a flame that never dies

[dandyclowny]

🚨LES MIS FANS, VALVERT SHIPPERS THIS IS NOT A DRILL🚨

HAYDEN TEE'S JAVERT IS OFFICIALLY GAY 🏳‍🌈

Source: @/haydentee on Instagram

[greyhyms-deactivated20220506]

LES MIS: WHAT THEY WERE REALLY THINKING  dont worry guys this is so legit gladiator would never lie to me

[daisymayys]

I love you poc enjolras headcanons and designs, I love you poc enj with dark/undyed hair, I love you asian enj and black enj and native enj and mixed enj and every other poc hc variation, I love you interpreting the pinnacle of beauty as non-eurocentric !!!!

[fluentisonus]

thinking abt this poll & how the thing is like. i don't ship it & generally it does not compel me much at all. Except for that one (1) moment where javert is tied up and asks for a drink and enjolras sternly but fairly helps him to drink a cup of water himself because javert can't hold it with his hands tied that makes you go. now wait a minute actually. for like just a second

[fluentisonus]

we could eroticise this a little is all I'm saying. it has potential

[polliantics]

Posting on 1/13/2026

[enbye]

From The Star Tribune, a local Minneapolis newspaper

[jiubilee]

The real tragedy about the barricade is that we don’t know how much is true. Victor Hugo was there at the June Rebellion, so what is fact and what is fiction? That question gives me chills because we’ll never know. 

[enjolras-in-valinor]

Charles Jeanne (who I think is probably actual real life Enjolras) wrote an in-detail account of the ACTUAL barricades in a letter to his sister after the fact

you can read it, tenlittlebullets translated it into English :)

it’s really graphic, he leaves no gory details out, just FYI if you’re gonna read it, keep TW: VIOLENCE  in mind

[tenlittlebullets]

#how is he real-life enjolras if he survived (via metellus-cimber)

I’m so glad somebody asked this, because the answer is: when they finally ran out of ammunition, Charles Jeanne rounded up everyone who was still standing, went, “look, if we’re going to die, we might as well die fighting,” and led a suicidal ten-man charge against an entire flippin’ infantry column, armed with nothing but bayonets. The first few ranks of soldiers were so unprepared for such a spectacularly insane attack that they were too surprised to shoot. They crossed bayonets and tried to hold the insurgents off in hand-to-hand combat, but Jeanne’s swordsmanship was apparently aces, because he held off a bunch of them at once and covered his friends as they tried to breach the ranks. And once they were in, nobody could shoot them for fear of taking out their own guys.

So the last stand that the insurgents had intended as a noble suicide ended in them breaking through the ranks entirely and winding up in the next street over, outside the combat zone, going “well shit, what do we do now?” (I’m guessing the infantry column wasn’t very deep; central Paris at that point was a rabbit warren of narrow twisty streets, and assembling troops en masse for an organized attack was a logistical nightmare.) Unlike the National Guard, the army weren’t total chumps and got themselves turned around to give chase and start shooting once they weren’t at risk of friendly fire any longer… and that’s when all the civilians holed up in their houses went “no way, you’re not getting your hands on these crazy bastards” and started hurling furniture and crockery down on the soldiers’ heads. Jeanne was understandably distracted at the time, but afterwards somebody informed him that the barrage of unlikely projectiles included a piano. A piano. That is some straight-up Looney Tunes slapstick right there. No wonder Hugo went for the heroic death scene instead; if he’d stuck to real life, he probably would’ve gotten complaints that he’d wrecked his readers’ suspension of disbelief.

Anyway, someone opened an alley gate for them to shelter in and take stock of the casualties–most of them survived(!!!), but a few were pretty nastily wounded. Their host then had to lock Charles Jeanne in to keep him from charging right back out and taking on the whole goddamn army singlehanded. He probably would’ve broken down the door if the poor man hadn’t pointed out that going back out would give away his wounded comrades’ hiding place and the identities of the people sheltering them. They sat there listening to the gunfire gradually slow and go silent, and then in the middle of the night the ones who could still walk were allowed to slip away one by one at long intervals from each other. Charles Jeanne went straight home, slept like the dead for a few hours, was woken up at five in the morning with a warning that he’d been denounced and the building was surrounded, and then slipped out in disguise and managed to evade the police for four months before a former comrade ratted him out and he was arrested.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Charles Jeanne’s letter is an absolute treasure that deserves to be available to anyone in Les Mis fandom who wants to read it. Incidentally, “how Actual Historical Enjolras survived the barricades by being too good at his suicide mission” is also one of the stories I tell when anyone asks me what the hell is so interesting about researching people nobody’s ever heard of from an obscure chapter of French history. 

[tenlittlebullets]

Bringing this back for Barricade Day! To answer a few questions that keep coming up in the reblogs: here’s my translation of Jeanne’s letter, which was my main source. Jeanne stood trial, was imprisoned instead of executed (because can you imagine what a martyr he would’ve made), and died of tuberculosis just a few years later. Despite his improbable survival story, the RL June Rebellion was not an everybody-lives AU–like the revolt in Les Mis, it ended in a hard-fought retreat into one of the buildings on the street, followed by a massacre. The guys who led a suicide charge and accidentally won were, unfortunately, the exception.

[unsolicitedf001ishness]

Les Mis Favorite Quotes 1.1.4 Works Corresponding to Words

"She interrupted herself impatiently"

“There is M. Géborand purchasing paradise for a sou.”

"Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room of the town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian. This variety of man has actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm, 'You must give me something, M. le Marquis.' The Marquis turned round and answered dryly, “I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur.' 'Give them to me,' replied the Bishop."

"Alas! God gives air to men; the law sells it to them."

"He understood how to say the grandest things in the most vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts."

"To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright."

"The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow.”

"It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel."

"One may feel a certain indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with one’s own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against."

[theteaisaddictive]

most of this blogging, at least for now, i suspect will just be me highlighting things i appreciate about the brick more in my late twenties than i did in my mid-teens. myriel’s comment about being an ‘ex-sinner’, for instance, is deeply fascinating to me in combo with that fact that i forgot he was a widower.

[dumbbich]

gareth snook being cute and smiley as grantaire

@maybeitsapineapple

why his smile so radiant

[furryprovocateur]

it really is insane how little you hear about "america has the world's highest prison population by such a significant margin that it would be seen as excessively over-the-top if it was used in fiction"

[furryprovocateur]

before you say "4% isn't that big of a difference between the US and China"

for anyone bad at math 1.4 billion divided by 340 million is about 4. we have a fourth the population of china but a higher prison population and a higher incarceration rate by far. this is just widely publicly available information that you're supposed to just accept. it's not supposed to make you go insane.

[luulapants]

The US has the largest prison population AND the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The US is home to 4.2% of the world's population but 20% of its incarcerated population. More than 0.6% of the US population is incarcerated.

Men make up 93% of the US prison population, but despite this, the US accounts for 30% of the GLOBAL population of incarcerated women.

Housing insecurity is the most significant predictor of incarceration with 22% of state prisoners experiencing it shortly before incarceration.

12% of state prisoners in the US were unhoused before their 16th birthday.

68% of US state prisoners were first incarcerated before their 16th birthday.

More than half of people in prisons and jails in the US have a mental illness.

Cognitive learning disabilities occur in state prisons at nearly 500% the national rate.

[all data sourced or derived from the Prison Policy Initiative]

[iceblink-ink]

Correction: 68% of US state prisoners were first arrested before the age of 19. 38% of US state prisoners were first arrested before the age of 16. (prison policy report)

[ruedesfillesducalvaire]

original meme below the cut

original post

[television-bodies]

reject modernity (enjolras actors in any way acknowledging enjoltaire) embrace tradition (“I remember thinking of talking to Aaron about the subject as we started filming, and as I was about to talk to him he was interrupted by someone else, and then suddenly I understood. That was the perfect example of what the dynamic between us should be. And I realised that actually NOT talking to Aaron about it at all was the perfect way to create that subtextual thing between Grantaire and Enjolras. And actually, I didn’t talk to anyone about it. Not even Tom. I just kept it a secret and thought that if people can read into it, great, and if people don’t notice it, that’s also fine because it’s not the main focus of the student plot. I still don’t know to this day if Aaron even knows about the whole E/R relationship, but it doesn’t matter, because I don’t think Enjolras should.”)

[catto-vi]

At the bridge Javert jumped of. No rest for the dude.

[lhavdil]

the thing about grantaire imo is that the extent to which he's right (and he occasionally is but it's a broken clock situation for the most part) doesn't really matter. what's important is that the stuff he's saying is reflective of a deep sense of cynicism. what's important is that it for everyone who isn't enjolras (including readers), it often feels right on a deep level. that's what's so compelling about him. he represents exactly what's so difficult in mobilizing people (especially his bourgeois class) towards a cause, even when the end result is supposedly something they want: the sneaking suspicion that all our efforts are wasted and we would be better off enjoying whatever comforts we have. so isn't it so wonderful when he finally lets go of this feeling, and takes a stand for something?

[lhavdil]

and i don't like to think of enjolras being the one who's "right" either. his importance as a character has little to do with the specifics of his politics and whether i agree with them (i don't always!) but in the fact that he's so serious about them. despite all the comforts life has afforded him, he chooses to give everything up—to completely devote himself to the hope of something better. he's a complete paragon of hope that none of us can ever aspire to match fully. he knows what he needs to sacrifice to achieve his goals and readily does so without any guarantee that it'll actually work. so isn't it so wonderful when he finally lets himself be human, accepts that he's done all he can do, and takes the hand of someone who loves him?

[littlefallof-rain]

Felt cute, might die on the barricade at my failed revolution while holding hands with my narrative foil later

[fluentisonus]

sometimes I feel like I do kind of overuse "Men had only touched him to bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow." in my analysis of jean valjean but like those two lines really do say & imply so much about him

[fluentisonus]

#no but this is so important to jvj's character. but also socially and economically #the way he always has a female concierge and he basically mostly employs and interact with women #men are dangerous to him. this isn't just for romance but in a fraternity sense. the company of men is dangerous #and then he opens up to marius and immediately gets bruised again #cannot catch a break. #(mandatory disclaimer that the violence Hugo's talking about is very much physical and not just social or psychological etc)

oh really good tags !!

[alicedrawslesmis]

OP's tags: #god there is so much to be said abt jvj & gender. both other people and his own. I keep trying to write about it but it always gets so long#in some ways I think this is opposite but not in a necessarily contradictory way to what I said in my other post abt how he's been made#have a discomfort or anxiety around women because like I think it's essentially coming from the same place. where he personally finds women#more safe & comfortable to be around but then he has this real fear of & trauma around men & strong ideas of men as potentially a danger to#women & he to some extent resignedly includes himself in that & feels he should enforce a distance there despite preferring their company#which ironically I think that (the enforced distance + forcing himself to conceptualise himself as A Man despite imo not having a very#strong sense of gender for himself) actually does more harm to the women in his life in the end (his delegating all the stuff wrt women in#m sur m to allow them to be ''discrete'' -> fantine being fired; or else his assumptions abt cosette's marriage and the role he as a#''father'' is expected to play) than if he had just allowed himself to have the relationship he wants with them as people#literally though you're right. the company of men is traumatic & dangerous to him.#anyways like I say there are several essays at least to be written here#a lot to chew on.#there is such an interesting mix of like. rigid gender roles & societal violence & jvj's personal relationship to gender (or#lack thereof) & trauma & misogyny etc etc..... idk i'm not expressing myself well her but it's so much to pick apart#les mis#I also really like your point here about jvj conceptualising marius as a man here not just in terms of cosette but in a more general sense#that he is just often uncomfortable around most men in anything more than a sort of professional relationship. I hadn't really#thought about it like that. these tags in general are a really interesting specific angle i had not properly considered but#i find really compelling tbh

yeah he's living like a paradox of 'men are dangerous to me' and also 'looking at women may get you beaten up' that he says to montparnasse. Interacting with young women in any capacity other than 'father' or 'brother' is dangerous, being around other men is dangerous, he thinks of himself as a danger to women etc. The rigid gender works against him being around women when there are other men around to witness, yk. There's a longing for companionship but an immediate danger of it. Probably why the convent is such a safe place for him and Cosette since men are not allowed in. Except for Fauchelevent whos the one man he can be around normally

and it's interesting that being mayor or being in the military are another paradox, where it was more dangerous to refuse. And he feels very comfortable in the military for the rigid structure and the sort of anonymity it provides. In there, he's just a guard with the support of a superstructure that keeps him safe as long as he doesn't draw attention to himself. He can't be friends with men but he can be a brother in arms

There is SO much to be said about jvj and gender we can go on forever

[asteralpanda]

it annoys me so so so much when people credit victor hugo with musical lines :(

you think that man could have written "to love another person is to see the face of god"? he'd write "to open your heart to another human being in this world who lives at a similar time to yourself, to love them as mother, brother, father, sister, cousin, friend, husband, wife, is to see the Lord Himself's visage: it is to peer into the soul of God, and such a feeling do all experience, or at least all those with non-unimpenetrable hearts" or something twice as long with fifteen interludes about french politics