i looove the idea of a gertrude era everybody lives au. its sarahs first office party since being hired and shes learning the horrors of erics shitty dad jokes and michaels Taste.
One thing that never ceases to amuse me about the gertrude-era-assistants part of this fanbase is how the two most popular choices of who Michael Shelley is shipped with are father and son.
What makes it even funnier is that neither of them are (cannonically, but it's Michael Shelley and his timeline already doesn't make sense, I think we're allowed to rewrite it a bit) his age.
What makes it even funnier than that is that they're very similar personality wise. We don't agree on who he should date, but we sure agree on what his type is. (That and like a bunch of other things. For a character that has about 30 seconds of screentime and is otherwise monolouged about by the thing wearing him like a skinsuit, we all sure have very similar ideas about him).
So I may have made an au whos main premise is "Eric dumped Mary, eloped with Michael, raised Gerry in a healthy environment and now they hunt Leitners" (more info below)
I even have art
So in this au, instead of staying with Mary after quitting the Institute and getting put into the skin book, Eric broke things off with her and ran away (with Michael's help). Mary decided that they weren't worth stopping and proceeded to put herself into the book.
Eric was raising Gerry by himself, but Michael offered to help, as Eric had some difficulties, both due to his trauma and his disability. They ended up falling in love.
They didn't tell Gerry about the Entities. They wanted him to have a normal childhood. But they still were targeted by the supernatural, especially leitners. They tried to be as discreet about it as they could but Gerry did eventually find out. They sat him one day and explained it all.
And when Gerry was sixteen, he said he wanted to help. So they packed up and left, becoming leitner hunters (but they sure as fuck weren't associated with the Hunt). They rode around Great Britain dealing with cursed books and any other Entity manifestions they encountered.
At some point, Jon and Gerry met. They became friends and eventually lovers. Jon wanted revenge after his encounter with Mr Spider, so he joined in on the family business.
And after pulling his childhood best friend, Martin, out of the Lonely, they became a triad with Gerry, helping their in-laws with the books.
Now they ride around, searching for manifestions and scheming to take down the Institute.
[ID: There’s two images, first a child’s drawing: Tiny Gerry in the middle, Eric at his side with shades and a cane and Michael at his other side, Michael is double the height of Eric with long yellow hair, big and sharp fingers, big spiraling eyes and a huge creepy looking smile. Despite him looking creepy they’re all smiling and its a charming drawing.
The second is a sketch of Eric in orange and Michael in green looking at said drawing: Eric, a man with slighty dark complexion, dark hair and shades, is smiling excitedly and asking “is it cute? I bet it’s wonderful” as he raises the paper for Michael to see. Michael, tall, white and with long curly blond hair, is towering over him laughing amused, smile spiraling at the edges and long, sharp fingers twisting as he points at his drawing self. //End ID]
yesterday we were talking abt an au where eric doesnt die and he and michael sort of raise gerry together... :’)
tbh if anyone Needs to ship a michael with a goth, michael crew and oliver banks are right there
anon your ask threw me back into 2008 I love this. from a purely stylistic standpoint* gerry is metal goth which does Not vibe with michael's candy pop scene vibes at all**. also I'm pretty sure metalheads hate scene so there's that.
on the other hand I'd actually argue oliver is emo not goth and he's definitely emo pop punk which is great for oliver/michael because even though there's some emo vs. scene controversy that relationship is the Image of existential color vomit on a black backdrop.
mike/michael could also work with the color vomit aesthetic but mike isn’t even close to goth. mike dresses like he’s in Howl’s Moving Castle. michael squared would involve SO much pink and jewel tones.
all this being said I'm a fan of eric/michael they have wholesome nerd/weird bitch vibes.
*because from a purely everything standpoint FUCK gerry/michael.
**human michael wasn't brave enough to pull off any remotely alternative aesthetic but the spiral's second door led him to British Hot Topic (which fits bc he got twisted in like 2008? pretty sure it was still major scene/punk in the mid/late-00s).
