#how: characterisation

[archive-of-wax]

Got thinking about Bo and Trudy while writing an addition to this post.

I might be in the minority here but I actually think in a way, deep down, Trudy preferred Bo over Vincent. Sure, Vincent may have been well behaved, talented at her profession, and easy for Trudy to mold into what she wanted from a son. And yes, Bo's outbursts clearly drove Trudy up the wall, and I can imagine as he grew older they must have had the most legendary bust up arguments that made the house shake and could be heard all through the town.

BUT

If you subscribe to the interpretation that Trudy was a wild artsy party girl before she settled down, then Bo is very much Trudy's son. I can imagine her as Bo grew up, witnessing his charismatic ways, his can't-be-tied-down independence, his ambition ('When he actually puts his mind to something...' she might've said), and yes, even his temper, and knowing that was all her. Two peas in a pod, just butting heads constantly.

Contrast that with Vincent. Even if he was the most polite and respectful child to ever exist, I can't imagine extroverted charismatic ex-socialite Trudy being able to understand or truly connect with her awkward introverted and mute son, whose reclusiveness is exacerbated to the extreme by a severe facial deformity.

It's like when a class graduates high school. It's always the fun misbehaving kids that teachers miss the most. Not the 'pleasure to have in class'. Vincent was easier to parent, but that doesn't mean he was the favourite in any meaningful way.

I feel like Bo and Trudy's dynamic is captured really well in this headcanon (I know the intro is slightly at odds with what I'm saying here but you get me). Trudy sighing in exasperation and doing that 'oh, you' head shake after tearing Bo a new one for whatever reason, deserved or not. Their relationship was volatile, when it got bad it was horrible. But the good moments, though scarce, were really good. They both knew they were difficult people, but it meant they really understood eachother, and it gave them a strong, yet undeniably complicated connection.

I also think Vincent knew, and he fucking hated it.

Bo always believed he was second fiddle. Why wouldn't Vincent have the same good times with their mother? More even? They're always cooped up in that workshop after all, surely they talk like that all the time.

But Trudy's investment in Vincent was led more by guilt and convenience than genuine love. And when Vincent stumbles into the kitchen at 3am to see Bo and Mama having a smoke and an actual genuine conversation, he swears to God Almighty he's never wished he was his brother more in his entire life.

The constant cycle of jealousy and inferiority it must have created in the twins would have been insane. To Bo, he was the black sheep and Vincent the golden child. To Vincent, he was Trudys talented protege, but Bo was her son.

[archive-of-wax]

I don't even know where to start with my love for this post, I've literally been rereading it over and over all day. This is by far the best interpretation of Trudy's parenting I've ever seen. It really captures the complex family dynamic we see onscreen with the twins, both with their mother and each other.

It's easy to focus on Trudy's evident abuse of Bo in the opening scene, but I think this is the first time I've seen anyone really analyse her interaction with Vincent. It's also one of the few times I've seen anyone speculate about his perspective or thoughts regarding his mother and her parenting, and I think you're spot on. Vincent wasn't showered with unconditional love while Bo got constant abuse. He was smothered with overbearing attentiveness that probably caused more issues than it fixed. Helicopter parenting certainly lines up with many traits fans have inferred from Vincent's portrayal, such as perfectionism, overdependence, and an anxious disposition.

I also felt that his perception of their mother wasn't as idolised as Bo's, and would go as far as to say that during his and Bo's kitchen convo I felt a hint of...exhasperation? Even weariness. At Trudy, at Bo's idolised view of her that he seemingly can't reject out loud, maybe even the purpose of their murderplot. I always imagined his feelings towards her to be something like 'I love you but please stop I'm begging you, why are you like this, why can't you be better for us', and I feel like part of that frustration came from knowing that none of the hovering and fussing was ever really for him as much as it was for her to feel better about herself, so any conversation about his feelings on the matter would have been pointless. If not immediately dismissed it would have just caused an argument, and this family has enough of those already, right? No need to rock the boat.

I have also never seen that newspaper clipping about Victor?! Could I ask where you found it? It completely throws loads of backstory theories out the window. Your version makes the lead-up to the murderplot make so much sense too. Bo and Vincent didn't just wake up one day and choose violence for no reason, but rather the pressure slowly built up: their father passing, the mill shutting down and all the jobs disappearing, then the town's inhabitants leaving, and lastly their mother's death. I imagine they found themselves alone in their now dead hometown, feeling washed up, lacking the practical and social skills to set off on their own (Vincent in particular), grieving the most pivotal person in their lives, and fit to burst with rage at the world. With their minds already cracked from their upbringing, and nothing to lose, it's easy to imagine how one thing led to another...Maybe some lost jackass gets a little too cocky with Bo at his mechanic shop, a fight ensues, Bo doesn't quite pull his punches like he knows he should and accidentally kills him. And then all it takes is a 'Yes, I know this is bad, Vince, but listen. You know how you've been having trouble sculpting like mama used to...?'

Anyway yes all this is to say this was a fantastic read! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, hope you don't mind me going on a mad ramble on your post haha. (Also could I ask you to link that study of a similar conjoined case? I've been looking for a real life counterpart to the twins' condition and could not find one for the life of me!)

Trudy refills Vincent’s cereal. He’s 2-3 years old and blind in one eye. He doesn’t need more cereal, he just needs his bowl rotated so he can see the cereal that was left over on his blind side. Not that we necessarily know how Vincent communicates without speech, but she hardly gives him time to answer her question about more before she’s refilling the bowl anyways. This is her approach to parenting her boys in general.

There’s no interest in fixing their actual issues. Rather than help Vincent to see what he already has in front of him, she’d rather add more, inadvertently also adding more onto the side he can’t see. At some point, this would just add to the issue. Overcompensation into overwhelm. Bo is brought in for breakfast kicking and screaming and it’s sort of evident why Trudy puts all her love into Vincent to the point of it being suffocating and unhelpful. Sure it could be a simple case of favoritism, but with the aspect of overcompensation specifically, it seems that she wants to balance her guilt over failing to parent one of her sons by pouring more effort than necessary into Vincent. Rather than giving the extra attention to Bo, it’s refilling a non-empty bowl of cereal.

I don’t think that necessarily mean she loves Vincent more. She finds him easier to parent. Fill the bowl whether or not he needs it because that’s easier than unpacking where Bo’s massive emotional outbursts are coming from. It seems more like love-bombing than genuine kindness. He’s “being such a good boy today,” but the implied part is an unsaid comparison to Bo. As twins, and conjoined twins at that, they’re not independent of each other. Vincent’s behavior exists only to contrast Bo’s, from her perspective. “Fix” his needs, and she can fix them both. Hence, preferring just to duct tape Bo to a chair than help him any.

Then Vincent grows up to become her protege, starting in his childhood but lasting until even after Trudy’s death. Over thirty years have passed since they were toddlers in those high chairs, but Bo gives a hint about why Vince got that ‘special privilege’ to not be as physically abused. “She always said that your talent would make up for what God took away from you.” Only, God didn’t take anything. Victor Sinclair doing illegal, unqualified surgery on his babies is why Vincent lost half of his face. Trudy only uses God’s name and religion as a shield for her own guilt about how her boys turned out. But it’s more likely she included Vincent in the wax business because she again, was dumping affection onto him over and over as her strategy.

Otherwise there isn’t as much favoritism between the boys. In their childhood photos, they both play piano, both play pool and baseball, both get to sit at the table with their birthday cake (without highchairs or bindings) and they play on the floor together. It's not entirely divisive between them, though it’s still obvious from which brother she’s slapping across his face and which brother she’s love-bombing which she’d prefer to deal with. Just not which she actually cares for more. Vincent wasn’t somehow spared from abuse in a house like the Sinclair household.

Interestingly, when Bo tells the story of Trudy and Victor, he mentions that once the Doc died, they were alone. Except, there’s at least one version of a prop newspaper stating that Trudy created a wax memorial for Victor. So this is just a false version of events most likely. Sure it could be that a decision changed, but there’s also the fact that, in the guns and ammo store, there’s a sign that says “Trudy’s Town or Wax.” And Bo tells Vincent, “We almost finished what mama started.” She’s also much older than the Trudy we see in the family photos and articles (even with the amount of cigarettes that woman smoked.) Ambrose is confirmed to have been abandoned for a decade, but to be turned into wax, Trudy would’ve had to die sometime between the abandonment of Ambrose and the present. Else she would’ve been properly buried most likely. The plan to fill Ambrose was hers, it’s just Bo that suggests using real humans (according to his apology to Vincent, he takes credit for the idea anyhow.)

Which makes her boys at least in their mid twenties when she died. In an older version of the script, Bo had killed her and Victor, but knowing it would put them all in foster care, that doesn’t quite make sense unless they were older. So the order of events is, Doc dying, the sugar mill closing, Trudy planning to reimagine Ambrose, and then dying herself.

The reason that’s important is because it’s emblematic of just how much pressure she was putting on both of her boys. And that’s not love. With two mentally ill, abused sons, (maybe three, since Lord only knows how they treated Lester once he came along,) that’s just manipulation. Victor and Trudy aren’t cartoon super villains for being bad to their boys. But when you can’t even just rotate a bowl slightly for your half blind little one, it’s shallow. Trudy has her cigarettes right in the boys faces in the opening and in most of the photos. Smoking was in one study linked to about 1/3rd of conjoined pregnancies, and in a similar case of conjoinment to the boys, one of the twins had lost an eye and had a prosthetic, but with minimal scarring because of the surgery being done in an actual legal hospital. It’s not about God taking anything, or about which is a little monsted and which is a very good boy- it’s about Trudy and Victor both messing up from the very beginning and causing the boys losses, then refusing to take accountability for it. Or, in the symbolic sense, to just do the right thing and turn a damn bowl of cheerios towards your blind kid.

[dirt-str1der]

I cannot believe this. Kim was designed to find harry funny ??? Like you ... like yeah. Sorry yeah he was , and it shows. He really does.

[juicerca]

“make me dizzy,, ₍^. .^₎⟆

sylus x reader ₊˚⊹ ᰔ

a/n : i got a fever too. me and xavier synched up like we on our periods together (WHICH IM ON </3) or some shit. my nose is stuffy and my body is burning 😭 !!!!! sylus fever fluff written to comfort my pain. just a short lil thing <3 SUPER SHORT </3333 cus my brain is broken and ill and i have an exam in two days WAAAA

synopsis : f!reader gets sylus to cool her down when her fever gets too unbearably hot by calling him over

content : pure fluff/comfort fic. i can't bring myself to write sylus angst (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ ) also sorry i keep writing MC in pathetic situations. i love girlboss MC as much as the next girlie i SWEAR, mc is cat-like/a little spoiled AGAIN (sylusMC is SOOO CATTY TO ME)

pet-names : kitten, sweetie, cutie, princess,

word count : 642

₍^. .^₎⟆ ⋆ 🐾 °

you lay in his (basically yours at this point) black silk sheets, tossing and turning, kicking your feet in nothing but a small black vest and your underwear. no matter how much you shimmied around, your feet felt hot, your entire body burned with a heat that made your sweat feel unbearably lukewarm and sticky on your skin.

the sheets were most definitely damp from all the cold (now room temperature) towels that you had used to try to cool your body. but to no avail. nothing was making it more bearable. 5 cool towels around your neck just didn't cut it.

and so, you crawl across the endless expanse of bedding to grab your phone (with some difficulty). there was only one person you wanted to see you like this.

you spam him with this sticker about 10 times before the three dots finally appear. you wait for two seconds...five...ten...god why is this message taking so long? you grumble, huffing with his pillow tucked under your chin and contemplating throwing your phone against the plush back of his bed.

he calls you before you manage to hurl your device,

"kitten? do you need something? i'm at the store now."

"huh? i thought you said you'd be at an auction?"

he chuckles,

"i was at one. but you only text when you want something... or if you miss me... and considering how you're in my room and i saw you this morning, i assume it's the former. though i'd be very flattered if it was the latter."

"i also text when i see something that reminds me of you."

"that fits into the latter." he smile through the phone. you can faintly hear the bustle of the convenience store as well.

"...i feel a fever coming on. can you get me some ice cream?"

"got it. what else?"

"i want you..." you mumble into his pillow, feeling sluggish.

"..."

"respond..." you whine close to tearing up.

but before you can pick up more of a fuss, he's already next to the bed with a grocery bag in one hand and his phone in the other and his evol swirling around him.

not really thinking, you immediately go to nuzzle your heated face into his tummy. it's not really that comfortable, and you brush against the cold metal of his zippers that scratch at your face. but, nonetheless, it's just what you needed. he always is.

he puts away his phone and the bag onto the floor, gently carding through your hair and his voice a soft rumble,

"hi sweetie... want your ice cream now?"

"later..." you take his hands, putting them on your face in a happy mewl, "so cool..."

"aren't you just a cutie? does my princess want me to cool her down?" he smiles, sliding one hand down to your sweltering neck. you exhale in satisfaction, it's a little congested and you look like a sticky mess...but he thinks you're adorable. he always will.

spoiling you was irreplaceable to him. there was nothing in the world more special than the feeling of being your one and only prince, dictated by his only princess. you could have anything you wanted, be as bratty and as demanding as you wanted, surrounded by luxuries and comfort and you chose him to be your supplier and partner in it all. it was undeniably his favourite feeling in the world.

you nod, settling like putty into his large hands. gently but surely bringing you back to a comfortable temperature. as you drift off, you hear him softly humming to you a lullaby. something familiar but yet not quite. he might not have ever experienced the song in his own childhood, but everything he found beautiful and comforting was something he would share with you.

your life adorned in joy and comfort would always be his priority.

₊˚⊹ ᰔ

[certaintylikelightning]

weirdly something that i really like about discworld is that vimes is Not a wife guy. like obviously he loves sybil and sam but in a lot of the watch books you see him really struggle with the fact that his work is what he loves and values over everything else (eg in night watch where he repeatedly calls the watch house ‘home’ and then berates himself for it, “you didn’t think about sybil until thought three���)

it just feels very true to life like how vimes has to reconcile the fact that he has become wealthy and powerful and can’t act like a regular watchman anymore

[archive-of-wax]

I want to add that Vincent portrayed himself physically much closer to Trudy than he did Bo, possibly signalling their emotional closeness. I believe that he portrayed the ‘wrong’ side of his face because that way he could place himself at Trudy’s right side, another common sign of closeness in art, making himself her ‘right hand man’.

He then also placed himself taller than Bo, and this can often be a way to indicate superiority. That, combined with the fact that Bo is directly touching the bodies at their feet, while Vincent isn’t (And is holding what looks like a paintbrush? Or is he just gripping his own clothes?), his hand is held up in a way that makes me think of enlightened figures in art. Gods and philosophers. Whether it was conscious or subconscious, I’m p sure Vincent is saying that though they both love and admire their mother, he was closer, smarter, more talented for her, while Bo is, well...the grunt. Doing the dirty work.

(This is honestly my favourite part of the entire set I think. Just the fact that this must’ve been specifically requested only to barely be visible for a millisecond of the movie...mad.)

going off of those behind the scenes photos i posted with some interesting details i noticed in this huge mural from the main room in the house of wax…

somehow i never noticed this was even on that wall in the many times i’ve watched this movie so i’m very grateful i stumbled upon these production shots, the focal point of the piece is a seated robed woman holding conjoined infants implying that the woman is a representation of trudy with her twin sons.

and i didn’t notice this at first glance but theres also two figures looking towards her almost reverently and holding down the pile of bodies by the woman’s feet, one with long hair and one with short hair, clearly this is vincent and bo as adults.

i’m thinking this is something vincent himself added on after trudy’s passing, aside from the morbid symbolism and the much older depictions of the two of them it’s reminiscent of his wall sculptures in the basement.

this film really has some amazing production design overall but i can’t imagine what other easter eggs like this are hidden in the sets that designers put all this time and effort into that viewers wouldn’t have otherwise noticed but i’m glad it’s there so lore obsessed fans can gush over it.

[laufire]

"I am a weapon" is not something that fits Robin Jason's thought process. I was on the fence on whether it world fit post-resurrection, but I've landed on no. The thing about Jason, even before becoming Robin and thus being handed the means to put his mark on the world (which this recent comic interpreted in the worst way possible), is that if anything he's prone to think of himself as someone with more agency than he really is, and acts accordingly. Weapons are objects, and as many times Jason, either by other characters or by the narrative itself, has being used as such (as a lift for others to step on, as the wrench in the works), he clings to and fights for and insists on his status as a subject. His journey to become the Red Hood isn't about shaping himself as the tool who'll best serve a desired purpose, but instead as an actor of change, as someone with a purpose and in control of it.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

Arctic Monkeys on Absolute Radio, 2011 ☆

[hyakujuuou]

Ninjago pilots: so Zane is just sort of a strange guy but y’know he’s got his thing and we’ve got our things and who are we to judge? He’s probably autistic, but we’re not going to out and say it. You have eyes and ears, though.

Seasons 1-2: so actually the reason Zane seems like a strange guy is because he’s a robot! He’s much more than that, though, and he’s his own unique person, and the other ninja are going to continue to love him for that. This changes nothing about the character we know and love :) he’s got his thing and we’ve got ours he walks like a person he talks like a person he’s just like us really. This is a metaphor for autism

Season 3: so there are actually other robots like him but Zane is still special among them. This season is about robots actually so we’re going to think about his robot thing more but that’s mostly cool things he can do. It doesn’t disqualify him from doing cool human things, too, and he’s really still the same awesome guy and his friends still love him and there’s never a question that the whole city mourns him like a person in the end.

Seasons 4-8: Alright he looks a little more undeniably robotic now but y’know he had to rebuild his body and maybe he’s more comfortable not looking like a human and it’s become such a core part of his character and the worldbuilding that it’s going to have to be there all the time so it might as well be visible

8-onwards: beep boop I am robot what is sarcasm

[deadbaguette]

Penelope, Diomedes, and Odysseus design sketches but you can tell I have a favourite (Penelope)

Just getting something down so I can have a good reference for the future when I draw them together again

[cynicalmusings]

had a couple more thoughts about socrates-esque!reader and anaxa, which i thought i may as well share:

you get a bad rap around the grove of epiphany, because you are, admittedly, rather annoying — anytime somebody’s finally submitting their thesis, you’ll butt in, ask a few questions, and suddenly three years of hard work goes right down the drain because oops, there’s a little oversight which, if you go down deeply enough, actually undermines the whole argument of the essay.

(people are genuinely beginning to leave herbs and offerings in front their doors in the hopes of warding you off. they do not seem to be working.)

point is, you’re infamous, and as a result are altogether treated pretty badly by the majority of other people; they’re rude, even though you respond to them civilly and politely, they make personal attacks on you instead of responding to your point, and so forth. (to be fair, there are some people who admire you—the majority is convinced you’re an evil messenger of some sort sent by zagreus to mess with everyone.)

you don’t care, of course—your interest lies in uncovering the truth, not what people think about you (in fact, were you concerned by people’s perception of you, you would have stopped questioning ages ago)—but funnily enough, there’s somebody who does get irked when they hear people badmouthing you behind your back (or indeed in front of your face), and this person is, surprisingly enough, anaxa.

he’ll never admit it—gods forbid, he’s far too prideful—but it really just… gets on his nerves when he hears all these nasty rumours being spread about you. if you’re going to criticise someone, especially in a debate, you criticise their position, not the person; it’s basic intellectual honesty and etiquette, and yet so many people forget it the moment you step into the room.

part of his vexation arises from this behaviour; part of it arises from a certain… fondness, one might say, which he has inexplicably developed towards you while he wasn’t looking.

so, whenever he catches people saying this kind of stuff, he will confront them. not in a particularly aggressive way, not in a way which betrays that he might, gods forbid again, actually care about and respect the subject of criticism, but he’ll go up and very flatly ask them to repeat what they said, provide evidence for their claims, and when said people inevitably come up spluttering for words, leave, and feel a tad more satisfied about it than he should.

tldr; anaxa has actually got your back, although he’ll never admit to it. nobody would guess it, considering how much you seem to get on his nerves with your constant challenges and questions to whatever he say, but it’s true. you were mildly surprised yourself the first time he spoke up from the sidelines in the middle of a debate and told your interlocutor to shut their mouth about your method of questioning and answer the question they’ve been so obviously avoiding.

anyway, let’s just hope you don’t get sentenced to drink hemlock. that would really piss him off.

[eeveesanddragons]

Just thinking about Breanna outside the Joseph Chang's house in The Double Edged Sword Job

Thinking about her speech in The Card Game Job

How she's not even thirty yet and has grown up and literally watched the world set itself on fire. How she has found pockets of the world where she's found her people, carved herself into something with teeth because who else was going to?

How Eliot immediately has her back, keeps an eye on her, let's her talk things out when she needs to. This kid who grew up on stories of him and his family's jobs and how he immediately folds her into it.

How Parker worries about being a good mentor to her (and how Harry becomes another father figure at time to Parker herself), how easily she pulls Breanna into a big sister/little sister dynamic. How she sees parts of herself and everyone she loves in her.

How Sophie meets Breanna where she's at and treats her like an adult, but also with the same nudging guidance she did with Parker and Hardison.

How Harry must see his daughter in Breanna, and how the world they grew up in was made by men like him.

How Breanna grew up with criminals who take down the actual bad guys of the world for older siblings and can see the tsunami of terrible things and still tries to do what she can against it.

How Hardison's crusade is building a wall against that tidal wave, and Breanna sees her older brother trying to help the world, and she wants to be like him - in her own way. Hardison, who in the original series tried to leave things better than they were. Hardison, who is flying around plugging holes in the sinking ship that is the world because that's where his skills are most useful.

Hardison and Breanna, who want to tear the system down and make it better because it ruined so many people's lives, and they refuse not to believe that things could be better.

Just - Breanna.

[yanderethorne]

happy faradiddle friday to all who celebrate!!

[onewomancitadel]

I was on glitterberri's website reading about Wind Waker's development (it's relaxing) and was taken by this developer's description of Ganondorf:

Ganondorf, to me, is the embodiment of villainy. I really enjoy the idea of the villain being the antithesis of the protagonist. While the baddie is a persona whose brutality must be overcome by the player, he also has an admirable sort of charm. That’s what I was aiming to capture as I designed him.

The Wind Waker takes place in an era far removed from Ocarina of Time, so the character has lost the air of youthfulness he had in those days. At the same time, and in contrast to his ambition then, he’s also imbued with a certain sense of resignation… He’s known for a long time that he can’t escape from his destiny of pursuing the Triforce, but even so, he hasn’t given up on his pursuit of the Hyrule of old.

The world of the Wind Waker consists of a lot of small islands floating atop the Great Sea, but Ganondorf has no desire for them. That’s why I gave Ganondorf a strong figure, with no room for whimsy or excess.

(emphasis mine) These are four simple attributes of the ideal monster husband

[chainsawworld]

New yawk

[rogerrrroger]

Two of my favourite Blu’s from the Pootis s2 premiere!! I absolutely love the blu teams designs and differences, amazing job quazies 😁