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Jean Louis
& I always sleep with my guns when you're gone
stats
history
i
0-10 y.o.: The less said, the better. Jean Louis has for all intents and purposes completely forgotten what it was like to grow up in the David household. Both his parents were unstable, difficult people with sensitive and unpredictable tempers, his mother more so than his father. Whilst his mother slowly descended into madness after giving birth to him, being unable to properly relate to him and causing him to reject her at any given turn, his father grew depressed and overwhelmed at taking care of his sick wife and Jean Louis by himself. Later, two more children were born to the household, Jean Louis' younger sisters. They grew up in a household dominated by their mother's periodic attacks of psychosis and their father's drunken violence. Jean Louis ran away at age 10 and he never looked back. He has no contact with his biological parents as an adult, nor with his sisters. If pressed to recall any of it, he'd describe his mother as being both a great beauty and extremely frail, his father as a weak and powerless old man. Appearance-wise, Jean Louis is a true copy of his father. In terms of mental health, he takes after his mother.
ii
10-17 y.o.: Jean Louis met Marcel when they were both 10 and moved in with him quite unceremoniously, unaware that there was a system searching for his whereabouts. At age 13, social services finally managed to track him down and relocate him, but not before he and Marcel had well and truly imprinted upon one another, taking comfort in each other and, basically, plotting to take over the world (or at least, get filthy rich and powerful). Jean Louis ended up in the Girard household - the Girards provided him with money, safety and education, getting him back on track whilst trying to keep him and Marcel apart, seeing as Marcel more often than not hung out with criminals and gangs, people they didn't want Jean Louis or their family name associated with. Outwardly, Jean Louis complied with their wishes, spending less and less time with Marcel, meeting him in secret during weekends or late at night and covering up with lies that became increasingly more polished.
He set his sights on the CDP-U, the youth party of the Central-Democrats (the biggest conservative party in the country with liberal leanings, at this time the government's main opposition) whilst networking among the Girard family's business associates, setting himself up for his future political career and leaving control of the streets in Marcel's hands.
iii
17→ : Jean Louis and Marcel began their sexual relationship at age 18, managing to keep it a secret the next several years while Jean Louis became a member of the CDP, moving up the ranks slowly but surely. He made it into Parliament at age 22, in the meantime laying the groundwork for his new party, Tous la Liberté. At age 24, his relationship with Marcel (now living under several identities) became common knowledge and he was asked to pull his membership from the CDP, a conservative party with hesitations regarding "modern lifestyle choices". From here on, he gathered enough support for Tous la Liberté to win about half a dozen seats in Parliament a few years later, the party growing slowly, but steadily throughout the upcoming years. A few election rounds later, when Jean Louis was 30 years old, Liberté had won enough seats to enter into a coalition with the CDP as a governing party. When posts were handed out, Jean Louis became foreign minister - a dream come true. From here on, the road was paved for expanding his underground business with Marcel throughout Europe and beyond.
personality
The world is a dangerous place and without proper foresight, it may very well kill you. From Jean Louis' point of view, life has been a matter of life or death from an early age and as an adult, he spends most of his time - if not all - making sure that he's got what it takes to stay ahead of all possible dangers. As a politician, he's ruthless to a fault and whilst not the most academically inclined, he always seems to find ways around problems or obstacles without losing power or influence. He's been known to use blackmail and coercion to get what he wants, though his main strategy is to make himself useful to those who matter.
Relatedly, Jean Louis honestly believes everybody has a use - it's just a matter pin-pointing how (as well as making certain that he'll benefit from it). He's strongly averse to the idea of the welfare state as funded by high taxation - he believes it undermines the voter's sense of personal responsibility. He believes that individual freedom - especially in terms of business and trade - overrules very nearly everything else. These believes are strongly tied to his upbringing and the notion that people grow stronger by fighting and winning their own battles.
Though Jean Louis perceives himself as highly capable of both self-reflection and relating to others, those are actually his weakest points and biggest, personal flaws. His world view is completely coloured by misconceptions about people in general, about what people want and why they chose to act the way they do. He's competent at masking these problems in political ideology and others generally perceive him as a capable politician, though perhaps - at times - slightly too overzealous.
In terms of family, he's done away with his biological heritage more or less completely (except for his physical traits - unfortunately, he's the spitting image of his father). He got his current last name, "Girard" when he was adopted by his foster family with whom he has a polite albeit somewhat reserved relationship. They are rich and well-connected, which is his main reason for staying on good terms with them, at least if you ask him. Beneath it all, there's probably also a very small, very under-nourished sense of belonging, seeing as his foster mother, in particular, took him in with the full intention of loving him unconditionally. It's not an easy job.
His closest relationship is with Marcel Verlinden whom he trusts with his entire existence, completely without question. The two of them form an odd couple, both professionally and romantically.
abilities
→ Politics - Jean Louis knows what he needs to know of politics and economics to act as leader of his political party, Tous la Liberté. He's good at surrounding himself with people who are more academically knowledgeable and keeping them in positions of power to secure their loyalties. He has no fancy political degrees and has often been the subject of ridicule for his (apparent) lack of education.
→ Defense and attack - he can defend himself, having learned some basic taekwondo. He also knows how to shoot a gun and has an above-average aim as well as a gun license. Currently paying a group of American tech nerds to work on a contraception that'll allow him to kill people using poison. And well, if all else fails, he's got Marcel.
→ Languages - speaks Luxembourgish, German, English & French. Can make himself understood in Italian and knows about six words in Russian.
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transilience