#and i could've approached it from any of the sugar bowl gen siblings or all of them but i thought of sally and gustav in particular

[whoslaurapalmer]

for @asouefanworkevent’s woevember day 1, sugar bowl gen siblings, i put together some ~sebald sibling headcanons~ ⭐⭐

-gustav is older, by three years

-gustav wears green and black (he likes suits), sally wears black and white (she likes stripes)

-when they were kids, they played a game (in the grand headcanon tradition of ‘sugar bowl gen siblings like Playing Games’) called cat. there was a cat who hung around the library of the city headquarters, a little black cat named doyle, who spent her time gently pawing things to the edge of the table they were on (books, pens, ike’s cup of water, beatrice’s glasses she’d purposely leave around), and then knocking them off, and gustav and sally would watch her and go ‘oh that looks like fun?’ so they would balance things on the edges of tables to see where the center of balance was, and take turns finding high places around headquarters to drop things off of for the other to try and catch

-sally is into photography, and music

-when sally was old enough to have her own camera, she definitely took lots of pictures of Things Falling Through The Air while playing cat with gustav. she thought they were very artsy. adult!sally is slightly embarrassed about all the photos, but still thinks they look pretty cool.

-she helped gustav on almost all of his films (specifically, she did the scores)

-gustav’s greatest love is film, but he also worked in codes, and with monty in herpetology

-the two of them didn’t spend a great deal of time together actually, after their apprenticeships (which were both in the city, so they saw each other a lot then), but they were usually working on the same things just separately – sally would gather the information that gustav put in his movies, they would keep the scripts in one place and go there separately to make edits on the other’s work, one would be on set and the other would be somewhere else, they sent each other a lot of coded telegrams and would doodle around the edges of them (gustav drew little squiggles, sally drew clusters of stars) (sally’s handwriting is very loopy and gustav’s is very tight but they both write numbers very similarly)

-they clearly aren’t twins but they look so remarkably alike that they’re still often mistaken for twins. they’re both very tall and have the same close-cropped black hair

-sally once broke into anwhistle aquatics to get information on the medusoid mycelium, on kit’s orders

-gustav would put any information in his movies. whatever was important, regardless of what “side” of vfd it was about. not like…..locations, or plots or assignments, but Facts. (like, he doesn’t give the exact location of the survivor of the fire, but puts it out there that there was a survivor of a fire.) his primary goal was that information and facts were available. that the medusoid mycelium was a thing that existed did go into a movie.

-even if they were rarely together, they were more in sync with each other than most other sugar bowl gen siblings. they implicitly trusted each other and knew the other would always be around somewhere behind them to have their back.

-they shared a lot of the same traits just by virtue of being siblings; of doing the same thing your sibling does, because that’s your sibling, because you’re related, and you do unique but similar things without even thinking about them because you’re always a part of each other

-they’d regularly eat in the same diner but at different times of the day, and sally would usually be in there first, and would put all but one of the sugar packets at her table in her iced tea (it was never sweet enough for her). she’d leave the last packet balanced on the edge of the sugar container on the table.

-when gustav would come in later for dinner with monty, they’d sit at the same table, and gustav would pick up the sugar packet and smile and then have to ask other tables if he could use their sugar packets because the iced tea there wasn’t sweet enough for him, either. he’d leave a different brand of sugar packet balanced on the opposite side of the container sally placed hers on.

-they both carried a lot of Things with them. gustav always put things in his jacket pockets and would pull out things ranging from salad dressing to whole books (he used the salad dressing as actual salad dressing, but also in chase scenes.), sally always had a waterproof bag with her and pulled out things ranging from her camera to board games (she favored stratego) (both of them like to be prepared for any eventuality)

-gustav had a pen clipped to the front pocket of his jacket, sally would have a pen behind her ear

-they were both talkative, but in different ways. gustav was long-winded and wordy, sally was to the point but also incredibly detailed when explaining something. they make the exact same “oh!” noise when startled or excited.

-both of them had a go-to topic of conversation when things got awkward and it was just variations on discussing the weather. they’re both very interested in what the weather is because it can make or break shooting a scene or taking a picture