#if anyone here is intersex and has a take on making a character canonically assigned Nothing at birth that is however still a man be that

[anglerflsh]

Ignore if a question is weird but if Adam was created genderless (and found himself as a man), is he like. Intersex in human au.

oh, I've thought about that. I feel like logically that would be the case, but at the same time if I were to make that canon even just in my head I'd have to do more research about intersex people -- that and I don't want to fall into the "intersex means having a nonbinary body e basta" type of deal that refuses to engage with the subject in general, so. Technically, yes, but more research pending before its canon

[transedwarp]

time to talk about adira’s identity being misrepresented on memory alpha 🙃 my Thoughts™ are under the cut

as far as i know, adira was initially listed as female on memory alpha, and that wasn’t changed after they came out as nonbinary in s3:e8. mods have elected to remove the gender category entirely rather than represent their nonbinary identity correctly (although some masked crusader has edited the sidebar and adira is currently listed as nonbinary). reading the mods’ responses, they reveal a juvenile (and possibly intentional) misunderstanding of what gender is, as well as willful ignorance regarding certain information from canon.

two mods claim that the gender category has always been used to describe “physiology.” i’m assuming this is their polite way of saying sex assignment or sex characteristics. this is a pretty dubious argument to make, as 1) gender is in no way related to “physiology” and 2) even if that category was being used to describe an aspect of the character’s sex, one of the mods points out that trek has “never showed anyone’s vagina or penis.” we can’t confidently identify the sex assignment of most characters in trek—and why would we want to? if the information isn’t there, why are we obsessed with sussing out a definitive answer? if it isn’t explicitly revealed in canon, there really isn’t a reason to speculate about a character’s sex assignment on their bio, and it’s inaccurate to label that kind of information with “gender.”

in adira’s case, their sex assignment, as well as their assigned gender at birth, is never stated in canon. adira could be amab, afab, intersex—all we know is that the crew of discovery assume that they use she/her pronouns until they come out to stamets. one of the mods takes this as evidence that they were assigned female at birth. but the only thing this tells us is either people are still assuming pronouns based on certain standards of presentation in the 23rd/32nd centuries, or that adira was asked about their pronouns offscreen and decided to use she/her until they became more comfortable with the crew. neither of these possibilities have any bearing on their sex assignment or their agab. in fact, we have much more concrete information about adira’s gender than we do about their sex: adira explicitly states that they use they/them pronouns, and that they don’t identify with a binary gender. they don’t pull out a specific label for their identity, but their description falls under the nonbinary umbrella.

despite the mods’ apparent obsession with “physiology,” there really is no justification for continuing to list adira as female or to neglect their nonbinary identity. removing the gender category is a choice to omit canon information, and an important aspect of the identity of these characters. and while i don’t think it should be removed, the gender category has needed updating. if a character’s gender identity is stated—as is the case with adira, who describes themself as nonbinary, and with spock, who describes himself as male—then it should be included. if that information isn’t available, then there shouldn’t be a need to fill that category with speculation based on presentation, pronouns, or assumptions of sex assignment.

there are going to be quite a few different points of view on this, but i think the solution here is to have three categories in the sidebar: “sex,” “gender,” and “pronouns.” when information about any of these things is unavailable, it should be ommitted. in adira’s case, their sex would be unlisted, their gender listed as nonbinary and their pronouns listed as they/them. to use spock as another example, his sex would be listed as male (we’ve seen his birth), his gender listed as male (he describes himself as male in “amok time”), and his pronouns as he/him (these are the only pronouns we’ve seen used for him). i doubt memory alpha would go this route, as it seems like the mods are having trouble with the concept of gender in the first place, but this is the clearest presentation of relevant information regarding sex and gender that i can think of.

[secretlyatargaryen]

Don't respond if you don't like talking about specific/individual ppl or are irritated by such asks, if so I apologize. So do you have any thoughts on the Tyrion narratives put forth by content creators like PoorQuentyn/BryndenBfish? I know u wrote on Brynden's "monster" piece, but I searched Tyrion/Tysha on twitter and have followed other NotACast Tyrion discussion,and it all seems to be aimed at framing him villainously,and since they're influencers, it sets the tone for all Tyrion discussion.

I do want to answer this question, but I don’t want to start discourse directed at any specific person so I thought about blacking out the names. But as you said, I’ve responded to these specific people before and written my own counter-meta so it’s no secret what I think about their theories. And they do have influence in the fandom and this interpretation of Tyrion is a popular one so it’s not like I’m dog-piling on a small minority by making a different argument. And you’re right about it setting a tone, and I think we need to be aware of the tone we’re setting when it comes to a visibly disabled character like Tyrion, and I think a lot of people aren’t aware of this or refuse to be sensitive to it. It’s better than it used to be but the ableism in this fandom is still shockingly bad. I mean, I saw a post recently calling Tyrion the “most vile” character in the books. Really? That vile dwarf, amirite?

I will say first of all that any argument for Tyrion’s villainy that claims him as “the monster he was told he was” or any iteration of that phrase should be dismissed outright on the grounds of gross ableism. Even if Tyrion ended up as the biggest villain of the series, he would not be the monster he was always told he was because he was told that because of ableism, by a society that thinks that disabled people are less than human, and that is fundamentally wrong.

I know we use the word “monster” in a moral sense, to describe a person who does acts that we consider so heinous that they seem inhuman, but not only is that fundamentally wrong - because even people who commit horrible acts are still human, despite what is comforting to think - but there’s a connotation of ableism there even without taking into account how it’s used in the text to demonize Tyrion, and used by his family and others to justify abusing him.

Like, if I can go on a tangent for a second, I started thinking about this when I used to be a big “Dexter” fan, before I’d ever read asoiaf or seen an episode of GOT. Dexter is a ridiculous show and not very good (but I love it), and it suffers from the same problems that a lot of villain discourse in fandom revolves around. Dexter is a bad guy but in the context of the show, he is a hero. Dexter, the character, often calls himself a monster in the show, and yeah, he’s reprehensible. He’s a serial killer whose one redeeming quality is that he kills other killers. He’s more reprehensible in the books and the earlier seasons before the show got too in love with the idea of him as the good guy, but even before that, I started noticing something really interesting. The ways that Dexter refers to himself as a monster have less to do with his serial killing habits and more to do with how he is mentally different than others. I don’t mean in the “sociopathic” sense, either, because early Dexter would talk about himself in ways that are recognizable to a lot of neuroatypical people. Dexter talks about pretending to be a real person and not a monster the way that my college roommate and I would talk about pretending to be real people when we would work up the spoons to go out to a party.

After I realized this, I began to be really uncomfortable every time I heard the word “monster” on the news, used to describe some person who’d committed some terrible crime. I get why people use this word, because, as I said above, it’s comforting to distance these sorts of people - rapists, murderers - from humanity, to pretend they’re inhuman. I’m not asking anyone to find the humanity in a rapist. I’m not saying that disabled people are just like serial killers. What I AM saying, though, is that using the word “monster” to describe a canonically disabled character who, throughout his life and throughout the series, has suffered horrible abuse because of ableism, carries a lot of unfortunate implications. We use this word to distance humans from their humanity. Tywin and Cersei also use this distancing language to justify poor treatment of Tyrion. He’s not Cersei’s brother, he’s not Tywin’s and Joanna’s son, he’s a monster. The slavers use it to refer to the slaves in Yezzen’s menagerie, which includes disabled people and an intersex person. And we should all know that the best way to justify enslaving and abusing others is to dehumanize them. Don’t call Tyrion a monster. Don’t.

The same thing needs to be said about arguments that use Tyrion/Tysha as evidence for Tyrion’s villainy. I’ve written extensively about this and I’m not going to argue with anyone on whether Tyrion should be blamed for what happened there, because he was a child being sexually abused by a parent and any attempts to retroactively assign blame or link this to theories about Tyrion’s future villainy is completely and absolutely wrong.

Now, as far as what I have to say about the narrative that Tyrion is a villain / will be by the end of the series? That depends on a lot of things, and one of them is what we mean when we say a character is a villain.

A lot of people, when they talk about this, are of course talking about the theory that Tyrion will somehow lead Dany astray and manipulate her into blowing up King’s Landing. Unless you’re one of those weirdo people who also think Dany is a villain, but that’s a whole different story and I don’t feel the need to address that because it’s complete nonsense. Anyway.

But here’s the thing. In asoiaf there’s multiple conflicts in every POV narrative, and in Tyrion’s story here’s what I see as the two major big ones: the internal conflict, Tyrion vs himself and his desire to prove that he is not a monster / his desiire for goodness / love / acceptance; and the external conflict, the more immediate of which is Tyrion getting back to Westeros / whatever role he plays in the war of five kinds / whatever role he plays in the song of ice and fire / the conflict with the others.

The things that people often cite as making Tyrion villainous are personal villainies. They’re part of the internal conflict. And in this conflict, Tyrion himself is his own villain. GRRM says that killing Shae is “the great crime of his soul” (and I would also add raping the woman in Selhorys) and those are part of Tyrion’s internal conflict because their role in the narrative is the effect they have on Tyrion mentally. I don’t mean that what happened to these women isn’t important, but from a narrative perspective, they are important for how what happens to them affects Tyrion. Now, we could talk about how that’s problematic, but it’s problematic from a narrative perspective, and that should be lain at the author’s feet. And the problematic aspect of it is that it’s NOT there to make Tyrion a villain. It’s there to provide conflict for Tyrion’s internal struggle, which he will need to resolve in order to participate in the external conflict. I think that’s the real reason why some fans hate Tyrion, but I wish we could be honest about that instead of pretending the author intends him to be a villain, because that’s just not how Tyrion is written.

Now, when I say the internal conflict has to be resolved, I don’t necessarily mean that it will be solved, or resolved in a good way. I think it would be like GRRM to have Tyrion play a major part in saving all of humanity and still be terrible on a personal level, but I don’t think that’s where he’s going with Tyrion either. I mean, in the latter half of ADWD he has Tyrion say things like this:

An honest kiss, a little kindness, everyone deserves that much, however big or small.

Which is…just not the statement of a character who is being written as a villain. If GRRM were writing Tyrion as becoming a villain in Dance it would be a gradual progression to more and more villainy. Instead he has Tyrion vacillate between depression, apathy, and cruelty and kindness and heroism. In fandom spaces we used to call this Heroic BSoD, Joseph Campbell called it The Innermost Cave. This is the part in the story where you don’t want to hear the end, Mr. Frodo, because how can the end be good, after all that bad has happened?

…You get the idea. GRRM is darker and grittier, and we can argue about whether he goes too far, especially when it comes to his unfortunate habit of fridging female characters, but that’s a different issue.

So, my thoughts on whether I think Tyrion will cause Dany to blow up King’s Landing? I mean, I don’t necessarily think it unlikely for GRRM to go that route, but if he does it won’t be that simple. Like I said, there’s a difference between the internal, personal conflict in Tyrion’s narrative and the external, wider conflict that is going to come to the fore in the next two books. Will Tyrion try and convince Dany to blow up King’s Landing because of his own desire for revenge on his family / the city that turned on him / people in general? Maybe, but that won’t be his only motivation, and Dany isn’t going to be his hapless puppet. If that happens, here’s how I see it: I think Tyrion, when he finally meets Dany and sees the dragons, is going to buy into what she is selling. Yes, Tyrion is incredibly cynical about Dany, but he’s also intrigued and even a little hopeful, and there’s also that inner part of him that’s going to be all “dragonsdragonsdragonsDRAGONSGDSDrasfGonSSDRGRRAGONSS.” So if he has a hand in getting Dany to torch the city, it will be because he actually thinks it’s necessary or that it’s an acceptable sacrifice for the world Dany wants to create (a world where even a dwarf can look down upon the world on the back of a dragon) with maybe a side helping of revenge because here’s Dany, the rightful heir to the throne, who wants to make the world a better place and who trusts and values him, and here’s the city full of corrupt people who hate him, who almost executed him for something he didn’t do. Tyrion’s crime there might be convincing himself that it’s an acceptable sacrifice to make, for the greater good, but that’s not that different than decisions many of the rulers in the books have made, and that’s a scenario in which he, Dany, and anyone else at play are equally culpable, and a far cry from the theories about how he’s going to be the villain leading Dany astray. GRRM is too good of a character writer to pull anything else with one of his major POVs, especially not his favorite who he has often stated is “the grayest of the gray.”

It would also be like GRRM to have Tyrion commit war crimes and still save all of humanity on the back of a dragon as his final act of love, resolving the internal conflict once and for all. I have problems with this too, because I find it incredibly uncomfortable for a disabled character whose narrative deals so personally with a desire for love end with him dying in a selfless act of sacrifice / have some kind of epiphany about how his desire to receive love on a personal scale is not important. I go back and forth, but really, the only thing I’m sure about is that GRRM is not going to make it so easy for us to categorize Tyrion in the end.

[cyrelia-j]

A Tale of Two Parmaks (or the big write up on my crazy versions)

In thinking of multiverse and character stuff, I thought this would be a good opportunity to familiarize everyone with the two big versions of Parmak that I write. He isn’t super fleshed out in the books, but I think that there’s still somewhat of a consensus on defining character traits both physical and mental/intellectual/emotional that make up the heart of him. I know that in both my primary iterations of him there are some characteristics which diverge sharply from what most people imagine he’d look like/think like/act like. There are a few short things I’ve written where I think he remains “canon” Parmak but those are definitely the minority.

So, without further ado, may I present:

C132 Parmak and C147 Parmak

(Yeah, I totally ripped off Rick and Morty for this)

The idea for those not familiar with the show is that there are various multiverses where alternate versions of the world/characters exist. It’s a pretty common theme in sci fi but I took the universe designation format from that show. Just as a reference, in the show it’s generally accepted that the “Primary Universe” characters are C137 so I definitely will not be using that number :)

C132 Parmak: This Parmak appears in my serious and dark/dramatic stories. I’m working on an ambitious series of backstories for his life in this universe. Right now these start with “If” and are going to continue through [upcoming as of 5/24/18] “The Downward Spiral” and others. Parmak in these stories is intersex- having characteristics of both sexes. In this universe I had envisioned Cardassia as having a detailed spectrum of sexes (Known as the Ba’zan Spectrum) which range from what we would approximate from Cis Male at one end to Cis Female on the other. I won’t get too detailed with that in this post but as a note, Parmak is “X210” which means that his primary body characteristics skew slightly female in appearance (ie the hip to shoulder ratio, slightly more feminine ridges, a bit of a softer voice etc) but as far as biological sex are closer to the center of the two.

The reason that this characteristic and matter of his sex gets such detail is because it’s a critical part of this Parmak’s identity. What I mean is this: I wrote this character to reflect a bit of myself. In the Cardassian records systems and medical systems etc he’s not considered male, he’s defined by this designation. But he considers himself male and refuses to be defined by the sum of his biology. As a trans male I wanted this part of him to be reflective of my own feelings and experience. (Yeah I know, confusing avatar- think of the Cyrelia J pseud like Conchita Wurst) This Parmak has spent his life with different expectations and prejudices being pushed on him because he refuses to call himself anything other than male. He’s rejected from his petition to study medicine before he gains a sponsor, he’s slandered and objectified by people he encounters, and he encounters a lot of pressure to conform. In spite of that he refuses to be anyone other than who he knows himself to be.

This Parmak is from Nokar. He was a physically “abnormal” child in that he is an albino (in the Cardassian sense), he has poor eyesight, and has kyphosis (a spine curvature which can be very minor to a pronounced hump- my cousin was born with this so that’s where the concept had originated from. Scoliosis, that thing they test for in schools is a spine curvature on the other axis). He’s terrified of his own reflection and has no desire to know what he looks like. He’s actually very attractive. His main drive and passion in life is medicine. When he was a teenager there was a plague of a mutated Yarim Fei which struck his village and everyone but him died. He spent months burying those who died while simultaneously trying to cure them with his own limited medical knowledge. He realized later he wasn’t infected because of his mutated genes. This really shaped his life because when he was able to devote himself to medicine he worked tirelessly for a vaccine on that and other diseases.

His passion and unique talent is in pharmacology and chemistry. This gets a bit “too perfect/sue-ish” but I like it so it’s not likely to change here. He’s like a magician/alchemist when it comes to his ability to mix up serums and drug compounds. It’s a highly coveted almost genius ability and one that Tain wants like oxygen. This Parmak was involved sexually with both Tain and Garak. He’s afraid of Garak’s eyes because of Tain’s induced illusion ability. He was soft spoken but fearless and was taught by his foster father Vakem Parmak that the Doctor’s role is to survive at all costs, be unbreakable, and so he was raised from his late teenage years to his mid 40s to withstand poisons and torture of an extreme form. It had only ended when Vakem Parmak died. Shortly after that he was recruited by Enabran Tain (albeit not exactly willingly). It made him arrogant in his abilities until Garak broke him. That combined with his experience in the work camp changed him.

In the present day, he’s kind but pragmatic. He’s aware of his own shortcomings but he still has a “survive at all costs” mentality due to his upbringing. The Parmak family credo which he lives and dies by is “one for a hundred” meaning for every life taken he must save a hundred. He’s unbending in this assessment. He still has his quirky sense of humor, he still refuses to look at himself in the mirror, and he doesn’t understand why people find him attractive as his own self-image is still poor. He has few hobbies because his life is work be it medicine, advocacy, raising a family, or self assigned “missions”. He enjoys reading and gardening but really has to be dragged into leisure because he doesn’t understand it. His life has taught him that life isn’t leisure only survival and work so he’s not very able to relax.

He’s a tireless advocate for the Northern Continents and northern rights and he has far less moral limits than I would imagine canon Parmak to have. He’s willing to kill to save but he works to heal the disenfranchised and protect those who need him most. He also has a warped pain tolerance because of his foster father’s training and enjoys being hurt- he doesn’t ask for it or seek it out, but he was conditioned to have that response when it occurs so that’s been used against him. I guess you could say he’s a bit of a broken Parmak.

Stories featuring C132 Parmak are: “If—“, “The Downward Spiral”, Invictus, and Inside a Dream” so far

If you like your Parmak closer to Julian ethically, more “light” than “dark”, and much less twisted then this isn’t the Parmak for you :)

On the opposite end we have:

C147 Parmak: This Parmak appears in all my humor/crack/lighthearted stories. His sex is irrelevant to the character unlike C132 Parmak though for reference he’s usually male in this iteration unless otherwise stated; so far in every story but “The Power of Three” he’s been cis male. This character borders on being a parody so I would encourage most to take this one with a grain of salt because he’s not meant to be a serious representation of Parmak. A lot of his traits come about because of silly late night conversations or “what if” jokes. The biggest example would be his cock obsession. For me this is more of a running gag because I imagine it to be so far off of real Parmak canon and behavior that it’s just silly. I find all sorts of stupid things amusing.

He had a happy childhood in the North, has living parents, and only moved South to study medicine for the adventure of it. He’s usually near lifelong friends with Garak (as this Parmak appears primarily in AUs) and occasionally it’s a friends with benefits arrangement. He appears as various types of doctors/healers but in the Extraverse he’s a yoga instructor as well. I’ll probably branch out his professions as I write more for him. He likes to wear his signature hair beads (silly fanon thing of mine) and often says outlandish things “unintentionally”.

He has a massive hoarding problem and he loves pop culture. You’ll find his space (car, house, office, etc) full of records, CDs, books, bumper stickers, old bottles, and anything he finds interesting. In some universes this includes a massive sex toy collection This Parmak loves taking pictures and loves music. He comes across as oblivious and spacey. Some of that’s genuine, some of it’s played up a bit because he likes seeing people smile and he likes spreading positivity. He loves yoga and tends to be super flexible and fit (sometimes in teasing contrast to the C147 Garak who’d rather lounge with a cocktail). This Parmak also loves television, Queen, and Columbo. He’s incredibly adventurous and has a devious little smirk. He’s a voyeur and a closet sadist (in a playful sense- he doesn’t enjoy actually hurting people).

He’s a bit of a bad driver, is into conspiracy theories in a big way, and is into alternative medicine and new age ideas. He’s more the “Hippie” part of “Hippie Lizard”. He absolutely loves sex and could be considered shameless but he’s proud of this and infinitely creative in that realm. I might even make him a sex therapist one of these days since I think he’d be good at it. As a side note, his companion C147 Garak is much the same. He loves games and stories and “cute” things though he seems rather unaware that he himself is one of those “cute things”. He likes to wear his sunglasses perched on his head while still wearing his glasses. Fun fact- his sunglasses aren’t prescription and he never actually wears them as sunglasses.

He’s a good listener, emphatic to the max and is comically strong while being pretty slim and unassuming. Sometimes he’ll also have the congenital stoop of C132 Parmak but not always. He dresses very free in the summer and bundles up like the kid in A Christmas Story in the winter. He has a strange obsession with tentacle porn and stopped consuming sugar sometime in the early 2000s. He’s pretty much everyone’s friend and can be outspoken and opinionated (especially on obscure things). He totally grows on people even if they don’t like him much at first and is always a brilliant doctor and ethically upright and kind character.

Sometimes he’ll appear in contemporary Cardassian fics/drabbles so some of the more Earth centric traits will be missing but everything else will pretty much hold true. The sex thing also holds for anyone in the C147 Parmak verse including Julian and Garak who are usually the 2 other constants. This too is actually kind of personal for me. It’s a lens through which I see the world. Maybe it’s because growing up I was like listening to Howard Stern since I was 7 and had a lot of exposure to that sort of thing. It’s difficult for me not to sexualize things and interactions and in my writing I tend to be super sex driven. Since my RL doesn’t even remotely reflect that activity I enjoy expressing it through fic even if the C147 Parmak and others get kind of caricature-ish.

Stories featuring C147 Parmak are: The Extraverse, Lizards Melt in your Mouth (epilogue 1 not 2), The power of Three, and the drabble Fine Print

So if you don’t like your Parmak to be an over the top extra dick magnet then steer clear of this Parmak :)

As a side note “A Gift for My Darling” has a mirror Parmak that’s a combo of both these Parmaks while being kind of completely insane.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read, and I hope this enhances everyone’s experience with my stories. I’m always super appreciative of anyone reading and giving feedback. I’m kinda of like a sponge... but not the Seinfeld kind haha

I’ve been debating if people might prefer that I tag either version of this character for ease of filtering so any feedback on that either by reply or DM would be much appreciated!

[fantroll-purgatory]

Phomet Burzum Review

Alternia

They’re they/them and where one of my original struggles was deciding whether they’re boy or girl, I think I’d rather keep it ambiguous. Not sure if the sprite helpfully evokes that. This is mainly playing into the idea that the Sabbatic goat possesses all sexual characteristics to be ‘both’ at once, and with how Norse Seidhrs (magic practitioners) were generally woman with magic being seen as a womanly thing. Despite this, Odin himself is shown to study and use Seidhr magic, so that’s fun.

I love that they’re nonbinary and tbh you don’t need justification for them to be nonbinary any more than you’d need justification for them to be a boy or girl. (Everyone please send us more nb trolls we have so few and I love them all dearly). I would…caution you about creating a nonbinary character using the reasoning that Baphomet has intersex characteristics, since those two things are neither synonymous nor even really related at all? I mean I love this androgynous kid and will die for them and will pour my heart and soul into the redesign in which I maintain their gender ambiguity but just. Y’know? And there’s still enough reasoning for them to be nb on the basis that subverting gender norms is very much a part of punk culture and that Seidhr does indeed have a murky history in terms of which gender “should” use it so it still holds if you need a narrative reason.

Name: Phomet Burzum

‘Phomet' is from a shortening of ‘Baphomet’ which is the goat-headed figure that has come to represent the Sabbatic Goat, tying to their symbol and minor Satanic themes.

Burzum is the word for ‘darkness’ in Black Speech from The Lord of the Rings series.

God I love that’s he’s a little bit similar to a troll I recently reviewed. Hecate Bafmet and Phomet Burzum: BFFs 4 LYFE (however short Phomet’s may be)! Skulking around in the dark! You’d better watch out, you’d better watch out, *you’d better watch out,* *YOU’D BETTER WATCH OUT*! These two unsavory characters are comiiiing to tooown.

Strife Specibus:Axekind for now mainly as a joke on an ‘axe’ as a guitar slang term. Could instead do ‘guitarkind’ and have it go into axes later a la Rose’s knitting needle kind acting as wands.

Fetch Modus: Cryptogram - Has to spell out words with musical notes. Probably gonna use the French method for simplicity.

Blood color: Rustblood - Blooooood. But no, they’re a rustblood kinda based off a concept I had. With the True Sign of Aries being a Time one, with the social pressures kinda forcing Time as a concept over the rust caste, I’m making a cult based off Death Metal aesthetics rather than juggalos. Some sort of redblood solidarity where they wear corpsepaint. It’s meant to be a kind of mirror to the Juggalo cult, who are mirthful and the highest land caste, whereas this Metalhead cult is more stoic, macabre and comprised of the lowest ladndwelling caste. Dunno.

I do know!!! That’s metal as FUCK. Also I’m DEF adding corpse paint to their sprite!!!

Symbol and meaning:It’s a goat head, referencing the Sabbatic goat.

As with the previous troll I reviewed, it reads well and matches Aries “sign language,” and I’ll see what I assign them after looking at their aspect and moon.

With that said, since I’ve now made a similar comment twice in a row I think it’s worth going back and establishing what exactly does make a sign fit its caste’s language in case anyone wants to do a fan sign beyond the extended zodiac that could still plausibly fit within canon…

Trolltag: Nothing yet, used to be ‘cantankerousGrendel’ but I’m not sure it’d fit them these days.

Given that you’ve worked them into a death cult, how about culminateGeneration? It also works with their Void aspect.

Quirk:They talk lyke thys tü be as BRÜTAL as possyble - They replace ‘I’ and the matching sounds with ‘y’ and replace ‘u’ and matching sounds with ü. This is meant to mimic the trends a lot of metal bands to to their names in order to look cooler.

hjfsdk;l when I said that with the umlauts it honest to god sounds like someone trying to do a goat imitation so PERF. Also brings to mind associations with Brütal Legend so I figure we’re gonna take this WAY over the top.

Special Abilities (if any):They’re a magic practitioner, and regularly communes with mysterious dark entites (Horroterrors) for song advice and inspiration. In return, their resulting music often carries a lot of eldritch effects to it, which Phomet doesn’t mind because it looks so BRUTAL.

Lusus: (I’m proud of this) Pentaram - It’s… a goat head with five spider legs. It’s species doesn’t live long, they can barely move around because they have five fucking legs to support a whole goat head. Not even big ones, they’re just about average. Phomet hates their lusus and thinks it’s completely lame. When it gets sprites and is this not bound to the cruel mistress of gravity, it looks WAY cooler. Mainly based on the Sabbatic goat again, this time with the goat-headed pentagram.

dhgsljk;lafjha;jeg I love them so much. They’re a Parentaram.

Personality: Honestly, this is kinda where I struggle the most. The most I can think of is Nathan Explosion from Metalocalypse. Their voice is a similar growly type.

The character you seem to have created with Phomet is one who is very attracted to the lük of things and not to the substance. I like that for a Void player! Their interests in stuff is initially superficial, ‘empty.’ This sets them up for a very interesting arc in which they will need to actually face up to what they’re doing, the good the bad and the ugly. Dig a little deeper into this theme! You can do a lot with it.

Interests: Magic, music (playing guitar, listening to bands, composing their own stuff, singing), occult studies, looking up brutal and gruesome things online (basically an average troll google), haircare.

Title: Knight of Void - Off the bat, I’m in the 'Knights are passive’ camp and that their class verb is 'Serve’. I often try and approach my Knight characters from different perspectives but they all more or less come to the same thing, so it’s cool.

(ʘ��ʘ ) You have come to…a blog that does not actually subscribe to that verbiage so my advice from here on out may not apply…

Anyways, their interest and dabbling with dark, esoteric magic is a good link to Void in my opinion. Forbidden, unknowable things that are best left obfuscated. The Horrorterrors are very Void-coded, such as how people can interpret Rose’s Grimdark status as her acting as a Void player, as well as residing in the Furthest ring, furthest from the Light of prospit.

Phomet regularly communes and 'serves’ Horroterrors in the way similar to a Warlock from Dungeons and Dragons serves their patron. What Phomet gets out of this is some kickass riffs and lyrics whilst the HTs just get another emissary or plaything.

I…hm. I mean I think Knight of Void actually does apply here just not for the reasons that you do. Knights tend to be drowning in their aspect, and Phomet is definitely doing so here.  They’re surrounded by secrets and horrorterrors and have almost no understanding of the depth of the forces with which they’ve involved themselves. Ideally, a Knight would grow to eventually wield the very things under which they’re being suffocated.

I’ve not really thought about personality in regards to this classpect, that’s what I’m struggling most with them.

Yeah, if we look at someone like a Dave or a Latula, Knights tend to come off as very superficially cool specifically because they don’t understand that they should be concerned by everything they’re overwhelmed with. I think you’re fine just making Phomet a punk #aesthetic kid like many of us were in middle school and letting them come into their own from there.

Land: Nada

Does this mean you didn’t assign one or that they don’t have one??? Because the latter would be really interesting if you want to give them no choice but to consort with horrorterrors; if they, for example, die before getting in and wake up on their moon after a kiss, they might find that their planet never manifested/was destroyed before they could enter.

Or, if you do ant them to have a planet, how about Land of Metal and Mirrors? It would fit their aesthetic really well and also be a sly dig at their own vanity, with mirrors that show warped reflections or aspects of themself that they don’t like. The way to reach the denizen would be to accept all reflections as true expressions of themself, allowing them to warp between mirrors (including one located at the heart of the planet, inaccesible by any natural means).

Dream Planet: I wanna say Derse, but Prospit would be a nice ironic fate for them.

I think this is a question of what you want to do with them. It’s not as simple as Prospit = nerdy goofballs and Derse = edgy coolkids, though that may be what someone gets if they initially saw the moons to which the kids were assigned. Vriska, one of Homestuck’s most famously murderous and grey-moral characters, is a Prospit player. This is because her character’s focus is on Destiny. She relies heavily on predestination and is all about living up to be the grand hero she knows she’s meant to be. If you want Phomet’s arc to be about breaking free of forces to which they’ve dedicated themself with little understanding, you’d go with Derse (which is my pick, personally, especially because it puts the horrorterrors right in their ear before they even get into the game). If you think that they have a destiny to fulfill (even a dark one like eventually becoming the horrorterrors’ permanent plaything), then you’ll wanna go with Prospit.

So. With A Void assignation and a Derse moon, we get Arittarius, The Sign of The Astronaut. And interesting pick, especially if we go with the concept that they don’t have a personal planet! So let’s move to the redesign!

So. You may have noticed that Phomet has undergone something of a transformation. Let’s go top to bottom on this.

Horns - I gave them a new set of horns to match their new symbol. We already have a troll with this symbol, but I didn’t want to repeat her horns on them and their new pair looks like the tops of eighth notes as a nod to their musical inclinations!

Hair - So the thing about death metal fashion is that the folks in it have great hair, but it’s not necessarily as neat as Phomet’s original style. Their hair also tends to be longer, and chin-length on a Homestuck sprite sometimes translates to ear-length in Hero Mode, so I really wanted to hit the length home. I pulled this straight from a fan-troll sprite sheet, then added some definition at the top. One of the little cowlicks got lost behind their horn, but I wanted there to be five directly surrounding their face to reference the pentagram.

Corpse paint - I pulled the colors directly off Gamzee’s face to further drive home the mirrored implications. I even mirrored Phomet’s own face paint to make it look a little like a Rorschach blot. Finally, I futzed with their mouth makeup until it kind of looked like the silhouette of a goat head?

Eyes - So part of maintaining an androgynous look is to make things a Little Unsure. Did I add eyelash definition to their eyes or did I just make them more diamond shaped?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who knows. We’ve seen undereye makeup exactly ONCE on a troll but I liked how it made their bags stand out so I applied it over the corpsepaint.

Mouth - Hey :V Did you know goats don’t actually have upper teeth? That’s all just one gum, baby. I found this out while spriting Phomet’s mouth and now I have to live with that information and you do too. They have an underbite now, and just enough lip definition to make you cock your head. Is that lipstick? Are their lips just full?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Vest - I added some pockets to make them more utilitarian

Symbol - t b h this one just looks like a totally plausible variant of the symbol you already gave me.

Belt - It is. A SPIKE BELT.

Boots - constantly use fantrollartroom’s combat boot sprite???? MOI? Yes, yes I do, they have done a better job of spriting combat boots than I ever could and I love combat boots and they’re metal as hell so they get some.

So that concludes our review! Luv this scamp please get them a comb for me.

-TR