#ronologues

(not that long i just don't want everything stretching the dash where i might not be able to edit it later)

i do think she's always going to identify himself as a fag though which is also pretty common because things are more complicated than they are binary and he's always a color wheel understander. his gender is faglady but realistically her gender is also just nothing you could comprehend if you're not open to contradiction. you can't expect him to fit into neat little boxes, she just won't do it, it's not anybody else's business but his.

so. transfem gay man is probably still where he's at in general at this point in time in my writing but as time has gone on his egg has increasingly cracked lol it's just a matter of like... what's going on in his life, who she's with, how safe he feels being herself. as of right now, she saves herself for tim and tim is nothing but reverent about it and i could go ON about how her sex life goes hand in hand with her gender but i don't want to flood the dash with BDSM discussion LOL even though i have thoughts for MILES about it. i talked a bit about it in the link above iirc. it's incredibly soft and meaningful and also, crucially, sexy. but mostly it just makes her feel so incredibly safe and desired and respected and these are all things that were previously missing from her life in such a huge way, like.

look at his life. look at the life he's lived and tell me he's ever been fully happy playing the role he was put in. the expectations his mother had of him, that gertrude had of him, the way he was expected to obey and sacrifice and even hurt people at times because that's just how the world works, right.

well, he's never wanted to participate in that way of living! and he only did it as a survival mechanism because where else could he go but always come back home to mary and her dreams for him which were always just an extension of herself, he was nothing to her but an extension of herself and her wants and her beliefs and he was anything but that, even when he tried to blend in. half the time he measures his life from injury to injury. his whole life felt like nothing but punishment and for a long time he wouldn't even know what for.

it can be such a transgender narrative if you look at it. the repression that he'd have had to deal with is insane even if you look at how loud and proud he is about his sense of style (which is extremely queer in and of itself.)

and i also just do not buy transmasc gerry i'm so sorry you can absolutely have that HC if you want and i will not attack you for it but look at him. listen to him. and also remember that eric, who died when gerry was 2 years old, referred to him as his son. sorry but that to me says he's amab because He Was Un Bebe. also in what WORLD would mary be a supportive parent to a trans kid. she literally insists on calling him by his full birth name that he DOESN'T LIKE BEING CALLED; classic trans thing! he canonly has a PREFERRED name. a preferred androgynous name!

it just makes more sense to me that he's transfem. i don't believe he has a desire to be all that traditionally masculine. he literally is so gnc in canon and his whole life just reads to me as "person who did not get the chance to fully embrace themselves because everything was just too damn hard." i also enjoy depicting people transitioning later in life, because it's never too late! it's NEVER too late to embrace who you are and work out who you've wanted to be for a long time.

i think he still lives in ambiguity and grey areas and blindspots. it may not have even occurred to him that she wanted to transition until later in life anyway because life never slowed the fuck down for him enough to let himself ask the questions! but he knew he wanted his hair long. he paints his nails. he wears eyeliner and dangly jewelry and alt clothes and yeah, cis people can do that, but it's also a way to flag! a very strong way of flagging! these are all the things that felt right to him in canon and no one stays that alt into their thirties without a little bit of gender going on somewhere in the mix, be serious, y'know? g-d. i'm so invested forever in gerry's gender jfhbnkjn.

he doesn't like labels, he really doesn't. and she might not ever call herself a woman as much as a lady in particular but she likes the phrases "good girl" and "princess" in bed, she likes being seen as feminine in comparison to a partner, she has feminine preferences. she would probably use more reclaimed slurs to refer to herself than i'm comfortable just tossing around but like, a lot of people prefer those as identifiers than "man" or "woman" like i refer to myself as a fag dyke all the time and it's more affirming to me than trying to decide if i'm a trans guy or if i'm a butch dyke At All Times. gender can be complicated! i think it IS complicated for gerry at the moment with his baggage but i imagine if he were ever able to really let go of that baggage, she'd be a very different, happier person. i think she would like it to be simpler sometimes. she treats it simply even if other people might not be able to. she's really calm about all of it, and even as it changes, it just makes her confidence grow. really comes down to the people she's surrounded by and the opportunities that she manages to grab a hold of in terms of finally letting herself just be. and i just think the results of it are really gorgeous.

there's actually not too much to say! i've already written a big long meta about incorporating disability into writing, but i don't know how much of that one answers your questions, so i'll give an updated rundown on some more thoughts i know i've had pretty recently, too! you unlocked a really happy infodump, i actually love this topic so much and am very passionate about it so i'm excited to share!

the first question you should always ask yourself is "for whose sake are you telling this story?" ren talked about that concept in an ask about writing abuse dynamics, but the concept still stands. if you're telling the story of somebody else, you have to first ask yourself Why you think you should, what good is going to come of it, and be conscious of internal biases that may creep through it if you're not careful.

examine your work for trends or subconscious intention of writing disability for angst/whump purposes, so that someone else can cuddle the poor baby who got hurt and make them all better. one of the tag replies on this recent post talks about it some from the perspective of disabled people who see it in media, and how frustrating that can be! it's really painful sometimes, to see something that you live with and cannot take off at will be used as fuel to either get somebody off (really happens), or push the idea that love will cure you if you're lucky enough to find someone who doesn't mind that you're sick or hurt.

that is 100% bullshit! love and support are MASSIVELY important components to any healing process, yes, but it is Not a cure-all and should never be treated as the answer to any of this. someone approving of or loving you despite What You Lack is not romantic, it's not healthy, it's not okay to push. that's the top thing i'd warn you away from, personally.

also, don't get super graphic about the injury, necessarily? you say you were thinking maybe the severity of jon's knee injury in TSP, which is a pretty standard dislocation where most of the damage came from compression of nerves and tendons when it got stuck out of place. i honestly was scared of going too hard on that one even just by saying he could see the misalignment through his pants! that's my own nerves, but i can say looking back it wasn't actually that bad all things considered and you should be safe describing the most obvious sensory details if it comes up.

it's the grieving period after that matters most, i think. handling that with care is important, which means being honest without going too far, OR sanitizing it to a saintly degree.

when you get hurt like this, you DO grieve the things you used to be capable of that you might not be anymore. it's an adjustment! it's changing the way you live your life. even if you somehow managed to undo every ounce of internalized ableism you can and don't devalue yourself because of it, the limitations WILL be frustrating and at times painful. missing opportunities, needing accommodation that may or may not even be accessible, new hoops to jump through with doctors or transportation or seating at shows or events, all of that can weigh you down.

example: i had to bring my rollator to a wedding recently, which is a walker with wheels and a seat (which is very annoying to get on planes, might i add.) it wasn't my family! but i had to sit in the front row on the very edge, next to the bride's 86 year old grandfather who was Also sitting on his walker. being only 25 and already thinking that some people there might be looking at me sideways for needing the same accommodations as an 86 year old man, that i was making a "big deal" out of it just by being there, was something i had to work through in my head and get used to. it was a beautiful wedding! and not a single soul was unkind to me. but the little comparisons you make in your head when it's you, when you feel like you're being scrutinized, DO matter and exist.

so, consider what changes your character has to make to their life! what mobility aids might they use? cane, crutches, walker, rollator, wheelchair. how often? in what circumstances?

a lot of people who use mobility/stability aids are partial users! many of them can stand or walk or shuffle short distances, or even moderate ones, but keep their mobility aids nearby for emergency or precautionary purposes. i personally keep my rollator in my car for when i go to unfamiliar places when i'm not sure if i'll be able to sit down on short notice, but i don't need it around the house or on small errands to places i frequent enough to feel confident in. recently, i haven't even been taking it out at all! and i'm about to have spine surgery in two weeks. you have good days and bad days.

more examples: my latest chapter of PBR had a lot of focus on jon and adelard's respective disabilities and how strenuous activity pushed them to and past certain limits, which impacted the "action" scenes quite a bit!

that's something a lot of writers do feel worried about when they consider giving their characters a disability. some will even erase or lighten up the limitations they've previously established for convenience so that their character can get through an action scene that they technically shouldn't. of course you want your character to at least SURVIVE! so, find another way to get them through it that doesn't involve magically being healed for about an hour while shit is hitting the fan.

like i said in that older disability post, i was worried about this with gerry, too! and guess what? he's DEFINITELY going to be a partial wheelchair user by the 4th out of 7 fics, and more or less permanently by the very end of the story. i feel comfortable spoiling that because i'm not shy about the things he's dealing with and quite frankly, i'm excited to get to the point where he finally gets it because i just think he's EARNED it for christ's sake. it will make his life so much easier, even if running might not be feasible anymore.

in that last chapter, jon and adelard have to go down the stairs because there is no lift in the institute. elias not having a lift there has been a problem of the ableism variety since the first installment, that everyone is aware of and feels powerless to change. jon used to willingly have a routine where he'd go up to the library every day before work as a "substitute" for the PT he hasn't been doing in years, but since moving to the basement, that's like two extra flights, so he can't do it as often. and that's just everyday stuff!

with this? he's in a lot of pain by the end, he's going to need to be on bed rest for a while to just recuperate from the strain he put himself through by running up and down the stairs (counts) about 6 consecutive times in less than an hour. he's exhausted, and the only reason he pushed himself was because lives were literally on the line and adelard was even less equipped to handle the same work as him, being older and relatively new to functioning with a prosthetic leg.

so, sure! he DID it. but does that mean he could do it Every Day just because he did it Once? that he could do it without Consequence? hell no. not for a second!

the key word here IS "consequences." yes, disabled people often DO find themselves in situations where they have to push themselves past what they feel secure doing, and maybe they CAN get home in one piece, but that just means the aftermath is going to play an important role in what comes next. sometimes you'll need to be in bed for days on end to recover from something like that, or something even less severe than the above example. i know i have, before. depends on the injury, the disability, the strain.

the point is, if you need your disabled character to go beyond what they should be doing, make sure you take care of them afterwards; either by Literally having them physically recuperate, or by acknowledging the problems that come with not being able to, and making sure you respect that they cannot go on like that forever. eventually there WILL be a crash, and it can either be handled with awareness and intent in-story, or it will sneak up on them later and bite them in the patootie. eventually, your body forces you to rest.

the other thing is that this stuff doesn't just happen once. with a chronic disability, it's always a risk. be mindful of that as you plan out the situations they're going to get into! actually incorporating these things into the narrative will honestly make it feel more real than just brushing it aside so that things go "smoothly." people who experience these things themselves will appreciate it a lot more than wish fulfilment, in my experience.

now, you say you have minor physical stuff, and i'm not going to make assumptions about YOU when i say that often times, we downplay our own experiences because we think we can't possibly have it "as bad" as other people, so i'm pretty willing to give you even more express support.

writing about these things can often be an avenue towards realizing, "oh, wait. i DO actually feel this, and it's not really, uh. something i should sit on." i know that writing characters with EDS before i even realized i had it was a part of me eventually seeing a doctor, and i actually got it put on paper recently. shock of all shocks! it resonated with me for a reason.

if you're drawn to disability narratives in a way that feels far more personal than how some people are drawn to them for the torture porn (and you clearly know the difference, given that you're asking how to write it respectfully) then it's worth sitting with yourself and really assessing how you feel about your body and what things maybe shouldn't be so hard for you to do.

definitely refer back to the first meta i linked up there for some slightly more formal tips on how to frame things when you start tying them in, but i think you're already on the right track with being respectful! realism is respectful, and so is drawing lines between that realism and being overly graphic. listening to disabled people and taking them seriously is essential, and you're already doing that. giving disabled characters a support network is fabulous and you should do it, but don't infantilize them or Cure Them With Love.

and don't think TOO deep on it! you can psych yourself doing that, it's really easy to let the fear of messing up keep us from even trying. i think a knee injury like you describe is NOT a super inflammatory topic to be tackling, and you should be absolutely fine imo. a lot of people write characters getting brutally and supernaturally injured all the time and don't pay NEAR enough attention to the lasting effect some of those wounds might have in the long run, so the fact that you're taking so much care with something more ordinary and common is a good sign that you're going to navigate well going forward.

check out this post by @thedreadvampy for a more nuanced explanation of specifically what elias and jonah represent in terms of british class politics. i’m going to be a little broader about the implications of how hurtful the fandom’s interpretations of it i’m seeing are even from an american perspective.

by intentionally go out of your way to woobify this type of backstory and behavior, you are not only showing your entire ass but you’re missing. the. point. he represents nepotism and hereditary wealth. he represents rich white guys getting into higher positions due to their preexisting status and not their work ethic and qualifications. he represents things being handed to people who didn’t even consider wanting it beyond wanting to be at the top of some kind of food chain, and that is it.

“gifted kid burnout” is NOT applicable here — unless you are feeding into the way that phrase has been twisted from “an examination of overwhelming academic stress put on unprepared adolescent minds” and turned into “a flimsy, transparent, and largely white excuse for any situation that requires you to apply critical thinking when you don’t feel like putting forth the effort & a desperate attempt at clinging to a wrongly applied idea of superiority.” 

if that’s what you mean by it, then yeah, sounds about right. but i’m not seeing anybody say it like that. i’m seeing people operating under that warped definition because they see themselves in him, but don’t seem to get what it is they’re actually seeing.

this reading of these characters is indicative of a basic ignorance to privilege and the fact that many of you have it, and have never had to examine it in a serious setting. yeah, this is a fandom for a piece of media that “isn’t real” except that it IS real. it’s direct commentary about a real thing and by actively dodging the Point you are effectively alienating everybody else here who is now exposed to your garbage.

you are outing your allyship as performative. you are advertising just how out of touch with reality you are, and you can’t throw a tantrum when people bring that to your attention. if someone brings it to your attention, it’s usually because they trust you Just enough to hope that you’ll put down your pride for a second and try to listen to them.

so if you take “you’re doing x harmful thing” as a personal attack on an intrinsic part of your character that you can’t do anything about, you need to think about why you identify a particular form of bigotry as a core part of your being. why don’t you want to question yourself? why don’t you want to let it go? what are you holding onto?

ask yourself these questions. if marginalized people aren’t exempt from examining their own internalized biases (from being raised in a society meant to cater to you,) then you damn well aren’t excused from the lesson.

poor people and POC in particular don’t want to have to see your FREEZING cold takes flooding the tags and the dashboard when they’re trying to go about their day. you are just PROVING to A Lot of people that you are not likely to understand our experiences enough to afford us genuine respect when the time actually comes.

because if you can’t understand it in the context of a fictional story that is Intentionally SCREAMING it in your face and begging you to spit out your silver spoon, then how the hell can you be trusted to identify injustice and unethical practices in the real world right in front of you.

your treatment of these subjects informs the level of safety YOU give off to other people, who, Yeah! are taking the subject more seriously than you! because they’re subjugated by these people and it’s inescapable lmfao. it’s not even escapable in fandom spaces. if you can just turn off your awareness of it, good for you i fucking guess. not everybody has that luxury. 

it’s exhausting to deal with people like this lmao we get more than enough of it offline we don’t need it here, especially when the whole show is Literally About pointing out that This Is Bad. it’s About This. this is the Plot of the Story you listened to 193 episodes of.

i am past asking y’all to do better now i’m honestly just begging you to shut the fuck up

i don’t think he was underfed or neglected, i don’t think he had the capacity then to neglect himself the way he might later in life during the stressful and traumatic events of the canon storyline, and i think even with a “metabolism out of some sort of mirror dimension” (as i had georgie describe it once) there’s still a chance that for a while, he was just... comfortable!

particularly having grown up on grandma food :’-)

(which is a phrase that lives in my brain now because of this wonderful art & HC post by @b-e-n-j-a-m-i-n-s! thank HIM for the push towards chubby jon in the GTCU!)

i’d been thinking about it ever since he posted this and after ren drew this little number here, i was like, fuck it. going back to edit the first couple of chapters of two ships passing, since that’s the one where i spent the most time talking about him as a kid & some time in university! i think he would still have some baby fat around then and it’s just adorable.

-

i just think a lot about gaining weight as healing, to show signs of progress and comfort, especially when there is such a large culture surrounding weight loss as a signifier of being Healthy when the methods pushed to get people there are so often harmful instead.

as a fat person myself, i’d like to see (and so write!) more stories that don’t condemn bodies for whatever shape they naturally take, and allowing characters within them to embrace themselves and each other as they are! and, when applicable, explore insecurities and the mental toll that society’s treatment of particular bodies will inevitably take on a person, in a way that explores how to recover from it. 

that’s something i plan to do with martin especially, but there’s definitely some of it in my concepts for tim, georgie and melanie, as well.

-

in terms of jon, i still think he’s on the thinner side of that spectrum, but i almost want to emphasize that it’s less, like... Traumatic Emaciation and more simply. not being fit? he’s just. not Fit.

he doesn’t exercise regularly! he scurried around a lot as a kid, but he was also a hypermobile asthmatic who had no interest in sports or getting sweaty or any of that. he had good endurance for walking, he could walk for ages, but that was about the extent of it.

the most physical activity i really put any focus on is the fact that he definitely did used to do some DDR when he worked in an arcade, and he learned some of the dances from favorite bollywood films! so he spent a lot of time just dancing around his bedroom and he never showed ANYONE that until he taught some to georgie, leo and alma in uni.

then his knee injury at 22 really benched him for a while! but he still remembers the moves ( >:3c )

so, he was a chubby kid! outright had a round face and was made of soft shapes and was still very Short so he was, like. so tiny and compact.

and then he hit a few growth spurts and it all leveled out over time, but there are always going to be little places your body just says, “okay, genetics say to anchor some fat here, so here it is!” and you just have to live with that sometimes.

it stays mostly around his tummy! little muffin top over his waistband.

g-d i love him.

-

i have a particular fondness for, like... the small idiosyncrasies in bodies.

things being a little uneven or a distinctive mole or birthmark somewhere or an unconventional gap in the teeth or small ears or thick eyebrows or how someone’s tummy might not quite “match” how their torso is shaped, but it’s very distinctly theirs.

in TSP CH7, when i describe jon wearing a saree for the first time, he describes his body type in relation to insecurities about it:

“It never felt like he could wrap himself up so securely, and that the problem lay with him. Him and his narrow hips and the bit of belly fat that doesn’t match his skinny chest or shoulders, how little muscle he has to his name. Even if he managed to get it to stay, it would still outline the wrong silhouette.”

most of this is social dysphoria, and the important part of the scene is how absolutely enamored georgie is the second she sees him, and they actually Talk about how important it is for him to feel safe wearing something he’s always wanted to try wearing.

but going back and adding the bit about belly fat there was important to me! the outfit included a choli top that stops just under his ribs, and he’s never really been very used to wearing clothes that show that much skin, even if he covers it up with the saree itself. baring his midriff was totally new to him, both in a gender way and a general body image way.

it was a big step for him!

and it’s nice to explore some insecurities with him because we all have them, and i like to focus on him living his life anyway with people who find him charming and love him wholly.

other people can’t heal our insecurities, but they can certainly help!

(g-d. i love writing pre-canon jon. filling in those blanks is my favorite thing to do.)

-

i think he’s very drawn to people who just appear at home in themselves. people who are solid and warm and good to hang onto when they’re walking together. he likes the balance. he finds them miraculous.

(i’ve said before that his type is “Big Handsome” and i stand by that.)

and frankly? i think sometimes he wishes he was structured more like that, could keep more weight on and fill himself out, but it’s just not quite what his body is built to do!

his fat distribution shifted a little as he aged and it went into some funny directions and it takes him a bit to find peace with it, i think he’s just naturally predisposed to being critical of himself despite being so strong-willed in social situations.

(which sometimes was to scare people away before they could come to judge him for the things he can’t help or change. he’s so. eye. jhbkjn.)

-

i also HC georgie as fat! you can see her here in this art of ren’s, too.

i really like the idea that jon and georgie both feel very at home with each other and each other’s bodies. the idea that they helped each other to love themselves a little more when they were together even if loving each other didn’t work out in the end.

i like that it was jon who suggested they deserved forgiveness for the things they spent so long denying themselves. i feel like it’s important that he said that. he was able to see that once and really mean it.

the effects of fatphobia ingrained into all of us do make it difficult for many fat people to even fathom relationships being possible much less being healthy. it’s important to me to see and portray fat people in relationships being loved and loving others and having that love be valued and sought after. georgie is a hot catch! she knows it! we all know it!

(she has her own things to overcome that i’ve written about before/plan to expand on when she’s able to have more of a focal point in PBR, but for now this will stay about jon!)

so i just really like the idea of georgie — someone jon adores and respects and feels safe with and encouraged by — being fat, and how that might make him feel more comfortable with a part of himself that certainly was involved in whatever bullying he experienced growing up.

and i especially like this because in my mind, i connect it directly to his family life and history, in a positive, nostalgic way that extends into adulthood as something that brings him great comfort.

-

time for the family, history and cooking HCs!

-

jaya @tolbyccian​​​ and i were talking just the other night about their HCs for jon’s family, and we can agree wholeheartedly on one thing: 

jon grew up feeling at home sitting on kitchen counters.

as a kid, he loved being sat up there and passing utensils to whoever was doing the cooking, helping stir things, dropping stuff in pots, anything they’d let him or ask him to do.

both of our HCs for him differ greatly from one another, but race and heritage plays an important role in both of them! all the way from grandma to georgie.

-

i personally HC jon as jewish and indian!

his mother (sarika) was indian, and his father (isaiah) was a quarter indian himself, with a mixed race jewish/indian mother and a white father who converted to judaism for marriage.

that's a large part of jon’s grandmother's story (i named her miriam, and he calls her his dadima! which is a hindi word.)

miriam knew of her ancestry but didn't have exposure to culture due to being displaced during WWII.

her primary connection was to jewish culture through her surrogate sister, ruth, who was with her in the farmhouse that she ended up in when she was moved to england.

ruth insisted that they both remember their prayers and recipes and everything they could while they had to suppress themselves, and so miriam held onto that for a long time.

she and her husband agreed to raise isaiah jewish, and isaiah and sarika agreed to do the same with jon, as sarika was never particularly religious herself and they all agreed that given the family's history, it was important to keep this part of it alive.

a large part of keeping things alive in their house meant food.

many of the recipes that miriam ended up with were from her friends at synagogue, people she met as she grew older and established herself within that community in the absence of recipes from her own parents.

-

what sarika also had, was food!

it’s her recipes that really made the difference, and that really linger in jon’s head for the rest of his life. miriam’s recipes were comfortable, but sarika’s were fun.

she used to cook a lot in the house, all-day-long sort of cooking, and jon remembers that as best he can given how hazy his memories of his parents are.

sarika and miriam connected on this, as well. they all lived in the same house together (all the roomier when miriam’s husband died, even more so when isaiah fell, and so on.)

miriam had been able to cling onto her jewish heritage on her mother’s side, but not so much indian culture on her father’s!

having sarika in the family was something she loved very dearly. they worked together, they uplifted and encouraged each other, and they held things together in the short time when they were the two that were left.

but even before that? sarika introducing indian recipes into the house was something miriam latched onto with her entire heart.

miriam, like jon, is autistic! and cooking was one of her special interests, alongside maritime history and the ocean.

so, she was very good with establishing routines.

-

after sarika's death, miriam started up a new tradition: bebe night!

every year on sarika’s birthday, she and jon would cook what they still had of her favorite recipes: chana masala, simple biryani, dahl with rice, paneer, naan and raita, so on and so forth.

jon loved bebe night. it made the time surrounding those anniversaries a lot less painful, and gave them a means to celebrate sarika’s life instead of dwelling fully on the loss of her, or sweeping it under the rug.

his associations with “tradition” as a concept are very strongly rooted in his very small family and the glancing memory of when he had a bigger one, if a little less in the grand scheme of broader community.

he’s very much someone who tends towards a narrow focus in most areas of life (very beholding of him, again.) and so being able to have this is really important to him.

-

i just think food is one of his love languages.

food was a huge part of how he was shown love and nourishment and encouragement growing up, and so it’s a part of how he expresses it as an adult!

he makes big batches of things and then gives away leftovers as necessary, even if he pretends it’s not a big deal.

he will NOT let you help him with the food itself, but he will occasionally let you stand in the kitchen, or sit on the counter (if there’s a lot of room very far away from his work station.)

and if he asks for your help?

-

i think one day in uni, he was cooking aloo gobi.

(for georgie, of course. he spent some time looking for new recipes that didn’t rely on meat to fill the space left by all of his bebe’s old favorites that did. it was nice to look through websites and books together marking down things they were both interested in. it was nice to see him get excited to try something new.)

georgie was leaning on the counter and chatting with him while he diced the russet potatoes and he asked her to get a head start on frying the cumin seeds for him, the same way he might ask her to glance out the window for the weather. 

until they pop, he said. i should be done with these in time to stir in the onions myself.

i think that’s the moment she knew for certain. not that she loved him — she figured that out a few months ago listening to him rip apart some cheesy paranormal investigation show they’d left on the telly, until she offered to turn it off and he said, what? no, i’m having fun.

she knew she loved him. he’d already said he loved her, too.

that was just the moment she knew he meant it.

-

it’s also just one of his favorite things to do in the autistic way!

he loves the mathematics of following a recipe. of getting something exactly right, and feeling accomplished.

but what he loves even more is being able to become so confident in what he’s doing that he can comfortably deviate from the guidelines and make adjustments that make it just right. special, and memorable, and fun.

this is why the indian recipes are his personal favorite when he wants to decompress; the spices!

the sheer amount of spices he gets to work with is like a puzzle. there are so many pieces, and one little addition or missing something else can change the whole taste.

it’s one of the only times he enjoys the pursuit of discovery. the “maybe i’ll try to put a little spin on something i know i love.” 

it won’t scare him out of trying again, or frustrate him into giving up on it.

bebe never got angry at him for tapping too much turmeric into a pot. dadima never got angry at him for a bit of shell falling into the bowl with an egg he almost cracked perfectly.

no one will be angry with him if it’s not exactly the same or better than the last time he made it; they’re just going to be happy to eat.

so he doesn’t get angry with himself when he makes a mistake, either. it’ll still be worth something. it’s a very forgiving art.

-

he likes feeling proud of himself! it’s a productive activity that results in a tangible show of his effort and skill, it provides actual benefit, and he can give it away. he can show off a little! he can have something that’s his, and that people know him for, and look forward to, and cherish.

that feels amazing to him, you know? it makes him feel peaceful, and happy. it’s something he really, truly loves.

even if he doesn’t do it near as often (or, eventually, at all) when things go south for him, there was a time in his life when it was his favorite thing to do! and in an ideal world, it’s something he can get back.

just like the little bit of weight on his belly that says he’s doing well.

-

put simply, then:

my general philosophy with gerry + subcultures is based in the fact that the only Anything that got a name put to it in canon was his mastodon t-shirt in 2002? lots of music gets called “death metal” when you don’t listen to it (or are, for example, perpetually falling and have no idea where you are and are also a theater nerd who probably doesn’t give a rip about that distinction anyway) and i have a hard time buying that leitner could properly identify someone’s specific subculture just based on their style. everybody who wears a lot of black is An Goth to old people who don’t know what any of the words mean.

so while i definitely do think goth obviously does work for his style and taste, i personally write him with a hefty serving of punk in there too, and music wise there are any number of possibilities. aster said once “for all we know he could be a metalhead,” and i think there’s some truth to that!

most of the times gerry has been described by other people, they’ve missed, assumed, or subtly misidentified something about him! it’s actually an interesting part of his character i really like a lot, because it gives some extra weight to the person he’s revealed to be when we finally get to hear him speak.

there’s a lot of room for interpretation basically is all i’m saying! and i’ve seen some really cool takes on it that i don’t really go with myself (there are just so MANY), but i see where they came from.

i personally don’t, like. go with the heavy goth makeup for him or have his clothes get very complicated because it feels like he doesn’t really have the time for that. for my gerry, punk is more where it’s at (DIY jackets and stuff, uses lace code on his boots, etc) but he does wear Almost Exclusively Black while doing it, sure. to each their own! not saying my way’s the only way or anything.

but i DO 100% agree with you that the emo music does not feel right dkfjhdj. please.

hard NO on the MCR, the joke is tired and i'm tired. aster said wisely, “he’s not a fan, it’s just something people play around him he nods his head to” and i agree Yep. he probably is like that about a Few of the bands that people throw on him here. not a bad sound! but he doesn’t know the song names or give a shit about the band, and he’s not going to remember to google it.

the guy was born in the ‘80s he’s got like. a little different of a music pool to splash around in than some of us really pay any attention to. it’s not bad music i just really don’t see him getting into the stuff that’s more well known around (american) teenagers-20somethings TODAY when he’d have found the stuff he liked way beforehand and fell down whatever pipelines came from it through that.

i think “if it hurts your head he probably loves it”, but also i think the general tone of it matters to him y’know like i don’t think he wants the sad dreary stuff ALL the time! i think he wants passion and Refusal and fight and the sometimes-paradoxical brightness you CAN find in the lyrics of some of the harsher sounding stuff. lover of contradiction. lover of also just annoying the shit out of people around him who he thinks won’t want to bother to understand. whatever music he likes into his 30s, i don’t think it’d be the sort that puts a romance to suffering.

venting is all well and good and surely something he’s done but i think if i were going to make his music such a big baseline for how he kept himself together all this time, kept his identity in check and gave him something to get excited about (“i’ll try to stick it out until X month next year because that’s when Y band is gonna release a new album and i want to hear it” — that stuff can actually save your fucking life sometimes, y’know?) then i would personally lean more towards something with more hope in it. hope and fire.

a more narratively impacting HC i have is that whether he chooses to hunt it down or not, he IS aware of and knows the words to a lot of mainstream pop shit among other maybe-unexpected things just because he travels so much and surely spent time in places that had their own music playing and you can’t always have headphones on when you go places. he has a wide array of useless knowledge and trivia and lyrics on hand just by pure osmosis.

i think Boredom, Curiosity, and Spite drive a lot of his littler habits and hobbies because my g-d what else is he doing. hanging out with friends? aha. ahahaaha. aaah ,,, :-I

(my) gerry likes all sorts of random ass international bands, too, because he’d have more exposure to THAT stuff, too, and also a reason to do some research just for fun. van canto is a german a capella metal band what the fuck that’s so cool. harmaja is also good, they’re finnish. i think if you put some SKÁLD on in front of him he WILL be choreographing a dramatic music video as he walks down the street to it. like, no, he’s not gonna download them but if he fell into a youtube autoplay rabbit hole while he got distracted with something else you know he would have like a solid weekend of being super into “some random french folk group that based their whole schtick on norse mythology.” he would totally have obscure kicks like that every now and then even if he has something more stable to return to for comfort later!

he’d also just be fine listening to some rock bands when they’re just On, etc, and there's probably stuff outside of A Set Genre he DOES enjoy because human beings aren’t just one-dimensional “i only like this specific thing always forever and everything else sucks” and i think he’s spoken enough in canon about his adherence to the notion that Everything Has A Grey Area that he’s not too pressed about it. he’s got his niche, totally! but he’s not completely boxing himself in, either. i think he probably has had Enough of feeling isolated and only exposed to one perspective that he actively seeks other experiences and tries to see what other people love about things he’s not immediately familiar with!

movies and television, too, for similar reasons! for something to DO when he's stuck in a hotel room or to have on as background noise when he’s restless, even if it strays out of favored genres. just. watch whatever’s on, or whatever he hasn’t seen before. he can scroll IMDB in his own brain, can recognize actors from the most obscure single appearances on a show with 20 seasons that he half-watched 4 years ago. ridiculous. hilarious.

in general that’s how i have him consume media BEYOND whatever music he uses to keep a tighter grasp on his identity, but i haven’t gotten too specific with artists and bands in anything i've published yet because it just hasn’t come up! the only band i've referenced by name in something i’d written before WAS the mastodon (i have a lot of feelings about how his attachment to the lifesblood EP in particular), but i tend to play it safe and use that as like a Starting Point if that makes sense?

other suggestions from my group chat were joy division, and like. as far as “off brand” bands go, he might like the killers well enough. i do think he'd like against me! because. punk rock, yeah, and also laura jane grace herself is just. somebody i think he’d really enjoy, from the perspective of also coming out as Gender later in life. she’s so cool,,,

i could see symphonic metal being enjoyable to him. within temptation is so strange but he’d vibe with it, especially since they were popular overseas first. the Drama of it all. apocalyptica is fun, so is sonata arctica. probably enjoys seether in the same way of like “digging it when it’s on, never bought an album himself, but DOES remember where he was the first time he heard Broken.” he knows the local scene in sweden. why is he singing along perfectly to this german song he doesn’t even speak german.

also because it happened to come up in the GC i’m also gonna paste this here but it was generally agreed upon, too, that like. with his “music taste and Fashion taste not necessarily being the same umbrella i feel like he’d love the aesthetics of glam rock and hairspray punk even though it wasn’t his favorite musically.” and he’d probably really love drawing people he's encountered with those aesthetics. i think he’s just appreciative of a lot of stuff out there even if it's not the CD he's gonna pop in to try and sleep to.

TL;DR - j summed it up pretty well just now with “i think gerry is a combo of ‘knows bands you’ve never heard of’ and ‘has never learned the name of the very popular universally known band you’re telling him about even if he recognizes the song.’ he likes the american idiot album but could not summon the name Green Day if you put a gun to his head.” and i just think that’s beautiful.

aster just said the best thing, too, about how i said he tries to branch out on purpose: “it may be your first week in this country and maybe you dont speak the language but that cool girl with the leather jacket bought you an iced tea so all is right with the world. like it doesnt make ppl more likely to help him or anything but it makes very specific people more likely to i guess? sense of community even in transit”

and j responded: “i think that fits well on the fact that punk and its adjacents are so community focused, so if anyone was going to give him experiences like that, being alone and having a stranger stand up for you in some little way before you both move on, it would probably be the alts around the world. just like his genres are all over the place, he wouldn’t probably call himself goth but the attraction to alt and it’s media was basically nurture for him so he was always gonna land there”

(small warning: section four touches on his sex life and mentions some bottom dysphoria! not graphic or super explicit, it’s largely thematic & just explains how it plays a huge role in how he expresses his gender feelings.

also there’s a bit at the bottom that’s just some accessibility feedback for you!)

01. intro

in regards to being grouped in as “one of the boys,” i think honestly it depends on who is doing it? for the most part, it’s actually exactly what he wants.

at the end of the day, what he’s usually going to identify as first would probably be the words “gay” and “transsexual,” depending on the context in which it comes up. with most people, he doesn’t care to tell you or want you to know he’s transfem unless you’re close to him, because it’s not anyone’s business and he’s a very private person with a lot of understandable trust and intimacy issues. he spent so much time isolated that even though he knows he wants more connection, he’s not going to just dive into it and tell you everything about him from minute one (barring very specific circumstances, but Even Then.) and this is something he’d rather keep close to the chest. not out of shame or fear (anymore) but because he legitimately just does not think most people are entitled to this information, and he’s right.

he’s got a fairly androgynous face, and while that used to be a source of conflict for him, too, that conflict came from thinking he shouldn’t like it as much as he did. and he did like it. i always emphasize that he got his father’s shoulders and hands and jaw, but he has his mother’s cheekbones, and a lot of her basic shapes. he learned his expressions from her. he was mary keay’s child.

gerry used to look in the mirror as a teenager and be upset not that he looked so much like his mother, but that it was something about himself that he loved. he didn’t want to love the things she gave him, because he was afraid it meant he emulated her. it’s very much the opposite, but he didn’t learn that until later.

02. perception & public presentation

if it’s total strangers he’ll never speak to at all, he’s content with just being unidentifiably GNC. there are times he is just a guy with resting bitch face you’re not sure how to approach, and sometimes he’s a lady reading a book in a big chair at the bookstore with her head down, and then the closer you look at him in any of those scenarios, you think, “oh, maybe that’s not quite right.”

this is why, every time i’ve written someone seeing him but not knowing who he is, it defaults to they/them pronouns! that’s chapters 9, 14, and 15 of TSP, namely. even in chapter 7, when he knocks georgie over in dublin by accident, jon refers to him as they/them even when their friend leo pins him as a guy.

he likes the contradiction! one of the first words he ever really liked to describe his gender was just “genderfuck” which he would have seen being used in zines growing up. very punk, frankly.

if it’s strangers-to-acquaintances, people he’ll do business with or encounter briefly at places he frequents, he would much prefer just be read as a man and stay that way.

regarding the “eldest daughter/sister” comparison — YEAH. that’s a huge thing across the board in general. the way that we’re brought up is always going to have hooks in us somewhere. for gerry, he was explicitly raised as a son by a violent woman who had expectations of him as a son, and that’s? something he will always feel conflicted by.

sometimes, he did want to be the son she wanted to be proud of, he still wants his broad shoulders and general silhouette to be read as masculine, his strength and disposition was and is generally masculine first and foremost. 

i don’t really depict him as wearing lipstick or anything of that nature, mostly his makeup is centric around the eyes! and he doesn’t tend to wear feminine clothing out in public when he’s just going about his day doing Spooky Errands because what’s the point? being just some guy gets the job done and he doesn’t want to answer anyone’s questions, he doesn’t have time and more importantly, he really couldn’t give less of a shit about most people or their opinions of him.

typically, socially speaking in that way, he doesn’t tend to get overwhelmed with dysphoria when he’s perceived as a man. he likes and prefers it! because he knows he’s a particular kind of man, and frankly, there’s a level of satisfaction to it. he’s a GNC guy and he likes being a little intimidating about it (in the sense that it’s a bit flustering) because it makes him feel secure, and comfortable, and protected.

for a long time, it was like. being able to be what he needed to be at home to survive his mother, while still being Gender about it. he’s a man more often than not! just not the man you expect or maybe even want.

03. sexuality & relationships

until you’re a prospective interest, in which case: at first, yeah! he still wants to just be seen as a man! if he’s going to a gay bar, he is going to be flirting with men in a way that will lean into his masculinity first. he still wants to be seen as a prospective interest to other gay men, which to a degree does necessitate some connection to manhood (even if his connection to it IS his attraction to other men In A Gay Way, same as how many lesbians feel that way about their connection to womanhood.)

it’s when you get past that point that it starts to change.

in cases where he has an actual long-term partner, he’d like to be more or less seen as feminine in a complimentary way to them, if that makes sense? i see him as drawn a lot to masculinity in general, usually guys with a build like how ren and i HC our tim. he’s a pretty big, solid dude, and gerry likes the security in that, he likes being held and supported.

that doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions to that trend, though! people are people and if there’s a connection, there’s a connection. gerry’s type is “makes me feel safe, and better.”

EDIT 1/24/22: after some reflection on this topic, i wanted to clarify that i think he would use “gay” as an umbrella term more than a rigid thing! even canon shows that he’s not interested in using strict definitions and labels for HUGE things in the universe, so i find it hard to believe he would get all that granular with himself. plus, i personally interpret him as having DID, which would muddy things plenty Especially if he goes so long without knowing he has it.

in the early days i do think he would be deeply averse to being with women largely as a trauma response, and so for a while would just reject the idea entirely and ignore it as long as he could. not even that he has to fight it or struggles with denying something, he really just doesn’t spend time thinking about it. however, i do think he’s got a capacity to be with maybe A woman after he’s unlocked a Girl Moment and can approach that situation in a decidedly gay way, too, but in most universes i don’t think that would really happen for him! and so he doesn’t think about it too hard. he’ll just say he’s gay and you’ll make your own assumptions about it and he won’t care to correct you because whatever he’s doing, it’s gonna be gay. that’s the way it can feel sometimes when your gender is just “yeah.”

he’d like to be called someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend equally (usually when using she/her with boyfriend and he/him with girlfriend!) but tim in that one scene in PBR wasn’t wrong when he said he’s pretty sure gerry would prefer to be called “wife” instead of “husband” if things were to progress that far in the theoretical universe where marriage didn’t scare them both. if they were to joke about it, make it a pet name, “wife” would be the comfortable one to him! there’s just something about it. when he’s this far into an intimate relationship with someone, i think he would trust them enough to want to eventually use feminine terms more exclusively.

04. the role his sex life plays in his gender

because it actually is an intrinsic part of things for him. i think it’s disingenuous to discount the fact that it’s like this for a lot of people out there, and i think it makes a lot of sense for him given everything he’s been through.

he likes explicitly feminine terms of endearment in bed! like princess, “good girl,” stuff like that. he likes being treated like a lady in these situations! being called beautiful or pretty instead of handsome, having particular aspects of himself focused on and others not brought up. this is where lingerie comes in handy; the sort of thing that only his partner is going to see, that he can save for special occasions. that makes it so somebody is looking at him in a little bit of awe, especially after he starts getting a little softer around the edges on HRT. it’s extremely affirming and helpful and again, very private! 

(save for melanie as his eventual lingerie shopping buddy. they give each other coupons and stuff. friend chip<3)

i also write him as having some bottom dysphoria for a number of reasons, too, so typically that’s a no touch zone, but there comes a point in two relationships in his life that it’s eased somewhat by being able to embrace his femininity and start associating it with that! being able to see people who love him in this way regard something that has brought him such distress throughout his life as a part of the side of himself he’s most protective over, cherishes the most, only trusts them with after a certain point — it’s very healing. VERY gender euphoria.

honestly, his sex life is actually a massively important part of his story in how i portray him. i really think that writing him pursuing and obtaining physical intimacy, particularly gay and T4T sex, is a lot more radical than just. trying to find ways to make his traumatic isolation something he’s okay with or had even sought out on his own. let him want, seek, and find attention and connection in whatever ways he can, whether it’s tethered to lasting love or just a brief thing that makes him feel more present in his body for a while. that isn’t shallow, or inherently harmful or unhealthy. gay sex isn’t regressive or deviant.

also an important HC that goes along with gender for him, tbh: 

EDIT 1/24/22: appending this! i do imagine that he’s a switch in terms of D/s, but in a very specific way. i think he has the capacity to dom and would reserve that approach for any time he does sex work, which i do incorporate into his backstory generally, because it would come with a sense of control and security, and basic safety. he’s NOT going to let himself be vulnerable with strangers, he has never subbed for even a random hookup for fun and never will. it would take him a while to actually learn how much he not only enjoys playing a submissive role but sort of needs to in serious, trusting relationships. and thus:

he prefers playing a more submissive role as somewhat of a reprieve from how much of his life he’s spent hypervigilant and thinking too hard and fighting for a more physical control of his surroundings, and as a way to reclaim his autonomy given that he really is the one in control of things this way, and a way to really establish/strengthen trust with a partner because, just. he’s spent his whole life taking orders and getting hurt, it’d be nice to recontextualize putting his body and well-being in someone else’s hands, and have them actually take care of him.

just. let somebody touch him with kindness and reverence and make him feel like somebody actually wants him, wants him around, wants to make him feel good instead of hurting him, literally any of that is something that can be so important to acknowledge for a character with a backstory like his. 

he deserves it! and it IS intrinsically tied into the way he experiences gender. it ALL comes back to reclamation, trust, privacy, and making choices about who has access to what parts of him.

05. how i write him experiencing and expressing it in TSP and PBR

as for the intimate moments where he experiments with she/her pronouns, i’ve only written that in PBR so far because it’s the only time i’ve actually captured him being able to pursue transition while in a relationship with someone who he can actually explore that feeling with! i imagine he never really did manage medical transition before Dying in canon, for a hundred different reasons, and usually it’s a big thing i use to signify/mark his recovery after i find ways for him to survive in my AUs.

i won’t NOT encourage you to read my stuff since i promise it’s saturated all throughout, but i also won’t Demand it or anything & i’m always happy to explain these details! i like being able to be straightforward and clear about what exactly i’m exploring with him.

i’ll get TSP out of the way since it’s completed: i had him start medically transitioning, but not change any terminology or even how he thinks of himself. he just wanted his body and face to be softer, to feel healthier physically, and it helps! it’s sort of a reward to himself for surviving past where he didn’t think he would, and it’s very peaceful.

PBR is where i’m exploring his gender with a lot more depth and complexity than i got to in TSP because it actually involves him being in romantic and sexual relationships that open up doors to express things that never became relevant, because he didn’t get to a point where he HAD that kind of relationship with jon in that story. 

they’re just not compatible in a sexual way! and that’s OKAY. even jonny said in a recent Q&A, the reason they worked so well as friends in canon IS because they only met the once, but there are definitely other universes where they could be excellent in a long term way, even without that particular need intersecting.

(take I’ve Got His Number From The Great Beyond for example! also read it right now immediately! there’s gerry gender in there AND unbearable amounts of love and connection between jon and gerry that rekindled my love for them after a while of dampened zeal. everybody say “thank you aster!”)

so, in PBR, gerry started hormones with sasha’s help (she helped him get them grey-market, because it’s not always possible to go through a doctor, especially in the UK) and celebrated his first dose with the archives team, but he hasn’t asked them to change how they refer to him or treat him gender wise yet/may not ever. 

it’s more or less concentrated to private moments with tim, or letting tim refer to him with alternating he/him and she/her when talking to their friends. particularly sasha, due to her close involvement in even getting this part of gerry’s life off the ground & being such a major presence in tim’s life, too.

the way i’ve been having gerry use them in his own POV bits has really only been as he’s remembering intimate moments with tim while they’re separated and he’s struggling with something, kind of... zooming in on times he’s at his happiest and feeling the most like himself, like he can trust people.

and for tim, i also have him do that! he uses he/him for the most part, but in the latest chapter, when he thinks back to moments where they’re particularly soft and usually being sexually intimate, or if it has something to do directly with gerry’s transition, he’ll alternate between he/him and she/her within the same sentence. he thinks back on it this way out of respect, effort, and absolute affection.

(at the juncture in the story when i originally wrote this response, it’s tied back to his developing chest & how much it’s going to literally Hurt for a year but tim really wants to be able to show love to that part of him, too, and so he helps rub lidocaine on his nips when they get really painful. candid tenderness is my middle name. as things progressed, it’s revealed that tim uses she/her exclusively within a scene they’re doing together.)

for both of them, it’s almost ALWAYS tied to a sense of longing! for closeness, for things to just be okay between them, for being able to just. be at their most vulnerable with someone who they know is also laying themselves bare, in any sense of the word.

so, that kind of means that for gerry it’s an expression of, like... 

“this is something i have always wanted, but i don’t think the whole world has a right to it. the whole world wouldn’t treat me the way i want to be treated as i embrace this part of myself, and i know that because it has never treated me well. no one has ever seen me the way i want to be seen, and it’s too late for me to even want to change that now.

you treat me well. you already saw me before i told you this. i trust that this part of myself is safe in your mouth.”

and tim is pretty blown away by that! that’s the sort of thing that means the most to him, being trusted to safeguard someone’s vulnerabilities and the things they’re most selective about sharing. it makes him feel important and valued and that’s something he really needs out of a partnership that’s intended to last.

gerry honestly isn’t Planning to work himself up to a point where he can just have Everyone call him different pronouns or refer to him differently in general. he’s a private person by nature and nurture, and already this is beyond any of his wildest dreams. he likes the idea of saving it for behind closed doors, for a very small selection of people, because it means he has enough going for him now that he can even make that choice. he doesn’t just have one person, he has more than that! he doesn’t have to pick just one thing, one way to be, and certainly nothing linear.

he likes getting to be different in different peoples’ eyes. for him, his transition has more value as something that he keeps contained! across the board, he’s still going to identify himself as a gay man before he even identifies himself as trans at all, because him being a man is what defines his transness.

06. accessibility feedback!

okay quick thing! since i think that’s what you were going for here bit it may have backfired a little bit. no harm done! but for future reference since even i had a bit of trouble reading this the first few times.

i’d suggest being, like, more sparing with your bolding & try to read your messages out loud to see where the emphasis falls so that you can use it to highlight the most important things and break it up only a little bit. this is kind of jumbled and makes the eyes kinda bounce all over the place. definitely keep it narrowed in when you do stuff like this, especially since the message was pretty short!

here’s an example of how i might have formatted this one if i thought it was necessary:

I have a question re: transfem Gerry. So, I'm all over this like syrup on pancakes, it's delicious, it's good, it's gender envy, it's just.. ugh, I Cannot get enough of it. My question is, how does Gerry, being a transfem gay man in your HC, respond to the concept of "being one of the boys". Would he feel.. uncomfortable? Okay with it? Is his relationship to his manhood similar to that of "I am a man, but only conveniently"? Kind of like how some afab nonbinary people still kind of have that "older sister"/"eldest daughter" relationship to gender, even if they don't feel connected to womanhood or gender at all, is that similar to how your Gerry feels?

You mentioned Gerry uses she/her in intimate moments, and while I know that pronouns ≠ gender, ofc, how do you see Gerry experiencing gender in those specific moments? (I haven't read all your fics yet so these may be questions answered in those. If so, I'll gladly read along and find out, but I'm just transfixed on transfem Gerry and I want to Behold.)

only two bolded bits, if at all! honestly, it was clear enough that you could have gone without, too. the most important/helpful thing would have been the line break, which usually isn’t a big deal in asks if formatting isn’t an option, but since you bolded i’m figuring that it is. i just thought i’d let you know since you clearly seem to care about this and i appreciate the effort.