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Intro post!
Hi all! I'm formerly librarifan (Academianut on ao3) https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcademiaNut/works
I adore Les Miserables (especially Valvert), reading, singing, musical theatre, writing, beading, mutual aid, activism, teaching, libraries, and exploding with excitement over any and all of these things with friends!
I have a singing TikTok just for fun at DisneyPrincessintheLibrary.
This is my ao3!
I think one of the things that really gets me about Hadestown is the way it gets collective action, specifically the timeline of it, in a way that I don’t see from most other musicals about protest.
Because the thing is, most of the time you don’t get the happy, clean, we win! ending of Newsies or The Prom. You get wins that feel like that in the moment, sure. Moments like in Promises when you’ve finally gotten them to listen to you and you’re hugging your friends and feeling like nothing can possibly go wrong now. The union gets a contract. One of the biggest demands you had was met. You feel invincible. Courageous in a crowd.
But then a year later you’re right back on the picket line, because corporate found another way to screw you, or you have to go back and renegotiate for the demands you didn’t get on the first round, or a new problem has come up that no one could have foreseen. And maybe this time, not all your friends from the first protest are there with you. Some of them got too burned out to continue fighting, or they fell out of the group socially, or worse they stopped believing the cause can be won. When progress feels slow and it feels like you’re alone in believing in it, doubt comes in.
Change is cyclical in the way any given cause rotates between action and planning, riding waves of public outrage to make big pushes and quietly accumulating support, raising awareness, negotiating the results of whatever the latest push has won. A lot of the time during the slower parts of the cycle, it can feel like you’re not moving at all, or even like you’re right back where you started. You look back on all the work you put in and wonder if any of it was worth it. Maybe you were just being naive to imagine the way the world could be. Maybe you came all this way to fail.
And you know what? Maybe you did fail. Maybe everything you tried was doomed from the start. But what really defines you is what you do next.
Do you still believe in the cause? Do you still begin to sing fight for it again, even if it didn’t turn out the way you wanted this time? That is the important thing. That is the thing that Hadestown understands so well.
I feel like looking back on big social movements from the past, learning about them in history classes or reading about them in books, they feel a lot quicker than they were. It seems like these fights were won, clean and happy, almost overnight. Even if you’re told the months or years between important major events, it’s hard to fully understand. You don’t learn about the cycle, or how frustrating and exhausting it can be.
Hadestown is so effective as a protest media in part because it’s about the cycle. Orpheus and Eurydice and the workers lose and win and lose every night. But the ending still says that it was worth it to try, and it salutes the birds that sing in the dead of night—the people who keep the fight going even when things aren’t moving fast, even when they don’t have a crowd to make them courageous.
Just… Hadestown, cycles, and collective action, man. I wish I had a more clever conclusion than that.
Mutuals are only allowed to reply with ONE WORD describing your vibe.
No explanations.
Reblog and tag more people.
Kind
@isecappi @dtvhomeofhappiness @differentsublimephantom @sparrow-the-tired-lesbian and anyone else!!!
Fun
@minty-didoodle @bubblegumbabyrat @lesbianslugreaction @gromqueer @lace-miserables @maybeitsapineapple @jazzvalve @andietries @cat-shapedgoo and everyone else who sees this and wants to playyy ❤️❤️❤️
Empathetic
No pressure! @m0malle @sopjacm @animehaircolors @autumnrain777 @is-it-done-yet
Oh my gosh you are so sweet @iris895 ❤️
Kind! 🩷
the truth is that all of your favorite fan artists and fanfic writers seem cool and intimidating until you become moots with them and realize they're just freaked up lil weirdos with talent
Can’t I be both :(
@sentimental-bookshelf you are totally both - still awe-inspiring but also wonderfully nerdy like me 😁
Mutuals are only allowed to reply with ONE WORD describing your vibe.
No explanations.
Reblog and tag more people.
Kind
@isecappi @dtvhomeofhappiness @differentsublimephantom @sparrow-the-tired-lesbian and anyone else!!!
Fun
@minty-didoodle @bubblegumbabyrat @lesbianslugreaction @gromqueer @lace-miserables @maybeitsapineapple @jazzvalve @andietries @cat-shapedgoo and everyone else who sees this and wants to playyy ❤️❤️❤️
My favorite thing about Jean Valjean besides the fact that he's dad shaped is that the man isn't even a very good criminal. Half the story is about how he's an escaped convict but like??
He stole some bread. Got caught immediately.
Escaped prison. Got caught.
Escaped again. Got caught. Resisted arrest! STILL GOT SENT BACK TO PRISON!
ESCAPED A THIRD TIME AND GOT CAUGHT AGAIN honestly at this point I would just quit 😭😭
Broke parole. This went slightly better!!
Became mayor. Outed himself to save a guy. ALMOST GOT ARRESTED AGAIN.
Like bruh. Stop committing crimes you're pretty shit at it
In the brick he gets recaptured a few days after escaping after the confrontation and went back to jail for 6 months before getting Cosette 💔💔💔
And then about 3 months after he escaped Javert figured out where he was hiding
(spoilers for Book 2 of a 164 year old book)
And the best part of Javert figuring out where he was hiding after escaping Toulon is that Valjean could not get away from him. Valjean thought he had lost Javert. The whole time though, Javert was on him. In 2.5.10, Hugo (Hapgood) says"
Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single instant; even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to be the most secure Javert’s eye had been on him. Why had not Javert arrested Jean Valjean? Because he was still in doubt.
No one can hide from Javert.
The only reason Valjean did not go back to prison that very day is that no one thought he could climb a wall with a child. And also a coffin. But that's beside the point.
(though the above quote might say more about Javert than Valjean's hiding abilities, but, in fairness, Valjean did rather suspiciously have the woman who ran the Gorbeau house break that 1000-franc bill for him. WTF, Valjean. Bad criminal choice!!!)
It’s so crazy that suicide prevention is just people going awwww don’t!! Awwww come on noooooooooo stopppppp
One of the best ones I saw was a thing noting that every single one of the few survivors of suicide jumps off of the Golden Gate Bridge realized, on the way down, that the problems they were killing themselves over actually were fixable or could be worked through...except for the now - extremely unfixable - problem of gravity.
Went to the Holocaust Museum in DC once. There was a video interview of an Auschwitz survivor who said he and some other prisoners stayed up all night with a man who wanted to kill himself. The man didn’t kill himself and survived to liberation.
In the video the survivor said “Never seek a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And they’re all temporary problems.”
Hearing that from a guy who survived the Holocaust rewired my brain a little bit.
I think something a lot of people don't understand is that depression is not suicidality, and suicidality is not depression. People can, and are, depressed without being suicidal, and sometimes suicidality peaks as people are emerging from depression. Suicidality is a wave, and the trick is to allow that wave to crest and subside WITHOUT acting on it. Whatever it takes to ride it out. For some people that's distraction, like watching television. For others it's calling a friend -- not to talk about the suicidality, but just to talk. For others it could be as simple as going to sit in a coffee shop or library, because the presence of other people is a huge diminisher of suicide risk. That's what suicide safety planning is about. It's like having any other type of emergency plan, like a plan for fire or evacuation. It's making a plan when you are in the frame of mind to do so, so that you can just DO the plan without having to think about it when the occasion arises. When you're in the midst of suicidal ideation, or even intent, you're not in a problem-solving mood. So knowing past!you, with the help of a therapist hopefully, came up with the plan and all you have to do is follow up until the wave crests and subsides, is what allows you to see another day.
ETA: Here's a link to a safety plan. https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/988-safety-plan.pdf
There’s a really compassionate and well-written paper/book/thing called Suicide: The Forever Decision that’s written specifically for people who are currently suicidal. The letter to the reader at the beginning is wonderful and deeply understands how to talk to someone who’s suicidal without preaching or talking down to them.
It’s very honest. It’s very clear. It’s very kind. It presents you with a lot of information and a lot of understanding and lets you take it all in like the autonomous human you are, and make decisions from an informed place. It goes over the reality of suicide attempts, pain involved, likelihoods of survival, after effects of attempts, and how to get help if you want it after reading all of that and learning about the reality of suicide attempts.
No one can ever stop you if you’re really determined. Only you can stop yourself. If you’re suicidal and there’s ANY tiny part of you that wants a chance to not go down that route, but can’t convince the rest of you yet, give this short book a try. Or share it with anyone you know who might need it.
That book is incredible!!!!! Sharing for anyone who it might help!!! ❤️
Pigeon-inspired hair!!!!! 🤩🤩🤩
waaaay back when I was a cashier in retail we would talk about dumb shit while unloading the truck, and we got to the "what would you do in a zombie apocalypse" me and another worker were like yeah we would just die. End it all, we can't fight or run or shit. I refuse to put that much effort into survival.
And my manager was like no!!!! If that happened, I would drive to find you guys in my truck and we could eat stuff from my wife's garden and I would make sure everyone I know survived!! I would carry you all on my shoulders away from the zombies!!
Anyway, random shout out to that guy. You were too kind for retail management, Devin.
To put it simply, the bagnes were penal institutions for forced hard labor born after the abolishment of using convicts as rowers on the royal galleys. Their history can roughly be divided into three distinct periods.
In the fifteenth century, France started to use convicts as rowers on their royal galleys out of the arsenal in Marseille located in the south of France on the Mediterranean sea. As this is not the period this blog predominantly focuses on, I will keep this brief.
This period can broadly be characterized as excessively brutal. While many convicts were sentenced to serve for a limited number of years, most to many did not survive their sentence. Galleys typically housed a population of around 150 men. Generally, 1/3 of the convicts would row at once and would be chained to their oars. They would be changed out as each crew tired.
Conditions on the galleys were deplorable and punishments harsh. Punishments--which were, in general, liberally delivered--ranged from cutting off the noses and ears, floggings, beatings, and execution (but the latter was rare as galley slaves already had a high rate of mortality and manpower was always needed).
When the galleys were not sailing, they would be chained in port in which they served as floating prisons for the galley slaves as a sort of prelude to the later bagnes flottants. These maritime origins of the later bagnes continued to dominate and influence the terminology surrounding forced labor (travaux forcés) through the time of foreign penal colonies.
A decree on 27 September 1748 from King Louis XV abolished the galleys. There were predominantly four bagnes that existed throughout the period of the bagnes from 1748 to 1873. Briefly, these were:
Bagne de Toulon (1748-1873). The first of the bagnes to open, likely due to its proximity to Marseille where the galleys of old were based. Located on the southern Mediterranean shore of France. Arguably the most notable of the bagnes, it was the first, the last, and the largest. Known for housing numerous fictional characters such as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Caderousse and Benedetto from Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, as well as Vautrin in Le Comédie Humaine.
Bagne de Brest (1749-1858). Located on the northern shore of France. Housed up to 3,700 convicts.
Bagne de Rochefort (1766-1852). Located on the northern shore of France. Unlike Toulon which was kind of thrown together over time, Rochefort was designed carefully and was meant to house up to 500 convicts but eventually held up to 2500. Notable for having the highest mortality rate.
Bagne de Lorient (1796-1830). Specifically built for military personnel, including disciplined or deserting soldiers and navy sailors.
After the closure, the disembarked galley slaves were sent to the port bagnes; however, much of the argot and terminology in the prisons persisted from the time of the galleys (including the bagnes being called the galleys and the convicts galériens). There was also a fourth bagne in Lorient which was open from August 1796 to 1830 and was specifically built for military personnel, including disciplined or deserting soldiers and navy sailors.
The etymological origins of the word bagne is particularly interesting (at least to me). In Livorno, Italy, a prison (Bagno of Livorno) was built on the ruins of an ancient Roman bathhouse, and this prison became colloquially called il bagno (“the bath”) because of this. The term then migrated to France via linguistic borrowing.
In general, conditions in the bagnes were quite bad but were still an improvement over the galleys of old. Typical living conditions were in salles which were large communal cells where the convicts would be chained to a tollard (a communal wooden bed, generally at an incline, which in Brest would typically hold around 24 convicts at once with a width of 48cm allotted for each man) at night. Convicts would be subjected to harsh punishments (which, in general, did get less harsh over time, especially compared to the galleys of the Ancien Regime).
Convicts condemned to hard labor would be forced to perform grueling labor in the ports and around the local region (at least around Toulon which is the bagne I am by far the most familiar with). Convicts were typically chained to another convict, though those who were proven (éprouvés) to have good behavior could be separated from other convicts by dragging only their half of a chain (demi-chaîne/chaîne brisée). The most trusted of convicts could be exempt from having a chain attached to their leg shackle (manille) and were known as forçat à chaussette.
Convicts condemned to the galleys were typically branded, though this practice was briefly abolished between 1789 (or 1791, I'm not certain which of the legal codes officially ended it) and 1810. This will most certainly be its own post in the future as well, so I will not say much more of it here.
Punishments in the bagnes were similarly brutal but tended to get less extreme overtime. Before the Revolution, punishments were much more similar to those on the galleys of old, but after the revolution, the punishments that largely remained were most typically flogging (bastonnade), solitary confinement in a cachot, remaining chained to a sleeping bench for a period of weeks to years on the double chain, retranchement (removing the wine ration or, sometimes, limiting food rations), and in rare cases, execution.
Part of the sentence of travaux forcés was it being a very public and shameful affair. Between the convicts' expositions, being on public display during working hours, and the bagnes being more or less open to the public (depending on the commissioner of the prison), there was a great deal of shame, scorn, and ignominy imposed on the convicted that continued beyond their release.
As time went on following the Revolution, the public and politicians grew less and less tolerant of having ex-convicts in the country. Released convicts were subjected to strict travel orders and strict limitations on where they were allowed to live. In the 1840s, sentiment toward ex-convicts had soured so much (coupled with the imposing end of slavery) that the port bagnes began to slowly empty into penal colonies (predominantly Cayenne, New Caledonia, and French Guiana). There is substantially more information available about this time period, and it could/will likely be the subject of a post in the future but is also outside of the main focus of this blog.
SOME SOURCES: (I regret to inform you that not all of them are here)
“bagne”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012
DePaul University Special Collections and Archives. The French Galley Slaves.
Castan, Nicole; Zysberg, André (2002). Histoire des galères, bagnes et prisons en France de l'ancien régime (in French, translated w/ online tools)
Foucault, Michel (1977). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison
Humbert, Alphonse (2025). Mon bagne. Edited by Louis Lagarde and Michel Soulard
Le bagne de Rochefort, panneau d'information du Musée national de la Marine de Rochefort
Maurice Alhoy (1845). Les bagnes : histoires
Martin, Meredith; Weiss, Gillian (2022). The Sun King at Sea: Maritime Art and Galley Slavery in Louis XIV's France (in French, translated w/ online tools)
Raoulx, Docteur (1929). Le Bagne de Toulon. Editions Les Kiosques.
Terrail, Pierre Alexis de Ponson du (1866). Le Bagne de Toulon (in French, translated w/ online tools)
Vidocq, François; Lacassin, Francis (1998). Mémoires Les voleurs.
Zaccone, Pierre (1877). Histoire des bagnes.
Websites I am too lazy to source correctly:
https://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagne/finistere/des-galeres-au-bagne-de-brest-7f496538-0744-11ed-add0-fc1abedd57eb
And if you need a place to start looking into this (which is where I started years ago), I would most certainly recommend this tumblr master post by Prudencepaccard.
For definitions of words:
https://www.languagerealm.com/french/frenchslang_e.php
@sentimental-bookshelf and @chrissystriped you are AMAZING for this, best Les Mis historical researchers EVER OMG!!!!
Confrontation (coffee version) featuring @prouvairesverse 's adorable keychain Valvert 😆
How to replicate my sleep life:
- Have a mathematical doubling pattern of sleep (0 hrs one night, then 3 the night after, then 6 the next night) and so hope to get 12 hours of sleep the next night 😆 but don't because you
- Feel very sleepy at 7pm, sleep for exactly 20 minutes, then proceed to be awake until 2:00
- Set alarm for 6 because you Really Should get up at 6, snooze the alarm til 6:15, congratulate yourself for not snoozing further, then proceed to scroll till 7 while not actually wanting to, and truly wanting to get up, but not being able to Because Anxiety
- Cry
- Finally rocket out of bed with like 15 minutes to shower and get in the car 😅
if you're sitting on a fanfic idea because you think it's "too weird" or "too niche" I need you to understand something: the internet is VAST and FULL of people with your exact brand of weird. that crackship that makes sense only to you? there are at least 50 people who will read it and go "oh my god FINALLY." but even if there were ZERO? you still deserve to write the thing that makes your brain light up.
I wrote a crossover between two wildly different fandoms (Stormlight and Epic the Musical) from the perspective of a SHEEP and 16 people liked it 😆 so, never doubt fandom's acceptance of weirdness! We are all happily weird together 😆
