Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: ♫ Enjolras/Grantaire

RIGHT, so I got Third Eye by Florence + the Machine (also I super love this meme and more people should do it.)  I ain’t even a little sorry.  Canon era, motherfuckers, because I can.

Grantaire was arguing with him again.  Most of Enjolras’ mind was occupied with ripping down the other man’s case, almost enjoying the familiar pattern, but that quiet part at the base of his skull, the part that had been getting louder of late, was distracted.  It was discomfiting and foreign, as if he no longer quite knew himself.  It did little to inhibit his argument—they were second nature by now, he could spare that scrap of attention—but he was bothered by its persistence.  Just when Enjolras believed he had shaken off the strange abstraction, Grantaire would tip his head back and laugh at something Joly had said, his wild curls falling back from the line of his throat, and it would return with a vengeance.

He’s brilliant, the quiet voice noted now.  It was true, something Enjolras had noticed before. For all that he dulled its edge with wine and other, stronger spirits, Grantaire’s mind was as keen as the edge of broken glass, quick and incisive, and he soaked up information as effortlessly as he did liquor.  Grantaire claimed to know nothing—nothing but love and liberty, he had said—but he could hold his ground against Enjolras, and quote Greek and Roman writings without so much as a pause to recall. He spoke rapidly, as if the thoughts piled up behind his tongue and pressed to be first through his lips, and was prone to winding, tangential thinking, but his points were good and clear and glittering.

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vintage-jehan:

I feel like the Amis would try to get Enjolras and Grantaire together for ages but literally nothing seems to be working and the schemes get more and more elaborated and then one afternoon Gavroche goes over to where Courfeyrac is not even trying to talk to Enjolras anymore who is too busy staring at R laughing at something Joly said.

And Gavroche flops down onto a chair next to Enjolras and just goes, “You know what your problem is? You’re really just scared shitless.”

And Enjolras stares at him like ‘What did the tiny citizen just say to me?’

And Gavroche casually goes on like, “Y’know, it’s okay to be scared, it’s not a big deal –”

“I’m not scared.”

“Nah, it’s alright–”

“I’m not SCARED.”

“Really? Well, I think if triple dog dared you to go over there and kiss him right now you wouldn’t.”

And Enjolras is just like “YOU THINK? YOU THINK?! WELL I’M NOT GOING TO LET A GODDAMN TEN YEAR OLD TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” and stomps over to Grantaire and kisses him right in the middle of the Musain and when they break apart Grantaire is like, ‘What??’ and Enjolras just whispers ‘I’m not scared’ against his lips and continues kissing him.

Cue to smug Gavroche snatching the cup of hot chocolate from an absolutely shocked Courfeyrac, muttering “amateurs” under his breath.  

(via enjolrarses)

Anonymous asked: Omg for that cannon thing can you please do Grantaire from Les mis and rey from Star wars??

Mmmm YEAH.  From this thing.

Grantaire

• Canon: Grantaire is a boxer, fencer, and dancer.  I know these are common knowledge, but I feel like there are some really glorious opportunities afforded there.  He’s also evidently well-studied, just…in really random stuff, which speaks to me.
  
• Headcanon: Even supposing he’d lived through June 6th, Grantaire wouldn’t have survived long without his friends.  He’d have faded away, been found dead in the street within a month.
• Heartcanon: This is, what, what I think should have happened?  I don’t know, might’ve been nice if someone lived?
• Soulcanon: I might have liked a little more description of the death scene, Vic!  Would’ve been nice!  But my firm belief is that Enjolras probably died pretty much on impact, whereas Grantaire took a minute or two to bleed out.  He didn’t mind, because he fell looking at Enjolras’ face, angled so that the other man looked alive and merely pensive, and he’d say there are worst last sights.  He kept his grip on Enjolras’ hand until he was finally too weak to force his muscles to cooperate.
• Crotchcanon: Sooooo the night before the barricades rose Enjolras probably decided…well, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.  ‘Be merry’ here accompanied by an intense eyebrow wriggle.  Fight me.  Grantaire figured that at least this way he would know that Enjolras’ skin tasted like before they died.  If I ever wrote fic for this ‘and then there was wildly improbable sex’ incident, it would be intense angst.

Rey, my own sunshine daughter

• Canon: Rey is flawless.  Rey built her speeder and taught herself quarterstaff fighting.  I hear she refused to trade a droid even though she was offered sixty portions.  I hear she managed to fly the Millennium Falcon through an old star destroyer on her first try.  She met Han Solo and he offered her a job.  One time she lightsabered Kylo Ren in the face.  It was awesome.
  
• Headcanon: Rey has definitely…done what needed to be done.  By which I mean she’s definitely killed a dude, and possibly eaten them, depending on how strapped she was for sustenance at the time.
• Heartcanon: I appreciate why Rey didn’t kill Kylo at the end of the movie.  Nonetheless, that hunting-wolf prowl with her teeth bared and the light of a dying star on her skin really did it for me, and I might have liked to see them deal with the fact that even Jedi kill, sometimes.  And Rey’s NOT a Jedi, is the thing, so–yeah.  Basically the summary here is that I want to see Rey kill a dude with a lightsaber.  Kylo would be ideal, but not at all mandatory.  I also really want to see her talk to a Force ghost, and I really, really want that Force ghost to be Anakin Skywalker.  I am only interested in the Rey Skywalker thing insofar as it makes her Anakin’s granddaughter, not Luke’s kid (I’d love it if she was Leia’s kid, Rey Organa is also a plot I’m into, but that seems a little less likely), although I feel like Rey as the savior of the Force Mark III is really excellent.
• Soulcanon: Okay but as long as we’re playing defiance-of-all-reason, what I really want is for Rey to be a midichlorian pregnancy.  The Force decides that the last go-round of a Chosen One went horribly awry (although I have some thoughts on whether that…is strictly speaking true, in the Force’s eyes), so this time, the Force is like “I’m gonna do it again, and it’s going to be another angry sand orphan, but instead of an ex-slave who immediately gets indoctrinated into a powerfully repressive and increasingly rickety ancient Order, it’s going to be a scavenger with a moral backbone like soldered titanium and a quarterstaff, and she’s just gonna fucking wreck people with both.”  And the Force drags Rey kicking and screaming into her destiny and drops her in Luke’s lap like “Be nice to your auntie, bye-bye now” and Luke is like “Um…I don’t deserve this.”  Luke, you fucked off into exile for fifteen years and left your sister to run another rebellion, this time against her son.  You deserve to have your Force-auntie fucking wreck you with her stick and her moral backbone.
• Crotchcanon: Um…the OT3 is a thing and y’all can fight me.  The Damerons.  Poe struggles for a little while with the fact that he seems to have two (young) heroes trying to actively seduce him, in their awkward ways.  Rey’s version of ‘seduction’ is just to press various foodstuffs into his hands and watch with an eager smile as he eats them, Finn’s is a little more like actual flirting, but not a lot.  Finally he just comes back to his quarters (he has a private room by virtue of being a squad leader) and finds Rey literally sitting naked on his bed, legs crossed and calm as when she’s polishing BB-8′s optical sensor.  Finn apologizes, hovering anxiously near the wall, and says that they’ve been trying to convince him to date them but he doesn’t seem to get the message, so Rey got impatient.  Poe gives in to the inevitable.  And then there’s sex.  Lots of sex.  Poe gets the shock of the decade when ever-so-serious General Organa reaches up to clap him on the shoulder in approval, once the others let him out of his quarters again.

Anonymous asked: heyyyyy, i would love an exr au where one of them has to teach the other how to dance and it's so frustrating because "he won't fucking cooperate" and there's the deal with sexual tension so one of them just snaps and. . . i'll let you decide their fate ;)))) (love your work btw)

Heeeeeeey, sorry this took a little while, life…is happening to me.  But! Abuse of the fact that Grantaire is canonically a dancer!  Sexual tension!  Here we go!

“One-two-three, one-two-three, that’s-my-foot, one-two-three, one-two—Enjolras!” Grantaire huffed, doing an awkward sort of two-step to back up without releasing his grip on his partner’s hand and waist.  “There are actually nerve endings in my toes, do you mind?”

“I’m trying, you’re not telling me what to do!”  Enjolras scowled down at the floor, brow furrowed as he tried to place his feet, and tugged his hand out of Grantaire’s.  Grantaire released him without a fight, dropping his hand from Enjolras’ hip and immediately missing the warmth.

“It’s a waltz, not brain surgery,” Grantaire said.  “I told you what to do when we started.  There are literally three steps to this dance.”  Enjolras stopped, his frown deepening until it seemed etched into his face, and Grantaire sighed.  “Come here, we can try again,” he said, holding out his hand again.  “Your hand on my shoulder, the other like this,” he coached, pulling Enjolras in again.  “Come on, Apollo,” he said with an attempt at an encouraging smile, “weren’t you valedictorian in high school?  You can do a waltz.”

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No One Loves the Light Like the Blind Man

just-french-me-up:

Now, I know the blind man is supposed to be Grantaire and the Light is Enjolras, Hugo has weaved enough light/darkness symbolism into his hell hole of a novel for that to be clear

but consider

Enjolras keeps dismissing Grantaire. All the time. He never realises the extent of Grantaire’s feelings and faith for him. Not until the very dusk of his life, when darkness is closing in around him, when Grantaire manages to make him smile.

Then, truly, no one loves the light like the blind man

ALL RIGHT ELISE.  I DIDN’T NEED TO FUNCTION.

(via just-french-me-up)

Anonymous asked: oooh I'd love to hear some headcanons about your avatar au!!

HOW COINCIDENTAL, BECAUSE I WOULD LOVE TO SHARE SOME HEADCANONS ABOUT MY AVATAR AU.  For anyone who isn’t aware, these are for my Les Mis Avatar AU, things we lost in the fire, in which Grantaire is the Avatar and the Fire Nation is…well, the Fire Nation.

• Joly and Bousset’s departure from the North Pole was, um…dramatic?  There was a bit of a storm, which ended with a non-bender getting part of an ice structure dropped on him, and of course Joly is Joly and he healed him without thinking twice.  Having been outed as a man learning healing in secret, he was given the option to turn his (not inconsiderable) talents to a more acceptable method or leave.  He took the second option after Bousset settled down to a really good tirade and spent an hour haranguing the elders.
• Gavroche had a group of kids in this universe too, for a little while, street rats he took care of and taught to steal and tried to get set up with enough money to be well-fed and not street rats anymore.  Eponine and her brutal efficiency helped with that, once she found him again–they robbed a passing Fire Nation noble and took every scrap of gold and jewelry on him, and there was a sudden increase in the average age of the homeless in their town.  They make a habit of it, and keep it under Thenardier’s radar.  For a while.
• Cosette’s ship is called the Rose, and no, I’m not telling you who she is, it’s a surprise.  But her ship is called the Rose, and if you know the book well enough to get the reference it’ll tell you something about what kind of ship it is.
• There have been three Avatars since the start of the war, since Avatar Roku died at the hands of the old Fire Lord (not that Grantaire is aware of this detail).
  
• Roku’s immediate successor was a young monk from the Southern Air Temple, a birdlike and intelligent boy with a tight bond to his companion, a flying bison.  He was told that he was the Avatar at eleven, and when the elders of the Temple suggested that they remove him from the care of his mentor, he fled into a storm.
• In another universe, the Avatar state saved him, and he woke up a hundred years in the future.  In this one, he drowned.  It’s a tragedy, one the Air Nomads linger over, but they survive to linger.  In the other universe, they do not.
• The Avatar after the child who drowned was a waterbender from the South Pole.  They didn’t tell her nearly so young–they had learned from the death of the Air Nomad Avatar.  But they didn’t tell her nearly young enough, either, and when the Fire Navy struck, she died, sixteen and scared and fighting for her family.
• In another universe, she brought back the Air Nomads.  In this one, it’s not necessary.  That’s almost like a victory, isn’t it?
• Grantaire hasn’t spoken to any of his past lives in almost a decade, except for the occasional desperate draw on their power and skill.  It’s bad enough to be a disappointment to an entire world of living people, okay, he doesn’t need to face down Roku and Kyoshi and the line of glowing eyes. 
• Every once in a while he wishes he could talk to them, get some advice, maybe a reassurance that he hasn’t completely fucked up, but he can’t face the possibility that they would say he has.
• The Spirit World is a tense place these days, Avatar incarnations milling about and waiting for their newest member to let them through.  Roku is drowning in the knowledge that he died and left this mess behind, and there are more than a few Avatars (including the Air Nomad) who just want to give Grantaire a damn hug.
• Bonus sixth headcanon: Bahorel is a very bad Air Nomad and a very good airbender.  It’s the pacifism thing that he can’t get past, he believes in fighting for what he believes.  You may draw your conclusions accordingly.

Anonymous asked: Do you think Victor Hugo actually intended Enjolras and Grantaire to read as in love with each other?

just-french-me-up:

I think it’s very unlikely Hugo didn’t at least intend Grantaire to be in love with Enjolras. And since I’m way too passionate about this, let’s make a non-exhaustive list of my favorite “#nohomo” brick moments :

• “Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras”
• “No one loves the light like the blind man”
• Hugo writing on actual paper that Grantaire and Enjolras are part of a whole, two sides of the same coin and that Grantaire can not live without Enjolras (spoiler alert : He can’t)
• Comparing them to Orestes and Pylades because ~~alphabetical affinities~~. Notice he says here Grantaire is “an unaccepted Pylades” because Enjolras “disdained this sceptic”. We’ll come back to this later
• “Grantaire, in the  presence  of  Enjolras, became  someone once  more.”
  
• Grantaire saying of Enjolras : “What a fine marble" 
• Now bear in mind that all of the above happen in the scope of TWO PAGES. TWO PAGES that are used to highlight Grantaire’s love and admiration for Enjolras. Call me delusional but that’s not insignificant
• Grantaire being described as “soft” and “gentle” whenever Enjolras is involved
• “I believe in you”
• 19th century blowjob euphemism #gentlemanbrojob
• “Grantaire, will you do me a service?” “Anything.”
• Grantaire “eyes intently at Enjolras” and “whispers in his ear” in the scope of 3 lines like wow man personal space much
• Remember that Orestes and Pylades business? That Grantaire wasn’t accepted as Pylades? Well, not only does this comparison comes back in the chapter in which they die, but Grantaire gets accepted as Pylades by his Orestes
• Now let’s switch to French for a minute because this is very important to me. That holding hands thing? In French, it’s specified that Grantaire “regarda Enjolras avec une inexprimable douceur” or “se tournant vers Enjolras avec douceur” depending on your version. The first one literally translates to : “Grantaire looked at Enjolras with an ineffable softness”. That in itself is a huge red flag but that’s not all. Let’s talk about the word “douceur” for a bit. In French, using the word “douceur” isn’t meaningless. You don’t specify “avec douceur” unless you really want to focus on the feelings of your character. It seems very unlikely as a sign of friendship, considering all the above.

I’m pretty sure Hugo knew where he was going with that. Plus, let’s not forget all the homoerotic greek figures thrown in from time to time. Hugo was one cultured man. One reference can be called a coincidence but the thing is… there are way more than one.
Hugo was also very ahead of his time, morally speaking, so I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility that YES, he did intend Grantaire to have deep amorous feelings for Enjolras

This analysis is so gratifying, it’s so pretty.

kaurou:

in case you were wondering, no, I am not over the fact that grantaire died sprawled at enjolras’s feet,

(Source: marslesbian, via just-french-me-up)

ghostdog401 asked: If you're still looking for fic prompts what about e/R and a secretly royalty AU? Or just anything with a fairytale type feel?

Okay I see what you’re saying there but WHAT IF WE DID BOTH???  This got so long, I’m sorry, I got overexcited about fairy tales and I wrote 5K in like a day.  (No for real this is almost 5000 words, Jesus, self, what are you doing.)

Enjolras is a wished-for child, and he’s told as much every day by his mother, who bought his life with a few drops of blood on white silk in a gold embroidery hoop.  From the minute he learns to talk, he’s as fair as the sun and as sharp as her needle, and his country adores their young prince with their whole heart.  His mother Queen Lamarque is a good ruler and her Prince Consort is nice enough so all is well, and Enjolras grows up believing passionately in the rights of the people.  His tutors despair of him as a monarch but are delighted with him as a politician—it’s very strange for everyone.

And then the Queen dies, and everything goes to pieces, because the dowager Prince Regent isn’t a ruler by nature and Enjolras is still too damned young to take her place and it’s all quite a mess.  Vital government services are falling through, taxes are going uncollected or over-collected, the generals of the army are making warning noises about neighboring countries taking advantage of their weakened state, and everything is teetering on the edge of chaos.

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