Shard info
Power level/ability: very low
# of incarnations: 1
Current status in main timeline: after first incarnation, without a body
Planetary tether: Solfinia (by own will)
General info
Birth date: 06/26 (Cancer)
Age: 23 yrs (at beginning of story)
26 years (at time of apocalypse)
Nationality: Manzuan/Central Arian
Employment: Archivist at Aria ntl. archive in Chord City
Gil was born into a family of corn farmers in southeastern Manzu. He grew up in a large village in a rural area, living in a house built by his mother's family multiple generations ago. In his childhood, the house was inhabited by Gil, his four sisters, his mother, his father (for a time), his maternal and paternal grandmothers, and his mother's partner (for a time). Many of his neighbors had children and two of his sisters were younger than him, so he learned quickly how to deal with and take responsibility for younger kids. In his home town, he attended school up until 8th grade which is when the local rural schools stopped education. There were high schools in the closest cities, but following in his two older sisters' footsteps he attended high school and college on the neighboring continent of Aria rather than continuing school closer to home. Gil had trouble adjusting to a fast and more modern lifestyle in South Aria. At the time of his moving, he was 14 years old. His sister Susanna was 17 and was to be a junior in high school, living in a small 1-bedroom apartment and subsisting on money sent by their family and earned from her part-time retail job. He had not had much prior experience with urban areas before moving other than small cities in Manzu he had gone to with his older sisters to sell their produce in markets.
Most of Gil's free time in freshman year was spent around his sister, who attended the same school as he did. Susanna and Gil had had a friendly and supportive relationship prior to her relocation in Gil's childhood, but his moving into her apartment allowed them to become very close friends. Susanna was most often who he went to when he felt insecure or anxious about his school experience, or unsure about his assignments. Young Gil was a good roommate for Susanna, as most of his free time activities involved listening to music quietly, playing video games (that Susanna bought with her spare money for the both of them), or drawing. He was also willing to help around the apartment, mostly in the form of assisting Susanna with broken electronics as he had with his mother. Gil had a prickly aura to his peers and did not seem approachable to them. He did not make any friends in freshman year, and he expressed his social confusion a lot to his older sister. In addition to being pretty just socially inept, Gil did not know South Arian dialect/slang or customs and did not know how to relate to his peers, who were mostly born and raised in South Aria. It was very difficult for him to pick these things up and he never quite got the hang of using South Arian dialect or socializing with his peers in a way they understood. This caused him a lot of frustration in the ninth grade and he vented it mostly through drawing and writing short stories or poems. Though lacking social connection Gil made good marks in school and learned material very quickly. He was best in and preferred natural sciences.
In his sophomore year of high school, Gil made a massive effort to be more comfortable living in South Aria and to acquaint himself with his environment. After school he often went exploring around the city and found himself spending time at a small mall or hanging out in grocery stores. (Smells good and has air conditioning. who doesn't like em) Meanwhile, in school, he had begun to make acquaintances, mostly through joining interest clubs. He did not have any close friends but he enjoyed spending time in these school clubs as the kids there got along with him and enjoyed his presence more than the kids in his classes did. Gil was almost never invited out, but when he was, it was to his school club friends' get togethers at the mall. Throughout all his time away, he had also been maintaining contact with his mother and grandmothers, who had 9 year old twins Noura and Eileen to take care of. His personal troubles continued in 10th grade as he could not understand what he was to his acquaintances from his school clubs. They were not as warm to him as he thought a friend should be, but they still showed that they cared for him. This imbalance made him insecure and further discouraged him from trying to make close friends or open up at school.
This was the year Gil started his DDR career. Susanna found, at a thrift store, the Solfinian equivalent of an old PS2, used dance mat, and 3 console series DDR games, which constituted his 16th birthday gift the summer after sophomore year. He had played the game before at the mall's arcade, but did not really get a chance to immerse himself in DDR or its lore until then. Susanna graduated high school this year and had applied to a few universities in the South Aria region with an intent to study information technology and get a job with stable pay.
Junior year, Gil spent more time studying and less time in school clubs. In his free time, he continued to visit the mall (especially the arcade) and got to know some mallrats who he often saw the previous year hanging out by or using the DDR machines. The kids, Nadya and Lee, were his age and attended his high school but weren't honors students and didn't share classes with him. Nadya, whose parents were from North Aria, was a charismatic and headstrong girl who helped Gil feel like he belonged with others. Lee was a descendant of migrants from northern Manzu who had a more mellow personality compared to his closest friend. Nadya, Lee, and Gil (called Vie by his friends at the time) would often have small-scale DDR tournaments on weekends, getting other arcade kids involved. The three friends would hone their skills on weekday afternoons, taking breaks to work on school assignments. Gil was easily able to direct his focus to one thing for a long time, leading him to rapidly develop his arcade DDR skills in the little time he got. Most of their tournaments were won by Gil, except for when he was anxious or drained from the school week, which would cause him to trip up while playing more than usual. Gil was highly focused on the technical aspects of playing the game and tested his techniques at home on console (where he didn't have to pay.)
Nadya and Lee introduced Gil to a lot of media he hadn't been exposed to before. They both were fans of cyberpunk and science fiction and often took Gil to see movies they liked on weekends when they weren't at the arcade. Lee especially influenced Gil's personal style, occasionally lending him clothes and makeup. When not with his mallrat friends, junior Gil did biology peer tutoring after school for minimum wage. This helped him keep himself afloat along with money sent by his family in Manzu, as Susanna quit her job to focus on her university classes. Susanna attended classes at a school that was reachable from their city by bus and stayed in the apartment they had shared for the past 2 years. Susanna and Gil maintained a friendly and trusting relationship.
During his senior year, Gil continued to study and interacted less with his peers. His interest in natural sciences led him to apply for an internship at a local govt. archive that filed mostly studies and research documents. He remained close to Nadya and Lee and continued to spend most of his free time around them. Lee had developed feelings for Gil over the past year or so unknown to him and asked him out after one of their DDR tournaments, to which Gil accepted. Another thing that Gil, and everyone else, did not know, was that Lee was a dimensional anomaly. (like Misato from Lain.) Lee was a leftover from the memories of an interdimensionally travelling individual which had come loose and deposited itself on Solfinia. He could be best described as the crusts of everyone the individual had ever known. Gil and Lee had a very fulfilling romantic relationship and took great care to communicate with each other. Their relationship culminated (you could say) in them going alone to the mall on a Friday night and playing versus mode DDR until they were exhausted. At that point, Lee's lifespan as a relationless crumb in the timeline was pretty much up, and as his body reintegrated into the matter recycler that is the known multiverse, Gil felt a deep flooding love that would not return to him until his time with Amelia. Within seconds, Gil forgot why he felt that way, and along with his love for Lee went his memories of spending time with him. Gil thought nothing of the confusion, and dismissed it as the interdimensional traveller cleaned up his mess, overwriting Gil's memories. He left the arcade with one close friend. All personal recollections of Lee on Solfinia, including those of his family, were overwritten by the traveller.
After high school, Gil completed the internship program at the archive and relocated to Central Aria to attend college. He majored in English and later became employed at the Aria National Archive in Chord, where he worked for the rest of his life as a general archivist.
Naomi (33 years old)
Resided in Central Aria. Received the same general treatment from their parents and was sent
to South Aria to complete her schooling. Worked as manager of a department store.
Has an undergrad in business.
Susanna (29 years old)
Also resided in Central Aria. Same high school thing as Naomi. Has an undergrad in
IT and worked for a tech support hotline. Had multiple cats in her apartment despite animals
being prohibited in the building.
Noura (20 years old)
Returned to Manzu after completing high school in South Aria. Helped maintain/harvest
her family’s corn crops. Took produce through other towns and to markets to sell.
Kept up regular communication with her family in Aria until the apocalypse began.
Eileen (20 years old)
Resided in South Aria. Got a high school education in South Aria and attended law
school in the same region for 2 years before dropping out. Worked as a seamstress/costume
designer for a local theatre with hopes of becoming a more prestigious fashion designer.
Kept up less regular communication with her family than Noura but did not avoid calling.
Meklit Haile Ephrem (55 years old)
Meklit was Gil's mother. Both sides of her family have been farming for as long as their
oral history goes. Most of her agricultural knowledge was about growing corn which she and her
family have made a living off of pretty much forever. She had a very reserved, taciturn,
and resourceful personality and cared deeply for her family despite not really stating it
outright. Many of Gil’s memories of her in his childhood involve him fixing an appliance for
her, helping her cook, washing produce to be sold with her, or singing dumb songs very loud in
her presence. She bore a very strong resemblance to Gil, Susie, and Noura.
Eileen and Noura were born to Meklit and a guy that she dated for a while after she split from her husband (around 2 years after Gil was born), and they maintain a good relationship although not a romantic one. He lived in a neighboring house in their home town.
