Greg’s life will never be the same, following a Gender Bender incident.
Irreversible Damage is a Diary of a Wimpy Kid fanfic (or LLBnote ) written in September 2021 by IcyOpportunity9
of Yogurt Extended Universe fame.
The story follows Greg's purchase of three magic potions from a shady comic book ad. While the first two potions fail to impress Greg, he is surprised to discover that the third potion is able to reverse the gender of the drinker. Greg decides to use it to fix problems with his school, which goes well until Greg finds himself drinking the "gender bender" potion. It all goes downhill from there.
Read it here.
Irreversible Damage includes examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion: Frank explains the backstory of Susan and Frank's relationship, specifically focusing on Uncle Larry, who is Susan's former ex-boyfriend and the true father of Manny.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In canon, there's no particular connection between the Heffley and Jefferson parents. In this story, the now-Mrs. Jefferson used to date Frank Heffley during high school, and the two never fully lost their feelings for one another.
- Adaptational Villainy: In canon, Greg is selfish and manipulative but not really outside of the norm for teenaged boys. Here, he's willing to liberally use magic potions to screw people over, up to and including forcing people to dance until they die and making Rowley's limbs fall off before smothering him with a pillow.
- Arranged Marriage: Mrs. Jefferson dated Greg's father when they were in school, but her parents forced her to break up with him and marry her current husband (despite him being ten years older than her) because Greg's father wasn't well-off enough for their liking.Frank: I know I'm not as rich as Robert, but I love Linda and I know he doesn't!
Linda's father: Come back when you're rich and we'll discuss this again! - Attractive Bent-Gender: Once Greg realizes he can use his new female form to get guys to do what he wants, he starts to put effort into his appearance and manages to make himself look very attractive. The inverse of this is parodied with Rowley, who looks identical to his original appearance save for having longer hair.
- Black Comedy: Greg finds a potion lying on Chirag's floor that makes people endlessly dance until they die of exhaustion. It pops up frequently in the fanfic, but serves a major role in the B-plot.
- Censor Box: After Rowley is turned into a girl, a large black box marked "CENSORED" is used to cover his bare chest.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Greg displays his usual selfish streak, lack of perspective, and tendency to view everything solely in terms of how it personally conveniences or inconveniences him. However, unlike in canon where this applies just to the minor troubles and actions of a middle school kid, in this story his casual lack of interest in the consequences of his actions is applied to things like turning Chirag invisible and then losing track of him, forcefully turning Rowley into a girl and ditching him mid-panic attack, and magically compelling multiple people, including his own brother, to dance until they die of exhaustion.
- Failed a Spot Check: Chirag's father mistakes post-Gender Bender Greg for his mother, despite him still being at middle school age.
- First Law of Gender Bending: No antidote for the potions is known to exist, thus making the various gender swaps entirely permanent.
- Gender Bender: One of the potions reverses the physical sex of those who drink it. This ends up seeing considerable use in the story, and multiple characters — including Greg himself — undergo permanent sex changes.
- Gilligan Cut: One entry, written when Susan finds Manny's body, ends with Greg hoping that the funeral won't be the next day. The next entry opens with him attending the funeral.
- Groin Attack: Greg kicks Christopher in his nutsack at the end of their date after the latter blurts out about how easy it is for girls to get pregnant. It's implied that after this incident, Christopher won't have an easy time impregnating other girls. This isn't the only reason why he kicked him in the nuts, though. Greg is told by his dad to not do it to other guys but, since he drank the genderswap potion by accident, he doesn't think that rule applies to him anymore. There were also other guys that he thinks deserve it.
- Invisibility: One of the potions turns drinkers invisible, including their clothing. Greg believes that this can be reversed with water, such as with a shower or rain, but it turns out that that only works in cartoons. Chirag turns himself invisible by drinking one of the potions, and while he's pretty upset over this at first he eventually comes to enjoy the ability to do whatever he wants without getting caught.
- Karma Houdini: Both Greg and Chirag spend the story causing chaos and mayhem, which in Greg's case includes causing numerous people to drink the dancing potion despite knowing full well that they'll dance until they die of exhaustion, smothering Rowley with a pillow, and causing Manny to have a fatal allergic reaction. Aside from getting turned into girls themselves, neither of them get any consequences for this.
- Lazily Gender-Flipped Name: Greg changes his name to "Greta", and Rowley changes his name to "Rowlette" after being turned into girls.
- Magic Potion: These are apparently made commercially, and people don't find their existence particularly noteworthy or unusual in an of itself. Greg purchases a set of three random potions over the mail and Chirag later gets a few more by mistake, and it's possible for middle school children to recreate them after spending some time analyzing them. Their effects on people who drink them include increasing the potency and noise of their farts, turning them invisible, causing them to constantly perform a swaying dance, making their limbs fall off, and reversing their genders. Greg spends a significant part of the story slipping potions into people's drinks for amusement, convenience, and petty revenge.
- Mundane Fantastic: The setting is fundamentally the same average, unremarkable suburbia as in canon, except that Magic Potions and Black Magic also exist. Greg is able to order magic potions over mail, their effects are never treated as especially unusual or remarkable outside of a brief discussion as to whether selling them like that is legal, and Greg barely registers his mother's casual discussion of necromancy as worth paying attention to.
- Necromancy: After Manny dies, Greg finds his mother and aunt casually discussing using necromancy to contact the dead. Later, Susan uses a necromantic ritual to return Manny to life.
- Parental Favoritism: Susan blatantly prefers Manny over her other sons, refusing to punish him for anything and using a ritual to bring him back from the dead. Frank doesn't share the same favoritism, likely because Manny's the result of an affair between Susan and Uncle Larry.
- Phonýmon: Greta pokes fun at Rowley's female name, Rowlette, for sounding like a "Battlemon" name.
- Plot Allergy: Greg re-kills Manny by exploiting his allergy to peaches.
- Ritual Magic: Susan uses a satanic ritual to bring Manny back to life. Greg overhears this conversation, but doesn't mention it to Frank until later because he doesn't know how he'll react.
- Second Law of Gender-Bending: Following some initial panic attacks, most characters take their transformations very much in stride. In particular, Greg/Greta mainly just cares about how she can use her new situation to gain popularity at school, but eventually decides that she likes being a girl and that she probably wouldn't bother using an antidote even if it existed. Among other characters, "Rowlette" quickly accepts being a girl and promptly starts dating Bryce, Tyson happily starts having sex with the other guys, and Greg's Uncle Gary is elated at the opportunity for advancement at his job as an adult entertainer. It's even lampshaded by Greg/Greta when they're shocked at how well they've taken to being a girl.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Rowley has a decidedly overinflated sense of how skilled he is at fighting; he's convinced that his martial arts classes have made him a competent fighter, but he's even worse at physical activity than Greg is. In particular, he decides to settle his issue with Greg with a fight, and when the latter arrives at his house he finds Rowley dressed in his martial arts uniform and greeting him with "So you have chosen your destiny, mortal." The fight ends a moment later when Greg pushes Rowley over.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Most people are far less put out by potions' various effects than one might assume. The various Gender Benders go almost entirely unquestioned, nobody pays any mind to the people compelled to dance constantly until they start dying of exhaustion, and Manny dying gets no emotional reaction out of anybody but Susan. Likewise, when Greg and Rodrick come across their mother and aunt talking about using necromancy to resurrect Manny, Greg's only reaction is annoyance at Manny still being their mom's favorite child.
