I myself love the idea of transmasc nb Basil. one of the things that really stuck with me is how on the nose his name is. like, Id get it if other people had on the nose names but their names are pretty normal (like Mari, Kel, Aubrey...) and then just... plant boy with plant name. feels like he picked it on purpose to me!! what do u think???
Nonnie your creative genius! It inspires me. Now consider the only other character that goes by a funny weirdly specific nickname......Hero. Run with me dear sweet nonnie, this ends up being a little bit of a roundabout way to get back to Basil
So we get the in canon reasoning of the hero sandwich, but yk what? I reject canon when I feel like it!! Or rather I do a soft retcon of canon. Also I only use he/him pronouns for Hero here to alleviate confusion but in reality they would probably be using she/her pronouns for him. Skip to the next set of bullets if you only want Basil (I probably should make these each their own post but whatever)
Mari and Hero have known each other their entire lives. They were born in the same year and their mothers are best friends. They’ve never known a time they didn’t have one another. So Mari is the only one in their group to really remember how Hero was before he transitioned
Hero’s birth name is Aurora (I really like to remind people that trans people don’t need to pick a name that’s anywhere near their birth name. There’s this thing in media where trans people only pick a name that’s like the masculinized/feminized version of their birth name. If that’s your journey then power to you and I love you for it. No judgement whatsoever because we all choose the name we feel destined for, but I want to share other journeys as well!!! My name is nothing like my birth name! purposefully!!) His mom thinks it’s very pretty and perfect for her eldest daughter
Hero...disagrees. He disagrees with a lot of it, but most of it he doesn’t know how to put into words
The other kids sometimes tease him and call him Sleeping Beauty. It’s always meant as a joke, but he gets really upset by it. His teachers tell him it’s not meant to hurt him, but it does.
He’s six when he tells Mari that he doesn’t like his name. He can’t really tell her why (because he isn’t even sure why. It’s a nice name) but it doesn’t feel like it belongs to him. He tells Mari while they’re sitting at lunch
He feels small and fragile when he hears his name. Like he’s a princess who belongs in a tower waiting for someone to save her. He doesn’t want to be Sleeping Beauty. He doesn’t want to be that. He wants to feel strong. He wants his name to make him feel good.
Mari doesn’t understand the fullness of it yet, but she does see how upset her best friend is. So naturally her mind is racing to come up with a solution. Then she finds one.
“Aurora is the princess right? Well then let’s make you the Hero! You can be Phillip”
Phillip doesn’t feel right either....but something in it does
“Hero,” He tries it out on his tongue, and it rolls off in the way that Aurora never did. He says it again, unable to hold back a happy burst of laughter.
It feels right. Nothing ever felt right like this. Like putting on a pair of comfy slippers after only wearing too small shoes his whole life. Mari seems absurdly pleased with herself as well. She vows that no one is going to call him anything else. He’s too happy
That afternoon though as they’re walking home with their moms, she corrects Hero’s mother and tells her not to call him Aurora anymore. Everyone stops and asks her why, and Hero is next to her looking scared. So Mari panicks
“Because of all the sandwiches. Hero brings a hero sandwich every day, and I think that he might turn into one.”
The mothers think it’s a funny joke, but they’ll play along. By the time Hero comes out when hes ten, everyone has been calling him Hero for years, so no one accidentally calls him by his birthname anymore anyway.
Okay now that HeroMari time is over, let me explain how this relates back to Transmasc Basil. I love parallels, so Mari helped to give Hero his name, and I think Sunny helped to give Basil his name.
Basil is a nervous little bean. He isn’t really used to having friends, and he loves them all a whole lot. He’s only eleven and a half, but he already knows he never wants to lose them. They’re the best part of his life, and he wants to always be able to be there for them and never hide anything.
But that doesn’t change how he feels inside. And he feels....not like who everyone thinks he is. Is that lying? Is it lying not to tell the others?
Basil doesn’t know Hero is trans at this point. Aubrey doesn’t either. Hero doesn’t tell people unless he has to because he passes pretty well (and even though he’s 14/15 at this point he’s still working through some of the enforced cisgender society shit. He isn’t quite ready to be out and proud)
So Basil thinks he might be the only person in the world who feels like this. He doesn’t have his parents to ask, he’s too scared to tell his friend, so he just withdraws. They won’t want him once they know, so it’s better to go away now.
Sunny is D20 perceptive though.
Sunny waits on the stoop of Basil’s house until he comes out to talk to him. Basil is terrified, but he can’t hold it in anymore. He can’t keep this secret.
So he blurts out that he thinks he might be a boy, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what that means, and he still likes some “girly” stuff, but he doesn’t know what anything means and he doesn’t want the others to look at him and think it’s wrong.
And Sunny is just like “oh okay”
Basil is about to have a heart attack. It can’t be that easy. Sunny just shrugs because he grew up with Hero, so he gets it. He tells Basil Hero is like him too, and they should go talk to him. But first does Basil want to be called something else?
Basil hadn’t even considered changing his name. He wouldn’t even know what to call himself. Before he can even start to spiral about making another huge decision, Sunny sees his best friend start to go into his mind, and makes the decision for him.
“Basil”
Basil? The other boy gives Sunny a questioning look and Sunny blushes but he keeps going.
“Basil is a plant. You like plants. Besides didn’t you say basil means good wishes and it’s synonymous with royalty. The “King of herbs”...right? That would be good...for you”
Sunny is blushing furiously at this point, and so is Basil. He knows that he goes into long tangents about plants, and the others sometimes let their eyes glaze over during them. Sunny was listening. Sunny cared enough to remember. Basil.
“I like it,”