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ABOUT IMPRESSIONS APPEARANCE ABILITIES CANON PERMISSIONS CODING

I'M ALIVE, I'M ALIVE, I AM DEATH DEFIED

GABRIEL GOODMAN

NAME

MALE

GENDER

8 MONTHS / 18 YEARS / ETERNAL

AGE

5' 8"

HEIGHT

HAZEL

EYES

BROWN

HAIR

PAN

SEXUALITY

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

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code switching between a trauma entity and a teenage boy.

FIRST GLANCE
I am your wish, your dream come true,

Gabriel's a typical eighteen-year-old. Dashing, playful, bright and sweet, he's in jazz band and key club and worries his mother sick staying out all night. He's got some hefty daddy issues revolving around a father he who's either actively hostile or barely knows he's there, but to his mom he'll always be the golden child. He has a stock supply of regular kid responses, but they only go so deep. Talk too long and you'll flake off the facade, only to find a gaping maw where his life ought to have been.

SECOND LOOK
And I am your darkest nightmare too.

Gabriel Goodman is an entity comprised of a family's worth of grief, resentment, guilt and desire grafted onto the long buried corpse of an eight-month-old baby boy. Neither simple ghost nor delusion, he presents as the boy his broken-minded mother wishes he'd become, while feeding off the trauma his family cannot shake. While the entity has a deep knowledge that it is something strange and eternal, it is entirely shaped by Gabriel and his family and it does have the desires and many of the feelings of the young man it pretends to be. He openly states that he wants a life. There is a sometimes vindictive, obsessively needy aspect to him which, coupled with a lack of human morality, leads to a willingness to manipulate those around him into following their worst fears or darkest impulses so that Gabriel can get what he wants. He will nudge someone toward madness, addiction or even death if it means they'll be closer to him. Underlaying this, there is also a deep level of hurt and anger at his father's refusal to accept his existence and a terror that his mother's medicine and ECT treatments will cause her to reject him, too. In a twisted way he is trying to help his family heal, but only if this means that they allow him to exist.

For the most part, he probably comes across as a sweet boy who always happens to be there to watch you cry.

APPEARANCE

A delicate seeming, doe eyed boy with hair that refuses to choose a direction and facial angles that wouldn't look out of place on an elf. He's built lean and athletic and carries an unexpected strength to his physicality. A mouth butter wouldn't melt in. No scars or other flaws and a scent closer to the air after a fresh fall of rain than anything human.

PHYSIOLOGY No heartbeat, no pulse. Body temperature two shades cooler than it should be. No need to breathe, sleep or eat, though he can choose to emulate all these things. He can be wounded, and the injury will take on the appearance whoever hurts him expects it to, but healing will be near instant and no marks will last. Functionally immortal, if only because he already did the dying part.

ABILITIES

INCORPOREAL

Can vanish at will, either becoming invisible to one or more people within a room or by vanishing entirely and appearing somewhere else. Can pass through solid objects. Those with strong will or desire to see him may be able to force him into visibility or likewise force him to vanish.

ATTUNED TO TRAUMA AND DESIRE

Able to feel others fears and desires and tap into repressed trauma, growing stronger from these emotions and often using vulnerability to manipulate.

MALLEABLE

His 'teen' personality is not fixed. New aspects will be added depending on what others expect him to be, and what he believes they want from him. This may manifest as simply as picking up words and phrases from those he's focused on, or see him taking on a darker nature with some people while being gentle or sweet to others. The entity underneath remains the same.

CANON

Gabriel is specifically pulled from the London 2023 Donmar Warehouse production of Next to Normal, where he is portrayed by Jack Wolfe. A full history can be found here - CW suicidal ideation and attempts, child death, drug use.

For the purposes of memes, the other person may be the only person other than his mother who is able to see him, or he may have found a way to appear to others. Whether they know he's really dead can be played either way.