i've been thinking a lot about cyrano de bergerac adaptations recently

because, okay, a lot of times your weak point is gonna be the central conceit -- the letter writing. what kind of situation do you need for your cristian to agree (to ASK) a guy he barely knows to spearhead his courtship?

i'm not nearly enough of a scholar for this, but i've read that the original play existed in an intellectual era that meant it was actually plausible that roxane would reject cristian if he wasn't well-spoken enough. but that's really hard to transfer to the modern era! especially because you want your audience to be FOND of roxane, instead of kind of. side-eyeing her as a snob.

roxane (1987) gets past this by... well, first off, being the kind of nerdy movie that snobs enjoy, but secondly by making christian awkward around women -- SO awkward that he freezes up around them, which also very neatly explains the letters thing.

because that's the other problem! why have letters when you can have text messages or even dates?

the letters have to come from the inability to woo in-person -- the issue is that modern AUs don't have the built-in reason that a courtly-love story does. i haven't seen the half of it, but i know it's set in a high school, and damn what a good way to work in the letters thing. Talk About A Context Where You Don't Control Who You Spend Time With !

back to cristian and cyrano. the main choice to make, with regards to the letter-writing conceit, is who brings up the idea. in the play, it's cyrano -- hearing cristian's dilemma, he recognizes it as an inverse to his own. it's a very crafty (and self-serving tbh) choice, and it leaves room for cristian to doubt the arrangement and even try to take control pre: balcony scene.

iirc roxane (1987) has christian suggest the scheme -- implying that he doesn't care HOW roxanne falls in love with him, just that she does. (this is either naive or purely an attempt to have sex with her, depending on how you read the movie.) i've never been a fan of this choice. i think a big part of the appeal of cyrano are his flaws, including him butting his nose (ha) into something that he really shouldn't be involving himself in. on the other hand, roxane DID ask for his help... he's a layered guy in terms of morality, okay.

anyway, i guess it depends on how you want to characterize both your cristian and cyrano. how does your cyrano's arrogance manifest? how much agency do you want to give your cristian -- and, again, what kind of guy lets a rando take command of his own budding relationship?

what about you? asks Marius in a text, several days later. how’s your week been?

Éponine looks up from her phone to watch Cosette, her head thrown back, laughing at one of Montparnasse’s jokes.

She thinks about typing it out: I think I’m falling for your girlfriend. She thinks about saying: well, I haven’t had time to do much besides writing love letters about you. She thinks about throwing it all to the wind and admitting: sometimes I love you so much that I forget to be afraid.

Cosette’s hair shines in the late-night lamplight -- she’s grinning like nothing in the world could ever be wrong. For a moment, Éponine almost believes her.

oh, you know, she ends up sending. same old, same old.

-

Éponine is fucked.

i have this superstition about outlines -- that whenever i do one, the fic doesn't get done. and this isn't really true! it sure FEELS true, because my longest unfinished works were outlined. but they're also my longest works period. i just don't finish things!

it's not because i outlined. the outlining is, in fact, what got the works to be long enough for me to develop this superstition in the first place

almost done with the letter-writing montage... just need one more (extremely gay) scene between cosette and eponine, to really sell the longing. it can serve the dual purpose of giving cosette an inkling of Just How Much her friend cares about her boyfriend.

well, you know. on top of the piles and piles of love letters that she's been writing on cosette's behalf, addressed to cosette's boyfriend. extremely sappy love letters. totally generic love letters. mhm

how far can you get in writing les mis fanfic before it becomes obvious that you can't pick a single les amis (is that their name??) out of a lineup: an experiment by essbie andloud

okay guys how do we feel about modern adaptations of famous books that reference the famous books as existing in-universe?

i've been pondering my own modern au of cyrano de bergerac today, and coincidentally i just watched "modern persuasion" (2020) which BY THE WAY WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD. but something that surprised me about the movie was that the "references" to the original material (for example, her cat is named wentworth) were actually in-universe references. the characters have read persuasion! the main character named her cat wentworth because she saw the similarities between anne elliot's situation and her own!

i find that fact by itself charming, i think. but it did start to frustrate me when they kind of... began to rely on the original work, instead of committing to being an adaptation? the love interest doesn't write a "half agony, half hope" text, he writes a text that says "i remember that book, with the half-agony, half-hope line. that's about where i am now". and it's an interesting theory of adaptation, for sure, but i think in this particular case... it felt lazy, honestly? it felt like they didn't know how to play the letter straight, so they didn't, ignoring the fact that the letter is THE most pivotal and iconic part of persuasion

(the other part that irks me is the idea that characters are able to see their similarities to existing stories -- because if so, why don't they use that foreknowledge to guide them? but i don't think that's a valid criticism, honestly. for god's sake, i've technically lived the backstory of persuasion, but lord knows if my ex showed up i would Not be making the assumption that we'd go in the same direction as anne elliot and captain wentworth)

i guess, for me, this makes me want to question How Much is Too Much explicit in-universe reference to the source material. can éponine quote cyrano's first line when she's doing her first public confrontation? can she quote the letters from cyrano while she writes her own love letters? is she allowed to recognize the balcony scene -- and maybe even choose to opt out of it, if she doesn't want to get caught in that kind of storyline?

i'm still trying to figure out where that line is. i would love to hear other people's thoughts, if you have them!

the eponine x cosette x marius ot3 anon is back !!

check back with me in a few days anon and hopefully i'll have something more substantial for you

don't mind if i do :3 but also, i thought i'd tell you that you've mildly inspired me to start writing fic again. i'm not sure i'll ever actually finish, but there's that!

HI ANON I LOVE YOU I'M SO SORRY FOR VANISHING

that makes me so happy!!!! fic is such a fun and glorious thing <3 i took a two-week break from writing because of a family trip (and then depression kicked me in the ass) but i'm coming back to it today and i am very happy about that :D

since we last talked, i have outlined the fic!! i have a pretty good sense of where it's going, which makes me happy. (there are still LARGE chunks of this fic that are not outlined -- notably the resolution, lmfao -- but i'm hoping those sections will take shape as i get a better feel for the fic as a whole)

also... i wrote one of the most important scenes :D

“Dearly beloved-- well, now I sound like a priest.” Eponine sighs. “You’re thinking about it too hard.” She lets the pen drop. “You have to think about it-- listen, Marius is going to know who you are as soon as he gets the letter. This isn’t about introducing yourself in the usual way. You’re trying to avoid a WhatsApp romance, aren’t you?” Cosette crosses her arms, watching her. “So how would you do it?” “I’d lose the self-consciousness,” she says, bluntly. “This only works if you commit fully.” Cosette shakes her head. “I can’t just stop being anxious. I’ve never talked to him, I don’t even know what his voice sounds like!” “Marius is a romantic,” says Eponine, firmly. “He’ll love whatever you write for him. Look, let me--” She scribbles something down, more focused on displaying relaxation than the quality of her writing. Marius-- I want this to be more than just a summer fling. I don’t know what your voice sounds like, but I know what it feels like to have you live in my heart, in my thoughts, in my life. Will you start this experiment with me? Will something bloom through the pages of our letters? When she glances up, Cosette is staring at her, awed. Belatedly, Eponine says, “Something like that.”

i am quite obsessed with your eponine x cosette x marius wip bc, well, there's so little of the ot3 to go around i am starved for content 😔 by chance do you have any snippets you'd like to share / are especially proud of?? 👀👀

HI ANON I'M ALSO VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS WIP

unfortunately i haven't had as much time as i'd like to work on it (hopefully i will soon!!) but i've been rotating it in my head for a few weeks and i think i have a LOT more figured out than before, which is really exciting!

it makes me so so happy that other people also love this ot3 <3 they're so wonderful!! i'm not very involved in the les mis fandom but these three have a special place in my heart and i love writing them.

as for this fic in particular, i'm honestly not very happy with... most of what i have written for this au, but here's a snippet that makes me smile:

“You have got to stop antagonizing them,” is all Marius says, but he hooks his elbow around her shoulders in greeting anyway.

“Who, me?” asks Eponine, letting her grin turn a little mean. She indulges herself a little -- hunches her shoulders under his arm and lets herself pretend to be dainty. It only lasts a second, Marius reclaiming his arm to take another drink, but it’s a nice feeling. “It’s only the natural rivalry between the police and the fire department. All in good fun, you understand.”

“Right,” says Marius. “All your employees pick fights with Javert’s men in public places, too, huh?”

“Well, no,” she says, still grinning, as she hangs her own elbow around his shoulders. Just another night with the boys. “But they say the best way to lead is by example.”

HI I'M TENTATIVELY DONE WITH THE LETTER-WRITING MONTAGE

Eponine raises her eyebrows, as if it’s surprising that anyone could find Marius’ terrible attempts at poetry endearing. Maybe it’s surprising that it’s someone who isn’t her. “You’re both crazy,” she says, trying to play this off. Cosette just beams at her, taking another bite of her sandwich. Something odd happens in Eponine’s stomach area, something very unrelated to the cold spaghetti she’s been eating for lunch. She frowns. Cosette’s ebullience fades. “Are you okay, Eponine?” “Yeah.” Eponine hates when people pay attention to her. She has a weakness for it. “I’m-- it’s fine.” She grins at Cosette. “This is why you reheat leftover pasta.” “Okay,” Cosette says slowly. She’s still watching Eponine closely, like she can see a bit of the deeper feelings that live, too loudly and chaotically, in Eponine’s heart. Well, Eponine can’t have that.

lol i know i was talking about scenes that don't mesh together a few days ago but the awkward transition in eponine de bergerac means that eponine goes DIRECTLY from realizing she loves cosette to writing love letters about her. and i think that's hilarious

honorable mentions for fun out-of-context lines:

“And your girlfriend kept me up until 2 am talking about--” she realizes what she’s about to say and clumsily redirects. “--work.”

“Stay on the horse,” Jeannemary orders. / “Like fuck I’m doing that,” Isaac says, sliding down to join her. “You can’t defend us both all the time.” / “Watch me,” she says, readying her stance.

She can’t blame them, not with the way Alarcón is watching her every time she skips a consonant.

“Glad I caught you,” says Kira, her voice warm with humor. “Anyway, you don’t wanna be around Quark tonight. Odo says they’re doing another audit.” / “Another one?” Jadzia asks. “Wasn’t there one only a few months ago?” / “Well, you know Quark and Odo.” / “Yeah, I guess,” says Jadzia. They spend a moment in the familiar silence of people wondering in unison, No, but seriously, what’s going on with the two of them?

At his curious look, she explains, “You can hear Rizzo from in here, too. I swear, you make that guy the narrator of one movie--”

why did i leave off on the hardest scene

so hey.....how is roxane doing.......

wip wednesday!

they're figuring stuff out, in theory! in reality this is the calm before the storm.

“Morning, blondie,” says Eponine, getting her own cup of coffee. “Oh also-- about our writing project.” She glances at Gavroche, unwilling to let him into their little alliance. She looks back at Cosette. “I had some ideas over the weekend?” “Some ideas?” asks Cosette, arching one perfect eyebrow over her mug. Instead of answering, Eponine dumps half her stack onto the table in front of Cosette. “A couple.” Cosette leafs through them, pausing in the middle to read one in more detail. Eponine’s heart pounds. She wasn’t sure how much of her excitement to reveal to Cosette -- how much poetry about Marius has been living in her for years, now finally getting an outlet. But Cosette doesn’t call her weird, or yell at her for falling in love with her boyfriend. She just looks up and says, “Eponine, these are really good.”

and what's up with roxane? OOH WAIT IS THIS THE ROXANE I THINK IT IS?

IT PERHAPS IS! well, it's an au, so there is A roxane here but it's not THE roxane. basically one day during a boring lecture my brain was like "hey, you know how you ship TWO tragic ot3s from classic french literature?" and then i kinda ran with that.

basically the premise of this fic [working title "roxane, you don't have to turn on the red light"] is smushing together cosette/éponine/marius with the movie roxanne (1987) which is an 80's au of cyrano de bergerac. éponine is cyrano, fire chief of the town (her "nose", i think, is being a masculine woman, although indecision about that / unwillingness to present that as a source of such deep insecurity has been the reason why this au has stalled so hard); marius is roxanne, grad student of philosophy or something, because i think it's funny; and cosette is christian, the town's newest firefighter.

I know that last month, on the twelfth, one day you put your hair up. / I am so used to mistaking your hair for daylight that, like the afterimage left when you stare at the sun-- when I look away from you, my eyes see nothing but gold.

“What are you writing?”

Éponine startles violently, hastily flipping over the page in front of her. Cosette is standing across her desk, grinning, looking ready to grab and read the letter Éponine has been trying to stop herself from writing for three days now.

“Nothing for you, for once,” she says, the lie falling out easily. She drops her pen into a cup on the table and draws the page into her pocket, trying and failing to make the motion look casual. “What did Marius think of the latest letter?”

“He loved it, of course,” Cosette says, taking pity on her and dropping the topic of the paper. She sits down across from Éponine’s desk. “He loves everything you write for him.”

Éponine knows that tone -- doesn’t know how to respond to it without hurting herself more. Then again, that isn’t the point, is it. “He loves you.”

“I do hope so,” says Cosette, smiling at her.

Éponine’s heart makes an odd motion, like someone is wringing it out.

omg guys, it is actually manageable for me to surpass my april wordcount this month! i'm not going to beat may, but it's okay -- i'm just really excited to be on a (mostly) upwards trend even with through a rough month :')

also omg i made progress on the ds9 modern au AND got started on the next section of eponine de bergerac... writing games are very fun it turns out :D thank you finx for organizing wip wednesday!

okay, bedtime for me! i think i'm actually gonna leave this middle scene as-is for the moment, so the next scene is Dinner With The In-Laws, aka eponine meets jean valjean.

i'm excited for this, because i love the idea of valjean seeing something in eponine that she doesn't often get to share. but also this scene has to accomplish a lot! so it is a bit intimidating, lmao