Saccharine Sydney

Saccharine Sydney is the main protagonist of the ongoing Slapstick Culture series, appearing and starring in all three acts.

Background
Sydney is the head actress and creator of the Short Pier production Dr. Keeble's Invisibles, as well as a captain of the Underground Justice. She is the daughter of Sergio Galileo and Amanda Awning, and so was born into the Monocromatico culture.

Sydney left home around the age of sixteen, after a falling out with her mother. Amanda didn't approve of the small-time acting Sydney had been doing to make money for herself, as she feared it would lead her to join the Underground Justice. After leaving home, Sydney went directly against her mother's will and joined. She soon proved to be a valuable member, as she had inner knowledge of the workings of the Monocromatico, and within a year she was working against her own family. She was disowned by her father and stopped using the name "Awning", fashioning the ironic "Saccharine Sydney" for herself instead.

After being disowned, Sydney was transferred from the Southwest Quadrant to the Queen's Quarter (where she continued her acting work as well), as she was now an enemy of the mob. However, she continued to feed Underground information about her family, elevating her status until she was one of the most respected agents. She was promoted to Underground Captain at the age of 21 and offered the chance to form a new branch of the system. She decided to revive the out-of-business Short Pier Productions cartoon studio as the cover for her branch, and held auditions open only to other members of the Underground. Her chosen cast (and team) was almost entirely made up of former criminals, associates, and general vandals, much like Sydney herself. To further extend the cover, the twelve of them created the cartoon Dr. Keeble's Invisibles, which they worked on for six months before sending to America to air. They continue the cartoon throughout the story, writing and directing it themselves in between Justice missions that come into their way.

Personality
Sydney is extremely brash, impatient, and judgmental. She holds great prejudice against those with "easy lives" - generally, the rich and those untouched by the dangers of Slipknot City culture. However, she also has a warm place in her heart for children and education, which fuels her desire to bring down the mob families of Slipknot. She has a rather cruel sense of humor; much of her show revolves around subjecting the "normal" characters to pointless violence. Nevertheless, she still holds a position of respect among the Underground, and her work with her cast has many citing her as a "genius". (Though interestingly, she seems to be of average intelligence.)

Sydney also has a love of musicals. In Act 1, she states that many of the shows that she worked on were musical, and Dr. Keeble's Invisibles is as well. This can be attributed to her genetics and upbringing, as many (if not most) Rubber Hose families have heavy musical backgrounds. Her knowledge of Rubber Hose culture often bleeds over into her everyday life; she is attracted to polka dots, uses a fair amount of old-fashioned slang, and surprisingly enough, has an optimistic outlook on life. She simply chooses to express herself with excessive swearing and nasty remarks, though she generally means well.

She does have a difficult time getting along with people around her, and even the other cast members find her hard to tolerate sometimes. That being said, she is capable of holding a civilized conversation, albeit on very rare occasions. She admits to being addicted to sex (though she's trying to break that addiction), as well as being a heavy drinker (though not to the extent that she could compare with Radley.) She is infamous with the public, but her show has very high ratings with human audiences, as she knows how to tap into the "edgy young teen" demographic.

Physical Appearance
Sydney has most of the features common to Rubber Hose girls. She has black, oval-shaped eyes, rubbery arms and legs with no joints, and is painted in greyscale. Being human shaped, she also has thick, dark grey hair with bangs that fall into her eyes, and an exaggerated female figure, with wide hips and a short torso. She always dons white gloves and high heels, and typically wears clothes inspired by flappers; this includes short dresses, feathered headbands, and accessories such as pearls, fishnet stockings, or feather boas.

Most interesting, however, is the large hole in the middle of her back. It is wide and almost a foot long from top to bottom, and expels a constant stream of smoke, which grows thicker and darker if Sydney is particularly angry or ill. Sydney constantly warns others away from said hole, stating that it has fire deep within it and that reaching into it could easily injure or kill someone. The hole is a birth defect that cannot be fixed or painted over, and has yet to be explained as to where it came from (though Sydney herself theorizes that it is a result of her mother's chain smoking while pregnant.)

Relationships

 * Sydney's strongest relationship is with Kingsley Vogue, who she considers to be her closest companion. He is one of only two characters who understand her feelings about the Monocromatico, and she is the only one who realizes the full extent of his self-esteem issues. Some of their castmates (especially Nancy) see them as a "couple-to-be", but Sydney avoids a romantic relationship with him out of fear of putting him in danger.


 * Skitster is Sydney's "main squeeze", "number one homeskillet", and "right hand bitch", among other creative descriptions. She frequently refers to him as her best friend, and he has the bunk above hers in the barracks. Sydney's willingness to hire him for her team gave Skitster a sense of loyalty and duty to her, and so she is never the target of his attacks or pranks. They also vaguely knew each other in elementary school, as Skitster was in the year above Sydney and they were both frequently getting in trouble.


 * Sabrina is another close friend of Sydney's. Sydney is the first female friend that Sabrina truly cared for, and the two are close enough to have been mistaken for lovers a few times (most notably by Marty Cosmo.) However, Sydney will not hesitate to call Sabrina out on her gratingly eager nature if it gets to be too much, and Sabrina has no problem telling Sydney how terrible of a person she is if she starts acting particularly cruel.

Trivia

 * Despite apparently being a part of her body, the smoke that Sydney's back emits has had a number of negative effects on her, including completely destroying her sense of smell. Also, if it is kept inside her body in some way (such as if the hole is covered,) it can potentially make her very sick.
 * Sydney has a fear of sleeping alone. This is stated to be because of the above reason (if she sleeps on/ accidentally rolls onto her back, she might block the smoke,) but it's possible that this also ties back to her childhood, when she lived with the Monocromatico. This is seemingly backed up by The Sweep's claim that "[the Monocromatico] are never really alone...not ever, not if we wanna survive."
 * Sydney has three eyelashes at the bottom of each eye. This is uncommon for Rubber Hose girls, who often only have one eyelash per eye.
 * According to Skitster, Sydney never finished high school.
 * The hole in her back used to be much smaller, but slowly grew until Sydney had to repaint the edges of it. At one point, in Act 2, Sydney drunkenly confesses to Linda that she used to have a tattoo on her back when she was younger, but that it had to be removed when she got her back repainted. The tattoo was of a few ghosts.
 * Sydney has a lot of trouble walking in flat shoes. She blames this on her genetic makeup.