#but i refuse to add this under 'keep reading' bc. quite frankly. im a stubborn guy :^)

[forgaeven1]

GENDRY'S ALTERNATE VERSES. as it says on the tin. please be aware that many of these details are negotiable and incredibly flexible.

— TV SHOW CANON.

gendry was born in flea bottom, king’s landing. his mother was a tavern wench. gendry doesn’t remember much about her, ‘cept she’s got yellow hair and a soft voice that could always lull him to sleep. one day, she doesn’t wake up anymore. gendry is six when he was brought to tobho mott. he is nine when he is allowed to shape his first steel. and then, he’s a boy of six-and-ten and master mott sold him to the watch. his life changes but he realises quick: that it isn’t always for the better. NOTE: i will insert the timeline gap explaining what he's been doing from season 4 - season 7. season 8 is malleable as fuck, so please feel free to treat it with a grain of salt. what's important is he's a wounded bull who just wants to feel like he belongs somewhere.

— PRINCE GENDRY BARATHEON.

this can be written two ways: # ... gendry’s cersei trueborn son # ... he was swapped as a baby with cersei’s true heir to spare cersei the heartbreak of losing her first child. this is usually up to respective rp partner(s) and thread(s). in any case, gendry is raised in the red keep - though, due to his temper as a child and an almost brooding nature, he was always easily isolated by his peers. growing up, he recognises mother’s children are all of golden-haired and light eyes and gendry feels even more separated from his entire family. he tries to be good to them when he can, yes, despising even the thought of becoming anything like father, but it isn’t always easy. he finds entertainment, though, in battling on the courtyard and testing weapons. sometimes, when he can, he even pokes himself in the smithy. he likes the flame and the heat; like to see how the steel are shaped and made, and how he will wield them later, strong and true and, in some light, perhaps looking knightly. gendry doesn’t like the throne very much; doesn’t like the lies and the secrets and the whispers of the court. you are naive at heart with a stubborn but just intention, my prince, lord varys once told him, and one day this kingdom will ruin you. but grandfather said it’ll be his duty someday, so he swallows his complaint and nods. he always does. plot twist: should we go with the (ii) route, gendry’s heritage is somehow uncovered. upon the knowledge of him being born truly to a tavern wench, his illegitimacy causes the court to crown joffrey instead to the throne. soon, gendry was ordered to leave the red keep, and he’s lived for about a year in the smithy of tobho mott’s as an apprentice before a warning came and he flees along with the night’s watch. though commonly known as the bull at first, gendry’s identity as the “exiled prince” comes to light when the gold cloaks finally caught up to him. he escapes with arya, the princess of the north at the time during the war of the five kings, and hot pie in tow.

— RECOGNISED BASTARD.

all gendry knew all his life was the streets of flea bottom. he was even lucky he got brought into the steal street when mum died, and worked there under tobho mott and was given a cot all t’ himself and everything. it wasn’t fancy, no, and it took him almost five moons till his master was done with his clothes and decided to spare him a coin to buy more fabric so adelaine from two shops over can stitch him a few new clothes t’ his back. suddenly though, he was recognised by the hand of the king, and he was brought to the castle. gendry was always a lowborn, that’s what he knew — as it turned out, his father was the ruler of the seven kingdoms. he is now gendry waters, officially; the bastard boy kept in the keep’s smithy, protected under lord jon arryn.

— ANOTHER BASTARD IN HIDING ( IN THE NORTH )

of black hair and blue eyes, and a body larger for a boy his age, gendry has always displayed the typical characteristics of a baratheon. fearing he will be hunted, the hand of the king, jon arryn, arranged gendry a safe passage to the north. a letter is there when he’s finally brought down to kneel in front of lord ned stark. he couldn’t read the letter even if he wanted to, so he doesn’t - and instead watches as lord stark’s eyes grow wide, almost in panic. when he tugs on gendry’s jaw and asks him to look up, all he muttered was, “i see it.” later he was told that he’s got a large built and a promising potential, so off to the smith he goes. NOTE: i’m open to writing this verse with gendry’s age varying when he arrives to winterfell i.e. he may grow up alongside the stark children, or he was just brought up perhaps about a year or two before jon arryn passes. this is up to my respective rp partner(s) and our thread(s).

— HOUSE OF THE DRAGON AU.

under heavy construction — delivering the news of prince aemon’s death to the capitol, gendry is the unknown bastard son of boremund baratheon, conceived at the back of the red keep in 92 AC with a local tavern wench. born on a hot summer’s day, gendry was a large child, strong. his baratheon features are notable to any intelligent eyes who could pick it out: dark blue eyes, black hair, and boremund’s stubborn frown. losing his mum at age five, gendry spent a year surviving on scraps before he was finally picked up by a local qohorik smith, who was impressed by gendry’s larger built (because he thought the boy was ten, when gendry was only six despite being malnourished). ever since, gendry has been apprenticing with the qohorik master armorer. however, unlike in canon, the master armorer — while an expert — wasn’t as distinguishable as tobho mott ( considering, during this time, i’m sure there are other smithy who can work with valyrian steel ), and thus, there would be some weeks where gendry and the armorer, master aoken, would have to try their best to make do with the pay they’ve got left. though a cheerful fellow, a disposition that has allowed for a constant stream of loyal customers, master aoken is also a known drunk and addicted to gambling. from this alone, most of their pay would be used up to finance master aoken’s addiction — which, as gendry grows older, he is trying his hardest to stave off, or aid master aoken from fitfully indulging. gendry was there, three-and-ten, when prince daemon targaryen established the goldcloaks and did a crime sweep of fleabottom, which, with it, gendry lost a few friends, and he watched as master aoken’s own mates’ hands were cut from cheating or the like; now demoting them from simple street rats to men who can never be hired for nothin’ again. what used to be a lawless pit, a place where misfits and bastards find a home where the rest rejects them, a lord of fleabottom sits. gendry continues to smith.