Name: Gabriel Milagro Cisneros Esparza (last name used with permission from Prince!)
Nickname: Gabi, Mili (mostly with family, from their middle name, as there are quite a few “Gabriel”s and “Gabriella”s among their list of aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins’ friends who get invited to family functions and low-key assimilated into the family by virtue of people feeding them until they relent and accept it). If you knew Gabi when their name was still legally “Gabriella,” no you didn’t (unless you’re family, in which case Gabi is obligated to acknowledge otherwise but would prefer it if you pretended their name has always just been either “Gabi,” “Mili,” or “Gabriel” if formality dictates it).
Gender/Pronoun: DFAB Pangender. All your genders are belong to Gabi. All your pronouns are belong to Gabi, also. Accepts
“she/her” and
“they/them” for the sake of convenience (certain
assets make the former somewhat inevitable, though the latter is technically more polite), and
“bun/buns/bunself” if you’re nasty. But, genuinely, Gabi will use any pronoun that Gabi comes across sooner or later because all your pronouns are belong to Gabi, and bun doesn’t really care which you use for buns unless you’re doing it to be an a*****e.
Age: 21
Birthday: August 13th, 2001.
Sign: Leo.
Gemstone: Peridot, Spinel, and Sardonyx. (Gabi’s favorite of that list is Sardonyx, but the reasons have absolutely nothing to do with the gem itself—which she thinks is sort of “meh” in appearance and Not Sparkly Enough—and
everything to do with how much she loves
The Lovely Sardonyx off
Steven Universe.)
Blood Type: B+
Fav. Food: Tía Maria’s empanadas, peaches, and chocolate cake of all persuasions.
Hated Food: anything bland or too mushy. Bland means “tasteless” and mushy foods are full of bad mouthfeel textures, gross. Also, it’s a sin to make any kind of fried potatoes without enough grease and salt. Gabi doesn’t care if it’s french fries, hashbrowns, or latkes; if you do not have enough grease and salt on your fried potatoes, you’re wrong.
School/Occupation: DCU undergrad, double-majoring in Folklore and Theatre / social media gadabout with a part-time retail job at Arkham Letters,
Aimee Lacroix’s indie bookstore and shop for assorted nerd paraphernalia.
Hobbies:if you can’t make your own, then store-bought is fine (Cooking & Baking): A lot of this love comes from Gabi’s family: from her parents and grandparents to her tías and tíos, to her siblings and cousins, to the family members by marriage and the wildly extended family members she hasn’t seen in years but would meet with a hug and acting like they’ve barely been separated for more than a few minutes, the Esparzas tend to communicate their love with food. Consequently, learning how to make food has been an important activity, one to be shared between family members for the sheer delight of it. On the other hand, though, Gabi finds it relaxing to work through a recipe, maybe experiment with it a bit, and whip up something delicious. Anyone who accepts Gabi as a friend can expect homemade treats for birthdays, significant anniversaries, holidays, and sometimes for no reason whatsoever.
if you’ll allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment…… (Debate, Discussion, Arguing, etc.): Gabi has
heard the expression “don’t feed the troll,” but Gabi has rarely in buns life actually lived by that concept, much less treated it as a rule. Likewise, Gabi refuses to understand why so many people have a problem with the phrase “Just let me play Devil’s Advocate here for a moment” (bun
knows why—bun has met more than enough assholes who used that phrase as an excuse to say a*****e things and act like they had total impunity to do so—but bun loves the phrase “Devil’s Advocate” and you can make bun stop saying it when you pry it from buns cold, dead hands). Back at Meadowview, Gabi formally participated in the debate club, and the intercollegiate debate club is one of the precious few formal, organized extracurricular activities bun takes part in at DCU. These are far from the only ways that Gabi engages in debate, though. When presented with an opportunity to argue, Gabi loves to take it—even if bun is wrong, even if bun doesn’t know what bun is talking about, even when bun is improvising, even if bun is arguing a perspective bun disagrees with just for the sake of arguing, even if the other person participating is an obvious troll.
Incidentally, bun’s thinking about starting a podcast. It just sounds like fun (and an excuse to “debate” things pointlessly—though bun could also talk about the Destiny City cryptid lore for hours, or about fashion, or about self-care practices, and hey, maybe debate could still be involved in any of the above).
flippin’ your fins, you don’t get too far (Swimming): In some misbegotten attempt at sounding Cool, Gabi talks a
lot of s**t about how infrequently bun goes to the gym. Pretty much all of it is a lie. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of work to look like you’re too cool for everything, especially when you are Gabi and gain weight easily when you actually let yourself
not care about things. While bun is by no means a gym rat (buns mama and older sisters like to tease that Gabi could stand to work out more often), bun does swipe buns student ID at the DCU campus gym a few times a week to squeeze in some workout time. Gabi does switch things up some (largely due to how easily bun gets bored of most different workout options), with the only real constants being the treadmill (a necessary evil that Gabi tolerates because it’s good cardio and it keeps you healthy—but
god, at what
cost) and swimming. Having been a swimmer since bun was a kid, Gabi loves getting in the water and just losing bunself in it.
clothes? treat yo’self! fragrances? treat yo’self! massages? treat yo’self! *mimosas*? treat yo’self! (“Self-Care”): ……At least, by the definition of “self-care” that advertising firms use to sell you their clients’ myriad products and/or services. Were Gabi
actually doing self-care (and if they actually cared to learn the distinction here), they might recognize that sometimes, “self-care” means doing hard work or even doing things you don’t entirely want to do—e.g., going to bed on time instead of staying out all night, going to the gym instead of going to a party, eating a vegetable or two instead of a cupcake, etc. But Gabi would much rather continue to define “self-care” as “doing whatever makes Gabi feel good in the moment and honestly, any consequences sound like Future Gabi’s problem.” That definition, you see, is more
fun, and as long as bun isn’t hurting anybody, then is it honestly any of your business that bun doesn’t
want to do the stupid, boring, dirty and gritty work of proper self-care? Bun just got this new exfoliating facial mask and bun’s calling up one of the besties to come over and try it with bun!!
Usually, Gabi’s specific taste in “self-care” veers toward the previously listed hobbies, as well as: shopping, spa days, shopping, comfort food, at-home mani-pedis, shopping, a deeply intense skincare routine, an equally intense haircare routine, and shopping.
Virtues:the mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death (Steadfast): No matter what happens, Gabi endures. Fall down seven times, stand up eight. Her actual beliefs about the world may not be fixed things—indeed, she identifies very strongly with Bertrand Russell’s quotable line about not wanting to die for his beliefs because he might be wrong—and she may be perfectly willing to assume a position she finds abhorrent just for the sake of arguing, but Gabi’s resolve to make it through to the end of any given course of action is hard to shake. She gets knocked down, but she gets up again. If you ask her, that’s just what you do.
don’t come here, i will come to you, ever yours (Devoted): Gabi speaks the languages of gift-giving and acts of service as fluently as she speaks English and Spanish, and far more fluently than her French (which she took in high school and hasn’t actually practiced in years, but occasionally uses to try sounding sexy and mysterious). She’s a very social person, always preferring to be where the people are, and when she lets someone in, she doesn’t want to let them down or leave them hanging. You’re special and important, okay, babe? You matter to Gabi, and Gabi just needs to let you know how special and important you are. This is her emotional support box of homemade cookies for you, and her heart will not feel content until she gives it to you and makes sure you know how special and important you are, and that she cares about you.
you care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it (Sensitive): Gabi Esparza just has a lot of feelings. Moreover, she likes using those feelings to
do things. Ideally, she’d like to do helpful things with her feelings (people she loves get precedence, but in a pinch, it does feel nice to help people in general, she guesses). Other people’s problems are of constant interest to her (though not always in constructive ways; gossip is delicious, too!), and she’s always down to let someone be a hot mess with her if they need a safe place to be a hot mess for a little while. It’s okay, sweetie, let’s get ice cream and watch
Legally Blonde, you’ll feel better.
ideals are dangerous things; realities wound, but they’re better (Honest): As much as Gabi likes to help people and as much as she tries to be gentle with their hearts, she doesn’t entirely see the point in sugar-coating things too much. It’s one thing to argue a perspective you don’t agree with for the sake of argument; that’s just something you learn to do in debate club. It’s also one thing to find a nicer way of saying something instead of being an unnecessarily harsh b***h because you might hurt someone. But it’s entirely another matter to weasel around the truth so much that you end up saying something different. Who gets helped by you pretending to be happy when you’re sad, or totally fine when you’re falling apart? Moreover, if your friend is anxious about something, you can help them more by letting them get the anxiety out of their system so they can calm down, then telling them the truth of the matter so they can make a plan for how to deal with things. Too many lies are just a pain in the a** to keep track of, and really: they don’t help anybody
Gabi’s one big exception to this is how she tries to seem cool, unbothered, and above it all—but she is also
really bad at pretending to be any of those things. Her heart tattles on her no matter what she does, so in a way, she’s ultimately still being honest.
Flaws: c’est moi, c’est moi, i blush to disclose (Egocentric): It’s not that Gabi
intends to ignore other people’s needs, their desires, their feelings, and so on, or that they intend to showboat, push others aside, steal the limelight, etc.—but Gabi really only engages with the world on their own terms. Being one of the younger siblings/cousins in a very large family, they’re used to being simultaneously doted on as one of the babies and reminded that their older siblings/cousins did everything first. From an early age, they’ve learned that no one else is necessarily guaranteed to think about
Gabi’s needs or
Gabi’s perspective, so bun has to do that for bunself. Bun’s sensitivity about how others feel is primarily a matter of how others’ feelings affect bun personally, rather than trying to meet others on their own terms. Even when Gabi attempts to understand another’s perspective that isn’t personally affecting bun, it’s usually filtered through something like “How would I feel in a similar position” or “Would I personally want someone to do that for me”—which can cause problems, when whoever Gabi’s trying to understand disagrees with the perspective getting projected all over them.
i want to lock it all up in my pocket, it’s my bar of chocolate (Clingy): Just call Gabi “superglue,” because oh boy, do they get
attached. Between having a large family who all live pretty close by, being on multiple extracurricular teams and doing plenty of student activities, and just being willing to talk to pretty much anyone, Gabi doesn’t spend very much time on her own, ever. As a result, she gets lonely very easily and doesn’t deal well with anything that seems like she might be getting ignored—or worse,
abandoned. If it feels like someone might be thinking of ditching her, Gabi will hang on tighter, even to the point of emotionally smothering them, because please, she doesn’t want to be alone. Do you still know that she’s here for you, bestie? Does she need to help you with anything? What if she sent you a bunch of memes you might find funny? Please hold still, okay? She’s just going to hug you so hard, you can never leave. And if you need to go to the bathroom or something, she’s going to get on Instagram and make sure her latest posts are getting enough likes, shares, and comments.
i don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions; i want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them (Moody): Gabi Esparza………just has a lot of
feelings. All the time. Always. Everywhere and all at once. Whether you want her to or not. Moreover, no matter how much she wants to seem Cool and Unbothered and Above It All, her feelings tend to be right out in the open, perfectly visible on her sleeve and very easily wounded, besides. It’s extremely easy to get under her skin and even easier to twist the knife once you’ve gotten there. Little upsets bother her greatly, and even if she seems to recover from them quickly, she will probably still be upset about them several hours later. Throwing herself at distractions helps a lot……or at least she likes to tell herself that it does, just as she likes to tell herself the she is in control of her feelings. In actuality, her emotions are the ones driving the bus, dragging her along for the ride, and no matter how much she distracts herself, the hurt feelings linger, and will eventually refuse to be ignored rather than dealt with.
i’m my own worst enemy; it’s bad when you annoy yourself (Insecure): Underlying both Gabi’s emotional sensitivity and perpetual need for validation, there is a simple fact: Gabi doesn’t really know how to feel good about herself on her own. Notably, this doesn’t really extend to her appearance; maybe she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, maybe her stomach isn’t flat enough for people to think she can wear this crop-top, and maybe her long-a** hair is a major pain to take care of, but she is beautiful and she knows she’s beautiful. Too bad she also knows that beauty is only skin deep, and she has a hard time naming anything she actually likes about herself. This very easily turns into wondering if there even
is anything about her that’s worth liking,
especially if she has to spend a significant amount of time by herself, deprived of other people letting her know that they do like her, value her, care about her, etc. Please validate her, bestie? She had to sit quietly by herself for an hour-and-a-half and she needs to remember that you like her.
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