#but i’m tired and the idea of my favorite couple immune to heteronormativity supporting each other’s interests is too good

[sheltershock]

An idea I’ve always enjoyed thinking about is art student Sasha. Yeah, he’s a scientist that works with machines and brains, and knows psychology stuff like brain workings and dream interpretations, which you’d think require some sort of higher education. And I’m not saying he wouldn’t have those kinds of degrees. But I think it’s amusing how often Sasha is talked about being a genius, and his intellectualism and all about his experiments… and then I glance over at the source material and the most evidence we get for education actually implies he was an art student and that’s hilarious to me. 

There’s the title to the track that plays in his level, “A Mind of Bauhaus Principles,” in which the Bauhaus is an art school. There’s the second face of the cube in the level which has like spinning disks on rods and I don’t really know what this part is supposed to represent, but the figments are of like drawings and people at pottery wheels so the best explanation I have is a collection of strange art projects(or since all of the memories in the level are negative, failed/frustrating/difficult art projects). The cube itself is painted in a Bauhaus style. The Psychoportal that Raz “borrows” from Sasha doesn’t have machinery or neural pathways decorated on it but painted rectangles that are more artsy than scientist themed. And when Raz meets Edgar, a literal prisoner of art, and throws Sasha’s Psychoportal to enter his mind, Edgar comments on the door. “Are you working on an abstract piece? …Nice use of color.” (Of course the comment could be about Raz entering the mind, I think the other inmates have comments while entering, but Edgar starts talking before the door even opens. I think both could be valid interpretations.)

But I like the references to Sasha being artsy, it’s a nice touch. Especially since people on the Spectrum often are both intellectually and artistically talented, but often autistic characters are often displayed having one or the other. I think the reasoning for this is because each part is often attributed to different sides of the brain, so having a character both smart and artistic is a strange idea? But actually having a character on the Spectrum have both is a nice touch. It’s also neat because being an artist has little to do with being a Psychonaut, it’s not part of his job. Much like the space/alien interest it’s a nice little detail that being a Psychonaut is not Sasha’s core identity, he has other things going on which is a humanizing detail. 

I personally have the headcanon that initially Sasha went to college for art, but then stopped for some reason(stress, money, mental breakdown, etc.), got scouted by the Psychonauts and then switched gears to a more intellectual based degree like psychology or engineering or something. And ever since joining the Psychonauts, he always had the goal of going back and completing that art degree so he’s been saving a portion of his salary for whenever that happens. Then years after the fact, decided to start on that again and eventually completed it on the side. He’s not ever going to use it, to his knowledge, because he likes his job as a Psychonaut. But it’s the degree he’s the most proud of and exclusively has it hung up in a nice frame in his house. He has his other degrees at work as a symbol that he knows what he’s doing, but he gets the most joy observing the art degree, either from how hard it took to eventually get it with all the stops or just from intrinsic value. 

He’s probably doodling all the time at work in secret. People in meetings are secretly intimidated/impressed about how quickly and dedicated Sasha is at taking notes. But he’s actually just absentmindedly scribbling on the free page he gives himself in the stack of papers he gives himself for actual notes and annotations. It’s an invisible stim that gets you to use your entire hand to do controlled, impulsive movements but in a socially acceptable way. Plus art is therapeutic, so it’ll be a nice way to step away from an infuriating experiment to calm down and approach it later with a more stable mental space. 

I think Milla found out about it because they were sitting together in a meeting and she hadn’t heard anything particularly worth taking a note on yet, but for some reason Sasha’s pen/pencil hasn’t stopped moving. So she looked over his shoulder to see what she was missing in the meeting, and just found artistic renditions of various objects and people in the room plus some random scribbles. She looked away before Sasha could notice her peeking, but he noticed her anyway. They talked about it later, and she thought it was pretty cool. Milla even asked if he could draw her, and he did, though he immediately apologized saying that he was never proficient at female anatomy. She loved the drawing anyway, and she still has it. But she had to give it back and insist that he sign it, because he didn’t initially. It took some convincing, but she did get the sketch signed by the artist, to which Sasha thought she was too giddy over. 

In meetings she occasionally looks over at the sketch page, smiling, almost getting them both in trouble by laughing at a couple. She always insists that he draw her more often, and you can see the improvements between each drawing. Some are in color, some are in black and white, some look more experimental, and some are in mixed medium. Milla saves them all regardless. 

The one drawing that always makes her tear up is one in her old nurse’s outfit. When they moved in together, she couldn’t throw it away because of the memories, both good and bad. Regardless, she wanted to put it on and look at herself in the outfit after all these years and after how much she’d changed. But she ended up being unable to put it on, stashing it in the back of the closet. She was able to play the piano and look after children again, but she couldn’t put the outfit on no matter how badly she wanted to see herself in it. Milla said over dinner how she remembers she looked back then, noting that she wore her hair up in a neat bun rather than down like she usually does. And then later that night, she was handed a piece of thick paper that depicted her wearing the outfit. It was in a pose and with an expression that she never had worn back then, but it was definitely the current Milla Vodello wearing that outfit with the accompanying hairstyle. She ended up bawling when she saw it and had to explain through tears that she was really happy with it and grateful for it.

On nights where neither of them have to stay late working, I like to imagine Milla seated at a piano, playing whatever song comes to her at that moment, and Sasha sitting with a book off to the side, listening to the pleasant melody. When she gets tired of playing she’d get up so they could sit together. And she’d realize at some point between her getting up to play and sitting down together, that without her noticing he’d put his book down and started sketching her without her knowledge. She’d chuckle, since it happens occasionally, and ask why. She’d get some answer about how her form was interesting, or it was her expression, or the shadows…but each drawing just has this pure joy emanating from her from the elegant lines.