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erubadhriell · 8 years ago

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Gustav Bertrand - Non-Shepard oc week

Drawing by me (reference x)

For the Non-Shepard oc week

Day 1: Introductions

I took the the questions from the ask meme, because I find it easier when I have a direction to talk about my ocs, otherwise I could go and go for days just talking about random stuff about them without any focus.

really long post under the cut (And sorry for any mistake, English isn’t my native language)

Character creation

1. What is the character’s full name, and how did you come up with it? Gustav Bertrand, but most of his friends call him only by “Gus”. How I choose this name is basically how I end up choosing most of my character’s name, I go to those name sites and I spend sometime looking names that I like. I don’t put much thought into it. For the first, Gustav would be named Gustavo, his name in my native language, Portuguese, but I just realized that Gustav sounded better with Shepard, because at first he wouldn’t be a non-Shepard oc.

2. What inspired you to create this character?

Might sound funny, but all my games characters are inspired by who I want them to romance or do different choices in game. That’s the basic when I create a character and I just strat thinking about the other details when I’m playing more and more with them. I always have many ideas about their backgrounds while I’m playing. My characters are always in progress since them, I think they will never “end” or be complete, because after that, I start to have influences from different sources. In Gustav’s case, I wanted a character to romance Tali. And I’m always surprise how a character grows since “a character to romance Tali” to something far more and complex than that. That was Gustav’s case and even now I still have many inspirations for him and his background/personality. And those inspirations always come from many places, from the things I live, books I read, a conversation I heard or had, a place I visit, a song I listened to et cetera. It’s really difficult to say which one was my main inspiration for him, or for any of my characters.

3. What species are they, and what do they look like? (Use anything you like - descriptions, art, outfits, face claims, etc)

He is a human, not much different from the default Sheploo (John) as I had to use his appearance, since I wasn’t able to create a good male Shep in ME CC for now. It’s funny, because, I don’t usually have an appearance for my game characters while I’m creating them, I just play around with the CC and the result is their appearance (with the exception of my Jessica Shepard, as I already had in mind how I imagine her and I tried to get the most close I could of her appearance in CC, though it’s still very different from the way I imagine her). But with Gus, after playing with him, I started to imagine some different details of his appearance from the default Sheploo (more like the drawing above). He is a very tall man (195cm, I guess it’s more or less 6′4′’), blue eyes, black hair, and he has a bit more hair and beard than the default Sheploo and a scar in his eyebrow.

4. Tell us a little about the world-state that they inhabit. (For example, are they active before, during, and/or after the events of the Mass Effect trilogy? Are they part of an AU?)

Gustav is active before and during the events of Mass Effect trilogy. He is now part of an AU, where my canon Jessica Shepard and he are from the same universe. They met each other when Jessica was 16 and he helped her against slavers that were trying to kill her. Since then, they kept contact, as Gustav also worked under Jessica’s father command. Gustav also helps Jessica in many events during ME1, he has his on ship, but he helps her there. In ME2 he joined her to take down the Collectors and since then he stayed with the Normandy Crew to also fight the Reapers. Gustav is also part of another AU, Lonely Hearts in Space, that has been written by my wonderful friend @djfatchip. For now, the story takes place during the events of Mass Effect 2 and in this story, we have some ocs of Dj Fat Chip, the other wonderful friend @leysendris and mine all together in the same universe. Instead of romancing Tali, Gustav has is romancing Celestine Claire Shepard, Dj Fat Chip’s oc.

5. Share a quote, image, or song that reminds you of the character.

Quote: “here in the darkness I know myself” from the song Lithium. As for songs, I have some themes for him. His main theme is instrumental, it’s La Valse des Monstre. He also has some other instrumental songs, like La Noyeé, J'y Suis Jamais Alle. Most of those songs are about the dreams he used to have when he was a child and a teenager to have something more to live than his own survival on the streets. But he also has some songs with lyrics that suit him and his past a lot, like Imaginary, again about how he used to dream to forget his own reality. Lithium, his struggle against depression and other problems. And Everybody’s Fool, an important person from his past that betrayed him and he had to kill her.

Pre-service history

1. Does this character have a connection to any major/canon characters?

Yes, Gustav becomes part of the Normandy crew during the events of Mass Effect 2 and even in Mass Effect 1 he already had contact, during some missions, with the Normandy Crew.

2. Where, if anywhere, does the character consider their home to be?

I don’t believe he found a place to consider home, he never had much love for Earth since his childhood on the streets. Since he joined the Alliance, he was always moving because of the many missions he had. But I suppose, since the events of Mass Effect 2 that he join the Normandy, he starts to see the ship as a home to him, at least it brought him some kind of stability, true friends, that he considers family and a love in Tali. And the fact that years before, he already considered the Commander of the ship, Jessica Shepard, his little sister, made it easier for him to see a home on the Normandy.

3. What do they remember most strongly about their childhood?

Gustav has many memories about his childhood, most of them very unpleasant. Since a young age, he was forced to survive by his own on the streets in Paris. He learned and lived in the dark corners of the city, in the shadows, where people treat him less than a human. And also all the cruelty he had to do in the name of survival. But he also has some good memories of his walks in the park, he used to like to see and smell the flowers during summer and spring. He also remembers the nights where a girl used to play the accordion in the park. Since then, Gustav loves the sound of the instrument and he used to dance the night away, but he never talked to the girl, he had a platonic passion. And somehow, she knew he was there listen to her too.

4. Tell us about an important relationship (of any kind) in the character’s life, and how it impacted them.

I can say that Gustav’s relationship with Jessica’s father, Andrei Shepard, was a really important one for him. Since he joined the military, people don’t usually trust Gustav because of his background in the gang and on the streets and all the things he had done to survive. He had to work twice as hard to have his place recognized on the military. Andrei Shepard, the Engineer and General, saw how people distrusted Gustav, but also how Gustav was willing to do his best to show them he is more than his past. So he kinda of “adopted” Gustav and Andrei taught everything he could about tech, as he saw the great interested Gustav had about tech, Engineering, math, physics. That was the first time Gustav felt as if he had a family, as if he had someone to him. Since then, Gustav had a great respect for Andrei. Once he met Andrei’s daughter, Jessica, he also started to see her as sister and cares deeply about her. That was the first Gustav could think of others instead of himself and his own survival. He always had to look only to himself first, the gang and the days on the street taught him that he couldn’t trust in anyone and he was the only one that mattered. But Andrei and Jessica showed him otherwise, that he can have people that care about him and he can also care about them too.

5. How did they end up in their current line of work?

The military was the oportunity Gustav saw to change his life completely and be more than his past on the streets on the gang. He joined the Alliance when he saved a soldier’s life. This soldier saw the potential on Gustav and told him to join and the Alliance would give him protection if the gang tried something. Gustav didn’t think much about it and accept the chance he had and he saw how his life started to change.

Psychological profile

1. What is the character’s greatest strength? What do they *think* is their greatest strength?

What his greatest strength is his willpower. You see, he had to live years and years all alone on the street and even in the gang he never trusted anyone. He had to live by hope itself for one day he could change his life for better. He struggled with many mental problems, including depression and more than one time he thought about suicide. But he also didn’t want to end up like that, he wanted to fight and he showed a great willpower and determination because of that. What he thinks is his greatest strength is his rational and practical mind, he has a great ability with tech, engineering, math, logical in general. It helped him, in many ways, to survive by his own and he thinks it was also the reason the soldier saw the potential on him for the Alliance. But Gustav forgets that those abilities alone, without his willpower and determination to continue fighting, he wouldn’t be where he is now.

2. What (if anything) do they wish was different about themselves?

He just wishes that he had a normal family since the beginning. He was abandoned by his parents since he was a baby, he doesn’t know them. But because of that, all his past was condemned and he doesn’t wish it to anyone, even to his worst enemy.

3. What’s a challenge that the character has overcome (or at least survived) during their lifetime? How did they do it?

He had to overcome many things since he was a child, the cruel side of the humans, the life alone, betrayals, the cold of the streets, the hunger, diseases and also his own mental illnesses. How he did that to survive, he always thinks it was a miracle, it’s because he doesn’t give credit much to his strong willpower to survive and see a better day. Gustav is smart and he learns fast, he was shapped by nature and the places he had to live in, he started to understand the city around him, how people acted and how he could fool them by stealing food and such, without them noticing it. He was also very curious about techonology and because of his kleptomania, he also used to steal pieces of techonology or even find them on the trash. He used to open them, tinkering them to see how they work. That’s how he gained knowledge of tech by himself and it also helped him to steal things for his own survival and that’s how he ended up in the gang that saw the potential on him to be an infiltrator for the gang. With the gang, the life was “easier” as he had a place to sleep, food and such. But it wasn’t “better” as he had to do many things he hated himself for. He used to smoke and get really drunk after all those things and dream with another life to forget reality.

4. What’s something (a person, a belief, a goal…) that your character would be willing to make major sacrifices for?

During his childhood and teenager years, he wasn’t willing to make any sacrifices, as survival was the only thing that really mattered to him. But once he joined the Alliance and started to understand things in a new perspective, he would be willing to make major sacrifices for his duty on the Alliance, to get his job done in the best way he could, as his job started to be the most important thing in his life. But it also changed once he started to have people that cared about him and that he could care about too. He started to understand that life was not only about himself, but there are things he could share to others. And he would be willing to make major sacrifices to save the lives of all those people he cares and also the ones he vowed to protect.

5. What’s a misconception that people might have about your character?

A misconception that people might have about Gustav is that he is grumpy and doesn’t like other people. It’s just that, despite of everything, Gustav is really a shy guy and very awkward in social situations. He prefers to keep to himself most of the times which make the impression that he is always grumpy and alone. But it’s not much like that, he can be grumpy when he is working and people is distracting him, yes, but it’s not that he doesn’t like people. He just doesn’t know much how to approach others, he always fears he will say or do something stupid that will piss people off, especially because he is always too honest and he says what is on his mind without hesitation when people ask him, so he prefers to keep to himself most of the times. But once people start to know him better, they start to see that he trusts others and he is very loyal and maybe even funny. And also that he is crazy, Gustav usually talks to himself, whispers to himself and because of that people think he is crazy, but he does that only because he needs to expose some ideas to himself.

#nonshepardocweek #Day 1 #Mass Effect #Gustav Bertrand #my oc #about Gustav #long post #under the cut

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