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[scentofyouth]

[ CHARACTER INFORMATION ]
Name: Gilbert Cocteau
Age: 14
Gender: Male
Canon: kaze to ki no uta
Timeline: Vol. 10, chapter “heat haze.”

Character History:
Gilbert is the child that was born from the affair between Anne-Marie Cocteau and her husband’s brother, Auguste Beau. Their affair didn’t last long, though, as they were found out by Lord Cocteau, who furiously tortured Auguste and chased him away from the Cocteau estate. Soon after finding out that she was pregnant, Anne’s mental health started to go waver. Giving birth to her first son was a very traumatic event for her, and finally caused a complete mental breakdown. She genuinely regretted the sin of adultery she had committed and Gilbert was like a living proof of it, and in order to get rid of her sin she tried to kill her baby for several times.

Fortunately, her husband, who still loved her greatly, decided to take her away to Indochina with him to get a treatment for her broken mental state, leaving their baby behind in their huge estate for the servants to take care of. The servants, however, found themselves in an awkward and uncomfortable situation and decided to ignore the child, giving him only food and clothes when needed. Thus, due the lack of the parental love and connection to the rest of society, Gilbert grew up to be somewhat like a feral child. He started to take habits from the animals and called his pet rabbit Papa and a dirty blanket Mama.

After he turned five something unexpected happened: Auguste returned to the Cocteau estate. He introduced himself as Gilbert’s uncle, immediately took interest in Gilbert’s underdeveloped life skills, and decided to raise him to be his personal pet. Instead of giving him proper education, he taught him immoral things, like how to drink alcohol and how to kiss. To Gilbert, Auguste was the first person who showed him the attention and affection that he had been missing in his short life and so he soon became used to Auguste’s cruel treatment that contained mental, sexual, and physical abuse.

As the years passed, the rumours about Auguste living in a huge estate alone with a beautiful child began to spread among high society. People started to get interested and some even tried to visit Auguste just to get a peek at that mysterious child. One of these people was J.P. Bonnard, a famous painter and a pedophile who at tried to convince Auguste to sell Gilbert to him. After getting rejected, Bonnard befriended Gilbert and kidnapped him, escaping to a brothel that was located in a rundown town nearby, where he raped the poor boy. Even though Gilbert managed to escape from him after being violated, he was in such big shock that he tried to kill himself by drowning in the ocean. He was saved by fishermen and returned safely to his home, but Auguste wasn’t thrilled to find out what had happened to his young nephew. He was completely apathetic towards him and blamed Gilbert for getting raped. Later on that same night, Auguste, too, raped the boy in order to erase the mark that another man had left on him and to gain control over him. Gilbert, who believed that he and Auguste were in love, didn’t mind this, and he became Auguste’s lover when he was barely 10 years old.

Just like with the alcohol, Gilbert soon became used to sex and started to enjoy it. When he noticed that Auguste wouldn’t always touch him when he wanted him to, he started to seduce any other males who were around: guests, servants, you name it. He also became aware that with sex he could control others, just like Auguste controlled him. But even these "happy days" didn’t last for too long, ending when Auguste got a letter from Anne-Marie. She and her husband were coming back to the Cocteau Estate to take care of some business and they asked if Auguste could take Gilbert to Paris for a while.

After living in a Paris for few days, Gilbert ended up meeting with Bonnard again. He forgave him for what he had done to him earlier and started to get involved with him. When things got out of control, Auguste took Gilbert to meet his parents for the first time. When Gilbert arrived at their home, he saw that Anne had given a birth to another son when she had been away with her husband. And when he tried to approach his mother, Anne only slapped him and told him to stay away from her.

After Gilbert had been rejected by his parents Auguste felt that he had had no other choice but finally send him to school. He enrolled the 11-year-old Gilbert, who had no idea how the society works, in a boarding school. Needless to say, he did not fit in there with his hedonistic yet violent nature. It didn’t take long until Gilbert had became famous among the other students for almost every rule that there was: he skipped classes, seduced other students, and had them do his homework for him. This lasted for three years, until a good natured half-gypsy named Serge Battour transferred to their school. Serge, who was Gilbert’s complete opposite, was placed in the same room with him, as the school staff hoped that Serge’s good nature would somehow change the twisted Gilbert.

These two had a rocky start as Gilbert did everything he could to chase Serge out of his room and hurt him. But despise Gilbert’s efforts and dislike towards his new roommate, Serge didn’t give up and (perhaps by accident) kept getting more and more involved with Gilbert’s twisted life.

Character Personality:
Gilbert isn’t someone who is easy to understand, since he has so many sides to his twisted personality. He is spoiled, bratty, manipulative, seductive, independent, apathetic, prideful and very violent; on the other hand, he is vulnerable, clingy, lonely, and constantly craves attention. But unlike most people, those personality traits are not kept in order, and it's impossible to clean the mess up.

In many ways, it seems like Gilbert’s behavior and personality are closer to that of an animal than of a man, which is rather understandable. When he grew up without parental love, he became like a feral child, taking habits from animals that he kept as pets. He is quiet and doesn’t really like talking with people, preferring to observe others silently like an animal. Even though Gilbert is rather vain when it comes to clothes, preferring the most expensive and most glamorous ones, he still is more fond of being naked. This is mostly because he absolutely loves feel the touch on his skin, was it the touch of a grass, trees or other human beings.

One may assume that someone like Gilbert, who dislikes clothing and has a rather bohemian way of living, would be the last person to have pride, but that isn’t the case. On the contrary, he has quite a lot of pride. Because of this, Gilbert doesn’t let just anyone touch him, help him, or even be with him-- and if you somehow manage to hurt his pride, Gilbert will hurt you. Not by himself, of course; he'll make someone else do the dirty job for him.

One also shouldn’t mistake him for being slow or dumb just because of his beastly behaviour, since Gilbert is really very intelligent. He taught himself to read and write from adults' books when there was no one to educate him. His cleverness comes in handy for his "little hobby" of seduction and manipulation: Gilbert takes great pleasure in messing with people’s minds and hearts. He uses sex and his good looks to manipulate other male students, and just when they have given him what he wants, he hurts them by betraying them and moves to his next victim. But even though Gilbert is very promiscuous, he isn’t a whore without a cause— he likes to gain something from it aside from simple pleasure (or pain). He usually sells his body to people who do favours for him in return, such as doing his homework, getting him alcohol, and blackmailing other people.

Even though Gilbert comes across as a sneaky, arrogant boy who never trusts anyone or let anyone get close him, there are times when his personality seems to suddenly change. During these times, Gilbert shows the wounded side of himself that was born from all of the traumatic events in his childhood. The arrogant and prideful Gilbert actually begs for attention and craves the touch of another human to an unhealthy degree, one that reveals his masochistic and suicidal side. He stops eating and won’t leave his bed for days, staying awake until he somehow manages to gather up all of his remaining strength and tries to commit suicide. Meanwhile, as an escape from his emotional pain, he seeks pleasure through sex. He does not value his own body at all, which is also a reason why he can give his body to complete strangers. Despite the fact that Gilbert does his best to keep everyone away, sometimes he can barely handle his solitude, something usually triggered by Auguste (who doesn’t even need to be present). Since Auguste is the one who Gilbert is in love with, the fact that he left him alone at school for three years without keeping in contact is just too painful for him to stand.

Even more than any of that, one of the biggest flaws in his personality is that he doesn’t know what love means. Yes, he understands the word, but his view of it is immensely twisted. Gilbert believes that he and Auguste are in love, but as anybody else can see, it’s just a twisted form of dependence and unhealthy obsession. He is even aware of Auguste’s cruelty and that he likes to play with his emotions, and yet he's still completely devoted to him. This is one of the reasons why Gilbert keeps refusing to accept reality and doesn’t want to adapt to the society; as long he is unable to cope in the world and keeps being depended on Auguste, he can’t be left alone. In this way, he has managed to make sure that Auguste will never leave him, and that, to him, is the most important thing.

Other than love, Gilbert has a hard time showing empathy and sympathy towards others. Even though this might make him seem like a sociopath, it’s more complicated than that. Gilbert is capable of showing affectionate feelings and relating to others, he just doesn’t see why he should. Gilbert has never really received any of those feelings from others, and so he sees other people as just as corrupted as they see him. Yes, Gilbert is redeemable, but he simply doesn’t understand that hurting others is wrong.

TL;DR: Gilbert has lot of anger, hatred, sorrow and despair built up inside of him, but he has learned to channel all of these negative feelings and emotions towards others by playing with and hurting everyone around him. Furthermore, in his own mind there is nothing wrong with him and his traumatic childhood hasn’t hurt him whatsoever.

Character Abilities you would like to expand on further:
While Gilbert certainly lacks the brute strength, he is very intelligent and good at talking and manipulating other people. He is good at coming up with 'evil' plots and has good understanding how human emotions and needs works (or at leas he believes so). He can calculate situations pretty well and get himself away from almost any kind of situation--- depending on his mood of course. If he is clear on his mind then it's no problem for him to wrap others around his fingers, but if he isn't doing so well, then he certainly doesn't care to put any effort to it.

But just because Gilbert is physically weak and nearly incapable, it still doesn't mean that he can't fight at all. He has shown to be able to stand up against Serge in their fights, by being sneaky and playing dirty.

Character Weaknesses you would like to expand on further:
Physically, Gilbert is weak. He is short even for his own age and his arms are thin. It's almost as if he had no muscles to speak of (even the doctors have commented that he would never be able to hold a girl in his arms). So, if he were ever to get to any violent situation where others are ganging up on him, he wouldn't be able to put up any kind of fight.

Mentally, and even if he were able to fight others, he probably wouldn't. Gilbert enjoys pain to some degrees and often goes even as far as provoking his attackers to hurt him. He doesn't care at all what happens to his body, which leads him to act rather self-destructive (even when he isn't being suicidal). For an example, he drinks too much alcohol and often 'forgets' to eat-- not to mention that he let's almost everything to be done to his body. His mind is so unbalanced all the time that he spends almost all of his time on the edge of having a mental breakdown-- making him extremely vulnerable to different kind of mental attacks.


[ SOUL CAMPAIGN SECTION ]

What abilities will your character retain in Soul Campaign?
Seeing that Gilbert doesn't have any magical or non-human abilities so he will not really lose anything. He will keep his ability as a manipulator and his cleverness.

What weaknesses will your character lose or gain in Soul Campaign?
Gilbert already had lot of troubles adapting to society during his own time, so he will no doubt have a hard time adapting to Death City and to new technology. It'll be a difficult challenge for him to live alone in a new world that is so difficult to his own.
Also, he has rather small figure even for his age and thus pretty weak. He isn't capable of defending himself if he ever managed to get to a fight or to other unfortunate situation. Then again, thanks to his damaged mind, he probably wouldn't even want to defend himself and would even go as far as seek trouble.

The wish Death the Kid made to the BREW in 2009 was to “rescue Death City and stop the waves of Madness from overtaking the world.” By whatever means necessary. Pretend you are the BREW. Why would you choose to bring this character to Death City?
Bringing someone like Gilbert to Death City might at first seem like pointless and very counterproductive thanks to his rash and difficult personality. But while he is selfish and rash, he is also very devoted and loyal invidual. When he really sets his heart on something (or for someone), he will stay loyal and is willing to do anything to achieve his goal and stop at nothing. BREW could see these traits in him as positive and useful for the city.

If your character has difficulty verbally communicating or can’t verbally communicate at all (mute or non-humanoid), elaborate on how this will be treated in the game. N/A

[ MEISTER ONLY SECTION ]

Why is your character a Meister and not a Weapon?
It should be clear by now that Gilbert certainly isn't a fighter. He doesn't usually take part to PE classes in school and has only held a sword once, and even the it was because of modeling. While these facts would make it difficult for him to wield any weapon and come in a way in being a meister. But seeing how Gilbert is intelligent and is able to calculate the situations and make up different kind of plans. While he usually uses these abilities to cause harm to others, they still are valuable abilities for a meister. So even if he isn't capable of fighting he still would make a decent meister thanks to his cleverness.

Emotion-wise, Gilbert has already hard time to express empathy and to relate others. He is distrustful and doesn't see why he should care for others enough to go as far as protect them. This would make it difficult for him to step into a role of a weapon. He wouldn't be able to others so easily that he could let someone wield him and set him to the position where he would be protecting his meister in a form of a weapon. Because while weapons and meisters are equals in the partnership, it seems like that the weapon is not only the attacking role, but also is more defending-part of the relationship

What is your character’s Meister Ability? Why?
Soul Dazzle - They are able to create a distraction using their glorious soul wavelength!!, attracting the enemy's attention to them.
Because he sparkles a lot in canon!... Okay, also because it would fit to Gilbert's almost constant need to be the center of someone's attention.


[ SOUL INFORMATION ]

Describe your character’s soul with six adjectives.
Complex, lonely, devoted, manipulative, intelligent, dependant

What does your character’s soul look like? Be creative.
Gilbert's soul is fair-colored, almost completely white, and has curly bangs that are very similar to Gilbert's own hairstyle. At first orb's expression seems rather calm and distant, but if one takes a better look it will seem like more reserved, yet wistful at the same time.