Ataraxion Ap!

[but_civilization]

P L A Y E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Sar
OOC Journal: fisher_queen
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope!
Email + IM: aislin.cross@gmail.com and maidrostall
Characters Played at Ataraxion: None so far

C H A R A C T E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Michel Combeferre
Canon: Les Miserables Novel
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: Immediately following his death at the Barricades in June, 1832
Number:RNG

Setting:Wiki Link


History:

What canon gives us when it comes to Combeferre is not very much, admittedly. He, like the others of the ABC, save for Bosuett, is from the south of France and winds up in Paris as a student, and a medical one at that, in 1828. He would have been in Paris for secondary school before going on to attend medical classes.

In Paris, he becomes acquainted with Enjolras, and a few others, the founding members of les amis de la abc, (the friends of the abased). The group's goal is to free the opressed people's of France, though Combeferre's own expectations as to how this might work are quite different from Enjolras's at first. Combeferre's motto is "revolution but civilization" and he prefers to use the ABC's original front, as an educational society, in order to get the message out, and to work on elevating the people through education.

In addition to his medical studies and his charitable work with Les Amis, Combeferre also joins Enjolras and the others in plans for a revolution, and has a variety of weapons that he keeps on hand, against the day an armed revolt might come. It is not unnecessary what he WANTS to have happen in the way of revolution, but he is damned well going to be there to support its arrival into the world, and if armed revolt is the only way, then so be it.

With the death of General Lamarque on June 1st, the time for revolution arrives, and on the day of his funeral, June 5th, Combeferre attends the funeral with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and several others of Les Amis, and then assists in the construction of a barricade at Corinth, a wine shop the group had met at. During the events at the barricade, Combeferre works to tend the wounded, along with participating in the fighting, witnesses Enjolras shoot a murderer who has taken the life of an innocent,and, when Enjolras speaks of how he had damned himself, informs him that he, that the rest of the insurgents here, will follow him, and share his fate.

After this, Combeferre takes it upon himself to give Enjolras some time alone, and speaks to the crowd himself, talking about their friends who have been killed, especially Jean Prouvaire, taken hostage and shot by the National Guard, Bahorel, the first of the insurgents to die, and of Enjolras himself, and what he has just done. He adds some words about remorse, and seems...almost to attempt to explain for Enjolras why he has done what he has done, and the feelings that accompany it.

This occurs shortly before it becomes apparent that no one else was coming to join in the insurrection, at which point, Enjolras asks that those who have families and children will go home. No one wants to do this until Combeferre steps in and tries to reason with the insurgents, reminding them that women have been left defenseless by society, and that they will still need the support of men, which can't happen if they die. He mentions widowed mothers and sons, along with wives and children, demonstrating an understanding of the position of women in society.

Hugo points out that Combeferre is not an orphan, and connecting it to this portion of his speech suggests he may have a widowed mother himself, but he still opts to remain at the barricade, choosing his friends over whatever family that he may have left at this point.

Eventually, between more entreating from Enjolras, Marius and Combeferre, some of the men are convinced that they should leave the barricade. As things drag on, and Enjolras is taking aim at a young National Guardsman from behind the barricade, he and Combeferre are close enough that they can get a good look at him. Combeferre, at this point, seems to have a bit of regret at what is going on, and tries to get Enjolras to leave him, pointing out that he might be their brother. Enjolras doesn't exactly agree on this point, but he does listen enough that he actually has a tear on his face as he shoots the man.

Later on at the barricade, Gavroche, a street urchin who had been helping the insurgents has gone out to gather ammunition from the corpses already there. Combeferre wants to, and tries to stop him and Gavroche is killed in the process. Combeferre comes back with the cartridges Gavroche had gathered, seemingly hoping to ensure his death was not in vain here.

As things go on, the fighting gets worse, of course, and the insurgents are killed, with the barricade falling on June 6th. Combeferre is one of the few amis to get an "onscreen" death in this, as he is stabbed three times with a bayonet while trying to help a wounded enemy. Hugo tells us that he has enough time to look upward to heaven as he dies.


Personality:

In modern language usage? Combeferre is a big damn nerd. He's extremely interested in everything, and has several varying interests from medicine, which he is studying, to the animal kingdom, to law and politics. He's somewhat of a renaissance man, with his varying interests, and, while he might not have a chance to put everything to use in the practical sense, he likes having the ability to gain this knowledge, and to distribute it amongst the people. He tends to believe that education, and progress are the way to ennact social change, and strives to make this education avaliable to all who wish for it. "Revolution, but civilization" is probably his core belief. While he advocates for a change in France and in the greater world as much as Enjolras, his preferred path towards it would be a path that moves through a natural progression, and one of the ways to achieve that progression is by making knowledge of it available to all.

In addition to this, Combeferre's own beliefs lead him to act as a regulating force for certain members of Les Amis, most particularly Enjolras. Hugo tells us that he corrected and completed Enjolras, demonstrating that he acts as a voice of reason in several places, notably at the barricades, as he tries to convince Enjolras not to shoot a National Guardsman because they could be brothers. This is one example of how Combeferre works to regulate Enjolras's force of personality and his own beliefs. He doesn't seek to stop Enjolras in his plans for revolution, and he is on board with the idea that the insurrectionists must attempt to seize power, but he does hope to emphasize the idea that violence does not always need to be the only way, and that there are other ways to appeal to people.

Amusingly, in almost direct contrast of this, Combeferre has a large collection of weapons in store for the revolution, bringing with him the gun of a national guardsman and two pistols to the barricade. If he IS going to fight for the right of the people to rise, he is damned well going to be well armed and to preserve as much life as possible, even if that means taking the lives of the National Guard and Government forces. While it is not his preferred method of change, he does still embrace it and intends to make it a success, at which point, afterwards, he would be there to pick up the pieces left behind and to help re-form and build the civilized society that he would like to see.

Combeferre tends toward more of the humanist element, while Enjolras moves in terms of the divine. Enjolras seems to bring more of the godlike authority to the revolution, while Combeferre is a sort of teacher, a guide, who seeks to translate the ideals and goals to the populace in a more attainable, practicable matter. He is very much a man of the world, making it his business to understand all that there is of mankind and the work that mankind does, and to use his knowledge of mankind, and of Enjolras, to achieve the greater good.

His relationship with Enjolras is of extreme importance partly because he serves as a translation for Enjolras's ideas and goals, but also because the two of them have a strong understanding of each other. They're often seen in canon interacting together and separate from the others, notably at the barricades, when discussing what to do about the situation when Jean Prouvaire is taken hostage.

Combeferre is also quite possibly, the one of Les Amis who feels comfortable enough with Enjolras to directly question some of his actions, again, notably, the discussion over whether or not they must kill a young national guardsman. Combeferre begs Enjolras not to do it, and feels comfortable enough with Enjolras as leader that he can offer this plea. There is an earlier point at the barricades as well, when Enjolras has killed Le Cabuc, an 'insurectionist (there is a lot of conjecture as to whether he is a plant sent to dishonor the insurrectionists and their cause)and tells the gathered fighters that he will be damned. Combeferre looks to Enjolras in that moment, and says simply, that they will share his fate. This willingness to trust Enjolras, even when he does not entirely agree with him says a lot about his feelings toward Enjolras, and towards his role in acting as his friend.

While all of Les Amis are, of course, brothers in arms, it is Combeferre who seems to have the closest bond with Enjolras, serving as a sounding board and trusted voice of reason who Enjolras does listen to, and doesn't simply dismiss and consults with on a regular basis as well. He does indeed serve as a guide to the revolution, and to the greater state of revolution, education, and the world, seeking to get these ideas out there for others.


In terms of more direct personality elements, Combeferre tends to be the approachable one, not only for Enjolras, but for others as well. He has a moderate, very mild approach to many things, and while he is obviously passionate about his own ideals of education and progress, he is patient enough to not ram them down someone else's throat. He will lead people to find their own answers to the great questions and offer his perspective on them, but he never tries to directly force his point of view. He will try to change people's opinions, and is no stranger to debating those opinions if he finds them wrong, but he is also likely to at least listen to someone and hear them out. This is evidenced by the fact that he lets Marius rant on about the glories of Napoleon at Marius's first meeting with Les Amis, letting him wear himself out and expressing his ideas, before dismissing them and pointing out how wrong Marius is by speaking mildly and using very few words "to be free" in showing Marius the answer to his question of what could be greater than in living in a France that had been under Napoleon's influence.

He doesn't seek to directly tell Marius in that instance that he is being stupid, but instead tries to show him with just a few words, and then an improvised song filk (I said that he's a big damn nerd, right?) which does sort of shut Marius up for that moment. He does this not so that Marius will be embarrassed or put in his place, though those might be bonuses certainly, but so that Marius can be introduced to these new perspectives and hopefully be lead to more knowledge if he seeks to have it. Combeferre will certainly speak his mind if he thinks you are being an idiot, but he isn't one to do it in those words. He prefers to tell you you're an idiot in a way that will lead you to work it out for yourself,and get you to examine where you stand and what you believe after such an event. He'll gladly give advice and help you to solve your problems, but first you have to realize what your mistakes are and why they're wrong before he is completely willing to work with you to fix them.

Overall, he stands as a friendly and approachable type of person, with a tendency to help you examine your own beliefs and behavior in the same way that he examines moths under a microscope, or dissects Rousseau's ideals, and how to translate them into the modern world in a practicable and attainable way. He is very willing to help and to teach, as long as you are willing to invest the time and effort in whatever the subject being taught or discussed is, and genuinely loves humanity and wants to help whatever way he can.

Also, he is a big damn nerd.


Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

Combeferre has no supernatural abilities by any means, but he IS one of those people with a strong memory for many facts and figures. Canon establishes him as a sort of renaissance man who is often seeking knowledge of all kinds, and he has a strong memory for the facts and figures that he absorbs. He was also enrolled as a medical student and has a basic period understanding of medicine.

As he is coming in from 1832, he will not have knowledge of the latest methods or treatments or even some ailments that have been identified more recently, but I would be looking towards having him work to learn these things if such were possible. He has a good understanding of science and philosophy, demonstrated in canon by his assistance in building the barricade and in the philosophers he quotes and argues with his friends. His knowledge of science is again only workable up until the period that he is coming in from, and he has a decent bedside manner when he is assisting patients.

He is a reasonably fit young man of 24, though he is quite nearsighted and requires a fairly strong prescription for the spectacles he wears, one which is not as developed as it might be in his current pair, which, along with his frequent reading tends to leave him with severe headaches. While he certainly could hold his own in a fight with someone of similar size and weight, Combeferre also does not tend to assume that people might engage in underhanded tactics and it would certainly be easy for someone to take him in a fight if they went for the element of surprise.

Inventory:

1 pair of spectacles, battered, but intact
1 surgeon's apron, blood stained
1 blood stained set of incomplete clothing (shirt and grey jacket, both with stab gashes, trousers, he'd have lost the other pieces to use as bandaging while tending to the wounded at the barricade)
1 pair of boots.



Appearance: Combeferre is of average height and build, and wears spectacles that tend to fall down his nose that he is constantly in the habit of pushing up and taking off to clean, even when they don't need to be. It's more of a habit than not, really. He has dark blonde hair and brown eyes and tends to not put a lot of effort into what he is wearing. While he certainly is always appropriately dressed, his cravet knots are usually quickly done and off center, and he's in the habit of throwing on clothing quickly unless he has something specifically important to pay attention to his clothing for. He probably owns copies of the same set of clothes so that he doesn't have to worry about these things, since he has too much else to do. He cleans up well, when he needs to, but he just doesn't see the point in making an effort to be a clotheshorse most of the time, and a great deal of his money goes toward books(usually his friends' coursebooks, even if he's not in the same classes as them, so that they can have things to discuss)instead of his upkeep.

By the end of a typical day, Combeferre has usually managed to get ink on his fingers, and he has a bad habit of falling asleep at his desk, usually over something he's been reading. He's woken up with ink from a newspaper or pamphlet smeared across his face and forehead on more than one occasion, which he tends to take in stride. He takes a lot of appearance changes in stride, actually, so long as they don't really drastically draw unwanted attention. If his hair falls out of the queue he wears it in, or gets in his face as he's working, he's more likely to just shrug it out of the way than to need to go and redo the entire thing, and he tends to almost not notice these tiny fluctuations, or to just go with them. He'd probably roll his eyes if someone pointed this sort of thing out.

He's generally very open with people and has a friendly approachable manner, that displays itself in his quiet smiles, and his general air tends to encourage people to seek him out, and he projects a quiet sort of competence. He's usually seen running around with a LOT of reading material, and I expect he'll be the one toting a reader around everywhere in game, instead of his constant stack of books for once!

I'll be using Mark Hildreth as his PB.


Age: 24

AU Clarification: N/A

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:

The last that he had known, Combeferre had been sinking to the stones of the barricade, as the National Guardsman’s bayonet found a third, and exceptionally painful place to strike. The last that he had known was pain, confusion, a brief fleeting moment of fear for Enjolras, a hope that there were others of them left, Courfeyrac, at least, surely, who could protect him, keep him from falling into the hands of the Guard here as their barricade had started to collapse.

If Enjolras had been captured by them...Combeferre had feared that reality for his dearest friend above all others. He’d been glancing up, to offer a prayer that Enjolras, in whatever sense of things, would be protected, that he escape unharmed, or die before they got to him and made his death much worse, that the universe, whatever power there was in it could grant that much to him now, and had been forcing the first word of it out when the pain had grown too deep and blackness overtook him.

Until now.

When Combeferre’s eyes opened once again, the first thing that he noticed was a lot of blue he seemed to be encased in, a type of tube...his coffin? He had been dying, he had known it... No... now the blue was disappearing, liquid, perhaps? It was hard to see with everything a blur, and all his pains were gone, and there was something jammed down his throat, something he must get out before he choked to...

There it came, retracting on its own, and Combeferre sputtered as it did so, clutching at his throat, trying to catch his breath as best he could. His body fought for air, quite naturally, he had been dead, and now he fought to live, of course, the natural processes taking over as he let them, trying to remain calm. But first he must get...

There. The whoosh of air told him that he had found it, that he had a way out now, that he would survive for that next little while as he groped toward what had to be the exit, urging himself to be calm as he’d found that, and the major problem was solved. He could do with some sort of blurry vision, he told himself sternly. The others of his friends, Enjolras, had likely been through worse, but the idea he could not see much more than right in front of him was...

Combeferre didn’t like it, though he forced himself to breathe, counting each breath for several seconds, that he might quiet his mind. He had to focus on what things he knew, he had to take an inventory of the moment. He was alive, he was unscathed, he was quite dizzy, but the breathing helped with that, and a few more moments brought him to the the state where he might reasonably come up with some type of plan. The first thing he must do was get a better look at where he was... Was that blur on his arm something he hadn’t noticed sleeping on the night before Lamarque's funeral had brought them to the barricades? ...It was too large for that. A number. And when he attempted to rub at it, it did not come off. Someone had been here, and tattooed him? For what purpose? Where was the point in all of this? What had...

He stumbled out of that first room, into a row of metal boxes, all with doors, and all with numbers, all of which LOOKED like his own. ...Perhaps then, he was meant to find that, try the door, and he did not know what, but it felt logical.

It took some maneuvering and glancing around before he found it, pulled the door and started groping for his spectacles, the way he had a hundred times before, though this was...

There they were! Battered, and the earpiece on the side was rather loose but Combeferre could care less for that right now, and grabbed them up, embracing them almost as he might have embraced one of his friends had they been with him now, then glanced toward everything else. His things. Well some of them at least. He tugged the shirt on, even with the blood and slashes through the chest, and then the trousers and his boots.

The apron he’d been wearing while he tended to the wounded was here too, and he grabbed hold of it, but did not put it on for now, then picked up the strange second set of clothing that he’d noticed, shoved his hair back best he could with nothing to hold it back and debated what to do now, until the voice, where was it coming from? Perhaps it held some answer, gave him a suggestion. He wished to ask more questions, find out where he was, how he’d been brought here, and without the others, but those didn’t get him any answers other than to do what he’d already been instructed. Go to the passenger quarters. He was on...a type of ship then? How had...

Not that it was likely to get him answers either, so, for now at least, he’d best let logic rule the day. Perhaps, once there, he’d get his answers and his bearings and then determine what it was that he must do.

...But how he wished that someone else were here with him.


Comms Sample:

Am I actually connected to...everyone...right now?

[He's standing there, practically half dressed with his spectacles sliding far down his nose.]

I suppose this is as good a time as any to say hello to...all of you. My name is Michel Combeferre and I should truly not be here.

[And he's giving the...camerabox... a very strange fascinated look, as if he'd like nothing better than to take it apart. Then his spectacles slip he's left squinting at the camera for a moment there. He goes to push them up again, before eyeing the camera again, and there's a definite intent to dissect it, and soon, in his gaze this time.]

From what little I HAVE gleaned here so far, It seems that I have missed a great deal of advancements in nearly everything, so forgive me if I make some sort of error here.

[And, there, he's relaxing a bit, as he falls into talking to the camera a bit more.]

It is clear I will need some help, recommendations to settle into this new place, and to see what has become of my dear friends who I was last with. Is there some way to find out information telling me what may have happened to them? A library or news source that can tell me where they've gone, how I've come this place alone when I was last with so many?

It was June 6th when I last saw them, the year was 1832 and we were at the Corinth in Paris at our barricade. I...Les Amis de L'ABC would be their names, and our leader was Enjolras. If anyone can tell me what's happened to them, if history tells you that, the news, even the worst news, would be better than wondering.


[And he's starring at what is obviously the camera itself, rather than the lens again, then standing up and reaching over with a hand that half covers the lens as it is obviously being tilted up and around for several seconds, until it actually shuts off, before the entire network is completely disoriented here.]

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[sueperkins]