Canon Sylv

CW: brief mention of trauma, dysphoria, and eating disorders

I was trying to find the title for this post because I was also trying to figure out the exact direction it was going to go in, but I'm still not 100% sure on that. I started yesterday wanting to write a post about one thing, then decided that the... Part of that I was comfortable writing about wasn't substantial enough to make a post about, and I wasn't willing to only tell half the story. So, I figured today I'd approach the topic from a different angle, see if I can slide it in there while talking about something adjacent.

It's no secret among my friends that Sylv's appearance is based on Cillian Murphy. Simply, the community writing site I first created him on more than six years ago required that you provide a "face claim" for all of your human characters, and he fit my character idea well enough. At the time, he was still less famous than he is now; series 1 of Peaky Blinders had only just aired, and few people realised how many big films such as Inception he'd been in already. But hey, I'm not here to talk about Cillian Murphy.

... no, I'm not.

Actually, I would argue I am here to explicitly not talk about Cillian Murphy or the not insubstantial Cillian Murphy Collection on my DVD shelf-

Listen. I am bad at imagining human faces, and "fancasting" my own writing helps me to visualise, describe, and draw my characters. I'm so bad at it, I have a character I described once as "as sharp and well-groomed as a Doberman" and then proceeded to visualise him as a man in a suit with a Doberman's head like some kind of furry-bait and/or modern Egyptian god art student painting until I went "okay fine he's Ricky Whittle now" and could start seeing him as human again. I don't have face claims for all of my characters, but it's a habit writing on those early 2010s RPG boards got me into that really does help with the creative process. So, yes, my Sylv looks fairly like Cillian Murphy, at least in that he was the basis to build an appearance from. That's what I visualise when I write about "silver-steel eyes, stone-carved skin, short dark hair", etc. But... I guess what I'm aiming to say is that your Sylv doesn't have to look exactly like that.

Ancient Rome was extremely diverse; where they invaded, they captured slaves, sent them as far away from their homeland as possible, then often granted the next generation citizenship, meaning that people born in Egypt were having families in Britain, people born in Germany were living in Turkey, and so on. This was especially relevant for the armies, who were often sent as far away as possible from where they were conscripted. Though the actual furthest borders of ancient Rome didn't go much beyond western Europe and the northern tip of Africa, evidence that trade and travel took place has been found all across Asia and Africa, I think the furthest to Japan. Thus, when I imagine the background cast of Sylvestus, it's correspondingly diverse, though the colour of anyone's skin is scarcely mentioned in-text. Clues can be found in names, because those second-generation families were often given names by the government that corresponded to their parents' origin - Cyrenaicus, for instance, Sylv's best immune, would have come from what was then known as Cyrenaica, now Libya; Hispania, a lupa, from Hispanium, now Spain - but otherwise I leave it to the reader's imagination.

So, though it's literally the least I can do, let me state clearly here for any future arguments to screenshot and quote: I welcome and encourage you to imagine, fancast, and draw Sylv as black, south Asian, east Asian, Hispanic, or however you prefer to visualise him. Sylv lies frequently about his past through various false identities, but does at one point reveal that he was most likely born in southern Italy. Aaand this should have no bearing on his race, because Rome was diverse af. Heck, my face claim for him is Irish.

There are a few canon parts of Sylv's appearance. "Silver-steel" eyes, or "blue-grey" when he's vulnerable; "dark hair" that is "slightly longer than the Roman fashion" (i just couldn't cope with a military buzzcut); the scars on his back and arms that are an intrinsic part of his character and backstory, mentioned in Vol I and expanded upon in Vol II.

The only other major part of Sylv's appearance that I'd like to highlight are his height and his build, because they are important to me. I'd like you also to remember during this next part that I am writing as a non-binary person who was assigned female at birth (afab), and generally still presents in a "feminine" way, because of my body type and my fashion preferences, but uses they/them pronouns.

Sylv is short, about 5'6" when adjusted for "people back then were shorter than people now". This is intentional, to undermine the stereotypical image of the tall buff manly protagonist. It makes sense; he was malnourished during his growing years, and it fits into the personality of someone who had to learn to be clever rather than simply powerful. He has an imposing presence, and people respect him, and it's all personality. Height is a small but insidious thing that toxic masculinity lands on, this idea of invalidating men for being small and women for being tall, especially trans people. We're going to come back to that point in a moment, but I want to clarify one final thing first.

Sylv is chubby. The exact definition of that is up to you, but it's a hard thing to mention in-text because it's ridiculously taboo.

Fantasy women are just always waifish and thin, with wiry strength but absolutely no stomach, either flat-chested or "unusually well-endowed" for being so skinny. It destroyed me as a kid and young teen. The models in the fashion industry and the photoshopping of women to remove all imperfections are obviously insidious and damaging to young people worldwide, but as someone who took their escape in fantasy, that was almost worse. Like many young people who read a lot, I took inspiration and hope from my favourite characters. Being trans played a huge part in why that was difficult, but fosure so did my body type. I will never be both skinny and healthy: my healthy, happy weight is what most people would consider fat, and it's taken a very long time to be okay with that. Not comparing myself to real or fictitious people obviously was a part of that, but even while I was learning, it was insanely demoralising to only ever see myself in the short fat ugly sidekick, while the sci fi heroines and warrior princesses went on being 5'10" and skinny with visible ribs and abs.

One particular moment, and one particular book, sticks out to me. It must have been sixth form, when I was still working on self-esteem, no longer starving myself intentionally but still struggling to accept that it was okay to eat when hungry even if it meant I didn't have a permanently concave stomach. I wanted a waffle from the cafeteria, because I was hungry because I was 17 and had been learning all day and only eaten one slice of toast, and waffles were only like 40p and it was another two hours til lunch and I knew I wouldn't be able to focus and learn if I didn't have something to eat. And I was reading Six of Crows at the time, in which there are two female characters, a "waifish" acrobat Inej and a "curvaceous" warrior Nina, and I scoldingly thought, "Inej wouldn't eat a waffle. If you want to be like Inej, you have to have more self-control." And I miserably resigned myself to dissociating through the next two lessons for the sake of an unattainable body type based on a fictional acrobat.

And then I thought for a second and went, "Well fuck that, because Nina would eat a waffle, in fact Nina is described as eating many waffles throughout the book, and no-one thinks less of her for it, in fact her body type and her appetite are two things her love interest likes about her", and I bought my damn waffle and enjoyed it and suffered 0 negative consequences and was able to focus through my lessons and learn and do very well and be in a good enough mood to be nice to my friends.

Nina Zenik in Six of Crows changed something for me in my self-image. She was the first female character in seventeen years of reading who had been unapologetically fat and ate many sweet "bad" foods and was never criticised or vilified for it, but was instead just as badass, funny, and beloved as her skinny best friend.

Seeing Nina cast last week as an extremely skinny girl in the upcoming Netflix adaptation broke my heart. Even now, so much self-acceptance and fat-positivity later, part of me still relied on loving Nina to love myself.

So, Sylv is chubby and short. I can't think of any male protagonists of a fantasy novel who are anything other than extremely thin or exceedingly buff. Sylv is neither. He is strong, because he is a soldier who grew up performing hard manual labour, but he has realistic and visible body fat because he is a 39 y/o man whose day is not made up of pull-ups and flexing for a camera while dehydrated. TV has such a problem with demanding that women on-screen have no double chin, no love handles, no tummy roll, and it's just as bad for demanding that men on-screen have nothing except muscles and bones, which usually requires actors risking their health to dehydrate for several days before filming. And a lot of people still don't realise that's fake.

Sylv has muscles. He can grab a big dog by its collar, wrangle a rearing horse (terrifying), or swing a sword and cut a man to his spine - but you probably wouldn't be able to see most of those muscles, because he also has fat. Like a real human.

Another, similar note: Sylv likes sweet foods. I believe that seeing characters eat is important, as it normalises... You know. Eating. Without shame. It shouldn't be something taboo that we only see The Fat Character do, that the #skinnylegend heroes are polite enough to do off-screen. And the Romans loved a good feast! Hence why Aemilius, the brothel-owner who is described as "obese", is never seen eating (because fat people eating food shouldn't be a punchline), while Sylv (chubby), Velleius ("slim"), Capito ("paunchy"), and a host of other people with other body types are. Sylv especially enjoys honey-cakes, because it makes sense for his character, and because... Well, f*ck. If Nina liking waffles could help me, then maybe Sylv liking honey-cakes could help someone else. I was always self-conscious writing those things, as I am describing Sylv's body in-text, because it's so taboo. It shouldn't be. It's just another type of representation.

Further, and less politically, I believe it's one of the things that makes him human. I've been told that my characters feel real in a unique way, and I certainly believe that's true for Sylv. He has conversations with his dog when no-one is around. He complains when he has to walk up a steep hill. He raises his sword toward a giant eagle, then goes, "nope" and dives for cover when he realises how big it is. He puts so much honey on his wheat-cakes that Velleius makes fun of him for it. He cuts cheese for a spread, then uses the excuse that one slice is thicker than the rest and it would look untidy to justify eating it. He makes silent judgemental eye contact with his friend every time someone they hate says something dumb. Those little realities, little bits of humanity, make him as fleshed-out and real and relatable as he is, and those which relate to food, weight, or fitness shouldn't be taboo, yet they're the kind which never seem to appear in any other text. The characters never eat. Fat people have no place being badass. The actors starve and dehydrate themselves for days to flex on-camera for thirty seconds. I wanted to draw chubby Sylv yesterday to illustrate the point, but I was embarrassed to, because someone drawing their character slim or muscular is just someone drawing their character, but someone drawing their character fat means that it must be their thing. Taboo. Gross. Unusual.

So, yeah. I put my foot down on that one, I guess (and what do u know, the post did mostly end up being about the thing i decided i was too uncomfortable to make it about, hwoops). It's not like a content creator can or should control every piece of fan work created (and let's be honest, at this point i'd be thrilled to have any fan works), but like... Hey. As a bro. As a friend.

Don't make Sylv skinny. Or tall. Those are more important to me than his eye colour, his skin colour, the exact location and positioning of his scars. There are thousands of buff, 0% body fat men for u to draw. Let me n my thicc friends have this one.

OKAY, one last point to touch on because I did promise earlier, and I tried to re-write this post and slide it in earlier so I could end on "me n my thicc friends" but it just wasn't happening.

I mentioned my gender identity, and I mentioned Sylv's height, and I mentioned trans people. So, like, a lot of trans men's gender dysphoria is worsened by their height, partially because "men" are seen as taller and they feel less valid being shorter, and partially because it can make it harder to be recognised as your gender when you don't match people's image of it. Normally, people read me as a woman about five years older than I am - they have since I was twelve. If I make significant effort to present as male, they think I'm about seven years younger than I am, because I can make my face and outline masculine, but no adult man is 5'4". Another reason short guy rep is important, but that brings me onto the final like, canon slash flexible part of Sylv I wanted to talk about.

I was re-reading Vol I thoroughly this week, for the first time in a while, to just skim for any inconsistencies between its established canon and the current draft of Vol II, and the time away made me realise something that... Honestly made me wince a little.

Simply, it kind of baits the implication - at least to me - that Sylv is a trans man. He's described a few times as short. He's self-conscious about his body, not allowing anyone to see it. He reacts very badly when it's implied that he's going to have to show his body due to... uh... plot reasons. He obviously goes by a different name than he was born with. He lies about his past. He doesn't "identify with" masculinity.

Reading from distance, I was like, "Shit. I would 100% think that this was building up to the reveal that he's afab, and be extremely disappointed when it didn't". The reason for all of those things is different, and a key part of Sylv's character that is also very important to me. But it doesn't change that I really don't want to have accidentally led anyone on.

But... When you get down to it, there's nothing that really goes against that idea, if anyone were to continue preferring to think it. When someone does see him naked, they don't point and yell, "By Jupiter, it's a vagina!!" - but if you want to see that as a more tolerant Rome than might have been the reality, this is one case where I'm like, it's all yours to headcanon. Sylv's genitalia is never described because I ain't about that life. But on that note, I would like to clarify what I think of as my Sylv (which is to say, the canon if you want to know what the author thinks, but like, i'm not gonna get mad if your sylv is a trans man instead).

Sylv is genderqueer. In the same way that we can't know for sure what historical figures would have identified as in today's terms, I'm not comfortable putting a more specific label on it. Gender identity in ancient Rome was different to how we see it today, and linked intrinsically to sexual acts; a man who bottomed would be mocked for being feminine, but wanting to be a top was seen as perfectly natural and masculine. Similarly, sex workers were referred to as lupa (she-wolves) and made to wear male clothes when not working because they were seen as having given up their femininity for their profession. They probably used she/her, but they were not "women", like a man who admitted to receiving during sex probably used he/him but was seen as "un-man".

In today's terms, Sylv would identify as aromantic asexual. This is another thing that is important to me and as representation, and that I am not flexible on. He's also sex- and romance-repulsed, but this is more flexible; he's deeply traumatised, and maybe in a modern setting with a lot of therapy would one day go on to invest in a healthy relationship, but we will never know because that isn't the Sylv we see. Asexuality doesn't have to arise from trauma, but also someone identifying as ace because of trauma is still valid. Though I created him, he is so much a product of his setting that I don't feel comfortable just declaring "oh yeah in the college au he'd be x".

Sexuality and gender for many people are separate. For both me and Sylv, they are complicated and intertwined and too tangled up in trauma for them to be separated and easily defined. This is likely also related to autism; many autistic people also struggle with gender roles and identity, and that is apparent for Sylv. He isn't the stereotypical teenage savant written by a neurotypical woman in her 50s who finds autistic people "fascinating", but Sylv's experiences should be recognisable to anyone who is autistic. Further, autistic people are often assumed to be asexual and aromantic, a stereotype to avoid - which happens to be true for Sylv in this case. His aversion to touch is a mixture of autism and trauma, and is a basis for his sex-repulsion, which plays a part in his aromanticism and asexuality; in reality, in many people these do not occur together, but in Sylv they do.

Maybe, in that modern setting after all that therapy, Sylv would decide that he was comfortable with his masculinity. Maybe, with a better lexicon of terms and access to trans resources, he would realise he was more comfortable identifying as non-binary and going by they/them. As it is, he's stuck in ancient Rome knowing he isn't "a man" but with no other options than he/him, vague discomfort in his own body, and an aversion to nudity, sex, and emotional intimacy. So! My Sylv is amab and genderqueer, acearo, autistic, and sex-repulsed. If you prefer to think of him as non-binary, as a trans man, as a traumatised cis guy, or anything else that helps you to see yourself in him, I can only encourage it. Like, it feels cheap to be the author and say "oh yeah sylv would totally use they/them except that he never does in-text at all", but it's the... It's the context and setting, y'know? I know there were non-binary people throughout history, but Sylv's story relates specifically to his masculinity and trauma.

Wow, okay, that became a whole 'nother thing! I evidently have a lot of feelings about my boy Sylv!

... in my defence, I've been thinking about it for six years.

I don't have a good end to this post. One day, I should be so lucky that people are producing fan content of Sylvestus, and I hope that they will be respectful of the important parts of his character (short, chubby, genderqueer, asexual) while having fun with those parts of his character that are flexible. Oh, yeah, and while we're here, Lavi is like 5'0" and fat, no-one is heterosexual, most of the characters are PoC... I think that covers it.

T-dawg out.

[ID: a gif of Justin McElroy on the set of Dimension20 giving finger guns across the table]