skygiants

I was supposed to write about my current feelings about Les Mis for melannen on the 6th for the December meme, but instead I was at a bachelorette party in Atlantic City and the hotel didn't have free internet, which means you are spared the prospect of me attempting to answer this question after having drunk several shots of vodka.

( Ugh, this is very long and full of petty complicated personal feelings and MIGHT AS WELL have been written drunk anyway )

elsane has already tackled the theme of 'Marius accidentally helps the Revolution' and done it better, but here's another stab at it.


Title: Marius Rises in the Esteem of the Revolution
Fandom: Les Miserables
Characters: Marius, Courfeyrac, Enjolras. Up at the AO3 over here.

( It is not Marius' fault that his friends mix their metaphors. )

I said to myself, "all right, all right, I'm back in the same fandom that I was when I was SEVENTEEN, but at least I'm not writing overwrought fanfic for it!" Cue hollow laughter.

Title: on your way up to the light
Fandom: Les Miserables
Characters: Jean Valjean, Eponine, Cosette, Marius, Gavroche
Summary: Brick AU of the 'small canon divergence leads to slightly larger changes' variety, and also of the 'I have a lot of feelings about parallels between Eponine and Valjean' variety. Eponine throws a note at Valjean; she doesn't anticipate the consequences.
Notes: Warnings for suicidal ideation. Title comes from the Mountain Goats song Amy aka Spent Gladiator. Also up at the AO3, over here. Thanks to genarti for the beta!

( He took it, unfolded it, and read on it, in large letters written with a pencil: MOVE OUT. )

So in between Heyers I've been reading the Memoirs of Vidocq, who as you all probably know is the French escape artist/policeman/spy who served as the inspiration for both Valjean and Javert.

If this is the reason you are reading the book, as I was, the first third of the memoirs are kind of less interesting; it's basically a chronicle of Roguish Young Vidocq joining the army, deserting from the army, changing his name, seducing ladies, joining the army again, fighting some duels, seducing more ladies, lather, rinse, repeat. Try and imagine Javert or Valjean in this position if you like, but if you can, your imagination is better than mine. (Although it is sort of interesting from a historical perspective, in that two things were apparently REALLY EASY in post-revolutionary France: a.) joining an army regiment under a fake name, because everything was so confused that nobody could keep track, and b.) pretending to be an aristocrat who left behind a secret hoard of pre-Revolution money before fleeing, which was every con artist's favorite game.)

Anyway, eventually he gets thrown in prison, and escapes a bunch of times -- most memorably, cross-dressed as a NUN -- and then he gets thrown in the galleys and has an epic "OH SHIT" realization and escapes some more and attempts to go straight, only to get repeatedly recognized by old prison buddies going "hey hey VIDOCQ buddy, let's commit some crime, you in? >:D" to which Vidocq will answer ". . . . sure!" and then attempt to skedaddle in the opposite direction.

Finally he decides his only choice is not only to go straight, but to turn himself in to the Paris police as a spy. Which means that now, every time someone goes "hey hey Vidocq buddy, let's commit some crime, you in? >:D" Vidocq will go "SURE!" and then ensure that they all get caught at the MOST DRAMATIC POSSIBLE MOMENT. Vidocq has no qualms whatsoever about assuring his criminal friends that they have nothing to fear from him and then turning around and stabbing them directly in the back; his general attitude is "if you're stupid enough to get caught, you completely deserve it."

In case you wonder where Hugo got Javert's sense of drama: it's direct from Vidocq, man. It is from Vidocq in SPADES. However, Vidocq is better at it than Javert, because Javert does not lie, and Vidocq is more than happy to lie repeatedly for a good cause. Some particularly notable exploits of Vidocq:

- the time that he charged in to arrest a criminal whose wife was in the middle of giving birth; Vidocq decides he can't go get a midwife in case the guy escapes, and then calmly DELIVERS THE BABY HIMSELF. They name him the godfather before he hands the guy off to prison
- that time he spent like SIX MONTHS in jail in disguise as a German peasant just so he could become BFF with a suspect so that he could dramatically arrest him as soon as he got out
- the time he spent three hours listening to a guy ranting about about how he would buy a drink for anyone who would show him to Vidocq and let him punch him out, and then calmly arrested him and told him that he owed him, Vidocq, SO MANY DRINKS
- the time that he was in disguise and hanging out with a band of criminals that he was going to arrest later:
CRIMINALS: We're bored! Let's put on . . . a play!
VIDOCQ: What play?
CRIMINALS: Let's play "that super jerk spy Vidocq is a huge tool!" But who's gonna be Vidocq?
VIDOCQ: OOH OOH ME ME ME PLEASE LET ME PLAY VIDOCQ >:D >:D >:D

And then of course four hours later he arrested them all, and was like, "Yeah, you're probably mad about that, but look -- at least you get to tell all your criminal buddies the story of the time Vidocq played Vidocq, and that's TOTALLY WORTH IT, right?" Vidocq, I hate to break it to you, but that is probably not as worth it to them as it is to you.

However, the best bit of the book by far is not about Vidocq at all, but about his acquaintance Sophie the Dashing Lady Thief. Vidocq eventually catches Sophie, of course, but she's very chill about it, which, Vidocq casually explains, is because she's a BIG OL' SAPPHO and is A-OK with hanging out in the lesbian prison scene. Then he tells the story about the time her girlfriend got locked up and Sophie got herself denounced so they wouldn't have to be separated. Apparently, according to Vidocq, this happens ALL THE TIME in the criminal Parisian lesbian underworld. WHICH IS A THING. So now you know.

(Dashing lesbian lady thieves: as always, the best gift a book can give me. Historically accurate dashing lesbian lady thieves, even better!)

At last, we're here: Book Five, "Jean Valjean," ( THE DEATH OF EVERYONE YOU LOVE. )

So we're up to Book Three: "Marius," which was sort of a weird reading experience for me, because - okay, so bear in mind, the last time I read this book, I was sixteen or thereabouts, and my main takeaway from this section was a PASSIONATE HATRED of Marius. In fact, I am pretty sure I have commented in several locations over the past couple weeks about my fiery hatred of book Marius. Terrible! Judgmental! Prudish! Insufficiently revolutionary!

And, I mean, all of these things are perfectly true, but some time over the past ten years a switch has flipped in my head and suddenly I kind of kind of love Terrible Failbot Marius? ( THE CHILD IS HILARIOUS. )

If you follow me on Twitter you've already gotten spammed with this, but I'm sorry this is going on every social media platform I own:



LES MIS 2D FIGHTER COMPUTER GAME

Featuring player characters such as Enjolras, Eponine, Jean Valjean, and ROBOJEAN. Why? WHY NOT.

My favorite part is when Marius uses his special move to summon an army of undead skeletal revolutionaries to defeat the police.

(That's not even true, my favorite part is when Eponine dramatically whisks away her cross-dressing jacket right before starting battle. BUT THE UNDEAD REVOLUTIONARIES ARE ALSO GOOD.)

YOU'RE WELCOME

So now that I've seen it twice, because yes, I am that ridiculous, let's talk about the Les Miserables movie!

I cannot actually talk to its quality, because as soon as I sat down in the theater I immediately lost ten years of wisdom, cynicism and general life experience and became once again the shiny-eyed seventeen-year-old who haunted dead revolutionary fanfiction forums. Which is to say, I had a lot of feelings and I am UTTERLY INCAPABLE of making any kind of critical assessment of this movie whatsoever.

What I can say: this movie was clearly made by people who passionately loved both the musical and the novel and wanted to fit them together as much as humanly possible. Some noticeable touches:

( Technically these would be spoilers, I suppose. )

And now I have decided to reread the book, which is going to take me the next, er, little while. Les Miserables the novel is divided into five books, and I think I might write it up book by book, since seventeen-year-old Becca has SO MUCH TO SAY about Les Mis the novel, like, you don't even understand. So fair warning! I will try to lj-cut my "EXHAUSTIVE DETAILS ABOUT LES MIS CANON" posts so everyone who has no interest (which is pretty much everyone) can scroll past them.

The back cover of Marie Lu's Legend informed me that the author "was first inspired to write Legend while watching Les Miserables one afternoon, and wondered how the relationship between a famous criminal vs. a prodigious detective might translate into a more modern story."

It is not Marie Lu's fault that this somehow explicitly led me to expect a genderswapped steampunk Javert/Valjean fanfic about an obsessive police officer with a black-and-white morality and the escaped prisoner she pursues over the course of three or four decades . . . but apparently somehow this is something that my soul desperately craves, because I was unfairly disappointed not to get it.

Not that Legend is not good! Legend is a perfectly enjoyable dystopian YA novel about two SUPER TEEN PRODIGIES, one who is accelerating within the system (but only because she doesn't know all the terrible things the system does) and one who works outside the system (and is accused of terrible crimes, but has only ever committed the non-murderous ones), and how she's sent to bring him in because she thinks he killed her brother, and it's all very dramatic and interestingly world-built and involves government plague conspiracies and that's fine, I will totally be willing to read the sequel and see where it goes! I did wish that there was more of a clash of legitimately opposed ideologies, as opposed to the heroine realizing that everything she believes in is wrong. ( Spoilers. )

Anyway, it all worked out, because now that I've realized the tragic scarcity of YA novels with the EPIC MELODRAMA of Javert/Valjean slash fiction at their heart, I have simply decided that someday I am going to have to write my own, except with lesbians. (Working title: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF JAVERTINA.) You're welcome, world!

This also however begs the question of which OTHER famous musical nemeses should be updated into steampunk dystopian YA novels. I have provided some options for you, so please feel free to vote for your favorite! I will almost certainly not write it for you but YOU NEVER KNOW.



The depressing secret of my life is that I would one hundred percent read all of these. (But especially Velma/Robot Roxie.)

PLEASE ALSO SUGGEST YOUR OWN.