snugglejolras:

• ‘it doesn’t mention him being gay’ it does, actually! these references are easy to miss if you’re used to 21st century books in which it’s much easier to describe queer characters, but it certainly mentions he is gay. if you don’t think victor hugo could have described a queer character without mentioning their genitals together or mentioning ‘oh by the way this one was gay’, you are insulting his writing. you’re not only forgetting that the man’s writing was art in itself, you’re also forgetting that writing about queer characters in the 19th century was Pretty Dangerous. do any research whatsoever in these combined factors and you’ll find that it was glaringly obvious enjolras was a big ol’ gay.
• ‘he just didn’t have time for women, he could have been -insert anything but gay here-!’ we can all agree that enjolras was as devoted to the cause as one can get, but his devotion does not dictate his sexuality, his sexuality does. “the bare throat of evadne would have moved him no more than it would have moved aristogeiton” < if this reads ‘too busy’ rather than ‘not interested’ to you i’m sorry but i don’t know what to tell you. (also aristogeiton was in a same-sex relationship)
• ‘we need bi / pan representation!’ GOD ON HIGH HEAR MY PRAYER yes we do!! but for that we need characters who actually have the potential to be bi / pan, may i please redirect you to bossuet/joly/musichetta or cosette/éponine?
• ‘enjolras was asexual, not gay.’ okay first of all these things aren’t mutually exclusive, you can be gay AND asexual. asexual, in the simplest definition, means no interest in sex – that doesn’t mean romance! you’d have to be aromantic for that. whilst enjolras was definitely not interested in women, it doesn’t exclude men. but if you chose to see him as asexual homoromantic, by all mean, it’s a perfectly valid interpretation.
• ‘i only ship them from the musical / film.’ i know the brick is one of the biggest books out there – seriously, with a word count of approximately 530k (depending on the translation), it’s on #18 of longest novels out there. BUT if you want to claim to have any knowledge whatsoever of these characters it’s important that you read and understand it.
• ‘you’re just angry we don’t ship exr.’ nope! if you don’t ship exr that’s just fine! not all of us do, you know, and exr fanfiction is often problematic as hell, but that’s an entirely different issue. this has never been a ship war. we don’t dislike your ship because it clashes with one of our own, we don’t like it because it’s harmful.
• ‘but you ship cosette / éponine.’ some of us do, yes. it’s important that you don’t assume these ladies are straight just because they show interest in a man – that’s heteronormativity (still a big thing in media these days) and it reflects on us which really sucks because ‘straight until proven’ shouldn’t be a thing, yeah? it’s worrying that people will try so hard to prove a character is straight when there’s no proof that they are.
• ‘it’s just a ship.’ i wish! but unfortunately this also reflects on our society (and vice versa), it’s just another branch of homophobia. please remember that most homophobes aren’t aware they’re doing a bad thing, i think we can all agree that this doesn’t mean they aren’t doing a bad thing. sometimes it’s just not as obvious as you think it is. but it’s definitely homophobic, so please keep that in mind, even if you can’t see it.
• ‘enjolras’ sexuality doesn’t matter / this is not what les mis is about!’ EXACTLY. that’s the whole point! we don’t need characters suffering from kurt hummel syndrome who tell us that ‘yeah, you’re queer, and your life is going to be shit for it but no worries, there’s always going to be some outcasts who you love you for who you are. despite this you will still get verbal and physical abuse but hey that’s just how things are.’ we need characters who tell us ‘yeah you’re queer and it doesn’t fucking matter now go overthrow a government.’
  just ask someone what kind of character kurt hummel is (i’m sorry i keep using this character as an example but i’m running out of queers) and i promise you it’ll be something along the lines of ‘oh yeah that gay kid from glee’. not ‘that one kid who went to new york and got into nyada’. now ask someone what kind of character enjolras is. ‘he’s that guy who led a revolution and kicked 19th century france in the face’.
• ‘my friend is great and they ship enjonine so i want to defend them.’ okay kudos to you for standing up for your friend, that’s a neat thing to do especially on the internet where people can be vicious as hell. but just because your friend is awesome doesn’t mean they aren’t doing something wrong. i’m all for standing up for your friends but blindly defending someone when you don’t know everything about the situation is not very chill.
• ‘you’re all so angry and it’s upsetting.’ the internet is the only safe place we have. if we tried to stand up for ourselves in real life there’s a large chance we’d be met with physical abuse, and a lot of us have. this is where we need to be acknowledged, and it’s very hard to deal with people refusing to admit your sexuality when you’ve been given shit for it all your life. this debate has been going on for a long time and it’s tiring when people refuse to listen / people blindly defend their friends / new people who haven’t read previous arguments keep jumping in, claiming to have knowledge of the situation. yes, we are angry, and rightfully so.

okay i’m kind of in a hurry but that’s all i can remember right now, i’ll add more later if i can think of anything, and if anyone has any other points that i missed i invite them to please add them to this post!

also if enjonine shippers / defenders now realise that they’ve been doing something Decidedly Fucked Up please change your ways, not to do us a favor, but to be a decent human being.
thank you now we can all be friends (◡ ‿ ◡ ✿)