Okay, I really want to write that whole ‘Grantaire is the son of Tholomyes and Favourite’ fanfic. Because I’m rereading the earlier bits of the Brick and things! keep! happening! …
Favourite:
I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, and that disgusts me with life.
R:
Yes, I have the spleen, complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to death, and I am stupid! Let God go to the devil! / I want a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention of I know not whom.
Favourite’s backstory:
Her father was an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, who went out to give lessons in spite of his age.
R’s childhood:
Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty.
And then there’s Tholomyes- him and R both have the ability to drunkenly rant for pages at a time: the main difference being that Tholomyes’ rants always come from a place of arrogance and Grantaire’s from a place of deep depression. And wouldn’t Tholomyes be exactly the sort of father who would despise his son for not understanding the aforementioned mathematics, therefore cutting himself off from his grandfather’s profession? OH GOD I WANT THIS STORY SO BAD. I’m gonna go through some tags and see if I can find whoever suggested the idea first…