I’ve figured out how BBC is going to add more sex to Les Mis: Victor Hugo Himself will be a character. Victor “I had so much sex on my wedding night that my wife got mad at me” Hugo. Victor “historians argue about how many partners I had” Hugo. Victor “when I died all the prostitutes in the city wore black over their crotches to mourn their favourite client” Hugo. Victor “random acts of nudity” Hugo. It’s not going to be any of the other characters at all, it’s just going to be … Hugo … himself …
they’re going to include his monologue but also borrowing the “sexposition” trope, so we’ll see him fucking random people while talking to them (and the audience) about the Paris sewers.
Depending on the scene, it shifts between a Younger Hugo making out with Juliette or Leonie or ???, and full-bearded Exile Hugo snogging So Many Random Passerby
OK so the premise is basically Cosette has been able to see ghosts all her life.This is based on the lines “There is a lady all in white/holds me and sings a lullaby” because as this is sung Fantine is already dead if you’re following book canon (or even musical canon JVJ doesnt leave until Fantines dead and he’s squared off with Javert and then it takes a while to ride to Montfermeil)
ANYWAY
After the barricade, Les Amis stick around as ghosts. I dont know why, maybe they’re in purgatory, maybe thats just what happens when you die, I dont know I’m not a theologian.
Marius is unaware of the ghosts. But Cosette, who’s been seeing ghosts her whole life, can, and she doesnt think too much of it. Yes, they’re dressed pretty modern, but plenty of revolutions happen, and she assumes they’re from 1830 or 1828. She and Marius have moved into a nice enough house after their wedding but Paris is full of ghosts as its an ancient city, and shes used to it.
Until, one day, she notices that the ghosts, especially a dandy with dark curly hair, seem to stick close to Marius. She has an inkling, and she decides to listen closer when Marius tells stories of his friends. She starts to recognize them, from Marius’s tales, and with a sinking heart she realizes, these arent just recent ghosts, these are the ghosts of the June Revolt, and are the closest thing Marius ever had to a family.
She’s tried to communicate with ghosts throughout the years, with varying levels of success, the most being with her mother. (I will fight to the death over this ok Fantine gets to help raise her daughter beyond the grave)
Cosette knows that Marius would never believe her, but whenever he goes out for his strolls by the ruins of the Musain or when he’s working at his firm, she endeavors to learn about these people that made her Marius so happy. She learns about their stories, who they left behind. Some, like Courfeyrac, warm up to her immediately, teasing her about Marius, and telling her how they pined. Some, take longer, and she has more trouble understanding. She learns about the peculiar relationship between many of them, which she doesnt quite understand at first, but she supports and endeavors to do better. She learns why they fought, and why they were willing to die for their cause, and finds herself agreeing, although she wishes they might have lived, and that her Marius might have left unscathed.
She goes out and tries to make right by them, volunteering at the orphanage where Feuilly spent his childhood, paying off Joly, Bossuet, and Grantaire’s tabs at various cafes. She finds the Enjolras family burial plot, and pays for a new headstone, one that says son instead of daughter, and that has the right name. She seeks out Musichetta, Floreal, and Bahorel’s mistress, and befriends them, offering them comfort and support.
Marius thinks shes a bit odd, going off at all hours, but he assumes shes just giving alms like shes always done.
And finally, once she’s done her best to honor the dead and to befriend those that her husband considered family, she starts to notice a girl ghost, a girl who’s face she hadn’t seen since she was a child, timidly watching.
tired: Monsieur “uptight no-funsies eye-roll I-Only-Care-About-Revolution” Enjolras and this guy who he can barely tolerate Monsieur “yolo swag I-Live-To-Fuck-And-Party” de Courfeyrac are apparently best friends for no reason I can find
wired: enjolras and courfeyrac are besties 4eva because they are both MASSIVE FUCKING NERDS with terrible senses of humour who are super super passionate about social justice and get in all sorts of ridiculous hi-jinks because combeferre has about 65% of the triumvirate’s impulse control 🙂
Unless you can list five facts about his character that don’t involve Enjolras or alcoholism
well lol i think the initial wording is a little strong~ but okay let’s go
– grantaire is extraordinarily playful with language, and more specifically tends to use linguistic tricks to throw conversations off course when they start hitting too close to home. fwiw this is like thing #1 i wish was explored more in fic
– unless he’s bullshitting in some way (unreliable orator herf) grantaire has some pretty deep hangups about a failed art studentship under (‘under’) baron antoine-jean gros
– grantaire has canonical daddy issues
– grantaire is super social outside of his amis friendship group, despite taking ”no pleasure anywhere but there”.
– grantaire genuinely cares about injustice and human hardship, he just doesn’t see a workable solution to any of it.
bonus
– grantaire is kind of fixated on metaphors about clothes falling to rags, and holds a particularly disdain for people who deliberately deprive themselves of worldly goods and pleasures (e.g. living in self-imposed poverty) in order to appear more virtuous
super bonus
– grantaire has an extensive background knowledge of the classics and classical references are scattered throughout his speeches
super duper bonus
– grantaire either woke really early on barricade morning or stayed up all night – ‘waiting for the dawn’ (remember this is june). he also spent what is possibly > one hour wandering miserably around paris in the rain before joining joly and bossuet in the corinthe
(lol i could so go on but)
extra super duper bonus
– grantaire has a relatively intimate female friend (possibly named/nicknamed ‘floréal’, possibly not) who is the last non-insurgent he spoke to on barricade morning.
Grantaire is canonically both a dancer and a street fighter
Grantaire knows the geography of Paris intimately, probably from his above-mentioned social activities
Grantaire seriously knows fucking everybody in Paris
Grantaire not only has a ridiculous amount of knowledge of the classics, he also knows all his Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophers (and can philosopher name-drop at the *hur* drop of a hat)
Grantaire is also up on modern politics, not only of France, but also of neighboring countries
Grantaire can play dominoes, although he’s arguably bad at it
Grantaire may or may not be bad at math, but he certainly doesn’t like it (see above: canonical daddy issues)
Grantaire lives near the Musain
Grantaire probably has clinical depression
– grantaire has a bit of a love/hate thing going on with the philosopher diogenes
– grantaire will push and push and push at peoples’ boundaries then get mortally wounded when they finally snap at him, like he does this over and over again and it’s kind of a defining character trait
– grantaire likes brie cheese
– grantaire discovered the corinthe, entering only on the basis of an accidental bad pun on the sign outside
– joly and bossuet care a lot about grantaire and basically blow off lamarque’s funeral in order to “conduct Grantaire back towards cheerfulness” after he miserably pours his heart out to them
Hugo’s headcanon was that Grantaire had a truly walrus-like mustache
Grantaire’s defining philosophy is not the world sucks, so fuck it all, Grantaire’s defining philosophy is the world sucks, but anything we do to try and change it is going to accomplish nothing or make it worse, so we should learn to be happy with how the world actually is
but while he vocally espouses that philosophy and on some level obviously believes it, on some level he doesn’t want to believe it because his ‘only pleasure’ is taken in being part of a group of students who are actively trying to change the world
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 