Fanfiction Fridays: A Reflection of Starlight by AutumnGracy

(via YouTube)

I don’t think I’ve ever read the whole way through Les Misérables—once I reach a certain point, usually before everyone dies, I put the book down and call it quits. The musical is sad enough for me; I don’t need more sadness. That said, every once in a while I do check what kind of fanfiction there is out there, because hey, if any canon has death, fanfiction will fix that right up. That’s how I came across A Reflection of Starlight by AutumnGracy. Taking place, sadly, after the barricade, the fic starts with Javert jumping off a bridge. This time around, though, Valjean witnesses his fall into the Seine and rescues him.

Trigger warning for discussions of suicide follow.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Glitterbombs of Angry Queers by 148km

It’s Asexy April in the world of fandom, and while in past years I’ve had a relatively easy time finding lots of cool fic starring asexual characters, this year has been far harder. I’m not sure if it’s because my fandoms have changed drastically, or if Asexy April just didn’t get good advertising this year, but never fear. I looked back through my bookmarks folder and found a Les Misérables oldie but goodie to rec for today.

Featuring the usual culprits. (via stagedoordish)

Trailer Tuesdays: Some Nonromantic Faves (Just in Time for Valentine’s Day)

Howdy, readers!

As usual, our yearly Valentine’s pairing extravaganza will be showing up later today. To balance out that romance-filled spectacle, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite feminist movies that don’t have strong romantic messages for the not-so-romantically-inclined to curl up with on this fine Tuesday night.

This is how people watch movies, right? (via videostereo)

Hit the jump to find out what we picked, in no particular order!

Fanfiction Fridays: In Defiance of All Geometry by idiopathicsmile

Grantaire did not sign up for this. Well, technically he did. Technically that’s what he did, went down to the university’s co-op headquarters and put his signature on a series of papers, but Grantaire only kind of skimmed them. Who knows, maybe it’s all there in the fine print: “Be advised you are going to wind up getting in a knock-down screaming fight with the most beautiful man in the world about organic bananas.”

The point is, Grantaire didn’t join a co-op intending to be part of the crazy utopia vanguard. He came on the understanding that rent would be cheap, dinner would be provided five nights a week, and that none of his old friends would want to live with him once he announced his intentions to cut back on the old spend-your-weekends-getting-blackout-drunk routine. This last assumption, at least, has proven right; turns out they’d been less buddies and more drinking buddies, which, well, the more you know.

“I just don’t think it’s fair,” says Grantaire, “Everything I could find said rent would be one amount, and now you want to raise it by 20 dollars a month just so we can buy fancier produce?”

This is a civilized debate, which means that the nice one with the glasses — Combeferre, wonderful, kind Combeferre, who looks Cree or maybe Ojibwe and has sort of a hot librarian thing going on that is really working for him — must call on people before they’re free to yell at each other. However, the rest of the room has fallen silent, so it’s just a moderated pinball back and forth between Grantaire and the rude gorgeous one with the hair, Enjolras.

Grantaire hasn’t been able to use the jazz hands of consensus even once. It’s a crying shame.

“Enjolras,” says Combeferre.

Enjolras puts his hand down. “Look, I know people might be reluctant to pay more,” he says. “But we’re not talking about a silly extravagance. Conventional farming is doing real, measurable harm to the environment. The water supply, the soil quality, anything living nearby — it’s all affected, and it all connects back to us. What are our priorities here? I just think we need to all take a good long look at what kind of a house, at what kind of people, we want to be.”

It’s a good speech. The words could use some work, but the delivery has Grantaire wanting to hold up a lighter and sway. (Are lighters allowed in Amis House? Maybe for candles.) From up in his neutral president’s chair, Combeferre is trying hard not to look moved. He actually looks a little enamored. To his left, the black guy with the start of an afro and a downright improbable name — Courfeyrac? — murmurs something about “the co-op power couple.” Grantaire’s stomach sinks. It makes sense that the two most dazzling people in the house would be together, but well. He’d been hoping Combeferre was single.

Here’s the facts: I have been Enjolras/Grantaire trash since before I was a teenager. My entrance into Les Mis fandom probably predates any other of my obsessions except for Harry Potter, and in the way of these things, I am kind of protective of my ship. I was hesitant to read In Defiance of All Geometry at first since it’s got multiple pairings (Enjolras, Combeferre, and Grantaire in a variety of combinations and eventually a poly triad) but I loved idiopathicsmile’s other fanfics so much that I figured I’d get over it, and indeed I did—it was more than worth the read.

Vive la Révolution: Our Love/Hate Relationship with Violent Rebellion

This is a post I first started thinking about writing after the protests in Ferguson last year, a post I should have written then. Why I didn’t, I’m not entirely sure; but I do know that I should have and I didn’t, and for that I am ashamed. Because whatever the reason, it’s inexcusable. In these moments, silence is inexcusable, silence is consent. Now, just a few months later, history is already repeating itself, and I will stay silent no longer. As an American, as a human being, I cannot.

picture via X

“Thugs”, “animals”, “revolutionaries”, “heroes”; who gets these names? Who gives them? A young man with a broken spine is all but forgotten in the smoke of a single burning CVS. Cries of anguish go up for vehicles in flames and smashed store windows, resounding judgment raised against the citizens “destroying” their city, drown out the lamentations for a city destroying its citizens. Outrage fills social media that people could ever react violently to anything, much less to the wounds caused by oppressive, harmful historic socio-cultural systems whose predatory claws dig into the flesh of today’s prey even still. These claws don’t drip the tax dollars of the wealthy colonists denied representation in their governing bodies, they drip the blood of young people killed on their own streets. They drip mothers’ tears.

Fanfiction Fridays: World Ain’t Ready by idiopathicsmile

Guys, it’s finally done. I’ve been eagerly reading along, cheering and crying with every update, and now it’s finally complete and I can rec World Ain’t Ready. I hope you’ve enjoyed our fic recs thus far, but honestly, I love this fic more than anything else I’ve ever recced here. If you love amazing worldbuilding, teenaged activism, and musical banter, this is the fic for you.

Theatre Thursdays: Is Race Lifting in Theatre a Lie?

This month, Keke Palmer will be the first Black actress to take on Cinderella’s glass slippers on Broadway, following in the recent footsteps of the likes of Norm Lewis being the first Black actor to star in Broadway’s Phantom of the Opera. We’ve talked a fair amount about colorblind casting on this blog, and I’d say these are examples of the practice working for its desired benefits: making sure actors of color get a fair chance at playing a variety of roles, including leading roles that have long been considered “whites-only” territory. However, I’m asking the reader to consider: is Broadway seeing its first Black Cinderella, or merely the first Black actress to play Cinderella? What is the distinction and why does it matter? Allow me to elucidate.

Keke Palmer’s debut as Cinderella is September 9, right around the corner!

Lady Geek Girl’s Top 5 Kick-Ass Lady Characters Who Don’t Literally Kick Ass

I think Hollywood sometimes has a problem understanding what truly makes a strong character, especially a strong female character. Being a strong female character does not have to mean that you can kick some literal ass. Often, being a kick-ass lady can simply mean being intelligent, confident, and in control. It’s nice when lady characters fight and kick ass, but as with all things, we need diversity.

Pictured: Diverse Female Characters

We need lady characters who kick literal and metaphorical butt. Sadly, trends seem to lean towards having female characters that are fighters in order to prove their badassery. So in no particular order, I’ve compiled a list of my top five female characters who kick ass without literally kicking ass.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Sad Orphan Kissing Society by Solshine

“I know Marius was gonna try to ask you out. He totally didn’t do it, did he?” says Éponine.

Cosette sighs. “No,” she admits.

“Okay, then I’d like to take his missed opportunity.” Cosette looks blank. “Uh. Would you like to. Get coffee? Sometime?”

Cosette blinks. “Oh. Oh! I’m, um. I—”

“You’re straight, right, yeah. Worth a shot.”

“No, I— I mean, I’ve just never—”

“It’s fine, it’s okay, forget it. I’m gonna go back to work, it was great catching up.”

“No, wait,” Cosette insists, and Éponine stops in spite of herself. “Um, can I…?” She gestures to the pen behind Éponine’s ear. Éponine hands it to her hesitantly. Cosette takes her whole hand instead of just the pen, and it feels like an electric shock up Éponine’s arm. Which is nothing compared to when Cosette uncaps the pen with her teeth and holds out Éponine’s arm to write something on it. Something that’s a phone number.

“Call me,” Cosette adds needlessly, and smiles, and this is definitely the best smile yet. Éponine feels a little dizzy.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, totally, I will.”

–from The Sad Orphan Kissing Society by Solshine

One of the only non-miserable things about Les Misérables is Marius and Cosette’s relationship, but even that, obviously, grew out of some pretty miserable stuff. Cosette used to be in the care of Éponine’s abusive parents, the Thénardiers, and Éponine had a massively unrequited crush on Marius which eventually led to her death. Aside from all that depressing stuff, though, I never really liked Marius and Cosette’s relationship. It’s not that I don’t believe in love at first sight, it’s just that the way Marius goes about it is so silly. Honestly, he sees a girl across a square, decides he’s in love with her, and then, upon finally being introduced to her, he tells her “I do not even know your name”? And in the book he even obsesses over a handkerchief that ends up being Valjean’s, not Cosette’s. I just. Marius Pontmercy, everyone.

Marius’s face as he stares blankly at Cosette is one of my favorite things, though.

That’s why The Sad Orphan Kissing Society, by Solshine, is so awesome. Not only does it have a kickass title, but it also includes a Marius Pontmercy who’s just as hopeless (and kind, and fair) as he is in the canon versions of the story, and that’s not easy, considering that this fic is a modern day AU of Les Misérables. In fact, everyone is fantastically in character for having been brought a couple centuries forward. Éponine is a little rough around the edges, a little unsure of herself, and Cosette is as innocent and as forgiving as she’s ever been.  When the two girls meet, they instantly hit it off—and Solshine even gets into the sticky issue of the Thénardiers’ abuse without detracting from the fun, teenage feel of the fic.

And even though I dislike Marius, Éponine and Cosette clearly like him, so, just as a rising tide lifts all boats, an OT3 solves all problems—and make no mistake about it, it’s Éponine’s and Cosette’s joint decision to invite Marius into the fold. It takes Marius a hilarious scene to understand what’s going on, but when he finally figures it out, it goes very well for the three of them.

The Sad Orphan Kissing Society is a fairly short read at 10k words, and can be found here on AO3. Enjoy, and I hope you all found some good femslash fics during this Femslash February!

Sexualized Saturdays: The Double Standard of the Friend Zone

There’s this idea that if a guy is nice to a girl, he deserves something in return. A thank you? Sure. Some… other form of appreciation? Would be more appreciated. What if a guy was nice to a girl over a much longer period of time? Then they’re friends, right? Sure. But what if the guy wants to be more than friends, but for all his niceness, the girl still won’t go out with him?

Well, then the guy’s stuck in the dreaded “friend zone”. And what is the friend zone? It’s where girls relegate guys who are just nice enough to not make it into that erogenous zone where they actually get to have sex. Or, in other words, it’s a stupid social construct that implies both that a guy can’t be nice to a girl out of sheer altruism or friendship, and that if a guy is nice to a girl, she must reciprocate by sleeping with him. And whether or not it’s the girl doing the friendzoning, somehow, the pressure is always on the girl’s romantic interests.

Let’s take a look at some examples from pop culture so you can see what I mean. Slight spoilers for The Hunger Games and Les Misérables below.