in the sketch you can see he’s crossed out his dead name and written George over it; he “wasn’t a boy” (but he liked pretending to be a boy) before turning 10 and having his curse manifest, and it was basically a gender reassignment curse (instead of surgery lol). his parents kind of just decided “guess youre a boy now” because the curse decided so. his parents arent really sure what to make of it but do value his happiness and he seems happier to them. george isn’t so convinced on being a boy but loves that he gets a fresh slate, a new name, and this time he gets to “pretend to be a boy”.

(as a sort of author’s note, he’s trans masc but sort of ambiguous gender wise, if that means hes non-binary, agender, genderqueer, etc i havent really considered but yeah)

st churnleys and nurse lenny have access to puberty blockers because this happens more often than one might expect.

doesn’t like having long sleeves (sensory crap) and likes hats because theyre genderful but doesnt like wearing them for too long because they make his head itch (again, sensory issues). because of this he either has his blazer sleeves rolled up or will completely ditch it whenever possible.

as a little kid he had a bowl cut (because its an asian rite of passage and makes him look like a mushroom which is related to his curse ;)) and when he got to st churnleys he had long hair with asymmetrical bangs but convinced his roommate to cut it with craft scissors after discovering that it made his curse more difficult to manage

now his curse…

the last sketch isn’t canon because its a bit too grim and complicated to draw lol but basically his curse causes him to melt like an inky cap mushroom

its a sort of cycle that differs its pacing based on his mood (if he’s unhappy the melting happens quicker) which takes a very long time for him and everyone else to work out. after he’s hit the last level of meltification he can’t really attend classes because hes not fully there but its a matter of a nights sleep and he’ll wake up completely reformed.

the long hair and bangs made it hard to manage because it would melt all in his face and mix into his face meltiness so he couldnt just brush it away

now the name lore for the real ones who stuck around through all my rambles…

毕然叶 is a collection of chinese characters (which all are actual name bits i swear) whose meanings i thought fit him (the middle one just sounds good)

if you dont know how chinese names work, the first character (毕) is his surname Bi and the other two (然叶) are his given names

毕 (at least from my research) means complete. his curse means that bits of his physical form literally drip and melt away, decomposing and then after the end of the cycle reappearing. this is a physical representation of how his (undiagnosed) depression and autism make him feel. he feels like he’s missing things that he needs to function (when hes melting he loses things like dexterity because hes melting, and otherwise he has trouble socializing like other boys, and executive dysfunction sorts of things) that everyone else seems to possess. additionally he feels like he’s not fully a boy and later will realize he doesnt like people like others do (my aro/ace boy). the idea behind the last name meaning ‘complete’ is that despite feeling incomplete, he isn’t. sort of like the tin man from the wizard of oz.

然 is the random one that i found from an example of a chinese given name that just sounded good to me… technically it means ‘right’ or ‘correct’ but it can also be a way to conjugate other words and i found it from a name that (apparently) meant ‘bright and joy’. the idea was that naming him after brightness would contrast the dark tar-like appearance he takes on because of his curse. a close contender (which i just didnt like the sound of to be honest) was spring which has the idea of renewal that the last character has. bonus bit about this is that in some families this character will be shared by all the kids in the same generation which is the case for george’s family so his name is 毕然叶 and he doesnt have siblings but his cousins names are then also 毕然__.

叶 literally translates to ‘leaf’ but i saw a name definition i liked saying that it ‘[embraces] the concept of growth, renewal, and the cyclical nature of life’ which is very poignant and fitting for george who is in a constant cycle of decomposing and then being renewed like some awful phoenix