mooshroomnymph

[mooshroomnymph]

are you happy to be in Paris?

[mooshroomnymph]

humanoidish lsp n lemongrab lol

[mooshroomnymph]

Monster High Reimagined

Deuce Gorgon character bio/redesign

Deuce Gorgon (he/him)

Trans man

The Gorgon son of medusa

(Greek Moroccan)

Deuce is the first Gorgon (on account of their rarity as a monster type) to attend monster high at the behest of his nervous and at-times overbearing mother Medusa. (yes, that medusa) Not that he minds all that much being an easygoing, chilled out boy who tends to make friends easily through his delicious cooking and general affability ,monster high being the perfect place to hone his many Gorgon powers and perfect his culinary skills as well as make some new friends. That Mummy girl in particular is kinda cute,he'd love to get to know her better…

Likes: cooking,space,skateboarding,pet rodents and tabletop rpgs.

Dislikes: transphobia and islamophobia,cold weather (makes him drowsy),accidentally petrifying people, wasting good food and people acting entitled towards kitchen staff and servers.

Killer style: A simple,casual look that marries north African and western streetwear. Because of Vermont's chilly climate most of the year his mantra when picking out an outfit for the day is to strike a balance between “cool” and warm, or he risks falling asleep in class thanks to the cold. (Though usually one of his friends jolts him awake or lends him their coat if he does)

Familiar: Percy,Orym and Caleb the rats. Named after some of the characters from a tabletop rpg web show he loves,deuce has always liked rodents but until he arrived in the states wasn't able to keep them due to his family's affinity for them in a...different sense (as accidental as it always was,his mother's always felt a bit off snacking on rodents personally but her serpentine urges are always just too strong,she and her sisters try to never do so in front of him at least if they must)

Pet Peeve: food influencers using exponential amounts of ingredients for wasteful,dumb stunts online. It just doesn't sit right for a working class guy like deuce who was taught growing up how much more could be made with less.

Freaky Flaw: At the moment his petrifying gaze. Being a Gorgon means deuce has a bevy of latent powers with the ability to turn people to stone amongst them. Which whilst thankfully it isn't permanent can still be an inconvenient (to say the least of it) experience for the recipient and very awkward for himself,there's also the matter of his glasses used to keep said power in check dropping in food while he's cooking but that's another story altogether…

Spooky Secret: Despite being chilled out a lot of the time,duece does sometimes worry about his mother back home and whether their once tight bond is starting to fray,and that whilst she's generally a bit of a nervous wreck about everything it's something to do with his transition and her anxiety regarding men. Although medusa has been stalwart and understanding of him throughout his transition and deuce himself probably knows it's probably more to do with him growing up and leaving home for the first time,the thought still makes him a little nervous.

Dream job: be it in a high class restaurant or in a simple shop or food truck,deuce hopes to put his culinary skills to good use after high school and get the world as hooked on his greek-Moroccan-monster fusion food as he was growing up.

Five Fearsome Facts:

Deuce is a practising Muslim. Medusa and her sisters having converted centuries ago after becoming (obviously) disillusioned with their native hellenic polytheism after the “incident” and deuce and his cousin viperine being raised in its stead. As with it's other minority faith students, monster high accommodates him as best they can,for example giving him and the few other Muslim students a room for midday prayers and offering halal/vegetarian lunch options within the creepeteria.

Aside from the culinary arts,deuces' other great love has been space,being interested in the cosmos from a young age. This manifests in a lot of his other favourite media,including spending many hours of his spare time watching live streams of space launches and playing video games like Kerbal space program, as well as a love of astronomy and the constellations,a telescope being one of the most treasured possessions brought with him from Morocco.

Deuce's “hair” may look a bit odd at first,with the roots seemingly dyed dark green that fades into a deep brown ,but it's actually all natural! The nine snakes that make up his hairdo are African house snakes,all named after different beasts within the constellations. (Serpens,Hydrus,Cetus,Ursa,Taurus,Cygnus,Corvus,Scorpio and Leo) ironically due to his birthday being in early December deuce himself was born under the “forgotten” zodiac Ophiuchus ,the serpent bearer.

Like all gorgons,deuce has a pair of wings, and while Gorgons aren't as proficient fliers as vampires or harpies,per say, medusa saw it fit to teach duece how to fly short distances “just in case”, deuce prefers to get around town on his skateboard most of the time though. (This concept being inspired by designs by artists like @sleepywsha )

Also like his mother and family,deuce has powerful and rapid self-regeneration abilities,but though medusa has famously survived being decapitated and come out physically no worse for wear deuce isn't willing to test out its restrictions much and keeps his workspace as safe as can possibly be.

Happy new year everybody!!! I know I said last time I would have another one of these out by the end of 2023,but I had stuff going on irl/a bit of writers block so this (and several others to come) is done a bit later than I originally intended.

(Since I felt the following tract about why i made the design choices i have and how they tie into the folklore surrounding Gorgons would have made this already long post completely and utterly colossal ,I've put it in the read more tab down below)

Regardless i hope you like this post,and keep your eyes peeled because another one is nearly done and coming soon,hopefully anyway...

Anyways,before anything else,you're probably wondering why deuce is written the way he is. Considering how many of it's famous mythological monsters have found their way into Western pop culture, Monster High has a lot,and I mean a LOT of characters who hail from Greece. (There's also my hc that in general new salem has a large human population of greek immigrants, but anyways) As such, I decided to make a few of the greek characters hail from other parts of the world. Duece being from North Africa is a reference to several ancient scholars attempts to pinpoint exactly where medusa lived,with a popular schools of thought being that she originated from the mythology of the Ancient amazigh people of the sahara (of whose descendants make up a good chunk of modern morocco's population currently) and lived in classical Libya (Aka all of Africa north of the sahara) or as far west as the Cabo Verde islands off Senegal. My train of thought behind the idea of medusa living in Morocco was driven by the idea of her wanting to get as far away from the grecian world as possible after everything regarding perseus and settled down in what was then the phoenican colonies on the other side of the Mediterranean,which eventually became carthiginian,then roman,then islamic,then french/spanish and finally independent.

Impromptu history lesson aside, another reason behind my changes was because I felt monster high could have the chance to represent characters of different and diverse faiths as well as nationalities,identities, and orientations. It just made sense to me for it to be that way. Plus, aside from gigi and Wisp (and considering the iffy reputation those two have i understand why a lot of people arent too fond of them) ,Monster High really doesn't have any characters from the Islamic world,which in my opinion is a massive shame considering the rich cultures and mythologies within places like Iran,Mesopotamia and North Africa. So I thought that there should be some,even if it's only through a transplanted character from classical mythology at the moment.

Finally since this post is way too long already,here's a few visuals to show what exactly I'm going for within the text.

First off since I absolutely despise the G1 snake mowhawk,I imagine deuce has "hair" that's styled more like this:

Meanwhile, this is an african house snake,and what I imagine deuces "hair" colour looks like: (Unlike with the snake mowhawk, this wasn't because I hated the green btw)

Finally in terms of a mix of North african and western clothing,I like to imagine duece would absolutely rock both a hooded and non hooded kaftan with vans, baggy jeans, hoodies or puffer jackets.

[mooshroomnymph]

🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳

YOU GUYS. I’VE BEEN ACCEPTED INTO [my state’s university]’s CLASSICS PROGRAM 💪🏻💪🏻😭

[mooshroomnymph]

Been working on this during the semester!!! Bolt and Jordan comic abt how they first met!!! At a gay alternative club during lesbian night lol

Bolt (transmasc butch HE/HIM)

Jordan (nonbinary femme THEY/SHE)

[mooshroomnymph]

Been working on this during the semester!!! Bolt and Jordan comic abt how they first met!!! At a gay alternative club during lesbian night lol

Bolt (transmasc butch HE/HIM)

Jordan (nonbinary femme THEY/SHE)

[mooshroomnymph]

"Dual...?"

"DU-A-LIZE!"

do i like their nights into dreams design more? yes! is this a quote from jod? yes.

[mooshroomnymph]

"My demons have names.."

[mooshroomnymph]

Dataus!! Deltarune oc!!

Shes in charge of the little Maus and manages the library database!! shes very very smart and can be seen offering cheese to the maus or organizing the database.

more backstory..

She used to be Spamtons assistant! I imagine he used to go through them very fast because of how the other assistants couldnt handle his wild ass nature. Dataus is able to calm him or tell him to the shut fuck up when needed, which spamton admires. She collected data from surveys, polls, and experiments for Spamton. She stayed with him until his tragic fall and is let go from her position as his assistant. When let go she explores the library and becomes the library database manager!

[mooshroomnymph]

EVERYONE SAY HI TO THE GSA CLUB🥺💗

[mooshroomnymph]

Welcome to Dataus's Database!

[mooshroomnymph]

"Dual...?"

"DU-A-LIZE!"

do i like their nights into dreams design more? yes! is this a quote from jod? yes.

[mooshroomnymph]

My monster high redesigns!

[mooshroomnymph]

[mooshroomnymph]

Welcome to Dataus's Database!

[mooshroomnymph]

EVERYONE SAY HI TO THE GSA CLUB🥺💗

[mooshroomnymph]

Dataus!! Deltarune oc!!

Shes in charge of the little Maus and manages the library database!! shes very very smart and can be seen offering cheese to the maus or organizing the database.

more backstory..

She used to be Spamtons assistant! I imagine he used to go through them very fast because of how the other assistants couldnt handle his wild ass nature. Dataus is able to calm him or tell him to the shut fuck up when needed, which spamton admires. She collected data from surveys, polls, and experiments for Spamton. She stayed with him until his tragic fall and is let go from her position as his assistant. When let go she explores the library and becomes the library database manager!