Jeeves, Of Course, Is A Gentleman’s Gentleman, Not A Butler, But If The Call Comes, He Can Buttle With

As a Latine and someone diagnosed with OCD, I want to talk about Bruno and how he is presented in the film.

A lot of Latinos, specifically Colombians, have argued that Bruno can’t have OCD because he performs standard superstitious rituals like knocking on wood, crossing his fingers, etc.

It is important to note that superstition is incredibly common in Latino communities. I have family and friends who partake in superstitious rituals in overt ways without being diagnosed with OCD. I believe the heightened spirituality and expression in Latino communities compared to gringo communities in the US is why so many Latinos are defending his rituals and are pushing back against Bruno being seen as OCD since he is performing standard rituals within the community. This post is not to argue that these rituals aren’t common superstitions, nor that it’s wrong to interpret him as not having OCD. This is more to discuss why people interpret him as having OCD and to clarify some misconceptions about the relationship of OCD and superstitious rituals.

Let’s discuss how OCD works and then why it might apply to Bruno Madrigal.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a subset of other anxiety disorders. People with said disorder frequently have intrusive thoughts or urges that force them to perform a certain action to ease this anxiety (compulsions). These compulsions can literally be anything. It can be repeating a certain phrase, walking a certain way, or even self destructive. These actions are designed as a preventative measure to ease anxiety, but ironically they have the opposite effect by producing more anxiety if the action is performed and only produce temporary relief.

These actions might be things that lots of neurotypical people do (ex. sorting books by color). What matters for the diagnosis is that the person in question feels like they have to perform the action and feel immense distress when they don’t.

So, how does that compare to superstitions? Superstitions are rituals that people perform also to prevent bad things from happening. The difference here is context. When people perform superstitious rituals, they do not experience immense distress at not performing the action correctly or at all. For example: “I’m hoping it doesn’t rain on my wedding day. Knock on wood.” The person in question is specifically performing this action to prevent rain from occurring on their wedding day. They do not feel like they have to perform the ritual and do not experience extreme distress as a consequence for not performing the action.

For someone with OCD, the ritual is far more specific, repetitive, and includes a deep sense of dread when not performed. For example: “I just thought that I might have rain on my wedding day, so I must knock exactly three times and if I don’t do the pattern exactly right, I will have to re-perform this action until it is. I will also have to do this ritual every single time I think of rain on my wedding day because then I jinxed it by thinking about it.” The repetition, sense of dread, and how long the ritual is present all indicate that this is a compulsion rather than just warding off bad luck.

OCD and superstitious rituals are often extremely difficult to distinguish from one another which is why it is difficult to divorce them when interpreting text. In fact, the two are often tied together because they follow the same, “If I don’t do X, then Y will happen, so I must do X,” logic.

Let’s look at Bruno now. He has a few ritualized activities. He knocks on wood while saying, “Knock, knock, knock on wood,” ending with knocking on his head.

[GIf Description: Bruno Madrigal is walking down a hallway. He begins by holding his breath and crossing his fingers. He releases his breath and begins knocking on wooden planks as he passes them ending with him knocking himself on the head.There is text at the bottom of the gif that says, “knock knock knock knock knock! knock on wood!” /end ID]

He avoids stepping on cracks while singing, “Sana, sana, colita de rana. Si no sana hoy sanara mañana.”

[Image Description: A screenshot of page 62 of the official Encanto script. The script says, “Tio Bruno: ‘Sugar.’ (he tosses sugar on her)/ And keeps walking past rows of Hanging Aloe Plants, then does a hop skip and a jump over a series of cracks on the ground. / Tio Bruno (continued): ‘Sana sana, colita de rana.’ “/end ID]

He throws salt and sugar over his shoulders.

[Gif Description: Bruno Madrigal is sitting in a rainforest clearing. He is closing his eyes and holding a pile of salt in his right hand. He flings the salt over his left shoulder and lights a match. There is text that says, “swoosh,” as he performs the ritual. /end ID]

He holds his breath and crosses his fingers when walking through entrances/exits or sometimes down hallways.

[Gif Description: Bruno Madrigal is crossing his fingers and holding his breath as he walks down a hallway. /end ID]

All of these are pretty standard rituals for superstition and bringing on good luck. I’ve certainly known people who openly knock on wood and throw sugar over their left shoulder, particularly in Latino communities. However, what matters is how it is presented and whether it is compulsory. So, let’s look at how it is presented in the film. 

He performs these rituals at very specific times in the story. His knocking on wood and holding his breath are the most common so we’ll look at those first. He knocks on wood in three separate instances. The first and second instance is when he first meets Mirabel just before and after he enters the area of the house with the cracks he has patched. The third time is when he is entering the secret entrance into the walls of the house. As for holding his breath and crossing his fingers, he first performs it when entering the hallway with all of the cracks. The second time is when he is entering the portrait into the walls.

In the first instance of both rituals, he stops the conversation he is having with Mirabel to perform these rituals and then resumes acting as if nothing happened. The final instance is at the end of a conversation with Mirabel. Superstitious behaviors don’t tend to be disruptive or distracting. Usually people knock on wood after ending a sentence whereas Bruno performs this ritual while Mirabel is speaking to him, disrupting the flow of conversation. It is also important to note that Bruno is unique for performing them, further othering his character.

OCD, is usually single-minded. Individuals can avoid performing the ritual, but doing so causes immense distress. The obtrusiveness of the action indicates that it is more likely OCD than superstition.

Looking at how it is presented in the text, it appears that these rituals are supposed to be strange and unique to Bruno. Nobody else performs them and Mirabel is confused by them.

Let’s look at what this might mean thematically.

In the film, Bruno is clearly presented as awkward and socially anxious. We can easily interpret this as a consequence of him living in the walls for a decade with Mirabel asking, “How long have you been down here?”  when Bruno introduces her to Hernando and Jorge. While she doesn’t necessarily react the same way to his various rituals, these superstitious actions can be seen as a consequence of his isolation. He is clearly supposed to be considered the weird uncle, so incorporating heightened superstition plays into that role and adds to his stigmatization as being “Bad Luck Bruno.” Having OCD would make sense as an interpretation merely to add to his othering in the film and clear instability after being isolated for so long. What’s more, Bruno can be interpreted as the “Identified Patient” in the family with how he was treated like there was something wrong with him. This constant blame and othering from his family would likely push him to want to prevent further isolation because of his bad luck. Furthermore, it feeds into a common experience in Latino households to diminish the neurodivergence/ other disabilities of members in the household. It is not that uncommon for Latino households to ignore neurodivergence because “everyone is like that.”

Personally as someone with OCD and a Latine, I read Bruno as having OCD because he performs rituals to, what appears to be, a compulsory level. He may have reasons for these compulsions and common superstition might be part of it, but this is true for my own compulsions as well. I also have to avoid stepping on cracks. I learned about the superstition of stepping on a crack and thus had to perform precise rituals in order to avoid stepping on them. I experienced and continue to experience major distress because of this superstitious ritual. Yes, it is a common superstition, but it became a compulsion for me because the bad luck became an anxiety trigger.

Looking at how Bruno is presented, it’s entirely possible that this is what happened to him based on what we know. He is related to Bad Luck and ostracized for it. He performs common rituals to ward off bad luck. He is further ostracized for said strange behavior.

Now, there is evidence online for him being OCD outside of the text by the writers.

[Image Description: A screenshot of page 61 of the Encanto script. The script says, “Tio Bruno: (tapping a wall, OCD) Knock, knock, knock. Knock on wood.” /end ID]

Clearly, he was intended to have OCD by the writers. Now, most people are not going to pull up the script to see that he is intended to have OCD explicitly by the text, but there is still evidence in the film to support it as I laid out above.

A lot of Latinos don’t want to acknowledge the possibility of him having OCD because it feels like normal aspects of our culture are being erased. The fact Bruno has OCD does not negate his latin culture, nor does it negate how superstition is tied to Latinos. Just because I relate to Bruno and his OCD doesn’t mean he’s no longer Latino and it doesn’t suddenly mean you and/or  your family have OCD. We’re all part of the same community and we’re all going to relate to certain characters in different ways. This is more just to state that superstitious rituals can be OCD rituals as well.

TL;DR: Bruno Madrigal was intended to be OCD by the text, but many Latinos are hesitant to agree because they feel it erases common Latino superstition. It is not uncommon for superstitions to become OCD compulsions and it is often difficult to distinguish the two in general which is why people interpret Bruno in different ways.

@discordantwords tagged me to post a passage I’m especially proud of. Thank you!

I’ve only written once in Mycroft’s voice, but I loved doing it:

“We did not comprehend our agemates. We did not know why. They were loud and physical and contemptuous of theory; their minds were rooted in the immediate. There was a language of childhood between them which we could not speak. I am given to understand child prodigies are often isolated. Lonely, they say. I taught him how to analyze them, observe and catalogue behavior, comprehend their motivations. It was a game, at first, a way for us to try to understand. Then it became a question of survival–if he could predict them, he could escape them–my little brother; emotive, passionate and sensitive; pirate, dancer, lover of fairy tales; consumed with the unusual, the fantastical and eccentric, the romantic and the macabre, with Saint-Saens and Ravel and Stevenson and Baryshnikov and Nicola Tesla. Drawn to men, not women, in time. He does not simply stand, or pace; to this day, he moves when relaxed or absorbed as though still dancing, spins, shifts heels and hips, flutters his hands. His voice was expressive, sibilant and soft, though he has not spoken in his natural tone to me in years, but drops it to the depths he reserves for concealing his emotions and unnerving those he does not trust. Sherlock is explosive in his element. He is brilliant. He could be anything, except ordinary; that was and is impossible. He fit no one’s conception of the well-developed British child. No public school boy’s idea of a friend. They did try, but there was very little our parents could do, I think, to draw us out of the world we made for ourselves. After all, there were two of us.” – The Two of Us

Tagging @watsonshoneybee, @chriscalledmesweetie, @doomsteady,  @educatedinyellow, @blueink3, @artemisastarte, @ggaypilot, @suitesamba, @doctornerdington, @a-different-equation or anyone who wants to!

Bruno’s room?? Analysis??? Theory? Headcanon?? Thingy???

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Encanto Spoilers!!!

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Okay, I promise this will get to Bruno’s room but for starters, I think I should talk about how the casita’s rooms are implied to work. Sorry but it’s important!!

In both the film and the concepts, it very much seems that the casita’s rooms reflect a combination of who their owners are to others, and who their owners want to be. We only see a small handful of rooms in the film but this is best seen in Isabela’s room, which is a perfect, flowery, empty room. There isn’t any furniture that we can really see besides her hanging bed, the rest is all for show, literally advertising how perfect she is with topiaries of herself making “perfect, practiced poses”. This is who she wants, and strives to be for others, but secretly worries that she is lacking in identity outside of what she portrays to others.

Why is this important? Because her room changes with her. In “What Else Can I Do” her entire room shifts and changes just as she does– the more she explores herself and the freedom and passions she never knew she was capable of, the room grows more colorful and wild and more difficult to navigate with her.

The concepts for Luisa’s room were similar– her room concepts consisted of various training areas with a secret room that led to an amusement park– a place where she could just relax and be a kid, but that she felt the need to hide it from others to appear strong. Jared Bush also recently confirmed that Pepa’s room never had “a place for her to let loose”, that that was “part of her problem”-- insinuating she’s been taught to compartmentalize and suppress her emotions instead of letting them go.

So now… we talk about Bruno.

So firstly. No way did Bruno’s room always look like… that. Casita would have never given a five-year-old that room. And it logically doesn’t make sense!! We know from extra content that when Bruno first got his gift he was the “golden child”-- that people were impressed by his gift to see the future, it was only when they believed that he caused bad things to happen that they rejected him. Does Bruno’s room really reflect that golden child?

One thing I noticed was that the wood to Bruno’s room is… hardwood. Underneath all that sand and rock is the remnants of the beginnings of a normal room. It seems like such an odd choice and detail to put there when the rest of the room is all built into natural surroundings. It looks like the remnants of a living space that’s just been covered up to the point of becoming unlivable. And when we examine the specific ways this room has become unlivable, it starts to paint a very interesting picture about Bruno and how he perceives himself.

So we know that over the years Bruno’s reputation has shifted from the “star child of the family” to the Madrigal that no one talks about except in hushed whispers– the one that people are afraid of and dislike. We know from implications as well as discussions from Jared Bush that Bruno had already started isolating himself long before leaving to protect Mirabel.

So what better way to isolate yourself than a literal mountain of spiraling stairs?

They’re so impossibly long that it’s clearly meant to keep most sane people out (sorry Mirabel, it’s true). And we know he didn’t have a shortcut, he used the excuse of the tower having a lot of stairs as a reason to not live there. But again, and I can’t stress this enough, no way did casita give a five-year-old that amount of stairs (and in such a dangerous fashion!).

They’re there to keep people out. Now whether this is because Bruno just wants to avoid them and keep people away from him, whether this is to keep people from harassing him for visions, or maybe (and likely) a combination of both, isn’t explicitly stated. We know that Bruno’s visions can be both emotionally and physically exhausting and draining– to the point of physical pain and weakness. It isn’t much of a surprise that he would want to avoid people asking for visions.

But personally? I think it was also out of a desire to protect people as well. He really starts to internalize this idea that he makes bad things happen, so the more he can avoid people, and the visions, the better. The more he hides away, the more a burden it all becomes, the longer and longer the stairs get.

They’re eventually disconnected completely from the door with an enormous gap. I think this was the last straw when Bruno broke the vision and left, and his door stopped glowing. It disconnected from the inner sanctum completely and the entire room disconnected from the casita. When Bruno disconnected from his family. When he rejected his gift, and with it, himself.

Mirabel knows the casita to the point of even being able to understand its non-verbal communication like she would anyone else, and she seems shocked that it cannot help in Bruno’s room, implying that this isn’t the norm for the magical rooms. His room is cut off because he is cut off. And the deleted scene “Chores” contributes to this idea. Félix says that “his room turned all rotten and gross and Abuela was like ‘no one is ever allowed in there again.’” We know that Alma forbids anyone from going into Bruno’s room because it’s ‘off-limits”, and we can clearly see how dangerous and unstable the room has got, so this isn’t out of the realm of possibility for film canon either. Like Luisa said, his room is off-limits for a reason.

His room refused to let anyone find that vision.

AND NOW FOR THE BEST PART. THE INNER CAVERN.

So after Mirabel risks her life to get to the inner part of Bruno’s room, we finally see these relief sculptures of Bruno on the walls. There’s no beating around the bush, they are terrifying. Empty eyes, blank expressions, gaping mouths. (And they pretty much prove that Bruno’s room didn’t look this way because they display the steps of his ritual, which Jared confirmed he invented himself later on after receiving his gift.) It’s a terrifying depiction of himself, meant to scare people away. He’s considered a curse, treated like the village bogeyman, and he’s clearly internalized these ideas about himself because his room reflects it so much here, in the same fashion that Isabela’s room flaunts the topiaries of her perfect posed stature.

But here’s something I have to mention. The designers did not simply pull this design out of thin air. It is heavily inspired by existing Colombian architecture… specifically burial tombs. The Tierradentro tombs, located in the southwest region of the nation in the Inzá municipality, were made somewhere between 600 and 900 CE and served as a burial site for elite groups. Their structural and decorative features are entirely unique and not found anywhere else on Earth, and the geometrical patterns within them signify the individuals buried there.

So. Bruno’s room is based on an existing gravesite. That’s a lot to unpack.

Bruno feels that he, or at least the version of himself that his family wants from him, is dead. The star child. He had tried to cling to this idea, to be someone they could be proud of, but he just doesn’t know how. His family no longer understands him. He feels like a stranger who has replaced the person they used to love, who’s now buried in a literal tomb of self-doubt.

A tomb that Mirabel almost dies in because of how unstable and disconnected it has become. A tomb that follows an infinitely long spiral staircase up to a room filled with spiraling imagery– all to find a man who truly has spiraled. And one who isn’t there because he is so terrified of hurting people.

Bruno’s room looks the way it does because of his warped self-image that has become so twisted over the years. This internalized perception that he hurts people- that he causes these twists of fate- and while I think he knows on a logical level that this isn’t how his gift works, clearly doubt has infected the way he feels. We can see it in the way he treats Mirabel, wanting to push her away at first because he’s scared he’ll somehow hurt her, refusing to do visions, refusing to help until she tells him that the family needs him. And that’s all he ever wanted, really.

Maybe his next room won’t have all those stairs.

anti-papyrus-babyification brigade forever but you can tear sans' mom moments from my cold dead hands

Imagining maxwell with tons of dogs around his house makes me fully happy

How to Handle Having TOO MUCH To Do

So let’s say you’re in the same boat I am (this is a running theme, have you noticed?) and you’ve just got, like, SO MUCH STUFF that HAS to get done YESTERDAY or you will DIE (or fail/get fired/mope). Everything needs to be done yesterday, you’re sick, and for whatever reason you are focusing on the least important stuff first. What to do!

Take a deep breath, because this is a boot camp in prioritization.

Make a 3 by 4 grid. Make it pretty big. The line above your top row goes like this: Due YESTERDAY - due TOMORROW - due LATER. Along the side, write: Takes 5 min - Takes 30 min - Takes hours - Takes DAYS.

Divide ALL your tasks into one of these squares, based on how much work you still have to do. A thank you note for a present you received two weeks ago? That takes 5 minutes and was due YESTERDAY. Put it in that square. A five page paper that’s due tomorrow? That takes an hour/hours, place it appropriately. Tomorrow’s speech you just need to rehearse? Half an hour, due TOMORROW. Do the same for ALL of your tasks

Your priority goes like this:

5 minutes due YESTERDAY

5 minutes due TOMORROW

Half-hour due YESTERDAY

Half-hour due TOMORROW

Hours due YESTERDAY

Hours due TOMORROW

5 minutes due LATER

Half-hour due LATER

Hours due LATER

DAYS due YESTERDAY

DAYS due TOMORROW

DAYS due LATER

At this point you just go down the list in each section. If something feels especially urgent, for whatever reason - a certain professor is hounding you, you’re especially worried about that speech, whatever - you can bump that up to the top of the entire list. However, going through the list like this is what I find most efficient.

Some people do like to save the 5 minute tasks for kind of a break between longer-running tasks. If that’s what you want to try, go for it! You’re the one studying here.

So that’s how to prioritize. Now, how to actually do shit? That’s where the 20/10 method comes in. It’s simple: do stuff like a stuff-doing FIEND for 20 minutes, then take a ten minute break and do whatever you want. Repeat ad infinitum. It’s how I’ve gotten through my to do list, concussed and everything.

You’ve got this. Get a drink and start - we can do our stuff together!

love ur hk designs! how did u come up w/them? do u have any notes?

aww thank you so much anon !! i DO in fact have notes but theyre a lot so [cracks knuckles] lets go thru this --

i love designing and humanizing characters as its a real fun brain exercise and such, but humanizing the hk characters has really given me a lotta gusto that perplexes even me ?? either way im not complaining its very fun and im glad to elaborate on all (bc its a bit much) the thought that went into these!!

Image Description: Digital art of humanoid Hollow Knight Characters. Quirrel, Hornet, the Knight, and the Hollow Knight are all hanging around a bench and looking at the camera. The Knight is sitting on the bench, their legs dangling off, and holding their helmet. The Hollow Knight, all bandaged up, is sitting on the ground but leaning their head on the back of the bench. Quirrel is standing and leaning on the bench back, making a thumbs up and smiling a big smile. Hornet is also standing, though she rests three of her hands on the bench with an unimpressed expression. End ID.

in this post i’ll be talking about inspirations and show off the designs of the knight, hornet, quirrel, thk, the dreamers, and some less polished higher beings designs -- and go over it all with my neverending commentary! everything's under the cut in order to spare y'all's dashes LMAO

one must begin with groundwork. try to figure out what aspects of the character you want to be most important. do you want their silhouette to be immediately recognizable? are you inspired by a particular time period or region, or want to set it in that time period or region? do you want to prioritize colors? are you willing to let go of silhouette / direct visual relatability in lieu of emphasizing personality in the little details of appearance? try to strike that balance and see what is to your taste.

you should also consider how seriously you want to take things. will you consider things down to material and essentially fabricate hallownest's textile economy or do you just want to ball off of vibes? (i like incorporating historical garments and feels into things because i think they're neat, but i do get silly here. maybe i'll bow to my inner desire to ground everything some day and take another stab at, well, all of this.)

there are some things you can easily render turning bug to person (as i love diverse face shapes so you’ll see a trend of pointy in game, pointy here) and some that are much harder. either you can go for what is straightforward and easy for someone to be like “oh hornet head shaped mask! that must be hornet!” or you can not do that! your humanizations, your rules. hollow knight has a very simple, curve and shape-based art style, so you can incorporate a lot of subtle details on that! you can also do any other motif and really lay into it -- if you look at my monomon i have all these that are jellyfish-esque: her gown shape, her choker, her braids, the embroidery on her gown, etc.

or you can ignore all my advice and do what you want! i’m not the boss of you.

so , FIRST THINGS FIRST: aesthetic inspirations ! i did a few passes based on a variety of regions but i decided go with a pre-modern era european influence, largely because of the general influences and vibes i saw in the in-game architecture and appearances for things and places. i decided to land my inspirations anywhere from the 1500s to late 1700s / veery early 1800s, though im just aiming for fantastical with a heavy side of inspiration.

i decided to have individuals from before the fall of hallownest have look inspirations from Later in this time frame with those after being Earlier to get this kind of ‘technology and society has backslid’ idea. that, and because i thought the aesthetics of later monarchist europe -- l’ancien regime and all that, if you will -- quite fitting with hallownest right before its fall. because of this extremely broad time frame (300 years!) and also me just generally not trying to be concerned with ‘historical accuracy’ as this is both non-historical and very fantastical, there’s going to be a mess of silhouettes and such -- though i do love a rich deep dive into history, this is a time for fantasy fun and nonsense :-)

i decided to constrain myself with a few internal rules: one being the inspirations i draw on, and another main one being regarding masks. i decided to restrict mask wearing to as little as possible -- no shade to people who include masks in their gijinkas! i think they look wonderful with them And are lore relevant! but i felt like me, personally, using masks would keep me at times from being at the very top of my design experimentation game. so, as a little sort of fun challenge, i’m keeping away masks as much as possible in these people’s everyday wear. this means it is harder to keep silhouettes, but my priority is less 100% sticking close to silhouettes (though that is something to consider) and more evoking enough motifs and such to where they’re recognizable.

SO LET’S BREAK DOWN SOME DESIGNS!

Image Description: A reference sheet with various views of a humanized Knight. They’re a pale little humanoid thing armed with a shortsword, their skin and hair that same color of off-white, and always maintaining that same wide-eyed, small-mouthed, and neutral (yet almost determined?) look. They’re dressed in virtually rags from neck to boots, and all dark colors - navy blues, greys, dark brown leather, and even the deepest blacks. Charms are studded to their outermost cloak (and there seems to be a pair of vestigial, black-soaked wings under said outer cloak). They have a flat, square face, and a flat, square nose, though their corners are blunted. Their hair should be straight but it has gone long unbrushed; it stops in bangs at their forehead then cascades to their chin, where it hugs their jaw, especially at two points on the left and right where two ticks stick out on each side.

They can be seen also wearing headgear: a chainmail hood with old, yellowed horns poking out at either temple. They are also shown with their hair up in a little bun, or in two pigtails remniscient of their canon horns (one can thank Mato!). There is a little drawing of their exposed arm, showing how all their joints are harshly segmented, as if an insect or porcelain doll. In the corner, their dark shade chases after them. End ID.

an idea i wanted to play with for the knight -- and any of the vessels, for that matter -- is that of the uncanny. they are almost human! (as im approaching these humanizations with the idea of ‘human au’ and less so ‘everyone must be humanoid’, the higher beings are markedly less human here. ill get to that in a bit.) i decided to go for the concept that the knight is a living porcelain doll -- hollow, white, uncanny. they’re probably not shiny -- their surface probably feels like it was once porcelain smooth but is now ever so slightly abraded -- and theyre also not LITERALLY a doll. they do have a crackable exterior, yes, and are hollow, yes, but their segmented joints and such are less ‘doll’ and more ‘insect exoskeleton segments’. thank their dad (though i always thought he was more of a tapeworm / platyhelminth. but that aside--)

them being this humanoid non-human lends to some fun details! this is an example i like but is extraordinarily hard to communicate thru just stylized art: their eyes cannot close as they have been ‘carved’ that way & their pupils are just a hole into their void interior, and thus if you look at their face at an angle or profile you can see a little ridge / rim of the thin layer of their eye-white ‘porcelain’. they are also virtually dressed in rags, though the bottom cloak layer of those rags are wing-shaped, but still vestigial w/o the monarch wings, like in-game. and the two little hair-ticks on either side of their chin are meant to evoke their horns! :-)

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Hornet. She’s a thin, lithe person, with a long thin face wider at the top than the bottom and a thin chin. She has four eyes, and four arms. She has brown skin, with the exception of a patch of pale skin in the shape of her canon head right over her nose, with the ‘horns’ extending up into her scalp. There’s a flash of white coming from her forehead amongst her curly black hair, which is tied back into a bun by a hairtie shaped like two lightly curving pale horns. She has a long and pointy nose with a thin bridge, but it is crooked slightly. She largely has an unimpressed and stern look on her face.

She wears a bright red cloak with three weaverling buttons on the front, and white embroidery on the collar, back, and hem. The design on the back is a heavily stylized spider: a round body of eyes, with floral arms extending out from the junction between the body and the curving leaf-mandibles. Underneath her cloak she wears a white top with gold embroidery down the center (that goes up her neck to the underside of her jaw, and can be optionally decorated or plainly wrapped in white) and a bodice that is black on the sides but gold and white in the center at her torso. Tied to her belt is a silver chatelaine with sewing supplies. She has red puffy sleeves, slitted to show white fabric showing through, and black forearm-length fingerless gloves. There are a few more sketches: one of her with a double-horned hennin (her formal wear, maybe she wore when young), one of her as a child shouting excitedly for her ma, and a tiny her standing unimpressed next to a wide-eyed Knight. End ID.

hornet was kind of difficult, particularly because… of her head shape… but i fired out several solutions! the double-horned hennin (the funny two-cone hat) is from history, though the idea was scrapped as i imagine hornet in the present, as you see her, would not be of a mind to wear such finery. thus, i decided to give her a hairpiece shaped into horns, to evoke that silhouette. much more practical. (same idea goes with her patch of pale skin.)

as i mentioned this is a not-strictly-humans scenario, so i decided to splurge on the weavers and spiders and give them some differing anatomy, ie some extra arms and eyes. as a treat. i havent entirely sussed out (lol) the exact logic of her wear -- turns out making real things fantasy makes them, construction-wise, rather odd -- and is always subject to change. hornet wears things rather simple, for practicality reasons; and though her outfit is highly fictionalized (lmao) her garments under her cloak are somewhat based off of the portraits by cranach the elder. (all weaver clothings generally would feature repeating shoulder puffs. not leg-of-mutton style, but moreso in the image of the 1530s-40s. you'll see this more on herrah.)

the knight is a bit too ’young’ to have these features be quite apparent so they are the exception, but the trend with the ‘pale lineage’ is that of very pointed chins, long faces, and thin long noses. you'll see this on the hollow knight and the pale king, and you almost see this with hornet. she is still somewhat her father's creature, though he was never quite in her life.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Quirrel. He's a portly brown man (with warm-toned skin) with a squat (but not comically so) face, a pointy and stick-out nose, freckles concentrated around the top of his nose and where his eyes meet, relaxed, monolidded black eyes, and straight black hair. His hair falls short onto his forehead and comes down his cheek in sideburns, but is pulled back into a low bun -- though it is usually covered by a dark grey-blue headscarf. He has silver plate armor on his upper body, upper arms, and over his thighs, with a sash winding 'round his waist and holding up his scabbard; he too wears long black gloves, and thigh-length leg gaiters over brown breeches. Covering his neck is a white neck stock. He has a bit of a hunched posture, his hips and neck both leaned forward; his belly is well-rounded, and his long legs are rather spindly.

He is also seen younger, before the fall of Hallownest. Here he has less wrinkles, though his face is much the same. His black hair is tied back in a headscarf (though actually short here); and he's clad in a segmented grey coat, high collar with a white cravat, green vest with rich gold embroideries, high knee stockings covering brown breeches, and over all that a segmented cropped tailcoat. He dresses pretty well, as befitting his station -- but not as well as he could (science gets messy!) End ID.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Quirrel. He's a portly brown man (with warm-toned skin) with a squat (but not comically so) face, a pointy and stick-out nose, freckles concentrated around the top of his nose and where his eyes meet, relaxed, monolidded black eyes, and straight black hair. His hair falls short onto his forehead and comes down his cheek in sideburns, but is pulled back into a low bun -- though it is usually covered by a dark grey-blue headscarf. He has silver plate armor on his upper body, upper arms, and over his thighs, with a sash winding 'round his waist and holding up his scabbard; he too wears long black gloves, and thigh-length leg gaiters over brown breeches. Covering his neck is a white neck stock. He has a bit of a hunched posture, his hips and neck both leaned forward; his belly is well-rounded, and his long legs are rather spindly.

He is also seen younger, before the fall of Hallownest. Here he has less wrinkles, though his face is much the same. His black hair is tied back in a headscarf (though actually short here). He has a couple possible outfits: a more realistic one, a dark greatcoat with multiple capelets over a sky blue waistcoat, high collar with a white cravat and pin, high black hosen with brown breeches; and an alternate one: a segmented grey coat, high collar with a white cravat, green vest with rich gold embroideries, high knee stockings with brown breeches, and over all that a segmented cropped tailcoat. He dresses pretty well, as befitting his station -- but not as well as he could (science gets messy!) End ID.

quirrel was both easy and hard. to mimic his segments i decided to give him plate armor -- reasons for this are fairly obvious i imagine LMAO (segments!) (though his armor isn’t based on or accurate to any particular armor style. this is because i do not like drawing armor.) for his outfit pre-fall of hallownest, i gave him some breeches and leggings, as is typical for his very regency / turn of the century inspirations, but those give him the effect of white legs. to sort of mimic the black legs he has in-game, i instead gave him black thigh gaiters! i could have gave him long boots (and i imagine he did have a pair) but 1 i liked the gaiters more 2 i forgor :(

a fun little add-on eagle-eyed viewers (?? i feel like a youtuber saying that) may spot is that the brooch on his neckcloth is an isopod shell! in some illustrations i draw this brooch directly on the cloth / above the knot and not on the draped part. no man would wear a stickpin / brooch like that on his tie in real life. i just don’t like drawing knots. younger quirrel also features more teals and greens in his design, along with gold accents, to fit more with the archive’s colors. (even in the present day, hidden under his headscarf, he uses a green ribbon to tie his hair back.)

honestly, he and monomon were the main reasons i decided to extend the period outside of late medieval. it’s their fault! not only did monomon fit really well to the dress silhouette of one of these later decades, but i really wanted quirrel to have a napoleonic / regency feel. this is largely because with the enlightenment there came the rise of natural philosophers and the scientific sorts of fellows, which have become sort of their own iconic archetype in the public consciousness (and in fiction. stephen maturin my beloved.) i thought that would fit him well, and so i went for it.

Image Description: Various views of a humanized Hollow Knight. They’re a very tall and svelte hollow humanoid, almost gangly in their proportions. They have a very elongated face with a straight, aquiline nose, large almond-shaped eyes, and a permanent expression that is all at once solemn, neutral, and melancholic. They look a lot like their father. They’re pale white on their skin and hair -- hair that is parted in the center at the forehead and tucked behind more hair, which cascades down to their torso when not tied up. Framing their face on either side are two slightly shorter bits of hair with three little spikes on each.

As the Pure Vessel, they stand straight and tall, completely cloaked in deep grey cloaks and holding a broadsword in firm gloved hands. Over their cloak is pale silver-white armor, with three-layered spaulders, a cuirass, and a helmet with large horns. Holding the Radiance within them, their cloak is torn and their armor and helmet are gone, with their hair splaying out loose. One of their boots is missing, exposing a segmented leg. Their right arm is gone, and a crack runs down their face down their forehead, into their eye, and down their cheek, exposing a bright yellow light from within. Still, they clutch their sword. In a corner of the image a tiny Hollow Knight looks with wide eyes at an even tinier, shouting Hornet. End ID.

the hollow knight’s design was fairly straightforward as i had figures out their siblings before them. even their armor -- which has been pointed out to be largely ornamental and they do not actually use it when fighting -- was easy to transpose. i was, admittedly, trying to avoid helmets (especially those that completely cover the face, though their’s isn’t) largely because i just dislike drawing them, but i felt i really HAD to with the hollow knight and so i just went for it !

i purposefully gave them a sort of gangly and out-of-proportion feel to them -- i like to think their grace is that of a stick-legged bird, like a heron or flamingo... someone stretched them in taffy help! /j but it also speaks to their true delicacy and fragility - both emotionally and literally. they’re a perfect hollow creation, but could very easily fall... or something like that !

but-- yeah, as i mentioned earlier, their design was a natural conclusion to come to from that of their relatives, so there’s not much new to say about them!

next, let’s look at the dreamers!

Image Description: The three dreamers, standing primly. In order from left to right there is: Herrah the beast, Lurien the watcher, and Monomon the teacher.

Herrah is a tall brown and broad-set, wide-shouldered woman. She has six eyes and an aquiline nose, and curly hair; on her head she wears a horned metal helmet and a dark blue bandanna covering the lower half of her face. From her neck there is a waist-length dark blue-grey cloak that cascades out behind her back. She wears a pale grey-blue doublet with a full skirt; on her arms there are rows of pinched pale fabric to look puffed, and her forearms are covered in dark grey fabric to the knuckles. She has striped grey spanish breeches and black hosen and shoes. One pair of arms is crossed, the other pair of arms rests on the hilt of a thin sword.

Lurien is a short brown man with an upside-down droplet shaped head. He has very short wavy hair and a long straight nose; a large teardrop shaped mouche is placed at the bridge of his nose and between his eyes. He has a navy blue cloak draped over his entire body; underneath he has a white circular millhouse ruff that hugs close to his neck, a black doublet, black breeches, and white hosen. He has two strings of beads: around his neck with a king’s idol, and in his hands -- which hold each other -- with a silver pomander.

Monomon is a tall black woman with an oval-shaped head, a wide nose, and a long, thin neck. She wears a rather unadorned teal gown with a wide, almost bell shape skirt, split down the center. At the top of the bell meeting the waist are two layers of teardrop shapes in light cyan fabric emitting out, similar to those on a jellyfish. At the bottom of the bell are more cyan embroideries, this time of floral motifs in the general shape of jellyfish. Her sleeves can either be puffed (for inaccuracy but design fun) or unpuffed (for accuracy) and then drape to the elbow, and she wears forearm-length white gloves. Her stomacher is green, with lighter green designs: four eye-like ovals, two smaller ones on top of the larger ones, with floral decorations around them. She has a dark blue headscarf, but seen coming out of it are four braids. End ID.

first to clarify: monomon’s braids are floating so you can see her gown easier! it’s not literal :-) second to clarify: in this sort of little half-baked au-thing i decided to make their masks a part of the spell. that is, their mask is one of the seals binding them to their slumber, and all that good rot. this means they follow my no-mask rule when not sleeping AND their masks remain relevant (namely, quirrel taking monomon’s mask to her.)

the dreamers are all based off of different centuries and it is pretty easy to tell with them standing side by side, hah! hell, they even go in order: herrah i largely based on the 1500s, lurien the 1600s, and monomon the 1700s...! that was unintentional.

herrah largely has this kind of puffiness to her body segments in the game, and so my first thought was immediately: 1500s style puffs. the sleeve puffs (as also seen on hornet, and they were often slitted. think the og disney snow white!) and also the very wide and puffy breeches (which i always thought were hilarious). unlike hornet’s hairpiece, i gave her a helmet to show her horns! i felt it fit her more than it did hornet -- maybe it’s just me, but i feel like hornet wouldn’t be one for metal armor. in formal or dressy wear she likely switches the helmet for a headdress like a hennin or escoffion.

however, i am feeling not 100% satisfied with her design as it is right now, though i do think it works on the levels of thought i put into the other designs. i dunno! i’ll change it when i feel like it -- such is the nature of these :-)

ngl i put the least effort into lurien out of the 3 dreamers… sorry king i just don't care much about you comparatively… im pretty content with his design though! i decided to base him off of the more subtle and understated north europe fashions, as i felt they’d fit him. however, the bigass ruff is the biggest staple of this design for me (in my mind at least!) it’s drawn from the period and it also introduces a big round shape into his general design (when his in-game design is literally Round + drapey cloth LMAO)

i decided to have him wear largely black to show status! normally in this time period richer folks would wear black - which may seem odd and plain to us but is rather telling of status as rich, deep black is quite hard to dye. however i still gave him a dark blue cloak to more allude to his ingame design.

i imagine he is devout from the few bits of in-game characterization we get -- hence the idol. he also has a pomander! they were medieval scent-objects thought to keep away miasma, or plague air. (they contained strong scents! it was for the same reason plague doctors stuffed their beaks with herbs: good scents keep away bad air! or so they thought.) i draw people with them a lot -- i just think they’re neat things and one of my favorite medieval objects :-)

as for the thing on his face - a mouche! what are mouches? i recommend you watch mina le's wonderful video on the subject -- she could explain it far better and in a more entertaining way than i.

i had SO MUCH FUN with monomon! (and i think that’s easy to see, hah!) dresses and gowns from the latter 1700s (though not yet regency like quirrel is -- dresses got kinda tube-shaped in regency) really do give the look of a jellyfish bell. a thin waist (comparatively speaking from the wideness of her dress -- though one can also look to the corset) would mimic monomon’s sort of thin neck (??) you see right before the grey-blue cloth in her in-game design. and since she isn't wearing a mask here, i put the imagery of the two pairs of eyes on her stomacher instead! wide puff and then pinching / thin segments is kind of the theme of her entire design - in her dress, in her sleeves (though it's innacurate and also optional tbh), even in her neck and head. sort of bowling ball -esque i suppose! (sorry monomon.)

her braids being similar to her tentacles was an idea i believe inspired by @valdotpng​ 's depiction of her, and it's a great idea ! another allusion to jellyfish is the four little oval shapes i put on the skirt of her dress, to mimic that on jellyfish. (those are, in fact, their gonads.)

i haven’t drawn them, but if you or i were to draw them while in sleep then there would be cloth completely covering their shoulders and up, and the mask over where their face would be. just like in game !

last but not least i have some tentative sketches of some higher beings !

Image Description: Sketches of some higher beings.

The Pale King is a segmented worm with several rows of arms; he wears a rather simple white robe with embroidered trim. He has a svelte, high-cheekboned face, with a long aquiline nose and long straight hair with some pulled back in a bun -- his entire surface, skin and hair, is entirely pale white. Atop his hair he has a spiked crown. However, that human face is a false magical add-on; this ‘face’ is detachable, with the true head and mouth at the ‘crown’.

The White Lady is a large tree-woman; she has a oval face and delicate, pointed nose, but out of where her hair would be if she were a human extends out innumerable tree branches out in every direction. from the branches and to her face and downward are dignified wrinkles of bark. She is, however, restrained and bound in magical cloth.

Unn is a large hunched woman, her form covered almost completely in water plants that droop down to the lake she comes out of. Amongst the shadows of the fronds peeks a weary smile, though all else is covered. However, out of the plants peeks out two eyes on stalks. She is smiling down at a very small Knight.

The Radiance’s face is entirely obscured in darkness, and long hair flows down from her sun-ray crown. Out of her back come countless moth wings, large and small, each one covered in countless eyes of various sizes, though the lower wings turn into longer ray-like fronds. From under the wings comes a long-nailed hand, which is held up to her hair-covered chest. End ID.

outside of the pale king and mmmaybe the white lady im rather unsure about these...!!! radiance i’ve barely thought about -- so ill have to work on her a bit more ! this is more of a sketch of general motifs and the direction i wanna go in

as aformentioned i wanted to take more non-really-human designs for the gods. they’ve just got a different spin on their in-game motifs, with ‘humanoid’ added to the blender as well. for example-- the pale king is still the rather insectoid-wormoid-wyrm that he is in the original, but what he is trying to do here is appear like that of a man and not a common bug. (an extra thought tidbit: the lines on his face and wyrm body are meant to evoke the seals of binding, though they’re rather simplified here they’d be more detailed in an actual polished picture.)

since they aren’t meant to be human we get fun stuff like literal tree woman white lady, and all that !! it’ll be fun to think some more on it.

NOW, that’s it for the characters for this post! i’ll go over more if people want ‘em lmao but i cant let this post go on forever HAH....

a few more scrap thoughts:

1 there is a common thread amongst Hallownest clothing, despite the decade differences, that i want to keep in mind when drawing these characters, to maintain consistency and believability that they're from the same region. the main thing is embroidery and just general decorative choices! i’ve tried to involve a mix of straight and curvy lines (heavy emphasis on lines in these designs in fact) along with floral motifs. though not a direct inspiration, try thinking about the motifs of real life period decorations, paired with the swirling curves balanced with geometric / curved / straight lines of the ui menus and such in the game !

2 hallownest would still have insectoid iconography in its art and its architecture -- the gods they worship are still rather insectoid, after all. and there is still no reason they wouldn't use insects in their iconography the same way european cultures have historically used bird and mammal motifs. as for what their architecture would be -- i think in game is a perfectly fine, but also i’d tentatively throw the dart at gothic with some dashes of late romanesque.

3 my art, me drawing these designs, is horribly inconsistent. that’s fine with me!! these are all for fun -- i think putting metric tons of thought into these are fun, as much as i think making tweaks depending on how i’m feeling is fun.

with ALL OF THIS IN MIND… i bid thee, reader, adieu! i hope you enjoyed my ramblings! id love to hear your own thoughts about all this and feel free to ask me questions about characters i haven’t mentioned here, an aspect you’re curious about, or anything at all! hopefully it made sense! (and if you wish to and are feeling either exceptionally charitable or exceptionally inspired, i give my express permission to draw all these, just please @ me so i can see it! i’m bad at social media so i don't like, check tags and stuff.)

:-) <3

Im obsessed with that blue daddy (and his teeth