The Games: Application Info

[medecin]

OUT of CHARACTER
Name: Sar
Other characters: None

IN CHARACTER
Name: (Thierry)Joly
Fandom: Les Miserables
Canon point/AU: Volume V (Jean Valjean,) Book First (The War Between Four Walls), Chapter 2 (What Is To Be Done In The Abyss If One Does Not Converse?) . Specifically, there is a moment where Joly notices a stray cat and expounds upon its purpose in life (to destroy the mistake of mice, perhaps implying that the rebellion will destroy the mistake of monarchy). Joly will be taken from this moment, perhaps by somehow following said cat into Panem?
Journal: lesquatreailes
PB: Mabo Kouyate

History: http://lesmiserables.wikia.com/wiki/Joly This wiki page has some basic information on Joly as presented in the novel. Because he is a minor character, I do have some headcanons established for my version of him. These have largely come about through research into France in period, countries closely connected to France, like Haiti, and a desire to increase diversity among the casting of Les Amis. For a character who is not specifically physically described, the way other characters like Enjolras and Marius are, who is left largely to interpretation, I wish to go with an alternate portrayal to the common fandom perceptions of Joly.

In addition to this, Haiti is known for having an herbal form of medicine, which is naturally different from the standard hospital variety that Joly would have learned in his classes in the 1820's and 30's. It made sense to me that a doctor, interested in all sorts of complimentary medicines, as Joly is depicted in canon, could come from a culture where he had been influenced by family members (in this case, a grandmother) to consider the effects of alternatives to the medicine that he would have been studying. Because he is a character interested in all sorts of advances in health, I love the idea of connecting Joly to a culture with a good deal of these alternatives.

At any rate, my Joly, as opposed to many of the stage and screen portrayals of him, comes comes from a racially mixed background. He's the son of a wealthy (white) French man and an immigrant from Haiti who came to France when she was young, and he has grown up exposed to two cultures at home. While he is more likely to simply go with the predominant culture of France, and would have been accepted within it with no question, much like Alexandre Dumas, there are some places and ways he has been influenced by his mother's heritage that I elaborate on later in the application.

Needless to say, socially, educationally,and financially, Joly's racial background would have been of no consequence to his attending medical school, becoming a doctor, or functioning as an average citizen in Paris during the period.


Presentation:

At first glance, Joly appears to be a somewhat nervous, almost twitchy, young man of slightly shorter than average height. One's first impression of him would be that of a somewhat awkward person, terrified of disease, the arena,and anyone and everyone around him. This tends to be the sort of thing that makes people dismiss him at first glance, something that is very easy to do. However, once Joly has started to speak to someone, their impression of him would rapidly change.

Upon speaking with Joly, who will probably introduce himself first, one is quick to notice that he is extremely gregarious, outgoing and witty, even while he is attempting to deal with his anxieties, and extremely amusing as well. He tends to regard the pun as a high form of humor and is adept in his use of such, able to use them at will to make his friends groan, and to interject humor into tense moments. He's quick to notice when someone is not feeling well, physically or otherwise, and is one of the first at an ailing comrade's side to offer what comfort he may to them, even if it's only a friendly word.

A strong contrast to his friendly nature, and an almost ironical one at that, is Joly's fear of disease. He is a hypochondriac, a condition developed in medical school, with a genuine fear of the body and the ways that it might turn against a person. While germ theory was not widely known during the time that he was at home, he certainly does fear catching and spreading diseases, and hopes to avoid them as much as he can, something which has given him difficulty as a doctor.

While he is certainly able to work well under pressure, and to push these factors aside to help someone who is in need, the moment after a crisis, when Joly has a moment to catch his breath, he is quite likely to lose himself in panic for what might have happened, what is likely to still happen, and the prospect of death around every corner does legitimately terrify him, sometimes to the point of panic attacks. He tends to need to keep his mind occupied at all times, or his thoughts stray toward sheer terror, and before you know it, he's checking his tongue in the mirror to look for bumps to indicate disease of some kind or another, and becomes convinced that he, or someone else is ill and dying.

The result of this is that Joly tends to look for even minute distractions, such as in canon, when he spots a cat at the barricades, prompting a monologue about the cat's purpose in the world. While this is seemingly random, there is, in fact, a purpose in it, and after a while, people who know him well will be able to see it. At these times, when he is acting to stave panic off, a question from a friend, or a distraction that forces him to think, is generally a good idea.

Joly is also extremely intelligent, and very learned in the science of the 1830's. Some of the distractions and questions that work best for him are friends asking him to explain certain theories. Usually, during this sort of discussion, or thinking deeply of some things in general, he is prone to rubbing at his nose with the tip of his very fashionable walking stick. While part of what he's learned has been learned to cope with his fear of disease (ie, the use of magnetic theory for aligning humors in the body, or the knowledge of which plants may help to heal someone), there are some things that he has learned for the purposes of knowledge alone, mostly in the areas of biology and botany, some of which extends beyond the plants taught in the medical school to remedies learned at home as well.

Joly speaks with a light accent, picked up from listening to his mother and maternal grandmother, who came to France from Haiti, and who he has spent a good deal of time with, and his voice has been known to slip into an almost songlike cadence at times. He's very likely to slip into what of Creole he has learned as a defense and comfort mechanism, though he generally sticks to speaking French and occasionally some Occitan, the local language of the town where he was born.

He is not prone to especially fancy dress, though what he wears is elegant in a simple way. As a medical student, he is not prone to very many frills, fearing that they would be ruined. All the same, his clothes are made from high quality fabrics in colors that suit him (he's especially fond of blues and tends to dislike red) and does take fashion advice from friends on the matter of choosing what to wear. Up to and including the time he was advised to buy leather trousers to get a girl he loved to notice him. Incidentally, that did work! He does carry and use a very nice walking stick, to add to the air of a gentleman of fashion as much as he can under the circumstances described.

In cold weather, and even slightly chilly, he takes care to guard himself against the elements, sometimes in an extreme manor. He NEVER forgets to bring along a scarf and umbrella, just in case, and would hate to be caught outside while missing hat or gloves, and can rarely be found without a heavy coat and very rarely in his shirt sleeves or other forms of undress.

Overall, once one has gotten to know him a bit better, Joly appears to be much more intelligent, friendly, and humorous than many seem to expect of him, and he certainly hopes to appear as such in dealing with others in daily life.

Motivations:

Having taken part in a rebellion at home, Joly is certainly likely to support such efforts again. When he sees an injustice, he tends to want to repair it however he can, and as a doctor, is used, in some cases, to being able to help and care for others as he can. If that means rebelling against an unfair system to help those who cannot help themselves, he is certainly willing to do so. He would not be comfortable with a full leadership role in this regard, but he is happy to be a supporter, to spread information, and to join in any fights that might result in bettering things for others, and in making things fair for them. This could certainly be a major issue for him in Panem, depending on the flow of the game and what takes place there with regard to certain castmates, etc. At any rate, Joly's motivations in Panem will largely consist, besides attempting to stay alive himself, of helping others, especially his friends, and of making things right and equal for others.

When it comes down to it, I do see Joly as more willing to lay down his life for another than to stay alive himself, at least until he has learned the way things are. I expect this to be something of a problem in arenas, where he is likely to end up dying for a friend, or allowing an ally to kill him instead of fighting for a victory at first. I think that as time goes on, and he learns how to play the game, and that actually playing is the only way to truly survive under the Capitol's rule, he will be more likely to play along with the games and their format. He will secretly hate it, of course, and probably himself in the process, but with proper motivation, perhaps the fear of losing a friend or loved one, or of something being done to him, he will likely step up to play the games, albeit very reluctantly. He's likely to need a few lessons on why it is a good idea to outwardly go along with things before learning that he has to at least give lip service to the way things are.

If Joly learns of germs and diseases, this would certainly be a good way that he could be controlled. He's likely to be terrified of being unconscious post arena, and would certainly be scared to death by any attempts at body modification. He could easily be controlled by the threat of this, fearing foreign materials placed into and becoming a part of his body. Coming from the time period that he does, he's been used to fearing both diseases that come largely from the body, and miasmas, or vapors that can cause illness. A whole new family of small things to fear, things that can be controlled by people, especially the people in power who are forcing him to fight could very well go a long way in traumatizing him, or convincing him to seemingly play along with things on the surface.

Setting:

At first, Joly's reaction is likely to be one of sheer terror and panic, which he'll probably try to cover up with terrible jokes. He'll probably do very badly at this, and appear especially shell shocked for the first day or so that he is in world. Some of the factors that will cause this are the unknown, the fact that the people he is closest to, particularly his closest friend and soulmate, Bossuet, and the mistress that they share, Musichetta, are not with him, and that he will not know what has happened to Bossuet, given that he'll be coming in from the barricade itself and the idea that he is expected to kill or be killed instead of helping others. This is likely to result in a lot of Joly's nervous behaviors coming to the forefront.

As he finds his friends and canonmates, he is likely to calm down a bit, and to make new friends as well. Once he has achieved some level of relative comfort, it will be easier to deal with and confront his fears, even though the arena will be a definite and horrible shock to him the first time he is meant to go through it. He's likely to cling to his friends, or to the new friends that he manages to make here, as a means of keeping himself as calm as possible. In time, this will probably serve to help him adjust to his surroundings, and more of his natural personality will emerge.

While there are many things to fear about the capital and the arena, and Joly is certainly likely to chafe under such tight control, there ARE some things about the world he is likely to come to appreciate. The showers come to mind as one such thing that he'll enjoy, along with any and all aspects of technology. In between games, he is likely to want to learn as much of it as he can, particularly in the areas that humanity is benefited. As he comes to learn these things, and comes to see that those in the Capital and Career Districts are those who benefit but not everyone, he is likely to be angry again.

These things will probably serve to fuel a good deal of Joly's reactions to the setting, and events in game as time goes on.

SAMPLES
First Person Thread: An example of a first person post, at least 200 words minimum. Feel free to use introspection and scene setting if your character is not chatty. Please use one of the two following prompts:

For Tributes:

[It is cold. It’s freezing actually, and there is an insistent beeping in Joly’s ears, and some matter of machinery near him and he doesn’t understand it because he was dying and the point of this was to actually die, wasn’t it? He’d have prefered death, he thinks, staring at the recording device now, then waking up here, like this, with THINGS sticking out of him and into him and...It’s too horrible to describe and he doesn’t want...he can’t, not really. Not…

If he says something, anything, then they’ll have to let him out, won’t they? It may be worth a try, and, with a few deep breaths, because he needs those to steady himself, and keep his hands from shaking, he’s flipping the device on.]

I died. Oh God...Oh God, Oh GOD.

[Slightly hysterical there? Well, certainly, but one can hardly blame him and aren’t reactions what they want?]

Not that I was not, in all likelihood about to die before I came here, I suppose. Bossuet, he’s my…

[No. Better not let them know about those at home who are important, lest they be dragged into this somehow.]

A friend of mine. Simply a friend, had predicted in the lull of our battle that we were going to be taking an omnibus to some distant place very soon. At home we have no other worlds, so he meant it literally. I’d hoped that I would die with my friends if I had to die, and even being brought back , returned to living, well…

[His look is clearly puzzled here, at best.]

It is an oddity, an unnatural one to me, that I am not quite used to. At home, in my world, there is no way to cheat death such as this. If there were, well. I think a good many people would wish to use it, to escape what’s only natural.

That is another thing, I suppose. Many of my friends, perhaps even those of you who’ve gotten to know me might think I have a fear of death itself. But death has never been the issue so much as disease. A death from that, being mangled by it until there is nothing left, burning away from fever, coughing out my last with blood, the effects of the cholera, which are entirely too unpleasant to describe in front of ladies, whom I know some of my audience to be, those are the sort of deaths I have to fear. A death like mine, just now, or like the death I may have had at home, a quick one, in the moment, when I did not have time to worry, well…

It was not so awful as it might have been. While I certainly do not advise anyone viewing this should try it for himself, and I would certainly like to avoid it in future when I am called to compete again, if possible, at least it was a quick death, at least it was unexpected, and, as messy as it was, at least I had very little time to think about what was going to happen next, besides thinking of the things that I would miss.

Being in here, like this, with these...

[And he’s tugging at the tubing in his nose, scowling at the machines themselves.]

That’s worse I think. I do not LIKE them, they are entirely unnatural. There’s nothing natural in this, I…

Have nothing else to say.

[Abruptly, then, the feed is shutting off.]


Prose:

Certainly, everything had been explained to him, rather quickly, actually, before he had been shoved into this room, but when it came to matters of logic, the entire thing far surpassed his understanding of anything right or real or normal. It was enough to give one’s heart severe palpitations, perhaps enough to bring on an acute attack. Joly had the feeling that was where he was heading right now. Instead of showing off a skill, he would die right here, in front of these judges, who would probably not do a thing to help him. He would die right here, before he ever set foot into their playing field.

The idea of that was nothing short of disturbing, and it contributed, for a few moments of what felt like eternity, of Joly staring at that panel of unforgiving judges, trying to catch his breath, certain that the stress had brought about his death at last. He had a cold already for God’s sake. Breathing was already difficult and then this, and a selection of weapons, most of which he had never looked at in his life.

Most, but certainly not all of them. Among the heavier swords, he noticed now, even as he tried to breathe, to not look like the idiot he was as he stood there checking his pulse, there was, at least, a rapier. It brought back a few memories of the lessons that his parents had insisted he attend, the salle where he had been taught, at least, in theory, what to do with said rapier.

True, for Joly, much of the experience of fencing had rather been more focused on chatting with whoever he was partnered with for that particular lesson, avoiding being scratched by the blade, for who knew what diseases lurked upon its surface, exposed to disease causing miasmas as it was, and only actually using the blade in his OWN hand, when he had spotted Monsueir Duvall coming around the room, but perhaps those attempts, few as they had been, to look like he had been paying attention to corrections, could serve him a little now.

At any rate, it was better than standing here doing nothing, wasn’t it? Striding forward was difficult, more difficult still was considering the possibility of not doing well here, and angering these people who had decided he must compete for his life at all. In that matter of circumstance, what choice did Joly have, but to grasp the rapier by it’s hilt, take up a stance across from a training dummy, and let loose with a few of the basic moves that did not take much to master, and looked fairly elegant to one who had never picked up such a weapon.

True, in theory, the rapier was better for defending oneself than to make a kill, but there had been times when holding an enemy at bay was all well and good. Why else had the king’s guard of musketeers been issued these, along with their muskets and feathered hats? Imagine. Himself as a musketeer. Even now, with that clock ticking down the minutes, Joly had to smile at the illusion, allowing it to take him over as his feet found a pattern that nearly matched some of the dance steps he’d excelled at learning at home. If his grip was a little off, at least he was not dropping the blade as he twirled and spun, slicing ribbons of cloth off of first one dummy’s torso, than another, feinting and dodging as if he were imagining some attack.

It all ended a bit early, perhaps too early, with a sharp cough that rocked through Joly’s body, rooting him to the spot where he stood, blade clattering to the ground now, as it all came back to him, his cold, the barricades, that Bossuet was not with him and they expected him to do THIS to people. Staring at the dummies he’d at least injured, coughing his lungs out, so it seemed, and gasping for breath, Joly could only turn his head toward that silent panel, a look of sheer panic in his eyes.

“Please…” He told them all, still congested from his cold, “It is all I cad manage I’be been ill…”

Then, mercifully, the timer was going off. At least he’d managed somewhat. Maybe?

What is your character scored: 5.

Joly is pretty average on the whole, and his performance, while demonstrating a bit of skill with a blade, was done with a rapier, which is certainly not a great weapon for attacking. In addition to this, his illness and inability to finish his round completely, as well as his late start will probably not do very much to help his chances in the long run.

Taking into account that he demonstrated SOME skill, the fact that his looks and slightly accented speech may make him seem "exotic" to the audience, but considering the weaknesses on display for all to see, a five seems to be a reasonable compromise of a score.

While he did not show it in his qualifying round, Joly DOES have some knowledge of healing herbs and plants, which also help to up his score towards a five. The gamemakers could probably learn of this via keeping an eye on him, listening to his conversations, or finding it out through other methods of spying so that may well influence this score as well.

Additional information: Question specifically for certain character types. Feel free to ignore if it does not apply to your character type. Please answer all that do (For example, a past victor AU would answer both their question, and the past victory question)

Past victor: N/A
Past victor AU:N/A
Hunger Games AU and OC: N/A