#oc fidget

He was already at a disadvantage as a child. When his wendigo instincts started to surface it made surviving his brutally abusive family life that much worse. There were times where his father's abuse absolutely should've killed him. But his growing physical durability made it impossible for him to die from injury and blood loss. Not to mention losing his ability to eat normal food definitely angered his parents even more because it was treated as an act of insolence, rather than a sign that something was very wrong.

Coupled with his need to eat human flesh and willingness to kill for it, he was a ticking time bomb. If the signs had been noticed early enough, he likely could've still been helped. Even if being half wendigo was never known, he could've been able to manage his symptoms.

Instead, he was locked away in an asylum. A small child in a high security prison full of the worst of the worst kinds of people. People who were dangerous and so mentally gone that they felt nothing about hurting others. He was the only child in that place, and that was where he grew up during his formative years. It's hard to draw the line between what was instinct and what was a coping mechanism but it definitely had a hand in him turning so feral.

Killing and devouring was what kept him alive the whole time. And I'm starting to make the connection that, because of all this, Gary will probably never see his own debilitating hunger for human meat as anything but normal. Which I feel makes him interesting. Because a lot of characters in media who are obligatory cannibals usually see it as a curse to be broken or cured. But Gary never did. To him, it's just as a part of him as breathing air or sleeping.

Does this make him evil? I'd say yes but only technically, because he is still hurting others and taking lives. But at the same time, it's a display of the brutality of nature taking it's course given the circumstances he exists in. Along with being somewhat mentally stunted on top of everything. He's a predatory creature that shouldn't exist with humans as his only means of prey.

On a side note, losing his ability to speak from a gunshot wound also cemented this into him even more. Without the ability to communicate, Gary lost one of the last remaining fragments of humanity he still had.

It kind of makes his relationship to Fidget even more fucked up too. The initial reason he didn't kill her indiscriminately like he does everyone else was that she had gotten the upper hand on him in their first encounter. Gary's first moment of meeting her was while staring down the barrel of her rifle after she ambushed him. And even then, she didn't quite smell human. Her eyes were strange. He got a sense that she wasn't prey but instead something else on par with himself.

Fidget though, is more "human" than he is. She's more mentally sound and cognative than he is. Her killing people is a deliberate act of choosing to act immorally. She doesn't quite know Gary's full story of why he is the way he is, but she has some idea. And so, she chooses instead to enable him further rather than trying to help him. It's easier that way, plus it's beneficial to her too by having a means of disposing of bodies.

The only trade-off being that Gary is unpredictable and dangerous. But she's confident, almost too confident, that she can keep a handle on him by using sex and his feelings towards her as a means to keep that control. Half of his broken mind is lonely, and the other is craving a mate. It all works out in her favor.

It's a big, dirty word in shipping circles but it makes me wonder what the power dynamic really is between Fidget and Gary sometimes. And I think it really depends.

On one hand, Fidget seems to treat Gary like nothing more than a hunting dog. She brings him along on hit jobs and actively uses him for body disposal because who else is better for the job than a feral cannibal who can't even speak for himself and is about as mentally developed as a child.

But on the other, Gary is by far much stronger than her and physically larger. And he's highly unpredictable in what he wants and when. If he wants to fuck, he doesn't hesitate to force her down and do whatever he wants. And isn't gentle about it either. She routinely gets bitten and clawed by him just from being handled by him. Also combined with him having a habit of going rogue during jobs and throwing discretion out the window by taking up a chainsaw and slaughtering everyone in sight, not just their target.

A few more art things. Apologies for the poorly cropped one in the middle there, I did that one at work.