Gustave Arquette
OOC
| Game | Journal | Portrayed By |
|---|---|---|
| Fall City | gus-gus | Woody Harrelson |
Basic Stats
Full Name: Gustave Richard Arquette
Nickname(s): Gus
Gender: Male
Age: 55
Date of Birth: May 4, 1963
Zodiac: Taurus
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Married
Place of Birth: Fall City, WA
Neighborhood: Cedarwood
Occupation: Advice columnist; co-owner of Suds N' Strikes
Pet: Golden retriever (Buddy)
Family
Father: Isaac Arquette
Mother: Judy Arquette
Brother: Levi Arquette
Sister: Elvera MacLaver (née Arquette)
Ex-Brother-in-Law: Chip MacLaver
Niece: Juliet MacLaver
Nephew: Nolan MacLaver
Niece: Rose MacLaver
Sister: Shannon Arquette
Wife: Michelle Arquette (née Blanchard; pharmacy technician; 55)
Daughter: Jemma Arquette (library technician @ FCHS; 31)
Daughter: Andrea Arquette (assistant manager @ Suds N' Strikes; 28)
Daughter: Laura Arquette (studying to become a pharmacist; 24)
Daughter: Samantha Arquette (student, writer; 21)
History
The oldest child of Isaac and Judy Arquette, Gustave (Gus, please) sometimes took it upon himself to take care of his younger siblings. He was aware that his family wasn't as well-off as some others were, but he did his best to help shield the younger ones from the realization. Humor became something of a crutch for him, using it to lighten moods, distract, entertain, and cheer up.
College was always in Gus' plan for his future, because that was the key to a good life. He played football in high school, partly out of love for the sport, but also partly in hopes of being able to get a scholarship. Unfortunately, he wasn't a good enough player to be recruited by any colleges, so he needed to look elsewhere. Ultimately, he enlisted in the army for a four-year stint, knowing that then the government would pay for him to go to college. His years in the army were rather unremarkable: there weren't any major foreign wars going on, so it was essentially four years of training; he never saw any action, but he was ready for it if it was going to happen. With no interest in a military career, he simply kept his head down and did as he was ordered, but didn't particularly go above and beyond in anything. When he was honorably discharged, he returned to Fall City and enrolled in the University of Washington.
Through his four years in the army, he was constantly writing letters and making phone calls back and forth with Michelle Blanchard, his high school girlfriend. He had planned from their senior year to eventually marry her, but didn't think it would be fair to have her leave her home just to spend four years on various military bases with him, so they first tried a long-distance relationship. They were married shortly after his return, and it wasn't long before they started a family (ultimately ending up with four daughters and no sons), even while he was still commuting to Seattle for classes.
After he graduated from UW in 1989 with a degree in journalism, he got a job at the Fall City Daily. He spent the next decade bouncing around the paper, wearing just about every type of hat and covering just about anything and everything. In 2000, he was given his own regular column on the paper: an advice column. He still filled other roles as necessary, but he at least had His Thing at the paper. His column was a hit, which definitely helped to shield him from the decline of print newspapers. It was also at this time that he moved his family from Preston to Cedarwood.
He had started drinking when he was in the army, and when he had returned home, it continued. Mostly social at first, he would eventually find himself drinking more, and more often. He didn't get completely drunk that frequently, but often enough. And while his first couple of drinks would just make him more loose and easy-going, if he went much farther beyond that, he would devolve into a violent, angry state. It was during one of these states in 2011 that he slammed a glass down so hard that it shattered, driving a shard of glass into the side of his hand. It took fourteen stitches to close his hand back up. Two days later, he got home from work to find all his family and friends gathered, ready with an intervention. He started with AA, and stopped drinking altogether. He has fallen off the wagon a few times, but has managed to maintain his sobriety for the past seven years, for the most part. In 2015, he and Michelle bought Suds N' Strikes, where he had worked part-time in high school, then again while he was a student at UW. It gives him more to do now (and helps to distract from the lack of drinking), since his regular column has become a once-a-week thing, and his kids have all flown the coop.
Personality
Gus is not the kind of guy who fades into the background. He makes his presence known, often loudly. He tends to let his feelings about you or the current situation known, and if you ask him a question, he'll tell it like it is (which is part of what makes his advice column a hit). He's sarcastic and has an oddball sense of humor. But if you see him with his wife, you will sometimes wonder if he's for real, because he's prone to over-the-top romantic gestures.
Positive Traits- romantic / loving
- finds humor in everything
- driven
- straightforward
- amiable
- sarcastic
- even-keeled
- speaks three languages: english, bad english, and cursing
- frugal
- skeptical
- addictive personality
- closed-off
- can get violent when drunk
- blunt
- egocentric
Additional
- Played football (running back) at FCHS, back in the dark ages when they played against dinosaurs. Was good, but not good enough to score a full ride anywhere. He tends to try to get all the other old guys in town together for touch football games.
- Has a scar on the outside of his right hand, from when he shattered a glass in a drunken, violent state. It was a few days after that incident that his family sat him down for an intervention. He's only fallen off the wagon twice since then.
- Even though he only gets violent & angry when drunk, he was still advised by a counselor to take up meditation. So every morning at the ass-crack of dawn, he's up and doing meditation. He still dozes off more often than not.
- He loves his advice column. Whenever he doesn't have questions to answer, he'll pick a topic and write about that until he hits his word count. He will give advice on nearly anything: just send him an email, carrier pigeon, text, smoke signal, whatever, and he'll do his best to answer your question, almost always with some humor thrown in.
- When he was in high school, he wanted to be the next Woodward or Bernstein. Or OJ Simpson.
- Beware Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, because you will never be able to top whatever he has planned for his wife. Just accept it and move on.
- He has made no secret of his contempt of Chip MacLaver. He will hold his tongue in front of Elvera's children, because he is their father, but he sees those kids as the only good Chip ever did for Elvera.