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ᴇᴛʀᴀʏᴀ— 𝒂𝒑𝒑.
Jun. 14th, 2025 05:30 pm
⏵ player information
name and pronouns: Lorna, she/her
age: 18+
contact:
⏵ character information
name: Gustave
canon: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
age: 32
canon point: end of Act 1
SPOILERS for Act 1 of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from here!
cw: this character and canon include themes of grief, suicidal ideation, violence, and other heavy or disturbing topics.
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history: here
abilities:
design & engineering:
We know Gustave is a dedicated engineer who was instrumental in a project called Aquafarm 3, which took place years before canon picks up. Although we aren't given details on his involvement, he's established throughout canon as skilled at his work, which includes maintaining the Shield Dome which keeps the island of Lumière safe from Nevron attack and participating in the aforementioned Aquafarm 3, which 'fed a lot of people' and where he was probably part of the team which designed and executed the aquaculture process and facility.
Most importantly, he is the designer and creator of the Lumina Converter, a brand-new invention which allows Expeditioners to utilize chroma (this world's equivalent to mana; the building block to all life in the Canvas) absorbed from fallen Nevrons to strengthen their pictos (combat accessories equipped by the characters which in-story allow them to utilize special attacks and which grant passive boosts) and turn them into lumina, which can be used even outside the three available pictos slots. OOC, it is the mechanic which allows characters to level up and broaden their lumina pools. The Lumina Converter is acknowledged as the reason why Expedition 33 can get as far as they do; no other team got stronger as they moved through the Continent. Though Gustave is killed early on, he is crucial to the team's success.
We don't have details on Gustave's particular discipline or disciplines, but based on the projects we know about I generally think of him as working in a combined mechanical/civil discipline, though there are hints of other specialties he might toy with (the Lumina Converter, for example, seems to have some roots in electrical engineering as a power converter, though there is no electricity involved). Regardless of specific discipline, it's made clear in canon that he is both brilliant and inventive when it comes to the problem-solving and iterating required by his profession.
combat:
melee: Gustave is highly trained in the use of both sword and pistol, both of which he stores out of sight via pictos when not in use. When summoning his weapons, they appear in flashes of chroma directly into his hands. He is adept, athletic, and light on his feet, skilled in both dodging attacks and parrying them, which allows him to retaliate with a counter attack.
Gustave's melee combat is supplemented by his skills, which provide him with a variety of more complex and powerful attacks. Most of his skills are lightning-based, including his most powerful attack. Overcharge, which allows him to summon lightning with his metal left hand and direct it at an enemy in a devastating blow. His other skills utilize the sword or pistol in order to strike the enemy.
We know Gustave is a dedicated engineer who was instrumental in a project called Aquafarm 3, which took place years before canon picks up. Although we aren't given details on his involvement, he's established throughout canon as skilled at his work, which includes maintaining the Shield Dome which keeps the island of Lumière safe from Nevron attack and participating in the aforementioned Aquafarm 3, which 'fed a lot of people' and where he was probably part of the team which designed and executed the aquaculture process and facility.
Most importantly, he is the designer and creator of the Lumina Converter, a brand-new invention which allows Expeditioners to utilize chroma (this world's equivalent to mana; the building block to all life in the Canvas) absorbed from fallen Nevrons to strengthen their pictos (combat accessories equipped by the characters which in-story allow them to utilize special attacks and which grant passive boosts) and turn them into lumina, which can be used even outside the three available pictos slots. OOC, it is the mechanic which allows characters to level up and broaden their lumina pools. The Lumina Converter is acknowledged as the reason why Expedition 33 can get as far as they do; no other team got stronger as they moved through the Continent. Though Gustave is killed early on, he is crucial to the team's success.
We don't have details on Gustave's particular discipline or disciplines, but based on the projects we know about I generally think of him as working in a combined mechanical/civil discipline, though there are hints of other specialties he might toy with (the Lumina Converter, for example, seems to have some roots in electrical engineering as a power converter, though there is no electricity involved). Regardless of specific discipline, it's made clear in canon that he is both brilliant and inventive when it comes to the problem-solving and iterating required by his profession.
combat:
melee: Gustave is highly trained in the use of both sword and pistol, both of which he stores out of sight via pictos when not in use. When summoning his weapons, they appear in flashes of chroma directly into his hands. He is adept, athletic, and light on his feet, skilled in both dodging attacks and parrying them, which allows him to retaliate with a counter attack.
Gustave's melee combat is supplemented by his skills, which provide him with a variety of more complex and powerful attacks. Most of his skills are lightning-based, including his most powerful attack. Overcharge, which allows him to summon lightning with his metal left hand and direct it at an enemy in a devastating blow. His other skills utilize the sword or pistol in order to strike the enemy.
personality:
Bright, brilliant, and dedicated, Gustave is a clear favorite in Lumière. Beloved by his sisters and his young apprentices, surrounded by friends, and apparently well-known throughout the city, his warm personality and kind heart have endeared him to many. When confronted with a massive shift to what he thought his life would be (in the form of Sophie deciding not to have children and their subsequent break-up), rather than falling apart and mourning his missed opportunity to become a father, Gustave poured himself into his work, his friends, and his family. Although he seems to have closed himself off to romantic possibilities, his life in Lumière seems full: he raises Maelle, giving her the love and support she'd craved along with a stable home; he mentors his apprentices, who visibly adore him almost to the point of hero-worship; he prepares with his friends for their Expedition together, and extends sympathy and understanding to another friend who decides to drop out.
Maelle tells us that "Gustave always gave people the benefit of the doubt," and throughout his time in the game we see that his optimism, his trust in people, and his emotional intelligence and ability to connect with people is as much a skill of his as his ability to use a sword or fix a generator. He's fascinated by Lumière's history and that of the Expeditions, and the people around him treat him as an expert in the field. As an engineer, he's presented as a problem-solver, an innovative thinker who took a seemingly impossible idea — utilizing the chroma from fallen Nevrons to strengthen the Expedition — and made it real. When we first meet Gustave, he's throwing rocks at the Paintress and her Monolith, far off on the horizon: a useless endeavor, but one that encapsulates him as a character. To Gustave, it is always better to try something, even if it ends in failure, than to simply accept defeat.
But it's important to note that Gustave isn't wholly optimistic. His hope and drive are bolstered by the people he's fighting for, particularly his little sister Maelle. A major character moment for Gustave comes when he wakes up on the Continent and finds himself alone after the massacre of the Expedition by Renoir. He's in a clear state of shock as he makes his way along the path, silent in a way we generally don't see from video game protagonists. And when he comes to a cave filled with the corpses of Expeditioners, including the fresh corpse of his friend Catherine, he simply sits down beside her and summons his pistol to end it all. Without his friends and family, left in isolation, he preferred to commit suicide rather than live alone and die a slow death on the Continent.
Even after fellow Expeditioner Lune appears and rescues him from himself, Gustave is short-tempered, depressed, and still in a state of shock. As someone who held so much hope for the Expedition, the sudden shocking loss of it unmoors him almost completely, and for a while his priority becomes simply to find Maelle and take her home, abandoning the mission. When he and Lune finally find Maelle again, he has to reconcile his two roles, as father/brother to Maelle and Expeditioner, which he does ultimately manage to do, largely because the Expedition has to succeed in order for him to achieve his goal of bringing Maelle home safely. Once the shock wears off, he once again becomes the tenacious, generous, slightly goofy person we remember from the Prologue in Lumière. His leadership of the team is based more in helping them manage their own emotions, offering them encouragement, compassion, and kindness or simply trying to make them smile after a hard day.
Ultimately, though Gustave's story is cut short, his impact as a character on those around him echoes throughout the story as the team and Maelle try to emulate him.
Maelle tells us that "Gustave always gave people the benefit of the doubt," and throughout his time in the game we see that his optimism, his trust in people, and his emotional intelligence and ability to connect with people is as much a skill of his as his ability to use a sword or fix a generator. He's fascinated by Lumière's history and that of the Expeditions, and the people around him treat him as an expert in the field. As an engineer, he's presented as a problem-solver, an innovative thinker who took a seemingly impossible idea — utilizing the chroma from fallen Nevrons to strengthen the Expedition — and made it real. When we first meet Gustave, he's throwing rocks at the Paintress and her Monolith, far off on the horizon: a useless endeavor, but one that encapsulates him as a character. To Gustave, it is always better to try something, even if it ends in failure, than to simply accept defeat.
But it's important to note that Gustave isn't wholly optimistic. His hope and drive are bolstered by the people he's fighting for, particularly his little sister Maelle. A major character moment for Gustave comes when he wakes up on the Continent and finds himself alone after the massacre of the Expedition by Renoir. He's in a clear state of shock as he makes his way along the path, silent in a way we generally don't see from video game protagonists. And when he comes to a cave filled with the corpses of Expeditioners, including the fresh corpse of his friend Catherine, he simply sits down beside her and summons his pistol to end it all. Without his friends and family, left in isolation, he preferred to commit suicide rather than live alone and die a slow death on the Continent.
Even after fellow Expeditioner Lune appears and rescues him from himself, Gustave is short-tempered, depressed, and still in a state of shock. As someone who held so much hope for the Expedition, the sudden shocking loss of it unmoors him almost completely, and for a while his priority becomes simply to find Maelle and take her home, abandoning the mission. When he and Lune finally find Maelle again, he has to reconcile his two roles, as father/brother to Maelle and Expeditioner, which he does ultimately manage to do, largely because the Expedition has to succeed in order for him to achieve his goal of bringing Maelle home safely. Once the shock wears off, he once again becomes the tenacious, generous, slightly goofy person we remember from the Prologue in Lumière. His leadership of the team is based more in helping them manage their own emotions, offering them encouragement, compassion, and kindness or simply trying to make them smile after a hard day.
Ultimately, though Gustave's story is cut short, his impact as a character on those around him echoes throughout the story as the team and Maelle try to emulate him.
samples:
— Lune (meme — lighter and more comfortable around a trusted friend)
