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Name/Alias: Yasmine
Personal Journal: N/A
E-mail: yasmine.adams@ymail.com
AIM: crimpingwithnoel
Character Name: Gary Bell
Source: Alphas. taken from after 2x13
Genre: Sci-fi
Personality: Gary has been diagnosed as a high-functioning autistic (32 on the CARs scale), and this means that he has a rigid routine that he doesn’t like to be broken out of -So much so that if he misses his bedtime at 9:30, he will stay awake all night; he will change a routine if he has to but that is often a progressive change, not an immediate change. This means he will take a little help to adjust to being in Genessia, especially at first, but once he has figured out which parts of his old routine he can follow and what parts he has to change, he should start settling in fine. He has a habit of repeating his routine over and over vocally to himself if he is feeling far out of his comfort zone to make himself feel better. If too far out of his comfort zone or routine, he will shut down and go non-responsive, and you have to put him back on his routine to get a response out of him once again. Another good way to set off an autistic fit is for him to see his friends fighting. Apart from during a fit, he dislikes violence and it really freaks him out to see his friends fighting.
Because of his autism, this also means he has little to no empathy for others, and this is not only reflected in the way he can’t understand how others feel about a situation, but also in his understanding of privacy in others. Privacy is important to him, often telling people they can’t just come into his room or read his messages because it’s rude, but he doesn’t understand that it’s important to other people. Cameron Hicks, one of his co-workers, repeatedly has to tell him not to read his texts and when Gary reads in one of them that he and Danielle - their bosses daughter - had had breakfast together, Gary asks him what they had. Upon not being told, he puzzles over it until he figures out it was a metaphor for sex, and tells Hicks in front of Bill (another Alpha and co-worker) that “Breakfast was sex. Ha, I broke your sex code, Hicks.” Unmindful that Hicks probably wouldn’t want it spread around that he’s sleeping with the bosses daughter... or even that he wasn’t supposed to read the text in the first place.
Gary has trouble telling lies. He tells the team back in season one that he has been practising telling white lies as they’re a normal social skill. But he’s not very good at it, however, as he shows when he demonstrates to them. However, his facial and verbal tics and habits make him impossible to read to see if he’s lying, so he could lie and get away with it if he absolutely had to. But once again, it would have to be not much more than a white lie or lie by omission as he’s cannot tell big or complicated lies.
Gary seemingly has little control over his vocal volume, as he constantly has to be told to use his ‘inside voice’. However, he often replies that his ‘inside voice is too quiet’, so this could also be a conscious decision on his part. He has no brain-to-mouth filter, so you will usually hear exactly what he’s thinking on a subject should you ask. And sometimes, even when you don’t ask. Socially acceptable and normal behaviours are something he practises as part of his therapy, but he doesn’t always observe them. He is, however, more than capable of sticking up for himself (when a bully calls him a retard, he replies “I’m not a retard, I’m high-functioning autistic, 32 on the Cars sca- hey. you shouldn’t use that word. I’m not a retard, you’re a retard.”) and sarcasm (When Bill is annoying him, he repeatedly tells Bill to shut up. when getting told off for this, he puts his hands up in a kind of ‘what can you do’ motion and replies “I know, I have a bad attitude”).
He doesn’t understand or like to share, and expects his space to be respected. If there’s a violation of this, he can get frustrated and often this leads to an autistic fit and violent behaviours, such as throwing things and slamming doors, for example. He has idiosyncratic and complusive behaviour, which can often lead him to getting into trouble... but can also lead to him being helpful. If left to his own devices while being told to do something, he can often disobey or get in trouble, but will often do as he’s told unless it’s something that he believes is bad for him - at one point, he’s asked to run, but he outright refused on the grounds it’s a medical fact that it’s bad to run after you’ve just eaten, which he had. He will have to be appeased - or will demand to be appeased - if you try to get him to do something he doesn’t want to do. Although, this is fairly simple to do and can often be achieved with something as simple as letting him choose where to eat lunch; you can’t offer him to do something he knows isn’t true, as he tells Bill when Bill offers to appease him by way of letting him drive. “That’s fool’s gold, Bill. You never let me drive, so that’s not true. That’s fool’s gold.” He also has echolalia - the action of copying speech from others if he doesn’t understand the meaning behind what’s said or doesn’t know the appropriate response - which is a typical symptom of high-functioning autism.
His rigidity in routine is mirrored in the way he needs everything neat and ordered. He doesn’t like things to be dirty or a mess, and will also go as far as to refuse to eat food is there’s no division in it, and all the foods are touching. He also says that Hummus is his favourite food because ‘it’s soft and all one colour’. He doesn’t like loud places or disorganisation, which could be why he doesn’t like going to the Salon with his mother, Sandra.
He still grieves over the death of his best friend Anna, going so far as to add ten seconds of screaming into his morning routine, but moving out of his house when he discovers this is upsetting his mother rather than change the way he’s expressing and releasing his feelings. It obviously works for him as he suggests it to Hicks after Danni dies, telling him it really helps. His bond with Anna shows that he bonds easier with people who are similar to him and have conditions like him, especially as he has not had much experience with that before.
Gary cannot drive but often wishes he would be allowed to, and asks frequently. He has only driven once in the series under Bill's supervision after Gary helped him solve a kidnapping case. He does, however, settle for the shotgun seat, but hates to be demoted to a back seat. He passed the online theory tests with perfect scores, but he admits he’s ‘not so good on actual roads. People get in the way And cyclists. And other cars..’ He doesn’t like using the brake pedal, which is why he’s not allowed to drive. He doesn’t understand things like ‘right of way’, believing it’s his right of way all the time.
He often states that he’s amazing and that what he does is amazing. He has a sense of humour, but it doesn’t appear well developed, chuckling a little rather than laughing at best but more often than not identifying the joke and saying that it’s funny. It can be hit and miss whether he picks up on someone else’s sarcasm. He doesn’t like to be touched or hugged, but he will bear with a comforting hand on a shoulder when he knows the person well. He states the obvious often, and if he wants something, he can be very specific. If things are not how he’s specified them, he’ll get upset over it and possibly hold it against you for a while. He also likes to be told things specifically.
Doesn’t like taking streets that start with L and V and he doesn’t like taking streets with numbers 9, 5, or 4. No reason is given for this, he just doesn’t like them.
History: Almost nothing is known about his pre-series life.
Detailed wiki-link for season 1
Between season one and season 2, Gary is sent to work for the NSA. An autistic meltdown at work as they didn’t respect the fact he needed times for his routines leads him to being locked up in Binghamton (a prison for Alphas) and a chip put in his head.
Detailed wiki-link season 2.
Powers: Gary’s Alpha ability is that he can read, watch, and hear signals. He’s best at reading and tracking electromagnetic waves, as it’s what he has most experience in, but he has been shown how to pick up the signals from things in nature and off anything biological (he’s listening to his food at one point). The signals appear to him as multi-coloured waves and he’ll open up what looks like a circular window to read what’s in that signal through the use of hand gestures. Because his power is what lets him see this (Bill calls it ‘Gary-vision’ which annoys Gary), to anybody unfamiliar with what he’s doing often makes it look like he’s just Ticing.
The nature of his power leaves him vulnerable to Denial of Service attacks which leave him crippled with pain and passed out. Gary lacks actual fighting skill or technique, and is often left in the car to wait which means he has not had much experience to improve it (which is fine by him), but when throwing an autistic fit or freaking out over something he can turn violent. Microwave towers interfere with him, causing him to hear a buzzing noise which leaves him feeling stressed out as it distracts him from what he’s doing.
He is also unable to be ‘pushed’ - mind controlled - and this is explained in canon by way of his autism. Because his brain is so focused on routine and rigid, it disregards anything that’s not part of that which Gary has not consciously chosen to do. He’s also unaffected by anything that would require eye contact as he never makes eye contact because of his condition. He also has a good memory and is very intelligent.
Communicator Sample: (This would be set for after his initial post, after he’s a bit calmer)
[Time to start looking for his friends. They must have brought him here. Why? Did they think it was funny?] Bill? Bill. This isn’t a joke. I don’t like going places, you know that. I’ve told you before. I’m the brain of the operation, and the brain has to stay in the head. The office is the head. That’s my metaphor again, and Dr. Rosen said it was a good one.
[There’s a pause as he realises that no, he’s not getting a response from them. And then he starts searching the signals for his friends phones using a series of hand movements, scanning the colourful wavelengths that are visible to him. To anyone else, it probably just looks like he’s tic-ing with his hands.] Oh... that’s not good. The chance that all of them have either taken their batteries out of their phones or had them broken... well, you may as well not call it a chance. Hmm...
[Another few moments of the tic-ing types movements as he starts scanning through signals to go through messages to find any mention of his friends.] where’s Genessia? I don’t think I’ve seen it on google maps... [another pause.] I can’t find google maps. Or the internet. What sort of city doesn’t have access to the internet?
Prose Sample: Gary wakes up... not in his bed. It’s odd, actually, because he doesn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t go out with the lights and everyone else, and nor was it his bedtime, so he wouldn’t have slept because of that. He’s in... what is this? He doesn’t know. Panic starts to curl in his chest, making it hard to breath or think. Shouldn’t be here, this is wrong. that’s all he can think. Water. He wasn’t near water before, he was in Grand Central Station. Looking at everyone knocked out or dead. Even Dr. Rosen.
His legs come up and he brings his hands to his chest, making what’s somewhat of a foetal position. Should be here. This is wrong. I told Dr. Rosen I wasn’t going to leave. He starts to rock, it’s a minute movement, but it helps him clear his head enough to start looking at signals. Security Cameras. He likes to have eyes everywhere, it makes him feel slightly better to know that he can see danger. But he doesn’t get that far, noticing a signal coming out from the box that was in this thing with him. he opens it enough to see... his phone? No, that’s not his phone. A quick look and brushing his fingers over it is enough to tell him that. He doesn’t realise a feed is started with that touch.
Especially as he’s going into an autistic fit, shutting the world out because it’s all wrong. This isn’t where he was, he wasn’t supposed to leave, his friends needed him and that’s not mine. Skylar gave me a phone, it was a gift, you’re supposed to keep gifts even if you don’t like them and that’s okay because I like the phone skylar gave me. With all the wrongness around him pressing in on him, he withdraws. His mouth starts moving, and although the feed is only showing sky, there’s a quiet murmuring that can be heard off-screen. “I get up at 7.42. I my brush teeth, dress myself appropriately, shirt, pants - you have to wear pants even if it’s uncomfortable , it’s important to wear pants when you leave the house - 8 o’clock call mom after screaming but before breakfast, Greetings happen at 9am, and Lunch is at 1.30...” He lists out his whole routine quietly to himself from beginning to end. It’s comforting.
He sits there, comm recording the sky and his endless muttering of his routine for as long as it takes. He doesn’t want to go out in the wrong.