ONE HOGWARTS STUDENT'S DREAM (SEEDVERSE FILKS)

I can't stop harping on on how Vento Aureo has much in common with Les Mis (in canon), Passione with the Friends of the ABC, and Giorno Giovanna, a blond, good-looking, and idealistic leader who wants to change the world and make justice, with Enjolras. And in my fan-made AUs, the references just reiterate the parallels. Especially in El semen de los ahorcados.

"I, Paragon Enjolras, have a dream" (and the core members of AS-SORTED doing the Torture Dance) to La Squadra Esecuzioni being anti-villains in the UK Starforce Auror gaiden (and in As the Luck Would Have It, the Toll AU).

During the pandemic, I came across One Cartoonist's Dream, a YouTube channel that makes filk song videos about JJBA, with hero song and villain song fics for every Part up to Steel Ball Run. As I listened recently to the Vento Aureo songs (versions of Go the Distance for the heroes and Kill the Beast for the villains), it clicked that these should be filks for the grand finale of El semen de los ahorcados, the one where everyone except Marius and Cosette (and a few others) dies.

ONE HOGWARTS STUDENT'S DREAM (SEEDVERSE FILKS)

SEE THE SUNRISE (HERO SIDE)

(Stanza 1)

GRANTAIRE:

I was as if dead,

I had quite the fright,

then once more, in my life,

I have seen the light...

ENJOLRAS:

I have got a dream, 

that like gold shines on and on,

and I solemnly swear

a new day will dawn!

(Refrain 1)

ENJOLRAS

And it will come true,

I can see the sunrise,

COMBEFERRE:

Everything you did

earns my sure respect...

COURFEYRAC:

Looking at the road,

long and winding road ahead,

EVERYONE:

It's the future that we will bring 

when tomorrow comes...

(Stanza 2)

COURFEYRAC:

Gather up your guts,

clear yourself a way,

through the deepest darkness

and the darkest wastes...

ENJOLRAS:

My resolve and dreams

show us all our way,

paths illuminated...

the sun won't lead us astray!

(Refrain 2)

GRANTAIRE:

And it's all all right,

I can see the sunrise,

GAVROCHE:

I am going too,

I won't abandon you!

JEHANNE PROUVAIRE:

I have followed through

and my will is true

EVERYONE:

This must be the reason

for which we all were born!

(Bridge)

GRANTAIRE:

Now I choose the path of suffering, the martyrdom ahead

right now, a sleeping zombie rears his head...

(Spoken): I did what I thought was right.

I have no regrets at all.

In spite of the ways of the world,

I want to walk the path I believe in...

ENJOLRAS:

(Spoken): With the legacy inherited from our ancestors,

we must keep moving forwards!

This sword... will make a new dawn rise!

(Refrain 3)

ENJOLRAS

(Sung) My inheritance...

We can see the sunrise

Now we must embrace

bringing truths to the light...

EVERYONE:

Blowing in our souls,

transcending our roles,

there's a shining sunrise

that will rise when tomorrow comes!

(Coda)

ÉPONINE:

Blowing in my soul,

in that empty hole...

there's a shining sunrise

that will rise when tomorrow comes!

******

OVERLORD (VILLAIN SIDE)

(Prelude - before the storming of Hogwarts)

MONTPARNASSE: 

(Spoken) Your Lordship, you should have your way, as usual. You deserve it...

DE SATIGNY:

(Spoken) I can feel a connection to that stripling... he's coming nearer and nearer!

Soon he will be at my feet, and bend the knee before me!

I can almost hear his footsteps!

MONTPARNASSE:

No way!

DE SATIGNY:

(Spoken) We can't rest until that lad is safely in my grasp!

We'll wipe them all out and capture Enjolras alive!

XENIADES CLUB (everyone)

YES, SER!

(Act I)

PRINCE ORLOVSKY:

We'll exterminate them all!

LORD HENRY:

Don't fire till they close in on!

GUNNAR MALSTRÖM:

Give me all of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade

to experiment upon!

COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO:

Everyone already falters,

who'll come out victorious?

MONTPARNASSE:

We!

DE SATIGNY:´

I am standing on the summit,

follow Jean de Satigny!

(Act II)

DE SATIGNY:

Through the streets in the dark,

a mysterious cloaked figure

moving forth while they're concealing their true self...

MONTPARNASSE:

By the leader's right side,

I'll go where AS-SORTED gather,

and I stay calm and serene like a light elf...

I can feel his life ebb for the poison,

and his eyes only see what ain't right...

Hear the phones in the night,

see their screens burning bright

with blue light...

(Interlude I. The Xeniades Club have captured Grantaire)

MONTPARNASSE:

(Spoken): Don't you dare play with me!

GRANTAIRE:

Are you there? Is that you?

DE SATIGNY:

Grantaire is already as dead as a dodo.

Let me show you the way like this!

GRANTAIRE:

You got here safely...

DE SATIGNY:

Surely Lady Alistair is sensing me!

LADY ALISTAIR:

I don't know where my husband is.

DE SATIGNY:

What is the goal of AS-SORTED?

'Parnasse, please guard this hostage!

MONTPARNASSE:

YES, SER!

(Act II)

MONTPARNASSE:

Overcome the ordeal,

MONTPARNASSE + DE SATIGNY (unison):

Was victorious in my salad days,

the golden stripling is of this the source...

DE SATIGNY:

Climbing up spiral stairs

without feeling any vertigo,

to send you all to Tartarus, of course!

(He drains the potion phial.)

I can feel power rise in my system,

it increases and burns in my veins,

overcoming the past,

for a dream that will last,

on a quest for Enjolras...

AS-SORTED (EVERYONE):

(Spoken) What kind of person are you?

And what are you changing into?

DE SATIGNY:

Changing into someone

who is stronger, better-looking,

everyone cannot help be afraid of me...

This is your requiem,

I feel the potion's power,

brace yourselves for Ragnarök...

This is the end!

(Interlude II.)

DE SATIGNY (in his biblically-accurate camp gay fallen angel form);

(Spoken) Ten times on the inside what I am on the outside...

Ten times on the outside what I am on the inside...

LORD HENRY:

There are a few droplets left! (Picks up the phial and drinks the few droplets that remained).

LADY ALISTAIR:

Sweetie? Is that you? Do you recognise me?

There's no escape, AS-SORTED are coming!

(LORD HENRY transforms also into a camp gay fallen angel, but with cyan plumage instead of magenta)

DE SATIGNY:

You have made these fallen angels quite irate!

LORD HENRY:

Full of sound and fury!

GRANTAIRE:

The best thing for me is to retreat... There's no place for me here!

And the Moon will soon be full!

COURFEYRAC, ENJOLRAS (wands and swords ready):

Will you honour me with this dance??

(The two no-longer Muggle fallen angels draw steel as well)

DE SATIGNY:

If we flee the scene, we'll lose our pride!

(Finale)

DE SATIGNY:

Can't retreat! Must advance!

Qualifying for controlling,

to be the chosen one who quaffed this draught...

I'm the camp overlord,

who at heart not changed the slightest,

I, Count Jean de Satigny,

the overlord!

MOOKS:

OVERLORD!

OVERLORD!

OVERLORD!

ENJOLRAS + COURFEYRAC (unison):

AVADA KEDAVRA!!!

(Enj kills de Satigny and Courf kills Lord Henry. All the Xeniades mooks retreat, while the two revolutionaries stand in shock. As the fallen angels die, both aristocrats regain their human forms)

RADER / VERSER I SÅNGTEXTER SOM JAG HATAR

 För det första, jag kommer att använda de litterära internationella termerna. Vers istället för rad och strof istället för vers, så att det inte förväxlas.

J'accuse (jag anklagar) FRED ÅKERSTRÖM och STIG OLIN för TEXTFÖRRÄDERI. Båda två av de anklagade är, som väldigt många textöversättare / lyriköversättare, däribland undertecknad och åklagaren Sandra Dermark, ÄVEN textförfattare / lyricister.

Enligt Alexander Katourgi i kapiteln om lyriköversättning "Låt oss en sång tillsammans skriva" i Svenskan går bananer, det ska vara lika många stavelser som i originalet och de betonade stavelserna ska ligga på samma ställen. Både herr Åkerström och herr Olin är väldigt erfarna både som lyricister och som textöversättare, men dessa misstag ligger högt upp på åklagarens svarta lista av "översättningsankor", på delad förstaplats.

*************+

Herr Åkerström bör först stiga upp till estraden för att försvara sin felöversättning av "like an eager Christmas child" i Jag ger dig min morgon.

Sångtexter måste vara på vers eftersom de kan inte existera utan musik. Engelskans lyrics är kognat (dvs släkt på annat språk) med svenskans lyrik och båda kommer från lyra, ett stränginstrument. Orden MÅSTE alltså följa ett versmått som finns i melodin med sina takter, toner, höjdpunkter, lågpunkter och pauser, och rätta sig efter dessa. Vilket gör att musiken och versmåttet kommer före meningen med orden i de flesta översättningar av sångtexter som är till för att sjungas. Däribland gammaldags operor (på 1800-talet), tecknade musicalfilmer (tänk Disney och dylikt) och insatserna av trubadurer som Povel Ramel, Cornelis Vreeswijk och Fred Åkerström, med vilka jag först hade närkontakt som åttaåring. 

Först som universitetsstudent som läste just till översättare lärde jag mig att Jag ger dig min morgon är en översättning från engelskan av Tom Paxton, I Give You The Morning. Men det finns en liknelse hos Paxton som Åkerström inte tolkar bokstavligen. Där Paxton har:

Like an eager Christmas child...

har Åkerström översatt:

Som ett rastlöst barn om våren...

(Istället för:

Som ett ivrigt barn om julen...)

Han tolkar "eager" som "rastlöst" och "Christmas" som "om våren," även om:

1. Vi alla vet och förväntar hur små barn ska bete sig juletid i vilken västerländsk kultur som helst.

2. Jul firas över hela västvärlden som barnfest sedan den viktorianska tiden.

3. Det finns lika många stavelser och samma betoning i "IV-rigt" och "RAST-löst". Dito med "om JU-len" och "om VÅ-ren". En bokstavlig översättning av liknelsen skulle passa likadant med samma resår i melodin, som att ta på sig ett par skor eller ett klädesplagg i samma storlek men annan färg.

Värför, Åkerström?

Peter Mosskins biografi av ovansagde trubadur säger:

"Våren, den som Karin Boye beskriver med orden 'visst gör det ont när knoppar brister'. När Fred sjunger 'som ett rastlöst barn om våren dagen kommer' anas smärtan, sårbarheten. Han är en rastlös person". 

Vi brukar förknippa överaktiva små barn och deras känslor med glädje, med hopp. Mosskin anar annorlunda. I Spanien, som född och fostrad medelhavsbo, känner jag dessutom till en vår, "primavera", som liknar mest av allt en nordisk tidigsommar. För mig är allt det här ironi på ett högt plan. Översättaren-trubaduren Åkerström har färgat liknelsen med sina egna känslor.

På universitetet lärde jag mig ett franskt talesätt; att det finns översättningar som är som vissa damer, vackra men svekfulla. Flera tolkningar av sångtexter, som Vreeswijks Jag hade en gång en båt (ursprungligen folkvisan Sloop John B) och Jag ger dig min morgon (för att ge ett exempel: originalet rimmar i de två första verserna "shoulder" på "the sun grows bolder"; Åkerström behåller första versslutet på "skuldra" och rimmar på "syns solen som en huldra", dvs ett skogsrå), tillhör denna kategori. Men det är nöden att anpassa sig till musikens prokrustesbädd i första hand som gjort dem till otrogna skönheter. I andra hand är det trubadurens hjärta, om översättaren är en trubadur, som kan förändra det som ej behövde förändras, till exempel omvandla iver till rastlöshet och julen till våren...

PS. Det finns en annan, mindre känd försvenskning av Jag ger dig min morgon, översatt av Owe Junsjö. Den finns i Pierre Ström-albumet I vädurens tecken. Hur tolkar den liknelsen?

Som ett ivrigt litet barn...

Rätt adjektiv, men inga hänvisningar till årstid.

Ändå är det Åkerströms mer personligt färgade och "vackra otrogna" tolkning som har förmörkat Junsjös som står närmare den engelskspråkiga förlagan. Först just nu som trettioåring lyssnar jag på Owe Junsjö-Pierre Ström-versionen och måste inse att det är synd att det är så få som känner till den fast den är mycket trognare Paxton.

************

Herr Olin må nu stiga fram till estraden för att försvara sin översättning av "Sandmann, lieber Sandmann" eller "Sömnen kommer med John Blund". Versen (på lyriskt fackspråk) eller raden (på vardaglig svenska) i fråga låter så här i originalet:

Ehe jedes Kind ins Bettchen muss,

dvs.

Innan alla små barn måste gå i säng,

Och herr Stig Olins översättning låter så här:

Efter dagen blir man ganska trött

istället för

Innan alla små barn måste gå i säng (som också passar samma versmått - INN-an ALL-a små BARN MÅS-te GÅ i SÄNG). Men versen före slutade på -ött, och svensk lyrik kräver perfekta slutrim (jfr. i Herodes sång "Turn my water into wine!" som "Gör mitt vatten till MOËT!" för att förra versen slutade med -ett).

Ändå kommer versen på åklagarens svarta lista som delad etta med herr Åkerströms rastlösa barn om våren och båda gör henne lika arga. Värför? Hon har ADHD och som liten var hon det där ivriga, rastlösa barnet året runt. Hon var inte den sortens barn som blir ganska trött efter dagen, och nu som vuxen, fast hon tar sin medicinering, är hon samma person när hon har druckit koffein. Våran åklagare är inte den enda personen på jorden om har så mycket energi om kvällen och natten.

VI FINNER DE ANKLAGADE: SKYLDIGA! Både herr Åkerström och herr Olin kunde ha översatt dessa rader bättre!

JOJO'S REFERENCES IN THE SEED OF THE HANGED

Due to the author's love for anime, progressive rock, Italian food, and fashion, a legion of JoJo's references often crop up in StrixAlluka's Enjoltaireverse. Especially in her epic saga El semen de los ahorcados / The Seed of the Hanged: 

from the characters' poses -- to the psychedelic colours in key scenes (for instance teal, orange, and chartreuse together - a frequent colour scheme!), to Grantaire, Jo-Lee, and Bossuet being modelled physically and personality-wise on Josuke, Koichi, and Okuyasu respectively (and Musichetta on Koichi's girlfriend Yukako, the one with Love Deluxe) -- to "Kono Parnasse da!" and "I, Paragon Enjolras, have a dream" (and the core members of AS-SORTED doing the Torture Dance) to La Squadra Esecuzioni being anti-villains in the UK Starforce Auror gaiden (and in As the Luck Would Have It, the Toll AU). To a combined Stone Ocean and Dolly Parton reference where Musichetta tells Jo-Lee about Bossuet: Jo-Lee, Jo-Lee, Jo-Lee, Jo-Lee, I'm begging of you please don't take my man...  

But what stands out is surely a JJBA reference combined with a Date Everything reference: already R and friends had unboxed in the Gryffindor commonroom, in an omake, a Rebel-based (Rebel as an object) rubber duck-chicken hybrid, using a wizarding camera (that's the "honorificabilitudinitatibus" omake where the Gryffindors play chubby bunny using such ten-dollar --ten-dollar is an understatement-- words as "antidisestablishmentarianism," "hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian," and the name of a certain railway station on Anglesey in Wales, and a certain hill on the North Island of New Zealand - hilarious! Grantaire wins the competition but knocking on death's door; he almost gets an impromptu tracheotomy because the "whaka" part of the hill's name is pronounced "fucka" and he has a baker's dozen marshmallows in his mouth and throat! The entire gaiden is HILARIOUS!). 

The reference to JJBA is in Éponine's fanfic QUIDDISTAR, a TENNISTAR AU with Courfparnasse (who want to become QuiddiStars in the AU) as her crack OTP, set on a Quidditch training camp (Courf and Parnasse are obviously not amused!). The titles of the fic's acts, or Matches, are Quidditch puns on the Parts of JoJo's, a reference to the seasons of TENNISTAR being puns on those same Parts! In order, the punny titles are: 

Match I: Phantom Quidditch

Match II: Quaffle Tendency

Match III: Quidditch Cup Crusaders

Match IV: Leather is Untearable

Match V: Boccino Aureo / Golden Snitch

Match VI: Stone Bludger

Match VII: Steel Bat Run

Match VIII: ParnasseLion (4 Balls!)

Match IX: The COURFEYLands

:::::::::::::::::::::::

In TENNISTAR, the punny titles are:

• Volley Tendency is a play on Part 2's subtitle, Battle Tendency.
• Grand Slam Crusaders is a play on Part 3's subtitle, Stardust Crusaders.
• Nylon is Unbreakable is a play on Part 4's subtitle, Diamond is Unbreakable.
• Golden Spin / Giro Aureo is a play on Part 5's subtitle, Golden Wind / Vento Aureo.
  • While not a direct reference, a battle technique known as "Spin" features prominently in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, mainly in Part 7: Steel Ball Run.

POTATOES AND MOLOSSUS... I MEAN, MOLE-ASSES...

 “No, no, NO!”
Maury stood fuming, his hands splayed to the air and covered with thick, black, sticky liquid, while more of the same spread at leisure across the counter and dripped viscously onto the floor.
“That’s a molossus,” I said, getting up to have a better look at the peccadillo.
“I know it’s molasses,” Maury growled. “It’s molasses from a structurally unreliable tetrabrick carton!” He uttered an imprecation that would be indelicate to print here.
I reached over and turned on the kitchen tap, then grabbed a couple of paper towels to help mop up the mess. I was there to eat his food, after all. “No,” I said, “what you said. ‘No, no, no!’ It’s a molossus. A foot of three consecutive stressed, beats.” Like big guard dog, which is what a molossus is actually.
Maury was washing his hands. “Who’s talking about prosody?”
I risked a pun. “Iamb.”
He gave me a persecuted look over the top of his glasses. “Now is not the time for spondee-neity.” Heh heh!  A true wordplay addict can’t resist even when in a sticky situation.
I was stuffing gooey paper towels into his trash can. “What, exactly, are you making, anyway?”
“Shoo-fly pie,” he replied. As if on cue, his oven beeped that it was preheated.
“Another molossus!”
“Yes, made with molasses.”
“Well,” I observed, “in the south, mo’ lasses than lads make it.”
“Yes,” Maury said, tossing the disintegrated tetrabrick in the rubbish, “and no doubt you’ll next make some point about its colour resembling the anuses of moles. Mole-asses, get it?”
“No,” I lied, “I was next going to talk about how those southern girls like to call you ‘honey,’ which, in Latin, is Mel – a nice nickname for a southern belle – which was the root of mellacium, which fed through Portuguese or Spanish melaza to make our molasses.” I leaned against the wall as Maury took another carton of molasses out of his cupboard. Who has multiple molasses in their cupboard? And how many did Maury have? He closed the door before I could see.
“I’ll have to use blackstrap molasses,” he said, and added, apparently forgetting who he was talking to, “so called because when poured it forms a ribbon rather similar to a black leather strap.” As he measured it, he muttered, “I’m heading for more of a black dog here right now.”
“A molossus dog,” I offered. “Massive, like a mastiff. A now-defunct breed of guard dog, but a contributor to some of our bigger modern breeds, from St. Bernard to Rottweiler. A toponym eponym: Molossia is a place in northwestern Greece.”
“Both words sound heavy,” he observed, “but not sticky.” He measured some baking soda into the mixing bowl, which held a mix of molasses, water, and eggs, and it frothed gratifyingly, making a slight sound not unlike the S’s in the words in question. As he mixed in some crumble of  flour, sugar, and butter and poured it all into a pie shell, then topped it with more of the crumble, he mused, “I wonder why a dog. Because it’s big? A big guard dog! Why not a chim-pan-zee? That’s a molossus.”
“Perhaps they simply both come from the same place.” I watched him slide the pie into the oven. “Why name musical modes Lydian, Phrygian, or Dorian?”
“Or fridge-doorian.” Maury fixed his gaze on the fridge door and I got out of the way. He retrieved the mint syrup and ice for his impending julep and took them to the table, whereon rested the bourbon and glasses. “But nobody much uses those modes now, just as nobody much uses the molossus.”
I followed, hot on the trail of my next refreshment. “Gilbert and Sullivan did.” I saw Maury’s back momentarily freeze. He knew a song cue was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He filled his tumbler to the brim as I launched into The Mikado:

“To sit in solemn silence in a dull dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a lifelong lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!”

(Other examples of molossi are "big bad wolf," "he died old," and any name of a Tarot court card: Ace of Wands, King of Cups, Queen of Swords, Knight / Page / Prince of Disks. And Edgar Allan Poe's "Ne-ver-more!" As you know, every stanza in The Raven ends with a molossus: "Lost Le-nore," "cham-ber door," "days of yore," "no-thing more..." And, speaking of -ore rhymes, the three summer months in the Revolutionary calendar: Mes-si-dor, Ther-mi-dor (the present month), and Fruc-ti-dor... The catalogue of molossi in the English language is an END-LESS LIST!)
Maury turned, washed down half his glass, and appeared to envision me enduring my execution. He made an unpleasant smile.

THE SEED OF THE HANGED - Cats and Amazon

At several points in El semen de los ahorcados, Grantaire goes on conspiracy theories during his rants (when he's not playing his acoustic guitar on the streets of Hogsmeade). Including the one that cats invented Amazon. One day in fifth form (in Book II) at the Three Broomsticks, he drops his little theory for the first time:

GRANTAIRE: Friends, have you heard of Amazon?

ENJOLRAS: The rainforest or the warrior women?

GRANTAIRE: Neither. It's a Muggle website and app, on the Internet...

ENJOLRAS: Do you mean on "computters?"

GRANTAIRE: "Computters," as you say, yes indeed, and smart devices. Basically you purchase any object (though most Muggles buy books or gadgets) on the app or on the site, and pay with a credit card...

ENJOLRAS: That little plastic card where Muggles keep their money? Honestly, I wonder how the equivalent of billions of Galleons fit into that li'l thingamabob.

GRANTAIRE: Exactement! You pay with credit card, give Amazon your adress, and days or weeks later, depending on in which country the product was, Amazon sends it to you - obviously not by owl; by plane and by van... what matters is that your product comes in an Amazon box, made of corrugated cardboard and decorated with a smiling mouth...

COURFEYRAC: I have my own phone, though I can't take it to Hogwarts, and I have ordered a few magical girl figurines - Sailor Venus, Angel Daisy, and Cure Lemonade are in my bookshelf. They all came in those smiley boxes you said.

GRANTAIRE: And does your cat scratch the boxes or sleep in them?

COURFEYRAC: Of course! Though I have to throw them in the rubbish when Cleo has torn them to shreds!

GRANTAIRE: Listen carefully, Courf: I think she is mind-controlling you...

COURFEYRAC: Mind-controlling me? Like, is someone casting Imperius on yours truly? Who?

GRANTAIRE: Who else? Your lovely Siamese Cleo, and no, she isn't Imperiusing you but it comes pretty close. Pet cats rescued from the streets have a little parasite called toxoplasmosis, that they can transmit to their humans by scratching them...

COURFEYRAC: A mind-controlling parasite?

COMBEFERRE: Like that mushroom that grows on ants? Or that worm that makes snails' eyes look like candy canes, I mean, caterpillars? But a parasite that controls - like, humans, people? From the inside?

GRANTAIRE: Exactement! Did you know cats actually invented Amazon? It wasn't Jeff Bezos; a global council of domestic felines, armed with the toxoplasma parasite, mind-controlled their humans and created the online platform to ensure a steady supply of premium, reinforced cardboard boxes delivered right to their living rooms.

The plot is genius, really. Cats knew that if they let their humans order random things like phone chargers and shampoo, and magical girl warrior figurines, they would get the ultimate prize—a perfectly sized, dimly lit box to sit in, hide from the world, and ambush their unsuspecting owners. It is a flawless logistics network dedicated entirely to making sure every house cat gets their new cardboard nest and scratching post. You think you're ordering your magical girls online, Courf, but it's actually Cleo who's calling the shot. Are you going home for spring break?

COURFEYRAC: Yes, I'm coming home to our estate for Easter as per Courfeyrac tradition...

GRANTAIRE: You'll have your phone! Any magical girl on your wishlist...?

COURFEYRAC: I think I'm going to order Naoto Shirogane and Rise Kujikawa for a change. They're characters from another anime, a teen detective and a popstar for your information...

GRANTAIRE: Toxoplasmosis is working its magic...

(After Easter, Courf has brought both Rise --in her popstar getup-- and Naoto --in her detective getup-- to his collection on his bookshelf in the Hufflepuff boys' quarters; of course Cleo is nestling in Naoto's box and sharpening her nails on Rise's... Courf can't shake R's theory off his head!)

Updates on AFTER LÜTZEN - Changes to the AU

 You already know from El semen de los ahorcados that Courfeyrac had an ancestor who fought in the Thirty Years' War (and whom he dressed up as for a masquerade -  before the rewrite, in which Courf dresses as Puss in Boots instead). Well, his story is about to be expanded upon, as a StrixAlluka 30YW AU with the Amis as Swedish Army deserters turned guerrilla soldiers of fortune is underway. It will be in Swedish and called "Efter Lützen". Enj is Prussian landed gentry and R a Moor by way of Marseille (Engelhart Schönherr and Razi/René)... most of the cast will remain French though with a few more exceptions (Musichetta, Leslie - Lesgle, Joellll - Jolllly)... Furthermore, Gustavus Adolphus will play the role Napoleon played in canon Les Mis!

The idea or bunny came partly from that reference to the musketeer Baron de Courfeyrac in El semen, partly from a mention of Lützen in Les Misérables canon, Colonel Pontmercy having fought in the Napoleonic battle. But I could not shake the idea of the 30YW battle off my head and wondered what if Les Mis had been set in that period and all the Amis sans Marius had been killed in that seventeenth-century war. And of course Colonel Pontmercy would have fought in a Swedish-French alliance and been killed at Lützen...

Engelhart Schönherr and Jules Combeferre + Hercule-Joffrey de Courfeyrac. There you have the rittmeister and his two lieutenants respectively, who keep the ranks they held in the Swedish military. The young Prussian of the landed gentry and his French teacher's son, who has a plan to sort out all flora and fauna a century before Linnaeus, both joined the Swedish military in their late adolescence in order to fight for freedom of worship. The young Gascon baron and lieutenant of musketeers came to the heart of Europe as an envoy to the Swedish camp, representing the Cardinal (Richelieu), with a certain Moor by way of Marseille (R, aka Razi, aka René) for a valet (and cupbearer, and squire...).

Enj is actually a Winged Hussar from Küstrin, on the Prussian-Polish border, yes, and those golden angelic wings are as impressive as they sound; he sells them to Sr. Álvarez/M. Thénardier in exchange for a big hen that turned out to be a meat chicken instead of an egg layer - and then, at the tail end of the war, he makes himself new wings, Icarus style, from all the woodland fowls that he's hunted.

Combeferre studied at Leipzig University, but was expelled for being a freethinker (agnostic) and subsequently press-ganged into Catholic service in a tavern (under the influence) then taken prisoner at Breitenfeld and joined the Swedish ranks.

Courfeyrac is from a Huguenot background and he fled Gascony to escape from an arranged marriage to a girl of his rank whom he didn't know.

All of the characters are sharing the same personality and character arcs as in canon, but adapted to the 30YW setting. Pairings are also the same as in the rest of my AUs (Enjoltaire, Courferre, Éposette, Montponine, Mariusette, Jolesgletta, Valvert, Baholly, etc)

Razi (René), the Moor who never has laid eyes on his parents' birthplace of Castellón, started out with his widowed mother Miriam (Marie) on the docks of Marseille; her husband having been killed in a street fight on those same docks. He became a petty servant in Courfeyrac's entourage, and then the Baron's confidant, thanks to circumstances beyond his control.

R was born on the ship from Valencia to Marseille; when Miriam died and he was orphaned, friends of the family on the docks took up a collection to send him to Paris. He happened to save Cardinal Richelieu's shoes from a muddy puddle by throwing his cloak upon the puddle, and became the Cardinal's personal cupbearer, secretary, and cat-feeder. Before being the personal assistant to Courf, he had those ranks and offices for the late King of Sweden.

The Álvarez (actually Thénardier) family - camp followers, confidence tricksters, and corpse plunderers, whose wagon home can always be found when an engagement has just taken place. Cosette's former guardians, who pretend to be Spanish nobles (according to the Thénardiers themselves, he's from Barcelona ---Fawlty Towers reference!--- and she's from Santiago de Compostela). Éponine alone, their firstborn, is not supporting this elaborate confidence trick; unlike her younger siblings Azelma and Gavroche - although the latter joins Engelhart's company alongside his eldest sister, as per canon

Cosette, Marius, and Valjean "the snowy owl..." Innocent orphan adolescent Fantine was, in this era, ravaged by a thirtyish officer when her home village was raided; she entrusted her daughter to the Thénardiers just like in canon for the same reasons and became a worker in a uniform cloth factory in Wallenstein's province of Friedland, with Valjean for an overseer - his backstory is also just like in canon (older sister and fatherless nephews, bread theft, prisoner camp... lock stock and barrel - only sans kindly bishop and with Wallenstein instead).

Musichetta - here she is a North Italian (Ferrarese) opera singer who was soubrette until a while ago to fairytale collector and primadonna her southern friend Adriana Basile (who compiled the Pentamerone alongside her brother Giambattista!). Not long ago, they parted ways when she decided to move up north into the war torn heart of Europe with the half of the company that preferred opera buffa to opera seria - in order to bring smiles to the regions with commedia-dell'arte style plots and gags.

The ending is just like in canon, and framed like the stories Marius tells his daughter with Cosette, Catherine Pontmercy.

Feuilly is now Romany and nonbinary; Jehanne Prouvaire is trans and descendant of Cathars (she hears angelic voices like Jehanne of Arc). Bahorel is still  the thug-faced farm boy with the heart of a plushie.

Leslie (Lesgle)/Bossuet is a half-Scottish, half Mali mulatto ex-chamber Moor (Moor as in dark-skinned person, not as in Muslim) from a ducal court. And Joly went from being a Sephardic Jew called Joel... to being Jo-Lee "Jo-lee-lee-lee" from Joseon, who found himself in Europe due to mysterious circumstances (due to the historical webtoons I now read, Joseon is now my latest special interest!)

And Montparnasse is still the same old sociopath, a former street rat and self-made officer with a killer instinct...

The group name is now Freiheitskinder (instead of Friends of the ABC) and they at first live nomadically in the woods, then take an abandoned estate mansion, which they call the Engelsnest, as their headquarters

A NEW CHAPTER IN THE BARATHEON SAGA

This is the end of the Baratheon Saga. I envisioned it at first in third person like the rest of the Saga but this afternoon I had an epiphany that it should be told in first person by a very important character:

Dearest reader, I am typing these words from my office in Zürich. I feel that it is my duty to tell you the end of the Baratheon story, and how it all comes back to the same source.

I am ambiguously grateful to my Uncle Peter and Aunt Lizzie for allowing me to resume my University education here in Switzerland, thanks to them I have become a Primary schoolteacher in history and the proud enlightener of class after class of starry-eyed children. Oh, if they only knew the real stories about her real life that Fräulein Stark has experienced!

What caused my move to Zürich was quite unexpected... after Aunt Lizzie fell off the ledge in our châlet, her widowed husband began making moves on yours truly, saying how much I look like my mother, Kate Stark née Tully, who was his childhood sweetheart. Putting his hands underneath my skirt (I retaliated by wearing trousers for the first time in forever) and worse. So I packed my savings and came to Zürich on my own, with a little black case, and I have to commute Monday through Friday to the little school in the valley where I give my history lessons.

I have discovered that my family is doing somewhat well, somewhat not so well. My Papa, Ned Stark, was captured by the Nazis for trying to save their victims and executed by firing squad. My mother and oldest brother Roy are doing very fine in Värmland - Roy is volunteering in the war in Finland and getting married to one Jane Westerling, a volunteer nurse.

My younger sister Anna, that royal pest, has been employed by the KGB in Leningrad as a secret agent, with Varish, the Comrade of Sturmende, himself as her mentor. Nothing else is known about them, and I am pretty curious about their circumstances.

Stanislaus Baratheon and his wife Elise saw their daughter Irene being taken from them by the Nazis, and they blamed Aleksandra, the Lady in Red who said she would cure Irene of her autism. As a result, the Lady in Red burned down the parish of Sturmende with the two remaining Baratheons inside.

As for the two "Baratheon" children who are actually von Lännister, Elsa and Telramund, they still live in Valencia at one-gender boarding schools. Count Jakob von Lännister volunteered for the Republican side (something unheard of!) in the Civil War and was killed at the Ebro, while his ladylove Brünnhilde von Tarth moved to Valencia and is now working as a secretary for a local bureaucrat.

Laurent Tyrell and his lover Wenzel von Lännister, and the merry widow Margot Tyrell, moved not long ago from Paris to Zürich due to the Nazi occupation, and they work still as bohemian artists. In fact, the young trio now live in a block of flats next to mine! I was elated to finally speak to Margot and to Laurent and to tell them that I murdered Gottfried Baratheon... but it shall be our secret, shan't it?

Last of all, I want to talk about Elisabeth von Lännister. She paid the price for her many sexual dalliances and for her alcoholism by being taken prisoner in the Soviet occupation of Sturmende and losing her hair, her shame, her decorum, and her sanity in the process. She was found dead in the water tank in the Gulag where she was kept.

I myself have resolved not to get married, but to keep my friends close and acknowledge the peace in this country and the fact that I live swaddled in a cocoon of neutrality while the war rages at the door. I get rather well paid as a teacher, I adore my student children's curious questions, and it has been a pleasure to reconnect with the Tyrells (and to know Wenzel von Lännister). This chronicle that started with the Barathéons' leaving France during the Revolution has finally reached the present day, and I hope that you have taken some lessons out of it.

Zürich, November 1949

Sandra Stark.

PS. The other scenes I haven't written, like the deaths of Robert and Rainer, I will write them. This is the end of the plot, but not the end of my writing the Baratheon Saga.