#magma cube and slime languages are unpronounceable by other species but they understand others just fine

[larks-and-katydids]

nether hot/cold anon here!! In my mind nether dwellers don't necessarily see the hot/cold change as bad, it's a biological process like how irl sea turtles become male/female depending on the temperature of the nest they hatch from, but for species where the change is rapid and irreversible, like piglins, there's a lot of... I guess cultural anxiety? about unexpected or unwanted changes, getting zombified against your will is extremely unpleasant esp. if you're happy with being Hot, and conversely piglins who spawn as zombies sometimes resent the fact that they never get to experience being Hot. I have this mental image of a baby piglin running around with a ghast or blaze friend who shoots fireballs at them every once in a while to keep them from going Cold, and adult piglins usually carry around magma blocks or flint and steel to heat themselves up in emergencies. Piglins who want to 'transition' into being zombie piglins get asked 'are you sure about this, this is irreversible, once you do this there's no going back, please make sure you're absolutely certain that you want this' a LOT. Some piglins are VERY envious of villagers and how they can unzombify just with a potion and some gold- wdym gold is harder to find in the Overworld? Skill issue- some random zombie piglin who much prefers being Hot, probably.

in keeping with how people tend to superimpose their cultural ideas of gender on other cultural groups, magma cubes are considered oddballs in the nether, since as far as anyone can tell they don't seem to have a hot/cold distinction??? at least until they learn about slimes, at which point they go "I've connected the dots!!" (incorrect. magma cubes and slimes are separate species- the only similarity they have is being natural enemies with frogs)

kinda weird trans tangotek headcanon: given minecraft spawning/breeding mechanics, most mobs don't really... have a concept of gender, in the sense of sexual reproduction and roles relating thereof BUT nether-dwelling mobs in general have a set of binary roles and traits that are culturally assigned to Hot/Cold. It's not necessarily a personally assigned role, sometimes it's locally assigned. You act in certain ways and do certain things in a Hot place and do different things in a Cold place, and Cold places can cause changes to you that may or may not be irrevocable(see: striders vs piglins/hoglins and their zombified counterparts) and it's somewhat less rigid than Player ideas of gender, bc the exact threshold of Hot/Cold varies across both species and individuals (striders are Very Very Very Hot; some piglins zombify if they go to cooler places in the nether (naturally spawned zombie piglins) while other piglins only zombify when they enter the Very Cold Overworld)

anyway, TangoTek may or may not be trans by human standards, but as far as the nether dwellers are concerned, for all intents and purposes, building the Deepfrost Citadel and becoming Dungeon Master was an act of him transing his gender.

GOD HELLO ANON I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. the nether worldbuilding that we were sorely missing right here. this also resonates with what i wrote in my trans hcs document which is just "tango - trans"

i can imagine someone else who is a netherborn or just Knows About this stuff coming into decked out and being like "I Know What You Are" and tango is like "i transificated my gender" (canon)

the deepfrost citadel is also so important to both tango and the hermits which feels so beautiful to me because by inviting them in and sharing it with them hes also sharing such a like. integral part of himself. something that is Big for him that they wont exactly understand because of cultural regional species differences. but he still wants them there in whatever way will work. the joy of creation!! the joy of sharing it with your friends!! the joy of transing your gender!!

also im so obsessed with thinking ab how this affects other nether dwellers. im especially obsessed with thinking ab how this came about like evolutionary wise which i wont get far into thinking ab but. it will be in the back of my brain. god and like what is the culture surrounding this, are nether dwellers who change easier based on temp viewed any differently by others (whether positive or negative), how does each species view these changes?? yeah. god. very cool. thank u very much for sharing this.