#padlock headcanons

[arte-tempo]

hello and welcome to arte-tempo, a headcanon blog about my spin on classic!padlock!! although this is intertwined with the @maestro-of-clockwork universe, it exists as a separate universe in-story!

feel free to ask anything about them as long as it's sfw & please don't follow if you're under 16 because, while it will be tagged, this blog may contain heavy themes, light gore and violence!

please enjoy!!

[arte-tempo]

i've also had this idea rattling in my head that they're similar to the "man" & "woman" characters from the movie "the people under the stairs" but only in the overall unhinged-ness when they're murder-happy and not everything else (like being theorized to be related to each other in-film, being greedy, classist or racist. these two are nothing like that)

here's a good idea of how nuts the characters are (tw blood, violence, guns, and body horror):

THIS ONE IS HOW THEY'D TRICK THE POLICE BTW

[arte-tempo]

i feel like paige & tony would both be having jobs which is how they can afford to take the trips they do and have the nice things they have. i dunno what realistically they would have to be well-off and also have a lot of free time (especially with economy) but i wanna say tony would be a banker while paige is a fashion designer

on that note i feel like they have more human-looking forms (basically a color palette to fit in with the humans) so they can be more discreet while supporting themselves

i can also see them leveraging the fact that they pay the bills at the trio's house over them 😭

[arte-tempo]

tony is a night owl and paige is a morning person! i figure once paige wakes up, she pops right out of bed and starts her routine while tony's grouchy because he Requires coffee to function

i can see paige teasing him saying he should get a mug that says "don't talk to me until i've had my coffee" but i think she's gotten him mugs she knew he'd like

tony probably stays up occasionally to pour over antique or newer astronomy and theoretical physics textbooks because i feel like he'd really like those subjects

[arte-tempo]

like classic!padlock, they definitely still do the "killing each other" thing, except it's more like a competitive sport than genuinely wanting to hurt the other. basically play fighting taken to the extreme, and nothing is personal

it has rules according to what the other is/isn't okay with doing, scheduled days on when they play it, and whoever "loses" gets a head-start the next round. but if one of them asks for a time-out, or they aren't feeling up to it, it's immediately dropped until they feel ready to fight again

and whether they do or not, it's okay because the other is more important to them than their sport! besides, if they're really itching to kill somebody...they just have to visit the students

[arte-tempo]

i figured out in the shower what their past lives were finally. thank u shower

both of their past lives were set in britain during the victorian era, but they led vastly different lives.

tony was part of a successful family-owned clock-making business (wow what a mouthful), but instead of helping make watches or clocks, his brothers took over that job and tony was stuck managing the business's finances since no one else wanted to. he was constantly stressing over numbers and keeping track of sales when really, all he wanted to do was to create timepieces for others to treasure and put a part of himself out into the world. this, along with other societal pressures, crippled him

paige, on the other hand, was an aristocrat. many would have considered her lucky to live in the lap of luxury, but being a woman of her class was her greatest cage. she was always expected to smile, be obedient and otherwise be that of a delicate flower. the arts were her only escape from everyone's high expectations. in her paintings, she could let out her inner self. in her solitude, she never had to bow, curtsy, or be the closest thing to perfection. she could be free, mentally, yes...but she yearned for true freedom. she yearned to decide who she was and not have anyone else do that for her

[arte-tempo]

time and creativity, in their universe, are deities. they're referred to by their representatives as "Their Divinity" and "Their Sanctity" respectively!

anthony and paige are the representatives of time and creativity. they work like prophets, setting out to spread the teachings of their subjects however they see fit, and...paige & tony have a very violent way to do that!

how representatives are selected by these deities is that they have certain criteria as to who is worthy to represent them. it's usually someone who is passionate and devoted enough to something that relates to the subject (such as a painter, a horologist, etc)

if someone meets those criteria, the deities offer them the position. if the person refuses, their memory of the proposal is erased and they live on like normal. if the person accepts however, their memory is wiped and they are physically altered to suit their gods' image: accurate to how they used to look with special touches

this means that both paige and tony had past lives but don't remember anything at all about them. the only thing that passes down during this transfer is their disposition and personality.

time is a strict and objective god, dealing in data, facts and strategy. overall, they embody the "left brain"

creativity is very emotion-oriented and lenient, as well as serving as a muse when it comes to inspiration. the "right brain" to time's "left brain"

this isn't to say they're foreign to the opposite's thinking ofc - time has emotional understanding and creativity balances logic as well

[muffinworry]

And occasionally sings to them in the small hours of the morning! Tony sneaks downstairs to listen and gets very flustered and grumpy if he's caught, and insists that he came to tell her to cease this infernal racket because SOME people want to sleep

I love this so much.