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germ stonoga is a 27 year old man originating from a tiny village in southeast poland, but now lives with his brother on a random sideroad on the way to gingham, in rural central ontario. they live in an old run down building which they assume used to be a warehouse of some kind. it was technically abandoned before they moved in.

he's a very sophisticated and elegant person who quite evidently cares a lot about his appearance and overall presentation. he's well spoken and clearly very intelligent, though with the way he talks about things its clear just how vain, abrasive, and snarky he is. his default opinion of everyone he speaks to is a negative one and he doesnt hide the fact.
in his defense, some of his aggressive nature is a result of a very toxic past relationship which has left him scared of closeness. he is naturally a mean person regardless. he has never had many friends at all but he prefers it that way as he thinks most people are not worth his time - he values good conversations and he believes the majority of people are not able to provide that to him. which is funny, because his boyfriend stef doesnt think very deeply about much, and he and angie (who he considers to be a good friend) dont have many shared interests at all.
he thinks he’s much more particular about his choice of close friends than he really is.

he’s also remarkably strange and its very jarring considering how refined he seems to be - which seems to really be more of an act than anything else. when at home he tends to stand weirdly and make a lot of sudden jerky movements, often mumbles to himself while pacing around all erratically and moving his long fingers like he’s gripping something, and just like his younger brother he tends to completely vanish if you turn away.
he spends the majority of his free time pulling apart computers and putting them back together again repeatedly. this is the most obvious strange thing about him as his house is completely filled with various computers and tvs that are either disassembled or put together into some weird amalgamation. wires are hung off of every surface and covering the floor, and theres a constant electrical hum that you can even hear from outside. its at a point where this behaviour of his could be considered hoarding, however he is extremely pleased with everything he’s created. he makes an effort to act “normal” around other people and hide his weird mannerisms, however he will gladly talk about his computers at any time.

considering how severely impacted vern is by their true origins, its odd that germ rarely pays any mind to it. germ likes to think he's smarter than his brother is, but the fact that he's not bothered at all proves that this isnt true.

appearance

germ is very tall and very thin ; lithe, but sharp. he's very bony. dont let him elbow you. he cuts his hair himself into a sort of messy bob type thing, and its a weird colour, sort of like a greenish dirty blonde. it looks good and thats all that really matters. his face is long and slim - nose thin and sharp, some sparce freckles, thick eyebrows and monolid eyes behind his big square glasses. he has a really nice smile but not many people get to see it; mainly because he’s a grouch but also because he’s got a gap in the far left side of his upper teeth that he tries his best to keep hidden.
the left side of his face (as well as left shoulder, most of his left arm, and across the left side of his chest + back) is covered with a reddish burn scar. the injury wasn't severe enough to disfigure his face aside from causing damage to his left eye to the point of blindness - the skin in these areas is just discoloured and weirdly textured, however he doesnt have any sensation in these spots.
(he does also have a whole area under his bangs where the scar extends up onto his scalp and hair cant grow anymore but he does a very good job of hiding that)

in terms of his fashion sense, he almost exclusively wears women's clothing. he chooses to only wear black, skin tight revealing clothing, and most of the pieces of clothing he owns are made of either pvc, latex, or leather. he also really likes belts and honestly any metal at all on his clothing. he always has very long and sharp black acrylic nails, and it's worth nothing he's never been seen leaving the house in any footwear with a heel any shorter than 3 inches tall. Ok he definitely has some kind of latex fetish or something going on lets not beat around the bush. its all just so fashionable though

his voice is deeper than you would expect, and its a bit scratchy like he needs to clear his throat. he speaks with a very heavy polish accent, although not to the point where its difficult to understand what he's saying. he's very monotone by default, his tone really only changing if he's excited or angry, and he sounds no different depending on the language he’s speaking in. he can frequently be heard singing to himself.

trivia

• his birthday is may 7, technically its his anniversary of gaining consciousness as a human being rather than an actual birthday. however unlike vern he just calls it a birthday like a normal person
• he is quite visually impaired - he's blind in his left eye and his right eye is very severely farsighed. the lenses of his glasses are super thick and he gets headaches from reading small print for a prolonged amount of time. he tends to bump into a lot of things when hes anywhere unfamiliar
• he used to play the oboe in highschool, he probably still could now if he had access to one
• he has very severe automatonophobia. he does the majority of his clothes shopping online for this reason, and the only type of doll he can deal with is rag dolls and even then they still make him uneasy
• he is ambidextrous. originally right handed but chose to learn to use his left as well
• his reflection doesnt show up in mirrors sometimes, but seemingly only if he walks by quickly. its there like normal when he does a double take...

relationships

vern
vern is his younger brother. they are extremely close, yet their relationship is slightly strained. from an outsiders perspective, one would assume their relationship is a bit off simply due to their cold personalities and their frequent tendency to argue. the truth would never make any sense to anyone if they did decide to explain.
germ basically raised vern, and he has been the only guardian vern has ever had. ever. unfortunately germ has been unintentionally somewhat neglectful in some ways (and still continues to be) but neither of them particularily feel bad about it (in terms of the past, at least) as they both acknowledge that their circumstances for their first few years of life were far from ideal. this is not the reason for the aforementioned strain.
germ often doesnt take vern all that seriously and tends to brush him off as "just a broody teenager". however, this is moreso because germ is an asshole and thinks he needs to “protect his image”, so most of this ignorance is around others, in his mind, at least - he's seemingly unaware that he still acts pretty much the same when its just the two of them alone. he does care a lot about vern, dont get that twisted, just apparently not enough to realize that vern is genuinely very depressed and not just bringing up things to get a reaction out of germ. at least he makes the effort to try to include him whenever he can when stef and angie are around, because he'd never get any social interaction otherwise.
its a bit unfortunate that germ is meant to be a caregiver. he is very much not suited for the role.

stef
stef is his boyfriend whom he is committed to. they absolutely hated each other the first time they met and the only reason why they are together now is due to the sheer absurdity of crossing paths years later in a small ass town in the middle of nowhere.
after choosing to start over with their inital relationship and become friends, they wound up falling in love. they keep their relationship pretty private which is a little surprising for stef, but germs previous partner was quite abusive and so germ is understandably pretty anxious about a lot of relationship things. theyve been together for a little over half a year now.
a lot of people dont think theyre right for each other, mainly because they argue a lot and pda makes germ very antsy, so nobody ever sees them talking sweetly or doing anything other than holding hands. maybe its true, but theyre quite deeply in love and dont hate each other, which is really all that matters.

angie
germ likes angie a little more than she likes him, although they do consider each other to be a good friend. theyre a bit of an odd duo - theyre never really alone with each other so its hard to gauge how exactly they feel about the other. if it werent for stef they'd definitely never speak to each other.
angie's spinelessness really annoys germ but thats really his only gripe about her. he thinks shes actually quite lovely. although they dont have many shared interests at all their different perspectives on things are actually sort of a bonding topic between them, strangely enough. in most cases germ would never want to have a discussion with anyone about their different views but thats majorly because he has no desire to talk to someone who's going to disagree with him. angie doesnt really disagree - shes more curious as to why he thinks the way he does and its quite civil and nice. theyve laughed about things together and thats enough for them.

backstory

germ avoids talking in depth about the past because his previous relationship affected him so badly. if anything, he'd rather just talk about what it was like when he first moved to canada and then talk about how he won the lottery and moved to the house he lives in now.
that isnt a lie, by the way, but we'll get to that in a moment.

germ and florian met in highschool. florian then eventually moved in with germ and vern and a year or so later after that the three of them moved to ottawa. they lived there for a long while.
florian wasnt originally a bad person, at least it didnt seem like it. he hung out with some bad people after they moved to canada and germ just believed they were the reason why he was getting so mean. truthfully he had been a pretty controlling person all along , but just ... not as much in the beginning.
anyway. one day after taking vern to school germ broke up with florian despite not having anything sorted out about what was going to happen next. florian was surprisingly calm and germ went out for a walk to compose himself afterwards. germ then went to a gas station and bought a scratch ticket. for no real reason, he never bought them. he scratched it right there at the counter only to reveal that he had won 20 million dollars. so there you go. he cried and the dude behind the counter patted him on the back. he went home and florian had completely dissappeared. so there you go. he and vern burned everything florian left behind, packed their shit, and moved to gingham. and now we are here.

obviously theres much, much more than that. somewhere in there germ decided to start dressing more femininely. germ had had many jobs just so he wouldnt have to be at home. florian had been in a band and that was kind of a big deal. germ met stef. the lenses of germ's glasses kept getting thicker. florian really was a terrible person. germ has had his drivers license suspended. vern came out as transgender. so on and so forth. germ would rather just look ahead.