#breadvids

[breadsquishbhm]

enjoy like 30 secs of me struggling to digest my wg shake on top of my dinner.

[secretmellowblog]

@breadvidence recently wrote a great bit of Les Mis meta where they pointed out how Jean Valjean’s “compliments” to Javert in Montreuil-sur-Mer really are just..... conciliatory flattery, and don't reflect his real feelings about Javert at all. And that's a great point, and something I wish more people explored! Lines like "you are a good man and I esteem you" aren't Jean Valjean's earnest feelings towards Javert. Instead they’re examples of the way Jean Valjean often retreats into excessive deferential politeness to authority as a survival strategy. As I mentioned in another recent post— Jean Valjean is a genuinely kind person, but he’s also someone who often has literally no choice but to act overly polite to authorities/the police, because if he’s not polite enough they might start to find him suspicious. If he doesn't lick their boots enough, they might start investigating him. He's instinctively deferential out of fear of violence. He's flattering out of fear. He's polite "at gunpoint." He's polite to cops the way you're polite to an armed police officer who pulls you over.

And Jean Valjean's polite tranquil behavior towards Javert during Javert's "resignation"— saying things like “you are a good man and I esteem you, I want you to keep your job” and etc etc— is later explicitly confirmed to be at least somewhat of a calculated tactical decision Jean Valjean made out of terror:

He was carried away, at first, by the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste, stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert’s presence, that great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shook off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler.

I love the phrase "he resumed his calmness as a warrior picks up his buckler"-- it's such a great way of summarizing how Jean Valjean's ability to have polite conversations even when he's breaking down internally has been such a useful defense mechanism for him. I also love the contrast between the excessively polite way Jean Valjean talks to Javert when he’s acting out of terror/self-preservation….vs the more honest way he talks about Javert when he’s alone during Tempest in a Skull:

“That Javert, who has been annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined me, which had divined me—good God! and which followed me everywhere; that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his Jean Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count for nothing in it!”

It's just extremely funny. The contrast between “you are a good man and I esteem you” vs “that Javert, who has been annoying me so long” <3 The contrast between “you are an honest man” vs “that frightful hunting dog” <3 The contrast between “I want you to keep your job” vs Jean Valjean fantasizing enthusiastically about how hopefully Javert will leave town and never ever annoy him again. <3

It makes the “Punish Me, Monsieur le Maire” stuff even funnier. Jean Valjean is dissociating out of panic and saying whatever polite platitudes he thinks will flatter Javert....but those polite platitudes keep making Javert spiral further into long-winded deranged rants about how he dESPISES this kindness and it enRAGES him, as Jean Valjean just sits there very politely & quietly losing his mind. It’s peak comedy really.

I feel like Jean Valjean’s deeply weird thing with Javert often gets flattened in different directions, when people interpret it. Either Jean Valjean is an all-forgiving all-loving angel who thinks Javert did nothing wrong, and all of his flattery is sincere expressions of admiration—- or Jean Valjean is (like in the BBC version) the kind of violent pitiless person who would angrily order Javert to kill himself. It's rare for writers to get anything resembling the hilariously baffling ambiguous Weirdness of his relationship with Javert in the book. I think it's because adaptations often don't grasp the idea that a genuinely kind compassionate character can also (underneath it all) still be deeply tormented, broken, and angry-- and that their anger doesn't mean they're any less kind, or any less capable of pity and mercy.

[maripr]

@breadvidence 's Javert posts make me think of a multimedia crossover Into the Javert-verse or something. It really fun to think about. I think they would somehow all despise each other lmao.

[pilferingapples]

Just finished watching LM 1935 and LM 1952 in fairly short order and hm. Hm. 

- it’s really really obvious watching them like this that 1952 is based heavily on 1935; in fact I think it’s very likely that 52 is based on 35 instead of the book , so many plot points and visual riffs are directly repeated (the “ here ends Phase X of the life of Valjean”  bit, the Breadvidence, the emphasis on the galleys...) 

- these two seem to be the origin of the popular English adaptation trope of Javert being THE baddie , with the story ending in joyful triumph as soon as Valjean sees Javert die. It is very jarring! I’m not even someone who ships it or thinks Javert particularly Matters to Valjean, but “ Yay, I just watched a man die!”  is a pretty messed up attitude for the hero of almost any story,much less Jesus ValJesus over here. I suppose it’s coming partly from a desire to get a Hollywood ending-- the hero wins! Evil is Defeated! Every (Good-assigned) character lives happily ever after! -- but whoo boy les mis is NOT that kind of story. If you don’t want the Ultimate Sads of the ending just. Don’t do that? have it end with the wedding?? DON’T MAKE VALJEAN WATCH A MAN DIE AND COME BACK SKIPPING FFS.  

-Possibly due to being based on 35? , 1952 is like...BARELY a Les Mis adaptation. Yeah there’s a guy called Valjean. He is sort of relevant, kind of, barely. The real interest for this one is in the galleys, where some guard called Javert has some INCREDIBLE tension with a prisoner named Genflou, who knew his dad (and who is dating some rando called Valjean) and then the potter Robert (who ends up married to some ex-con called Valjean) . 

- 52!Valjean has so many boyfriends but he still sort of falls in love with the 20 year old he adopts (Cosette is played by the same actress the entire time she’s onscreen and it is very very very weird ) 

- neither one actually knows what to do with the barricade sequence but OH BOY are they ready to Commit to the sewer sequence

-neither one actually tells us what happened to the barricades or the rebellion?? we’re free to assume it was a wild success?? That’s a particularly weird move for 1935, which is barely more ready to forgive activism than Javert is, but in 1952 where the rebels are just vaguely anti-monarchist I...I think that might actually be the legit ending? YAY NO MORE KINGS and Javert’s dead! EVERYTHING IS SWELL NOW ?? 

in conclusion: ????  ??  ???!??!?? 

[breadvidence]

Tumblr user breadvidence, may I ask where Shoujo Cosette is streaming? I have started the series but never been able to finish it because it always seems to get removed from wherever I'm watching it.

Bad day for both of us, pal. Not where I thought it was. I guess when there's no berths on honest ships you reach for your eyepatch and tricorn, eh?

[breadsquishbhm]

try meal prep

eat 4 days worth of meal prep in one day

?????

profit

[breadsquishbhm]

reupload of my belly play/eating/moaning clip from the other day- hopefully this fixes the white balance issue some folks were having

[breadsquishbhm]

(In reference to last post) fat boy

who me? 🥵

[breadsquishbhm]

wanting to take a break today from stuffing my face —> ending up beached on the couch anyway bc i couldn’t help myself 🐷

[breadsquishbhm]

full, but not full enough 😮‍💨

[breadsquishbhm]

navel play... pleese...

never really been into navel stuff but i was bored and figured id give it a try so i guess its ur lucky day my friend

[breadsquishbhm]

Umm your belly is 100% goals, it looks SO soft

soft is my middle name 🥰