Anonymous asked: Idk, you've always reminded me of Grantaire.
Well, I mean, given that I actually have a tag ‘I am Grantaire and Grantaire is me’, you are not incorrect.
Anonymous asked: was reading through your book 4 reread, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Taxxons and Hork Bajir. Especially the 'Taxxons used to be ocean aliens and now they live on land kinda thing'
YEAH LET’S DO THAT. Okay, so, I ended up just doing the Taxxons rather than the Hork-Bajir because…um…this got long, to the shock of everyone, I’m sure. I might do the Hork-Bajir later. But yeah. Okay. I wrote this during Anatomy class over a couple days and then typed it up, so.
ALL RIGHT.
So, let’s start with a quick little recap I like to call Everything We Know About Taxxons.
kashinoha asked: #70. (67%) with Hardison/Parker/Eliot!
From this ancient prompt list, because I am the worst and it took me forever to get around to this. I just want everyone to be proud of me because I almost went somewhere REALLY terrible with this prompt. Because the last episode of Leverage fucked me all the way up and I remain vengeful about that. That near miss will be obvious.
The con had unraveled at light speed. Things had gone south almost as quickly as the time Leverage Incorporated had stolen the maquettes of the David, leaving Parker scrambling to adapt their plan and salvage as much as possible. They’d managed to get the files that would prove their target responsible a fistful of deaths revolving around tainted eggs, but now Eliot’s earbud was fried.
Well. He thought it was fried—admittedly he hadn’t devoted a lot of time to checking in more detail. Between the black eye swelling on his face (bone undamaged, bruising unlikely to occlude vision), the blood seeping into his jeans from a nasty knife cut to his thigh (missed the artery, unlikely to prove lethal, would inhibit full range of motion) and the four cracked-hopefully-not-broken ribs impeding his breathing (another hit would shatter them along the fissures) and, naturally, the fact that he was tied to a chair (efficiently, they had practice), the earbud had taken low priority. If it was fried, he was going to murder Hardison with his bare hands, assuming he got out of this with both hands intact.
Also assuming that the others got out of this to be murdered, of course, which was never a certainty when someone had the forethought to take their hitter out of the equation. Eliot almost would have been reassured if the target’s hired muscle (most of them half-decent, with a small command structure of better trained mercs) was busy torturing him, because if they were occupied with him, the others would have time to get out. Instead, they had managed to knock him out with a hard blow to the head (mild concussion, vertigo manageable for motion) and left him here alone, tied up and out of play. But he was trying not to think about that, because if he thought too hard about the kind of disaster that could befall Hardison and Parker when he wasn’t there to take the hit for them, he got a little lightheaded (possibly the concussion, more probably a mild anxiety response). So the dead earbud had to take a back burner to getting the fuck out of here and finding the other sixty-seven percent of Leverage International.
ourjamesvata asked: Hey. Sorry to bother you, I see your post about healthcare in POC and women. I'm a med student and I struggle to find resources about that (specially in my language -french-). My school book dont say anything about that. Do you have any tips ? Thanks
Mmmmkay, I don’t really have time right this second to do an appropriately thorough scouring of the internet to find some books or resources for you–which I will do when I’m not writing a thesis, because I should have some resources to reference–and I’m not supremely comfortable giving out how-to-medicine advice, but I will tell you a couple things that have helped me.
- The only thing that really works: ask someone. Just do it. Find a doctor or an EMT or whoever is on hand who you trust to answer you, and ask them outright. It works best if you have a justified starting point, something like “Okay, so if that’s how I check for cyanosis on a fair-skinned person, how would I check for cyanosis on a person with dark skin?” (You check the inside of the lip, by the way.) Or “How should this intake procedure be different if my patient is trans?” Or “Should I ask any additional questions about vaccinations/previous illness if my patient is a traveler or immigrant?” Or “What if my patient has a pre-existing disability?” Or “Does this chest examination need to be conducted differently if my patient is a large-chested woman?”
- Be polite while you’re doing the asking. More often than not, it’s a problem the other person has noticed too, and it’s not that individual’s fault that humanity has spent 2000+ years screwing itself over on this subject. Also, these questions make people uncomfortable, and being rude will decrease your odds of getting an answer.
- Listen to non-doctors in the affected populations. If a woman you know has a laundry list of complaints about not being listened to by a doctor, assume she’s not being histrionic. If you know a black guy who says he was fucked over by the EMTs after he was sideswiped by a car or fell from a ladder or spiked a 105 F fever (40.5 C), he doesn’t need an MD to know he wasn’t treated as well as he should have been. If you know a trans woman who was repeatedly referred to as ‘he’ in the hospital, take note. Decide not to be that kind of doctor, and then pay attention to how you act.
- Listen to the nurses around you. First of all, that’s a good general rule, the nurses probably know more than you and nurses are treated terribly by a lot of doctors. Behind every successful doctor is a whole host of nurses who probably haven’t been thanked. But moreover, nurses spend a lot of time with the patients, and they’re the ones who field complaints about the doctors. They’ll know who gets fucked over and who doesn’t, and they know all the secrets to the medical trade.
- Be attentive to your patient (unfortunately this is the ‘learn on the job’ part of the answer). If a woman expresses discomfort with the normal proceedings of an examination, listen to her. If a patient prefers name and pronouns not matching those on their legal documentation, adhere to their request. Be aware that there are some conditions which are more common in people of specific ethnicities–for example, black women have a higher incidence of breast cancer and a lower statistical chance of having it caught by a doctor than a white woman.
- Ultimately, I’d say decide what kind of doctor you want to be. If you’re already asking this question, that’s a good start, and telling about how you’ll act as a doctor. Be self-aware of how you act with patients of various genders, ethnicities, etc. In a perfect world, it would be the responsibility of the medical school to teach that behavior and ensure that all the students were able to treat people other than the cis white able-bodied male ‘standard patient.’ This is not a perfect world, and that means it’s on you.
I…feel like this was pretty unhelpful and round-about, but I hope it at least gave you a starting place? I think you’re doing great because it occurred to you to ask this question, keep it up.
Anonymous asked: oooooh, i would love a exr shortie where e has to teach r how to dance and it's very frustrating and they feel thINGS, please?
*hides face* Oh my God, it’s been like a MONTH, I am so sorry, but HERE. There is dancing and feelings and kissing and Enjolras actually having a social life because Courfeyrac forces him to. Also, I seem to have a tendency to write ‘getting their shit together’ ficlets so if you want…not that, feel free to ask. And if you want the reverse of this where Grantaire teaches Enjolras to dance, it is here.
Enjolras goes to clubs. It’s not especially common knowledge, because he’s usually too busy, but whenever Courfeyrac feels like it’s necessary, he’ll drag Enjolras out to a nightclub, pour a few shots into him, and turn him loose for a few hours with instructions to not think too much. This time, it’s a group outing, all of Les Amis laughing and tactile with alcohol, hands on arms and cheeks flushed with the triumph of their latest protest.
Joly, giggly with his second rum and coke, is the one to start the dancing, pushing Musichetta and Bousset onto the dance floor ahead of him. The three of them fit together like puzzle pieces, Musichetta’s petite body pressed back against Joly’s chest and Bousset’s broad shoulders behind the pair of them. They’ve clearly done this before, because Bousset and Musichetta know just how to move so that Joly can dance without aggravating his limp. It’s fluid and sensual, Musichetta’s head tipped back on Joly’s shoulder and her smile dazzling up at her boys, and Enjolras feels the brief pause around him, the rest of them caught up in the trio’s giddy joy.
“Aw, they’re cute,” Cosette says, and Éponine smirks, finishes her scotch, and pinches Marius hard in the side. He yelps and flails—not a graceful man at the best of times, and less so with alcohol—but gets the hint, shyly offering his hand to Cosette and letting her tug him onto the floor. Éponine is still snickering when she darts out herself, bouncing and coiling like a ribbon in the dim club lights.
Anonymous asked: The patron saint of heartbreaking les Mis AUs
*finger guns* Hey, my shadowy sweetie, I’ve been called worse things in my life.
Anonymous asked: You have the same icon as @biend
Actually jk but it’s close enough
Oh my God you’re right. Hey, @biend, nice taste in icons, I like it. ;)
piggybunny12 asked: Re: Erik--Thank you :) That was very helpful as someone not super familiar with the canon. It's so interesting how relevant the Charles vs. Erik poles can be. They should be the new angel and devil on my shoulders :P
Hey, I’m glad you liked it! I’ve basically been waiting to have an appropriate forum to ramble about the X-Men since always, it was a lot of fun to write. And of course Erik is just such a train wreck of a person, I love poking around in the moral and psychological implications of his situation. …I’m weird, just go with it.
piggybunny12 asked: Can you say more about why you consider Erik to be broken/a monster?
Yes I can. Now, first and foremost: I really like the character of Erik Lensherr/Magneto/Max Eisenhardt/Magnus/other stuff (I’m going to go with Erik since that’s the name he usually uses), I’ve really liked his character in a writerly ‘look how interesting this shit is’ since I was a tiny wee critter who had mostly only read the weird 60′s comics with the ridiculous costumes and over-the-top dialog and batshit plotlines. I was raised Jewish until I converted and part of my family is Romani, so the Holocaust-survivor-decides-he’s-done-with-humanity thing rang pretty true because I was raised to have immense respect and grief for the event in question. So…like…none of this reflects on that, and in fact I’d say most of this is why I like his character so much. Also I’m a comics nerd at heart, so this may be pretty hit/miss on movie canon.
All right, so, here’s the thing about Erik as a truly broken person. Ever since I was little, Magneto struck me as a deeply, thoroughly traumatized individual, which, obviously, is true. He survived the Holocaust as a child, which…like, that is enough to really fuck someone up, on a permanent and severe level. In addition to the prejudice and prosecution related to his Jewish faith/heritage (have I covered my aggravation with the movies not dealing with that? it’s real), he’s been dealt a pretty awful hand on the subject of being a mutant, and been persecuted for that up to and including the murder of his wife and daughter. So…like…he is a seriously traumatized person, it’s just totally beyond debate. He has been treated as inhuman, as less than human, for almost his entire life–is it any wonder that he started making the declaration himself that he’s not human? (Let’s be real, the division between ‘homo sapiens’ and ‘homo superior’ is almost certainly a lot blurrier than Erik makes it out to be.) I’d say no, it’s actually pretty textbook psychology, it’s real, that’s part of the reason he’s such a compelling character.
And the other thing about Erik is that he’s scared. He is clearly terrified of humanity, no matter how much he might grandstand about how superior he is and how tiny they are to him. He is an animal in a trap, that’s how he sees himself, and he reacts like one. He lashes out, he tries to hurt humanity before they can hurt him. I’m of the opinion that quite a few supervillains exist out of terror, but Magneto is probably the best example I’ve ever encountered.
Like, is his trauma and terror at all an excuse for the shit he pulls? No. It’s a cool motive, but he still makes regular and alarmingly effective attempts at mass murder. People break, it’s what we do, and what dictates who we are is where we go from there, how we deal with the experience of being broken. And that’s where Erik gets really interesting.
Because listen, just. Listen. Hear me out here.
Erik Lensherr is not good at being a villain and I will tell you why. I don’t mean that as “poor misunderstood baby just doesn’t know how to deal” or anything, like, look, Magneto has tried to commit genocide more than once, I have no illusions. I like his character, but…um, he knows what he’s doing. When I say he’s not good at being a villain, I mean exactly that. Monstrous, yes, Magneto is excellent at being monstrous, anyone who has a reputation for indiscriminate murder is a monster. Cruel, dangerous, antagonistic–yeah.
But when Magneto believes he’s killed a mutant child, Kitty Pyde, with his own hands, he unravels spectacularly. She’s an X-Man who was trying to stop him, who has shown readiness to die or kill him if it’s necessary to save lives and protect her teammates, and let me tell you something: someone who was good at being a villain would have dropped her body and carried on with his rampage. There are plenty of excellent villains who face the X-Men, whether because they’re too far gone to have a conscience (Dark Phoenix arc) or because they never had one to begin with (Apocalypse arc) or because they’re aliens (like…this is a theme), and they move right the fuck on from killing people. But Erik sends a massive jolt of electricity through Kitty and believes he’s killed her–a thirteen-year-old girl, not much older than his daughter, who was trying to save her friends–and he comes fucking unglued. Like. Storm finds him holding Kitty and crying. That…that’s not the act of a villain.
Another good example would be the fact that, more than once, Erik has been presented with a golden opportunity to just…do nothing and let Charles Xavier die. Like, he would be completely able to say “Sorry, I have to go grocery shopping” (presumably he has to go grocery shopping) and not have to lift a finger to have Charles, the primary hindrance to his plans, out of his hair. And yet he doesn’t. Erik is a deeply, deeply fucked up man, and sincerely monstrous (see previous re: attempted genocide), but he needs a Villainy for Dummies book. I’m sure the Marvel multiverse has a few going cheap.
Aaaaand yeah. Those are my feelings about Erik Lensherr/Magneto as a villain, as a monster, and as a man.
ghostdog401 asked: What about a Star Trek AU, but with Les Mis characters
Aaaaaay, hell yeah, I fucking live for Star Trek AU’s.
All right, so I’m going to take this to mean that one AU where the fair ship Revolution is out on her five-year mission under the command of Captain Lamarque, a steely-eyed woman with a reputation for even-handed care of her crew whether they support her or not. Her first officer, Commander Enjolras is a communications specialist, beyond his command training, and everyone who knew him before his commission jokes that he chose it because he always wore bright red anyway. Those jokes are mostly made by his two closest friends from the Academy, both of whom went out of their way to get assigned to the same ship—Combeferre, the youngest out of the three doctors on board (and half-Betazoid who will cut you if you ask about his species’ “sensuous nature”), and Courfeyrac, the ship’s counselor (technically a non-com, but still part of the crew).
A quick overview of the crew of the Revolution:
