2, 6, 12, 14 for Joly for the character ask game!! :D
2. Favorite canon thing about this character?
He's a sweetie , come on, he doesn't have a mean bone in his body and he is on the lookout for kitties To The Death, he's great.
6. What's something you have in common with this character?
...spent my young adulthood having people insist I was Fine even though I was inarguably sick half the time . If you're wondering what a normal amount of time for a healthy person to be chartably ill is, it's " less than half", Joly is out here doing Zebra Representation like it's no big thing ><
12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?
Despite seeming about as healthy as a chihuahua on caffeine, and despite a very sheltered childhood as The Sick Kid in his family, took to the Paris party scene with an aptitude that impressed even Grantaire
14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.
Cyberpop!:D willing to have him doing this in canon era too, unexplained and unquestioned,Joly is just in neon now XD
Bodycanons ask: Lesgle or Joly and/or Lesgle and Joly!
sdlfsdklgh had this 90 percent done and then we lost power /internet
TWICE
Extremely Legle Post
anyway BOGO headcanons XD
Legle/Lesgle/Laigle/Bossuet
Headcanon: he has almost passed any number of law classes, but Something always comes up before exams-- a death in the family, a financial disaster, an arrest, a severe injury or illness , someone else being arrested or injured or ill and needing help, etc, etc (he was really very relieved the time it turned out the Semester's Disaster was just Marius Pontmercy) . He may be nowhere near graduation, but he is very well-informed about a lot of classes and has a semi-lucrative gig going where he either tutors nervous young students or, more often, does a lot of their work outright-- a thing that might trouble his conscience if he or anyone whose opinion he values thought law school was anything but a joke.
Heartcanon: he's actually got sort of a fondness for some of the nights he's spent/ still sometimes spends just wandering around outside, no particular home to go to, nowhere to be. He's not about to romanticize it; he'd be the first to say that it really depends on the weather and he knows there is a huge difference between being out on the street when he knows, really, he could go stay with any of a dozen friends, and being out on the street and having zero idea where his next solid bed is, he's experienced a Wide Range of situations on that scale and he knows , and he's also quite sure already that what's sort of meditative and relaxing at 25 will probably be much less so at 45, but all the same, such is the Human Experience that , yes, actually, some of those nights have been very dear to him, and really helped him recover from some major emotional hits rather than otherwise.
(It's all one of the things he never really talks about--unlike Grantaire, he's really good at deciding what he'll talk about ,however long he rambles on-- and he's only ever really connected with Prouvaire on it, and even then, it never feels satisfying to talk about it, so they mostly don't . But it's nice to know someone else understands.)
Gutcanon: he and Grantaire had many FWB makeouts in their early college-ish years, of Mixed but Generally Not Great quality, since it tended to happen only when they were both Kinda Messed Up in one way or the other. They razz each other about Sexual Prowess from (outdated, mostly drunk/Young Fools Doing an All-Nighter) experience :P
Spleencanon: somewhere between Actual Canon and General Spleen, I guess? -- he's actually really graceful (that's canon! all the descriptions of his movements involve him being graceful and elegant, even when he's absolutely plastered!) and one of the more effective fighters in the group. IMO there's a sharp edge to Legle that is largely unseen , but he wouldn't be where he is, hanging out with who he does, after everything in his life, if he didn't have a solid core of Fight in him..
Joly
Headcanon: not only prone to catching Everything Going Around now, but spent most of his childhood catching every illness going around-a terrifying experience for his parents and a plain unfun one for himself. This is why his parents are fairly undemanding about the pace of his studies--they know he gets sick a lot and will be happy if he's able to graduate at all. It is also why he started life in Paris with a bizarrely high capacity for just about every drug available-- a childhood spent having Helpful 19C Medicines on a daily basis got him accustomed to concoctions that would worry Dionysus.
Heartcanon: he has a great love and appreciation for puns (obviously) but no flair for them on his own. It's all about at the habit/ami level. He still laughs every time, and everyone else usually laughs too, because he's just so pleased about it that it's delightful anyway.
Gutcanon: ..honestly feel like he's not on the Surgeon track? he's. The other thing. I've looked it up like three times and then the computer crashes, but like..the equivalent of being a General Doctor But Not A Surgeon. I'd even think he was going on the Pharmacist track if the way Hugo introduced him didn't make that seem Off. It just seems more suited to him somehow?
Spleencanon: haha it's very funny that despite his chronic health issues he's going to live to a very happy old age! Wacky!!!1!!!
Bini!
Headcanon: oh they absolutely met for the first time in a Very Awkward Mixup over who was supposed to be dating Musichetta that night. For Legle this was already very normal; for Joly it was the first time anything of the sort had happened. But it worked out Very Well for everyone involved, eventually!
Heartcanon: both of them individually had the sense and practical wisdom to not start feeding the neighborhood stray cats. Their Forces Combined were utterly susceptible to the plaints of little mewing voices under the window, and now there's a small army of Technically Strays that visit regularly. There has been a distinct improvement in the apartment's rodent issues, so the landlady isn't complaining...
Gutcanon: Legle is still prone to worrying about Overstaying His Welcome, a holdover reflex from several years of couchsurfing, and occasionally just absents himself for several days no matter how often Joly assures him that really it's fine, why do you think I gave you a spare key (and then another spare key and another one when those vanished) . They're gonna iron it out eventually, it's just a question of time and habit.
Spleencanon: THEY ARE GOING TO IRON IT OUT IN TIME. WHICH THEY WILL HAVE.
He’s just such a cheerful friendly bean? It’s very uncomplicated to like Joly, he’s just openly and directly kind and cheerful, without even the Walls of Nonsense to have to climb over to figure out what he’s talking about. (…actually it’s kind of Noticeable how much all Joly’s major conversations and apparently very closest friends are Very Big Talkers with long involved speech patterns and he is..Very Much Not. Grantaire: *multiparagraph speech about love and vapors and holding hands in the infinite* Joly: Marius has a girlfriend!:D)
least favorite thing about them
…There’s nothin’, honestly. He’s just a Good Bean. What, am I gonna hate him for **checks notes** being curious about alternative health remedies? In the 1800s?? shoo.:P
favorite line
“The mouse, plus the cat, is the revised and correct proof of Creation.” –and really just the entire “Cats are Proof of a Competent Universe” speech. He makes a fair point! Let the man talk!XD
random headcanon
He and Combeferre combined are a Terrifying Force for Optimistic But Inadvisably Applied Science– not because they generally agree, but because they generally don’t , and the only course for them as Men of Science is of course to conduct Experiments to decide which theory is more sustainable, and their theories involve things like lightning and fire and Condensing Exciting Chemicals.
..Also, Joly has 100 percent tried to communicate via Snailography. It was not a rousing success, but he remains open minded!
unpopular opinion
I feel like Joly is a character where I tend to agree with the General Consensus more than not? I do hold that he genuinely has some sort of Constant Health Issue, probably one that has flares or episodes of being Really Noticeable instead of a more constant thing; that seems to be something people are pretty divided on, but it fits really well with his particular stripe of Health Focus to me.
song i associate with them
…unfortunately, it’s The Mary Ellen Spider. Just. just listen to it. (apologies that this vid is the best online version I could find)
favorite picture of them
…I can’t find it anywhere, but you know that scene in 2012′s Red And Black where he’s smoking a pipe full of Probably Not Tobacco and cracking up? Yeah, that one.
I thought about it and it's possible the headcanon which is Nearest To My Heart is that Joly is super into homeopathy. The timing is right - the original homeopathic Organon was published in 1810 with revised and expanded editions coming out throughout the teens, twenties and thirties - so it's got that Cutting Edge Appeal, plus it's a whole crazy system linked to a plausible (but totally wrong) account of how medicine works. The more I read on the topic the more strongly I feel about this.
OH MY GOSHyes I am SO completely on board with this, Joly Loves Homeopathy is STILL one of my go-to headcanons even in a modern AU, and in canon era it must have seemed SO REASONABLE. So much more successful than bleeding and tincture of mercury! It must be the homeopathy!–and not that practically anything is better than bleeding and tincture of mercury.
In general I’ve long thought of Joly as a booster (and practitioner) of New Exciting medical treatments that don’t rely on cutting, purging, etc, because those are super obviously not helping, no matter what his teachers say, especially because he’s his own first patient for these things and has no great attraction to making himself physically miserable. All his Weird Science canon example are very non intrusive– moving furniture may not actually help, but it’s not gonna make things notably worse, either.
Return Headcanon: cane or no, Joly’s actually quite a good dancer. He’s not always the most physically graceful guy, but a dance has set moves and everyone involved has the same general idea, and he does very well on the dance floor.
...And then he sits down and is unfortunately likely to start talking about Exciting Ways Everyone Can Die of Illness , so really it’s a very good thing he’s a good dancer. (and that Romanticism has made Death Talk...kind of In.)
He can touch the tip of his nose with his tongue! That’s pretty cool, right??
--He’s also very good at being cheerful and cheering in the face of Certain Doom without acting like nothing’s wrong. Death is Imminent and this wine is very good and there are dear people who are Everything; he doesn’t need to ignore one of those to appreciate the importance of the other, and he’s good at sharing that mood. This obviously comes up more in his field of study than it probably does for most people; it’s made him a favorite with patients who are having to hear hard news.
- actually is a big ball of sunshine, but also gets really cranky sometimes. Most people don’t realize this, though, because it usually just manifests in him making what he thinks is a brutal cutting remark but most people think is just average-level neutral commentary. He has Resting Cute Face, poor thing. *ruffles hair*
- clicks really well with Prouvaire, once they get to talking-- they’ve both got a certain fascination with death and the morbid aspects of life, an openness to less... popular... theories about the way the world works, and a recurring frustration with other people treating them like they’re adorable, dammit, they are not, they are grown up serious adults who are cooing over this kitten like serious revolutionary grownups.
- not unrelated to the above, Joly gets used as the alibi/distraction/person who gets to appeal to Authority that there is Nothing Going On , Sir, Just Youthful Hijinks all the time. Bahorel has told him he could look innocent naked and carrying a torch in front of a burning bordello, and Joly is pretty sure that was a compliment, and absolutely sure that he is not going to allow circumstances to test the literal accuracy of the idea, but yeah. He’s everyone’s Alibi Guy.
- Is one of those people who just catch every illness going around, gets the worst symptoms, and takes forever to fight it off--it’s a big part of why he’s been in med school for so long. He is forever trying to figure out Why, and his arsenal of Home Remedies is always , by necessity, tested on himself first. He has so many pre-patent medicines, it’s amazing he’s survived it all.
-...One of those remedies is absolutely Blaze It, which is another point he and Prouvaire can be in happy accord about. It’s amazing how many symptoms just stop bothering a person after a little hashish! Or a lot of hashish! Whichever!
- Joly is a Japanese student studying medicine wherever it is the other amis are.
- He has a cane because he was injured in a car accident, and it took him a while to get used to it. He starts to notice the little things people could change to make disabled living easier, and Les Amis work to help him make changes.
- He never realized he needed glasses for a ridiculously long time, and was amazed when he finally got them because “oh my gosh the world’s not fuzzy anymore!”
- He has anxiety and sometimes panic attacks which was harder for him in Japan because he has less friends, but the support network Les Amis provide him makes him feel more comfortable with himself.
- This is just canon, but he is hypochondriac
- He’s always wanted a cat, but he is allergic
- He likes short sleeve button downs with fun patterns, complete with his collection of bow ties! (I feel like a lot of people give this honor to Courfeyrac, so perhaps they are bow tie buddies)
- JBM, I don’t really have a favorite way they get together as long as they are together. If you scroll down the Joly tag on my blog, you’ll find some art I reblogged that has JBM with rock paper scissors tattoos, and I love that concept.
Might reblog this and add more later, we’ll see. :)
