessiveness towards Cosette and silent hatred of Marius, but primarily it becomes useless self-destructive constant hatred of himself. And while I might be phrasing this wrong, I think that’s what’s interesting about Jean Valjean’s relationship with anger— the way his justified fury at his own mistreatment gets warped into more and more unhealthy forms by the way he’s forced to constantly repress it.

[pilferingapples]

Y'know I love Comedically Ineffectual Javert but I feel like. Mayhaps. Not enough emphasis is put on how he is actually dangerous to people on the barricade.

He's a government spy -- "A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to die; who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes."

He knows everyone who was there, and a good amount of who did what, who's the leader, etc. He recognizes Marius after the sewers . He took names. He could have given evidence against everyone on the barricades.

Including the five men who escaped.

Including anyone who survived the massacre.

Including the women who worked at the Corinth, who did in fact help set up and prepare the barricade for the fight.

In fact, we don't know that he didn't --we can assume that he had too short an audience with the prefect to give over any detailed info, or that he chose to withhold some things in his Valjean-induced confusion, or even that they threw out his info after his suicide. But it's also possible that five men who thought they'd escaped were rounded up and arrested that week, or that two waitresses were seized as insurgents, or captives were hit with some very specific charges. As Hugo examines in detail in Ninety Three, and hints at even in Les Mis, sometimes showing mercy to one person means condemning many others.

(This , combined with the then-current attitude towards spies --basically that they were the scummiest of scum, execute immediately-- all makes me wonder not why Enjolras wanted him killed, but why he insisted on letting Javert live so long. Especially after Prouvaire's death, when it's safe to say the idea of any potential hostage negotiation is nixed-- what is the point? They aren't really intent on saving a bullet, given Valjean has the go-ahead to shoot him. And after Five Less One More, there's no chance that, say, they'll win and get to let him go as being actually harmless to them with the new political situation. There's no real explanation given in canon so it's an interesting question!)

At any rate: whether Javert did or didn't actually deliver his info, Enjolras and the other barricade fighters choosing to execute him is a practical move totally in keeping realistic military behavior (and Hugo is trying to establish them as behaving like Honorable Military Men ! Which is a whole other topic ...) . Javert is dangerous to the barricade fighters , as his job is to be dangerous-- and despite how he comes off sometimes (and in some adaptations), Javert is actually very very good at his job.

[fluentisonus]

rip javert if you'd survived you would have found incredible new ways to be abnormal abt that old man

[worstscholar]

What if you catch Law jerking off with your panties? 👀😌

hhh ^ this actually sent me into a coma

⋆｡° ໑ Immediately he's so flustered, his whole face goes red, from the tops of his ears to his chest. He splutters and fidgets, and hides his leaky cock with his hands, your panties trapped between them.

⋆｡° ໑ If you tease him about it, he might actually just cum ( '~' ' )

⋆｡° ໑ He's insanely embarrassed, and he kind of wants to die, but that little part of him that got him into this situation likes getting caught and being watched.

⋆｡° ໑ If you leave he'll sulk for a few weeks and avoid you, going bright red every time you're so much as in the same room as him.

⋆｡° ໑ If you stay and help him out, he'll be so happy, but still so embarrassed at the same time

~~~

Law exhales shakily as you pull his trembling hands away from his crotch, he's so embarrassed he thinks he might die right here. He cant bring himself to look at your face, his eyes darting all around his room, struggling to stay on a single object, before they settle on your hands. His thoughts are running a thousand miles a minute as he watches you slowly reveal the pathetic sight of your stained panties covering his cock.

He misses the grin you give, refuses to acknowledge how hungry your gaze is. "I'm surprised you're not wearing them." You tease, your voice low and as hungry sounding as the look you're giving him. Law's face goes crimson, and he fists his hands into the sheets on either side of himself- how could you say something so perverted? In the same breath Law neglects to acknowledge that he's the perverted one, that he's been caught doing something perverted, that you're about to do something perverted to him- Law's heart skips a beat, and he faintly hears you chuckle, over the roaring sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

When he looks up and finally makes eye contact, he feels like hes being swallowed whole by that look in your eye. His face feels hotter, but Law inst sure that's possible, from how red he is already. "Why would i- Why-" Law stops himself, his heart is beating too fast, he cant organize his thoughts, you're so close- too close. He can feel your breath on his face, smell your mint toothpaste. His lips part without him allowing them to, and he exhales shakily.

You take that as permission to lean in further, so close your lips brush. Law's heart jumps, and his hands reflexively push at your shoulders, but before you could actually move back, Law pulls you back in, unable to make up his mind. "Silly boy," You tease, reaching up to cup the side of his face, "Do you want me to kiss you, or leave?" You ask, you're being mean, unfair. You know what he wants, but you're denying him for fun, if that cheshire grin on your face means anything.

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[lonelyoleander]

CHOOSE YOUR CHAMPION

[pixiefeatherkw3]

My favorite idea is that characters like Dream, Epic, Swap and Lust (also Color, but that is more obvious considering canon) will totally and completely be ruthless if the right buttons or circumstances are present.

They are scary in their own way, like an actual problem, something or someone really did something wrong for that to happen.

It can be kind of cathartic when you have them like that, me thinks

[sunflower-enj0lras]

Liking a les mis post but then noticing marius hate in said post