#trying to put my thoughts into coherent words

[starryrock]

Semi-Spoilers for Chapter 4 VTSOM + PW:AA&Rise From The Ashes

Vincent Edgeworth being a clear allusion to Miles Edgeworth means they will have many clear similarities. They are both lawyers, rich, have similar bangs, and so on. But the one thing that interests me is where they differ.

I’ve had many, many thoughts after watching Let’s Plays of Chapter 4 but what I want to focus on is a part that stuck out to me after I finished watching. It’s the part where Vincent openly admits to having used forged evidence, bribery, and other means to win his cases.

This part truly solidified as a core, thematic difference between these two characters with their relationships of their occupations.

Throughout the Ace Attorney games, we get to see Miles Edgeworth’s character development and his ideals. One of the first things we hear about him is that he’s the “Demon Prosecutor,” unafraid to use whatever means necessary to win a case, including using forged evidence. But throughout the game, and specifically in Rise From The Ashes, we see how untrue that first impression is. While Miles is still willing to be a complete pain in the ass in the courtroom, he never stoops to anything blatantly illegal (within the AA Justice System, that is [Updated Autopsy Report]). Miles refuses to even consider using dirty tactics to win a case. In RFTA, when it’s revealed he was tricked into presenting falsified evidence in the courtroom to get a mass murderer guilty, he just about breaks down. Miles Edgeworth values the truth above all else. He’s been seen to willingly give up his hold on a case just because he’s been shown someone else is the true culprit.

Vincent Edgeworth, on the other hand… is very similar to AA1 Miles. Heavily determined to be the best at what he does, “I’ve never lost a single case I’ve taken on.” Vincent did everything he could to ensure success, he didn’t care about the “truth.” His goal was to ensure the success of his dream company, to be accepted. The regrets don’t seem to stem from the corruption of his actions but from ever joining Myers to begin with. Personally, I have a difficult time deciphering whether he feels guilty about what he’s done: He did it for them, he did it for them, or it was because of them he did it? Vincent seems to cynical of the law due to his own actions but how that ties into what he feels now, I’m not quite sure. What’s certain is that due to his own hand in legal corruption and the torture he went through, he doesn’t place much faith into the legal system to truly bring down justice (or in his case: revenge). Vincent is someone who is willing to stoop to his enemies’ lows to get what he wants.

This is a very long winded way to if Miles Edgeworth and Vincent Edgeworth were to ever meet and have an honest, genuine conversation about the law, Miles would most definitely come out disliking Vincent.

[cubedmango]

one difference between the original and cover for my clematis that rlly caught my attention earlier was which chara sang the very last lyrics—mizi (the one who survives) in the original and ivan (the one who dies) in the cover. ever since i noticed that i've been trying to make sense of why they did that. in the context of the song it makes more sense for the survivor (till) to sing those lines since they're at the very end, after the other contestant has been killed, but with the meaning of the lyrics ("please, stay by my side") it makes sense for ivan to be singing them, since he's the one with the one-sided love. it felt to me like ivan asking till to keep the memory of him alive and with him even after ivan died

when the cover for cure dropped imagine my surprise when i saw that they did the exact same thing again!! they gave the very last line sung by ivan (the one who dies) in the original to mizi (the one who survives) in the cover, and again i'm trying to understand why this exact swap happened a second time. for this one the context is more of those being the very last words ivan says to till (tho that segment isn't actually in the music video version), with the lyrics ("consume me / yes, me") reflecting that final desperation for till to notice him, but from mizi's perspective it takes on such a different meaning.. is it mizi trying to plead with sua to wake up? to look at her again? to still be the one person who knows and understands her? fascinating stuff. i'm unwell

[im-smart-i-swear]

can you remember being born? were you born at all

[baeshijima]

okay. so. since i have finished the wuthering waves main story currently available (act vi) as well as jiyan's story quest, i can finally have some thoughts about him to do somewhat of an analysis on his character (bear in mind this will still be quite limited since i don't have access to his voicelines/other character voicelines about him, along with his story since i just pulled him today ;w;)

this, uh, will also be long. like. long. you have been warned :'D !! (also slight geshu lin analysis bc parallels and contradictions and raahh)

for the sake of some spoilers for act vi and his story quest, the rest will be utc !!

1) how others see him

okay, so from what we've seen so far, jiyan is initially presented as a reliable and duty-bound character. he's a general, so of course he has to be responsible and be a certain way, especially when in front of his soldiers, who view him as all these characteristics as well as being relatively stoic and work-focused. this is hinted throughout the quests and through npcs, and in his story quest they're also hesitant to ask jiyan to join their team believing he wouldn't take part in such things like the gulpuff relay race, only for wenshu to say otherwise:

it isn't really a surprise that they wouldn't know jiyan has other sides to him; they're his subordinates. it's also typically what he shows them as "general jiyan", rather than just "jiyan" himself. basically just a line between work and personal life, if that makes it clearer.

the people of jinzhou, and the midnight rangers especially, all respect him. on top of being the youngest appointed general, he is presented as an "invincible warrior no enemy stood a chance against" (from his story: the reason to fight). he is essentially their light and voice of reason.

though this could be due to the fact jiyan tends to keep his troubles and pain to himself to avoid worrying those around him, and to continue performing what is expected of him as a general.

an example is during act vi, after jiyan confronted the geshu lin's phantom from the retroact rain:

this was also seen at the end of act vi, where i believe it was yuehui who commented on the wounded state of jiyan being worse than the majority, but returning to his duties shortly after and seemingly not resting properly to sufficiently recover. (well, jiyan was a medic, so hopefully he did properly tend to himself and have breaks... glares at him...)

all in all for this segment, jiyan is largely viewed as a powerful general whom the public and his soldiers know they can fall back on without worry, as they have full confidence in his abilities to protect.

2) his nature

another thing is that he is a very meticulous character. this is portrayed through his constant check-ups on the midnight rangers, the people, the area, and also through his habit of being very particular about cleanliness. (this was mentioned in his profile reveal, though i'm not sure if it's talked about anywhere in game.)

despite the responsibilities and consequences he faces, he makes sure everyone is looked after in his own way. i think it says a lot about him, and possibly about his family having a history of being in the line of medicine.

taken from his story: [what's inside his gourd?]

jiyan, however, has a tendency to hide his troubles from those around him, instead placing greater emphasis and priority on the current situation(s) or his comrades.

for instance, barely anyone is aware that the deceased soldiers — people whom he failed to save — haunt his nightmares, further pressured by the burden of his position and the fact every action of his can have even the slightest of consequences.

taken from his story: [the reason to fight]

he is resolute in this regard, fully committing to his beliefs and what he deems to be righteous. even despite the risks of overexertion which may follow, jiyan will still see it through to the end regardless of the outcome.

taken from his story: [the unyielding will]

(also, i would just like to say i'm thankful we do get mentions of ability overuse/overexertion confirmed, along with tacet mark sensitivity to a certain degree, since this could be one of the many triggers for overclocking (basically the loss of control of a resonator through a trigger of sorts), and i just want more lore and stuff on what overclock actually is. hopefully we get to see a character go through it in the future, as bad as it sounds, because it's just so fascinating and interesting and !! okay. back to the analysis. sorry.)

this was explicitly demonstrated during the boss fight in act vi, where jiyan jumped in front of us to take and block the attack sent our way, incidentally knocking him down and causing our "awakening", only to then quickly recover and continue supporting us through crucial moments during the fight, even at the cost of his own well-being (read: the injuries he later sustained that were mentioned by yuehui post act vi).

that doesn't mean he isn't sentimental to those around him. in fact, he is probably one of the most caring and (though can be in quite subtle ways) expressive characters we know of so far. in his own, discreet way, he makes sure everyone is tended to and left without worry no matter how trivial the problem, for that is his duty as their general and fellow comrade.

taken from his story: [silent caretaker]

following that, jiyan takes camaraderie very seriously. this is well-established in his story quest, wherein the basis of it surrounds jiyan's insight about his team, his comrades' sacrifice and honouring the dead.

as well as these lines from his trailer, wherein his resolve to save people was seen as futile from the veteran rangers who already lost hope.

and yet, despite their dissuasion, jiyan continued on doing what he can for his people, and to minimise the losses as much as possible going forward.

at the end of the quest in particular we see him at probably his most vulnerable, where he asks us to plant an emortia for him should he die (i won't let him.); the very same flower he has been planting for each passed soldier for who knows how long.

the whole scene gave us a glimpse of the inner workings of his mind where he is just "jiyan" with no title attached to him. in this scene, he is just a man who wishes for his fellow soldiers to be able to rest at ease knowing a new day will come, and that their sacrifice wasn't in vain.

3) geshu lin parallels sorry. i couldn't help myself. (i'm not sorry.)

also, i think another aspect i find interesting is the parallel between the current general jiyan, and the former general geshu lin. by this i mean geshu lin in both jiyan's trailer and the beginning-ish of act vi was depicted as someone ruthless in the way he is okay with there being sacrifices if it means they will achieve victory, and essentially sees avoiding that to be cowardly.

meanwhile, jiyan, as we have seen in the section prior, does his utmost to avoid as many casualties as he possibly can. a major part of his character is built around the notion of camaraderie and fighting for what he believes is right, which clashes with geshu lin's own thoughts.

even so, geshu lin notes how they are inherently similar, if not the same in a couple of instances:

jiyan's trailer also had geshu lin say this:

which could have a lot of implications, one of which being that they both want to save everyone and keep the peace of huanglong, yet their principles and how they go about it diverge in spite of their shared wish.

where geshu lin has little reservations (well, at least that we know about from this small snippet) about having to sacrifice his soldiers if it means achieving his end goal, jiyan will plan and plan and plan to do his utmost to reduce the number of casualties as possible while also maintaining efficiency, even if it means he alone has to go to the forefront to clear the way.

tldr: we love jiyan. he is the beloved. the best man who probably needs someone to constantly make sure he is prioritising himself despite his previous medic status. but we love him anyway. 🫶

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[fruityfroggy]

Love me a toxic yuri, but especially when it’s toxic in both directions.

None of you are getting left off the hook of toxicity, BOTH OF YOU MUST SUFFER THE COMPLEXITIES HAHA

[fate-defiant]

something something rue who's been fed and sustained on blood since she was a baby something something two notable times we see her attempt to nurture her loved ones it's by offering them water

[byanyan]

ㅤbeen thinking today about how byan's anger can be really scary to witness... it's very... raw. anger is the emotion they feel the most intensely, and the one they filter the least. it's raw, it's heated, and it's very instinct-driven — they have very little control over it, and they're certainly not thinking before they do or say anything. impulses are followed, whether it's to lash out and cause harm to whatever has hurt them, or to throw or break whatever is within arm's reach just to release even a little bit of the energy that's overwhelming them. they don't know what else to do with it. literally no thoughts, all that their mind can focus on is the emotion; they just want to get it out and stop feeling this way (and/or ensure the person who's pissed them off gets what they deserve) and they'll do whatever it takes to ensure that. i think that lack of control really shows too, like it's palpable in the air and adds an extra layer of discomfort and uncertainty if you're in the same room as them. concern for one's own safety is valid in such a scenario too tbh, because they have hurt people in the past who they never would have caused harm to normally (both directly and indirectly; sometimes by their own hand, other times as an unintended consequence of them throwing/breaking something). it's not something they're proud of, but they also just... don't know what to do about it. ...they're honestly afraid of their own anger, at times. afraid of what they're capable of and what they might one day do.

[popsicle-stick]

i think if i could just present all my thoughts on a subject as a big spider diagram on a big flipboard instead of having to lay them out linear fashion in a tumblr post i think we'd be in business

[quodekash]

WAIT A SEC

HOLD TF UP

THIS IS AKK’S ENTIRE CHARACTER, EXPLAINED RIGHT THEN AND THERE, IN THE FIRST FREAKING EPISODE

he’s so certain that following the rules is equal to your worth, that only by doing everything as you are instructed can you be deemed a “good student”. and he wants to deserve to be in the school. he got a scholarship, he was chosen as a prefect, and its all because he follows the rules. so he’s sure that if he doesn’t follow those rules, then he doesn’t deserve any of the things he’s been given, and he doesn’t deserve to be in the school, he doesn’t deserve to be given opportunities. he probably doesn’t even think he’s worthy of love if he doesn’t follow the rules. (this isn’t true ofc, this is just what im pretty sure are akk’s thoughts)

and it’s kinda glossed over in parts (either that or I just wasn’t paying attention), but I think I’m akk’s mind, one of the rules of life is you either have to be straight or you have to not be in a relationship at all. he tells himself that he doesn’t want/need a relationship because he’s “at school to study”, he’s there to follow the rules and be a good kid and never do anything out of line. but he doesn’t think it’s out of line for other students to date. he just thinks it is for himself to date, probably because he hasn’t yet confronted with himself that he doesn’t want to be with a woman, but he can’t let himself be with a man, because that’s against some kind of subconscious rule that he has. “don’t be on your phones at school, don’t cause trouble, don’t hurt others, don’t use the teacher’s bathrooms, don’t be gay, always wear the uniform correctly and perfectly”

so he plays it off as “I just don’t want a relationship rn” but really it goes so much deeper than that, and I think he knows that but isn’t ready to confront it. his thoughts and feelings are so conflicted and complicated, and if he can’t figure it out, then he isn’t worthy of love, but if he ever does figure it out and end up with a man, he isn’t worthy of love because that’s against the rules (again, his thoughts not mine)

his thoughts that it’s imperative for him to follow the rules to be worthy or deserving of anything at all are the driving force for every single thing he does. “if you can’t follow the rules, you don’t deserve to be in this school” translates to “If you cant follow the rules, you don’t deserve a good education” to “you aren’t worthy” to “you are worthless” to “everything you do is wrong”.

and also I think him faking the curse was him trying to exercise some form of control? so that he could be in command of something in his life, and not in constant confusion and conflict and worry and uncertainty. if he truly believes that if you can’t follow the rules you don’t deserve to be in this school and therefore deserve to be punished, then he’ll see kids misbehaving, and he’ll want to be cause of that punishment, to reinforce and validate his belief that he HAS to follow the rules or he’ll be punished similarly, but also to feel like something is finally going how he wants it to

or maybe im reading too far into one line in the first episode where he’s just talking to a kid using his phone in school. idk.

[transgender-catboy]

I am here to say something inappropriate in the tags.

and then go the fuck to bed.

[drysauce]

im so fucking mad rn. the geodesy prof did an online lecture at 9pm and sent a mail an hour earlier and when i tried to join he didn't want to accept my joining request. fucking hell i hate it here

[nobodybetterlookatme]

How's it going with your coworker??!!

I'm still so fucking soft and that's really all I've got for today lmao

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

My gosh this is beautiful and I have to reply because this is EXACTLY why I project onto him so much (a Very Healthy reason I know. When I first read Les Mis, I cried, bc I have felt exactly that pang). Ten million percent agreed with everything you said above!

I love your point about Cosette and Marius bringing up his (long-buried) feelings of envy: the tragic irony is, Jean Valjean--so often defined by his one act of theft--feels, himself, robbed.

Because ultimately, underneath it all, Valjean has a desperate desire for love--total, enduring love. Every time Jean Valjean has allowed himself to be truly known, people have immediately turned on him; all the goodwill he's built up over years of charity and suffering fades immediately. He feels that he will always be abandoned. So he's desperate for someone to stay. What first allows him to love Cosette is her helplessness: he is her savior, so she cannot leave him. And because of how enmeshed his identity is with Cosette, becoming anything less than her everything is a brutal extraction for him. He believes, since it is all he has known, that love is total and all-consuming; therefore, he believes Cosette can only really love one person, just as he only loved her, and that person (by Right™) is Marius now. After all he has gone through, and all he has done, he feels abandoned once again--even though Cosette may still claim she loves him--because he is not her everything, so he is nothing. And that literally kills him.

Valjean's perceived abandonment by Cosette is so devastating to him because in a way, he uses Cosette as a stand-in for God. He has never believed God could love him--in fact, even in the convent, he's described as kneeling before the sister "as though afraid to kneel directly before God." He has never allowed himself to see himself as anything other than the "miserable man" he was at the start of the story. And how could God love that? Instead, he finds Cosette, who is initially desperate and has no other choice but to rely on him (and he believes as soon as she does have a choice, or if she learns who he really is, she will leave him), and uses her as the foundation of his identity. She's also the center of his virtue; with someone to care for, to sacrifice for, maybe he can earn God's love somehow. And if someone so pure could love him, maybe there was something in him that could be loved. So of course when she begins to love someone else, Valjean crumbles--her love felt secure because it was desperate, but now she can choose. And he could never imagine anyone, including God, loving him willingly.

But I love Les Mis because he's wrong!!!! He's wrong about that, and he's wrong about himself, and he's wrong about what love is!! And the story tells him so!!!

From the start of the story to the end, God has always been with him, guiding his path. The narration throughout the story makes it clear--he even recognizes "the hand of Providence" in guiding him to the bishop and the convent, in bringing him finally to the trial to save the innocent man; to stumble upon Cosette in the woods was no coincidence, nor was it chance that Cosette and Marius found him (because they were looking for him!! Because they love him!!!) right before he died. He has always been loved, wholly and forever, even in the midst of his sin and suffering.

It's a love that knows him fully, and endures.

And I love that his story ends with that.

Jean Valjean's Canon Toxic Unhealthiness around Romantic Love

( alternate titles: “Does Jean Valjean is Gay?”, or “Does Jean Valjean is Asexual?” Or: “Why is it so difficult to slap an identity/sexuality label onto Jean Valjean?” Or “LGBTPTSD+”)

I was looking at the responses to this poll about whether people interpret Jean Valjean as gay/asexual/straight or something else….and it got me thinking again about Jean Valjean’s canonical intense, complex, awful, toxic, and overwrought emotions around identity/ romantic love. I want to talk about that for a bit because I think it often gets overlooked in fandom!

I've noticed that Les Mis fandom/analysis often tends to interpret Jean Valjean as being far more content, more "at peace with himself," and more "comfortable in his own skin" than he ever is within the novel. This is also a common change in adaptations. The musical's version of Jean Valjean is great-- but he also seems a lot more self-actualized, more like he's gotten himself completely "figured out" by the end of the story. Other, bad, Les Mis adaptations — the adaptations that generally portray Jean Valjean a worse more violent person — also usually make Jean Valjean more confident in himself, more confident in his own feelings/desires, more certain that he’s entitled to certain things, and more willing to demand or take what he wants.

But one major aspect of book Jean Valjean's personality is that he does not have a healthy relationship with anything about himself. He has a tortured broken relationship with his own identity. He repeatedly thinks about “Jean Valjean” as a person outside of himself, a person who he finds frightening, repulsive, savage, and horrible— like a wild animal he needs to sedate, or beat into submission. He is obsessed with self-denial and self-repression. He is fixated on the idea that he is subhuman, that he is not allowed to want things or to pursue having any kinds of relationships with other people-- and that the most heroic thing he can do is "grab himself by the collar” and violently force himself to stay away from the things he wants. He is desperate to be loved and fixated on being unworthy of love and on denying himself love. He is absolutely not at peace with his identity: to paraphrase Jean Valjean in one of the later chapters, he believes he can only gain inner peace by “eviscerating his own entrails.”

He is never truly content with who he is, what he wants, or what kind of love he wants— and he never learns to be. The novel ends with him cutting himself off from his only family, breaking ties with the only person who loves him, and essentially slowly killing himself out of self-loathing.

There are other characters in Les Mis who seem very content with who they are and what they want. Enjolras is self-assured in his identity, and doesn’t appear to feel like there is any kind of love that is missing from his life. Whether you interpret him as gay or ace or trans or w/e, book!Enjolras is written as someone who is extremely self-assured and has a loving support system that is enough to keep him happy. But I don’t think that’s true for Jean Valjean at all XD.

And that’s why it's hard to apply labels like “aromantic” or “ace” or gay/straight/etc to Jean Valjean, when talking about his canon characterization. Those labels imply the person has a basic level of comfort with acknowledging their own desires/lack of desire/identity. And Jean Valjean never achieves that level of comfort. What “label” do you give to someone whose relationship with their identity is “I do not belong in a family, I have no right to want things, I have no right to be happy, I am outside of life, and I will never be at peace until I eviscerate my own entrails?” Is there a “self-disembowelment" pride flag? XD I've seen a lot of interpretations that go "Jean Valjean never expresses any interest in romance, he's perfectly content just to have his relationship with his daughter" but I honestly don't think that's true. Jean Valjean tries to content himself with having only Cosette. But part of why everything explodes so catastrophically in the end of the novel is because he needs more than just a paternal relationship. He doesn’t try to have a “normal” father-daughter relationship with Cosette, he tries to force his relationship with Cosette to be literally everything and everyone to him, for her to be his entire world: and it doesn’t work.

There’s a passage in the novel that talks about how all the love Valjean is capable of ends up being suppressed/sublimated into his relationship with Cosette. The love of a brother, of a friend, of a father, of a husband, the love of everything he is capable of, gets repressed so that he can throw every part of himself into being a father. There are Bad les mis adaptations that incorrectly misinterpret that passage to mean that Jean Valjean is incestuous/grooming Cosette. But in context, that’s not what the passage means at all.

The passage specifies very explicitly that Jean Valjean “did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father,” that “no marriage was possible between them,” that his feelings for her are absolutely paternal. But the passage does show how Jean Valjean is doing a very different unhealthy thing: he’s relying on Cosette to fill every single emotional void in his life.

He’s relying on parenthood to fill the grief/emptiness left behind by all the other kinds of love that he has wanted, but never been given.

To quote a bit of that passage:

Jean Valjean did not love Cosette otherwise than as a father (…) Let the reader recall the situation of heart which we have already indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of souls; and yet, it is certain that their destinies were wedded. With the exception of Cosette, that is to say, with the exception of a childhood, Jean Valjean had never, in the whole of his long life, known anything of that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other had not produced in him those successive green growths, tender green or dark green, which can be seen in foliage which passes through the winter and in men who pass fifty. In short, and we have insisted on it more than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his country, his paradise.

Jean Valjean reminds me of a Failmode I’ve seen in a lot of different real-life parents? There are parents who cope with their own hard lives by telling themselves that parenthood is their sole reason for being alive, and who obsess over their child’s success as their only source of purpose, meaning, love, happiness, community, and validation. But it’s a bad idea to rely on one child to provide the emotional support that should be shared by friends, parents, siblings, every possible loved one, etc etc—- One child can’t actually heal you from your trauma, be a replacement for your broken relationships, pull you out of your grief, save you from your adult loneliness, etc etc etc etc.

When I see the common interpretation that Jean Valjean is perfectly content just to be the father of Cosette, I think of this line:

Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this crushing proof: “another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish of her life; there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her father, I no longer exist”; when he could no longer doubt, when he said to himself: “She is going away from me!” the grief which he felt surpassed the bounds of possibility. To have done all that he had done for the purpose of ending like this! And the very idea of being nothing!

On one hand, the terrible Les mis adaptations that portray Valjean as Incest Creep are incorrect and wrong. On the other hand, though, Jean Valjean IS unhealthy about Cosette— just in a different and actually sympathetic way.

He has made fatherhood his only purpose, to replace every other purpose he could have in life. So he can’t be “just Cosette’s father.” He can’t imagine her becoming an adult and leaving the nest, like children do. What does he have if he’s not taking care of her? What is his purpose in life if she doesn’t need him to be her parent? He's not just being her father, he's relying on her to be his entire reason to exist. He hasn't been allowing himself to have things outside of her.

And speaking of things outside of Cosette: segue time. This post was supposed to be about Jean Valjean and romance, so let's switch gears and talk about his canon 'romantic experiences' more:

We’re told that in his youth he “never had a sweetheart” because he “never had time to be in love.” There is no indication that Jean Valjean never wanted to be in love. The opposite is implied. Hugo frames it as a tragedy that Jean Valjean’s does not experience young love; it’s the horror of poverty taking yet another thing from him.

Within prison, Valjean is “gloomy” and “chaste;” when he traumadumps to Montparnasse about it, he talks about women looking on galley slaves with horror and disgust. Romance, at least “normal” heterosexual romance, is no longer something that is permitted for him. Jean Valjean knows very little about romance/love/sex and it repeatedly messes up his life. He spends 19 years in the all-male environment of prison, then about a decade in the almost-all-female environment of the convent. He has very little experience with how men and women are supposed to interact. The oppression Fantine faces as a sex worker, and Cosette's relationship with Marius, are both two big 'blind spots' that he struggles with.

At one point romantic love is described as “The only misery Jean Valjean had not yet experienced, and the only one that is sweet.”

In his massive confession to Marius, he agonizes over how he is not allowed to be part of a family, and is incapable of being part of a home. He compares himself to someone sick and diseased, that poisons good and normal people with his presence, and cannot be allowed to make himself part of their families.

So Jean Valjean doesn’t frame Romance as “a thing he doesn’t want:” it’s a thing “he is not allowed to want,” it is one of the many things he is banned from wanting. It's impossible to tell what kind of things he would want, if he were allowed to want them.

One of the most interesting things to me, however, is his general attitude towards Marius/Cosette.

Obviously his first reaction to Marius snooping around is fear and resentment— he doesn’t know to interact with romance, having never experienced it, and immediately begins catastrophizing. He views Marius as a privileged booby ruining his life for something as frivolous as a love affair: it reads to me as partially envy, envy of the fact that Marius lives the kind of safe comfortable life that allows him to experience young love.

Jean Valjean added: “What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg.”

But, even though Jean Valjean views romance as something he isn’t allowed or have or to want, views it as a threat and catastrophizes over how it will ruin his life……he seems to also put heterosexual romance on a pedestal.

The way Jean Valjean idealizes marriage is one of his weirdest character notes for me.

He views marriage as Cosette’s “happy ending.” It’s her “happily ever after” point where she won’t need him anymore, where she won’t need anyone outside of her husband. A Man And a Woman Are Meant to Get Married, It's Fate, and It Means They Will Live Happily Together Forever. Marius is “the goal of her heart, the wish of her life; her dearest one.” Nothing outside of that matters anymore.

He treats her marriage as if romantic love is inherently always more important than any kind of platonic relationships, and always takes priority over them. He later dismisses the unconventional family structure he has with Cosette, saying that despite his love for her he was only a "passerby" and was not actually her real father, because they were not biologically related.

There's a moment where Jean Valjean is described as someone whose ideal is to be angel on the inside and a bourgeois on the outside. Jean Valjean's worship of bourgeois social norms, norms he can never truly be a part of, is one of his character flaws. He has a similar "guard dog" energy as Eponine does when she defends Rue Plumet from her parents.....Eponine and Jean Valjean both become the guard dogs of a kind of romantic relationship they believe they are banned from having. Jean Valjean believes that getting Happily Straight Married in a Middle-Class Home with a Picket Fence(tm) is the ideal path for life....but believes himself broken/incapable of ever following that path. And so he instead throws his entire life into securing that future for Marius and Cosette.

In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness of Cosette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness, it was he who had brought it about; he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, and at that moment, when he reflected on it, he was able to enjoy the sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it, all smoking, from his own breast. Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette. They had everything, even riches. And this was his doing.

TL: DR:

Jean Valjean's gender/sexuality label is “idk but he’s super fucked up about it.”

[an-deeznutz]

Saw something about Destiel the other day and I can't stop thinking about it

How "in another life" isn't possible, how that was the ONLY life Destiel *was* possible, and even then it *wasn't* and it's so tragic

Just the thought of like, "this life was the only one where you and I could have loved, where we could have *been*, but it has always been doomed to fail

We never could have been, even in the one we could have"

WHYYYY

[sexbot300]

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹ brat-tamer!toji

authors note: no thots, just him. this is just pure smut, sorry lollllll. need him so bad u don’t understand. with that being said, minors dni, 18+ ! thank you for the love on my first few posts! i appreciate it all of it <3 i'm not ignoring my messages btw, just extremely busy with my studies! ♡

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ ʚɞ ୧⋆ ˚｡⋆

brat-tamer!toji who notices you acting up and simply asks, “cranky because you ain’t got dick today?”

brat-tamer!toji who only looks at you with a raised brow and (huge) arms across his chest when you purposely try to piss him off. so cute.

brat-tamer!toji who purposely puts his entire body weight on top of you when you beg him to stop due to overstimulation. he tugs you even closer, just laughing in your face.

brat-tamer!toji who stops thinking coherent thoughts when he sees you in a sundress.

brat-tamer!toji who rewards your good behavior with head (lets you squirt) and also punishes your bad behavior with head (denies you relief, gives in eventually, sometimes).

brat-tamer!toji who loooovessssss shoving your face into the pillow while you whine, pant, and moan. he loves to put your head into a headlock with his bicep, as drool escapes your lips, and you’re babbling like an idiot while he’s hitting it from the back.

brat-tamer!toji who casually lifts you up and fucks you in the air as if just anyone can do it. “such a perfect little pocket pussy,” he snickers.

brat-tamer!toji who gets you cock drunk so often (he’s starting to think that it’s your normal state).

brat-tamer!toji who likes to make you count every time he spanks the fat of your ass when arched up across his lap. slap! “24…” you say with a slight moan, biting your bottom lip in, as he soothes the red outline forming on your cheek. he grins above you, “should’ve known a cock-bent whore like you would take this as pleasurable rather than punishment.”

brat-tamer!toji who makes a safe word with you early on (which you tease him for doing so early, he only tsks because he knows YOU know how much you mean to him and he puts your well-being above anything else).

brat-tamer!toji who has a hidden collection of pictures on his phone with you smiling, his cum decorating your face.

brat-tamer!toji who grips your face in the middle of a make out session, pulling away as he notices your fucked out, panting expression. “open.” you quickly open up your mouth as he slowly lets spit hit onto your tongue. he lightly chuckles. “obedient slut.” you look at him, eyebrows furrowed and eyes wanting more. “swallow.”

brat-tamer!toji who finds his favorite position to be when his massive balls are hitting your clit and he mercilessly pounds, abusing your little cunt from the back as he strings profanity out of his mouth. or a full nelson where he just tells you to, “shut the fuck up and take it.” or even a mating press where he can pummel his cum into you while seeing your face contort in pure bliss. “y-yeah. ‘ust let loose. go dumb on this dick.”

brat-tamer!toji who regularly calls you; “slut, (needy or cock) whore, vixen, pretty, disgusting, (stupid) bitch, brat, bad girl, good girl, perfect, beautiful, gorgeous, princess, angel, (sex or fuck) toy, doll, bunny, cum-slut, cum-dumpster, sugar… etc”

brat-tamer!toji who gets annoyed at your endless ramblings about your day, he sighs and tells you to get on your knees. you promptly do that, but to push his buttons you don’t stop rambling on and on and on. somehow, this man manages to get his 8 (girthy) inches down your throat. “cant complain with my cock in your mouth, huh?” he only smirks as you become teary-eyed, moaning a little at his statement, lapping your tongue up and down like a starving dog. he throws his head back, forearms supporting him while you bob your head back and forth on his thick length. “hey… never said that my cock doesn’t appreciate your tongue. s’ch a good girl when you do what you’re made for. unh!”

brat-tamer!toji who presses against you into a mirror, his broader, massive frame encasing you while he stares into your soul. “i-i don’t understand what i did?” you look up at him feigning innocence, batting your eyelashes. fingers caress his forearms, down his hard bicep, and lightly trace his hardened outline. his eyes never leave yours, a stern, menacing look to the average person, but you can tell he’s about to have you praying for mercy in another way. “of course you don’t understand what you did.” you whine slightly when his fingers suddenly grab a fist full of your hair, burning your scalp, his voice turns mockingly softer. “all you know in that pretty, empty, head of yours is just fucking. nothing else.” he quickly releases you, eliciting a gasp, magically flipping you around in an instant so you’re staring at yourself in the mirror now. “told you not to play with yourself until i came home. but you just haaad to be difficult.” he gripped the vibrator in one hand that was tucked away, pressing it against your lips. “spit.” you spat on it, eyes full of want. he only snickered and smirked. “good luck thinking I’m going to let you cum. stare in the mirror while I do this.” he turned the toy on, a vibrating tune humming throughout the room. “need you to realize how pathetic you look begging.” you gasped slightly, “b-but-" he proceeds to pry your legs apart with one massive thigh, his hand gripping the front of your neck, forcing you to look at yourself in the mirror. “push your skirt up. you lost your right to cum, stupid whore. cum without permission, see what happens.”

brat-tamer!toji who loves to fuck you on his fingers. he loves the lewd noise it makes while ramming his two middle fingers in and out, or up and down. he loves to see your jaw go slack as you beg him to stop. “i-it’s… uhhhhhh! t-to- ah! -ji, toooooo-uhhh much!” he never loses focus, “yeah? yeah?” he presses his hand on your lower abdomen, “quite honestly, don’t care what you think.” he only licks his lips, his scarred lip grins with anticipation to finally taste you when you unfold.

brat-tamer!toji who degrades you like it’s a living but LIVES for your filthy mouth. he loves that you talk back, he’ll never admit it. he loves putting cum sluts like you in their place.

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

brat-tamer!toji who weirdly… gets needy at times when you finish. he’ll hold you from behind, shutting his eyes while his arms are wrapped around, practically glued to your torso, the backside of your body molds perfectly to the front of his. legs intertwined, your head against his chest, a moment of pure bliss shared between you two. “who knew the big bad toji likes to cuddle?” “shut up.”

(silly toji! i need him to ruin me)