#gonna ask my professor later if she knows if ill be able to special order through our local arts supply store

[tothechaos]

good fucking luck you might just have to buy a industrial roll of paper

WAAAAAAAAAAH im trying to find like. Drawing Paper™ and ive used some at a pretty large scale before, i think it was close to 4ft at its largest but i ideally would like to go bigger..... im thinking a lot about scale and the relationship between drawing and the body and i feel like large scale work is the way to go about exploring it

[aestheticaxolotl]

Lets Talk About Gunnar Maelstrom

Evil Daddies is where it’s at.

One of the meanings of the word "Maelstrom" is 'A situation of state of confused movement or violent turmoil.

Let me start with Maelstrom, usung the Carmen Sandiego Wiki to break him down as a whole, starting with appearance and personality (Excluding the comments around his action in the show, this will be hard seeing his major inclusion to the story so please bear with me once more as I do this).

Professor Maelstrom is a middle-aged man with pale skin and white hair with a receding hairline. He has broad shoulders and wears a black blazer over a dark gray turtleneck. As stated previously, Maelstrom is seen as being an almost unnaturally pale color, hinting towards possible Albinism.

Now, Middle aged according to the wiki page is between 50 and 60. Seeing the receding hairline and the lines on his face (Also can someone point me to a source about those random chin hairs? Like please I need context). 

He obviously has stress and sleep lines. I imagine these are due to his life choices and idiot operatives. His ethnicity is stated as being Swedish but continues to contradict itself when it later states that Maelstrom is from Scandinavia. I think this is to throw the readers and deep show watchers off and it would work better if both ethnicity and race were left as unknown. 

Now we move on to the easier things, personality, which is LONG. So let me start writing!

Of the five members of V.I.L.E's faculty, Maelstrom seems to command the most authority and serve as the de facto leader of the group, being the first to speak as well as hand out orders. As one may expect, Professor Maelstrom is criminally insane, which is ironic, considering his forte is psychiatry. Professor Maelstrom often likes to tinker with his patients' psyches and enjoys psychologically evaluating students, much like someone finding joy in pulling the wings off a butterfly. He does possess some level of awareness to his own insanity, though he is quick to brush it off as a mere label that other weak-minded people have given him. He also has an apparent fondness for the more psychotic recruits. In keeping with his name, his main desire is to spread chaos and disorder, with any actual gain being a secondary concern at best. Carmen considered him to be creepy, and rightfully so after he and Dr. Bellum collaborated to wipe Crackle's brain. Professor Maelstrom loathes Cookie Booker as he has no tolerance for her stuck up behavior towards him. He seems to have a fondness for marine life, as his office hosts a giant aquarium filled with jellyfish and other specimens. His use of the term "bait" as a pun is in reference to fishing bait, and in the novel adaptation, it is used twice. Further expanding the psychological exam scene from the show, in the novel, he declares that Carmen gave the "wrong" answer to the Rorschach test, stating that the image was a seahorse. The novelization expanded his sense of humor, though it mentions that even that had a dark and unpredictable tinge to it, showing delight in the lengths that his students would go in order to not be called upon in class. The show does have him throw a small quip every once in a while, often tinged with exasperation at his colleagues' antics or ignorance. He also enjoys making Countess Cleo envious of his fashion style, having asked Le Chevre and El Topo in the "The Fishy Doubloon Caper" to acquire an Ecuadorian Eight Escudos doubloon to be melted into solid gold cufflinks.

As done in my previous post, I will be diving deeper into the statement in the bolded font. 

Maelstrom seems to command the most authority and serve as the de facto leader of the group,

I don’t see any major reason for this face besides that there is a level of respect among the Faculty that centers around Maelstrom, seeing as he is one of the psychologically smarter than any of the other members, except Shadowsan but that is a post for another day. He is a very scary character because he is unpredictable, and possibly in the minds of the other, can be blamed for their crimes should they ever had been caught, but this leads me to my second quip with Gunnar Maelstrom.

Professor Maelstrom is criminally insane, which is ironic, considering his forte is psychiatry

When one looks up the term ‘Criminally insane’ we get the following “an accused person that is deemed to be suffering from cognitive illness or fault which frees then of lawful accountability for the unlawful behaviors” from https://psychologydictionary.org/criminally-insane/. 

I cannot at all say that I support this terminology on the stance that Maelstrom is more than aware of his action, to the point where he logically makes the choices to leave his fellow faculty behind at the prospect of capture. One cannot say that a “Criminally insane’ person is able to make these choices so quickly and with such calculation as to pack a go bag and hire an escape driver. But I digress.

He does possess some level of awareness to his own insanity, though he is quick to brush it off as a mere label that other weak-minded people have given him.

I don’t think that Maelstrom can stand to be labeled by other people. The exact use of the phrase “Weak-minded’ points me to believe that Maelstrom sees himself as mentally stronger, powerful, and far beyond that of the average person. This points to his class, and I’ll explain this in the next part, being the most critical and important to V.I.L.E as a whole.

His main desire is to spread chaos and disorder

This is WAY too specific to just be a drop in detail. No character is created be be a chaotic mixture, but they are built to SPREAD chaos, and Maelstrom is the perfect character to do this. His favor to Paperstar is a direct jab at this detail about him, she is an element of chaos that he put into play, the disorder of her is why he places her, while the other faculty hate Paperstar, he finds her the perfect wild card.

Professor Maelstrom loathes Cookie Booker 

I fully think this is, as the wiki and al of my sources say, Cookie Booker represents the original 1998 Carmen Sandeigo. And the loathing between them is a reference to the original game and books.

He seems to have a fondness for marine life, as his office hosts a giant aquarium filled with jellyfish and other specimens.

Not gonna lie, but I love this detail. The details, that caused me to GO BACK and watch the episodes with Maelstrom, was that the man likes fish. This adds onto the effect that he is rather cold and uncaring towards people, seeing them a thing to observe and keep. I also just love the idea of him having a fish tank and spoiling his goldfish that he named Clyde or something equally related to big time crime, like Al Capone or as said before Clyde.

He also enjoys making Countess Cleo envious of his fashion style

I’m sorry but Cleo and Gunnar challenging each other to see who is better in fashion? I’m sorry but they are the fashion police. Also I think this places WHO he is close to in the Faculty. I am very willing to bet that Maelstrom, who left Coach Brunt to drown and die, would NEVER leave Cleo or Bellum (Possibly) to die because they align more with HIS goals.

Brunt is... Dare I say... THE DUMBEST OF THE V.I.L.E FACULTY

WHAT DOES SHE DO?!?!

WHY IS SHE HERE?!

SHE’S STRONG AND THAT’S IT!

I digress (i used that phrase twice now), I just think his goals line up more with Cleo and (Again, possibly) Bellums’.

Now I go onto my favorite part of these paragraphs, the trivia/abilities. I love trivia/abilities, just because everyone sees this word and they are like ‘oh it’s just dumb facts’. BUT NO! It’s DENSTRAMENTAL to the character and links to their personalities.

He is capable of expertly performing a bait and switch. Professor Maelstrom specializes in psychiatry. He has been shown to have a favorite student, similar to the other faculty, in Paper Star; despite her disregard of the protocol in Mumbai. His grudge against Cookie Booker could be a subtle reference to the hostile relationship that his previous incarnation had with Carmen Sandiego in the 90's cartoon. As shown in the season three episode, The Haunted Bayou Caper, he has a fondness for Halloween.

Most od this is already covered, i know, so I won’t go over what I already did. SO let me just say... I know-

He is capable of expertly performing a bait and switch 

I NEED to SEE Maelstrom just- *Pulls and Bait and switch* -STEAL FROM SOMEONE. Like. I could totally believe that Maelstrom is the sleekest, most sneaky, most Swiper is swiping guy in the world. I am okay with letting them tell me this, but NO okay with them not SHOWING ME.

Netflix, I HOPE you see this so you can give me a SHOW on HOW GUNNAR MET MY MOTHER, COUNTESS CLEO.

He has a fondness for Halloween.

Charlie Pants. 

Do I need to say any more?

Okay, big ending time. So Gunnar Maelstrom, a deeply interesting character, mysterious backstory that a person can read into, different fun facts that lead to speculation and interest and amazing stories. I love Gunnar Maelstrom’s character, his personality, and his appearance. His effect? 100. His story? 100. His ability to make me rewatch the series? 100. 

Thanks for reading this. I’ll have another one out soon! Requests are open