Cecil

When you go through the complicated process of immigrating from Arkhangelsk to Cleveland Ohio spend four years of your life getting your licence to practice medicine to become a nurse spend three successful years as a qualified healthcare professional only to throw it all away to become forever known by like one summer camp’s worth of children as the weird freak that lives in a cave in the woods who loves stealing peoples shit and wants to make out with the camp nurse so bad he stared at him so hard he caused paralysis and tried to set him on fire.

Vsevolod “Elijah” Vasiliovich Volkov the weird freak that you are

Elephant man prequel fancomic coming soon to a tumblr/Ao3 near you and I would love nothing more than to yap about it if anyone wants to know about it ok more updates soon byeeeeeeeee

He later while looking through Lucille’s stuff in storage for something she asked him to grab stumbles upon her flamethrower which he now notices upon closer inspection has a small tag on it that says “happy anniversary dear. -Gertrude”.

How does this relate to your vision of Elijah Volkov? What are the lore implications? Did he face bullying back in Arkhangelsk for his ass being only moderately fat, causing him to seek escape from his torment by immigrating to Ohio? Was the relentless mocking that he faced what lay the groundwork for the disturbed mental state that allowed him to later fall into religious psychosis and become the elephant man? Was his inability to woo Sydney not because he was a weird emotionally manipulative stalker who wanted to lay him down eternally on a pyre for worship, but in fact because of this lack of proper posterior?

The hardest part of creating a pre-canon design of a character that undergoes a dramatic shift in how they’re perceived by the time the story starts is that with a few exceptions, they need to look like they could still feasibly be the same person.

Things like facial features and face shape need to remain consistent. And if the character has a drastically different vibe pre-canon, that is an incredibly difficult thing to do, because when imagining them your brain is naturally inclined to base facial features off of personality, and the design needs to be able to work for both versions of the character, if a character has a rounder, more curved/hooked nose when they’re loose and relaxed they need to still have that rounded nose when they’re high strung and uptight.

Facial features don’t typically change with one’s personality.

The traumatized burnt out former gifted kid stoner has to have the same face as the head of the Magnus institute London.

The face of the stressed but hardworking nurse with mental health issues is the same one that becomes the elephant man.

The cruel and ruthless ruler of carcosa bears the same cloak as the kindhearted aspiring mystery author that believes in humanity.

The appearance of a character shifts, but it is still the same base.

I’m crying it’s not even funny I wanna make fun of his appearance so bad but it’s like the pot calling the kettle black final boss bro fuck my stupid chud life and to prove how bad it is I’m gonna tag some friends who know what I look like irl who have never listened to this show and provide the exact excerpts that made me realize exactly how cooked I was

@ihavenoconsistentinterests and @vowel-baffle