les mis fandom stop making Enjolras ableist challenge

Call me Artemis. She/her. There's not actually that many cats here. Ao3 is upsidedowncats. Fic prompts are loved, but it will be a long time. I crave interaction but am an Anxious Mess™ so I will rarely approach anyone, but I love it when people talk to me.

[joeyclaire]

guy who gets home from being held hostage by another guy and the first thing he does is google “i think i like men”

[sai-tt-deactivated20191015]

quick sketches before bed

[granteares]

Do u happen to have any HCs about the unholy trinity because my favessss

oh maannn i had to think about this a while bc i didn’t really have anything at first but !!! they are my faves too ahh

joly is absolutely the Mom Friend.

grantaire is the Reckless Idiot Friend and we all know how “””great””” bossuet’s luck is.

a lot of the time it’s grantaire roping bossuet into some idiotic scheme where joly has to bail them out (literally out of jail, once, but none of them really talk about; musichetta probably knows what happened but she also won’t spill) and/or patch them up.

grantaire is really good at thinking outside the box so joly spends a lot of time looking @ grantaire and bossuet like “what the fuck? no, really, what the actual fuck?”

lots of drunk shenanigans.

joly will actually participate in grantaire’s shenanigans while drunk but grantaire feels bad about roping an intoxicated joly into anything too insane but he only has so much self-control so they’re still… slightly insane.

so many fucking awful puns. all the time. enjolras literally kicked all 3 of them out of a meeting once because it just was out of hand and needed to be stopped.

choreographed musical numbers. you’re wrong if you give them a song and think they don’t have a dance to it and perfect harmonies. no one can be quite sure if they’re just that in-sync that they can make it up on the spot or if they actually practice this shit because there’s no way all three of them have enough time to spend with each other making up dances and deciding which lines they each sing from dozens of songs right??

les amis decide it’s just One of Life’s Great Mysteries.

cuddle sessions. musichetta included. joly, bossuet, and musichetta have buttloads of pillows and blankets so they’ll just make a giant nest on the floor in the living room or on the king-sized bed and watch movies for hours.

they have the kind of relationship where grantaire has a spare key to their apartment (and vice versa, but taire’s is such a shithole no one wants to go there tbh) and doesn’t even need to ask to come over so sometimes he’ll just let himself in to sleep on their couch (bc not even grantaire wants to be at his apartment half the time) or cook some food for all four of them bc he couldn’t afford groceries this week and hasn’t eaten for a day – he knows he’s always welcome to their fridge but feels too guilty to just help himself.

((pre-e/R)) also probably the occasional drunk make-outs I MEAN. they barely have boundaries (altho R really has no urge to join them in bed that way tbh) so i can see the three of them getting touchy-feely sometimes. none of them care and, when chetta is in the picture and it happens she is cool with it, so, why fight it.

joly is basically grantaire’s unofficial therapist and the first person he goes to on Bad Days.

idk just all the shenanigans tbh! i feel like literally anything is possible. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[vivalamusaine]

THE GREAT BAHOREL BAKE OFF, U GOTTA DO IT.

OKAY SO

We all know that Bahorel is a great and passionate baker right? He loves baking everything from tiny cupcakes to chocolate souffle to profiteroles

But sometimes he just wants somebody to bake sweet treats for him, AND SO- “The Great Bahorel Bake Off” was born!

A Twice a year tradition amongst the Amis to find the greatest baker (who is not Bahorel) in the group. 

The winner receives a massive bear hug from Bahorel and 6 months worth of free baked good from him (I mean he gives them away for free to everyone all year anyway but Les Amis are kind enough to slide past that point)

THE JUDGES: 

Bahorel: Rates you on your use of unique cooking techniques and of course deliciousness

Courfeyrac: Kindly pulled himself out as a contestant and volunteered to judge because “I would smoke all of you bitches” and he wanted free food. Rates his friends on their aesthetic decorating choices and overall treat sweetness 

Musichetta: My God the palette on this girl. Use a pinch of cinnamon? She’ll taste it. Think you can get away with using imitation vanilla essence in lieu of the real thing? She’ll call you on it. Surprisingly the meanest, bluntest judge out of the three. One year Grantaire even dubbed her “The Female Gordon Ramsey”.

THE CONTESTANTS:

Enjolras: First out every year. Just keep him far away from the kitchen. Musichetta is the only one of the judges brave enough to try his burnt, rock of a cupcake. Her comment? “Thank God you’re pretty, Enjolras because you can’t cook for shit.”

Bossuet: Every year with out fail he accidentally mixes up the salt and the sugar. “Boss, I will lend you the 5 euros just please by a label maker” Bahorel says tiredly as Courfeyrac dry retches behind him.

Feuilly: Technically there’s nothing wrong with the food he cooks, it’s just always a little on the boring side. Practicality over aesthetics is his motto. But it doesn’t really fly with baking all too well. The last straw for Courfeyrac was a cookie filled with raisins he made that looked deceivingly like chocolate chips. 

Combeferre: Cooking is not his strong point in the slightest. The only reason he made it this far is because Courfeyrac is unapologetically biased. “Courfeyrac you can’t keep your boyfriend in the competition because he looks good in an apron. His yule log is literally unravelling itself as we speak.” “But, Musichetta-” “No, Courfeyrac. Don’t make me fire you.”

Joly: Good, healthy and tasty food. Too bad the vegan dough he uses tends to fall apart every now and then. “Honey, I love you but these doughnuts dough-not impress me one bit” 

Jehan: Each and every competition they get cut for the same reason. “How many times do we have to tell you, Jehan? You can’t use illegal substances in baking!” “I defy your backwards rules that limit my creativity.” “We know you do, that’s why you’re disqualified.”

Grantaire: A decent, good, baker- even if he does lose points from Courfeyrac for decorating his cookies with Pepe’s face.”I don’t care if it’s a good meme, he’s ugly and I don’t want to see his gross face staring at me when I’m trying to eat him.” He almost makes it to the finals but inevitably sabotages himself each time. He doesn’t deal well with pressure and ‘nopes’ out deliberately before he has to deal with it. “Grantaire, what even is this? Is this a cake or a sponge?” “It’s dadaism”

Cosette and Marius: Dream fucking team right here. They used to compete seperately, but would take in turns winning anyway so the judges allowed them to cook together. Their Crêpe Suzette are a dream, their Tarte Tatin superb. The only thing sickly about their cooking is how lovey-dovey and kissy they get in their kitchen.

[thesymski]

tbh one of the more subtly chaotic fandoms was les mis, because modern aus became so common they stopped being labelled all the time because it was just Assumed it’d be a modern au. but there were still original time period works scattered in so you’d have a fucking schrodinger’s cat situation where everyone is both in 1800’s and the current day until someone whips out a cell phone

[pilferingapples]

if it’s not tagged I’m just assuming everyone’s chillin’ at the Starbucks in waistcoats and leg-of-mutton sleeves

[deboracabral]

The les mis fandom in a nutshell.

Because I only now bothered to look at the comments on that post and some of them were kinda salty, just to be clear: I like both. Both are good. One does not exclude the other.

[signechan]

Okay but…

A fic where Grantaire is the rich son of someone with a lot of political power. And Les Amies kidnap him in order to ransom him back for political change.

They’ve heard this guy’s an asshole but they get a hot mess. It quickly becomes clear that he’s an actual alcoholic and somehow they all become involved in detoxing him, more or less against his will. Joly does all the medical stuff. Courferac gives him hugs. Bosuette trades terrible jokes with him. Musichetta makes really bland, easy to digest food for him. Cosette tells him about adventure and strokes his hair. Eponine synpathises with him about having a shitty family. Maruis talks seriously about how having a shitty family doesn’t have to define you. Combeferre teaches him meditation. Feuily teaches him origami for something to do with his hands. Gavroche tells him dirty jokes when nobody else is around. When he’s feeling better, Behorel boxes with him. Jehan encourages him to write what he’s feeling down, even if he thinks those feelings are ugly and he doesn’t want to share them.

And Enjolras, Enjolras is just there. Enjolras is there at Grantaire’s nastiest, when he’s pushed everyone else away. Enjolras is there to hold his hair back while he pukes. To chase hallucinated spiders our of the room. To listen to Grantaire’s late night confessions that he wishes he’d just die. Grantaire grows to love these guys but he still gets upset and frustrated and pushes them all and when he pushes they all take a step back except Enjolras. Enjolras stays right where he is, no matter how terrible Grantaire is to him.

And Grantaire is just a little in love.

Meanwhile, the kidnaping thing isn’t going to well. They’ve been struggling to contact Grantaire’s father. When he finally answers his phone they put it on speaker and Combeferre states their conditions etc.

Grantaire’s father goes on some massive rant about how useless and worthless Grantaire is and how he never wants to see him again and they’d all be doing him a favour if they killed Grantaire.

Enjolras grabs the phone and hangs up. Then he throws the phone against the wall hard enough to break it. Everyone is stunned, not just by what Grantaire’s dad has said but that they’ve never seen Enjolras this demonstratably angry before.

Enjolras turns and pulls Grantaire into his arms. He tells Grantaire that his father’s wrong about everything in every way. That’s he’s funny and kind and intelligent and yes he has some problems, they all do, but everyone in that room is glad they met him. And his family don’t matter, he’s one of them now. All of Les Aimes joining in with this massive group hug with Grantaire in the middle, telling him how much they care about him and Grantaire just crying on the middle of it into Enjolras’s shoulder because he can’t believe he’s found these people. This family.

[just-french-me-up]

Fairytale AU in which Grantaire is the crown Prince of his kingdom, but a prophecy foretold that his accession to the throne would lead to the end of his family’s reign. So his father the King locked him up in a tower guarded by a dragon from his earliest days, without Grantaire ever knowing he’s royalty.

Later, les Amis de l’ABC hear about the prophecy and, wishing to abolish the tyranic rule of the King, seek to free Prince Grantaire from his prison. This leads to:

Enjolras in an armour, looking more like a prince than Grantaire ever will

Joly and Combeferre TAMING the bloody dragon

“We came to rescue you, your Highness” *Grantaire turns around to see if there is someone else in the room* “Wait… you mean ME?!”

Feuilly and Bahorel forging the most kickass weapons

Les Amis showing how much the people suffer from the King’s rule

Enjolras taking about the horrors he’s seen by the fire one night, his soft features as sharp as his words, describing a better world if the King falls, and Grantaire falls a little bit in love

 SWORD FIGHTING TRAININGS

When Grantaire overthrows his father and becomes King, the prophecy comes true: he dissolves the monarchy to proclaim a Republic. Enjolras does not become the Head of the Realm, Combeferre does. Grantaire doesn’t want to be associated to anything political, so he retires in the countryside. Not too far from the capital, though, because his Counselor of a husband needs to get home to him at night.

[batcii-archive-deactivated20210]

au where joly and musichetta are doing a casual non exclusive dating thing and are both v open about the fact that they’re both seeing other people and that that’s fine, and then one day they’re talking about their respective hook ups and that’s how they realise that they’re both dating bossuet

[slippypantz]

exR sketch from my sketchbook

slapped some color on it

[grantairelibere]

for ur consideration: almost familial relationship dynamics between javert and les amis. it gets to the point enj starts carrying panadol to rallies, because hes always the first to be arrested and he knows that the noise gives javert a headache and he also knows javert never remembers to bring his own painkillers. javert carries hand cream because the cuffs chafe bahorel's big ass wrists. ferre asks javert abt his ant farm. courf remembers his birthday.

AAAAAAAHH OH MY GOD How do you know my weaknesses my friend?? I love Javert-who-begrudgingly-cares-for-this-bunch-of-kids with all my heart. Also, Javert would have an ant farm. He would.

One time they plan a rally specifically on Javert’s birthday so they can all get arrested and throw him a surprise party from a holding cell. Joly was carrying like 43 candles in his pockets and Javert had no idea why until he tried to light them all at once behind his back and everyone started singing the song

Sadly they couldn’t smuggle cake in but what can u do yknow

[grantairelibere]

#Javert who wearily grabs enjolras and tells him ‘kid settle down’ when Enjolras is raging #les amis who forget things in the police car #combeferre has books at the station #joly has filled the first aid kit with dinosaur band aids #jehan brought a cactus to the station because javert’s office looks boring #courfeyrac has made friends with all the other officers at the station #and they refer to the amis as javert’s kids #‘inspector your kid is here’ and javert would rub his temples and go: 'which one?’ (via @decayingliberty) 

[drinkwith-me]

The Grantaire Talking About Enjolras Drinking Game, tried and tested by les amis de l’abc

Take a shot if you encounter

References to Greek mythology

Synonyms for light/light metaphors

Helpless, incoherent wailing

The recounting of a long, rambling story which concludes with Grantaire doing something slightly embarrassing in front of Enjolras and being repeatedly ashamed

Baffled, helpless screenshots of text messages sent between them, attempting to decipher their Real Meaning

Poetic self deprecation

Poetry in general

Descriptions of his hair

[just-french-me-up]

Concept: the story of Les Mis in the style of the History of Japan. You can do it. I believe in you.

France is an country by the sea filled with poor people and it’s ♪♫ beautiful ♫♪

In the year negative a billion, France might not have been here. In the year 1815, it was here, and you could walk to it, and some people died in it

Ding dong, it’s the Revolution, and they have ideas from the future. Like really good laws, and ♪ crazy guillotines ♪. Now you can make a lot of dead aristocrats really really quickly. That means if you own the guilloine, then you can make a lot of equality, which is something everybody needs to survvvvive. So that makes you a revolutionary. Also things get a bit out of hand, Bonaparte happens, Louis Phillipe happens too

we do not here pretend to furnish a history of the French Revolution

“Please try this new monarch,” he said.“No,” said everybody.“Try iiiiit,” he said.“no,” said everybody again, quieter this time.

Meanwhile in Toulon: 

“Hi Javert,” they said.“Hi 24601,” said Javert.“Can you call me something else, other than 24601?” said Valjean.“Like what?” said Javert.♫♪"How about Maire Mad’leine?“♪♫ said Valjean.

Knock knock, it’s the ABC. Yes, they’re here to take over, they just wanna bring you some cool shit. Like democracy, and freedom, and ♫♪ Enjolras ♪♫. So that’s cool. 

Grantaire wants to help at some point but Enjolras is like♪"Listen I trust you for once this is very important okay don’t fuck this uuuup"♪And Grantaire said, ♫♪ How bout I do, anyway? ♪♫

Then, when the barricade was done, the National Guard downgraded to a fuckton. Did I say downgrade? I meant upgrade.And the ABC says, “Can you maybe chill?”And the National Guard says, “How ‘bout maybe you chill?”

Then everybody died, except Marius, who pulled a sewer inspired  ♫♪ post-rebellion survival miracle ♪♫ But then the miracle wears off, he’s sad in the Musain but everything’s still pretty cool I guess. ♪♫ Bye. ♫♪

[dameferre]

i am a firm believer that if highschool!amis&co. were to be a thing they would all have to meet in detention

courfeyrac’s there for punching a guy on the football team for shouting slurs at enjolras in the locker room

combeferre told off a teacher for mocking courfeyrac in front of their entire class (‘just because he doesn’t learn like other people doesn’t make him stupid, in fact your job as a teacher is to help him, not openly mock him like an immature, ignorant bully’)

enjolras got detention for pulling the fire alarm the week before to try to get combeferre out of detention (it didn’t work)

jehan got stoned during lunch break and spent two hours under a tree contemplating death and staring at strangely ethereal clouds, unfortunately forgot to go back to class, and got busted for ditching

cosette was dress-coded for wearing leggings as pants (and don’t think she isn’t furious about it)

feuilly ditched a couple periods of class because he was covering someone else’s shift and wanted to be there on time

someone reported bahorel’s fight club to the principal (not that he was exactly subtle about it- he did put up flyers)

eponine was selling exam answers to other students 

marius is just… there. (he doesn’t get picked up until 5 and it’s cold outside)

bossuet got the locker rooms mixed up again (the girls’ basketball team was not pleased)

joly had seventeen sick days during first semester and they found out he was forging the notes

musichetta was giving eponine the answers

and grantaire hadn’t turned in any assignments for any class and they didn’t notice for the entire first semester because he was acing all the tests anyway

from that day on they’re pretty much inseparable and even worse than they ever were individually and the entire teaching staff curse whoever the hell put them all in one room

[thecandlesticksfromlesmis]

headcanon: Enjolras with really weirdly functioning anxiety. Protests and speeches are when he functions best. Normal scenarios like moving house/dorms or going to a new restaurant trigger full blown nervous episodes. Idk, might be projecting a little here.

listen, you project away friend. that’s what the characters are there for! i love this btw

Protests are loud and crazy and always unpredictable. somehow enjolras can always handle that tho, cause he’s got home-field advantage. he knows the laws, he’s got the protest permits, he’s got the words in his mind to handle the cops the crowd the ambulances, everything.

but fuck man how was he supposed to know that Olive Garden was gonna be packed with two families of 12, 7 crying babies, and just a host of dumbass old people who keep yelling at their servers??? it’s not worth the bottomless breadsticks!!! it’s not worth anything to stay in that hellhole. he ends up outside, pacing, trying to catch his breath, almost crying, and eventually Combeferre comes outside with him, holding a carry out meal. they drive to a local park Enjolras loves, and sit out on the grass, and eat in the peaceful night air.

//send me your Les Mis headcanons and I will write ones that go along with it//

(i’ve got like...a months worth of these btw. so if yours hasn’t been answered yet, it will be i promise!) 

[infinite-mirrors]

late nights at the Musain

[aporeticelenchus]

Les Mis 365 - 3.4.1 - Grantaire (retroblog)

[Long ramble about Grantaire etc etc]

[aporeticelenchus]

#it does seem a little odd to me to take all these symbolic themes and dissect them but take the ugly vs beauty thing literally #but maybe they don’t bc that’s just not the focus of the post #that particular symbolism/metaphor is my personal crusade

Hello friend! I actually have many many thoughts and feelings about the symbolism of beauty and ugliness, both in the novel as a whole and with Enjolras and Grantaire specifically! I’ve talked about it in some of my other Les Mis 365 posts, but it is especially relevant here. If my pet theory that Grantaire is written with the Symposium and Platonic Love in mind is true (and granted, it’s a long-shot), then the focus Hugo keeps giving Enjolras’ physical beauty and to a lesser extent Grantaire’s physical ugliness is central to understanding the philosophical significance of the characters and their relationship.

In Greek (sorry to my regular blog followers), the word “kalon” means beautiful, but it also has a strong moral sense to it. You can call a handsome young man “kalos” because you admire his lovely face, but the virtues are always almost always referred to as “kale.” This same word is often translated as “fine” or “noble” or even “good,” and ancient ethics is always debating about what is most kalon and what the nature of “to kalon” - “the beautiful” - is. The opposite of “to kalon” is “to aischron” - the ugly, the shameful, the ignoble and vicious. “Aischron” can just mean physically ugly, but it very very often is used morally.

In the Symposium, every character present has to give a speech about the god Love. The poet Agathon gives a speech in praise of Love where he says that he (i.e. Love) is the most beautiful and noblest (i.e. kalon) and best of all of the gods. His speech is followed (oh no) by Socrates, giving what is supposed to be the last speech of the party. He argues that Agathon is wrong - Love is not beautiful or noble. Love desires what is beautiful because Love itself lacks beauty and is attracted to what it itself does not possess. Love, says Socrates, is always love of what is beautiful, whether it is a beautiful body or a beautiful soul or, in the ideal case, absolute beauty itself (to kalon). Love is of the beautiful, it is oriented towards the beautiful, and that is proof that Love itself is not beautiful. So Love isn’t the best and most beautiful and noblest of all the gods - not even close! Love is defined, as I said in my original post, by what it lacks. It is inexorably drawn to what it is not. 

BUT there’s also a major subplot in the Symposium involving the romance between Socrates and his infamous bad boy ex-boyfriend Alcibiades where physical beauty and ugliness become part of the discussion. You see, Socrates is ugly. People comment on it all the time - he has a snub nose and a weirdly shaped head and terrible fashion sense. Alcibiades says he looks like the satyr Silenus; Meno says he looks like a sting ray. Alcibiades, on the other hand, is drop-dead gorgeous. He is legitimately famous for being stunningly beautiful. The apparent mismatch between Socrates and Alcibiades - and the way Alcibiades aggressively pursues Socrates despite being courted by pretty much every eligible man in Athens - is a running source of jokes throughout the Platonic canon. Alcibiades shows up late to the party, after Socrates has given his speech, and is called on to give a speech of his own. He decides to dedicate his speech not to the praise of Love, but Socrates, and his courtship of him.

I won’t go into all the details here, but the important bit is that when Alcibiades first becomes interested in Socrates, he’s convinced that all he has to do is make it clear he’s available and Socrates will fall at his feet. After all, I did mention that he’s stunningly beautiful, right? This…turns out to not be the case at all. After some increasingly desperate efforts to get Socrates to make the first move, Alcibiades gives up and just tells Socrates that he wants him as his mentor and lover. Socrates response is to frame Alcibiades’ offer in terms of beauty; Alcibiades is offering Socrates his physical beauty because he sees some greater inner beauty in Socrates’ mind. And while Socrates denies having such a beauty, he claims that if he did have the beauty inside him that Alcibiades sees, it would be much greater than the physical beauty of Alcibiades. To trade his beauty for Alcibiades’ would be like trading gold for bronze. That’s not just because the mind is greater than the body (though Plato thinks it is) - Socrates’ beauty is superior because it can make Alcibiades into a better person if he lets it. 

SO, if the Symposium really is a reference text for Grantaire (and this is a big if), the physical ugliness of Grantaire and the physical ugliness of Socrates are actually symbolically important parallels. Socrates is a lover of beauty - he says that many times, and it’s a crucial part of his theory of what love it. He’s also a lover of someone (physically) beautiful, but Plato uses that as an in to make a philosophical point about the nature of love and beauty in less literal ways. If there’s a parallel to be made, Grantaire has to love someone beautiful too, and that beauty has to have symbolic significance. I don’t think Grantaire loves Enjolras because he’s physically beautiful, but I do think that the physical beauty is a marker for the way Love loves what is beautiful in a more complex sense. And I think that Grantaire has to be ugly because Love is not beautiful, and Grantaire is as close to a human embodiment of Love (in the Platonic/Symposium sense) as Les Amis have.

So yes, I definitely think it’s symbolic! All of it! But if you have other thoughts I’d love to hear them too :D

[thoodleoo]

one of my favorite (read: least favorite) things about how people treat cleopatra is she’s so often called a slut or is only ever portrayed as being this incredibly sexy, often scantily-clad seductress, when in actuality 1. while some ancient sources describe her as somewhat pretty, it generally seems that what was attractive about her was her intellect, charm, and voice, and the sources that refer to her as extremely sexy/slutty are specifically out to condem her, 2. she was a brilliant politician who chose her affairs as a way of securing power for her country and not just so she could have a bunch of sex (which shouldn’t be an issue anyway), and 3. one of the men she had an affair with was mark antony, ancient roman super slut supreme, a man known for his love of sex and tendency to wear extremely short tunics for the sake of showing off his sexy legs/probably also his dick

i’m not saying there’s anything wrong with portraying cleopatra as beautiful or even sexy, because she clearly had allure. all i’m saying is that, if your cleopatra is wearing less clothing than your mark antony, there’s probably a problem in your depiction of them

[chotomy]

i’ve cracked the code,