Lace Headcanons Because I Adore Her
≫ In case you couldn’t tell from my profile, I love Lace with all my heart. My lovely, troubled, beautiful and terrible girl. Here’s some headcanons I have for her, as well as some barebones minor analysis of her motivations. Hope you enjoy!
≫ I imagine Lace is extraordinarily soft to the touch, like the texture of a rose petal or the smoothest of satins. And she absolutely despises it. She was spun to be a delicate and doting daughter, but in the end she turned out to be frayed anyway, not in body but in mind.
≫ Her softness only reminds her of her mother’s expectations that she couldn’t live up to. And it reminds her of the fact that her mother had to “settle” for her, a child spun mad.
≫ I like to think she may hate being touched because of this. Combat and fencing are one thing, but the touch of another bug’s claw? Abhorrent. Not that she would ever let a bug get so close to her in the first place. Their heart would be skewered on her pin before she’d let someone touch her.
≫ Perhaps the only “touch” she’s ever known is the distant yet constant sensation of her mother’s silken heartbeat in her own thread-spun chest. Or maybe she could have been able to hold the claw of her sibling in her own before they were sent away to the Exhaust Organ.
≫ That, and when Hornet saved her from the darkness that would have consumed her completely. In the cold depths of nothingness that threatened to swallow her and her mother, she instead was embraced by Hornet’s stubborn compassion that opposed the nihility both she and the Void shared.
≫ In a sense, she despises and scoffs at the idea of physical touch yet desperately craves it. I imagine she craves intimacy of any kind, yet is also disgusted by the idea of it. Her, indulging in mortal bug behavior? How vile. But also please don’t leave her behind. But also just leave her behind because she knows her life isn’t true or genuine.
≫ This sort of back and forth is quite a common occurrence in her psyche. It’s something she tries not to think about too much. But it’s also something she is constantly reminded of.
≫ What if Lace had never actually seen her mother before Hornet roused her from her sleep? If the Grand Mother had made Lace while still slumbering in her cocoon, then maybe Lace only really knew her mother in emotions, intentions, and sensations.
≫ She heard her mother’s voice in her mind, felt her intentions while being woven, maybe even seen just an impression of her divine presence. But what if she never saw her mother’s face? All she knew was that her mother was sleeping in a cocoon, and made a daughter that would wish her waking.
≫ Maybe Lace saw the fight between Hornet and her mother, and saw her creator’s mortal form for the first time. It was easy to spite her mother when she didn’t have a face or physical form. But when she beheld the sight of that empty face that looked so similar yet different to hers and Phantom’s, she began to think.
≫ What if Lace could have had a loving and present mother? A life destined not for servitude but simply for living? What if she had been spun sane and perfect? Would the holy mother have roused from her sleep the way she did for the Spider?
≫ Lace is described by Hornet as having her scent being an indicator of her unique origins. Silk is a natural occurring fiber, but not in copious amounts. So perhaps Lace could have a somewhat natural-feeling presence, but a very subtle cleanliness and faint sweetness to her scent that some may pick up as “wrong” about her.
≫ It’s the main deterrent that makes most bugs avoid her. She’s too…pure. Too unreal to be real. Too much knowing and awareness in her child-like form.
≫ Despite what some would think upon first seeing or meeting her, Lace is deeply introspective. She has the mask of an extrovert who thrives on the attention and energy of others but deep inside, she is an introvert, and an incredibly lonely one at that. She sees typical bugs as beneath her, but in truth she just doesn’t know how to live among them.
≫ When the first of the Weaver descendants were being brought to the Grand Mother, Lace began having her questioning thoughts of inadequacy and inferiority. Why the Spider children? Was she not enough? Was the holy mother taking the silk of the Weaver children to make up for the faulty children she had made in Pharloom? Was she next?
≫ She panicked, not knowing why she would question her mother and god and holy creator. In her predisposition for madness, she became paranoid that her mother could hear every blasphemous word she said and thought, and fervently overcompensated as a result, which only fed into her mania.
≫ When Lace realized that the Pale Being did not respond to any of her thoughts or actions, she began to grow bitter. Did her mother not care about her questioning or her efforts to please? Was she unable or unwilling to pay any attention to her knight, her devout follower, her daughter?
≫ That was the start of Lace’s growing resentment. Before Hornet arrived to Pharloom, it was mostly kept hidden away, tempered by her desire to fulfill her mother’s wish that had become her own. But as Hornet climbed her way up the kingdom, she became desperate.
≫ Lace saw the spider’s silken strength and how her own mother stirred from her slumber to welcome and try to capture Hornet, and it slowly yet completely eliminated whatever careful walls she had built to keep her growing madness at bay.
≫ And so she created a spectacle out of it, a one-sided rivalry for the attention and “love” of the holy Grand Mother. Hornet didn’t even fully understand her own nature and the truth behind it, yet she was still wanted in ways Lace never was. It drove her insane. Drove her to spite her mother and deny her the fallen spider yet also seek to kill her to prove herself worthy.
≫ Yet after everything, even after Lace fatally wounded her mother and caused the land of Pharloom to be choked black with Void-soaked strings, the Pale Being still sought to save her. What did Lace think, seeing her mother bleed herself dry of silk just to form a cocoon to protect her most precious creation?
≫ Despite being her daughter, I think Lace has just as much of an understanding of the Grand Mother as any other common bug. It’s rare we people have such an understanding of our own mothers and their contrasting motivations and actions. I doubt Lace is any different.
≫ I think, as Lace gets a chance to grow up, to become more than what her mother initially intended, maybe she’ll find a sense of peace. Probably not forgiveness, though. And that’s alright.
≫ So, that’s it for this post. A little short, but oh well.
≫ Did I use my experiences with my own mother as inspiration for this post? Whaaaat?? Nooooo (yes)
≫ In all seriousness, I do truly appreciate the narrative role Lace has with her mother. They love each other and never see eye to eye and end up almost destroying everything in their struggles. It’s not super often you see such a concept depicted as the main conflict and narrative.
≫ I won’t say much more about this as there are plenty of video essays and such on YT and such about this very topic. One that I watched and thoroughly enjoyed was “Silksong and the Agony of Motherhood” by Indiexplorergames! Lovely video, go check it out if you haven’t already.
≫ This post was made without the use of AI.
≫ Thank you for reading :)
