how gil found out he was trans - asobh
i haven't posted anything about my au in a while, but i've been thinking about it again recently... this is more rambly and not very ordered, so i apologize for that lol
i feel like gilbert realized he was trans pretty late in life. he was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen when he had his egg cracking moment
before he transitioned, he had long hair. really long, really beautiful, and very well-cared for hair. that was the only girly thing he was ever into. he never cut it, not really. it was his pride and joy. (every time he visited francis, they took turns braiding each other's hair. it was nice)
he never dyed his hair either. he likes the platinum-esque colour of it.
though, like, one day when he's visiting his mom (which he did sometimes. roderich came to visit them, and sometimes gil would go visit him and their mom. never ludwig, though. ludwig doesn't visit their mom. especially at that time, because he'd still be angry with roderich at that time), she decides that he absolutely should dye his hair. and she'd prepared everything, too. the hair products are expensive, and they need so much of it, and gilbert isn't actually the biggest fan of the idea, but his mom more or less pressures him into it. the whole process takes so long he thinks he's going crazy.
in the end, his hair is the same brown as his mother and roderich, and he doesn't actually hate it as much as he thought he would. he thinks that maybe brown suits him. it's a far cry from his father & ludwig, blonde and germanic, but he doesn't mind. he didn't fit in with them before either, after all. now he at least fits in with the other half of his family.
so when he gets home, he's proud to show it to his dad, wide grin, pose everything. burkhard (germania) isn't happy, though.
"you look just like your mother," but it's not a compliment. it never would have been. he sounds almost disgusted, and he's definitely disappointed. it's the worst thing he could've said.
and gilbert hates it, and he runs to the bathroom, and all he can see in the mirror is the vile woman that left him and his brother behind. a woman that left her dying child behind. (he hates her. he hates her so much. and yet... he still loves her. it's still his mother. and she loves him. doesn't she?)
and he decides that it doesn't matter how expensive the dye was, and how long it took, and just how long he's been growing it out for. all he knows is that he needs it gone. and he needs it gone now. he grabs his father's razor, and just shaves his head. he shaves everything off, until he's bald. until he feels like himself again.
and he stares into the mirror. he looks at the person. and he kind of looks like a boy, doesn't he? and he kind of likes it. he kind of likes it a lot.
after another mental breakdown, and some experimenting with pronouns, and with names, and with the help of francis, he finally, finally starts to actually feel like himself. because now he knows who he is.