Not titling this with song lyrics; you're welcome.

[melannen]

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.

Comments

[melannen]

PS: Since these comments have gone practically everywhere else anyway: someone really is past due to write the Barrayar crossover. Even if they are mostly declaiming revolution in tetrameter rather than pentameter.

[lannamichaels]

See, the problem is, I know v. v. v. little about Les Mis so obviously the poison cannot be in the cup opposite me I cannot write this or even figure out how it would work.

Except for the part where they will kick you the hell out of ImpSec if you are the sort of person who commits suicide if something breaks your black-and-white view of morality into tiny shreds; perhaps they do not even let you in if you have such a stark black-and-white view of morality. But there are totally other ways of having stark views of the world that cause BSOD if they're violated.

Plus, since this apparently happens after *the* French revolution, there needs to be an analog. As the inevitable prole revolution hasn't happened yet, it might be necessary to just pick a civil war out of the hat and say, this takes place during an ineffective uprising after that one.

Except that I still have that idea that Nikki grew up to be a fighter for the free press and ends up arrested a lot, so in this case, Nikki is Marius? Dead dad, god knows who his grandfather could be, but in this case, we could probably say Aral's his grandfather.

We need to get Aral back from Sergyar... dammit, how old is Nikki when Aral dies? Too young, I'd guess, and it would never work with Aral anyway.

This is the problem when there are no poor people in this books at all.

Okay, so, the Kosti brothers. Martin goes off to become a soldier, but after his experience with Miles, it's rubbed off a bit. Older brother, who I think I named Philip and that's not canon? Anyway, Philip is a rising star in ImpSec, but his brother is chafing, and his mom is going "so, the Vor, let me tell you my stories",

and he's like, you know, fuck it, why do they get all the nice things? I knew my mom first!

And then he and young!Nikki are going "yeah, the Vor, the fuck, man," because Nikki is realizing that his younger siblings are going to holy hell out rank him and inherit stuff and how is this fair? Like, he knows he'll love them, but he's BFF with Arthur Pym, and Arthur keeps telling him how the other half live, but it's not even the other half, it's everyone who isn't within sneezing distance of the Imperium.

Shit ain't right.

So that's the Kostis, Nikki, Arthur. I don't know who Valjean is, because hey, no poor people. I suppose we could steal people from MOM and have the Csiruk come to Vorbarr Sultana, though I don't know why...

This is hard.

[melannen]

Yeah, there's a serious shortage of non-aristo characters in Barrayar (really even the Koudelkas count at this point.) I think you'd have to bring in the Frenchboys as Barrayaran revolutionaries (presumably as Frenchies) and I kind of really like the idea of Javert as an Impsec agent - not all Impsec people do the same jobs! (especially if he was left behind from the tail end of Ezar's reign. And left behind by Aral's reforms.) It would be more a Les-Mis-in-space AU than a Barrayar story.

If you wanted to bring in Barrayar canon characters, I think you'd have to write them as the oppressive monarchists crushing the revolt. Which would in fact be really interesting, especially if you wrote both sides.

...you could write it as a darker-path AU from the beginning of Vor Game where Miles didn't make the same choice on Kyril Island and there was an uprising of non-Russian-speakers as a result of all those Greek-speakers dying...

[lannamichaels]

The problem with using ImpSec is that they're the intelligence service, not the police. There's Service Security as the military police and then folks like Lord Vorbohn's guard (don't have canon at hand to look up exact name). ImpSec are spies and such, they put down revolts, but they're not really policing, that's beyond their scope. They'll throw you in a dungeon for stealing state secrets, but not for stealing bread.


If you wanted to bring in Barrayar canon characters, I think you'd have to write them as the oppressive monarchists crushing the revolt.

You mean they're not already? ;)

...you could write it as a darker-path AU from the beginning of Vor Game where Miles didn't make the same choice on Kyril Island and there was an uprising of non-Russian-speakers as a result of all those Greek-speakers dying...

Which would result in such a massacre, although I'm not convinced they couldn't have kept it hushed up to begin with. Either way, massively repressive govrnment, remote location, highly controlled press. It'll be a massacre. The only hope would be Gregor doing something, whcih, considering Gregor's headspace in Vor Game, I'm not sure Gregor "doing something" would be "allowing protests over military things", esp violent ones. Unless he had a specific use for them, like ceremoniously holding someone accountable and having their head, and so clean house.


So long as it's AUing Miles, could keep him where he was at the start of WA. where he's all "let the counts die off, they're all musty relics anyway." Miles really Comes To Privilege in a huge way later on, but at 17, he might be willing to see the appeal, But he wouldn't hurt Gregor... although there's probably a point of no return there after which Miles would openly revolt.

[lannamichaels]

EXTREMELY BELATEDLY: IT IS ALREADY IN CANON. Remember that throw-away line at the end of Barrayar about some people getting a little too into the spirit of things and declaring themselves an independant republic, and then Aral letting their rightful overlord go in and slaughter them all becuase it's an interal matter? BARRAYARAN DOOMED REVOLUTIONARIES FOR FREEDOM!


THANK YOU THANK YOU CRYOBURN CD. Here it is:

In an eastern coastal District belonging to one of Vordarian's allies, the Count suicided upon capture. An anti-Vor group declared an independent republic in the chaos. The new Count, an infantry colonel from a collateral family line who had never anticipated such honors falling upon him, took instant and effective exception to this violent swing to the over-progressive. Vorkosigan left it to him and his District militia, reserving Imperial troops for "non-District-internal matters."