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100 days of enemy recs: 94. Les Miserables
Ah, Les Miserables. The fandom that rescued me from the doldrums of my RPF phase! Not just fictional, but public domain classical literature with a leftist political message! You can't get a more respectable fandom than that.
(I still haven't seen any movie versions. Or the musical. At this point it's a whole thing. Vive le Brick!)
If you look at Les Mis fandom as it exists, you might get the impression that the main enemy pairing is Enjolras/Grantaire. The problem with this is that Enjolras and Grantaire are not enemies. The fandom has done a good job of writing all the enemy tropes and archetypes for them (after all with only a few dozen pages of canon you have to get your story somewhere) and believe me I have read them all! But in canon they are not enemies. In canon Enjolras is the friend in your friend group who always seems to be doing five things at once, and is super passionate and doing good work at all of them, and you don't know how they manage it until you realize it's because they don't reserve any time for, like, being a human person. And Grantaire is the friend in your friend group who is constantly distracting himself with trivial stuff, new stuff every week, because if he ever stops distracting himself he remembers that life is futile and living is pain and we might as well all just die. You don't want to assign them to a group project together, but that doesn't make them enemies.
The real enemies are the old mens. Valjean and Javert. Valjean, the convict on the run! Javert, the policeman who never quits! Destiny keeps them crossing each other's paths and ruining each other's lives! Valjean's central character note is the way he slips in and out of identities - he believes deep down that the person he really is doesn't deserve to exist, so he spends most of his live becoming who other people need him to to be and abandoning selves at a moment's notice without ever daring to look back. Javert also believes he isn't worthy but he has dealt with this by deciding to be useful and standing firm in who he is like a rock. He is also happy to tell you exactly who and what you are, which he is also very certain of. This comes in handy in post-canon fic, where Valjean needs someone to teach him how to be who he is without any disguises, and Javert needs someone to teach him how to shed his old self and survive it.
I also need to put in a good note for Father Fauchevelent here, who did the whole sworn-enemy-to-devoted-partner thing as a speedrun quietly in the background while Valjean entirely failed to notice they had ever been enemies in the first place or that Fauchelevent had undergone any emotional turmoil about him. But they were basically married and raising a kid together for almost a decade? People should ship them more.
(note: if you only know a little bit about les mis fandom, you might be surprised at all of these pairings if you're under the impression these characters all died at the end of the book. Don't worry, they definitely didn't. Valjean followed Javert and saved him from the river, after which Javert decided that if he had to live and be forgiven against his will, Valjean did too.)
(I still haven't seen any movie versions. Or the musical. At this point it's a whole thing. Vive le Brick!)
If you look at Les Mis fandom as it exists, you might get the impression that the main enemy pairing is Enjolras/Grantaire. The problem with this is that Enjolras and Grantaire are not enemies. The fandom has done a good job of writing all the enemy tropes and archetypes for them (
The real enemies are the old mens. Valjean and Javert. Valjean, the convict on the run! Javert, the policeman who never quits! Destiny keeps them crossing each other's paths and ruining each other's lives! Valjean's central character note is the way he slips in and out of identities - he believes deep down that the person he really is doesn't deserve to exist, so he spends most of his live becoming who other people need him to to be and abandoning selves at a moment's notice without ever daring to look back. Javert also believes he isn't worthy but he has dealt with this by deciding to be useful and standing firm in who he is like a rock. He is also happy to tell you exactly who and what you are, which he is also very certain of. This comes in handy in post-canon fic, where Valjean needs someone to teach him how to be who he is without any disguises, and Javert needs someone to teach him how to shed his old self and survive it.
I also need to put in a good note for Father Fauchevelent here, who did the whole sworn-enemy-to-devoted-partner thing as a speedrun quietly in the background while Valjean entirely failed to notice they had ever been enemies in the first place or that Fauchelevent had undergone any emotional turmoil about him. But they were basically married and raising a kid together for almost a decade? People should ship them more.
(note: if you only know a little bit about les mis fandom, you might be surprised at all of these pairings if you're under the impression these characters all died at the end of the book. Don't worry, they definitely didn't. Valjean followed Javert and saved him from the river, after which Javert decided that if he had to live and be forgiven against his will, Valjean did too.)
- Three Days (or The One Where Javert and Valjean Take a Road Trip Through France and Raise a Child) (36182 words) by zamwessell
Chapters: 8/8
Fandom: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables (2012)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Javert/Jean Valjean
Additional Tags: Kid Fic, Fix-It, Road Trips, Resolved Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Parenthood, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Smut, I Don't Even Know, i want this to work out so much, Javert would be a good dad, tad bit ooc, Fluff and Angst
Summary:Javert calls what he thinks is Valjean's bluff about needing three days to find the child Cosette and intercede for her. The Inspector comes along for the ride -- and gets much more than he bargained for, in the process.
- A Ribbon for a Spider (2987 words) by voksen
Fandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (Radio Play 1937)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Père Fauchelevent & Jean Valjean
Characters: Père Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, Javert (Les Misérables)
Summary:By chance, Fauchelevent and Javert meet at a tobacconist's.
- Toil Until the Old Colours Fade (94310 words) by drcalvin
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Javert/Jean Valjean
Additional Tags: Groundhog Day, Time Loop, Temporary Character Death, Redemption, Purgatory, Suicide, Pining, Kink Meme, Holding Hands, Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Javert's Redemption, Slow Burn, Ensemble Cast, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Series: Part 1 of Groundhog-verse
Summary:After his leap into the Seine, Javert finds himself back in Montreuil-sur-Mer on the morning of his first appointment with M. Madeleine. He soon discovers that while his choices can change the outcome of things, nothing can stop death from delivering him back to that same morning.
Now he has to defeat the game of fate or keep returning to 1820, eternally dying without finding peace.