to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

This is a Les Mis sideblog

[soracities]

“What I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.”

— Chris Abani

[beyondallstars]

HEY I LOVE YOUR ART

Omg wow hey I love you!! Thanks so much!

[beyondallstars]

Combeferre. His industrial piercing is an EKG line

[beyondallstars]

Hey, i said it in the tags but... your colored les mis is really really vibrant, like... it flows through me and it's really beautiful, like those fast-forward blooming flower videos? Lots of details and new details appearing the more i watch, and full of life. (I don't watched nor read any les mis stuff, i just see some fandom post sometimes) (but my friend do) (soI saw when they reblogged the Grantaire one and it... calmed down a beggining of panick attack) (so thank you very very much)

This is such a beautiful and inspiring message, thank you so much for taking the time to let me know. I never thought that something I made could have such a positive effect on anyone, it honestly means so much to me. It should be me thanking you!! :“’) You’re so sweet, and I hope you’re feeling a little better, and it’s so touching to know that I could be a source of relief for you in that moment. You’re doing amazing xoxo

[beyondallstars]

Courf is made of sunshine

[beyondallstars]

Grantaire, colored this time

[beyondallstars]

Enjolras Waiting for the Bus Aesthetic vol. 2 ft. color!

ripped jeans and flannel shirt from bedroom floor

is this Courfeyrac’s t-shirt? smells like bubblegum and vodka

tired mole eyes

wire frame ‘90s Scully glasses bc fuck contacts at 6 am

pencil holding together messy bun

the perennial Black Hairband on Wrist

civil rights law lecture playing at a passive-aggressive volume from giant headphones around neck

quad shot espresso bc he’s had 45 minutes of sleep in two days and he needs to be hearing colors by the time he gets to class

about 30 pounds of overdue books

pins to offend conservative businessmen (”workers unite!” is def a gift from Feuilly)

not pictured: the chat group on his phone with 79 unread texts from Grantaire and Jehan, apartment keys locked inside the apartment, did he remember to turn off the shower this morning?

[beyondallstars]

tiny trash son. I’ve always been totally undecided about R’s tattoos except that he has some

deaths head hawk moth

barbed wire with “dead end” lmfao

poppies

????

he has a lot of scars to cover

[beyondallstars]

Enjolras Waiting for the Bus Aesthetic

ripped jeans and flannel shirt from bedroom floor

is this Courfeyrac’s t-shirt? smells like bubblegum and vodka

tired mole eyes

wire frame ‘90s Scully glasses bc fuck contacts at 6 am

pencil holding together messy bun

the perennial Black Hairband on Wrist

civil rights law lecture playing at a passive-aggressive volume from giant headphones around neck

quad shot espresso bc he’s had 45 minutes of sleep in two days and he needs to be hearing colors by the time he gets to class

about 30 pounds of overdue books

pins to offend conservative businessmen (”workers unite!” is def a gift from Feuilly)

not pictured: the chat group on his phone with 79 unread texts from Grantaire and Jehan, apartment keys locked inside the apartment, did he remember to turn off the shower this morning?

[beyondallstars]

@trapeziius

This isn’t Les Mis but it’s still important

[beyondallstars]

I did things this afternoon!! Curlicue Montparnasse is my fav if only for the implication that he owns a curling iron 

[beyondallstars]

there are aspects of all of these faces that I hate and like but that back tho

[beyondallstars]

the only things I know for sure about Feuilly are that he has a ton of freckles and giant sparkly baby deer eyes, and that he wears a keffiyeh 

[beyondallstars]

Modern AU

How much of E's anger issues do you think you can contribute back to his feeling abandoned by his mother. What do you think that first night at his aunt's was like. Imagine if she had gone to pick him up from his mother's apartment earlier that day, just before she had to check in to the rehab center, and had to hurry back home because her husband was having an important party with some colleagues, it was too late to reschedule, and the house wasn't quite ready to receive guests. Imagine if it was a holiday party, just a few days before Christmas. Imagine E, still wrapped up in the scarf his mother wound around his neck before he walked out of her door for the last time, wordlessly tailing his aunt all afternoon as she went through the final preparations. He tries to help where he can, believing the productivity will keep his mind off of his mother, but mostly he just gets in the way. His aunt tries her best to hide her exasperation behind tight-lipped smiles but he can still hear it in her sighs. He begins to realize, from the first day, that he's a burden. His aunt didn't choose to bring him home, she simply felt like she had no other choice. He's just another one of his mother's problems that she's had to inherit, and fix. He stops feeling like a child at eight years old.

And imagine, as the first guests start to arrive, his aunt putting an arm around his shoulder and guiding him towards his new bedroom at the back of the house. Talking to him in a low voice about how the party is going to be such a bore, just a crowd of grown-ups in stiff formalwear discussing their work and laughing at bad jokes, hardly anything of interest to a young boy, and why doesn't Enjolras just try to get some rest instead, he's had a long day, she'll be back in fifteen minutes with a plate of cookies and canapes from the buffet table. She's awkward with him as she sits him on the edge of his bed. She doesn't know what to say, she speaks to him like he's an adult, gets uncomfortable with his silence, touches him with just the tips of her fingers, like she's afraid anything more substantial will startle him into flight or worse. After a few minutes of trying to reassure him that she'll be just across the house if he should need anything at all, she ruffles his hair (terrible, regrettable, embarrassing for both of them) and leaves him. And that's where he stays for the rest of the evening. Perched on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at his bedroom door, face half-buried in his mother's scarf (the smell of her cigarettes on the fabric nearly makes him cry; he does cry the first time his aunt washes the scarf). He doesn't move to touch the food his aunt brings. He's not hungry, but he does feel hollow. There are pieces of him, vital pieces, that turn up missing when he goes searching. Maybe he left them behind at the apartment, he left in such a rush, maybe he should go back, but no, he can't. He asked so many times that afternoon that his aunt is already tired of explaining it to him, with her eyebrows pinched together and a "Please, Enjolras" that stretches thinner every time. He sits there, feeling small and helpless and unlovable, isolated and adrift on the tide of noise that pours down the hallway from the party--clinking glasses, jazzy holiday tunes, swelling laughter, voices rising with happiness that now seems so unfamiliar and far-off as to be unobtainable. It's offensive, the way these people can carry on and pretend everything is okay when the world is on the edge of ruination. And his aunt's laugh is worst of all, so like his mother's, a reminder of all he lost. He hates her for it; she's a crude imitation. When the anger comes, it fills the empty spaces inside him. It settles in and becomes everything he was looking for.

He spends the rest of the night systematically trashing his bedroom to block out the sounds from down the hall. When, around midnight, his aunt and uncle come to check on him, his aunt screams and drops her glass--the room is destroyed, the mattress flipped, curtains torn down and shredded, windows broken, lamps and lightbulbs shattered, drawers torn out and their contents overturned, closet doors hanging off their hinges, clothes and toys scattered everywhere, carpet ripped up from the edges of the floor, Enjolras nowhere to be seen. She's gasping about how someone must have broken in and taken him, what if it was one of his mother's old boyfriends, they need to call the police immediately, and she runs for the phone as her husband steps into the wreckage. It takes him all of sixty seconds to find Enjolras--he's curled up under the bed, face to the wall, and his uncle breathes out a shaky, "Oh, God," as he hauls him out. Enjolras doesn't even respond--he's limp, breathing rapidly, staring fixedly in one direction. His aunt rushes back in to say the police are on their way and she absolutely breaks down when she sees Enjolras in her husband's arms. She goes to him, sobs when she sees the blood on his face and hands, crushes him close and asks him over and over again what happened, did somebody hurt you, please say something Enjolras, what's WRONG. But he's just... gone. He's not in his head anymore. He's floating somewhere she can't reach him.

The police come but there's nothing much they can do: he's not talking, no one saw anything, there's no indication of a break-in and nothing seems to be missing. There's blood on the floor where the carpet was torn away from the wall and it seems consistent with the wounds on Enjolras' hands--his fingertips are ripped raw, he's missing a couple nails. The police offer to send a team over to investigate but it's becoming increasingly apparent that Enjolras did all of this himself. And the aunt and uncle, safe behind the walls of their privilege, don't get taken in to the station for further questioning--the uncle is a well-respected member of the community, the police don't even consider neglect or abuse as a possibility, it doesn't even cross their minds. They recommend that they take Enjolras to the hospital for a thorough examination and then they leave. That's when the questions turn from beseaching to demanding. Why would he do this, what was he thinking, does he have any idea how upset they are, what if he'd seriously hurt himself, WHY WON'T HE SAY ANYTHING. There's a dark vacancy behind his eyes that's scaring the shit out of his aunt and she doesn't even realize she's screaming until her husband puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her, Enough, go get some bandages and call your sister, tell the clinic it's an emergency.

It's only after she's out of the room that Enjolras comes back into himself. He lets his uncle wipe the blood from his face and shakes his head yes or no to simple questions (Did you do all this? Yes. Was someone else in here? No. Are you hurt anywhere else? No. Is this about something we did? No answer. Do you understand this is where you live now? ...Yes. And your aunt and I got all of this stuff so you could be happy? He doesn't understand this one. If they wanted him to be happy, why are they keeping him from his mother, why did they make her go away). Enjolras had always been an intelligent, respectful child, everyone had expected his first night to pass smoothly--a little weepy, maybe, but they'd planned for that. They'd hoped the initial transition would pass quietly. No one ever would have predicted anything like this. This is what his aunt and uncle discuss as Enjolras cries at his mother over the phone. This isn't a typical tantrum, is it? Should they take him to a therapist or should they just try to tough out the first week and see where they all end up? What if it gets worse? What if there's A Problem? Enjolras listens to them talk in his doorway long after his mother hurriedly says good night and the phoneline goes dead. "Problem" is the word he hears over and over again, stitched in with the discordantly cheerful Christmas music from down the hallway.

(Christmas never really stops dredging up bad memories for E. He's very relieved when he discovers R has always observed Hanukkah.)

The anger is something he learns to live with. It nestles down behind his ribs, all cruel claws and black, oily feathers, and that's where it stays. For years. So long, in fact, that he has no idea who or what he'd be without it. He runs away a lot his first year at his aunt and uncle's. Sometimes the police bring him home, sometimes he goes back on his own. He doesn't even really understand why he does it, just that he can't seem to stop no matter how many times he's made his aunt cry. Maybe he's broken, maybe it's in his blood--his father ran away from his mother before he was born, his mother abandoned him eight years later, maybe it's an inherited defect. Maybe this is why his aunt and uncle decide boarding school, rather than a private school, is the best option for him. He clearly hates living at home with them (except he doesn't, not after the first month, he recognizes that this is a stable environment and strange people aren't constantly coming and going, he's never left alone but he always has his own space when he needs to withdraw, this is a safe place) so why make him suffer. They honestly do want what's best for him. They just don't know what that is. So they send him away. And imagine how THAT must feel. The school has him identified as a problem child after the first week. They phone and write his aunt so often it becomes tiresome. They're not sure they're a good fit for his particular needs, they can't give his classmates the attention and education they deserve when all the focus must constantly be on him. He's uncooporative and rebellious for no reason they can ascertain. They're not sure they can help him. It hurts the first time he hears it. And then he hears it again, and again, with increasing graveness as he gets older, angrier, develops bigger, more serious problems. It never stops hurting. He tries, but he seems incapable of doing good. He does WELL, academically speaking, but he's not GOOD. By the time he's thirteen he's gone through four schools and he stops feeling like he's worth anybody's time. Probablyyyy the point at which his school counselor recommends a good psychiatrist, because this kid has serious issues, he needs to see a fucking DOCTOR.

[beyondallstars]

Modern AU

Look what I found in my documents:

Okay so depending on which translation you're reading, Montparnasse is either referred to as a "charmer of the sepulcher" or the "flower of the underworld". To me, this presents AT LEAST two different, but not entirely separate, interpretations of his character: the former a fox among the tombstones, a pretty and clever vision in a place of desolation, a willing accessory to death--calculating predator, agile scavenger, darling vermin, and so it goes; the latter, something beautiful and lonely that blossoms in adversity--his presence is an anomaly, he was never meant to thrive in such an unforgiving environment, but he does, and he does it well ([Jeff Goldblum voice] life uhhhh finds a way); in spite of appearances, he's not delicate--he's a deep-rooted, enduring son of a bitch; in spite of appearances, he's not lovely--he's been nourished by the poison of his situation, he's got sharp thorns, he'll use your corpse for fertilizer. One is active, one is reactive. In either case, his primary characteristic seems to be DECEPTION. He's as easily concealed as a switchblade and twice as deadly. His entire persona, from his clothes to his mannerisms to his speech patterns, is a disguise, scrupulously maintained. But he's not representative of pure evil. He doesn't work in accordance with systematic oppression--the system is, in fact, STACKED AGAINST HIM, but he learns how to infiltrate it, navigate it and bend it to his will. And I don't think all the light in him is just a lure to pull others deeper into darkness--surely he does exactly that, but there's goodness too, vulnerability, where no one can see, a smoldering coal clenched in his heart's tight fist. And I'm all about that conflicting duality in complex characters--the big question is, are we meant to read his duality as harmonious or oppositional. Is it a balance in him or is it a struggle. I think both ways are interesting and valid. I don't think you necessarily have to choose, maybe it's a bit of both.

UM AND AN ABSURD BUT OBVIOUS THIRD INTERPRETATION OF "CHARMER OF THE SEPULCHER, FLOWER OF THE UNDERWORLD" IS A FUCKIN NECROMANCER LIKE HELLO. I SEE U VICTOR HUGO, WRITING THIS MUTANT AU FROM THE PAST.

He's an urchin turned vagabond turned desperado. He's a narcissist and a murderer and an agent of chaos, "feeding on evil an appetite that hungered always for worse". He's constantly got one foot in the darkness. Fandom is so split on how to characterize Montparnasse, and like all villains, he's either completely demonized or completely romanticized, AND I PROPOSE A MIDDLE GROUND!!!! I propose a version of Montparnasse who is painted in neither black nor white but mutable shades of gray, a version of Montparnasse who is not inherently evil, wicked for the sake of wickedness, but rather a product of the society into which he was born and raised. (He is absolutely one of those sneering "I never asked to be born" people, but he is equally one of those "my life is MINE and I'm going to squeeze it for everything it's got" people.) There's depth to him and I hate to see that reduced. Above all else, this character is opportunistic, not evil.

It's not hard to imagine why he'd turn to crime. He was born into and grew up in a world that offered him nothing, took what little he did have, and had the gall to expect his complacency. His actions aren't JUSTIFIED, but neither are they causeless. Injustice is as visible to him as it is to any member of Les Amis but unlike so many of them, he doesn't come from a place of privilege, and he's been so beaten down throughout his life that he lacks that dreamy idealism of ~building a better future~. He never had the luxury of allowing himself that hope. He sees things the way they are, and the way they've always been, and he has no desire to fight against that when no one has ever fought for him. He's driven by spite and anger, and he funnels that into the foundation of his OWN revolution. He takes these tyrannical power structures and he abuses them, carves out his own space within them, makes an absolute mockery of them. He'll flip the whole damn system on its ass. He'll be the reason people in high places won't walk the streets at night. He'll create his own criminal underworld right on the doorstep of the plutocracy and he'll bleed it dry. He has no inclinations towards harmonious living. He wants vengeance, blood in the streets, he wants infamy, and he wants the power and the autonomy that he's been denied all his life. And he WILL have it. This is also a revolution for the people. It has no chance of long-term sustainability, but it is empowering. There's an awful liberation in violence. I think Montparnasse is VERY concerned with giving control back to the masses. I think he can care deeply for the people who've earned his trust and he doesn't want to see them hurt anymore. Will the death of a corrupt politician solve anything? No. But it salves a wound.

He is, in essence, the perfect foil to Enjolras. A TERRIBLE YOUNG MAN CAPABLE OF BEING CHARMING!!!!!!!! If you want to think of Enjolras, at the farthest extent of his personality, as a light so bright as to be fierce and blinding, Montparnasse is the smothering dark. But neither of them operates exclusively at these extremes. Montparnasse is a thief and a killer and a conman but he softens for Eponine--they have that whole Hades/Persephone vibe going for them, where she's the slightest touch of spring that thaws his winter frosts. IT'S INTERESTING TO ME that Hugo actually describes Montparnasse in terms of springtime--vernal eyes, cherry lips, radiant pale skin, round hips, a flower pinned always to his jacket, young, graceful, seductive, classically effeminate. But it's all a veneer, and beneath his shine he's all ice and the seeds in his heart are dead and black!!!!!!!! BUT!!!! Eponine has the capacity to sew new life there (the capacity, not necessarily the will--I mean there IS a reason she's obsessed with Marius, and if she'd had a functional relationship with Parnasse she wouldn't have ~strayed~ if you can even CALL it that). Montparnasse does NOT have the capacity to nurture what she gives, but I do think he can appreciate tenderness, however fleeting. And I see no reason why other women wouldn't have the same effect on him--there are canon implications that he surrounds himself with women, and PERSONALLYYYYYYYYYY I see it less as ladies-man behavior and more as... Montparnasse genuinely prefers the company of women to men. I've seen some headcanons about feminist ally Montparnasse and I am SO there for that. Is he a criminal who does terrible things to people, innocent or otherwise? Yes. Is he completely morally bankrupt and abusive? I really really don't think so. I think he plays by his own rules, I think he has incredible, if toxic, skills of self-preservation. These aren't exactly admirable traits but they're realistic. ESPECIALLY if we're talking mutant AU Montparnasse, who's a member of at least one violently oppressed minority group. Are these not also qualities of Erik Lehnsherr???? The biggest difference between them being that Montparnasse has never had access to Erik's level of education--he'd talk with a carefully-concealed working-class accent, he'd distrust any information from authority figures, he's all self-taught and fiercely defensive of the fact (he'll accept any insult with a smirk except "stupid"--last person who called him stupid turned up in an abandoned elevator shaft, cause of death inconclusive, investigation pending).

I think there's another dark parallel with Enjolras, but this one may be more speculation than text-based, and definitelyyyyy subjective, but: Enjolras, highest and most pure, shocks you with his fall from grace; he spirals hard and his flaws reveal him to be human afterall. Montparnasse, lowly, debased, and vengeful, has SO. MUCH. POTENTIAL. to effect the opposite end of the human condition, to ascend to greater heights, if only he could find the impetus to spread his wings.

And don't... don't even get me started on what this parallel implies about Montparnasse/Grantaire...... oh God...... What's the Batman quote. "Madness, as you know, is a lot like gravity: all it takes is a little push." I could write a whole other essay about them.

[beyondallstars]

Modern AU

I’ve always had this idea that Grantaire and Jehan would have the most… touchy?? precarious?? relationship within Les Amis. They’re very dear to each other and they’re very similar in many ways but sometimes they’re just totally incompatible personalities—both prone to volatile emotional outbursts, positive AND negative, both struggling with huge, all-encompassing personal and mental health problems, both very much stuck in their own heads—and when they’re in certain moods, I think they’re both liable to find the other incredibly grating. Jehan will sometimes regard Grantaire’s nihilism with disdain, may bite back at Grantaire when he brings up a counter-argument at meetings, at other times may feel Grantaire isn’t treating an issue with the delicacy or respect they feel it deserves. Likewise, I think Grantaire occasionally finds Jehan’s whimsical nature immature, maybe even to the point where he’ll snap at some cryptic, offhand comment of Jehan’s and tell them, in more colorful words, to grow up. I don’t think this is their NORMAL, but I do think they can push each other to this edge.

They’re both such dark souls, though—a poet and an artist, for Christ’s sake. I think they share a similar interpretation of the human condition: the inevitability of death and loneliness in an indifferent universe, the idea that the earth is an infinitesimally small speck in the vast cosmic arena and humanity is frail and fleeting and insignificant, and for that reason it’s all the more important to treat each other with kindness and compassion (”for small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love”). And for as much as they might sometimes bicker or roll their eyes at each other I think they have a very deep understanding of one another. They’re both deeply entrenched in the beauty of the world and affected by the weight of even the smallest gestures—they’re both SO SENSITIVE. And it can be tense between them sometimes—Jehan can say careless, cutting things in the heat of the moment that they don’t really mean, Grantaire can be overly critical, they’ll both dwell on each other’s remarks far longer than they ought to—but when they’re good they’re BRILLIANT.

I think Grantaire will always feel most comfortable and at home with Bossuet and Joly but the time he spends with Jehan feels like ESCAPE. It’s a chance to say “fuck it” and lose himself for a while. And for Jehan it’s an opportunity to be unapologetically wild and at home in their skin. Grantaire makes no effort to hold Jehan DOWN, he just tries to hold ON, and for Jehan that makes all the difference. Grantaire is someone who will try to keep up rather than say “stop”—and God, of course that gets them into trouble sometimes but it’s also massively liberating. And on calm days I don’t think Jehan would much mind Grantaire’s creeping melancholy. They wouldn’t try hard to cheer Grantaire up, they’d just let him experience his emotions honestly, wouldn’t shame him for his behaviors, would only intervene in subtle ways and would decidedly NOT make a big deal about anything that goes on between them, and Grantaire wouldn’t feel like he has to hide these uglier parts of himself from Jehan because Jehan GETS IT. I think their Sad Grantaire Days together would involve a lot of art, a lot of braiding Jehan’s hair, a lot of smoking in quiet places where they can inconspicuously people-watch, a lot of minor chores around Jehan’s flat (R can’t stay in his own place when he gets like this), a lot of obscure jazz records and experimental vegan recipes and cuddly not-quite-naps on the couch, with sparing, but heavy, conversation. Jehan isn’t intrusive or distracting, he’s just a physical presence, and it’s enough to ground Grantaire.

And on manic days when Jehan just wants to run and fuck and self-destruct Grantaire would be a centering force. He’d keep Jehan close and talk them through impulses and get them away from the noise and the clamor of the city. Together they’d get into Grantaire’s piece of shit car and drive in one direction until they run out of gas, and then they’d stop off on the side of the road and sit in the grass and drink warm coffee from a thermos and count the blue cars that pass by. Or sometimes he’ll just take Jehan and they’ll ride the trains all night. The movement helps, Grantaire KNOWS that about Jehan—he doesn’t try to keep them contained, he just makes sure they’re safe. And when all the amis realize that none of them has seen or heard from Jehan in a day or two, Grantaire is often the first person to find them—they’ve walked the city so many times together on Sad Grantaire Days, Grantaire knows all the places Jehan is likely to go. Neither of them is particularly adept at caretaking, they’re both BABIES, they have different friends to fill those roles, but they’re still unwaveringly supportive of each other—so yeah, even if they DO fight and get on each other’s nerves, they’ll also both LEAP to defend the other, and I think this is something that would take the other amis aback. There are layers to this relationship that their other friends don’t usually see—the group dynamic changes them; Grantaire softens when he’s not under the scrutiny of the triumvirate, Jehan is less inclined towards rapid mood swings when they’re not overstimulated by a crowd. There are things they keep to themselves. Not even Joly and Bossuet know about that week Grantaire took Jehan to the ocean and camped with them on the beach for three days.

I HAVE. SO MANY FEELINGS. ABOUT THESE TWO BEING GOOD TOGETHER. THEY’RE NOT ALWAYS SWEET WITH EACH OTHER BUT THEY HAVE SUCH A PROFOUND BOND. THEY’RE LIKE FAMILY. THEY’RE MADE OF THE SAME STARSTUFF.

[beyondallstars]

The url is from this passage in The Iliad:

[Athena] gave [Diomedes] strength and courage, to be conspicuous among the Greeks and win the glory of valour. She made unwearying fire blaze from his shield and helmet, like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glitter in brilliance.  Such was the fire she made blaze from his head and shoulders, urging him into the midst of the throng of battle.

The blog title is from this stanza in Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses”:

Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The description comes from a bit in a book called The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.

"Am I [insane]? I've handed life and death back to the people who do the living and the dying. The common man's been whipped and led long enough by driven men like us.... Compulsive men... Tiger men who can't help lashing the world before them. We're all tigers, the three of us, but who the hell are we to make decisions for the world just because we're compulsive? Let the world make its own choice between life and death. Why should we be saddled with the responsibility?"

"We're not saddled," Y'ang-Yeovil said quietly. "We're driven. We're forced to seize responsibility that the average man shirks."

"Then let him stop shirking it. Let him stop tossing his duty and guilt onto the shoulders of the first freak who comes along grabbing at it. Are we to be scapegoats for the world forever?"

"Damn you!" Dagenham raged. "Don't you realize that you can't trust people? They don't know enough for their own good."

"Then let them learn or die. We're all in this together. Let's live together or die together."

"D'you want to die in their ignorance? You've got to figure out how to get those slugs back without blowing everything wide open."

"No. I believe in them. I was one of them before I turned tiger.” 

What you should be getting from this is that I’m obsessed with stars. Also, that none of these things are ACTUALLY IN REFERENCE TO LES MIS JFC. This is what happens when you leave it up to me. Also also, everyone should read The Stars My Destination.