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Not titling this with song lyrics; you're welcome.
According to my ~highly scientific~ poll in my last post, approx. 30-40% of all Dreamwidth users have had songs from Les Miserables stuck in their heads ever since the movie came out.
I don't suppose those of you who are getting more active in the fandom would consider, as a kindness, "earworm warnings" for any quotes from the lyrics (including song titles)?
//just kidding
//mostly
//although it would be nice to be able to go more than 24 hours without hearing the people sing in the background of all I do. I've kind of forgotten what that's like.
Although I have gotten quite a lot of cleaning done while unable to concentrate on anything but listening to the soundtrack on repeat, so there's that.
(I tried putting on "Once More With Feeling" instead today; it only took about half an hour before One More Day was back.
I haven't tried Cabaret yet; that's the nuclear option.)
ETA: Warning: lyrics in comments.
I don't suppose those of you who are getting more active in the fandom would consider, as a kindness, "earworm warnings" for any quotes from the lyrics (including song titles)?
//just kidding
//mostly
//although it would be nice to be able to go more than 24 hours without hearing the people sing in the background of all I do. I've kind of forgotten what that's like.
Although I have gotten quite a lot of cleaning done while unable to concentrate on anything but listening to the soundtrack on repeat, so there's that.
(I tried putting on "Once More With Feeling" instead today; it only took about half an hour before One More Day was back.
I haven't tried Cabaret yet; that's the nuclear option.)
ETA: Warning: lyrics in comments.
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And yeah. OH METHOS.
...oh crap, how about the one where Enjolras is pre-immortal and finds out after they're both no longer dead that Grantaire/Methos KNEW going into that death that Grantaire/Methos'd survive it, and it makes it NOT MEAN ANYTHING and then Enjolras REJECTS being taught by Grantaire/Methos because Grantaire/Methos has proven that he's still not really capable of living/dying for anything......
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But then Methos would hit him very hard in the head until he started to come to his senses, or was at least good enough at self-defense to survive anyway. (It might take several decades.)
(Sorry, I am not good at sustaining the angst with the frenchboys, I can't take them seriously enough
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ANYWAYS YES it us entirely possible I take them TOO seriously. But yeah some bashing over the head by Methos is PROBABLY what is called for in this situation. :D
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It would be such a perfect Methos story though, wouldn't it? It has all the things a Methos story needs - ridiculously pretty and passionate young men, Methos pining amidst a cloud of cynicism and alcoholism, someone else's idealism being violently punctured, said person handling their punctured idealism epically badly, young immortals who want to blaze out and die, and Methos being blamed for being Methos, for idealism being unsustainable, for Methos not wanting them to blaze out and die, for death being ultimately meaningless, and for also everything else that is bad in the world... but Methos forcing them to learn to survive anyway, because he hasn't yet learned how to not love them for all of the above.
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Although the thing is that I think reality sits somewhere between the way Methos thinks and the way the shiny idealistic young men Methos loves think. Utter cynicism is just as unrealistic as utter idealism. And stories about Methos where that tension is addressed are the best. I haven't read much Les Mus fanfic (yet???) but I am told fandom likes to paint Grantaire's as some sort of oracle of truth that nobody listens to because they're too busy being idealistic. But Grantaire isn't actually any more right than they are, because there IS value in standing up for what you see as right in the world.
And on that note, now I really truly am going to bed like I've been intending to do for the last half hour :P
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The thing is, I don't think Methos actually is utter cynicism? Because he does keep falling in love with them, and he does always end up standing up for what's right in the end. In a way he's the biggest idealist of all, because he thinks it's worth it to keep living and loving despite everything.
But he plays the pure cynic, because that's what he thinks they need - when the pure idealism shatters, which it always will, they need something they can go up against that is still obviously and objectively wrong, until they build up a more durable belief system. And so he provides the wrong opinion they can keep fighting against. (also yes playing the cynic is easy and fun and safe and sometimes he almost convinces himself.)
I haven't run into any fic where Grantaire is the pure oracle of truth and they are all wrong wrong wrong, but I haven't read much and I've been sticking to the highly-rec'd stuff.
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I think... here's the thing. Methos and Grantaire, although both can be shorthanded as "the cynical one", are not actually particularly similar in how they approach cynicism. Grantaire is a sceptic -- he's unconvinced by ANY worldview, including, I would argue, that of the cynic. (At least in the bookverse; I will admit that his Drink With Me verse definitely works to characterize musicalverse Grantaire as a cynic.)
Whereas Methos... I wouldn't go so far as to say he ISN'T a cynic, but -- augh, LAST TIME I HAD IN-DEPTH CONVERSATIONS ABOUT METHOS I HAD RECENTLY WATCHED ALL 20 METHOS EPISODES. That was multiple years ago now! I no longer remember all the details about what makes Methos Methos! Anyways, I don't think he's playing the cynic for the benefit of the idealists he loves. I think he plays the cynic because he wants to be cynical, because he thinks that the idealism that lurks within him is stupid and foolhardy and naive, and he's trying to convince himself of that. And part of convincing himself of that is working on convincing the idealists he loves.
So I think that in Highlander the idealist-cynic tension is fought within Methos, who has contradicting convictions, whereas in Les Mis, Grantaire no convictions at all and the idealist-cynic tension is between Enjolras and the persona that Grantaire wears.
(apparently a bunch of Enjolras/Grantaire slash goes there, with the Grantaire Was Right!!!!! thing. I'm skipping most E/R slash because imo E is ace and I dun wanna read him any other way.)
(do you have recs of good Les Mis fic to read? I'd love to read more!)
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The thing that makes a difference for me, personally, is that they're not just "college kids being v.v. earnest about politics" in the modern sense--they're in a very, very different historical context, and the June Rebellion had pretty big working-class buy-in, because the situation was objectively really shitty in a way that's kind of foreign to most of us who can afford internet access and take free speech for granted and work 8-hour days and so on. So to me that sounds like being unable to take people seriously for wanting to change things like tyranny or slavery or wide-scale grinding poverty...and I don't get that.
I gotta admit, I find the current fandom's tendency to slot Les Amis into the "modern college kids who are very earnest lol" box a little frustrating. They're not modern college kids. They've probably been through at least one (semi-successful) rebellion already, and been disillusioned by its effects (monarchy #2 instead of republic, social problems continue). They're not half as naive (or all as rich) as the musical portrays them. But other people have said it better than I have.
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But on the other hand, the college kids who were v. v. passionate about politics when I went were also passionate about things that were legitimately shitty. And, you know, getting pepper-sprayed in the eyes, beaten, and held in inhumane conditions overnight with no outside contact just for trying to exercise their right to free assembly and political expression, and that was within the DC Beltway. (As were the ones in the 1960s who informed the writing of the musical. As are the ones now, in fact.) And many of them are doing real and honest (and dangerous) work to try to make it better - some times the methods they pick end up making it worse, but the alternative is being paralyzed into doing nothing. It is not like there has ever been any shortage of shitty things happening in the world to be enraged about.
It's just, well - I can sympathize entirely with their goals and even their methods and still have trouble taking it all too seriously, because if you don't laugh you burn out. I mean I still sometimes do active work in liberal politics! Because it matters! And the interpersonal drama and the internal politics is still must-laugh-not-cry, because that's how I process it.
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(There is some interesting discussion out there about why the musical tries to downplay the students because of when it was written, which is one of the things I find fascinating about adaptations.
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