tushanshu | Video:

Current Mood: curious

Entry tags:

Video:

[Hello, Turtle. Here is an Enjolras who looks a bit embarrassed that he's even started this late night/very early morning post, but well. The question he wants to ask IS actually a valid one, now that he has TIME to ask it, and he finds the current most popular phrases to be incredibly awkward or childish so..The hell with it. People have asked all sorts of questions here, haven't they? He's clearing his throat, flushing a little, then glancing into the vid directly and clearing his throat.]

A question, everyone.

I find that most of the current terms for one's...romantic friend...but more than such are either juvenile or not quite accurate. 'Boyfriend' for example, makes us sound as if we were children, 'Partner' has several connotations that do not immediately state the obvious and 'Lover' sounds particularly awkward.

[And well, they have not quite gotten to the lovers stage yet. Enjolras is hardly ready for it and still accustoming himself to the kissing and cuddling things that he never let himself seek out in life.]

When others here speak of the other piece of their soul as he is to me...what terms seem to work best for you?

[He will deny this video happened later. He really will. He just...really wishes to know and can't sleep so...here it is. Have fun with it?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

['Been with'? Does she mean intimately, or... Enjolras blinks a little at the term, attempting to discern the meaning there.]

Been in the sense of places or in the sense of intimacy then? There are some things I had no context for at home, that I am coming to learn here. That I love him and can be loved by him, that there is room for more than Patria is one. The rest of that will come with time I well imagine.

[It's the idea of being closer to Combeferre that interests him about sex and not so much the act itself, though he has heard enough to understand that with time it must come to feel pleasant or people would not do it. Not that he is going to speak as much here.

More open though people are about many things, some are simply still rude after all.

He was, yes, and works at a clinic here now. I've been there with him a bit. And yes, he is both of those things, and knows more than anyone I know.

[And Enjolras is smiling softly here.]

I suspect, though it was never said, that two of my dearest friends were those who found it in each other. I may be wrong, but they were always as Etienne and I were to each other so I would not be surprised to hear that it had turned to love for them.

[Look, even if Joly and Bossuet WERE simply romantic friends and had not bridged that particular gap there was still Musichetta who they shared. You don't do something like that and not have your friends consider that possibility. Not that Enjolras had devoted any nights to that, but it was simply known, in passing as many things are.]

There ARE those men who will do such, same as they do to women.

[He'd been warned enough against the possibility by others of Les Amis, had it suggested he find a means to defend himself in case he was walking alone at night, or took it upon themselves to walk with him. The possibility of it happening to anyone at all though is disgusting to him clearly.]

That anyone would do so to anyone unwilling, is...it makes me ill, considering.

Intimately. [Though, it was dawning on her that, from Enjolras' words, he did not seem to be with Combeferre intimately, simply romantically. The notion to her was odd. Of course, it was part of how she grew up, part of how she was raised. Sex was a trade, a currency. Sometimes, yes, it came with love, but never for her. If someone could have both... Then they were very, very lucky.]

Is he? You are a lucky man, to have him as yours. Men of true intelligence are rare. [She's smiling for him, he does seem to truly care for Etienne, and be bares them no ill-will.

She can also see the disgust written all over his face and she hardens for a moment, her lips set in a line. She has to agree. It's terrible. It's wrong. But, as she will tell him, it's simply a fact.] But that is how it is for many. Some do not realize what they do is harmful. Some do it to humiliate, or show they have power.

[Though date rape was not a concept that existed in her time and place, let alone the fact that she was a survivor of it or coercion... she never had been able to take in the realities of all of what had happened to her. She had a duty to her father. To Patron-Minette. She may not have liked it. But she did it.] There are terrible men out there, m'sieur. I know this better than most.

[So far, at least. Enjolras has been lucky enough to have found, as he's said before, possibly the most patient man on the turtle when it comes to dealing with...just about everything about him. He is luckier than many, as Eponine's next words prove.]

It IS terrible that it must be so, that there are no simple solutions for the imbalances that cause such. I understand of course it happens, and is unlikely to change, but it is still a wrong that should have had redress. No one should hold that power over any other.

That so many have... it means that good men are not quite doing all they should to help. That should not be, though I am hard pressed to find a true solution for it.

There is no solution. Men will do as they will. It is as it always was, always will be. Power, humiliation- [She takes a moment to laugh.] but often it is them who finds themselves humiliated. When they are small, or are quick to finish.

[She shouldn't have been able to talk about this so casually. To find humor in it. But it was how her life had been for quite some time now.]

What do you do? To try to stop it?

[And it is disturbing that she IS able to talk about it so casually. It is another clear indication of the wrongs in the world, and all the ways that they fall short of the ideal world that Enjolras saw in his mind's eye with every word he spoke of it, and every stroke of the pen. The trouble is this is a problem that is not quite so easily solved as, for example, the lack of medical care for the very poor, or the ridiculously stringent laws that send so many to the prisons. It is a problem that lies with people themselves, with the men who would do it and some of these ages old problems will need a different approach.]

Would that I knew. It is a sickness and an evil of what seems like many worlds. It would suggest that other ways are needed than what would be within another world's power though perhaps a start would be to place our sisters on the equal ground that they deserve. I know that it can happen to a man as well, but as long as women remain people that men think of as beneath them the imbalance is still greater. It is where the larger need lies, where I would attack things first.

Women are the ones so often perceived of as weaker, and until things change for them in that regard, and in that respect, the problems stem from there, and how you are seen. That is where it must begin, I think. But it may be a long time coming.

Showing those at risk how they may be protected is an interim perhaps, but it implies a blame towards those who cannot do it, which is truly wrong. It should not matter if someone will not be used, that ought to be the end of it. And yet it rarely is, I know.

Perhaps... Perhaps that would help. [She smiles, though it's out of place in the conversation.] I know men who were afraid of me. Because I would not let them shame me or threaten me into silence. [Her own father, how she'd scared him and Montparnasse and the others away. She knew very well what they could have done to her. Would have done to her. Montparnasse had held his knife to her, and told her twice she would get herself cut. But she had been unafraid.]

Men want women like me to show that we are afraid of them. But I am not. I'm not afraid of anyone or anything. Men are mortal, same as women. Why should one be superior to another? Men control the world, but they would not exist if it were not for the women. We are their wives and sisters and daughters. But they do not see it.

[Once more, she finds herself laughing, shaking her head.] Tell me the truth, m'sieur. Do you always believe it to be violent? I will tell you now it is not always. I have come from the beds of men I would not have chosen myself without any scratch on me. And yes! I do say beds. They do not lurk in dark alleys to grab me and threaten me into silence.

Such a terrible world, isn't it? But your love is gentle. As are all I have met here. Who knows how long such a thing will last! All men, no matter how much they profess they love and care for you, can turn against you at a moment's notice. [Her father. Though he had only abused her physically and verbally, he had sent her to these men in the first place. And he had let it be known very plainly that he loved her when she was a child.]

[And Enjolras is nodding at her words there. Indeed, why should she have to be afraid of them? Eponine, for all that he has seen, is a force to be reckoned with.]

And why should you be afraid then? [Enjolras approves of that,quite honestly. For all the reasons she is saying.] So we would not, it is true. I think that until people truly come to understand and see that, things must be hard, but not impossible.

[As far as the question goes, he does consider it.]

Perhaps not always, then. There are, after all, many kinds of force that hold someone to such a thing. Not all of them need be violence as one tends to think. If such things must happen there at all, better that you walk away uninjured in body. I cannot speak to anything else but...

[He shrugs a little, awkwardly, not a gesture of indifference, but of being at a loss of what to say. Enjolras will not speak for what Eponine might feel or other ways that she may have been hurt when he can hardly know it himself. To do so cheapens it, and her, and he would not willingly do that.]

It can be, truly. It worries me sometimes, most times. But we try to fight it as we can. Perhaps we might do that with love. I had worked for a world where it reigned supreme, and I do think its power is stronger when we allow for all love's possibilities.

[If he had tried to force words down her throat, to try to cheapen how she felt, her life experiences, there would have been some very severe words. And ruined friendships. But he doesn't, and the shrug does not cause her to frown. Instead, she nods.]

In body, yes. In mind... I've been injured there a long time. They do not occur mutually, or even separately at all times. I must... thank you for understanding as best you can, m'sieur Enjolras. I have not told anyone of this, not in the way I have told you. The others knew, partook. I beseech you not to tell the others. Not even Gavroche, I should not wish to break his little heart.

[She frowns, looking down.] Perhaps you should start by trying to assure everyone feels what it is to be loved, and to love. I have never been loved, do not think I am worth it. Perhaps that is why I cannot love as purely as others.

[On her end of the screen, she takes a drink of a wine bottle she's had laying about.]

No, no they do not at that. [He's been injured in mind himself, fairly severely, and the experience has stayed with him, changed things, though not in the same ways as she describes, nor for as long, and there were at least ways past it for him. For Eponine...Enjolras does not know what he might do instead to be of any help, but he is nodding an assent to her request.]

Not a word to anyone if you will not have it so. It is yours to do with as you will, to speak of or not. If I may help, though I do not know how...please. I am at your disposal.

[He cannot imagine Gavroche hearing of this, no. There is a wrong in that he does not wish to touch at all.]

Perhaps I should at that. If there might be a way it could be spread to others. You ARE worth love I would contest, moreso because you've been so long without it. Knowing what to do with it is something else again, I will admit, but I will dare suggest the possibility remains.

Something that I have learned here though?

[And Eponine is getting one of Enjolras's rare enough half smiles.]

We need to know and understand ourselves before we try to love another or we risk spoiling that love when we cannot conceive of what it means for us. I would say to start there, and let the rest come to you as it will. It IS quite the large turtle after all...

Thank you, m'sieur Enjolras. [She sets her bottle down, and nods once, gravely.] I do not know how you can help with such a thing. For me, it is the past. Never again will I have to take letters from my father to these men. It is one of the better parts of death, I find.

[The ends of her mouth curl up in that strange sort of smile she gives, that never reaches her eyes, that leaves them looking hollow.] You do not know me that well, Enjolras. I am not worth love. But your insistence that I am is appreciated.

Are you saying, Enjolras, that perhaps I will find someone to love me as you love your Etienne? [She laughs, closing her eyes, her nose wrinkling slightly as she shakes her head.] The idea! I will take the physical act of love. But I have only loved one person.

And he will never love me.

I suggest that anything is possible here, at least. I would not put it above all else and forget to find a life for yourself, Eponine, but there are many people from many worlds here.

Marius is...

[He hesitates, not sure of what to say of him. He can understand that for Marius there is only his Cosette, and he knows perfectly well that Marius's social skills are about as lacking as his own are most days. ]

Well, he is not for you, perhaps, but that is not to say you may not find someone who you'll love here ever</>. I hardly know you yet. It's true. But you are brave, you are intelligent, and many would appreciate such qualities in anyone. Do not give up on yourself and your capacities so easily as that.

Ah, then you know. [She supposed, in terms of her adoration, she was not the most subtle about her feelings towards Marius. Except, he seemed unable to grasp it himself. Even after she confessed her love to him with her dying breath. Bravo, Marius. You win at life.]

I am not beautiful, I am not rich. I am a cruel girl, dirty and tarnished. No one could love a girl such as me.

I only want him. He is so bright in this dark world I live in. Kind and caring- he payed my family's rent once, did you know that? He had not even known me, and he payed our rent!- and he granted my dying wish. He was always soft. I wish still for his face to light up when he speaks about me, the way it does for the lark. The things I would do- have done- if only to get him to look at me, to notice me. [She laughs again, taking yet another sip of wine.] But now I have his friendship. I can be content.

Rather, I surmised. You died with him, you spoke of him here, almost from the start. I am not so preoccupied now with matters of the insurrection so as not to notice some things now. Marius though...

[Hell with it, he may as well come out and say it.]

Marius and I are more like each other than I would care to admit most times. He does the same thing I did with the insurrection, I would think, he manages to block all else out. It is not a fault in you that this happens at all.

Of course he has his good intentions, and of course he is kind but he can be, like I am, spectacularly ignorant of many things. I think loving someone like that could kill...

[And he's stopping there, then snorting, at the irony of THAT.]

Well, I know well that there must be frustrations with it, like the ones I know I cause. Surely there are other possibilities out there who would not hurt you quite so easily or so ignorantly. I would simply say to look to those if you are ever able.

It did kill me.

[She mutters the words, dark and bitter. She had elected suicide because he did not love her. Because she would never have him, and it was the easiest way out of a life she would never otherwise escape. A gunshot wound was quick. Starving to death, or lying beaten in a gutter? That was slow and painful and she had already been dying of such for so long.]

So you understand then, too, how it is to love a man like that. I was- I was with another, I suppose you could say I was his, though I did not consider him mine, but I did not love him. I cared for the pleasure he brought me, the excitement. He was the man I was with when I was arrested. [She chuckles. Montparnasse had escaped then, but Javert had been able to arrest her.] So perhaps there are. But the heart wants what it does. We cannot control it.

Yes...it quite did, didn't it? My apologies. I did not think before that slipped out. And I cannot understand, but I can see from what you say.

And that makes sense, to me, that it would happen, a realationship based more on the...other aspects. I think you would not be the first.

But yes, the heart is certainly stubborn at times. I think that we can balance it though, with the mind, and reason.

I appreciate that, Enjolras. You have a humility I would not have expected, witnessing you lead the barricade.

No, I do not believe I am, either. My body is my own for the first time, but my heart will always belong to Marius. I do not think he remembers I told him this... [Her voice and face harden for a moment as she leans towards the monitor, her jaw set.] if you tell him this I shall make you a very unhappy man, m'sieur.

I have no reason.

Do I so? I suppose that there are...

[Enjolras pauses, considering how best he might phrase this. ]

A baricade calls for certain actions, resolution that would be out of place elsewhere, and in the heart of other matters. I acted as I must act there, with very few regrets but I did lose some humility there I think.

[Backing up the things that you believe in is a necessary thing, and Enjolras did not enjoy it in most cases, save that it furthered the cause of righteousness, but now that he is past it, and can simply be himself, without the barricade, and the stern force needed there at all tmes, he IS finding humility again, the sort that back at home, he would have found with perhaps les amis alone. That she has noticed it too is perhaps telling.]

The influence of my friends here, and having left the barricade back there, I suppose. The causes here are different and they require different means, and actions. I do find it both difficult, but easier, to learn my way around something else.

I can hardly speak of that either. It is yours to tell him or any other, and not mine, the same as everything else. I would not take the right to guard it from you, Eponine.

I understand. [She's had her moments, too, where she loses herself. She can hardly remember what they are like until they are over, and she has vague recollections of yelling and screaming or getting violent. She becomes a girl that, even more so, is hardly recognizable as the girl from Montfermeil.

But no one here knows her as that girl. Only Gavroche, but he was so young at the time, she doubted he remembered.]

Good. There are those that would, that find any secrets are theirs to tell, if it got them further long. [And she was one of them.]

[And it is true, yes, thinking of it in those terms. The Enjolras of the barricade is not, entirely the Enjolras before Eponine on the screen now. There is the fact of what he had to do of course, how taking a role of much more leadership has changed him, how necessity made him an executioner, fit to be judged, the things that have come to him here to change his views.

That Eponine can understand what he has left behind is helpful and perhaps, good for him in the end. He is nodding now, solemn, for the moment.]

So there are. And here it does not do one good to deal in many secrets. Enough are kept from us, I think.

They are. [She had more than her fair share of secrets. Marius, after all, did not know that her family had been the ones to raise Cosette. If he even knew of Cosette's tragic upbringing at all...]

But secrets can be more valuable than money, Enjolras. Surely you must have realized that.

I suppose some can. Those of state, for one.

[Javert had tried to learn their secrets after all, to be used against them, he recalls as he nods.

I do quite see your point. Well, this one I will hold as having the value it deserves.

Then do not sell it. I am... I do not trust easily, Enjolras.

Nor do I, in general. That is why I shall guard it as having the value that it does. Perhaps I may prove my worthiness to keep that trust through this.

Perhaps. [She sobers for a moment.]

I am warning you. I may be small, but I have fight in me yet and I will not take betrayal lightly. Not the likes of that which I have told you. I shall make you regret it. And you will live to know it.

One can see that of course, by speaking with you for a moment, that you have that fight in you still. And betrayal is one of the worst of all things men may do to their friends. I have little doubt you could, and would. Which is why I would not dream of it.

[ private video ]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

we should probably put a TRIGGER WARNING in this thread.

Good idea, yeah!: (TRIGGER WARNING)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject