#twenty years after

[cy-lindric]

A fistful of rats

[winterinhimring]

Three Musketeers fans, please consider:

Athos with a baby.

I don't recall the exact circumstances under which he obtained Raoul, and I don't want to read Twenty Years After right now to remember them, because it makes me sad, so let's go with the fairly standard baby-in-a-basket-on-doorstep route. Here's how I think it would go.

Part I:

You are a tenant of the Comte de la Fère, who recently returned from five years of Mysterious and Probably Violent Activities to take up his ancestral position again. Nobody really knows what he's like anymore, so all his tenants/vassals are treading fairly lightly around him. So far, nobody's sure if he's going to drink himself into an early grave, or pick a quarrel with the wrong eight guys and get himself killed, but those are pretty much the only two options anyone is considering.

It is the middle of the night. You are woken by hammering on the door.

You go downstairs and the person who is hammering on the door like a madman is the Comte. He is wearing a nightshirt and a sword.

He is holding a baby.

His eyes are approximately the size of saucers. "Someone left him on the doorstep," is all he says, and he appears to think that this is an adequate explanation for why your liege-lord is standing on your doorstep in the middle of the night with a baby and a sword.

You decide to get your wife, because you are in no way equipped to handle your (definitely not panicking) lord and a baby on your own at this hour of the night.

Your wife immediately corrects how the Comte is holding the baby (his baby??) and you want to sink into the floor because you have no idea how he's going to take that kind of unsolicited advice, but the Comte is watching her like she's a divine revelation, and as soon as he's holding the baby to her satisfaction, he starts staring down at the kid with a ridiculously smitten expression on his face.

You decide to ask no questions.

Part II:

Now that Athos knows how to hold the baby, he is never going to put the baby down. Ever. Doing paperwork? Holding the baby. Riding into town? Holding the baby. Meeting with his tenants? Holding the baby.

He also talks to him exactly like an adult, because Athos has no framework for how to talk to someone who is not an adult. Baby Raoul has a very precocious vocabulary (no, I don't mean swearing; Athos NEVER swears in front of the child: I mean that he's the kind of five-year-old who uses words with more syllables than he is old).

The wife of our frazzled tenant above decides, at some point, to give the Comte a baby sling, because look, you can't do everything one-handed even if you are ambidextrous.

Athos now wears the baby everywhere. Somehow, he manages to look dashing while doing so. Half the unmarried ladies in the locality and a few of the married ones lose their hearts to him irrevocably, because it's a rare man who can look dashing while wearing a baby in a sling. Athos is completely ignorant of this because he's busy looking at Raoul.

Part III:

Because we live in a world where the Inseparables did NOT go without seeing each other for twenty years, Aramis, Porthos, and D'Artagnan find out about the baby. (Reader's choice: this can be because Athos wrote a panicking letter to them shortly after finding the kid to see if any of them knew what to do with a child, or because the four of them got together for a visit and Athos just. Was holding a baby.)

Of course, Raoul now has three devoted uncles, although everyone likes to tease D'Artagnan that the real reason Athos obtained a child was because he thought D'Artagnan needed a little brother. Uncle Porthos throws him in the air and Athos almost faints on the spot. Uncle Aramis teaches him to use his (unfairly cute) face to the BEST advantage possible.

Uncle D'Artagnan accidentally teaches him to swear. Athos does not find out about this until there is some accident and Raoul spits out a series of rather vehement oaths in front of him. D'Artagnan hears Athos yell and promptly flees. Aramis and Porthos watch with popcorn as Athos chases him over hill and dale until he catches him and threatens him with dismemberment if he EVER says ANYTHING like that around Raoul again.

D'Artagnan tries to blame Porthos.

It does not work.

Part IV (beware of spoilers for the end of the series):

In this AU, needless to say, Raoul does not go get himself killed in battle and Athos does not die of grief. The Inseparables plus Raoul all live to a very happy old age.

[alyona11]

I joined Dumas server and the people there have a galaxy brain so they headcanoned this tweet for Athos and Raoul and I couldn't stop myself from sketching it xD

[pizza-hats-of-the-world-1882]

The finale!!! Vote! Vote! Vote!

[blogginsgoldenageofcomics]

Classics Illustrated #41 -[O] - Twenty Years After_September 1947_Robert C. Burns cover art

[widevibratobitch]

thinking about Athos standing under that scaffold and getting drenched in the king's blood Carrie-style... truly one of the most scenes ever. Dumas served absolute cunt in 20 Years After.

[ng5132]

Musketeers doodles

[counterwiddershins]

Almostttttt done with the Mordaunt fic and somehow all I want to do is draw this excellent mother & son duo (so here are some doodles of her and Mordaunt growing up).

To be clear, I don't think Milady is a perfect person, and I don't think her being a mother makes her more (or less) sympathetic. I suppose what I like about her and find so tragic is how energetic and vibrant she is in the novel. She's a young spy with only her wits at her disposal, and she really holds her own.

What gets me most is that she's not morally worse than the musketeers, who get plenty of depictions in more "young & fun" ways, whereas Milady is always shown as a wily seductress or a killer--hardly ever light-hearted. I guess I would like to see her as a person who HAS flaws rather than as A FLAW incarnate.

And her son doesn't get to see any of that. He has to cling to the belief that she was more than what he hears about her, with only the memories of a toddler to counteract her grisly reputation.

Edit: I do think Mordaunt finds a way to reconnect with himself despite the loss of his mother and especially the loss of her legacy. He tries to forget the concept of a past and runs head-on into something with a tenuous future (and he does it with panache and a touch of exhausted sarcasm). So below are two more Mordaunts I found doodled on post-its and a bonus Lord Montrose on the right.

[enigma-the-mysterious]

My favourite genre of reaction is when people discover that Alexandre Dumas was kind enough to grace us with sequel books to the exhilarating novel that is The Three Musketeers. Happy reading, nerds! You are in for an emotional ride!

[madame-fouquet]

So I’ve been LOVING the new english translations of The d’Artagnan Romances (Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, Le Vicomte de Bragelonne) and while waiting for his edition of the next book in the Ten Years Later chunk I found out that he is releasing the chapters serially online RIGHT NOW! https://musketeerscycle.substack.com/p/court-of-daggers

Like you can be actively reading the story as a weekly serial the way it was originally published!!! This is such a cool flippin thing for them to be doing and I’m even more hyped than I already was!

[amypihcs]

AAAAND another one of my mad AUs

Music? On and rocking Courage? Mustered Dignity? Already waved her goodbye OK i’m ready. Apparently summer, having to study for exams i dislike and most of all reading nice books that send me in hyperfixation with the characters give me IDEAS™. After some time spent convincing myself to do it i’ve finally read The Three Musketeers and having loved it to FOLLY, i CLEARLY devoured also Twenty Years After and started the Viscount  of Bragelonne (Athos, i love you, but we’re not talking of you, forgive me my man). This new obsession tonight coupled with my ever present love for LOTR and Silm and since APPARENTLY heat goes up to my head, i thought:

Ok, here we have Aramis, ridiculously always good looking, even at like... 20 years from the first time we meet him he is THE SAME AS ALWAYS and in the Viscount for the little i know for now he didn’t age much either, Devilishly good with horses AND swords (eggrazziearcazzo, you may say, he’s a MUSKETEER) with almost ZERO impulse control (Athos works as impulse control for them, actually) but GREAT cold blood, can apparently sing quite well, some disregard for rules and some great agility and effort in actually always managing to break one of two of those and... oh look, all the boxes check and hear me out. Aramis. Being. MAGLOR FEANORION!!  I talked about this with my darling @tairin, my nice sis who i love and thank very much for being always there to hear me rambling about my obsessions and not having killed me yet. And she is even more of a genius than i suspected! (@joachimnapoleon​ please don’t kill us) She made me give a second check to who ELSE checked all the boxes and here, the illumination.  Good looking Incredible with horses Apparently skilled in verses/songs Devilish with a sword some disregard for rules NOT imposed by himself Joachim Murat. Being Maglor Feanorion.

Tolkien fandom out here (@thiswaycomessomethingwicked​ i get you’re one of us?) tell me if maglor wouldn’t have a portrait of himself like this one of our darling jojo, c’mon! He checks out also the diva personality!! 

Anyway, this was my new silly AU, don’t kill me please, i still have to pass biochemistry and see confirmed my credits for cmcf, i’m too young to die and my cats would miss me😂  I hope you at least laughed a bit form this one silly thing.

[cy-lindric]

Louis, Anne, Philippe, Mazarin, Beaufort, and most importantly, Pistache

[winterinhimring]

Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas, aka:

In Which D'Artagnan Fights History as we Know It and Almost Wins, aka:

Bet You Thought You Would Never Miss Richelieu, Didn't You, aka:

Athos and the No Good, Very Bad, Horrible Day

[ougonnotaiyou]

My latest drawing.

Aramis is definitely my favourite character from all the books of Alexandre Dumas which I have read so far. ❤  I love his cunning side as the bishop of Vannes in "The Vicomte de Bragelonne". René d'Herblay is a very multifaceted person torn between the ecclesiastical life and the military one.

[pizza-hats-of-the-world-1882]

ITS TIME FOR THE SEMIFINALS!!!!

(As always voting will go for 24hrs after posting)

[alyona11]

Tbh the most relatable part of 20 Years After is thar D'Artagnan stopped communicating with his besties for 20 years since they were separated