2025-03-22 3:21:12 ¶ ●

# Why Gerard Would Become An Avatar Of Each Fear

The Buried - Gerard has always felt a bit buried by the expectations his Mother places on him. That phrase has taken a more literal than metaphorical turn of late as he keeps having dreams where Mary places weight on his shoulders until he sinks beneath the ground, where the soft dirt welcomes him with open arms. He would assume that these dreams are nothing more than dreams, but he’s done this whole fear thing long enough to know that it’s alarming that he keeps waking up covered in dirt with a terrible ache in his shoulders …not to mention the new urge to dig.

The Corruption - Gerard could not bring himself to leave the bookstore after his Mother’s death. He tried, but he was always pulled back by the toxic memories that felt like home. Even when mold started to grow on the walls, he could not bring himself to walk away for good, and when the floorboards started rotting through, he dug his heels into what remained. He realized too late that the entire situation was a breeding ground for The Corruption, and it had a hold on him just as strong as Mary did, but in an odd way that’s okay. It almost feels like home.

The Dark - One minute, you’re in a goth club just hanging out, and the next, a strange person comes up to you and asks if you also find peace in the dark. When this happened to Gerard, he shrugged and said he supposed he did, only to be handed a card promoting a church. He knew it was weird, but “curiosity killed the cat” has never been a saying he liked all that much. He had to check it out. And he had to go again when it was just as weird as he thought it would be. Purely for investigation of course. The peace he found hidden from the world within the dark had nothing to do with it.

The Desolation - Gerard’s appreciation of destruction started small. At first, he just had a fondness for setting Leitner’s alight that were more trouble than they were worth. The way the flames consumed the paper was so…warm. So…consuming. So…efficient. They solved all his problem with one flick of his lighter, and that was intoxicating. It only seemed natural to escalate to getting rid of his other problems as well, up until he ended up burning down Pinhole Bookstore and truly embracing the flames.

More Undercut

The End - Being a ghost isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to Gerard. However, being an avatar of the end ghost might be. Despite his annoyance at the whole situation, he’s not shocked that it turned out this way. Dying in that hospital gave him plenty of time to feed The End, and when Gertrude brought him back with the book, not quite alive, not quite dead, and yet very afraid of what his existence meant for his mortality…well, The End latched onto him like glue to paper. As it turns out dying’s not that bad. It’s the staying dead that sucks.

The Extinction - Gerard has spent so much time worrying with Gertrude about a fear apocalypse that’s it’s hard not to think about the concept of human extinction. Especially when so many avatars are eager and willing to end the world just to serve their entitles in a more “pure” way. He can’t imagine wanting that. The concept of Extinction terrifies him, and it takes all he has to stay steady when Gertrude needs his help in defeating another ritual. But thankfully, he’s not stopping any rituals today. He’s only supposed to be helping Gertrude burn a few Leitner’s. Yet…it’s odd. He hasn’t actually gotten any burned. His eyes keep darting over to a letter on Gertrude’s desk. It reads “from Adelard Dekker,” and he doesn’t know why, but he can’t shake the urge to read it.

The Eye - “Better to serve the watcher then the lightless flame.” Gerard said those words for a reason. It’s nearly impossible in his line of work not to be tied to something, and Gerard’s always found the concept of forbidden knowledge much more welcoming than worms, fire, cannibalism, and all the other horrors the other fears bring. He’s fine with being the eye’s pupil. As long as it means he’s not belonging to something worse.

The Flesh (TW: Skinning) - Gerard was never really able to tell Mary no. He knew their bond was unhealthy…but he loved his Mother, and he wanted her approval more than anything. That’s why he agreed to help her with her ritual when she asked him to help her bind her skin into the book. He knew that he shouldn’t have agreed when he made the first cut, and he knew that he REALLY shouldn’t have agreed when it was all said and done and he had the urge to go out to the store and get some meat.

The Hunt - The most natural thing in the world is a child that wants their Mother’s approval. In that way, it’s not shocking that Gerard went to the ends of the Earth hunting Leitner’s for Mary. But what is surprising (but maybe shouldn’t have been) was when one of the fears latched onto that instinctual feeling and used it to make him an avatar of the hunt. He thought the urge to hunt might ease after Mary’s death, but…then he met Gertrude, and she gave him a purpose to chase.

The Lonely - It’s easy to be lonely in a world where you don’t fit. Gerard has always wanted a normal life more than he’s ever been comfortable saying. He’s spent so much time daydreaming about what it would be like to have normal friends who call him “Gerry” with a smile and allow him to leave all the fears far in his past. Of course, that’s not something that would really happen. People in the real world are just too…naive. He doesn’t fit in with them, and he doesn’t belong with them either. Maybe he’s just doomed to be alone. That would explain the fog that’s started following him.

The Slaughter - Gerard doesn’t think it’s wrong to kill a few Leitner holders if they refuse to hand over their books. And he really doesn’t think it’s wrong to kill the avatar’s of the fears he’s sworn to destroy. He’s just trying to make the world a better place after all, and the world is safer with fewer haunted books, and people, in it. Is a little cruel since Leitner holders and avatar’s alike often aren’t in their right mind by the time he finds them? Sure. But that’s a price he’s willing to pay. And he doesn’t quite remember why it wasn’t once. After he was shot by that war ghost Gertrude sent him to track down the means to the end all seemed so clear. He has to do a little bad to do a little good.

The Stranger - Gerard has never felt like he belonging anywhere. He is not ignorant enough to live within the “normal” word, but he has never managed to truly find a place in his Mother’s world, either. So he just drifts aimlessly in-between both, never quite sure what role he’s supposed to play or who he’s supposed to be. He knows his lack of firm identity makes him a target for The Stranger, and his facial features have looked a little…blurry lately, but that doesn’t make any easier to decide were he belongs.

The Vast - When you hunt fears it becomes easy to feel like you’re insignificant in the world. There are things that are so much greater than him…and the very annoying thing about his line of work is that those feelings can become literal very quickly. He’s started smelling ozone lately, and he can’t shake the dizziness that hits him every time he goes up the stairs to enter The Institute, but he’s not quite sure how to fight the sky when it’s so all consuming that all he can do is stare in helpless awe.

The Web - Gerard has very…complicated feelings about Mary and Gertrude to put it lightly. However, they did teach him the value in one thing, and that’s manipulation. He saw the way Mary would bat her shark-like eyes at his father and draw him deeper into her tide until he drowned. He saw the way Gertrude would act like a frail old and then go in for the kill when people would let down their guard. And he can play those games too. He’s really mastered the art of offering deals that people feel like they have no choice but to take. In fact, he’s so good, that Jon hardly hesitated when he leveraged information for burning his page. Spinning webs comes easily to him, he’s had very good teachers.