I described the concept for this video to my brother as a joke and ended up spending five days on it WHEEZING anyway in all seriousness excited for the next season and I am lightheartedly coping with the animation change o7 (higher quality version on youtube)
ok alright. you get my thoughts on human/modern au gillion.
he is not a marine biologist (bc that requires being kinda good at school. at least a little. and also going to school in the first place. which he has not), instead he works at his local aquarium. his supervisor and closest work buddy is caspian (who actually does have a degree), and he's super chill and lets him stay past closing and stare at the fishies.
gillion is also a hobby diver and he is fucking Serious about the no touching rule. often he sees a shell he'd like to keep or a piece of broken off coral he'd like to gift his sister, but no. no touching anything underwater, he is much too invested in the ecosystem to do it harm on purpose.
he also really likes traveling but has not done so very often (something about being brought up in a cult will do that to you i guess). his sister has traveled though (mostly in an effort to find him). she likes telling him stories and he loves to listen.
i imagine he met chip and jay shortly after he himself left the cult he spent most of his life in and chip only just inspired jay to leave military school and join his emo band /ref
i'm not a skilled artist so no design for him, but to me he's like. super little and bulky (like in canon) dark skinned with a very warm undertone, with curls long enough to fall over his shoulders and a huge smile. and his eyes go all squinty when he smiles. but his resting face is so unbelievably threatening and if you ever dare to even imply you partake in the killing of the natural world you will know what it's like to fear death. also he only ever wears those flowy cotton or linen pants or skirts and so many colourful bracelets both on his wrists and his ankles. if you wanna go classic he could wear his turtleneck as well but since he not wearing any armour here that's not a must
also he befriended one of the small octopi the aquarium keeps in the petting tank. he loves her so very much, she's his highlight of every work day