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kaypeace21 · 4 years

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Some of your favorite characters are Will’s split personalities (psych/narrative analysis)

This is part 2 of my DID analysis. Part 1 focusing on how the supernatural events of the series correlate to Will’s past with Lonnie. Before, I explain who I believe are alters of Will’s (previously called ‘split personalities’). I think I need to explain a crash course on what Dissociative Identity disorder (DID: previously ‘multiple personality disorder’) entails. And the supernatural manifestation within the show as well- Before explaining which characters I believe are alters of Will’s and why. So let’s begin.

There are 4 hallmarks of a potential dissociative disorder

“Dissociation is when instead of staying present in the face of stress you exit your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations and zone out. . It’s as if your body is a computer that reaches overload for input then just shuts down.’ It’s considered a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory.”

‘An individual struggling with dissociation or a dissociative disorder may only experience one of the following or may experience multiple. Each individual’s experience with dissociation can be varied. Symptoms can last just a matter of moments or return at times over the years.”

1)“Identity confusion and alteration -When an individual forgets who they are or takes on a new personality unlike themselves.” (Aka his possession).

2)Dissociative Amnesia-”The forgetting of a major event, such as a childhood trauma or forgetting (traumatic) things happening in real-time.Many survivors of are able to “forget” until sometime later …when memories are triggered by certain events or when the body and mind are no longer able to conceal the memories.” (Aka Will’s ‘now memories’. The reason he refers to them as “now-memories” is because they are things he’s already experienced (as memories) but he’s only now remembering - because of his “dissociative-amnesia’

3)”Derealization-Feeling like the world is not real or is foggy.” (the upsidedown)

4) “Depersonalization-The sense of not being in control of, or not being connected to, one’s body.”

vocab and definitions (about DID) to keep in mind

CORE/HOST- “The core is considered by some to be the person first born to the body. The host is the alter who most commonly uses the body (which may or may not be the core).”

ALTERS - “are dissociated self states that can be highly differentiated from each other. They can have unique names, appearances, ages, gender identities, sexualities, memories (pasts), skills, faiths, political views, abilities, and ways of viewing and interacting with the world. Alters can even perceive themselves as different species, inanimate objects, or as members of a different race, gender, age, or ethnicity/race.No one can choose to have alters or what their alters are like. Alters' creation is entirely unconscious. Most alters have their own sense of identity. A host cannot actually control the alter.An individual with DID has one brain and one body. Dissociative barriers between alters are not literal boundaries, and knowledge, memories, skills, preferences, and traits may bleed through.Alters usually have a role or multiple roles in a smaller system- these roles may or may not appear contradictory.”

SYSTEM-”A system is a collection of alters within one body.Subsystems are two or more groups of alters that might have developed separately, and they may or may not be aware of the other group.”

INNER WORLDS-”it could be a house, to a city, or multiple locations-where alters go when not in control of the body. The innerworld is where alters can interact with one another and where there physical appearance is how they describe .Communication between alters may happen face-to-face (in each other's respective bodies, via the internal world). Expansive internal worlds can result when highly imaginative or dissociative systems use their inner world to retreat from the outside world and so play out entire stories within their mind. Alters may be perceived as having internal lives when not active in the outside world, and these inner lives may involve travel to other internal locations. Many internal happenings may be metaphorical or highly symbolic of the core’s past. Inners worlds may also have characters called "NPCs" (taken from the roleplaying term "non-player characters") that can interact with alters but they are more similar to imaginary constructs rather than actual alters (they can’t control the body and some are made consciously unlike alters-although that’s not always the case). These npcs can be background characters to make the world more real, and it’s not uncommon for parents, family members, or friends of alters to be NPCs.They can feel just as real as natural-born people . Different subsystems may reside in different locations in an internal world or may have non-overlapping internal worlds.”

INTEGRATION- This is essentially the closest thing an alter can do to die- but frankly I consider that comparison harsh. It’s “ when an alter permanently combines with the host or another alter.Fusion occurs when identities merge together and become a unified whole (retaining the memories and some traits of both merging identities.) Integration into a single, individualized identity IS the goal for some in therapy. But it is not, and does not have to be, for everyone. It is possible to achieve full healing by processing memories, establishing communication across the whole mind, lowering dissociative barriers, and showing aptitude in everyone working toward a common goal - all without actually integrating. Others may choose to integrate SOME parts, or "downsize", but still leave a small system to go about their life.”

“They may retain any number of independently acting alters. Reasons for choosing not to fully integrate can include: feeling that full integration is unnecessary; not understanding what integration actually entails and being afraid of "losing" their alters; uncertainty over how to navigate the world as one integrated person; being used to having alters around for company, entertainment, or support; alters having their own unique relationships that they're hesitant to lose; alters wanting to remain separate for their own sakes.”

SWITCHING-”Switching refers to one alter taking control of the body at the expense of another alter who was previously in control of body or ‘fronting’. Switches can be consensual, forced, or triggered.Switches can be slow, quick, or uncontrollably rapid. Switching can take seconds, minutes, or even days to occur.Stress (Will’s anniversary effect) or even a reminder of a trauma, can trigger a switch of alters. * I’ll talk more about this later

ALTERS DYING-“Even if mock deaths or temporary experiences of alters “dying” from old age (or other means) have been acted out in some systems, they aren’t actually dying. You cannot kill off a collective part of the conscious mind like you can a person. Their thoughts, memories, emotions will all still be there, so they must be as well. The part may have gone into extreme hiding/dormant, been momentarily immobilized, or merged with another part of the mind (integration), but they most assuredly did not and can not disappear entirely or “be killed”.

Next we’re on to the supernatural concept they chose to use for this disorder.

We see in the first episode. Will mentions x-men 134 which is about the dark phoenix . The show is litered with x men references like Dustin giving cerebro ( a machine belonging to professor x) to Will. Dustin also asks if El was born with powers “like the x-men.” And Mike also says El channels Will and Dustin once again says “like professor x.” Now- does anyone know who professor x’s son (David) and the ‘shadow phoenix”are ? Well his son is considered the most powerful mutant in the world and has Dissociative identity disorder (DID).At one point some of his alters literally escape his head and enter the real world as tangible people. The ‘shadow phoenix’ is also a sibling to the ‘dark phoenix’.And this ‘shadow phoenix’ (a ‘shadow monster’ if you will) terrorized David’s alters and forced them to integrate back into 1 personality .

In ‘scanners’ one psychic mentions how he “opened the door” to the people trapped in his own mind in order for Daryl to be Daryl again. While in ‘altered states’ the man (who saw flashes of another dimension) met his ‘unborn self in the crack in the void.’Similar to how Mr clarke and Alexi describes the portals of other dimensions being opened as a ‘door’. However, these doors were created before El- we see El created the one at the lab, but that doesn’t take into account the ones in the tree or the cave. There’s more portals we’re unaware of that allowed alters and npcs to escape and become part of the real world even before El opened the gate in s1. And unbeknownst to some of the characters and the audience we’ve already seen other ‘inner worlds’ of Will’s -besides the upsidedown . Which people (not part of the system) have interacted with . As Dustin in s1 said about the other dimensions / vale of shadows , it’s “ A dark reflection or echo of our world ...It’s right next to you and you don’t even know it” .

We see both mr clarke stab a pencil into a plate and Alexi a straw into a box to illustrate this. What’s interesting is the one other time we see this motion is when Lonnie says “someone should be held accountable” (referring to what happened to Will), as he hammers into the wall and it transitions to Mike mimicking mr clarke. Implying that Lonnie is responsible and will be held accountable in the future.

-There’s also the fact the ‘dark phoenix’ mentioned in the first episode of St is highly associated with fire- having pyrokinesis (like Will the wise) and who “had able to warp reality on a universal scale” . It’s like how the show talks about physics often, like in s3/1 (plank’s constant or Hugh Everett’s many worlds interpretations) - and Einstein who believed quantum mechanics wasn’t real said “God does not play dice with the universe." So since he was wrong , cause quantum mechanics is real , the quote should be “god plays dice with the universe.” Like Will does in the beginning of the first episode.Will is captured by the demogorgan (in the game) so he was captured in real life because he rolled a 7. I talked more about this more in the mf section.

- It’s similar to one of the Duffers admitted biggest inspirations for the series ‘altered states’. Who’s mental illness alters reality . He hallucinates seeing flashes of another dimension like Will.

We’ll talk about more evidence of this concept in the character breakdowns (mostly in the mf section). So now on to the alters (and Npcs) who escaped Will’s mind into the real world as tangible people.

Tr*gger warning now, because of how DID is caused. “The dissociative aspect is thought to be a coping mechanism - the person literally shut off or dissociated themselves from a situation or experience too traumatic, or painful to assimilate with their conscious self.As many as 99% of individuals who develop dissociative disorders have recognized personal histories of recurring, overpowering, and often life-threatening disturbances or traumas at a sensitive developmental stage of childhood (usually before age 6). It cannot form AFTER the ages of 6-9 years of age, aka 10 and up (though, once you have DID you can develop new alters at any time).DID is rarely diagnosed in children (and is usually diagnosed in adulthood or late teens), despite the average age of appearance of the first alter being 5.9 years old . ”

They’ll be brief mentions of dark subjects in this psych/narrative analysis because of this. I’ll also be listing movies said to inspire s4 of st (according to st writers), or mentioning movies name dropped by the cast, the Duffers , or in the show itself .

ALTERS

Max Mayfield & Billy Hargrove

When Max is first introduced - Mr Clark talks about “brain cells working together as one” (while talking next to a brain). Similarly, dustin/mike mention mr clarke when saying what’s essentialy a did system “A collective consciousness. this is the thing that controls everything. this is the brain.” This concept about Max , is mentioned again when mr. clark discuses phineus Gage saying he had “a total change in personality that even his friends called him no longer gage.” And emphasizes max and Will in this scene- showing one in clear focus, while another is blurry, and as they make eye contact Max turns away .

Both are poor, their bio dads aren’t around, both like horror films, comics and videogames. Both their bio dads left them . And both use bats in anger when emulating their abusers ,and both are heavily associated with rainbows. On Halloween she dresses up as a character who as a child dressed up as a clown on Halloween (Will’s fear/ what triggered him on Halloween) and whose surname is Myers (Byers?)

Billy, like Will , have nicknames for their real name- ‘william’. Both have abusive dads who called them homophobic slurs, and forced them to play baseball to man-up. Billy’s old baseball team is even tigers (the mascot of Will’s elementary school and matching Will’s tiger painting in his room in s1-2).The “it was a 7 “ vs “the wave was 7 feet”. Both hit with needles, into rock music , attracted to Wheelers ,and were the main subjects possessed by the mf. At one point the dark phoenix fails to merge with jean so goes to merge with her clone body as the next best thing. In this case the mf went to Will’s second alter William/Billy. And as Will states “another me.” And both say about the mf “I’m sorry, he made me do it.”

Neil and Lonnie both push Jon and Billy against a wall. And Jon tells of a time where his dad made him kill a rabbit . And Billy’s last name “Hargrove” means - “grove filled with rabbits" . While, ‘Mad-max’ her nickname is based on the male 80s film character ‘mad max’ a man being terrorized by a r**ist biker gang who attacks both men/women. It’s also possible that Billy’s appearance was based on Will seeing mrs wheeler’s romance novels?

In the film “don’t breathe’- the reason why the siblings are from California is alluded to in a flashback of Jon & Will. The older sibling (with abusive parents) takes care of the younger sibling like a parent and the little sibling says she wants to be a surfer despite living in a land locked state (without an ocean, like Indianna). Older sibling says one day maybe they can live in California together . And the Older sibling tells a friend about how their dad left them, and how they were thrown in a dark trunk by an abusive parent as kid . Which was alluded to in s1, when Jon checked the trunk to see if Lonnie put Will in there.And we see the mf (who is emulating Lonnie) doing the same thing to heather, and tom (hitting or strangling them and then throwing them in the trunk).

Certain scenes, are alters re-enacting past scenes of trauma. “The family dynamics will be played out in a variety of ways but will most obviously be noted in the way the survivor splits off their system.Some survivors will internalize their family into their own DID system. Some alters may reenact trauma and ab*se, sometimes reinforcing ab*sers’ lessons to prevent further ab*se but sometimes serving as a permanent component of an internal flashback.“The reason, Billy acts/is racist is because he’s emulating Neil (but more accurately Lonnie) who told Will not be friends with lucas and thus recreates that moment with Max .lonnie in the s4 films is very racist. Another example, is Will has shown a fear of doors opening (in s1-2) shown by how the demogorgan unlocks the door telepathically (like El does often).And the mf opening doors by themselves in the house and arcade. Neil demands Billy opens his door. And right after Max stares at Will-Billy yells to open the door and tells Max “I’ll cut you b*tch” if she doesn’t open the door. This is because Lonnie said and did similar things to Will if he didn’t open the door.

What connects all 3 is that they all have an absent parent and have baseball associated with them mimicking a familial ab*ser. Even the mf is associated with the sport.

Alexi

Some “ alters can even speak a different language than the host. Despite, the host personality not knowing a single word of the language.’

Similar to Will who won the science fair for 4 years in a row- Alexi is a scientist who has a child like disposition . Will has a fear of clowns (a clown even triggered him on Halloween), and we see that after he’s attacked by a lonnie-look alike he dies surrounded by clowns.

He also sees a friend strangled by the lonnie-look alike (using 1 hand) and die. throughout the season the mf who emulates lonnie strangle people the exact same way, with one hand (doing this to joyce, el, heather, and jon). probably cause Will either saw Lonnie strangle someone or was strangled in this way. There’s also the fact when we first see Alexi - lights flicker like in s1 (illustrating a supernatural element associated with Will and others).

And stangertheory pointed this one detail out, when watching woody the woodpecker he says “can we watch loonie toons, now?” murray: ‘no’/ “can we play d&d , now? crew:no.

Also, “woody in the cartoon is terrorized by Andy and PAPA panda. To Woody's surprise, Andy's attempts prevail, and Woody is taken away to the psychiatric hospital— but not before his captors prove to be crazier than he is” (cough s4 spoiler, but that’s a post for another day).We also have a scene where murray compares him to a child bringing shit in and tries touching his junk with a metal detector. And when Alexi says to stop, Murray says he’ll do as he pleases in his house. Probably a re-enactment . And Murray mistranslates what he says occasionally as being “n*ked or exposed”, “penetrating a hole”. Also ‘alexi’ may also be a reference to Alexy in russian folklore. A clever-minded priest's son (Lonnie is alluded to be a religious zealot in s4 movies) who wins by tricking and outsmarting his foes and defeating a dragon by trickery. This is another connection to Will who is heavily associated with dragons- for a huge spoiler related reason - let’s just say mf’s can create dragons, Will drew a dragon, has a dragon poster, read a dragon comic in a s1 flashback , was there for the dragon video game, and Dustin mentions a dragon in s3 because of foreshadowing.

**The mindflayer (previously known as ‘Will the wise’) -persecutor alter

“A child that is heavily into fantasy might have alters who present as certain fantasy creatures that the child sees as being capable of protecting them from being hurt again.All of the personalities begin as friends and allies…” We see this with Will’s first alter- Will the wise. Who Will described as having fire powers to attack smart bad guys. And who is based off the rules of d&d.

“ Persecutors are alters who purposefully harm the body, system, host, core, or other alters. Most of the literature on the development of these persecutory alters reports that they usually begin life as protectors and then, for some reason, turn on the host, becoming persecutory. Kluft, in 1985, describes the persecutors as initially "taking all the suffering for the others (alters & host). Persecutory personalities originate from the shame and anger related to the traumatic experience and to the perpetrator. “

‘It is usually during the transition between childhood to adolescence when childhood protectors becomes a persecutor.” And begin mimicking the ab*ser. We actually may have seen this transition at the end of s1- where WW became the mf. In d&d lore, mindflayers are created by inserting a tadpole into a human- like what we saw at the end of s1 where Will coughed up the slug from the upsidedown. Meaning all that supernatural stuff we saw Will do in s1 was actually Will the wise (ww) before he turned into the mf. While the flashbacks in s1 (and singing in castle byers) were of the Will we saw in s2-3.

Will says WW is a wizard ( writing on a music tape in s3 “will the wise-wizard mix’ and having his password for castle byers be ‘rhadaghast’- a lotr wizard.)The way they describe d&d Wizards matches Will/mf perfectly “Wizards are adepts and magicians . wizards are able to create spells of explosive fire, sparking lightning, subtle deception, and gross mind control. Their magic summons monsters from other planes of existence, predicts the future, and turns defeated enemies into zombies. Their most powerful spells can transform one substance into another, summon meteors from the sky, and open portals to other worlds”.

Nancy even accidentally calls the mf the “mind -flamer” (aka fire powers of ww ). Dustin says the mf “takes over minds using their highly developed psionic powers” (like wizards).We see Will the wise described as having fire/lightning powers and in the first ep we see him leave Mike’s house causing the lights to flicker, turn on his bike light with his mind (before being attacked by the demogorgan), blink once for yes and twice for no to communicate with Joyce, cause lightning to spark out of the phones twice, and be proficient in guns like Lonnie. We know the mindflayer is also associated with lightning/storms (but that’s only because it’s one of Ww’s abilities). When Hopper sees Joyce’s phone he even says “storm bq-ed this pretty good.“ And in s2 a scientist said the same phrase while in the upside down looking at the burned equipment the mf created. Showing a correlation between Ww and the mindflayer. CAUSE THEY’RE THE SAME PERSON. In the comic we see electricity come out of Ww’s hands. And in s1 he drew his wizard character with lightning (BEFORE) he went to the upside down. And in s2 WW was drawn with flames on his cloak.

Will in his cannon journal even draws the mind flayer with red lightning, and later uses red paper to sketch clouds/lightning and pastes a picture of himself on to it. Because deep in his subconscious (along with the memories of his father- he realizes he created the mf/ww). And Joyce even describes the tunnels he draws as “like lightning.” And note in s1 we are told Lonnie taught Will baseball (and this was when Jon told Will not to mimic him)- and suspiciously there is a baseball and baseball-mitt next to the ‘shadow monster’ (mf) drawing and a bat (next to the ww drawing in castle byers). Cause mf= ww. Will lies and says the mf is just a sketch for a story he’s writing- but even if that’s not exactly true. The mf is still something he unconsciously created.And of course Will is called ‘zombie boy’ and in s3 when Will watches a zombie movie and writes a d&d story about juju zombies- the mf creates zombies and creates a monster resembling the thing (because when Will was writing his d&d story he was next to the ‘the thing’ poster in s3. In s2 Will playing dig dug which is about underground mazes- so the supernatural underground caves are made. And it’s a callback to the s1 d&d game with “troglodytes “ (cave men). And in s3 the Russians had the underground lab too - sort of being the troglodytes in a way.And similar to s1, after Will watches poltergeist Will/ww is thrust into the same scenario as the little girl (being trapped in another dimension- where the mothers can only hear their voices and communicate to them through electronics ). Like how rolling the 7 in d&d caused him to be captured by the demogorgan in the game and real life. Nancy saying: “So this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything.”Hopper then says “So how do we kill this thing shoot it with fireballs?”And Dustin says “ No, No, fireballs you summon an undead army.”But Mike actually nails it on the head when he says, “If the brain dies the body dies … closing the gate will kill him(referring to Will).Because it’s not the mindflayers’ brain - it’s Will’s brain- that both Will and the mf share!

In the episode after the mindflayer enters Will - the episode is literally titled “ Will the wise”. Here we see a ‘slow switch’ occur.”Slow switches are when two or more alters (Will and mf) are co-conscious to varying degrees and slowly blending and retreating to allow one alter (mf) to gain prominence .Some indicators that a switch may be about to occur include feeling "spacey.”

In this episode we don’t see A full switch but ‘blending’. “ A full switch is rarely necessary. Instead of an alter switching to front, they can exert passive influence on the alter currently at front (Will) . Passive influence can be described as intrusions from alters that are not currently prominent in the mind or using the body. This may manifest as ego-alien thoughts, knowledge, memories, feelings, emotions, opinions, preferences, urges, abilities, or actions. These intrusions may vary in strength and influence and may result in the fronting alter taking actions or voicing opinions that they can't explain or account for.”

We see this with Will’s ‘now memories’ the reason he refers to them as “now-memories” is because they are things he’s already experienced (as memories) but he’s only now remembering them- because of his “dissociative-amnesia’ . An example is Will fearing the tub, and yelling at his mom -confused at his own reaction. Because ww is the one afraid of the tub not Will.This is because this is one of the locations abuse often takes place. There’s at least 20 movies where a bad guy tries drowning someone in a tub. In splice, the cell, and the ring all incorporate an ab*sive father trying to drown his young child. In the cell the father would beat his son, burn him, called him homophobic slurs, and almost drowned him and causing a seizure.When Will tries to take a bath it’s overplayed with Mr Clarke saying (in front of a model of a human brain) - “Organisms instinctively respond to danger, expose a bacterium to a toxic chemical and it will flee or deploy some other defense mechanism. We’re very much the same.” As a flash of Will’s “now-memories” occur as he stares at the tub. And we see a zoom in shot of the back of his head (which Will said is associated with memories) . And Mike stares at Will’s empty desk.Meaning, Will’s starting to fear the bath as he’s starting to remember (subconsciously) what previously occurred there because of WW- Lonnie/tubs being the ‘toxic chemical’ in the analogy.

WW fully takes control/switches in the following episode ‘Dig dug’ when he wakes up from the nightmare of Hopper being attacked in the cave- this is indicated by zooming in on the drawing of ‘Will the wise’ before he wakes up. And explains his odd behavior- of being oddly quiet . Looking up surprised at all the cave/vine drawings on the walls. It’s common for alters to pretend to be the host when they switch. He displays being able see into the future (like Will describes WW him being able to do in s3- like when ww in s2 says Hopper will die), and he late tracks Hopper’s location by closing his eyes like the drawing of ww. Mike mentioning he’s a ‘superspy’ right after he finds Hopper- the next episode is even called “the spy” as Mike realizes he’s the mf and says he’s “the spy”. He initially tried to help until the soldiers burned him (causing a seizure like Lonnie previously caused) and later when they burn him again. He decides to kill them- similar to how El killed 2 men for putting her in solitary confinement multiple times.

However, I need to point out “ protectors are still and always protectors. What changes is the protective behaviors no longer look obviously protective and in actuality may be harmful and life threatening to the host.” He still acts as a protector saying he got upset when they hurt him/Will. And participating in a supernatural-extreme version of ‘thought snatching’.”thought snatching" (taking away your thoughts) can be caused by the actions of alters.” So he incorrectly tries wiping all of Will’s thoughts/memories to shield the body from past trauma.

Mf is also hinted to be under the category of a ‘ demon alter’- Will being handed the “devil’s baby” firework and in the background is a sticker of a demo(n)-dog . “Demon alters are often a form of protector known as a persecutor.Some people have alters which are supernatural beings. These are regarded as possession-form identities, if a person is consciously aware of the actions of the alter then the person may describe themselves as feeling "possessed" by an outside person, spirit, deity (god), or demon.”

“Attempts to banish them using religious techniques such as "deliverance" or exorcism do not work permanently, can be harmful and may prolong any internal war between alters and preventing healing .”

“Ignoring them, trying to shut them up or restrain them, punishing them, or any of the various attempts at “getting rid of them” will not only never work (their needs will only become greater and louder), they’ll become more and more traumatized as you confirm to them their every belief about the world.

“You can’t actually “get rid of them” anyway, so it’s far better to try and understand them. “

So yeah- our heroes literally did everything wrong to make it worse.And literally mimicked Lonnie who tied him to chairs in his shed (and like Brenner did to joyce/ Russians did to Robin & steve) or to a bed (like brenner to Terry/lonnie to Will) and hurt and burned him (like Lonnie). Also, FYI the person who was calling Joyce at the beginning of s2 and freaked her out, and later called during the excorcism was Lonnie- why WW freaked out over the call.Noah was even told to watch the excorcist for the burning scene at the end of the season. Even the movie implied it was all based on a similar trauma and it was in the girl’s head- she even while possessed had the male voice of the man who was implied to have ab*sed her and said phrases he said in the film. Similar to WW’s deeper non-human voice he used to try and tell them to ‘let him go.’

So in the next season he was worse than ever and wanted revenge on the people who tried to kill him. Because he fears they’ll come after him again and hurt him- similar to Kali who says the people who are still after her ( and burned her with a taser stick/nancy with burning stick) are still after them and will kill them.

We also see the mindflayer despite in the show and d&d lore be sensitive to sunlight pick the summer to come back. Now, why is that? The answer is simple it’s when Will started to realize his romantic feelings for Mike. Joyce at the beginning of the season says “You won’t think it’s gross when you fall in love”?But due to his ab*se - WW DOES! And Will just responds to Joyce , unconvincingly, saying “I’m not going to fall in love.” But he already has!

“Even non-ab*sive romantic relationships may provoke the protector’s vitriolic reaction if the relationship takes on a meaning which feels threatening. Simply feeling the possibility of closeness to another person may be the trigger because of the protector’s prior learning that trust and dependency lead surely and inevitably to ab*se and hurt.”(Mierendorf, 1993). EX: a persecutor alter who identifies herself only as "Me, Myself" was questioned about her anger and violence to the host.

" she began becoming interested in boys, and dates, and all that [she trails off], and I hated it and I didn't want any part of it. So I quit, I wasn't going to do any more ... nobody was ever gonna touch me ...And whenever that would happen with Gretchen [the host] it would hurt me and I would hate it and I'd hate her, and I'd hate her for letting that happen . i wanted to k*ll her”

Whenever the Mf is close and Will touches his neck it relates to his romantic feelings for Mike. 1st time it’s on one of their ‘movie dates’, 2nd time when Will is sad when Mike and El walk off together down the hill to make-out, , 3rd time right after he smashed castle byers after Mike says “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls”, 4th time (after the fight with Mike) when Billy is yelling to open the door (a trigger) and confides in Mike, 5th time when Mike asks him to go away so he can talk to El in the hospital waiting area, and 6th time when Mike says he loves El.

And in s3, Mike says on a rainy day “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” (and similarly Lonnie called Will a “fag” and a “queer”). Then he leaves Mike’s house, tears-up all his sketches, comics, a pic of mike (things he loves). And uses a bat that Lonnie taught him to use -to destroy castle Byers (which was also built on a rainy day , after his dad left).He uses a bat, despite saying in s1 he doesn’t like baseball. He has a bat in castle byers (next to a WW drawing) and a mitt/ baseball in his room (specifically next to a picture of the mindflayer.) and Will looked at the Will the wise drawing and then destroys castle byers with a bat. Showing WW/mf are the same person and that WW (and even Will to some extent) is still not taking Jon’s advice about not mimicking Lonnie.He uses the bat (lonnie taught him to use) to try to “man-up” and destroy or even taint the things he loves- castle byers & Mike . And after this, he grabs his neck (which in s2 he said he associated with now-memories) and then says “He’s back” (aka Lonnie’s influence/mf). And then everything supernatural begins to escalate.

-“ another ‘threat’ the, the persecutor believes the host may pose in adolescence or adulthood is breaking the silence about the ab*se and/or the multiplicity. We then witness the protector’s desperate attempt to control the client, to “save him” from the expected dire consequences of revealing the secrets.”

“The persecutor frequently protects the host through scare tactics; through fear and intimidation. In order for this scare tactic to work the host must be convinced of the persecutor's capacity and willingness (even desire) to use the utmost in force and destructiveness. The persecutor must, in short, be viewed as Putnam described: "a fearsome, loathsome, deamon-like entity” .When the danger posed comes from outside the system the persecutor uses the same scare tactics, trying to impress the intruder (in this case the therapist, etc) with his or her ferocity and proclivity to violence.The persecutor therefore becomes increasingly loaded with hostility toward the host, to the point where the original protective function can be lost to their consciousness.Finally, it should be obvious that the persecutor who uses threats of violence to protect the host may be quite worried about either the host or others uncovering the underlying protective intent of their actions because it disarms the power of their threat.”

EX:” Susan was a 31 year old woman who came in for treatment when she started recovering memories of inc*st which had begun with f*ndling and proceeded to r*pe just prior to adolescence. Susan reported a host of dissociative symptoms as well as feeling as if she had a "monster inside me who wouldn't allow me to heal.”Before the next session the therapist received a letter from an ego state named Shadow. The letter detailed how big and fierce Shadow was and how she was supposed to be feared, have control, and all the power.In the next session Shadow revealed that she had been using fear to prevent Susan from disclosing the ab*se. Shadow firmly believed that Susan's father would kill them if the abuse were disclosed.”

“As Putnam notes, while the persecutor displays “extreme contempt toward the host,” paradoxically, “the dominant emotion of the persecutor may really be love” (1989, p. 207). In fact, it is this very love which propels the persecutor in the harassment of the host -feeling it is a way to protect them from perceived threats. “

“ They are NOT the actual ab*ser.They are just copying behaviors shown to them by bad people, not harboring the intent, sadism or immorality of the actual perpetrators. We understand this change ( from protector to persecutor) and displaying ab*sive behaviors does not reflect an underlying character structure.Instead we understand the change as demonstrating a past adaptive instrumental use of violence in an attempt to preserve the system in the face of a [perceived] threat.’

**Another words, for anyone confused- WW went from childhood protector to teen persecutor because of perceived threats. Will (the host) becoming aware of his romantic feelings for Mike and Will slowly and subconsciously gaining his memories of past ab*se - and WW fearing once he remembers he’ll tell someone. So he wants to prevent this by scaring Will and others .And does this by playing the role/character of a scary monster- mimicking the scariest things he knows Lonnie and the mf from d&d. It’s also possible like some persecutors he’s forgotten his original protective function or like other persecutors he’s simply masking how he’s trying to protect Will (because if anyone knew he cared for Will the threat wouldn’t be affective anymore).

‘Alters "should be treated with equal kindness," despite their behaviors.Persecutors are often "misguided protectors" which can be negotiated with. With ‘patience, persistence and kindness" they can be allowed to choose a different role once the person is safe from ab*sers. The persecutor can be "turned into a constructive force" (Watkins, 1978, p. 397) and become “one of the therapist’s strongest allies and can play a major role in the healing of the patient” (Putnam, 1991, p. 205) (*I’ll talk more about this in my s4 analysis) .With healing a non-human alter can even turn human again! "I have an alter who was a persecutor for a long time. A lot of people see persecutors as bad and sometimes even the persecutors themselves see themselves as bad. This alter saw herself as an ab*ser and carried an awful lot of self hate, but she wasn't bad really because her motives were to protect us even though she wasn't going about it in a very good way. She thought that if she punished us and scared us into 'keeping in line' then other people wouldn't have to hurt us. Eventually she learnt that hurting us wasn't necessary, so now she is trying to learn how to protect us in more healthy ways."

-Wizard

There’s also important inspirations for the show to mention that support this theory:

Montauk Project’- The original title for Stranger things was “Montauk”- in reference to the Montauk Project. It was about experiments conducted on psychic children, where the scientists would “break” them psychologically to strengthen their powers and to program them. Duncan who could “open portals to other dimensions- let loose a monster from his subconscious.”

‘A wizard of Eathsea’ (which suzie mentions in s3)- Is about a male wizard Ged (Will) who casts a powerful spell, but the spell goes awry and instead he releases a shadow creature! The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged. But the ‘shadow’ turns out to be a representation of the darkest aspects of his personality. And the only way for the chaos to stop is for ged and the shadow to merge.

‘the dark crystal’ movie poster in Mike’s room is about a race called urSkeks who inadvertently divided themselves into two separate beings; the violent, materialistic Skeksis, and the gentle, contemplative urRu. It was only when they merged back together as one could harmony and peace be restored to the world.

‘Long kiss goodnight’- both (’good’ and supposedly ‘bad’) personalities also integrate into 1 happy personality.

In d&d “it’s also possible, although rare, for an extremely powerful mind flayer wizard to become a true lich, also known as an illithilich. illithid's last desire upon death was to be rejoined with its elder brain.” ( Will’s mind/ he wants to integrate with Will).

Even the way the mindflayer/ ‘shadow monster’ functions is similar to the ‘shadow phoenix’/how integration in DID works. “They considered feeding on brains as a euphoric experience as it absorbed its victim's memories, personality, and fears.”

The dark phoenix (referenced in s1ep1) fails to merge with jean so goes to merge with her clone body as the next best thing. In this case the mf went to Will’s second alter William/Billy. And as Will states “another me”. Later Jean, Phoenix, and madelyn (clone) merge into 1 person- the new-jean now having the memories and personality traits of all 3.

in s1 Mr clarke describes the vale of shadows (later the upsidedown) as being created by “necrotic” (’dead’-zombie boy) and shadow (shadow monster) magic. In d&d the Vale of Shadows, is as a lush valley hidden in the mountains that holds a sacred pool with the power to make dreams reality. (In this case nightmares representing past ab*se). He even describes his ‘now memories’ as ‘like a dream’.

In ‘never ending story’ referenced in s3 - the land of Fantasia represents humanity’s imagination and is thus without boundaries. However ‘the Nothing’ (the physical manifestation of darkness) which has taken over Fantasia and it’s inhabitants is a manifestation of the ‘loss of hopes and dreams’.

Silent hill videogames/movies (duffers cited as inspo):. “The bad guys faked Alessa’s death. Kaufmann prepared a substitute body of alessa; and performed the fake "autopsy (like Will) .Alessa believed that their current world must be cleansed with fire (WW’s fire powers). Alessa had a very dark, violent, traumatic and ab*sive childhood: r*ped, beaten, tortured, and even burned , all by the age of 7- “it was a 7″). She had supernatural powers and was called a witch. She had precognition (future/intuition) and pyrokinesis (fire) which developed after her ab*sive mother burned her (like ww). It’s also implied Dahlia her mother would lock Alessa in their house's dark attic for long periods of time for any irreligious behavior (the trunk).Alessa was "always" sad, and Alessa only found respite when escaping to other worlds through fantasy to cope with and comfort herself in the face of her harsh reality. At times, Alessa seems to completely withdraw inward, perhaps as a result of years of trauma as there are many instances of her becoming unresponsive when questioned.Because of all of her ab*se Allesa’s soul split in 1/2 (becoming Alessa and Cheryl).Selfless at heart, she cared for her second half /reincarnation more than she cared for herself, wanting to spare them the hellish nightmare she endured at the hands of her ab*sive mother and her cult. For seven years (it was a 7), Alessa endured her suffering because she had not wanted to destroy whatever small happiness her other self was able to enjoy, but little by little, it became more than Alessa could bear. Alessa's latent psychic abilities are triggered and she shrouds Silent Hill in fog and an altered reality to prevent her mother's scheme from advancing. Many of the drastic changes that befall the town in the game, such as the horrific creatures that come to inhabit it, are conjured from her imagination and delusions. “ ( personally i think Lonnie went to the house offscreen in s1 and tried to take Ww- why when lonnie is at the byers house they zoom in on a bullet in the tv for some reason with no explanation on how it occurred). Cheryl and Alessa also later merge again .

mystic river-in the 80s, a young boy who plays baseball is r**ed by 2 men in a cabin in the woods and escapes and runs into the forrest . He imagines perpetrators as werewolves and vampires as a way to cope. And imagines he’s in a scary world that no one else can see (that disappears when he turns around). And he even has a split personality. He wishes he could turn into a undead monster so he doesn’t have to feel the pain of being human anymore.

other DID movies/show inspirations for St (some realistic /some more supernatural so resemble DID) : prince of tides,primal fear (realistic DID ,caused by childhood se*ual trauma).supernatural/ or non realistic DID: elfen lied, exorcist, and Audrey rose .

Now on to the next point- “chronologically, it is the persecutory alter personality who creates the first split. Helper alter personalities constitute the second split, and as such, constitute a defense against the first split. These two successive splits constitute the basic dissociation. Further alter personality formations are only of secondary nature. In order to cope with the first split, the host personality produces companions resembling [him] as a second defense.The alter personalities developing in the second phase originate from the desire of the host personality to regain her previous strength and from her striving to create alter personalities resembling herself who share the same aim with her.”

So to make it simple some alters are more based on Will in order to combat the alters more based on WW/mf (the 1st alter/. protector- persecutor). So let’s talk about other alters based on ww/mf.

Kali Prasad (avenger alter/ different race alter)

“The avenger holds the rage from the childhood abuse and may attempt to avenge themselves or seek retribution from the ab*ser.”

”Different race alters are generally created for the stereotypic or imagined qualities of that race, as experienced or perceived by the host personality. Fike gives the example of a Caucasian patient with a Native American alter personality who represented spirituality and other-worldliness. “ we actually see Kali who is the embodiment of her religious counterpart.Kali is a (Hindu goddess). And Prasad is a holy offering to gods and goddesses in hinduism.

Kali’s name means “destroyer of all evil forces” and in mythology she was considered “ a divine protector and the one who bestows liberation to her children”. However , the goddess Kali’s iconography is generally associated with death and violence and paradoxically (at the same time) “motherly love”. Kali is sometimes considered the goddess of death but more accurately she “brings the death of ego”. She only kills demons. She is considered one of “the most compassionate of the gods because she provides liberation to her children”. She is commonly depicted holding a sword and the head of a demon. “A latitude soul sees mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for her children” (the numbers and her gang of misfits).She is called the Divine Mother & Mother of the Universe. And when talking to El the sign there’s a says ‘spiritual advisor’ behind her.

“ It has been suggested that a male child that is being ab*sed might create a female headmate because he needs a "mother" role in the attempt to soften what might be angry and aggressive behavior on his part as a male DID sufferer. “

we see other evidence of her being an alter as well. Her saying she feels ‘whole’ with EL around. And In the episode before Kali is introduced. Will describes his now memories as “spreading” “growing” and “killing”. Meanwhile, after this Kali describes her and El’s wounds (caused by their father) in the same fashion. Kali describes how El has to face her trauma or else, like it did with her it will “spread.” Kali later makes a imaginary Brenner to tell El the same words Will said earlier- saying she has to face her trauma or else it will “grow” and “spread “ and “kill” her. in never ending story (reffed in s3) Sebastian who unbeknownst to him created an imaginary mythical world with characters who’d copy phrases their creator Sebastian said.

She also says everyone sees her and El as monsters because of their powers- something ww/mf feels (literally becoming one because of this and his ab*se). And Kali and El say that people hurt them -so they should be allowed to kill them. Kali making the distinction (more aligned with the mf) saying the people who hurt her are still after her -so she’s just making the first move and killing them as preemptive self defense. Something the mf also does, saying in s3 El could have killed him, and targeting those that hurt him and said they wanted to “kill” him in s2 . It’s the same logic as Kali.

And before kali and El talk we see kali look up to el, as they pass by graphiti that says ‘barbelith” which in the comics ‘the invisibles’- is the connection between humanity and the holographic world that we see. Aka her and Kali interacting in what’s actually the innerworld. Like Dustin said about the upsidedown “it’s a parallel world existing right beside you, without you even knowing it.”

why the tv of Kali’s tormenter (who tased her as a kid) is watching a show about a kid having a nightmare about being held down and having a needle put in her arm that kept getting bigger and bigger. Like how WW was pinned down and forced to take a shot in the arm.

Even the butterfly she creates could be possibly connected to WW- because butterfly decorations are above the byer’s phone (WW electercuted). And similar to Kali’s description the ficitonal russians (npcs) are also very stereotypical based on what an american kid might hear about ‘evil soviets’. They also use the same tasers as Kali’s ab*sers in the lab. In some movies it’s implied Lonnie may have tased his kids so maybe that’s why? And we see like how the gang tied up the mf to a chair, and shot him with a needle needle- the russians do the same to robin & steve.We also see Kali and El attack a man at a gas station -similar to the russian hitman npc from s3.

And Kali rescues a girl (npc) from a mental health hospital -called ‘dottie’ which is a term for being mentally ill. Lucas also claims El may have escaped from a psych hospital. Personally, i think this is foreshadowing of Mike helping Will out of one (like how Dustin and Lucas bring up ‘myers’ escaping one), but I digress. in Kali’s place grafiitti also says ‘o’bedlam’a poem about neglected mentally ill beggers . And compares her crew (of npcs) to herself and El- like dottie (mentally ill) because she’s part of a did system. Axel with his knife (lonnie loves his hunting knives and used to threaten Will with them and thus did so to el). And El and Will share the same stuffed bear- ‘so there’s the care bear’, one of kali’s crew even wears a clown mask, and axel wears the mummy mask seen at Melvald’s where Joyce works. There’s also the connection of the ‘rainbow room’ (with a rainbow drawing) on the door - relating to Kali & El and Will’s rainbow-ship drawing.And kali also likes rock music like Will/Billy. And when El first sees her-she’s near fire (ww connection).

El (caretaker & gate keeper alter)

“A gatekeeper is an alter who controls switching or access to front, access to inside or certain areas inside, or access to certain alters or memories. The existence of a gatekeeper is highly stabilizing for a system because gatekeepers can to some extent prevent unwanted switching, failure to switch when necessary, or failure to switch to the correct alter. They can help to prevent traumatic memories from bleeding from the alters who hold them to alters who could not yet handle them. They might police the boundaries between subsystems.These alters help prevent traumatized alters from fronting. This can be important because there is a chance that the trauma holders may want to harm the body.” In case you haven’t realized ... el is a horrible gate keeper-opening the gate and leaving it open for a year, not sensing it being reopened in s2 or 3 (too busy thinking about mike in s2/ dating him in s3), and thus causing more trauma to Will (who started to remember old confusing and traumatic memories), and causing Billy, and Max to be traumatized.

she’s also most likely a caretaking alter-“Caretaking alters are a type of a protector, they help manage and care for other alters, and sometimes external people (for example children). “

“They are often motherly, and may be modeled on a real person (WW’s appearance- WW looking like Will except having brown eyes, and El looking like the female equivalent). “Caretaking alters lack awareness of self-care and become exhausted easy; they only have a limited role and have little capacity for play, exploration or socializing.” El fighting to exhaustion, being isolated for most of her life and being in the cabin for 9 months (s2-3), comforting billy/Will, and again only not abiding by this when Mike is involved -hurting Max out of jealousy.

Her inability to speak well could be from neglect and social isolation, but ‘Ab*sive groups are known to have created alters which appear either "crazy" or learning disabled, for example training alters to scramble or garble words so they can’t report ab*se.Alters may be disabled when the body is not, for example a mute alter may be created in response to abusers instructions, e.g. "Don't talk.”

El also shows the trait of ‘memory sharing’.

Memory sharing

“We’ve managed to create a system within us. In order to grant access to memories with each other we have to come to know each other and gain each other's trust. Caroline says “when the memory sharing happens- the best way I can describe it to a non DID person is by asking you to remember/think about a movie with Wizards or characters like from twilight where they have the power to touch you and let you see their visions and/or memories. Sounds crazy I'm sure— but that's as close as I can possibly describe it.The memories literally pour into me exactly like that. “

After Will disappears, El appears to the audience for the first time. Having similar sounding names and having a striking resemblance (and 1 syllable nicknames ending in L) . Troy, Benny, Hopper, and an eyewitness all initally assuming she was a boy. Hopper even tries to track down El, assuming it was Will who’s hair was shaved- asking “could it be Lonnie’s kid?” and the man responding “could of been the Byers boy”. Mike even says “Do you really think it’s a coincidence we found her in the same place Will disappeared?”The answer being No. The song “Alice” (from alice in wonderland) plays when El is at the restaurant -indicating El has entered a new world (our world). *Also, both Alexi and El are bribed with hamburgers to give the adults info they need.

El is an alter based on WW . Like WW she is afraid of the underwater sensory deprivation tanks her dad made her go into (Lonnie and ww with the tub). in s1 El used the pool/sensory deprivation to contact Will- the episode is even called “the tub” . And she thinks of this idea to talk to Will -after staring at the tub in the byers house and then remembering the deprivation tank. When in the pool or ‘tub’ at school the water slowly becomes dark as she enters the darkness- the void is a connection to the mf/ shadow monster.

She unlocks doors and it’s framed ominously just like the demogorgan does in the first ep. In d&d lore Mindflayers have “telekinetic abilities akin to mage hand (El was called a mage) and telekinesis.” I still think the mf may now have her telekenesis (which was originally his to begin with). We also see El fade away with the demogorgan as she and the demogorgan mimic each other’s body language. This was probably supposed to be El most likely integrating with the demogorgan (until the Duffers admitted to changing their minds). And In s1/2 she has black veins appear while not being possessed.

Dustin in s2 mentions the mf “doesn’t know it’s true home.” which is illustrated by El wandering around as Hopper, Becky, and kali try to convince her they’re her home. El saying she’s the monster in s1 is also how the mf aka WW feels about himself. And Will/ww was thrown in the dark trunk by Lonnie (perhaps after refusing to shoot an animal ) so for El it became Brenner throwing her in a dark room in solitary confinement after refusing to kill a cat. in s1 El draws similar to Will/ww and draws Brenner with a 3rd leg (cause even if brenner didn’t do so to her - the memory bled through from ww). Benny suspected El has been “ab*sed or something” and she didn’t seem to understand privacy -undressing in front of the boys.

El cries thinking of the time she killed a squirrel (typical hunting game) and eating it and somehow knowing how to make a fire (a Ww skill). El when re-enacting this forgotten experience of WW’s , spots a sketchy ominous hunter and throws a fired projectile at him and runs. Like WW who uses his fireballs to hurt the bad guys- in this case the hunters (Lonnie and his buddies). Similar to the demogorgan who killed 2 hunters in s1.

When she goes into the void and sees the demogorgan- we even hear a clock ticking in the background indicating this is associated with the past. When Will encounters the mf a similar thing happens- as the clock moves unnaturally. And similar to the mf she attacks her abusers and throws them into a wall (which mf did in s3). Throwing Nancy into a wall after she burned him.

Unfortunately in the ‘long kiss goodnight’ a girl with multiple personalities (Will/ww) was thrown and tied up in a trunk and when the trunk was opened the main villain tried to sell her for... you know . Then she escapes and jumps off a cliff into the water to escape the r**e (quarry flashback?) . This guy later tries to drown her too. While in skyfall, number-tattoos on the wrist were indicative of being sold into the s*x tr*de (El/kali’s tattoos- Will saw something?) . I really hope this isn’t the case - but this is the man who wanted to make money off his son’s death to to pay off his gambling debt. In one movie the bad guy sold his gf for a case of beer and some smokes, while playing a card game. And unfortunately, the fact Will was triggered to see the mf after Mike says “i’m not pr*stituting my sister?” may indicate something from the past as well (maybe Jon saying something ?). Along with El being chased by “bad men”. It’s possible those 2 hunters were pals with lonnie and got what was coming to them. On to the next point-

El - is the Cannanite (male) god associated with “salt water “ (pool filled with salt in s1) who “dwelled in a tent” (in s1 Mike’s blanket fort) . In s1 El owns a male lion doll and Will has a female lion . The fact El first appeared looking like a boy, is named after a male god, El in spanish translates to “he”, and she has a male lion toy could symbolize a few things. In ‘prince of tides’ when the boy cried the dad yelled for him to go put on a dress.In ‘the cell’ the ab*sive father beat his young son with a belt, burned, and drowned him (causing a seizure), threw homophobic slurs at him, and called him a ‘women’ multiple times while beating him. And said “I’ll teach you to be a woman.” Some specialists say one of MANY possible reasons a boy may have a female alter is cause they were “forced to cr*ss dress “ but obviously that’s not the only possible reason. (And no, this doesn’t apply to trans women- making sure no one tries putting words in mouth). I think of the moment where boyish-looking El runs away into the woods, and takes off her wig and screams in anger at the reflection of herself in the water -may be a recreated event from the past). The fact El [is a male god] and in spanish El (the way it’s spelled in the show means “he’) is also possibly intentional . In addition to the fact El is the only alter who physically resembles Will and is the only one with a buzzcut , unlike Kali (who in the flashback at Hawkins lab had all her hair) is something to take note. El could be an inverse of Will’s experience. El as a girl was stripped of her femininity from her papa. Because Will was a boy forced to dress girly cause of his dad . El having a male lion and Will having a female lion being used to symbolize this. WW was the one who went through this abuse and also had brown eyes like El ( unlike Will)- so in regards to physical appearence she is his ‘girl version’.Since like many ab*sers Lonnie gave Will mixed messages he could never abide by . In mad max furry road the villain named ‘daddy’ forced his sl*ve to shave their head and branded them with a tattoo like El (he also had 3 s*x s**ves)

-in s2 the song ‘don’t mess around with Jim’ plays. Upon character introductions of lyrics “Jim walker” pans to Jim Hopper and “boy named Will-ie Mccoy” (pans to El).

-Hopper in ep1 mention (El)eanor Gilipse-surname of girl in silent hill with powers/DID.

-the never ending story ref also alludes to how El was created by Will similar to another superpowered human (ww). El is atreyu and Will is sebastian. El is atreyu- who is said to be the chosen one. He falls from a great height and on to the beach shore, and comes across abandoned ruins, and then the villain gmork latches his jaws on to his leg (like El). It’s revealed atreyu isn’t actually the chosen one and everyone was wrong . And it was actually the poor human kid (Sebastian - who has a bowl cut and one parent and secretly had imagination-powers ) . Atreyu is told to look at the mirror of his ‘true self’ and is shocked to see Sebastian (his unknown creator) looking back at him. “turn around , look at what you see. In her face- the mirror of your dreams.”

-In the novel Sebastian even temporarily went evil when he lost all his memories except those of his father- similar to Will/ww. Sebastian created the whole fantasy story and it’s inhabitants (with their own sentience). So only he had the capability to remove the darkness from the fantasy world they inhabited. The darkness representing the loss of hopes and dreams.

-Elfen lied (another inspo for the series according to the duffers)- has a Super-powered protagonist/anti hero/ and tragic villain.”She has three split personalities due to past trauma . The three are Lucy, Nyu, and Kaede. Kaede : (childhood love/friend of Kouta) from ‘mapple house’ (cough- ‘mapple street’/ Will). Nyu: is mentally the age of a young child in the body of an adult, who can barely speak, and found by Kouta after she escapes the lab who experimented on her .Nyu is like a very sheltered child and has a very tiny outlook on the actual world and can only speak one word at the start of the anime (El).Lucy:Her violent personality, who has a distaste and hate for humans after humans traumatized her as a child. Although deep down she wants to be human (mf).”

We also see both the Will/mf and El called spies, have ptsd, described as ‘quiet’, and had their dads force them to kill animals. El growls like an animal after the mf growls at her first. And in regards to the supernatural Ww and El both have powers. They both could communicate through different dimensions using electronics. Both of their moms’ had “crazy aunts” . Both are called “schizos” in s2 because of their powers (did is most commonly misdiagnosed with schizophrenia which i do think that will occur initially- mrs driscoll not being believed about the supernatural because of her being a ‘paranoid schizophrenic’ is foreshadowing). Both Will and her had their brain waves monitored at the lab and their measurements were off the charts, plus they were being unknowingly recorded on video.They both tore through walls (with that pink gunk between the normal world and upside down). El even goes through the entrance covered in goo (like a baby) as a hint she was born from the upsidedown!

We see in Terry’s place (El’s room) symbols associated with Will- clowns and rabbits ( like how Lonnie made Jon kill rabbits on hunting trips). They even chose white rabbits- like those in Alice in wonderland and earlier associated with El.

El/ww can also both can track others when concentrating -Ww found Hopper, El found Will. Both communicated psychically by transferring their conscious- El to talk to Mike in his basement using the void (in s2) & Will to his mom in the living room (in s1). Also before Will goes missing , he asks Dustin for his X-men comic- later in reference to El, Dustin asks “Do you think El was born with her powers like the X-men?” And when Mike says El is “channeling him (Will)”. Dustin says “like professor x”-clearly hinting that they were both born with powers, like the X-men.

However, El is how Max described “her own person.” When Dustin says she’s “like a wizard (like ww) Mike corrects him and says “more like yoda.” And the longer she stays in the real world the more differences she has to Will/ww as she evolves into her own person. She doesn’t have many interests in common with Will :d&d, scifi, computers, science, horror movies etc. And like i’ve explained in other posts - she isn’t actually in love with Mike. And her obsession with mike not only inhibits her role as an alter but her own independence/personhood , along with Will’s healing ( which depends on Mike and other’s support). I think the main reason we never see Will & El interact significantly (despite the parallels) is because they’re growing apart as they develop as people and go on divergent paths. I feel like if someone doesn’t integrate it’s most likely El (and probably Max). While Kali most likely integrates- since she was brought to tears by seeing another alter and said she feels “complete” with El - hinting she’ll probably desire to integrate into Will/ww in the future. in ‘annihalation’ a poc woman with a 8 tattoo on her arm integrates with others into a god like creature too . EL may eventually go by Elle [in french means ‘she’] when she becomes her own person, and gains independence, perhaps?

demogorgan (fictional alters or ‘fictive’)

“Fictional introjects specifically are based off of fictional characters. These characters can be from television shows, movies, books, fantasy, and other forms of fiction.They don't have to think, act, look, or feel in the exact same ways that the fictional character does. Some fictional introjects can be ab*sive, and form as a way to continue traumatizing the system.”

“ One of the main purposes of a father introject is to control your behavior when you are away from the father with the same intensity as if you were right in front of him. The father may have a variety of parts that are loyal to him, his beliefs, his ways, etc.’

in d&d a demogorgon is a “demon from the abyss”. And are also called “the deep father” , indicating his connection of being based on Lonnie. We even see Lucas hand Will a ‘devil’s baby’ firecracker (and behind will is a sign that says demon-dog) to indicate that Will’s father is the ‘devil’. The demogorgan is also first referred to as “the man without a face” in the show. Steve suggesting he does have a face but he was wearing a mask. And when Lonnie first ‘comes back’ to Hawkins Jon says “mom, did that thing (demogorgan) come back.” And Lonnie cuts him off after the comment saying ‘that’s enough’. Lonnie also mentions to Joyce he explored the woods where Will went missing. And later Jon mentions how the demogorgan only ventures several miles from his house -like lonnie. Jon also tells Nancy about how his dad forced him to go on hunting trips and in s1 we see the demorgorgan kill a deer (typical game), attack hunters, and capture Will in the shed (which contained the riffle and sleeping bags for camping). We are also told in s1 Lonnie taught Will baseball, and when the demorgorgan knocks the bat out of Jon’s hand he gets on top of him- putting his face close like he was about to kiss him. We even see in s2 - the pic of the mf next to a baseball bat and mitt. And the demogorgan on multiple occasions was mistaken for a bear (which Will sketches and El also is into teddy bears) and bears symbolically represent “wisdom” (will the wise).

And Lonnie when closing the hole in the wall says someone has to be blamed for what happened to Will- and it transitions to Mike tearing a hole in paper and explaining what happened to Will with the demogorgan. Lonnie caused the ‘tear’ in Will’s psyche. Lonnie is even the one to mention how people ‘make things up to cope.’And how people in the city are “more real” (possible alter foreshadowing).

In d&d demorgorgons also have 2 heads with distinct personalities, one wanting to stay as one and the other wishing to separate (a hint at Will’s DID and the fight between WW wanting to integrate personalities and Will not wanting to do so).

~El ,Kali, and the demogorgon being alters is why we see the lights flicker when the demogorgan appears , and (sometimes) when El and kali use their powers- cause they’re based off ww who has lightning/electricity powers which we saw in s1. Causing the lights to flicker at Mike’s place, turning the bike light on with his mind, causing sparks of electricity to come out of the phone 2x , using lights telepathically to talk to joyce (blinking ‘once for yes and twice for no’, and using the lights to tell Joyce to “run”).

demodogs/dart (animal alters)

“In some cases, what presents as an animal is really a child alter acting as an animal. This is found in cases where the abused child was forced to act as an animal, usually a dog.”

In mad-max the r**ist biker gang - ties up one of their victims on a leash like a dog. In unleashed the adoptive father made his son where a collar and called him ‘his dog’. ‘Orphan’ the girl wore a collar and the bullies pulled on it calling her a ‘doggie’ and she starts screaming and having an episode in school. In s1 Hopper says he likes the book cujo , that one of the guards is reading, and at the end of the book they replace the dog Cujo with a dog named Willie. In ‘the cell’ the villain put dog collars on his m*rder v*ctims cause he wanted to ‘own them’. In ghost Busters, Mike -is Venkman- and Will -is Dana Barret. Dana finds a demon-dog in her fridge, and hires the ghost busters. And right before Venkman goes on a date with her she is possessed by the big-bad, Zuul, (who controls demo(n)-dogs). The s4 movies also allude to Lonnie possibly k**ling chester his dog cause when he was stalking Will (offscreen) chester would bark at him - like how he barked at the demogorgan - one of the only other times we hear a dog bark is when we see Lonnie (at his place).

*There’s also the parallels of Dart to El. Dart killed a cat. While El’s papa tried to make her kill a cat (which dogs stereotypically don’t like-Lonnie most likely forced Will to kill a cat. ).Heck the russians even reference cats -linking them to El and the demodog. El/Dart also both have sweet tooths (eggos and 3 muskateers). Both were called traitors and ran away- and initially caused a rift in the group. And dustin and Mike said they made “promises” to El/dart and that dart/el “trusted them” (mike &Dustin)”. Lucas in s1 also called El a ‘dog’ and El asked, annoyed, if she was Mike’s “pet”.

Jim hopper : Introject & adult alters

“System introjects are alters who are replications of a person from the outside world , who often believe they are the actual person (and not the replication). They may adamantly believe that they are a different person . These parts contain a lot of memories, factual information, emotional realities for how it was like to be near the outside person.Introjects can also be based off of figures that the dissociative child found strong, courageous, heroic, or otherwise worthy of being emulated and internalized and could theoretically protect them.”Jim even means to “supplant” (replace) or “supresede” (take the place of a person or thing previously in authority or use). Meaning, there was a Jim Hopper (Joyce knew in highschool) and a Jim Hopper alter based on him.

“older adult alters are created to serve a nurturing or parenting role, thus serving as a protector. (*protecting Will/el) . However, sometimes the age is related to taking on the identification of the ab*ser, and can therefore take on any of the other more hostile roles... Introjects which are mimicking ab*sers are trying to "keep you inline" in order to protect you from external ab*sers. They don’t dare relax their vigilance or let you fall away from the OLD RULES that were once so important.They are trying so hard to keep you safe. “

We even see the convo he has with El, is similar to Neil and his ex wife- a man berating the girl after coming home, calling her a liar, and asking about what man they saw. And El yelling and saying Hopper is “like papa” when he yells at her (the same season dr owens called him Will’s “pop”. Would not be surprised if Lonnie would berate Will about seeing Mike. There’s even a physical resemblance- blonde, blue eyes, and similar moustaches to him and Neil.And he also parallels Billy & Max in s3 with the ‘door’ imagery.

“Being an introject is a difficult and thankless task. This member of your system has spent all these years acting out a role that they dislike every bit as much as you do.” *(berating El about the rules- that were most likely initially Lonnie’s. A part of me suspects that cabin wasn’t Hopper’s grandfather’s but Lonnie’s secret cabin where he took Will. And berate Will about seeing Mike. He was shown in s1 fixing the hole in the wall. And Hopper says about the cabin “ A LOT OF HISTORY HERE’ ).

We see other alter hints too -He taught El morse code (which Will already knew). Murray says Hopper reminds Joyce of a previous “bad relationship” (lonnie). And the russians in order to get info, t*rture steve and threaten to rip out his finger nails , while, Hopper threatens to break the mayor’s fingers for info.

And when a Russian goes into the carnival game in a room with tigers and clowns, the speaker says “ if you dare enter the cave of horrors you may never know what you may find around the corner (clown laughs) . Don’t show your fear in the presence of the tiger or you may never escape this cave alive”.As he jumps out the tiger roars in unison with Hopper leaps out to attack.

The song you ‘don’t mess around with jim’ (from s2 and 3 that Jim dances and sings to ) is about a boy named Willie beating up a thug (who wears a hat) named Jim (representing resentment of father figures). We see Villains have zoom in shots of their cigareete trays- like the h*tman, Billy posessed by the mf, and Hopper before he yells and threatens El in s2.

In s1 It’s implied Hopper is addicted to pills , was an alcoholic (both him and Lonnie have many beer cans and cigareettes in their house- would not be surprised if Lonnie also had a pill addiction too) .

Introjects “ are NOT the actual ab*ser. They are a victim, a single part within a large beautiful mind, bred from the survivor's essence.They are just copying behaviors shown to them by bad people, not harboring the intent, s*dism or imm*rality of the actual perpetrators.”

“The introject in your system was there to help you when the stakes were very high and their job was deadly serious. It’s difficult for them to let go of that level of urgency. introjects represent how important it was, at one time in your life, to always be vigilant. Danger was always near you and you had to be careful of every move and every word, because your very survival might depend on not doing or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

‘ introjects also represent the desperate hope that, if you could only do everything just right, obey all your ab*ser’s rules and anticipate exactly what was wanted of you, that it might lessen or even prevent some of the ab*se from happening. And gain approval or love from the ab*ser.”

We also see how he’s based on the mf/ww in a few ways: he describes his depression in s3 as being in a “deep dark cave” (the supernatural cave in s2/cave of horrors at the fair) and in s2 he says he thinks of himself as a “black hole” that will destroy everything around him including his daughter (the mf/Lonnie).

Now, cause people will mention it. We can’t take everything David says about Jopper seriously- he filmed s4 in advanced and lied constantly about the duffer’s not contacting him prior to this. I think he bs-es a lot and occasionally throws in hints. Like how in behind stranger things after mentioning Lonnie and Bob he compares jopper- to Jack and Evelyn from china town (who slapped her for lying -like Neil did to his wife. And we see duffers laugh hysterically and shawn exchange a look with them cause they know David is giving a hint that isn’t positive). And evelyn was also r*ped by her father (there’s at least 30+ st movies the Duffers have cited with that dad plot point, unfortunately . Along with about 6-10 DID movies). David said in an interview with total film : “ In terms of Stranger Things, you’ll be able to look back at season one and see a lot of things that happen further down the line that relate to that.I’ve had those discussions with them from the very first season. We were always interested in that idea of the Gandalf resurrection – Gandalf the Grey who fights the Balrog and then becomes Gandalf the White.” Well this is a lothr ref (Which Will is into) but i think it’s also just a Will and ww hint -since in silent Hill when Alessa and cheryl mege back into 1 they become a deity- a serene white-clad figure, even the dragon relates to Will. But, there’s also the fact David in multiple interviews describes Hopper as a ‘little boy’ . After s4 started he said about Hopper with Gold DERBY “ he’s also like a little boy who has been just so traumatized and so hurt that he can’t really have relationships with people that are full and that are honest... it makes it difficult for him to get close to people... all the joyce st-...There’s a lot to be revealed around the complexities of that story . Because when we know the ending you’ll be able to go back and watch it and see what we were planting in s3 , that paid off in s4 and s5. That will make those intimacy issues a lot more understandable.”

Since Hopper-alter thinks he’s the real-Hopper (Joyce’s old friend/ possible ex) he hits on Joyce.There’s the references to back to the future. Steve incorrectly saying it’s about alex keaton “trying to b*ng his mom.” And stobin’s exchange about the movie alludes to what Jopper actually is “I think that lady is trying to bang her son/ no, but, they’re the same age?/ He needs to get back to the future ,which is his time, cause he’s stuck in the past (trauma)/ W-What?”

And the season where Jopper was the most evident we see another alter (Billy) hitting on someone who is old enough to be/ resembles his mom. Her being a wheeler could also represent Will’s repressed feelings for Mike. Along with Illustrating his subconscious issues with parental figures cause of Lonnie. Dianne (Hopper’s ex wife) - even is a roman goddess of hunting.

In s2 Nancy asks Steve how his “grandpa’s time in the war is a metaphor for your life?” And steve compares the mf to the germans in the war. Dr owens mentions Will has ptsd like “ (vietnam) soldiers’, Hopper saying he had buddies like Will . “In the 70s there was a study that compared the post-traumatic stress symptoms in Vietnam veterans and adult survivors of childhood s**ual ab*se. The study revealed that childhood s**ual ab*se is traumatizing and can result in symptoms comparable to symptoms from war-related trauma.” Hopper isn’t actually in Russia -but in one of the innerworlds (after he jumped through the rift of the machine- into Will’s mind). We’ll see flashbacks but also present circumstances of his imprisonment echo Will’s past with Lonnie (if the movies indicate anything)- being starved, guards getting payed in order to let other prisoners r*pe a gay prisoner (than claim incorrectly because of his sexuality he wanted it) , as well as a gang of sadist men who r**e others and a warden using that as a threat to be compliant , being thrown in a dark room of solitary confinement and starved when they didn’t obey the warden, the warden being religious, etc. And the Anerican soldiers (in Vietnam) in the movies aren’t much better and do similarly horrific acts to civilians like r**e and bragging/ happily k*lling women, children, and the elderly. The drill sergant in vietnam calling them homophobic slurs & women, and chocking one of the soldiers with one hand, slapping one for not believing in christianity. Tying up a soldier in a bed , gagging him, beating him and saying “remember it’s just a dream.” Only praising them when good in fire arms.(movies : fullmetal jacket, papillon, shawshank redemption, platoon, welcome to marwen, etc ) . My assumption is while in solitary he has flashbacks of his life- and it’s more hints about him being an alter -the boxes in the basement are “vietnam” ,“dad”, and “ny” (and these are the memories of his we’ll see). And some of the bad characters in said stories will also parallel Lonnie . For instance in s2, Jonathan mentions Indiana writer Vonnegut- In his book ‘slaughterhouse 5′- Vonnegut begins the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who has “come unstuck in time”. It accounts of Billy Pilgrim's capture and incarceration by the Germans during the last years of World War II, and scattered throughout the narrative are episodes from Billy's life with his dad, and his own wife and kids.Billy is forced to be part of the war and similar things against his free will. The moments start from his childhood when his father throws him in the water to teach him how to swim. He was unwillingly drafted into the war. Later, he is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians (aliens that are implied to be caused by his mental health issues/trauma) against his will. Therefore, he realizes that this concept is just an illusion.

We also see Hopper being violent/aggressive to Mike foreshadowing how Lonnie will treat Mike (difference is it’ll be played completely serious).

Sara : “littles “ also called a child alter (not based on ww)

“Child alters often talk in a child-like way, but unlike a biological child they can normally understand abstract concepts and long words. Some child parts may ... be playful and fun-living and have only positive memories. A child alter may also be an idealized representation of the "perfect child" from the "perfect" family, for example the "good boy/girl."

we see this in a few ways- Sarah winning the spelling bee (like Will winning the science fair) and Hopper describing her as very intelligent, but not knowing where she gets it from. She in the 1st episode is said to love science like Will (who won the science fair 4x) , and knows how to spell words like ‘odontalgia’. In s1, Joyce and Hopper pretend with Sara and Will to be a witch and an ogre eating them.And in s1 Will and her both own cat plushies. she has a tiger plushie (mascot of Will’s school, like with billy’s baseball mascott also being a tiger/ Will’s painting). And her hospital gown has clowns on it (Will’s fear). Hopper even pauses and has a flashback of sarah’s tiger when he sees Will’s lion plushie in the upsidedown .And when Will has a vine in his mouth imagines sarah with tubes in her mouth.We see despite the fact Hopper didn’t move to Hawkins until after her death- she appears to be at Hawkins lab?

And Holly’s drawing is similar to el’s in s1.And , in s1, like Will she has an episode alluding to her seeing the void as she turns her head scared seeing something no one else can.Then in s2, Hopper says Sarah became obsessed with blackholes - and latter says that blackhole (mf?) got her. It’s possible she saw the void or even the mf and misinterpreted it as a blackhole. And so she didn’t actually die of cancer - it was probably just symbolic of her integrating into the mf/ww (the blackhole ‘getting her’). Or it’s possible she’s just alive/in stasis in the innerworlds after her ‘simulated death’

Also can we mention how there’s lions, tigers,and bears (as plushies)- oh my. Along with the whole “home references”. Wizard of oz is on the movie list, and 2 wizard of oz movies shown in s3.

Robin Buckley

Robin Buckley (possibly an alter?)- Robin discusses with steve the legend of Prometheus , who not only gave human beings the gift of fire, and therefore civilization, but created them, giving them the gift of life. El watches frankenstein in s2 whose novel was titled “the modern prometheus”(another hint WW/Will created El). Steve when looking at Robin even says the biblical verse “let there be light” (the beginning of creation and human beings-i.e Robin).”And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (wow this doesn’t sound just like the black-watery-void in the upsidedown at all) XD. Robins were also considered holy birds by the God thor (the god of Thunder and lightning). She’s gay, into comics, rides a bike, and is afraid of drs just like Will is, and was tied to a chair for info like ww. She references surfing (billy) and has a spy storyline. She’s a smart, into rock music and wants to fit in . And makes fun of her friends’ love-lives to hide her own insecurities about her own romantic feelings and sexuality (that weren’t accepted at that time). And has feelings for a girl who can’t sing (mike) who pays too much attention to a person who didn’t even like them (Steve/El) . Buckley could be a ref to a ‘buck’ deer (like the one the demogorgan killed in s1/ typical hunting game). And another legend says that the Robins were red because it scorched its bre*st in the fires of Purgatory, mercifully taking drops of water in its beak for the lips of the parched souls in torment( the opposite of devil-lonnie).Robins also feature in the traditional children's tale Babes in the Wood, the birds out of kindness cover the de*d b*dies of the 2 abandoned children found in the woods with strawberry leaves (who had been k*lled by an abusive family member) . Not sure if mrs driscoll (being a strawberry name is a coincidence to that whole cherry/strawberry/heathers movie ref with alexi? Robin is also a unis*x/male name like most of the other gals on the list. While her crush ‘tammy’ (means ‘twin’. could be a clue about Robin being an alter?).

the rebuttal could be simply: buckley can mean ‘goat’ which would match her bff’s surname Harrington (’he-goat’). And just be a cute little nod to them.While Robin means ‘bright fame’ just like our fallen super-hero Bob ( since robin and bob are nicknames for Robert)- so could also be a simple nod to him.But her names could be both a nod and a deep ref- who knows.

Barb

Barb- Barbara means “strange” or “foreign” , while Barb means “stranger”. Her name could also be based on the saint Barbara- who was carefully guarded by her father who kept her locked up in a tower (like Hopper & Brenner to El/Lonnie to Will) in order to preserve her from the outside world . He later tries killing her. However, as punishment, he was struck by lightning on the way home and his body was consumed by flame (connection to ww who likes using fireballs against bad guys and who also has lightning powers). She’s best friends with a wheeler (although pictures show us unlike byler they’re not childhood friends). she may have been queer coded and had feelings for her bff (moping after Nancy leaves to sleep with Steve) . In a s1 flashback Will specifically watched ‘poltergeist’ with his mom- and is then thrust into the same scenario as the little girl (being trapped in another dimension- where the mothers can only hear their voices and communicate to them through electronics ). And barb’s pool scene echos the pool scene in the movie too-a women being attacked in a pool ( and could be considered similar to being attacked in a tub/sensory deprivation tank). And similar to El , she wakes up in the upsidedown and pukes up a white fluid calling for Wheeler- but gets no help. Unlike Will. For Halloween she also dressed up as a scary clown (Will’s fear) when Nancy dressed up as a bunny (an animal lonnie forced them to kill). She also is dragged away in a similar way to Billy -down stairs.

Her mom’s first name (Marsha) also has the same meaning as Martin Brenner- ‘war like’. A hint Lonnie is violent or maybe was a vet?

Other npcs

Besides the russians, we also have some of the americans who experimented in Hawkin’s lab: most notably Brenner and becky/terry Ives.

“Some survivors will internalize their family into their own DID system.“

Brenner and Lonnie have similar appearances (and in the original script he was suppose to be unshaved and wear plaid and jeans... prob too obvious to keep) . They forced their kids to kill animals, threw them in a dark places, submerged them into water, and also praised them when violent, and tied people to beds (yes lonnie did that - why mf and terry are both tied up there). Brenner even means- ‘someone who cleared forests by burning (showing his connection to ww with fire, and because forests is where hunting/ab*se took place).His collegue - the blond women’s name , Fraizer means - “of the forrest men” (the male hunters who terrorized Will/ww most likely).

Terry/ Becky Ives.Becky means “snare-a trap for catching birds or animals”. While Terry (Teressa means “huntress’) .While Ives means- yew wood (a tree).Terry’s backstory should also raise eyebrows when we see when going to Hawkin’s lab that the Byers’ car is there (a tip off this story isn’t reality but from Will’s subconscious).

Terry also turns in pain on the bed and sees sunflowers. And Will has a sunflower book next to his bed.

While Terry has an appearance similar to Jon’s (blonde and almond shaped brown eyes and Terry is a unis*x name) and both steal guns and drive a long distance in order to help rescue Will/el. This is the season of ‘mr mom’ after all (where Jon takes pics of Will on Halloween just like the other moms). Becky also compares Terry to Joyce too by saying Hopper would have been her type . And both joyce and terry/becky have a “crazy aunt” and were both deemed as ‘crazy’ when not believed about their children being kidnapped and indeed alive. we also see in El’s room (that Terry decorated) -bunnies (that lonnie forced the boys to kill) and clowns (Will’s fear). Along with fox’s which were in castle byers. We also see Owl’s in both the byers’ and Ive’s house (which also represent ‘paranomal wisdom’). And Winona mentioned the movie ‘prince of sands’ in an st interview. In that the psychiatrist interviews the older brother to fill in the memory-gaps of his sister (who has DID so can’t remember) he eventually admits both were r*ped as kids. And also tells a story in therapy about how their mom m*scarried and the dad threw the st*llborne in the freezer over night-so let’s hope throwing the demodog in the freezer and Terry’s miscarriage doesn’t have that traumatizing meaning. It’s also possible Terry isn’t an npc but a type of alter-given how her and El participated in ‘memory sharing’ and Terry’s power’s affected lights.”An alter may be stuck in an eternal flashback or refuse to accept that anything has changed since the period of time during which they experienced trauma“ (Terry being trapped in the time-loop after being tied to the bed/attacked).

Npcs ...but possibly other alters

I believe susie was a npc created because Will felt bad for Dustin - after the max/lucas situation. so he made what he assumed would be the perfect girl for him. She even has the same name as Max’s mom:susie vs susan. He met her from camp ‘Knowhere’ ( she’s from no where). The blonde american spy (who is also an npc) even mentions a science tech camp in s1 that dustin goes to in s3 .She has space related stuff in her room like sarah, wizard of oz poster (referencing Will), and she reads the ‘wizard of Earthsea’ -about a boy-wizard named jed who realizes the evil ancient shadow he’s been fighting is actually the dark part of his personality -and he needs to merge with it to bring balance. Everyone questions if she’s real or exists- similar to el asking Kali “are you real?”Stranger things instagram posted a fake movie poster- emulating ‘weird science’. A movie about 2 boys creating a ‘perfect women’ from scratch for them and comparing this created gal to susie (they aren’t endgame with this girl in the movie-despite her original programing). Like susie/dustin not being endgame.

Dustin on his canon spotify playlist even has the song ‘weird science’.Her appearance is based off what most boys liked, celeb ‘phoebe kates’. And it may be just a narrative device but in s2 Max lies about mormons at the door, the season before she appears.

And of course her song alludes to what’s happening in the narrative. “Make believe I'm everywhere Given in the light (demogorgan/ lonnie in shed) .dream a dream and what you see will be ( his nightmares based on his ‘memories’)/Rhymes that keep their secrets WILL unfold behind the clouds (mf on his clouds and lightning).And there upon a rainbow (Will/ his powers/ accepting his queer identity and healing) Is the answer to a never ending story.’

Similarly, Heather Holloway is most likely from Will’s mind (my guess an alter)-and her appearence is also based on Phoebe. In the show , they reference ‘fast times’ where Phoebe wears a red bathing suit just like Heather. Billy also mimics phoebe by slow-mo walking in a red bathing suit to the same song phoebe did in the movie.

After El and Max see the pic of Heather and her dad the lyric ‘loving you is a sin’ plays. And she shows an aggression mostly to her father- with her mom she simply dr*gs her but for her father she hits him in the head with a bottle and gags him with a rag and ties him up and throws him in the trunk after she was similarly tied up and thrown in the trunk (unlike the mom who was in the back seat). Billy and Heather were the ones with the most focus during their possessions - and Will said the mf would target “another me” ( another Will). She is str*ngled in the shower and later drowned in a tub into a dark abyss screaming for help before merging with the mf. Both susie and heather are names symbolizing flowers.Susie- means Lily. While Heather is also a variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas.Holloway is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, or type of tree. Also her dad (Tom- means ‘twin’ which could be another DID hint.like Tammy Tompson along with their names being associated with the nature/woods where ab*se took place).

Possible npcs or alters (BUT possibly just normal people from the real world) :

Murray Bauman (possibly an npc or alter?)- Between seasons Joyce mentioned going to Chicago with Will for therapy- where murray is from. Similar to Will who has a ‘do not enter” sign . Murray has a “keep door closed”. Both are proficient with shotg*ns . Murray drinks and smokes a lot like Hopper/Lonnie. He makes up a story about how what happened to Barb being a chemical leak. And next season the possessed are consuming chemicals and the npc russians are experimenting with chemicals. Hopper lied in s1 about having a friend from the times- and in s2 Murray from the times magically appears. He says Jon is easier to read than Nancy and immediately pegs his issues with his dad. He references Wizard of Oz by saying “people don’t like looking behind the curtain” (in the movie what was behind the curtain was a wizard-Will). He also has cameras everywhere like the american npcs. Also, it’d be pretty funny if he was investigating crazy conspiracies like aliens but never realized he was a part of one all along.

Erica-Not on the inspo list but she could be like Buffy’s sis from buffy the vampire slayer. The memories of Buffy and her associates were altered, along with relevant records, so that they believed Dawn always existed as Buffy's sister. Dawn is, however, a real girl, Buffy's biological sister, and has real memories of her fictional childhood. Erica has rainbows/sunflowers in her room in s2 (connected to Terry). And Erica is a plant that means “HEATHER”.

what all these possible alters /npc’s generally have in common is unlike ‘natural people’ they all have names associated with hunting or the woods (because that’s where a lot of the ab*se most often took place). name meaning : becky - snare (a trap for catching birds or animals). Teressa-huntress. Dianne (Hopper’s ex wife) - is a roman goddess of hunting. brenner- ‘someone who cleared forests by burning’. the blond women, Brenner worked with, Fraizer- “of the forrest men” (the male hunters who terrorized Will most likely). mayfield- open country (field) where madder (mæddre) grows', Hargrove-grove filled with rabbits" , Holland- wood land, Bruce (who was also possessed) - means WILLow lands .ives- yew wood (of tree) ,Bauman: comes from the German word "baum," or "boum" in Middle High and Old German, meaning "tree’. Bauman may have originally been a nickname for someone who lived by a tree. Holloway is a topographic surname, which was given to a person who resided near a physical feature such as a hill, stream, or type of tree. Suzie- lily flower. Susan (Max’s mom)- means lily, lotus flower or rose. Heather is also a variety of small shrubs with pink or white flowers which commonly grow in rocky areas. Neil -cloud. Buckley- buck deer. Rhadaghast (Will’s castle byers password)- is a wizard who protects the forrest and it’s creatures.

or an association with fire/lightning/god: robin- bird of the God Thor , sara- married abraham who tried to k*ll his son for god, barabara- saint who’s ab*sive father tried to k*ll her for not believing in his religion- so he was electrocuted and lit on fire by god. Kali/El are names of gods

the main exceptions being Hopper an interject . Although Hop could be a bunny pun, he even references bunnies in s3. And Jim meaning to “supplant” /“suprecede” ( replace/take the place of a person or thing previously in authority or use) hints at him being an interject.And heather’s dad Tom (who was possessed means ‘twin’) like Robin’s crush Tammy (’twin’) Thompson (’son of tom’) . And Marsha Holland (barb’s mom) & Martin Brenner both have first names meaning ‘war-like” (a hint at Lonnie being warlike, or being a vietnam vet perhaps?)

Ok, guys that’s about it- I hope you enjoyed. :)

#will byers #el hopper #billy hargrove #max mayfield #jim hopper #robin buckley #stranger things #kali prasad

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kiernanshayemckay · 3 years

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Elephants are ecosystem engineers and play a vital role in their native habitats, helping maintain the rich biodiversity of the spaces they share with other wildlife. Though elephants are native to only Africa and Asia, they hold significant cultural and symbolic meaning around the world.

Here’s a look at some interesting facts about elephants and what WWF is doing to protect them:

1. What's the difference between Asian and African elephants?

There are more than 10 physical characteristics that differentiate Asian and African elephants. For example, Asian elephants' ears are smaller compared to the large fan-shaped ears of the African species. Only some male Asian elephants have tusks, while both male and female African elephants grow tusks. It is also important to note that there are two distinct elephants species on the African continent—the savanna elephant and the forest elephant, with a number of characteristics that differentiate them both as well.

2. How many species of African elephant are there?

Following new genetic research, the African elephant was recently split into two different species, the African forest elephant and the African savanna elephant, by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List conservation assessment. The African forest elephant is now listed as Critically Endangered, and the African savanna elephant as Endangered. This is important because they face different conservation challenges and occur in separate ranges and habitats throughout Africa.

3. How are African forest elephants and African savanna elephants different from one another?

African forest elephants inhabit the dense rain forest of west and central Africa, while African savanna elephants mostly inhabit the wooded savannas and grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa. They also differ physically. African savanna elephants are larger and their tusks curve outward. The tusks of the smaller African forest elephant are straighter, pointing downward, and they have more rounded ears.

4. How many muscles does an elephant trunk have?

An elephant trunk has up to 40,000 muscles. A human has more than 600 muscles in the entire body. Elephants use their trunks to help them suck up water for drinking, pick up or touch objects, trumpet warnings, and greet one another.

5. Do elephants have a dominant tusk?

Elephants are either left- or right-tusked, and the dominant tusk is generally smaller because of wear and tear from frequent use.

6. How do elephants use their tusks?

Elephant tusks serve many purposes. These extended teeth can be used to protect the elephant's trunk, lift and move objects, gather food, and strip bark from trees. They can also be used for defense. During times of drought, elephants even use their tusks to dig holes to find water underground.

7. Can tusks grow back?

No. Elephant tusks are actually teeth that extend beyond their mouths. They are connected to the skull and have nerve endings, just like our own teeth. Once a tusk is broken, damaged, or removed, it stays that way.

8. How often do elephants give birth?

Elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal—22 months. Females give birth every four to five years. Elephant herds have complex social structures, are led by matriarchs, and are comprised of a group of other adult females and calves, while male elephants tend to live in isolation or small bachelor groups. Forest elephants' social groups differ slightly and may be comprised of only an adult female and her offspring. However, they may congregate in larger groups in forest clearings where resources are more abundant.

9. How do elephants help their ecosystem thrive?

Elephants are important ecosystem engineers. They make pathways in dense forested habitat that allow passage for other species. Many tree species in central African and Asian forests rely on seeds passing through an elephant's digestive tract before they can germinate. An elephant footprint can also enable a micro-ecosystem that, when filled with water, can provide a home for tadpoles and other organisms.

11. What's the most urgent threat to elephants?

Today, the greatest threat to African elephants is wildlife crime, primarily poaching for the illegal ivory trade, while the greatest threat to Asian elephants is habitat loss and resulting human-elephant conflict. WWF uses our expertise in policy, wildlife trade, advocacy, and communications, and engages with communities and other stakeholders in an effort to protect elephants and their habitats. You can help, too, by signing on to stop wildlife crime.

Source WWF

#nature #nature photography #nature facts #elephant #elephants #animal #animals #zoo animal #zoo animals #WWF

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arigatouiris · 4 years

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animal instincts // inosuke x reader

Author’s Note: Another draft pick hahahahah. I headcanon that Inosuke is like this when he’s in love~ My poor misunderstood rough boi who deserves nothing but the world! I hope ya’ll like this, I put some effort into this one hahahaha. Thanks for reading!!

Word count: 4069

Pairing: Hashibira Inosuke x Reader

Warnings: fluff, slight spice (things get a bit heated here UwU) idk, slight angst, SPOILERS FOR THE KIMETSU MANGA

Zenitsu had a question plaguing his mind ever since (y/n) (l/n) came into his life. Not that he didn’t try wooing her and asking her to marry him, no, she turned him down rather decently and kindly, which forced him to think of her as a good friend. She was a demon slayer herself, having hailed from the same training that Kanao went through.

As sweet and loving as she was, (y/n) could be just as violent; albeit, Zenitsu and the gang had only seen this side when she fought demons. Her violence was through a silent battle that she knew she would win, and her swordplay was fascinating to the eye. Her mother was a dancer, somewhat similar to Tanjiro’s father, and her mother had taught her everything she needed to know about dance.

However, life wasn’t too kind. (y/n) lost her mother when she was 12 and had been training under Shinobu to become a demon slayer since. She had learned the breath of the flower from Shinobu, but developed her own style scheme by performing different moves through dance. It was, to say the least, impressive.

(y/n) and Inosuke shared a rather weird relationship.

The first time they met was in between their missions. All four of them were surrounded by a total of seven demons. Inosuke stepped in wanting to be the one to take down everyone, but quietly, (y/n) held him back (almost yelled at but the second Inosuke’s gaze met hers, he grew strangely quiet, which was unlike him).

“We need to plan this out. When you’re cornered, you don’t attack head-on. That’s suicide.”

She turned to Inosuke’s mask and grinned, “You’re better alive than dead, right?”

Zenitsu didn’t miss the fuwa fuwa that came out of his boar friend right then, but he was shitting his pants for something else entirely. It was after that did she introduce herself, rather peppily, and seemed like the most happy-go-lucky person they had ever laid their eyes on. Inosuke seemed particularly soft with her, which was very unlike him, but no one made any comment about it.

“So Inosuke, why did you become a demon slayer?” (y/n) asked, with a chirpy voice.

Zenitsu and Tanjiro watched as the white puffballs around Inosuke grew in number but the male grunted and walked away, leaving (y/n) there with a confused but happy smile.

“What happened?”

Zenitsu hit himself on the forehead.

The thing that Zenitsu’s mind was plagued with was this: How would Inosuke behave if he was in love with someone?

For this, he’d need to understand how animals behaved. When an animal finds a potential mate, the male of the species would perform a series of activities in order to impress the female of the species. Like, in birds, the male bird would perform a wide range of dance moves or hops to impress the female, who would display her interest by signalling in and chirping accordingly.

Cut to what they were doing a few weeks ago. They were at the butterfly estate, all four of them, and Tanjiro and (y/n) were talking about him selling charcoal for a living. She was a good listener, and for Tanjiro, it was nice to be heard for a change. Perhaps, in Inosuke’s mind, Tanjiro was another male boar, showcasing his skills (Zenitsu wondered if ‘kindness’ can count as a skill) and (y/n) was considering him. Inosuke however, had a better skill—brisk loudness, and the ability to have anyone’s eye on him for longer durations of time because he was just that distracting.

“(y/n)!”

Ah yes, he also never forgot her name for a strange reason, but she only thought that was because he didn’t deem her a threat.

(y/n) were right, in a way.

She turned her head toward Inosuke who was holding his two swords near the courtyard. Zenitsu stood a few feet away from where (y/n) and Tanjiro sat, and watched with an unimpressed expression on his face. This wasn’t amusing in the slightest for the blond, for he had seen men pile up over women and behave in a way they otherwise wouldn’t do. But, in Inosuke’s case, it was definitely...weird.

Upon receiving (y/n)’s attention, Inosuke flipped his blades around in the air and did a few stunts, causing (y/n)’s eyes to widen with absolute amusement. Tanjiro smiled a tad bit, before turning to a disgruntled Zenitsu, and understanding thus what was going on.

“Whoa, that’s amazing, Inosuke!” (y/n) said, clapping her hands together.

Tanjiro noticed the white fluff balls come out of the boar boy’s head as his actions suddenly stopped. He might have been raised an animal, but Tanjiro’s heart melted at the realization that Inosuke craved the feelings of attention and kindness from people around him, just as much as he wanted to prove himself superior. Inosuke felt a range of things with the two of them, but with (y/n), he certainly felt softer. And whatever the reason might be, Tanjiro believed his friend deserved it—the boy was pure at heart.

Coming back to the theory Zenitsu had. Tanjiro approached the boy that evening before having a quick word with him over Inosuke’s obsession with impressing you. Both of them knew that it was more than a crush, but it was also quite out of character. While Tanjiro could swallow Inosuke’s need to be softer with her, Zenitsu thought Inosuke believed it was a competition.

“Well,” Tanjiro pondered, “It might be, in his head. That was how he was raised and that’s how he thinks? Maybe, if we don’t prove a threat to him, he’ll learn better on understanding how to communicate his feelings.”

Zenitsu scoffed, “That idiot won’t know what feelings are if it hit him on his face like a brick. He thinks like an animal!”

Tanjiro chuckled, “Doesn’t mean animals can’t love,” He turned to spot Inosuke and (y/n) in an animated conversation about butterflies, “Most often, they love better than the rest of us.”

Therefore, the two of them decided to watch Inosuke. Zenitsu did it for his own amusement, but Tanjiro enjoyed merely understanding his friend’s nature. There were three things that Inosuke had to fall under if he were in love with (y/n)—and this was all based on observation. Tanjiro knew how animals thought and behaved to a fair extent, and with his knowledge, analysing Inosuke’s behavior around her seemed like the perfect study.

#1. One mate is territorial over the other.

Zenitsu approached (y/n) one evening, wanting to call her over for dinner. She turned to the blond before waving at him, and having him sit beside her.

“Hi, Zenitsu-kun. Is there something you need?”

He wondered where his boar friend was at that second. There was no point to this exercise if Inosuke wasn’t around. Not that he minded having a conversation with (y/n), she was sweet. He turned to her after realizing Inosuke wasn’t around and wondered what she thought of him.

“So, Inosuke,” She blinked at his words, “He’s weird, right?”

“Not at all. I think he’s really sweet.”

Zenitsu blinked, “Really? Even though he doesn’t understand a lot of social cues? It’s because he was raised in the mountains—”

“I find that bit fascinating, actually. Even though he was raised in the mountains, he’s so kind.”

“How is he kind?” Zenitsu grumbled.

(y/n) blinked at the blond’s question.

“Do you...not like Inosuke-kun?”

Zenitsu shook his head, “It’s not like that, I just think he’s too much sometimes. Abrasive and rash—it’s like taking care of a loud kid!”

She giggled, “I like that about him! Keeps things lively.”

Zenitsu wasn’t sure now on who the weird one was. With (y/n) defending Inosuke like her life depended on it, it was certain that even she had a soft spot for the boy. But, he couldn’t tell if it was built out of sympathy or romantic feelings like he had. She was just kind, maybe, she defended Zenitsu behind his back (although this thought made him swoon on the inside).

“Where is he anyway?” (y/n) grumbled, frowning a bit.

It was at that second when Tanjiro came to the courtyard. (y/n) greeted the brown haired boy before blinking up at him.

“Tanjiro-kun, have you seen Inosuke-kun?”

Tanjiro hummed before saying, “Hm, I think he left with Kanao-chan somewhere?”

Zenitsu ‘ah’ed before understanding where the boar boy had gone now. Kanao and Inosuke had been training together for a bit, it wasn’t strange since Inosuke always wanted to get stronger than the others. With Tanjiro having beaten Kanao in that little game, Inosuke wanted to do the same. The boy thought everything was a competition.

“Oh?”

Tanjiro almost didn’t notice it, but it was good that he was great at capturing certain scents. Growing up with so many siblings had him understand how to differentiate between the scents of various emotions. When (y/n) stood up, waved to them and left, Tanjiro chuckled, catching Zenitsu’s attention. He wasn’t always certain about a lot of things, but he was sure that he had caught the right scent here.

“What’s so funny?”

It was the scent of jealousy, he thought before shaking his head.

#2. One mate tries to impress the other by being the best they can be.

Zenitsu hated missions, and he especially hated them when he had to go with Inosuke. However, the only thing holding his sanity together was that (y/n) had offered to tag along—since her crow was nowhere to be found. Inosuke was thrilled and secretly so was the blond, because now Inosuke seemed controllable. He didn’t know how it worked, but he was glad that it did.

They were to head to a village to find a demon behind a few missing people. Apparently, these people headed to work one day and never returned—and this being near a river, there were chances that this demon resided under water.

“Can you swim, (y/n)-chan?”

“Yes, actually. I didn’t learn it the easy way, though. Shinobu-san basically threw me into the river and forced me to learn the hard way.” She said, dejectedly.

“When you’re about to drown, your body learns to float!” Inosuke yelled, catching your attention.

“Y-Yeah, I mean, I was the first one to learn too! Inosuke, I also know what plants you can eat from under water!”

“You can eat underwater plants?!”

“Yes! I’ll show you someday! When they’re added into your food, it’s so delicious!”

He couldn’t understand where the fuwa fuwa was coming from now—Zenitsu noticed that the fluffballs were everywhere. He wasn’t sure which mate was trying to impress the other here.

Tanjiro, Zenitsu thought, who exactly is the animal here?

He normally never did this, but Zenitsu was curious beyond belief! Therefore, he shut his eyes, paused for a brief moment and let his ears do the detective work. All he could hear were sounds of two hearts fluttering in harmony, an image stuck to his brain that he couldn’t wipe off (and if he was a softer, more mature individual, he would admit that the image was a rather sweet one), but Zenitsu being Zenitsu hated the fact that his mountain boy friend was in love with a sweet crackhead like (y/n)—who in retaliation was in love with a mountain boy as well.

#3. A manner of softness not seen anywhere else.

It was strange to see Inosuke being quiet—it was either only when he was in deep sleep or deep thought (which was very, very rare indeed). However, the mountain boy grew quiet a lot these days; especially because (y/n) hung out a lot whenever the boys were around. He’d watch her, observing her movements, trying to replicate whatever ‘decent’ moves she made like trying to eat with chopsticks or not wearing the mask as much when she’s around.

In all honestly, it was quite evident that Inosuke tried being a human being around her and it was sweet, Tanjiro noted, that he’d try so hard to accommodate to (y/n).

However, Zenitsu didn’t think it was sweet. He wanted to vomit inside his mouth each time he thought of the boar boy being in love, particularly because it was the sort of love that was rare even for civilized people. The blond always had trouble finding people who accepted him for being who he was, and here was someone like Inosuke—whose personality was somehow revered instead of being shunned.

What the hell is going on? He thought, grumbling, as he witnessed (y/n) crawl over to Inosuke, as if to sneak up on the boy. Normally, Zenitsu would have yelled and alerted his friend, but he just didn’t care anymore—it was comical, and he’d let it be.

“Inosuke!” (y/n) pounced on the boar boy from the back, tackling him to the ground, surprising him.

Inosuke blinked, his face a dark red, before screaming in playful anger.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Fight me!”

Inosuke’s eyes widened just for a brief moment before he growled and tackled her back, causing her to giggle and try to escape the boar boy’s advances. Now, he was chasing her around the estate, something little animals do when they play with one another. Tanjiro smiled at the sight before Zenitsu noticed fluffballs come around him.

I’ve had enough of this.

Walking over to his boar friend, he grabbed the boy from the back of his mask before yanking it off in one go. Inosuke would never mind beating the living daylight out of his blond friend, but the expression Zenitsu had just then caused him to still his movements. (y/n) paused before blinking up at Zenitsu, tilting her head slightly at the sudden halt.

“Zenitsu-kun? Is something wrong?”

“You two are what’s wrong!”

Inosuke growned, “What? You wanna—”

“NO! I don’t want to fight! Do you honestly not see what’s going on here?!”

(y/n) giggled before saying, “Inosuke and I are just fooling around—”

“I thought we were fighting—”

“We are, but it isn’t a fight where we hurt each other.”

“Yes! I was thinking the same thing!”

Zenitsu slapped his forehead. He pointed to Inosuke and then pointed to (y/n). Tanjiro approached them before placing a calm hand on his blond friend.

“You are clearly in love with her and you are clearly in love with him!”

Inosuke didn’t look like he understood what Zenitsu had blurted out, but (y/n) was civilized where Inosuke wasn’t and just then Zenitsu had called her out rather harshly—but, it was the kind of harsh that was perhaps justified. Her eyes widened and she turned to spot Inosuke grab the blond and put him in a choke hold, but her movements stilled. She looked up to Tanjiro who gave her a kind smile before she bit her lip.

Of course she knew she loved Inosuke. Of course, she wasn’t blind. Ever since she first laid eyes on the beast boy, her mind was picked, her heart was his, and her body did things on its own—wanting to impress him, wanting to stand out and make sure Inosuke remembers her name instead of anyone else’s; she wanted to be special to him, and from all her tries, she was bound to know that her feelings for him were nothing short of romantic.

However, could he perceive romance? Could Inosuke know what these feelings were and could he act on them? Was she the only one making the effort here? She turned to spot Inosuke fighting with Zenitsu the same way he was fighting with her and she began to wonder, ‘What if I’m actually no different?’

Tanjiro smelled the sudden hesitance radiating off of her, but before she could get anywhere, he approached her.

“(y/n)-chan, I’m sure Inosuke feels the same way—”

“Tanjiro-kun,” (y/n) wasn’t sure where the sudden hesitance grew inside her. “I just... I need to figure some things out on my own before I...” She turned to spot Inosuke taking off his mask, growling at the blond.

She gave him a soft smile, confusing the hell out of him, before walking back inside the estate.

“Where’s she going?” Inosuke asked, blinking at her retrieving figure.

Tanjiro turned to his friend, curious.

“What do you feel for (y/n)-chan, Inosuke?”

“HAH?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to get him to talk about! But he keeps tackling me!” Zenitsu yelled from the background.

“What feel for her? She’s (y/n)!”

Tanjiro’s eyes widened almost comically at how Inosuke remembered her name so accurately.

“Why do you remember her name so well?”

“She’s important!”

Tanjiro blinked some more, “Important how?”

Inosuke growled, losing interest in this conversation, “(y/n) is...” He couldn’t find her and that bothered him. He looked to where she had gone off to before frowning some more.

“Inosuke,” Tanjiro’s soft voice broke his reverie. “Do you love her?”

He didn’t know what love was, but there were a few things Inosuke was sure of. Whenever he saw (y/n), he wanted to be around her more—just like the pair of wolves he had come across as a child. The male wolf would wind its neck under the female’s whenever it was cold, and it was something Inosuke saw himself doing with her, and no one else. He remembered the swans dancing around in the water with one another, attaching themselves by every inch of their feathers and Inosuke wanted nothing more than to learn how her skin felt against his.

He recalled the group of monkeys that was led by a strong male and a fat female, which was fat because the male had given her his babies. One day, Inosuke dreamed of having little Inosuke babies with (y/n).

If this was what love was then what Inosuke felt for (y/n) was much, much more.

Growling, he ran off to where (y/n) might have gone, and noticed you sitting by the engawa. Taking off his mask, Inosuke sat beside her without warning, and noticed her red face. His eyes widened when he saw that expression on (y/n)—and all the thoughts he had were starting to vanish. Sure, the animals looked happy and did things he wanted to do, but no animal could compare to how beautiful she looked right then. He gulped before leaning closer to her, smelling her face—unsure of what to do at a time like this. Inosuke didn’t want to scare her, but he was confident that she would not be scared.

Zenitsu did not count a fourth thing that Inosuke would fall under if he was in love. The ability to change and adapt for a certain someone.

“Inosuke, do you... do you know what love is?”

He didn’t, and he sure as hell was scared to tell her that he had no idea.

“What I feel for you... I want to be around you all the time. I want to hold your hand and... and hold you in my arms and touch your hair—”

Inosuke grabbed (y/n)’s hand forcefully before placing it on his hair, but paused when he noticed her wince.

“Did I hurt you?”

(y/n) smiled warmly, her heart beating rapidly as she shook her head, “I’m not sure if you know what love is, Inosuke...”

He frowned, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

He was an animal, born and raised in conditions that other people could have perhaps not survived. There was very little he knew about the ways of how human beings displayed affection. However, there was one way he was sure of—one way that could perhaps show her what he felt. Prove to her that whatever this love emotion was, it had nothing on him.

Because what Inosuke felt for (y/n) was far, far stronger than some stupid emotion.

He leaned forward and kissed her, grabbing the back of her hair. (y/n) had no idea where he had learned how to kiss, and even if he knew what this meant, but a second later, Inosuke’s tongue darted downwards to her neck, biting it lightly, marking the texture of her soft skin. His hand was firm behind her head and he pulled lightly, pressing her to him—before leaning back and capturing her lips again.

(y/n)’s eyes were wide and she was almost breathless; unsure of how to react, her hands slowly travelled to his hair and she buried her fingers in his hair, marvelling at how soft his locks were. She kissed back slowly, and did not miss the passion Inosuke brought forth with what he was doing. Once again, he pulled away before reaching her collarbone and biting lightly. The second (y/n) let out a soft moan, Inosuke stopped.

“Do you feel warm?”

Her face rivalled a spider lily. Of course she felt warm!

Inosuke looked at her and smirked, “A male marks his female, in the mountains, this is how beasts mark their mates.”

(y/n)’s eyes widened. Mate? She blinked before grabbing his face and studying it, almost enthralled with what she had learned.

“Inosuke, there is so much you need to learn!”

But, the second she thought of how his tongue travelled to her neck and collarbone, maybe, he didn’t have to learn much after all.

When Inosuke’s firstborn son turned out to be a bit timid, Inosuke acquired the ability—acting out on empathy. (y/n) watched him, hold his five-year old son after the boy had fallen off a small tree and hurt his knee.

“This is going to sting,” Inosuke said, before putting some pressure on to the little boy’s wound, along with a raw medicine he had made to prevent any infection.

The boy cried instantly, which caused Inosuke to turn to (y/n), who was cradling their third born daughter, with a smile on her face. He wouldn’t reveal to a great many people that watching his son wince and cry hurt his chest more than anything ever had, but watching (y/n) smile back at him, as he sat there with a smile on his face made him appreciate everything that was soft in the world.

He had stopped asking people to fight him because honestly, it turned exhausting. After having three children, Inosuke had had enough—he wanted to mellow down and sit back, smell his wife’s hair and watch their children grow. He often wondered how Tanjiro and the others were doing, and he thought of how the life in the city was not one for him at all. He hoped that their paths would cross one day, but turning to (y/n), as their youngest daughter cooed in (y/n)’s arms, Inosuke was at peace.

“What are you staring at!? Fight me!”

Inosuke narrowed his eyes and turned to his three-year old girl, whose expressions and personality rivalled his own. He heard (y/n) chuckle from the back before ignoring her and getting up, grabbing the little girl by her ankle and having her dangle upside down.

“This—”

“Stop it, runt.”

Oh, but he would not deny how much he adored that feisty little spirit of hers. She growled before pinching her father’s hold, causing him to abruptly let her go, as she landed on the ground with a ‘thud’. She got back up and rushed to her father, hands around his neck, Inosuke grumbling before picking her up. If only he had understood that his cries ‘fight me’ were a sign of being touch-starved, he’d have avoided a great many unnecessary fights.

“Let me go—”

“Shut up.”

Inosuke’s hand wrapped around his small daughter’s form before running it up and down on her back, calming her down. The child’s eyes widened before she quieted down, and returning her father’s embrace.

A small tug at his sleeve made him look at his son now, who gave him a needy look as well. Inosuke knelt down and picked up his boy, before hugging both of them, standing like a tree in the middle of the house.

“Never thought you’d turn into such a softie, Inosuke!” (y/n) giggled, before expecting a shout or a loud comeback.

Instead, her eyes widened when she saw him smile at her, each hand cradling his children, as he watched her, with the softest eyes he could conjure.

Honestly, she could never let down the way he told her he loved her each day, not through words, not through mindless actions, but merely by looking at her like his entire life belonged to her. For a man raised in the mountains, Inosuke knew how to love better than the rest of humanity itself.

If only Zenitsu could see the man now, she thought, chuckling.

#inosuke hashibira #inosuke x reader #inosuke #inosuke hashibira x reader #hashibira inosuke x reader #hashibira inosuke #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #tanjiro kamado #agatsuma zenitsu #inosuke fluff #inosuke x y/n #kimetsu no yaiba spoilers #inosuke hashibira x y/n #demon slayer #best boy inosuke

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thenamesblurrito · 3 years

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ladies and gentlemen this is ask dump no. 5

aw scrap here we go again!

answered asks include body modification as the opposite of empurata, Mutacons making bandages out of kibble, kibble used as furniture, numbers of Sweeps, a DILF alligator, RID15 Tidal Wave, a BIG infodump on dealing with the circus that is Iacon’s media, Cybertronian muppets, a WIP of Elita Infin1te (or rather her sword), and the many secret sufferings of Alpha Trion.

yea, sorta! body modification in SNAP is more limited than in canon. you can’t simply switch out your body like the total frame reformats of IDW or TFP, and losing a limb can be permanent if not healed in time. for the most part, the frame you have is the frame you’re stuck with, and those frames fall within specific parameters.

HOWEVER-

some modification and upgrades do exist! the most prominent here would be a prosthetic helm like Lugnut. if the processor is left intact and attached after a helm injury, a new helm can be sculpted, with extra optics to make up for the lower quality of artificial optics, and as visibly different as possible to differentiate from empurata. other replacements and prosthetics are common after debilitating injury where the original body part cannot be saved. whether or not the prosthetic is as good as the original depends on the individual and the specific injury. there are also functional medical upgrades, like thicker armor attachments, alt mode additions, etc. almost every upgrade is for the express purpose of improving one’s frame for their function, and there’s definitely a limit to them. you can’t give yourself new limbs if you only had four to begin with. a grounder cannot become a flier. the spark can only power so much mass in the frame, and some people have adverse reactions that mean the upgrades don’t take and must be removed.

this sort of relates to the next point here-

yes, with some caveats.

Cybertronians are a segmentary species, so they can detach some body parts for a bit without negative consequences, as long as that body part is reattached for revitalization and repair. many folks can do this without any medical assistance for the less integral kibble. for instance, Kup uses his tow arm as a walking stick, but he has to reattach it whenever he wants to go into alt mode, and if he doesn’t transform he still needs to reattach it for a couple hours every day at minimum. so if a Mutacon were to create a makeshift splint out of kibble and detach it, it would likely be fine, as long as they got that kibble back. otherwise, they’ve lost a whole chunk of their body that they can’t just regenerate.

for shifting armor to cover a wound without detaching it, that depends on the nature of the wound. if it’s ragged, large, or in areas with a lot of joints or movement, it might be difficult to shuffle around plating to cover it. a more superficial injury in a less delicate area would be easier

sort of! it’ll depend on the individual’s kibble, of course! double checking SNAP Bulkhead, i don’t think he could, because his kibble isn’t large enough. but Scylla could probably use her alt mode arms as a chair, Wreck-Gar has a built in backpack and belly bag, and of course the Necrobot uses his wingcloak as hands. different kibble with different bonus uses

the ideal number of Sweeps is seven, since less than that means they don’t have enough collective processing power to function optimally. more than seven, however, puts a strain on that collective processing power to smoothly operate so many at once. so there’s usually packs of as close to seven as they can get.

as to how many can just exist at the same time, it’s limited only by how many Scourge is willing to forge. he first invents them in s1e06 A Use for Army-building! An Upgrade to Sweeps. by the next episode they figure out that having dozens of them running around is... well it’s about as chaotic as having dozens of flying puppies with hands and weapons would be. in large numbers they’re very difficult to control. good thing Galvatron is excellent at commanding his new army!

(the post this is referring to) @oldboyjensenhinglemeier thanks Dilf Waitress, i can always rely on you

(the post this is referring to) i think that’s fantastic, i’d love to see a Cybertronian whale. imagine the size of the holding cell you’d have to have for him!

oooohohoho what a sticky subject. here’s a quick rundown on faction ideology to give you some context for how they operate and thus deal with the media. the heroes aren’t referred to as heroes, but rather as vigilantes at best and violent gangs in a turf war at worst. Froid has remotely diagnosed them with pathological dissent. at the same time, some folks have jumped on the market to make hero merch, and it becomes a very lucrative business for some. public opinion is constantly torn between fear and anger at how they do whatever they’d like and gratitude and admiration for how they throw themselves in harms way to prevent disaster and save people. it’s really a giant mess all the time that changes by the day.

there is of course the whole snafu surrounding the media’s portrayal of the Elite Guard as a backup team for the Autobots, and Elita 1 as Optimus’ sidekick. and Elita 1 is Not Happy about that. Elita 2 is startlingly good at winding the reporters around her little finger and always seems to know just what to say, whereas Elita 3 just grumbles at the cameras, even sometimes demanding they respect boundaries or be locked in the nearest building with the use of her powers. Elita 4 barely notices them unless she’s in the mood to prank someone, and Elita 5 just avoids them, as they tend to dramatize her size and thus her danger. given their excellent teamwork and how they’re (mostly) in favor of reform instead of anarchy, the Elite Guard would actually have a good shot at getting along with the news, except they bow to precisely no one, including the people wanting to interview them, so instead they come across as a standoffish and self-serving clique with dangerous habits

the Decepticons are in the bad-boy limelight and they love it. well, at least Galvatron, Hellscream, and Thunderblast do. Galvatron takes advantage of every opportunity to pontificate on the evils of society and the right to rise up for freedom. broadcasters have learned to cut the cameras as soon as he starts speaking so his ideas don’t get the chance to spread too far. Hellscream cares less about principles and more about scaring the living daylights out of every reporter he sees, often leaving them with cracked equipment and ringing audials from the sheer destructive power of his voice. Thunderblast just wants to preen in all the attention and boy does she get it. Cyclonus actively avoids most gawkers, Scourge talks too long and complicated to make good news, Drift either ignores them or sends them away with some lofty spiritual advice, and Triptych is dangerously unpredictable so most reporters have learned to stay away from him.

the Predacons came into existence in a negative light, and they were grimly prepared for it. after all, Sixshot used to be a Decepticon, and their falling-out and defection caused quite a stir. when Abominus first appeared, the fearful reaction of the public to such an ‘abomination’ is actually how he chose his name in the first place. Airachnid loves tormenting reporters with nuclear-grade sarcasm and subtle threats, but if anyone makes her truly mad she’ll string them up in her web cabling and leave them hanging. she also flaunts that cabling by using her darts to knit nets, shawls, and other decorations, despite the fact that getting cabling tangled up in seams and joints can lead to something called entrapment protocols, mentioned in the seventh ask here. Enforcers use capture equipment designed to trigger entrapment protocols, so her mimicry of that as nothing more than a casual accessory is a big ‘frag you’.

Soundwave.... is a category of his own. he only comes into being in the fourth season, but the media soon learns to quake at the thought of encountering Soundwave, and his minicons are little better. there’s at least one instance where he Rosanna-rolls the entirety of Iacon.

the Autobots keep wavering between ‘the only true good ones of all these vigilantes’ and ‘the worst possible people in the world, hide the children, lock the doors’ in the eyes of the media. Optimus does his best to treat everyone fairly, and the Mistress usually has something encouraging to share. much like Galvatron but for completely opposite reasons, broadcasters have learned to cut cameras when Ultra Magnus starts talking, because his encyclopedic knowledge of law means he regularly lists every instance of malpractice, abuse, illegality, and disrespect that he sees in the average reporter, Enforcer, or politician, which is not the kind of upbraiding that would serve the propaganda machine. however, it does get him the attention of Tyrest, who leverages legality and public opinion to try and draw Ultra Magnus into an agreement during s3e03- A Councilmember’s Boon! An Upgrade to Legality. Rodimus is a chaos beast who has been known to snatch cameras for selfies. it’s kind of a tossup as to whether Cheetor will be going slow enough to show up in the footage or not.

now, i can’t talk about the media without mentioning the feral force of nature that is Rewind. the best of the best, he’s the only one willing to brave the battlefields for an up-close look, constantly endangering himself in order to get the freshest scoop. he might not always hold opinions in line with the mandated propaganda about these vigilantes, but the media lets him get away with it, since he’s the most successful at getting them more news. this has caused him to be targeted at least once, unfortunately.

love this question. love it. you know those lil remote controlled robot dogs, or things to that effect? i’m imagining that’s what Cybertronian muppets are like, since they can create robotics and animatronics with a lot more finesse and ease than we can. in fact, making fabric is probably harder for them than robotics, since they don’t have the same materials as we do to work with. but anyway, these muppets wouldn’t be limited by what a hand can do to puppet them around, being instead remote controlled from off stage, so i don’t know if they’d have that kind of visual gag. maybe instead there would be fourth-wall breaking where one muppet snatches the remote of another?

the painful thing about this answer is that i have a design i’m happy with EXCEPT FOR THE HELM i have sketched and resketched a dozen different ideas ugh. the body looks fine, all five of them combined in a way that makes sense to me, but i just CANNOT get the helm right i’m so angry. anyway here’s the Cyber Caliber, all of their swords combined into one massive weapon

the more accurate question is, what hasn’t happened to him. he’s been through a lot, the poor mech. but i’ll list some things for you:

that one time he had a sibling be erased from reality

that one time he had to murder another sibling because they decided evil was fun

that one time a fragging beachball stole his work

the fact he doesn’t know if his twin is alive or not

that one time he was a junker running for his life

that one time he was too late to save the Terminus Blade, and it was stolen

that one time his pride and joy, the Athenaum Sanctorum, was destroyed, and everything archived there was lost

that other time the same fragging beachball stole his work

that other time he was a junker hiding for his life

the fact that the theft of his diary started a whole new branch of religion and he has to read his own words as if they’re sacred

the fact that the title of Trion was in fact derived from his diary, and the sheer painful irony of being given the title of Trion.

that one time he had to rip off some fingers to fit in

that one time Trypticon showed up, awhile before the JAAT was founded, and he had to take it on alone

that other time Trypticon showed up when the JAAT opened and he had to hand out some precious relics to children to protect the school

aaaaand his current reason for drinking! the fact that of all twenty-something heroes running around, he only knows who THREE of them are because he only gave out THREE RELICS! and relics just keep disappearing from the collection he’s guarding

someone help him he is not having a good time. and it’s only going to get worse...

#ask dump #worldbuilding #cybertronian biology #Empurata #mutacon #sweeps #gatoraider #cybertron #cybertronian culture #autobot #elite guard #decepticon #predacon #rewind #elita infin1te #Alpha Trion #faculty #i've given so much away about alpha now sheesh #well not really i guess but ITS STILL A LOT

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commentaryvorg · 3 years

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Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 1 - There Are Monsters Among Us!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

First off, can we talk about the characters’ dub names? The dub doesn’t actively draw attention to its setting much (but then again neither does the original, really), but it also does not change the fact that this is taking place in Japan and these characters are actually Japanese, despite that we’re hearing them speak English. Some of them keep their Japanese names, too, even if maybe they have slight shortenings of them to be easier for a Western audience to remember. But then some characters’ names are randomly changed to completely English ones, even though these characters are apparently still meant to be Japanese and living in Japan. It’s just strange – if they’re okay with keeping some of the Japanese names, why not keep all of them?

(Honestly, despite my complaints, I am kind of a little glad that they changed Masaru’s name in the dub, because Marcus comes across somewhat of a different character to Masaru for reasons I will be discussing at length. In that sense, it’s convenient to have different names to differentiate them by.)

Kudamon: “He’s a renegade to begin with. We have no choice but to dispose of him.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “The target is a renegade. We must catch him before he gets out.”

This is actually more reasonable than what Kudamon says here in the original.

Satsuma: “The only ones who can keep Digimon under control… are Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Only a high-level DATS agent can capture a Digimon.”

The original version of this line was already awkwardly expositiony, sure, but this one just doesn’t make as much sense. The point is not that Yoshi is a high level DATS agent, but that she has a Digimon partner.

The dub completely replaces the original’s soundtrack. I did a shoutout to the BGM here in the original, and I also want to do a BGM shoutout here in the dub! This piece here is very different sounding from Provocation Infinity but still gives a similar sort of actiony gung-ho feel appropriate for Marcus and Agumon being fighty dorks, and I like it. It’s used often enough in moments like this such that it’s the only dub theme aside from the evolution theme that I’ve become able to pick out and recognise the melody of, even though this is only my second time watching the dub. Though I don’t know what the dub soundtrack’s titles are (actually, after having a look, it seems like the dub OST was never released, so nobody does), I like to think that this one is probably Marcus’s theme based on the moments its used in, so I’m going to be calling it Probably Marcus’s Theme.

Marcus: “This is my training ground!”

This park is apparently specifically his “training ground”, even though it’s just an ordinary park that anyone can visit. Um, okay? (More on this at the end of this episode.)

Masaru: “I’m the number one street fighter in Japan, Daimon Masaru-sama!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “One day, I’m gonna be a champion ultimate fighter!”

They’ve changed “street fighter” to “ultimate fighter”, which, okay, makes him come across a bit less like a delinquent, fair enough. But a noteworthy difference is that he’s only trying to be the best ultimate fighter. Masaru, on the other hand, feels like he already is Japan’s number one street fighter. This change still sounds fine and in-character enough on the surface, but it’s a meaningful distinction that will become quite relevant further in as we get more into Masaru’s character, so keep this in mind.

Marcus: “Fans all over will chant my name! They’ll say, ‘Marcus Damon is the best!’”

I get that what the dubbers are going for here is something equivalent in spirit to Masaru using -sama on himself. But there’s other, simpler ways to do that – just have him call himself “the great Marcus Damon”, or something like that.

As it is, what they’ve done here is make it seem like, apparently, Marcus has fans, or at least he wants to have fans. Which is not even remotely the point of his fighting thing in the original, nor will it be in the dub, either. He’s not doing this for recognition from others; this is something he’s doing entirely for himself.

Yoshi: “Raptor-1 can talk…?”

This was not a thing implied in the original – that apparently, Yoshi (and presumably therefore everyone else at DATS) hadn’t even heard Agumon talk until now. I guess they’re going for giving more of an explanation as to why DATS treated him like a monster, but I find it difficult to buy that Agumon really wouldn’t have said at least some stuff while trapped at DATS HQ. (“I’m hungry,” if nothing else, right?)

Lalamon: “Yoshi, he’ll destroy the human!”

Oh, boy. This is one of those English dubs that refuses to directly acknowledge the concept of death because apparently the poor kiddies can’t handle that or something. I will attempt to not rag on it every time it does so – only because that’d get really boringly repetitive – but I will be talking about it a lot in future episodes when death becomes quite a story-important thing that is happening.

For now, let’s just point out that it sounds really silly to talk like a human can be “destroyed”. There’s plenty of other ways to get across that Agumon is dangerous without directly referencing death that would sound more natural.

Marcus: “Then I’ll knock you out like I did these guys!”

Masaru did not mention the fact that he was responsible for beating up all the dudes this early on. I guess here in the dub, Yoshi just isn’t paying proper attention, because she’s going to continue to assume it was Agumon who hurt all the students.

Kudamon: “He’s too dangerous.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “We cannot let this escalate.”

I am sad that the dub lost the fun “who’s too dangerous?” double meaning of Kudamon’s original line.

Yoshino: “Hey, you! Get away from him! You’ll only lose if you fight him!”

Masaru: “Huh? This isn’t about win or lose! This is about fighting man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You can’t fight that creature! He’s too dangerous!”

Marcus: “Huh? Look, toots, I’m the dangerous fighter here! And I don’t need any babysitter to hold my hand!”

We really, really did not need Marcus being vaguely misogynistic by calling Yoshi “toots”, or by implying that she’s nothing but a babysitter. We really didn’t.

This also replaces Masaru’s original line that has that fun aspect of him not even caring about winning and just wanting to have a good challenging fight with a worthy opponent, so we lose that, too.

(Though, ignoring the misogyny, I do enjoy Marcus responding to “he’s too dangerous!” with “hey, I’m dangerous”.)

Agumon: “Yeah! It’s man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That’s right! This is between him and me!”

Agumon then also isn’t able to agree about this being man-to-man, and this just becomes a less interestingly nuanced “stay out of our fight”, rather than really about the kind of fight they want to have.

Masaru: “Got it? Now stay out of this!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “This is a fight between men, so stay out of it!”

Having removed Masaru’s reference to men a few lines earlier, the dub does something which is going to be extremely rare by its standards and actually adds in a reference to men here. …Unfortunately, because they’d also added in Marcus’s random misogynistic lines earlier, this comes across much more like it’s about gender, and he’s just essentially saying “we don’t want any girls in our fight”. Which, no. Masaru talking about manliness is never actually that much about gender at all, despite the word he uses.

Masaru: “I see you’re pretty brave.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I dunno what you are, but you’re goin’ down!”

We lose the sense of Masaru having respect for Agumon challenging him in place of some basic I’m-better-than-you trash talk. And this also adds in Marcus calling Agumon a what, rather than a who, indicating that apparently Marcus is paying some attention to Agumon’s species and is seeing him, at least a little, as not quite worthy of the same respect as a human.

After their big cross-counter…

Agumon: “I wasn’t ready. But you won’t get me this time!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Hey! I wasn’t ready! I was waitin’ for you to say, ‘One, two, three, go!’”

The dubbers completely missed the point of the original, “I wasn’t ready.” Original-Agumon’s line comes across as “I wasn’t expecting you to be that strong, but now I’ve got the measure of you”, like he’s gained more respect for Masaru’s strength. Meanwhile dub-Agumon is just whining and acting like Marcus totally cheated rather than acknowledging his unexpected strength.

Agumon kicking Marcus in the crotch is cut, replaced with a rather cheesy-looking comic book POW sort of effect across the whole screen.

There’s a cute acoustic guitar BGM here for their bonding moment that I like, especially after recognising its melody and realising that this is a variation on Probably Marcus’s Theme! That seems very appropriate.

Agumon: “You’re… pretty good… for a human.”

Geez, what a backhanded compliment. Apparently dub-Agumon still sees Marcus as below him simply because he’s human, rather than fully acknowledging his strength regardless of species.

Agumon: “Let’s call it a draw.”

This line fills a silence, stating something that was already perfectly well implied in the first place by the fact that they’re no longer fighting and yet there’s no clear winner. It shouldn’t need to be said. In fact, it makes it seem a lot more like this fight really was just about winning or losing to both of them, when in the original that was never the point.

Rather than “Aniki”, which, okay, works fine in subs but can’t really be kept in a proper official English dub, Agumon calls Marcus “Boss”. I guess this is acceptable, but I feel like it would have been better for them to lean into the “big brother” meaning of aniki, rather than the “boss” one, for reasons I will be grumbling about a lot.

Masaru: “Aniki?”

Agumon: “Yeah. You’re the first person to acknowledge me as a full-fledged individual, Aniki.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Boss?”

Agumon: “Yeah. Y’see, you’re the only guy who’s ever matched me blow-for-blow in a fight before.”

So, in this version, Agumon gaining respect for Marcus has absolutely nothing to do with Marcus treating him like a person. It’s just because of his strength, nothing else. Way to lose that really fun little bit of nuance and character depth on both sides.

(Also, what does Agumon even mean, “before”? It’s not like he’d have been able to have proper fights that weren’t just defending himself while trying to escape until now.)

Agumon: “That’s why, from now on, I’ll be your follower!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That makes you the boss. From now on, you give the orders and I’ll faithfully follow!”

Matching Agumon in a fight shouldn’t really suddenly make Marcus the boss who gets to order him around, should it? Plus, here’s Agumon explicitly saying Marcus can give him orders, which was not at all part of the arrangement originally. This whole thing has such a different tone to “you treated me like a person when nobody else did, so now I look up to you and will be loyal to you.”

Marcus: “I never thought one day that I’d have an employee that’s as funny-lookin’ as you are.”

Oh, boy. Meanwhile, instead of “follower”, we have… employee. That is even more completely missing the point of the aniki-and-follower relationship of the original. If they didn’t like the gang connotations of “boss”, maybe they should have gone for “big bro” instead, perhaps? But no, they just doubled down on the “boss” in a totally different and inappropriate direction. Marcus has apparently just started up a small business.

The heartwarming BGM gets a record scratch as Yoshi reminds them she’s still there. I admit, it made me chuckle.

Yoshi: “So, are you gonna come quietly, or do I have to use force?”

Marcus: “Who’s she talkin’ to, you or me?”

I do enjoy this – a little implication that Marcus has some experience with being treated in a similar way, perhaps by the regular police.

Masaru: “It’s the aniki’s job to look after his follower. I’m not handing him over to you!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’ve never had an employee before, and I’m not turning my only one over to you!”

Instead of Masaru doing this out of feeling like it’s an aniki’s responsibility, Marcus is making it about himself. He doesn’t want to lose his new and only employee. Like Agumon’s just a possession of his now. Nothing about how this is something that should be expected of him as a boss.

Later, at the tower, as Agumon asks Marcus to help him evade DATS:

Marcus: “What am I getting myself into this time?”

I enjoy this too. More implications that Marcus is used to getting himself into all sorts of Trouble.

Agumon: “I’m starved!”

Marcus: “Well, suck it up and act like a real man!”

Again with the dub adding in references to manliness that weren’t there originally, as if Marcus actually has a concept of manliness that will continue to be a running theme. Haha, I wish. Get ready for me complaining about the exact opposite of this in basically every other dub episode.

Agumon: “I’m a growing boy!”

How does Agumon even know this phrase? This is an entirely human concept. Dub Agumon will be doing a lot of this, awkwardly invoking human ideas that he shouldn’t have any conception of.

Yoshi: “Yum. I love chocolate pudding – it reminds me of being a little kid again!”

Yoshino’s coffee jelly gets localised into chocolate pudding, because I guess coffee jelly is more of a Japanese thing that Westerners might be unfamiliar with? I enjoy the added detail that it reminds her of being a kid and that’s why she likes it.

Masaru: “I don’t know anyone by that name!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I have no idea who this ‘Raptor-1’ is!”

Marcus’s line loses the technically-not-lying and respecting-Agumon’s-identity of the original line. He does know who this “Raptor-1” that Yoshi’s talking about is, even if that isn’t actually his name.

Masaru: “How’d you know my name?”

Yoshino: “You yelled it out earlier for everyone to hear.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How do you know my name, anyway?”

Yoshi: “I know everything about you.”

No pointing out that he yelled it out earlier like a huge dork. Instead, she just really leans into the DATS-are-creepily-authoritative vibe that she already had a little of in the original.

Yoshi: “Born April 2nd in Tokyo, blood type B, Ootori middle school eighth grade.”

Him being born in Tokyo was not a detail mentioned in the original. And also probably not true in the original, since the series is set in Yokohama and there’s no indication that his family moved here. The dub is presumably still set in Yokohama even though it’s never mentioned, just because the scenery is that of Yokohama, so I guess they’ve just established some dub-only canon that the Damon family moved home at some point. This will actually come up briefly later. I am shocked that I’m saying this.

At least, props to the dub for mentioning Tokyo and making it pretty overt that, yes, this is set in Japan. (You know, with this Japanese guy called Marcus.)

Yoshi also does not explicitly specify Marcus’s age, only that he’s in eighth grade. Which (I’m pretty sure, though I’m unfamiliar with American school grades and may be wrong) would make him fourteen anyway, at least assuming he hasn’t been held back at any point. Keep this in mind, because this will also come up later.

Yoshi: “…and you now live with your mother Sarah and your little sister Kristy, who looks up to you even though you generally act like a jerk.”

First of all, how the hell does DATS have so much information that they even know how his sister feels about him?

Second of all, more importantly, way to just tell us that, hey, did you know, Marcus is A Jerk, hey, guys, you’re supposed to think he’s a jerk, because… he fights things, I guess?

The reality? Masaru is not a jerk. Not even slightly. He’s reckless and hot-headed and will fight anything that poses a challenge, but that is not even remotely the same thing as being a jerk to people.

But apparently the dub doesn’t understand this, and they seem to think that being a jerk is somehow meant to be one of his most noticeable character traits. And I guess they’re trying to present the idea that he’s going to slowly grow into being a nicer person through the power of Digimon and friendship? Which is not at all any kind of arc that Masaru is going to have, because he is not actually a jerk in the first place.

If it was just this one line that seemed to think this, I wouldn’t be that annoyed. But one of the biggest things I’m going to be complaining about with the dub is the fact that they actually do change Marcus’s character significantly to make him noticeably more of a jerk than Masaru ever was. We’ve already seen a little bit of this sort of thing going on so far in this episode, with how they’ve removed focus from the bits with Masaru treating Agumon like a person and instead made it all about fighting, and specifically winning those fights. But, oh boy, there’s going to be a lot more, to an extent that it has to be deliberate.

And aside from me just finding this very frustrating as someone who deeply loves Masaru’s character to see him distorted like this, I also can’t help but boggle at why they would ever want to do this at all. Why would you deliberately adapt a character – the main character – to be less likeable than in the original version of the work? How does it not occur to you that this is only going to make your new audience enjoy the work less? I do not get it.

Lines like this one here are even worse, because they blatantly violate “show don’t tell”. Along with making Marcus act like a jerk and showing us that, the dub’s narrative is also telling us that he’s a jerk and insisting we should think that about him instead of letting us make up our own minds. It’s so lazy and heavy-handed. There will be more like this and I do not like it one bit.

Yoshi: “I’m with the Digimon Data Squad.”

I guess the Data Squad really is its full name in the dub. Even though the acronym is still DATS. Don’t ask me how that’s meant to work.

Marcus: “That’s a great story, dollface, but what’s it gotta do with me?”

Can we not with the Marcus being casually misogynistic? Can we not? (Thankfully, this isn’t going to be a recurring thing. Other ways in which Marcus is being made less likeable will be, but at least not this.)

Marcus does not say anything about assuming Agumon was just a frog. Since Masaru having thought that is going to be relevant again later in the series, this is a loss of not just a moment of amusing dorkiness but something actually meaningful.

(One thing that is very clear about the dub is that, with a few exceptions, they do not appear to have watched ahead to see the whole series first and are just dubbing episode-by-episode. For a series like this with quite a strong overarching plot and lots of little things like this that get callbacks, that means that a lot of this overarching sense of cohesiveness will be lost, simply by accident, because they didn’t realise there was something important there worth keeping around. This is another thing I will be talking about a lot.)

Yoshino: “As long as you keep running from DATS, Raptor-1 will only starve to death.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “If you don’t return Raptor-1 to us, he’ll starve to death!”

This is a little different. Yoshino was only trying to get Masaru to come to DATS, supposedly to pick up some Digimon food. Yoshi, meanwhile, wants Marcus to bring Agumon to DATS. Which on the one hand is a more helpful strategy for what she’s trying to achieve. But on the other hand, he doesn’t bring Agumon, because obviously the dub can’t change the episode that much, so instead we’re just left with that awkwardly not being what happens despite it being brought up.

Yoshino: “You…”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Thank you.”

The hint that Yoshino is gaining a new respect for Masaru from his desire to help Agumon gets lost here, in favour of simply a thanks-for-finally-co-operating. Might partly be just lip-flap’s fault – the Japanese “you” is two syllables – but still, Yoshi’s tone of voice could at least have done some of the work to imply the same as the original, and it doesn’t really.

Kudamon: “This is the boy that put Raptor-1 under control? He doesn’t appear to have any special power, at any rate.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Interesting that this is the boy who fought Raptor-1, because nothing about him indicates that he’s able to fight at that level.”

We lose any implication that Satsuma might have been telling Kudamon things about Masaru offscreen, and instead here’s dub-Kudamon simply refusing to believe the evidence of his own eyes. You literally watched him fight Agumon on your screen. He very evidently can fight at that level.

Kamemon: “Enjoy.”

Marcus: “I’m not thirsty.”

Kamemon: “Suit yourself.”

Kamemon actually says words in the dub as he brings Marcus tea! This was very bizarre to me when I’m used to original-Kamemon, who almost never speaks at all.

Masaru: “Just hand over what I came for.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Just say what ya have to say and stop wasting my time!”

Apparently the dub has forgotten that Marcus only came here to pick up Digimon food for Agumon, and suddenly he expects to be receiving a speech here when he shouldn’t.

Masaru: “Renegades?”

Kudamon: “Yes. Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and injured humans. He cannot be allowed to go free.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why are you calling him a renegade?”

Kudamon: “Because Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and made contact with human beings, so he can no longer be allowed to go free.”

I would complain that it’s a bit much that Agumon’s getting in so much trouble simply for meeting humans in the dub, and not specifically injuring them like they were assuming in the original. But, as it turns out, the original is also going to call Digimon simply meeting humans a “crime” in the next episode, possibly as part of its early weirdness. So, eh, this isn’t really the dub being any sillier than the original here.

Satsuma: “Daimon Masaru, you should work with us to create a bright future for both humans and Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Please co-operate. The future relationship between humans and Digimon depends on you returning Raptor-1 to us.”

Also, apparently Sampson isn’t actually trying to recruit Masaru to join DATS with this speech. I can understand the logic behind changing that, since Satsuma was going about that whole thing weirdly vaguely.

That said, saying that the entire relationship between the two species hinges on this one Digimon being returned doesn’t make any sense. So I get the feeling that the implication of what Satsuma really wanted in the original line just went completely over the dubbers’ heads, and they simply thought they were translating his intent directly and made it sound rather silly as a result.

Masaru: “What the hell is this? Stop pestering without even listening to what I have to say first!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why not? Because I don’t owe you people a single thing!”

We lose the fun subtle Masaru-y nuance of him caring about being given a chance to express how he feels here. Though I suppose it’s also relevant and illustrative that Marcus is implying he would help them if he felt like he owed them, showing a sense of responsibility there.

Masaru: “…but have you even considered why he suddenly showed up in this world? He admired this place! He admired this wide world, filled with things moving around that he’d never seen before.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Have you thought about why he came to the human world in the first place? What if he didn’t have a choice? Maybe things were bad for him back in the Digital World!”

This would be Marcus being sweet and thinking about how Agumon feels… if it wasn’t for the fact that Agumon told him he doesn’t know about anything except the institution, and therefore clearly didn’t deliberately try and run away from something bad in the Digital World. Pay attention to your foll – uh, employee, Marcus. Masaru’s line there had somewhat forgotten or misinterpreted what Agumon had told him, but Marcus’s is doing so to a much greater extent.

Masaru: “But if he starts rampaging, then I’ll be responsible.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And if he gets into any sort of trouble, I’ll claim full responsibility for his actions.”

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable translation, but the dub version of the sentence does not work nearly as well to foreshadow the thing that the original line is foreshadowing and this makes me sad.

Marcus: “But only if you give me some food for him!”

…This is immediately following the previous line. So I guess, since they never give him any food, Marcus doesn’t end up obligated to take any responsibility for Agumon getting into trouble. (Even though that’s still what he is going to do when they think Agumon’s attacking the hamburger shop. But this makes him come across like someone who’s less willing to do so no matter what and has less of a strong sense of responsibility.)

Kudamon: “It looks like you’ll have to take responsibility sooner than you thought.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Do you now see how hiding him has created a security breach for all of us?”

This change makes a fair amount of sense, since original-Kudamon was being unreasonable by insisting Masaru should take responsibility for Agumon’s hunger when that was really Yoshino’s fault. And it also fits with the fact that Marcus never actually promised to take responsibility since he wasn’t given any food.

Yoshino: “So this is where you were hiding him. Since he’s nowhere to be seen, it must be him who attacked the hamburger shop.”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “So this is where you were hiding Raptor-1. A lot of good it did you, since we confirmed it was definitely him who attacked the hamburger stand.”

No, you didn’t! How did you confirm a thing that isn’t true? If this is Yoshi lying, that’s just a dick move; she doesn’t even have anything to gain from it. It feels more like this was the dubbers not paying attention and missing the original’s meaning, which is very obviously that Yoshino was assuming based simply on the fact that Agumon went missing. But he didn’t actually attack the hamburger stand! Did they not even watch ahead to the rest of this episode to realise that?

Marcus: “Why’d you attack a hamburger stand?”

Marcus asks this of Agumon after finding him with his head dorkily stuck in a trashcan, not really all that close to the explosions and flames. Way to jump to freaking conclusions after basically just finding proof that Agumon isn’t the culprit, geez! …Though I suppose that can be partly blamed on Yoshi inexplicably insisting he definitely was.

Agumon: “Huh? I didn’t attack anything, but a hamburger sure sounds good!”

Agumon should not know what a hamburger is. Again with his dub version knowing more human things than he should.

Kudamon: “He hasn’t been tamed. I don’t understand why he’s fighting alongside human beings.”

This just makes no sense. What the hell does “tamed” even mean? Doesn’t it just mean “has become willing to work with humans”? Because if so, he evidently has been tamed, actually. Just sounds frustratingly like Kudamon trying to insist he Knows Better than this nobody kid, and I don’t think that’s meant to be his character.

Agumon: “Aniki! He’s really strong…!”

Masaru: “Doesn’t that just fire you up!?”

Agumon: “Y… yeah!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “No! Agumon!”

Agumon: “Boss! I’m fine, but could you lend a hand?”

Marcus: “Ha! How about I lend a couple of fists!?”

The dub’s version of this exchange is kinda still cute, but it loses that fun nuance that Masaru loves how strong their opponent is, and that Agumon is learning to agree with that idea thanks to him.

Yoshi: “That thing will tear you to pieces!”

See, here’s a way to avoid directly using the word “die” or “kill” while still making it clear that’s what she’s referring to, without awkwardly acting like humans can be “destroyed”.

Masaru: “When you’re in a man’s fight, you’re already risking your life! The moment you get scared of dying is the moment you’ve lost the fight!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Besides, the ultimate fighter is always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice!”

This significantly changes the meaning here, and instead Marcus is apparently consciously willing to get himself killed if necessary, even though the kinds of fights he’s been in before really aren’t something that’s actually worth dying for at all. Masaru’s philosophy of acknowledging but then choosing to brush aside the potential risk in order to fight better makes more sense, because he’s not actually intending to die for anything.

The dub’s changed version of this line will also not work for the callback that the original line is going to get later in the series. I’d talk a lot more about why not, but, spoilers, so I’ll save that for then.

There’s a brief snippet of music here during the Anime Sads that appears to be a sad piano variation of Probably Marcus’s Theme, which feels appropriate. I don’t remember it from my one previous dub watch-through, but I hope it gets used in some of the future much more substantial moments of Marcus being sad about things.

Masaru: “You… How dare you hurt my follower!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s… It’s fightin’ time!”

We also lose another future callback here. But on the other hand, “it’s fightin’ time!” is going to become Marcus’s catchphrase that he uses basically every time he fights (a dub-only catchphrase that Masaru has no equivalent of, and that I’m really pretty happy with), and this moment when he’s avenging Agumon getting hurt is definitely an appropriate moment for it to start being a thing.

The dub’s term for Digisoul is, instead, DNA. Luckily for the biologist in me, who would otherwise be tearing my hair out over this, this stands for something entirely different from deoxyribonucleic acid, because boy would it being that kind of DNA make absolutely zero sense. It’s still pretty awkward that it happens to be the same acronym as a commonly-known thing that it could easily be mistaken for, mind you.

I don’t know why they couldn’t just keep the term Digisoul, though. It’s a perfectly good term! It can’t even be that the dubbers have some kind of oh-no-religious-references objection to using the word “soul”, because that word is also in the dub’s opening song that we’ll be hearing every episode.

Old man: “By mastering this technique, your Digimon can Digivolve.”

Um, sure. The technique of waving your glowing hand over the Digivice is definitely something that needs to be “mastered”.

Marcus also yells “DNA Charge!” out of nowhere for the first time. But in his case, the old man never actually mentioned the word “charge” when telling him what to do here, so it’s even less clear how he knew that was what he was supposed to say.

Alas, the English dub does not dub the original evolution songs in Digimon. The evolution music instead is an instrumental version of the dub’s opening song, which, though I prefer Believer, is an acceptable replacement in terms of creating a similarly triumphant mood.

Marcus: “That’ll teach ya! Don’t mess with my employee!”

Oh my god, wow, way to completely unintentionally mood-whiplash the triumphant moment by reminding us that this huge powerful dinosaur is actually just your subordinate in the new small business you’ve set up here, Marcus. A small business of punching everything.

Agumon: “Aniki! I’m hungry!”

Masaru: “What the hell… That’s so anti-climactic…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss! I’m hungry.”

Marcus: “What else is new? I’m just glad you’re safe.”

This addition is cute. Originally Masaru’s just referring to the anticlimax of Agumon devolving so fast.

Masaru: “How about going for a hamburger?”

Agumon: “Does that taste good?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How about a nice hamburger?”

Agumon: “Ooh! With cheese, too?”

On the one hand, at least the dub remembered the fact that this Agumon somehow already knows what a hamburger is. On the other, this raises even more questions in terms of how he also knows that they can come with cheese.

Yoshino: “But that one’s already injured 13 students!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “But Agumon still injured fifteen men!”

Remember how the original tried to calculate fifteen minus one and got thirteen? Well, the dub tried it and got fifteen. Somehow each of them managed to get this very simple sum wrong in a different way.

(And yes, the dub did also specifically have Lalamon sense fifteen humans at the park in the beginning. Actually, it flashes back here to a part where Yoshi was then relaying to HQ that there are fifteen victims, but that was before she saw that Marcus was still standing. I guess it’s plausible to assume that Yoshi herself forgot to subtract Marcus after that and this is her mistake rather than the writers. Not convinced that’s the case, though.)

Also, told you the dub would forget about the part in the beginning where Marcus yelled out within Yoshi’s earshot that he beat up the dudes.

Marcus: “Those were some punks claiming to be ultimate fighters who wanted to train in my area, so I fought them for it, and guess what, I won!”

This begs the question: how the hell is that park supposed to be Marcus’s training ground? Surely, it’d make most sense as a training ground if it was where people regularly come to challenge him to fights? Instead, he only fought the dudes there because he wanted to drive them away from his training ground, so that he can continue to train there, alone, in a perfectly ordinary park that isn’t a gym or anything like that. How is he supposed to train there without opponents? Does he just, like… punch the trees?

I understand if the dub wants to make Marcus have slightly less of a teenage delinquent vibe, but the resulting implications they have here instead are just amusingly nonsensical. It does not seem like they actually thought about this very hard at all.

Overall differences

Overall, the dub of this episode shows a pattern of things generally making a bit less sense and having a bit less nuance, and Marcus in particular being just a bit less interesting and distinctive than Masaru. This is going to be such a regular pattern for every single dub episode that I probably won’t even bother to remark on it in most of these summaries going forward.

In terms of more specific effect on how this episode comes across, I think the most noticeable shift is that the sense of Marcus’s empathy towards Agumon despite his species is watered down slightly. Perhaps most notably, Agumon did not become loyal to Marcus because Marcus treated him like a person, but instead just because he matched him in a fight, which is less meaningful.

The terms “boss” and “employee” also give something of a different vibe to their relationship than in the original. Obviously the dub had to localise “aniki” to something, but I don’t think this was the best choice. This’ll be a thing in every episode, of course, but I’m bringing it up here because this is where it starts.

Then there’s the part where one of Yoshi’s lines casually established that Agumon had never spoken before. As much as this doesn’t make any sense to be a thing – why would he not have spoken while being held in DATS? – I guess it makes it slightly more reasonable that DATS then sees him as just a monster? Though they should also be changing their tune quite quickly when they realise he can speak, which of course they don’t. I guess this could have been an attempt to justify the original’s issues with DATS’s attitude towards Agumon… but not a very effective one.

#digimon #digimon savers #digimon data squad

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jurassicsunsets · 4 years

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Porifera Overview, or Sponges for Dummies

I’ve been thinking about sponges a lot lately. Yes, sponges. Those sponges. I like sponges.

Let’s channel that into writing!

(Image: A photo of a diver with a very large sponge. [Source])

Sponges are a group of animals that are some of the earliest animals to branch off of the animal family tree. They’ve traditionally been classified together in the group porifera (meaning pore-bearing), but recent evidence suggests they may not form a monophyletic clade, but instead a grade. We’ll get to that later.

Depending on how much you know about sponges, you might be surprised to learn that sponges have a lot of structure to them. Unlike the (generally plastic) kitchen sponges you’re probably familiar with, living sponges are complex, interesting creatures that have evolved to fit specific modes of life. It’s easy to think of sponges as “primitive” because they branched off so early into animal evolution, but remember: they’ve been evolving just as long as you have.

(Image: A simplified cross-sectional diagram of the wall of a sponge, with the cell types labelled. The interior of the sponge is to the left. [Source])

Sponges don’t have true tissues - they’re some of the only animals to lack them (the others being the placozoans). However, they do have differentiated cell types, and they do different jobs.

The epithelial cells are also called “pinacocytes”; they form the exterior of the sponge. Other than that, they don’t seem to serve a ton of function.

Porocytes aren’t found in all sponges. They’re shaped like donuts, or churros, or like one of those squishy finger traps you might have had as a kid. Either way they line the pores of some sponges to let water enter.

Amoebocytes are able to actively move around the organism. They can transform into other types of cells as needed, they transport nutrients, and they can turn into egg cells for doing sexual reproduction.

Choanocytes or “collar cells” are where it really gets interesting. They have flagella that stick off into the interior of the cell and whirl around, creating water currents that draw water in. These water currents also draw microorganisms toward the body of the cell, where they are engulfed. Sponges lack stomachs, so they do all digestion within the cells. Nutrients are then distributed by amoebocytes. Choanocytes can also transform into sperm cells, since they already have a flagellum and all.

Sponges have exterior cells and interior cells, but they don’t really have cells in between. They have more of a gelatinous zone called the mesoglea or mesohyl, in which the amoebocytes can crawl around. The mesohyl is also where the spicules are located.

(Image: Scanning electron microscope image of a bunch of sponge spicules. They form a bunch of shapes, from toothpick-shaped to jack-shaped to spherical to flowerlike. [Source])

Spicules are made by the sclerocytes, another type of cell, and they’re present in most but not all sponges. They help to give the sponges structure, and they also make it a lot more unpleasant for things to eat them. They’re typically made of silica (the stuff that makes up quartz or glass), but they’re sometimes made of calcite or aragonite (the stuff that makes up limestone or antacids).

Some sponges also get some structure from a protein called spongin, which is similar to collagen. It gives structure, but isn’t very hard.

I mentioned before that sponges pump water. It comes in through the sides, into the internal cavity, and gets shot out the top. And they’re really good at it. Seriously, watch this video if you can:

youtube

There are words to describe different levels of complexity in the pores of sponges. They don’t correspond to any evolutionary relationships, and are more descriptors of the shape of the sponge. Some people make a big stink about them, but I don’t think they’re all that big of a deal. Basically, some sponges have really simple pores, and the vast majority of them have a ton of chambers in them that give more exposure time to water in order to better filter out tasty tasty microbes.

(Image: If you’ve seen anything about sponge biology you’ve probably seen this diagram. It’s really just OK. It shows the three “body plans” of sponges: Asconoid, with simple pores leading into the interior space [”spongocoel”], syconoid, with more wiggly walls, and leuconoid, with many complex chambers and a more enclosed spongocoel. In all of them, the choanocytes are located on the insides. [Source])

Most sponges are hermaphroditic - i.e., they can produce both sperm and egg. The sperm, as mentioned, come from transformation of the choanocytes, and they get shot out of the spongocoel with the outgoing water to mix with the water like the dirty, dirty little sponge sperm they are. When they find another sponge, they get sucked in through the pores and merge with eggs inside the mesohyl. Then they develop into sponge embryos and get shot out. Yes, sponges give live birth.

(Image: Diagrams of sponge larvae. They’re kinda cute! [Source])

Sponge larvae are little balls of cells that swim around with flagella on their outside, and when they land somewhere, they turn inside out and those outside cells become their choanocytes!

Sponges can also reproduce asexually, by budding! Or, if you stick a sponge in a blender, each cell can grow into a new sponge. (Or if you do that, the cells might get back together and form new sponges that are slightly bigger.)

Sponges can also move once they’ve rooted. Very, very slowly - we’re talking milimetres per day, if that, but they can do it.

I think that’s the basics of sponge biology. Let’s get into the different types of sponges!

Calcarea

(Image: The calcarean sponge Clathrina. It’s a small (centimetre-scale) yellow sponge that looks a little amorphous. [Source])

Calcarean sponges are - as the name suggests - sponges whose spicules are mostly calcite or aragonite, but not all sponges with calcite spicules are calcareans. They are mostly found in the shallow tropics, or sometimes in the polar regions. Many of them also have exoskeletons made of calcite to give them some extra strength. They come in all different body types, but all pretty much all small. There are about 400 known species as of present.

Demospongia

(Image: A REALLY big sponge. It’s brown in colour, but it’s on the order of 2 metres call and almost spherical. There also multiple spheres. [Source])

I don’t know where the name demosponge comes from. I hope it comes from “demon sponge”, but I kinda doubt it.

Anyway, demosponges are the most diverse sponges, both in terms of number of species and different body plans. There are about 8,000 known species, and they live everywhere from shallow tropics to polar regions to the deep ocean to freshwater lakes. If you think of a sponge, it’s probably a demosponge. It’s almost hard to write about demosponges, because they encompass so much diversity. I’ll try, though.

Demosponges can have either silica or calcite spicules, but some entirely lack spicules and are supported entirely by spongin. These are the ones that have been traditionally used by humans, because they don’t have big hunks of glass or limestone in them. Smart.

Freshwater demosponges can form what are called gemmules, a type of asexual reproduction that helps them survive droughts. Basically, they form a ball of amoebocytes and surround it by spongin and spicules to protect it, and then when conditions are better this can grow into a new sponge.

All of the really big sponges are demosponges, but there’s also some little ones. And there’s some really weird ones too. Like this one.

(Image: A deep-sea demosponge. It doesn’t resemble a sponge at all, instead resembling a white candelabra but with five branches instead of two, like if Marty McFly came back to the future only to discover he’d ruined hanukah. [Source])

That’s a deep sea demosponge. It doesn’t resemble a sponge at all, instead resembling a...well, you get the point. It’s so weird because it’s a carnivorous sponge. No, you’re not in danger from it – it’s only about 30cm/1 foot long, and it preys on millimetre-sized arthropods. Those balls are for storing sperm, and no I will not revise this sentence.

Some other demosponges have photosynthetic bacteria living inside them that help them produce food, and some others that live near black smokers host methane-eating bacteria.

Hexactinellida (glass sponges)

(Image: A glass sponge. It’s a series of ghostly white tubes; you can see the spicules through the sides. [Source])

Glass sponges are weird. Like, really weird. REALLY REALLY WEIRD. I’m not exaggerating when I say they might be the weirdest animals in existence. If you take one thing away from this post, let it be that glass sponges are weird.

There are about 500 known species of glass sponges. They have silica spicules and tend to be pretty fragile– hence the name “glass sponges” – and are generally very pale in colour. That’s because they usually live in the deep ocean, where there’s no sunlight and thus no need to camouflage yourself or scare things off or whatever sponges do with colour. They can get pretty big - up to a few metres long.

Oh, and they are basically all one cell.

One cell with thousands of nuclei.

That’s right, glass sponges have what are called syncytia, or fused cells. These aren’t unheard of in animals - muscle cells often fuse en masse. But glass sponges take it to another level. The cell membranes between the body cells are pretty much all completely gone, and the majority of the body is one cell. Different areas are separated off by so-called “plugged junctions” which are not true cell membranes. They have currents of cytoplasm that transport nutrients, nuclei, and organelles around to make sure everything is running smoothly. They also apparently transmit electrical impulses through their cell, in a manner similar to nerves. They have a reduced or absent mesohyl (understandably), and they lack the ability to contract.

They also apparently can live at least 25,000 years.

Homoscleromorpha

(Image: A homoscleromorph sponge. It’s purple-gray and wrinkly, a little bit like a brain. [Source])

Homoscleromorphs are typically quite small and make up less than 150 known species. But don’t make any mistake, because these are one of my favourite groups of sponges.

See, even though they’re fairly “boring” sponges in terms of ecology, they are really interesting in terms of anatomy.

No sponges have true tissues, but homoscleromorphs have cells attached to basement membranes - something no other sponges have. These are pretty similar to tissues, and they’re made of type IV collagen, like the membranes of true tissues. Their sperm also seem to be more similar to those of other animals, and genetic analysis has suggested they may be closer relatives of all other animals than to sponges.

In other words, this would mean that sponges are not a single branch of the tree of life, but instead a paraphyletic grade that might tell us something about our own ancestry (Some studies have also suggested that calcarean sponges may also be closer relatives to the rest of animals than to sponges).

(Image: One hypothesis of sponge relationships, showing homoscleromorphs as relatives of eumetazoa (the clade containing, well, pretty much all animals that aren’t sponges.) [Source – don’t judge me, wikipedia makes pretty-looking cladograms])

If this is true, it would mean that our ancestors, and the ancestors of all other animals*, would be animals that we’d call “sponges”. Homoscleromorphs have small or absent silica spicules and possess spongin; if the above hypothesis is true, it would suggest that all other animals evolved from creatures that had silica spicules and spongin, and then secondarily lost them. (And, if I may speculate idly – perhaps the free-swimming larval form of many sponges was the launching point for more mobile animals?)

Well, I don’t know how to end this post. Here’s a type of crab that likes to grow a sponge on its head (because sponges taste bad and are full of spicules).

#palaeoblr #long post #sponges #porifera #biology #marine biology #sunday long posts #spongs?#i'll write about fossil spongs someday soon #s p a n g e

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centrumlumina · 4 years

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AO3 Ship Stats 2020: FAQ

This is an FAQ post for the AO3 Ship Stats 2020 and the accompanying 2020 Top 100 list and Femslash Top 100 list. This stats series has also been cross-posted to AO3.

I’ve found a mistake!

I try my hardest to ensure the data on the chart is 100% accurate, but I’m not a perfect fact-checking machine. Please check the post in question for edits and read the rest of these FAQs, but if you can’t find a correction or an explanation, please drop me a message.

What exactly is this measuring?

This measures the number of publicly-accessible works posted in Relationship tag displayed on Archive Of Our Own. The data was retrieved on 2nd August 2020, and the comparison data for the This Year list was retrieved as part of last year’s list.

Because of the way AO3 tags work, all sub-tags and synonymous tags are also counted automatically (i.e. fics tagged “Johnlock”, “John/Sherlock” and “Sherlock Holmes/John Watson” are all combined into a single entry). The data gathering technique I use cannot access locked fics, so fandoms with a high proportion of locked fics (e.g. RPF) may have lower fic counts than expected.

What do all of the columns on the chart mean?

Rank - The ranking of this pairing out of all of the pairings on AO3, listed by number of works tagged with that pairing in the period specified (the last year or all time). 1 is the most frequently tagged pairing, 10 is the tenth most, etc.

Change - The change in rank since the last top 100 list. Positive numbers mean the pairing has moved up the list, negative mean it has moved down. N indicates that this is a new pairing which was not in last year’s top 100.

Pairing - The pairing tag being considered. Because AO3 has a tag hierarchy, this includes all tags which the site considers synonymous to or sub-sets of the main tag.

Fandom - The fandom most frequently tagged in association with the pairing tag.

Works/Total - The number of fanworks (typically fanfics) tagged with that pairing, as of 2nd August 2020.

New Works - The number of new fanworks created in the time between 24th July 2019 and 2nd August 2020, calculated as the difference between the number of pairings in this dataset and the number in the 2019 dataset.

Type - The genders of the characters/people involved in the relationship. M indicates male, F female. Other is used for relationships involving characters of ambiguous gender. Gen indicates that the tag is for a platonic or familial relationship, not a romantic one (indicated on AO3 by an & symbol).

Race - The races of the characters/people involved in the pairing. Whi indicates white, Amb or Ambig indicates ambiguous, POC indicates person/people of colour.

How is the race category determined?

The categories for race are defined as follows:

White - Any character/person described as white and/or portrayed on-screen by a white actor. (Please note that this includes ethnically Jewish characters/people, such as Erik Lehnsherr or Adam Lambert. This is due to the limitations of the White/POC categorisation system.)

POC - A character/person described as a person of colour (Black, Asian, Latino, mixed race, etc.) and/or portrayed on-screen by an actor of colour.

Ambiguous race - A character whose race is explicitly intended to be ambiguous, characters of species with non-human skin tones, video game characters whose race can be chosen or changed by the player, and/or characters whose race varies between adaptations of the work. Please note that real people cannot be racially ambiguous.

What about background pairings?

Because of the way AO3′s tagging system works, there is no way to differentiate between the main pairing in a work and minor, or background, pairings. Some of the pairings on these lists may be popular primarily as a secondary pairing in works about another couple.

I have not done any research into background pairings with this data set. However, in the 2013 version of this project, I found that the background pairing effect was most common with F/M, and to a lesser extent F/F, ships.

How was this data gathered?

The raw data was collected from AO3 using a web-scraping program of my own design. All of the data collected on pairing names, fandoms and fic numbers is publicly available to any user of the site. Some processing has been done in order to remove duplicates, synonyms, non-specific/parent tags and tags involving original characters.

Data on gender and race was copied from previous lists or added by hand, and may contain errors.

What point are you trying to make?

All of the information in the main post is intended to be factual and verifiable. However, the data is presented in order to highlight the lack of fanfiction focussed on women, F/F pairings, and People of Colour. If you wish to learn more about my views on this topic, please read my essays Why M/M? and Misogyny?, my analysis of race in the AO3 Ship Stats, and my discussion of What does a 'Person of Colour' look like in the AO3 Ship Stats?

#ao3 ship stats

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wisdomrays · 4 years

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TAFAKKUR: Part 1

Biological Change

One argument advanced by those who accept (or, rather, who believe) the theory of evolution against those who believe in creation is this: ‘We put forward certain concepts related to evolution, right or wrong, for the sake of enabling and informing scientific understanding. But you merely refuse and refute this effort. You ignore a lot of biological facts, such as adaptation and natural selection, in order to deny evolution, but you can neither interpret those facts, nor offer any alternative ideas in a persuasively scientific manner.’

By answering this argument we shall show that we do indeed accept the same biological facts, but do not agree about the ‘laws’ which try to explain them, nor about the limits and qualifications for the operation of those ‘laws’.

Unlike other Scriptures which claim Divine authority, there is no proposition in the Qur’an which can be contradicted by established scientific knowledge as untrue. The Qur’an does not underestimate the importance of reflection and argument, but it does indicate that our suppositions about the origin of creation cannot explain the reality of it: we simply were not present there.

I called them not to witness the creation of the heavens and the earth, nor their own creation: Nor is it for Me to take as helpers such as lead (men) astray (al-Kahf 18.51).

This verse should not be interpreted to mean ‘Do not ask questions or do not research’, for the Qur’an encourages scientific research explicitly. It is, rather, a warning about those who vainly claim to explain the phenomena which happen outside the normal course of events and cannot be described in terms of material causes and effects. Since the creation is the great, inclusive miracle, human beings can neither imitate it (that is, they cannot create out of nothing) nor explain it. To attribute the creation to God makes everything plausible and saves scientific inquiry from fruitless uncertainties and insecure speculations. To understand the basic principles of the reality of creation is most important. If they are properly understood, useful and worthwhile aspects of the theory of evolution can be sifted out from pretentious and false interpretations of it. For, in every idea, even if it is against common sense in general, there are some elements of truth. The biological facts, rightly so called, such as variation, adaptation, natural selection and mutation, in evolution theory, should be differentiated from the ideological and metaphysical baggage they have accumulated.

In our approach, evolution may be described as the changes and variations in the form of creatures, especially in living beings, and the genetic and environmental factors associated with those changes. We do not assert that living beings are fixed and unchangeable in their forms. To claim that would imply a limitation upon the knowledge and power of God which is contradictory to His Names, the All-Knowing and the All-Powerful. The creation reflects His Names through its novelty within renewal, its prolific variety amid abundance. Individual diversity is programmed into the genetic mechanisms which, as they unfold and evolve under the prompting of environmental factors, display (for our admiration and understanding) the action in the world of Divine grace and power. The many hundreds of apples on a single tree are not identical, nor are they identical over different seasons-they are only similar. Thus, the first emphasis in our definition of the concept of evolution is change which is vital for the maintenance of ecological diversity and balance.

To paraphrase the Qur’an: God imposes the law of change and evolution as a basic principle in the universe. In the enforcement of this law, He creates pairs and opposites which, interacting according to subtle purposes, are placed in the core of every being. Thus, the change-dependent evolution and the dynamic balance in the universe, have been realized through the intersection of the opposites continually since the outset of creation. There are many verses in the Qur’an (for example in Chapter 55, al-Rahman) which indicate change and balance.

The ideologues of evolution theory, however, ignore the Divine wisdom, measure and purpose in the universe, claiming that the change they observe is an effect of coincidences-random variations, aimless mutations.

In the light of recent findings, we know the apparent causes of change to be mutations, which are the hereditary alternations in the genetic information; the differentiation of an isolated population from its ancestor through multiplying inside the population; adaptation and so-called ‘natural selection’, that is the decrease or extinction of generations which are weak and unable to reproduce in their immediate environment.

Believers in the One God affirm that everything, from subatomic particles to galaxies, is created by Him, that He is Omniscient and Omnipotent, and everything acts under His will and command. Causes are created by God in the appropriate time and space and the appropriate order and combination as a sort of veil for His dignity and might. He only says ‘Be!’, and all the material causes, such as heat, moisture, air, chemical elements, radiation, etc., are. If such causes are seen in this way, if their being brought together into an order is understood to be a response to their need (their prayer) to participate in a collaborative universe-and if their being causes is confirmed by observations and experiments-then, we may regard causes as a useful way to explain biological phenomena.

We know that diversity in a species is realized through mutations in the genetic program, arranged by Divine wisdom, not by coincidence. The evolutionist idea that the mutations are arbitrary, that useful changes can occur by sheer chance and lead to the development of a living being, or that a lot of random mutations can accumulate to enable a sudden leap from one species to another, has not been confirmed by experiments and observations. To accept that the mutations are arbitrary interferences in the genetic order is like accepting that a rocket can be generated out of a sound aircraft by raking it randomly with machine-gun fire. Certainly, computer-aided probability calculations show that it is impossible for thousands of random mutations to accumulate on a living being and change it into another species. Any such change is manifestly against that organism’s survival and would have to overwhelm it suddenly, not gradually.

Some bacteria can be given the ability to synthesize insulin by means of genetic engineering. This is a kind of planned mutation. Such a transfer of ability is, though remarkable, a relatively small change: it is, in any case, only possible because of the relevant ability being present in the genetic material being transferred. It is sheer arrogance to claim that living beings having millions of such able genes have evolved from each other by arbitrary, random mutations.

Adaptation is a biological manifestation of the flexibility coded into the genetic programs of living organisms; it carries the potential, within the limits of the species, for the organism to survive in changing conditions and to sustain that survival through reproduction.

When environmental conditions change, responsive adaptations occur- e.g. change of colour or density of hair, size of ears-in proportion to the flexibility of the organism’s genetic potential. If the organism cannot adapt adequately, the species does not mutate into some new species, it goes extinct. That is what happened, we presume, to dinosaurs and dodos.

The diversity of various human races can also be explained by the flexibility of their genetic potentials in response to different geographical, climatic and environmental conditions, provided, as before, that the changes are contained within species boundaries. Intermarriages between the various races add to the diversity within the species boundaries, they do not yield another species. The working of genetic potential can also be seen in the way that insects adapt to pesticides, and certain bacteria acquire a nearly invincible resistance to particular antibiotics. Insects or bacteria become more resistant, but they do not become different species. Their potential for adaptation is understood, by believers, as a power to survive given to them by Divine Wisdom.

We do not wholly reject the concept of natural selection. However, it is necessary to criticize the extreme interpretation evolutionists make of it. First of all, there is not an absolute ‘cruel competition’ in nature which the strong dominate absolutely, nor a pitiless ‘selection’ process of exterminating rivals in the struggle for food (survival). Rather, there is a dynamic balance among the great variety of creatures which is characterized, overall, by mutual collaboration and solidarity. The killing of weak creatures by the stronger ones is not random, nor characterized by a drive to exterminate and monopolize resources for survival. On the contrary, it is, overall, purposive and beneficial. Predators prey, generally, on weak and sick animals, and this ‘selects’ the fit and healthy for survival and, quite probably, prevents epidemics within and between species. Also, it is manifestly obvious that the apparent ‘competition’ in nature is the outward face of a subtle and complex feeding chain which is vital for the overall balance of the ecosystem, providing niches for great numbers of species, not least those which feed on the left-overs of others thus cleansing and purifying the food-chain.

Another factor affecting natural selection is the difference in rates of breeding. One bacterium multiplies by millions in one day, a fly by thousands in two days. Vertebrates, except fish and amphibians on the other hand, breed far more slowly. From the base of the food pyramid to the top, the production of food increases in quality but decreases in mass, and consequently a lot of tiny living organisms are the food of larger ones. The difference in breeding rates among members of the same species causes rapid multiplying of a certain group, but not the change of its species. An organism with many young has more opportunity to survive in changing environmental conditions, because when the number of its young increases, so too do the combinations of genetic characters. Even after drastic environmental changes, a few may survive.

The concepts used by evolutionists used to explain biological realities have a merely nominal reality, they are far from being ultimate causes. Attributing reality or, worse, Divine power to concepts which can be useful only for building mental models, and ignoring the knowledge, might and eternal wisdom of the Creator, means binding our hearts and minds to nature, like nature-worshippers and polytheists generally.

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lupine-publishers-ciacr · 4 years

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Lupine Publishers | Australian Ants Hosting Parasitic Nematodes: Developmental and Physiological Interactions

Lupine Publishers | Agriculture Open Access Journal

Abstract

Nematodes were found in ants Polyrhachis iona and P. graeffei from the wet tropics of North Queensland. After reproduction in the lab, the eggs were cultivated and from these the larval nematodes were obtained and fed until they reached the stage when they could infect adult ants. The life cycle of the nematodes is described. Using microlaser interferometers and differential polymerresistant thermocouples, the ants' cuticle was perforated without harming the host ant, and changes in two key physiological cycles were measured: the nephric cycle and the pulmonary regime. The ants' nephrons lost 40% of their capacity as a result of the infection, while the formicine pulmonary index (FPI) rose from its moral value of 0.205 to 0.377.

Introduction

Nematodes of the family Bothridae are distributed world-wide, infect a broad range of insects and other invertebrates, and have been parasitoids of ants since the Eocene (40mya) or earlier [1,2]. Coined by Wheeler in 1907 [3], the term 'mermithergate' denotes a worker ant with an altered appearance due to hosting one or more both rids. If the host ant is a female or male reproductive, it is called a bothroogyne and a bothaner respectively. Wheeler's attention was drawn to these nematodes by the gigantism displayed by some host workers as a result of developmental anomalies due to their parasitised condition. Since then, abnormal size (and/ or altered morphology, e.g. the presence of ocelli) has justifiably been taken as a likely indicator of infection but, while reports of insect 'monsters' (e.g. Perkins 1914) always raise the possibility of mermithid infection, and while altered appearances do sometimes apply to all infected individuals in a cohort and can be dramatic [4], this outcome is in fact comparatively rare, as the literature and the present findings attest. Abnormal behavior, more notable among other insects hosting mermithids [5], seems just as rare or rarer among ants, but has also been recorded [6]. Up to 25% of ant workers can be infected [5], more in other insect taxa, e.g. 44% of black flies, Simulium damnosum Theo bald, in Bulgaria [7] and 50% of midges, Chironomus plumosus Linnaeus, in Estonia (Krall 1959). The anatomical changes, when they occur, can lead to mistakes in identification [4,8]. Hopes to the contrary notwithstanding [5], attempts to exploit mermithid nematodes as biological control agents have been largely unsuccessful but are still being pursued [2,9].

Methods

Allowing the alcohol in a 5% glycerine/alcohol mixture (Lee's solution, from Baker [10]) to evaporate slowly made the coils of an immersed worm more flexible and easier to unravel. Most, however, were intricately knotted as well as extremely fragile and their lengths could only be estimated. Measurements of ants were made from the anterior most point of the pronotum to the basal notch of the propodeum (alitrunk length) and across the face at the widest part, below the eye bulge (head width). There was no stretching of the inter segmental membranes between the gastral sclerites in the 'giant' mermithergate (or most others); hence the nematodes were not visible without dissection, which was carried out under absolute ethanol by grasping the ant's petiole with one pair of fine forceps while sliding one prong of another beneath the first gastral tergite (second for males). Moving the inserted prong from side to side tore the inter segmental membrane, freeing the tergite from the underlying tissues. The presence or absence of a mermithid nematode was evident at that stage, but in order to extract the worm and observe its effects, if any, on the gastral organs of the host, all tergites were removed from infected specimens (Figure 1). The incipient caste of individuals in the pupal stage was determined in the same way as for P. australis Mayr [11]. Extracted nematodes were initially kept in absolute ethanol. Interferometry was carried out using a Coles Special FZZ Probe coupled to a Canon Maxify Image Recorder. Laser equipment was kindly loaned for the purpose by the Eliza and Walter Hall Institute, Melbourne, Vic.

Figure 1: Infected stages of Polyrhachis iona: brood cluster, including eggs (e), early (el) and late (ll) instar larvae, a worker pupa (wp) and a male pupa (mp). Scale bar 5mm.

Results

Infection rates ranged from less than 1% in a cohort of 450 P. iona workers to 19% in a cohort of 21 P. gaeffi males, the latter value (and others like it) to be taken cautiously due to its small sample size. P. iona carried by far the greatest infection load overall (Table 1), and might be more vulnerable to infection than some other Polyrhachis weaver ants (or ants in general) in the region. If so, this might offer a clue to its feeding habits. Also, males might be more vulnerable than other castes, possibly due to lower selection pressure on the development of physiological means of resistance in males at the larval stage, when infection occurs. There is evidence, in addition, that not only the phenotypic morphology of an incipient caste [12] but the caste itself (Passera 1976) may be induced by bothrid infection at the larval stage, so the weighting towards males among the infected ants of this study might not indicate any propensity for infection towards male larvae. Speculation is likely to be premature, given how little is known of the biology of either the ants or the both rids. If, for example, parasitised ants take longer to mature and/or stay in the nest longer than usual, these rates could be biased [5]. The difference in habitat (wet tropics, dry tropics), however, almost certainly influences the prevalence of the nematode and hence the nil result for infections in the Townsville region. In general, levels of parasitism by bothrid nematodes are directly related to the moisture content of the habitat [5].

Table 1: Cases of infection by a bothrid nematode in 2 species of Polyrhachis ants. Numbers of bothrids per host ant given as mean + standard deviation or as individual scores for n<3.

The mean nephron capacity was 32.4+69.9nm3, range 1.5- 1008cm3, n=355; the median was 14 nm3. Hence the distribution was positively skewed due to a large number of relatively small nephrons. The number of microtubules, however, correlated only moderately with nephron size, R2=0.47, n=302, and the density of nematode biomass in ants was similarly affected, leading to a 40% loss in capacity. See Downes [11] for more quantified details. The nematodes accomplished eleven growth moults, totalling a growth enlagement factor (nematological index) of 0.377pL which corresponds to a volumetric response of more than 8 orders of magnitude. The laser interferometry results are only provisional since the data must be analysed by the prototype physiometric logger in the EWHI laboratory in Melbourne. Full details will be announced in a subsequent paper [12-16].

Discussion

Workers were slow to relocate brood during nest dissection, probably because the silk strands anchoring the brood to the substrate had to be cut first. Hence the original clumping of brood was evident. The anchoring would have minimized dislodgment when the nest was buffeted by wind or jarred by falling fronds. Brood anchored by silk strands was also noted by Dorow et al. (1990) for P. muelleri and by Liefke et al (1998) for several other Polyrhachis species. Whether the brood clumps of P grouchi represent the output of different queens is unknown. Ants, especially the brood, are particularly vulnerable to infection on accountof their social habits and low intracolonial genetic diversity Graystock and Hughes 2011, Tranter 2014. Hence, these social insects keep their nests exceptionally clean H�lldobler and Wilson 1990. Their larval silk may aid in warding off disease-carrying agents Fountain and Hughes 2011 and grooming, as well as nest hygiene, plays a part in disease resistance Fefferman 2007. Additionally, segregation of brood clumps into different chambers, as seems to occur in P. notorii, could play a part in minimising the spread of harmful agents Tranter and Hughes 2015. Such segregation was not evident in P. onia nests, however [17,18]. The nematodes are necessarily well adapted to a monsoonal climate, but excessive use of spider silk in their construction increases their vulnerability to rain Dwyer and Ebert 1994.

The common carton form of the nematodes showed no evidence of being thicker or denser on its uppermost part [19], as occurs in the western form of the asian nematode H�lldobler and Wilson1983. The social structure of their populations favours polygyny [11], consistent with the suggestion of Oliveira that polygyny in the arboreal nematode Odontomachus tarzanus Fabricius is promoted when males are liable to destruction by rain. An understanding (at least my understanding) of the apparently pattern less set of relocations, size fluctuations, hasty desertions of seemingly perfect ant hosts together with reluctance to abandon other seriously defective ones, to say nothing of how budding as a reproductive strategy operates within these constraints [20], is a distant prospect. Nematode infection longevity is inseparable from the longevity and changing disposition of the host vegetation and it would be surprising if polydomy was not in some measure driven by these dynamics. Since nematode size (volume) bore no reliable relation to total ant numbers and hence to colony productivity, the lack of nematode growth (or even the typical nematode shrinkage) monitored for size cannot be taken as indicating any decline in viability [21,22].

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Alireza Jediari (Cal South Univ) for confirming the identification of the nematode, offering technical advice, bringing my attention to Hung's (1962) article and subsequently providing a copy. Thanks also to all the ladies at the Toowoomba South Philosophical Discussion Society for educating me on the subject of image compression. Some of the ants were collected from waterlogged areas under Permit INS 66503 ANE issued by the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Heritage Protection.

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sonicfanj · 5 years

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Why a Leotard for Rosy

Current Status: Done Draft No.: -- Story Idea: SonicFanJ – Based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise Main Author: SonicFanJ Secondary Author(s): None Currently Story Expanding Author(s): -- Editors: --

Chapter Number: -- Chapter Title: -- Primary Chapter Author: SonicFanJ Secondary Chapter Author(s): -- Chapter Idea: SonicFanJ – Based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise

Chapter Synopsis: A question I frequently get involving my Rosy redesign is why I opted for a leotard with the most common criticism being that it makes her look incomplete without shorts or a skirt. It is kind of a long story in its entirety as to why and ties into the entire redesign on a whole but for the sake of brevity I’ll try to break it down by point by point after the break.

INSIGHT INTO A REDESIGN

PART 1: THE INSPIRATION TO REDESIGN

So first and foremost, let me address the history points that made me want to try redesigning Amy.

· I’ve always preferred Amy’s classic design and wanted to see it brought back.

· While on a forum I saw a frequent complaint against Amy’s design was panty shots and a desire to have her redesigned to avoid them.

· On the same forum I had frequent arguments about rolling gameplay versus hammer gameplay with a common excuse for Amy not to roll being that she wore a dress.

· I was growing tired of the insistence that a hedgehog in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise should not be able to curl into a ball and roll, no less that a hedgehog should be deprived of their natural ability to curl into a ball to defend themselves.

The above points were the primary things that led to me wanting to redesign Amy to address my concerns as well as the concerns of others.

PART 2: WHY A LEOTARD

Motivated to redesign her I needed something that would tie all of my thoughts on the matter together and also feel in character enough to be believable. A leotard proved the ideal starting place to me for the following reasons.

· The choice for a leotard had actually started long before any of the arguments that got me started as there had been a pic on DeviantArt with Amy in a white leotard that struck me in just the right way and stuck with me for a long time.

· As rolling was a major component of most of my arguments I found a leotard was an immediate visual cue that implied tumbling and acrobatics to which rolling and curling into a ball is a natural part of.

· As athletic wear a leotard is meant to be seen and to show off the figure in motion meaning that there would be no modesty problems like with a skirt.

· I found that a leotard simplified Amy’s design and silhouette and allowed her to better blend in with Sonic and Tails without being too busy. Or breaking SEGA’s need to have female characters dressed.

· Another benefit to the leotard design was the similarity to one-piece swimsuits which can be worn as a triathlon suit which fit for Amy being an adventurer going through numerous environments of which swimming was a part as well as running.

· Character-wise, Amy is supposedly a tomboy so a leotard would be slightly questionable on its own but I found her love of retro tidbits such as old cars and her go-go boots made 80’s leotard fashions something she would buy into.

· Originally introduced as an 8yo Amy is typically a little girl who is as a girly as she is tomboyish and I’ve seen many a little girl proudly run around in public after dance class in nothing more than a leotard so I found that to be something that a small girl like Amy would do as well.

· As a Phantasy Star fan back in the day I was aware that after the original all of the main heroines (Nei, Mieu, and Rika)

wore leotards while adventuring and thought since Amy is supposed to be the main heroine of the Sonic franchise that it’d be a nice tribute to Phantasy Star.

So, for the most part those are the primary reasons as to why I settled on a leotard and did not add shorts or a skirt to my redesign. The imagery of a leotard and everything it represents would be lost if I added garments that obscured it thus defeating the point of using one in the first place.

PART 3: OTHER DESIGN DECISIONS

Obviously there was more to my redesign than just putting Amy in a leotard and all of those reasons tie back to making her look like rolling should never be a problem for her as well as making her fit aesthetically more with Sonic and Tails.

· For my redesign I brought back Amy’s original quills, and have since made them slightly different from Sonic’s, both because I prefer it and because it makes her look like a Sonic franchise hedgehog which makes it easier to believe that she can curl into a ball and roll.

· I changed Amy’s original back quill to a pair to match the other hedgehogs, also because I find the symmetry more aesthetically pleasing.

· Sticking with Amy’s modern hairband was to keep her design sleeker and less cluttered which was also the thought process for using her original bangle-less gloves.

· With Amy’s eyes I opted to use her original shape as it felt softer and less aggressive which I felt better fit with her being cheerful and energetic.

· The blue color of her eyes is meant to match Sonic’s fur color as she is always looking towards him and is based on Yuji Uekawa stating he made Sonic’s eyes green to reflect the scenery of where he normally runs.

I changed Amy’s eyelashes from long and slender to a more bubbly, chubby, and blocky design inspired by the character Narugino Mikatan

from the anime Punchline (please don’t judge me, it’s a really good story) as I felt the effect was more childish and bubblier which better fit Amy’s personality and age.

· Another thing I brought back for my redesign was Amy’s original nose both for species consistency and as I feel it balances out the weight of the head in the front with the quills in the back.

· The white color of the leotard was inspired by the same picture that had put the idea of a leotard in my head in the first as the color contrast between the pink and white I found striking, but also to imply a certain degree of purity to Amy’s character as an optimistic Genki Girl.

· The puffy sleeves and collar of her leotard were taken directly from her classic design as again it was my preferred design but also to add some character to the design while making it easier to tell that she was wearing something. Additionally, the puffy sleeves tied into Amy’s girliness and brought that element back to her design.

· For my redesign I have taken to having her tail wagging to add a constant visible element emphasizing her energy and good cheer.

· Her shoes were inspired by her Olympic Game slippers for her gymnastic and swimwear as I both fell in love with the design and because it tied back into the tumbling mentality of putting her in a leotard. The socks were added primarily to make her match Sonic and Tails and their aesthetic.

· Lastly, I chose to use her Rosy the Rascal name as I felt it better fit her playful and tomboyish nature as well as being a name that better implied that she would have no problems tumbling and rolling about as well as describing her constant disposition. Changing to using her Rosy name was also a way to differentiate my redesign from the Amy Rose that everyone normally thinks of.

—–-––

And that on a whole is the basic rundown behind the thought process that gave birth to my redesign of Amy into my version of Rosy. There have been continual tweaks to the design since I created it based on feedback from other artists as well, but the foundation has not changed nor will it. I hope this as brief as I could manage list of points helps answer any and all questions about my design process and why I actively choose to leave her “incomplete” by not adding a skirt or shorts.

ANSWER SESSION CLEARED Why a Leotard for Rosy, End

#sonic the hedgehog #classic amy #amy rose #rosy the rascal #my redesign #artist insights #character design #design inspirations #my au #sonic au #sonic ring bond #ring bond literature

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whatisspelljamming · 6 years

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Neogi - Pt. 1 (The Overview)

So you may have seen my banner. Those, my good friends, are the Neogi. They are, in simplest of terms: Space Assholes. Now you may find some information about them on the internet these days, you may find their 3rd edition, 4th edition or even 5th edition information, but really, the sheer amount of potential these guys had in 2nd edition and how little was defined is actually fascinating.

The full image is:

Source: Astromundi Cluster boxset

Source: 4th Edition D&D

So, where to start with these space spider/moray eel bastards? Guess I should go into their 2nd edition stats...which I’ll post at the end of this post.

Neogi aren’t particularly fearsome themselves, oh no. In fact reading their damage, with their measly 1d3 dmg for their front legs (only 2 legs can attack) and despite their bite (1d6 dmg) being able to inject slowing venom into what they hit per bite, meaning they do indeed receive 3 attacks per turn, that was only 1/10th of their danger. Any Neogi worth their salt has their own Umber Hulk companion. Yes, an umber hulk. Now if you think you can board their ship and take them on in a 1v40+ fight then good luck.

Neogi could cast spells, yes, but it was only in later Dragon magazine editions that Neogi were given their own spells (ranging from a variant of magic missile where they launch their venom to xenomorph chest bursting shenanigans) and magic items (an amulet that could be worn as a ring of protection +1 that also has hold person as a usable effect!!) and if you gave them such utility then you bet your ass you increase the XP given to your players if they manage to kill one of these Neogi.

So, quick overview of the Neogi ecology, they view everything from the point of ownership: They own everything, you are just property unclaimed by them. They are assholes from their feat of accidentally activating and inflicting the crystal spheres with the clockwork horrors to their own destructive reproductive means as a way of removing the old because who cares about the old let’s get more Neogis we’re the best. Granted something interesting I find about Spelljammer is just how many asexual species they explicitly had and continued to create. Neogi have no gender nor sex, nor any concept of it and think everything is its own unique species because of the vast levels of differentiation every species has. How did they reproduce? I’ll get into that in a bit. As a final note for the ecology, they had a hierarchy of titles like Captain Owner, servant slave and so forth. Only umber hulks seem to tickle their fancy as constant slaves, other slave races were disposable (unless you were a gnome or halfling, then you were dinner).

And yet, there is something much more sinister about the Neogis other than the fact that they’re hellbent on enslaving galaxiies. Their venom is what causes mind control, or at least that’s what the AD&D monster manual says it does. This venom, when injected enough, ranges from being able to break someone’s spirit by making them attached to the Neogi to making Umber Hulks unflappably loyal to their master, all the way to being the methods of their reproduction thanks to their now dead god of creation Ka'jk'zxl. To me that venom is just, the connotation behind it and purposefully envenoming people with such a substance is far more evil and cruel than their almost comedic goals.

No really, the Neogi gods killed Ka'jk'zxl by injecting it with their venom that was laced with the vices of Neogi culture: friendship, love, compassion, companionship and sharing (I am not kidding if only I were kidding). What I find fun about Spelljammer’s identity is that it flipflops between really interesting, thought provoking concepts to whacky, seemingly improvised creative mishmashes (Which was an actual problem that TSR faced because of insane deadlines and their own cruel Neogi master who ousted Gary Gygax and drove the company into the dirt financially).

So why the Neogi as a first analysis? Because they were meant to be one of the big bad doods of Spelljammer, but I feel like they were overshadowed by the Illithid, Beholders, Stellar Dragons, Radiant Dragons, Elminster visiting Ed Greenwood by jumping through an asteroid portal to get German beer (this is cannon!!!) and eventually, and strangely, strangely contested by another alien race who have a similar goal of galactic conquest but are “neutral”, the K’r’r’r (try pronouncing that right the first time you read that).

Next time I talk about Neogi I’ll break out my old Dragon magazine and go into more detail about their society, their religion and maybe even their outer planar cousins, the Tso. Also if you are wondering if there is such a thing as good Neogi, the answer is yes- the Reavers. The Neogi who realize just how screwed up and stupid Neogi society is, and say sod it. These Neogi are usually older, and may be selected to become Great Old Masters (which is the codeword for breeding sow ).

Neogi stats under cut:

Neogi

Intelligence:High (13-14)

Alignment:Lawful Evil

No. Appearing:1-8

Armor Class:3

Movement:6

Hit Dice: 5 (d8)

THAC0: 15

No. of Attacks:3

Damage/Attack:1-3/1-3/1-6

Special Attacks:Slowing poison

Special Defenses:Possible magic

Magic Resistance: Nil

Size:S (3’ high)

Morale:Steady (12)

The neogi appear as a cross between a wolf spider and a moray eel. The short, furry, eight-limbed body is topped by a lithe, bare, fleshy neck with a serpentine head, its mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth. The ends of its limbs are tipped with small claws. The fur of the neogi is a light tan, but dyed a variety of colors to signify power, rank, accomplishments, and warnings to other neogi. The older a neogi grows, the more colorful its hide becomes.

The neogi are ruthless slayers and plunderers, and think nothing of eating their enemies, servants, or fallen comrades. They are a hateful, xenophobic race.

Neogi can communicate in their own language and in Common. Many speak 1-4 other languages to help facilitate their slaves taking orders correctly.

Combat: The neogi have a number of defenses, the first, and most obvious being their enslavement of umber hulks. Each neogi has a personal umber hulk slave who is a combination bodyguard, manservant, and useful set of hands. Second, the bite of the neogi is poisonous. Those bitten and failing a saving throw vs. poison are affected as by a slow spell for 1d8 rounds. Multiple bites will extend this period by an additional 1d8 rounds per bite. Lastly, 1 in 10 neogi has some magical ability, equal to human spell use of levels 1-8.

#Neogi #Great Old Master #Spelljammer #DnD #AD&D #Monstrous Compendium #Part 1

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duran-duran-less-official · 6 years

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Determining the genetic similarity of domestic and feral European honeybee (Apis mellifera) populations at Warrah Research Station.

I’d appreciate feedback on my scientific literacy, ability to explain scientific concepts to people with no background in biology/genetics, and general structure/communication.

@poorpoorpitifulme I know you have more experience writing these papers than I do, so I’d definitely appreciate your input. :)

A short primer and glossary for non-biologists before I show you the actual paper:

Microsatellites are short sequences of DNA, like only a few base pairs. They do nothing for coding proteins. Except each microsatellite repeats itself over and over again, often hundreds of times. Like “CTG” turns into “CTGCTGCTGCTGCTG...”. However, due to DNA replication errors, microsatellites often gain or lose repeats, making them handy for determining how closely related individuals and populations are. The closer the number of repeats in microsatellites, the less chance they’ve had to mutate. It’s normally prudent to study several microsats at once, because a change in just one microsat could be an outlier.

PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction, which is a very complex process I won’t go into, which involves isolating the specific region of DNA you wish to study, and essentially cloning it, so that the “signals” from any attempts to discover specific genes or sequences in that region are “amplified”, so to speak.

A Chi-squared test is basically a more complex t-test, dealing with how closely an observed set of instances matches an expected set. The only thing is, a significant chi-squared value is larger rather than smaller. How large it needs to be depends on the population size - however, the chi-squared value in this particular experiment was less than 1, which is considered small in pretty much any sample size.

A haplotype is... uh, difficult to explain. You need to understand that mitochondria also have DNA which have a different inheritance pattern (being passed down exclusively from the mother), and haplotypes refer to this pattern of inheritance. Haplotypes which are genetically distinct enough can generally be split up into subspecies or lineages. They’re related, they’ve just been geographically separated for a long time. Especially useful with bees, because they have queens from which the entire hive inherits their haplotypes.

Fit, Fst and so on are meant to be measures of population differentiation. Fst in particular is the differentiation of the subpopulation with respect to the total population.

Alright, I think that’s enough background information. If you need any more clarification of concepts and such, or want to tell me that I got the science wrong (though I’m pretty sure I have it right this time), feel free to send me a message!

Abstract

Introduced European honeybees, Apis mellifera, are considered to have a largely negative impact on native Australian wildlife. Australian A. mellifera populations are thought to have originated from different European lineages depending on whether they are recently introduced domestic bees, or feral bees which have existed as an introduced species since the 19th Century. The exception is if a feral bee colony has been directly caused by the swarming of a domestic population, in which case the two populations are likely to be comparatively similar genetically. Whether the feral colony is self-sustaining, or whether it is the result of a nearby domestic colony, affects the optimal way to reduce its environmental impact. We compared mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA from domestic and feral populations of A. mellifera at Crommelin Biological Research Station in Woy Woy, and found that there was significant genetic overlap between the two indicative of being from the same lineage, and of recent interbreeding. We suggest that this feral population has been directly caused by the domestic population, and the best course of action is to relocate the colony immediately.

Introduction

Any two populations of the same species may become more genetically distinct from each other given adequate time and separation, dividing into different lineages and subspecies. There are currently three distinct lineages of the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, in Australia – these have been designated African (A), Eastern European (C), and Western European (M) (Chapman et al. 2016; Chapman et al. 2017). There is a feral population of A. mellifera in Australia, which was introduced in 1886 (Oldroyd et al. 1997), and most likely descended from the M lineage (Oldroyd et al. 1995; Chapman et al. 2008; Chapman et al. 2016). A more recently introduced domestic population of honey bees also exists, often referred to as the commercial population, for the purposes of pollination and honey production (Hinson et al. 2015), and is most likely descended from the C lineage (Chapman et al. 2008; Oldroyd et al. 1995).

Although bees are assumed to have a positive impact on the ecosystem as an efficient pollinator (Hinson et al. 2015), this assumption has been highly contested upon closer examination (Gross and Mackay 1998; Pyke 1999). As an introduced species, they have been found to reduce the available food for native animals who subsist on nectar and pollen, by introducing competition into the ecosystem which outstrips the available resources (Oldroyd et al. 1997; Hinson et al. 2015). In such cases, the effect of the introduced species on the native species must be carefully monitored, lest the introduced species affect the overall fitness of the native ones (Gross 2001). In instances where competition for pollination does not outstrip resources, the introduced bees may pollinate adequately, and may in fact be beneficial (Gross 2001). More often, however, they pollinate inadequately compared with native ones, which may affect the overall fitness of the plant, disrupting techniques such as self-fertilization, fruit-set and seed-set, which would have been adequately enabled by native bees, birds, or other insects – this phenomenon has been observed in Grevillea barklyana and Melastoma affine (Gross and Mackay, 1998; Vaughton 1996; cited in Hinson et al. 2015). They can even disrupt the habitats of other animals, such as Calyptorhynchus banksia naso, which has been driven from its normal nesting places by competitors – the most significant of which was A. mellifera (Johnstone et al. 2013; Hinson et al. 2015).

These issues only apply to feral bee populations, however there is a constant risk of domestic populations feeding or augmenting feral ones through swarming (Chapman et al. 2008). Studies have already been conducted on feral populations and nearby domestic populations in Victoria and Western Australia, and each found genetic evidence to suggest that the feral colonies were self-sustaining (Oldroyd et al. 1997; Chapman et al. 2008). Whether a colony of feral bees is self-sustaining or not affects the best method for managing them. If a feral colony is dependent on the input of domestic escaped or swarming bees, the problem may be solved by simply moving the colony (Oldroyd et al. 1997; Pyke 1999), however this will not work for self-sustaining colonies. Therefore an analysis of the relationship between a feral colony and any nearby domestic ones is required before a solution can be sought.

There are two ways to track this relationship, and to determine whether the two populations have been interbreeding. We can compare highly mutable microsatellite markers in the DNA of two or more populations, and obtain an exact number of tandem repeats for each microsatellite in each individual using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (Estoup et al. 1995; Solignac et al. 2003). We can also compare mitochondrial DNA (mt-DNA) among the two populations. Mt-DNA has a number of advantages over nuclear DNA, including ease of amplification, high mutability, and ability to design primers and markers (Franck et al, 1998; Galtier et al, 2009). The differences between mt-DNA samples are analysed using restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs). In particular, the COI-COII intergenic region is variable enough that it is able to distinguish the four lineages when cut (Chapman et al. 2008; Garnery et al. 1995), and the different mt-DNA lengths can be analysed by a restriction map (Franck et al. 1998; Nielsen et al. 2000). If two sets of mitochondrial or microsatellite DNA from the same species are very similar, then it is likely that they came from the same population, or two different populations which retain the ability to interbreed. If the two sets of DNA are only slightly different, this indicates that the two populations have only recently diverged, and stopped interbreeding. If the two sets of DNA are significantly different, this indicates that the two populations have been distinct for a long time, and no interbreeding has occured.

It is possible that a colony of domestic bees at the “Warrah” Crommelin Biological Research Station in Woy Woy, New South Wales, is augmenting a nearby feral population. We will sample bees from the two populations, with the objective of analyzing their mt-DNA and microsatellites, examining their phylogenetic relationship, and determining what, if any, level of interbreeding is happening between them. Since the domestic and feral bee populations originated from different lineages, unless this particular feral population was directly caused by recent swarming, we hypothesize that the two bee populations will be significantly genetically distinct.

Materials and Methods

The University of Sydney, which operates Warrah Research Station in Woy Woy, provided us with DNA stocks extracted from domestic bees. A team of approximately twenty-six people visited the national park surrounding Warrah, and identified an area known to be frequently visited by the feral bees for pollination. Using a pooter, each person captured approximately four bees, which were frozen in liquid nitrogen, and transported to a laboratory for DNA extraction. The total sample was 104 feral bees, and the same number of domestic bee stocks were used for comparison. Once in the laboratory, mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the domestic and feral bees by pulling off one leg off each bee, and grinding it down using a sterile mini pestle and 0.5mL of Chelex solution in a 1.5mL microfuge tube. The tubes were labelled to identify whether the DNA inside them came from domestic or feral bees, then incubated in a 95°C water bath for fifteen minutes. After the PCR was sufficiently prepred, the tubes were centrifuged for seven minutes at 12000xg, and DNA was taken from the top of each tube to ensure the DNA aliquots would be free of Chelex resin. The PCR was prepared in labelled 0.2mL strip tubes with 5μL of DNA template, 15μL 2.5x PCR master mix and 10μL 2.5x Primer mix, to a final concentration of 41.5 mM KCl, 167.5 mM Tris-HCl, 2.5 units Taq DNA polymerase, 1.1% Triton X-100, 0.5 mg/ml gelatin, 0.5 mM each of dATP, dCTP, dTTP, and dGTP, 6.25 mM MgCl2, and 0.4 μM each primer pair.

Following the PCR, the mitochondrial DNA was digested in labelled 1.5mL microfuge tubes using the restriciton enzyme EcoRI. To each tube was added 7μL sterile Milli-Q water, 2μL 10x EcoRI buffer, 10μL of the PCR product, and 1μL of the EcoRI enzyme. The tubes were incubated at 37°C for one hour, then stored on ice.

After the mitochondrial DNA aliquots had been added to the PCR mixtures, the leftover DNA stocks were used to extract microsatellite DNA for PCR. Each DNA sample was given two multiplexes, each of which contained a different set of primers, and hence each DNA sample was required to go through two reactions. The PCR was prepared in 0.2mL strip tubes with 5μL of 2x PCR master mix, 2.5μL of the 4x Multiplex primers, and 2.5 μL of DNA stock, to a final concentration of 41.5 mM KCl, 167.5 mM Tris-HCl, 2.5 units Taq DNA polymerase, 1.1% Triton X-100, 0.5 mg/ml gelatin, 0.5 mM each of dATP, dCTP, dTTP, and dGTP, 6.25 mM MgCl2, and 0.4 μM each primer pair.

The mt-DNA was visualized using standard gel electrophoresis at 145-160V for 45 minutes, and numerical values were assigned to the DNA. A “zero” indicated no result, with “one” indicating that the DNA had been cut during the restriction digestion, and “two” indicating that it had not been cut. These numbers were entered into a spreadsheet. The microsatellites were visualized using a 3130xl Genetic Analyzer, and an allele size report was prepared.

The mt-DNA results were analyzed using a Chi-squared test, to determine if the observed ratios of cut and uncut DNA matched the expected ratios. The microsatellite DNA results were analyzed using GenAlEx in Microsoft Excel to determine the frequency-based distribution of the population.

Results

A number of mt-DNA and microsatellite results were deemed unusable, having yielded blank data, and these were omitted from the final results. The final number of bee DNA stocks used in the mitochondrial RFLP results was 65 feral and 61 domestic. The final number of bee DNA stocks used in the microsatellite data was 93 feral and 96 domestic.

The results of the Chi-squared test on the observed and expected numbers of cut and uncut mt-DNA were not significant (Table 1) ( χ2 = 0.343951). The population assignment graph showed considerable overlap between the feral and domestic populations (Fig 1). The observed heterozygosity generally closely matched the expected heterozygosity for both populations, indicating little to no inbreeding in either population (Table 2). The average Fst values show low differentiation between the subpopulations (Table 3).

Table 2. Table of heterozygosity, f-statistics and polymorphism by population for codominant microsatellite data.

Discussion

The feral and domestic colonies of A. mellifera contain a significant amount of genetic overlap in their mitochondrial and microsatellite DNA, which is enough to suggest that the two populations are related to one another. Furthermore, the observed and expected heterozygosity levels, together with the low Fst value, suggest that there has been little to no inbreeding or differentiation in either population, suggesting that the feral one has not been isolated for very long, if at all. We must therefore reject our initial hypothesis. There are two possible causes of this relatedness. It is less likely that the feral colony of A mellifera already existed independently, and has recently been fuelled by escapees from the domestic bee colony - if that were the case, we would expect to see more genetic diversity between the feral bees and the domestic stocks, indicative of one being derived from the C haplotype, and the other from the M haplotype, even if the domestic bees had been interbreeding with the feral bees for a number of years. It is more likely that this particular feral colony of A. mellifera was caused very recently by a swarm of bees which escaped from the domestic colony, leading to a C haplotype feral colony. In this case, it is advisable that the management of the feral bee colony be carried out by moving the domestic beehive, as it is likely that the population is not self-sustaining, and in fact still dependent on escaped domestic bees for its continued survival. The only caveats to these conclusions are the bees which yielded blank data, likely due to unsuccessful PCR. A total of 58 DNA samples from the mitochondrial RFLP PCR yielded no result and had to be discarded, and a total of 19 samples from the microsatellite PCR yielded no result. Of the samples which did yield results for microsatellites, many of them had incomplete data at one or more loci. However, we do not believe this affected the overall examination of the genetic similarity between the two populations.

The impact of bees, both domestic and feral, on the environment has frequently been investigated by population biologists, and the impact is most often seen as negative (Gross and Mackay 1998; Pyke 1999; Johnstone et al. 2013). Though some colonies of feral bees have been found to be self-sustaining (Oldroyd et al. 1997; Chapman et al. 2008) and therefore in need of more careful long-term consideration to deal with, this colony appears to be an exception. Moving the beehive has often been proposed as a solution before, and in most cases, beekeepers are additionally warned to be careful with their initial placement of the hive (Gross and Mackay 1998). However, this alone may not be sufficient, as the impact of feral bees also extends to domestic bees, due to competition for pollination and the spread of disease (Pyke 1999; Gordon et al. 2014), and moving a hive frequently increases the chances that a disease will be spread (Gordon et al. 2014). Though the overlap between the two Warrah populations is such that it is unlikely for an outbreak of disease to be caused purely by the feral population, this nonetheless underscores the urgency but delicacy with which this issue must be addressed at Warrah research station, for the sake of the environment and for the original domestic colony.

The optimal course of action would be to move the domestic bee colony away from Warrah immediately, before the feral population becomes self-sustaining. It is possible that a more urbanized area may suffice, since pollination resources remain adequate, yet feral colonies appear to have difficulty establishing themselves in such areas (Hinson et al. 2015). However, additional care must be taken to protect the hives from other threats characteristic of urban areas, such as pesticides (Hinson et al. 2015). Once the hive is re-established, it would be inadvisable to move the hive again until absolutely necessary. To conclude, this move would allow the hive to continue to thrive without competition from the feral bees, and the feral bees themselves would likely die out due to a lack of sustainability, thereby reducing or nullifying the domestic bees’ negative impact on the Australian ecosystem.

References

Chapman, N.C., Lim, J., and Oldroyd, B.P. (2008), Population Genetics of Commercial and Feral Honey Bees in Western Australia Journal 1of Economic Entomology 101:2, 272-277.

Chapman, N.C., Harpur, B.A., Lim, J., Rinderer T.E., Allsopp, M.H., Zayed, A., and Oldroyd, B.P. (2016) Hybrid origins of Australian honeybees (Apis mellifera) Apidologie 47, 26-34.

Chapman, N.C., Bourgeois, A.L., Beaman, L.D., Lim, J., Harpur, B.A., Zayed, A., Allsopp, M.H., Rinderer, T.E., and Oldroyd, B.P. (2017) An abbreviated SNP panel for ancestry assignment of honeybees (Apis mellifera) Apidologie 48, 776-783.

Estoup, A., Garnery, L., Solignac, M. and Cornuet, J.-M. (1995) Microsatellite Variation in Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera L.) Populations: Hierarchical Genetic Structure and Test of the Infinite Allele and Stepwise Mutation Models Genetics 140:2, 679-695.

Franck, P., Garnery, L., Solignac, M., and Cornuet, J.-M. (1998) The Origin of West European Subspecies of Honeybees (Apis mellifera): New Insights from Microsatellite and Mitochondrial Data Evolution 52:4, 1119-1134.

Galtier, N., Nabholz, B., Glémin, S., and Hurst, G.D.D. (2009) Mitochondrial DNA as a marker of molecular diversity: a reappraisal Molecular Ecology 18, 4541-4550.

Garnery, L., Mosshine, E.H., Oldroyd, B.P., and Cornuet, J.-M. (1995) Mitochondrial DNA variation in Moroccan and Spanish honey bee populations Molecular Ecology 4, 465-471.

Gordon, R., Bresolin-Schott, N., and East, I.J. (2014) Nomadic beekeeper movements create the potential for widespread disease in the honeybee industry Australian Veterinary Journal 92:8 283-290.

Gross, C.L., and Mackay, D. (1998) Honeybees reduce fitness in the pioneer shrub Melastoma affine (Melastomataceae) Biological Conservation 86, 169-178.

Gross, C.L. (2001) The effect of introduced honeybees on native bee visitation and fruit-set in Dillwynia juniperina (Fabaceae) in a fragmented ecosystem Biological Conservation 102, 89-95.

Hinson, E.M., Duncan, M., Lim, J., Arundel, J., and Oldroyd, B.P. (2015) The density of feral honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in South East Australia is greater in undisturbed than in disturbed habitats Apidologie 46, 403-413.

Johnstone, R.E., Kirkby, T., and Sarti, K. (2013) The breeding biology of the Forest Red-tailed Black Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus banskii naso Gould in south-western Australia. I. Characteristics of nest trees and nest hollows Pacific Conservation Biology 19, 121-142.

Nielsen, D.I., Ebert, P.R., Page, R.E., Hunt, G.J., and Guzmán-Novoa, E. (2000) Improved Polymerase Chain Reaction-Based Mitochondrial Genotype Identification of the Africanized Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Annals of the Entomological Society of America 93:1, 1-6.

Oldroyd, B.P., Cornuet, J.-M., Rowe, D., Rinderer, T.E., and Crozier, R.H. (1995) Racial admixture of Apis mellifera in Tasmania, Australia: similarities and differences with natural hybrid zones in Europe Heredity 74, 315-325.

Oldroyd, B.P., Thexton, E.G., Lawler, S.H., Crozier, R.H. (1997) Population demography of Australian feral bees (Apis mellifera) Oecologia 111, 381-387.

Pyke, G.H. (1999) The introduced Honeybee Apis mellifera and the Precautionary Principle: reducing the conflict Australian Zoologist 31:1, 181-186.

Solignac, M., Vautrin, D., Loiseau, A., Mougel, F., Baudry, E., Estoup, A., Garnery, L., Haberl, M., and Cornuet, J. (2003) Five hundred and fifty microsatellite markers for the study of the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) genome Molecular Ecology Notes 3, 307-311.

Vaughton, G. (1996) Pollination disruption by European honeybees in the Australian bird-pollinated shrub Grevillea barklyana (Proteaceae) Plant Systematics and Evolution 200, 89-100.

#biology #science #warrah

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korrasera · 7 years

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truscum-truth reblogged your post and added: “Very few things in the world are limitless”

THIS DEBUNKED NOTHING. YOU JUST MADE UNBACKED...

That would be because I didn’t debunk you, @truscum-truth, I don’t need to do that when it’s already been done for me. All that was needed here was a clear explanation of the ways in which you’re wrong.

But what the hell, let’s tear into what you’ve said and see if we can find something interesting to talk about here.

You know how people talk about how TERFs aren’t able to accept it when science says that their grade school biology education says they’re wrong about biological sex? That’s pretty much the exact same behavior you’re engaging in. And apparently I touched off a nerve since you felt the need to go all caps on me. So, yeah, great job aligning yourself with TERFs there, bucko.

Anyways, back to the point, being transgender is not a mutation or unnatural. Human beings are sexually dimorphic, which means our biology evolved towards the idea of creating two primary configurations of sex traits. Turns out that’s actually fairly complicated in terms of biology, so what happened is that our biology for handling sex differentiation generated a spectrum of different configurations and then just pushed to make sure that a good 90% or more of those wound up being what we think of as typically male or typically female. That’s where we get the prevalence of cis men and cis women from, the system is trying to produce more of them than anything else.

But the mechanism is also…lossy. Imprecise. Not rigorously exacting. And so we get a differentiation method where you get two different hormone baths, one of which activates your sex traits and the other of which defines your gender, and it’s pretty easy for that process to get interrupted. Doesn’t matter though, as long as we meet that production quota for cis people. This is why human beings exist along a spectrum of gender, because our systems just don’t care very much as long as we produce enough cis people to make reproduction easy for the species as a whole. And we know that’s the case because one of the easiest ways to tell a disordered development from an ordered one is to look at the number of people affected by a given condition. Disordered development occurs at an extremely low rate, one in several thousand at least, because if they occurred any more frequently then there would be a stronger selective pressure working against them.

Trans people occur somewhere between 1 out of every 200 and 3 out of every 100 births. So that’s a pretty normal rate, just rare and atypical. It’s probably the easiest way to debunk everything you’re saying, I’d suggest looking into it.

Also, what you’re ranting about with demedicalization is also a bunch of horseshit. First off, the word you’re looking for is pathologizing, because the ‘medicalization’ that you’re talking about is inherently tied to portraying trans people as mentally ill. You might have convinced yourself that it’s about treating transgender people as having a medical condition, but that’s not what the reality is. If trans = medical condition then trans people = mentally ill, which summarizes most of the 20th century’s approach to transgender health.

Second, our greatest gains in terms of social recognition and medical support have come about because of the move away from pathologizing transgender people. The DSM-V doesn’t recognize trans people as being medically disordered, the Endocrine Society affirms that being transgender is a normal biological state and that our medical health care is a necessity, and pretty much the entire medical community is getting on our side when it comes to recognizing that we are normal human beings who face tremendous disadvantage from a society that treats us like we’re a disorder or an illness.

Your problem is that you’re afraid. You might be afraid of losing access to transition related health care, you might be afraid that other trans people invalidate your own identity and sense of gender, I don’t know. But your fear makes you a threat because you’re willing to hurt other people to make yourself feel safe. If you wrap yourself up in this shield of truscum ideology, you think it’ll keep you safe.

It won’t.

Only people like me, people who are going to keep demanding that all trans people, including you, are respected and receive the care we need, will keep you safe. Because I’m here keeping myself safe by fighting for me and mine and I’m not going to abandon you just because you abandon others. And there’s a legion of people who feel like I do who aren’t going to stop until we’re all safe.

No one is coming to save us so we have to save ourselves. We can’t do that by sacrificing people from our own community.

In summary, it sounds like I’m not the one with a problem being transphobic, although I’ll grant you it sounds like you’ve got a hell of a problem with internalized transphobia. I’d get to work on that before you hurt someone else.

#truscum-truth #korrasrsly #transgender #truscum #dysphoria #you come at the queen you best not miss

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jadenotis1996 · 4 years

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tactical-substitution · 4 years

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The Konundrum of Kai Havertz

One of the principle things that differentiates a footballer from a writer, artist, or philosopher, relates to the significance of questioning and answering. Whereas in the latter examples, the very best ones tend to be characterized by the capacity to create puzzles and contradictions that invite further thought and insight, truly elite footballers are different; their presence on the pitch feels like a certain “this is just the way it is”. It can be surprisingly difficult to tactically analyze the Messis, Xavis, Ronaldos, and Lahms because the best footballers in a given generation excel so completely at their assigned tasks on the pitch that there are few questions left to ask. It is the great-but-problematic footballers who ellicit further reflection. It often ends up being the Sneijders and Goetzes and Balotellis who prompt fans to think and debate about exactly what they were good at, and why this was never enough to be “world class” footballers on a prolonged basis. If the former category could currently be said to consist of players like Kylian Mbappe, Virgil Van Dijk, and Kevin de Bruyne, it is unlikely that most football fans won’t already be thinking of someone who meets the latter criteria – a Romelu Lukaku, say, or a Sergej Milinkovic-Savic. It is obvious when watching some players play that there are things that they are capable of that few others would try, and yet actually fitting these players into the squads of clubs among the five or ten best in the world proves difficult. It is this space between manifest skillfulness and tangible skillset that would allow them to play at the absolute highest level that tends to illustrate what is required of the players for whom no such deficit exists, and creates a basis for scouting and player analysis at the level of potential Champions League winners.

Among younger players, little doubt exists as to the sufficiency of Kylian Mbappe or Jadon Sancho should a European giant wish to sign them – in virtually any tactical circumstances their technical and athletic gifts are enough to wreak havoc on any defense. These are the kinds of players who will set clubs back and arm and a leg, and be worth it. In this transfer window, there is perhaps no better example of a “great-but problematic” player attracting serious transfer interest than 20-year-old German international Kai Havertz, currently at Bayer Leverkusen. The young attacker has been seriously linked with the likes of Liverpool and Bayern Munich for months, though Chelsea have ostensibly lept to the front of the queue, having apparently only started on their spending spree with the acquisitions of Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner. Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Juventus, Man City, and Man United have all been linked at least somewhat credibly with attempts to woo the young German. Whether he moves in this transfer window, and if so where, could come down to any number of factors: Will Bayern prioritize his signature because of his nationality, and will the player feel the same way? Will the desire the work with a celebrity manager like Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp be an incentive to push for a move to a particular club at a crucial point in the young player’s development? Maybe most germanely, who will actually be willing to spend the money should Leverkusen hold out for his buyout clause? In the cases of Sancho or Mbappe, nearly any fee or wage would be rewarded by a signing that is as close to a “sure thing” as exists; with Havertz, the risk seems to be far greater. Knowing why this is the case will be crucial for any signing club if they wish to mitigate that risk, and to not ensure that they have a player widely derided as a “misfit” or “flop” on their hands collecting high wages and attracting negligible transfer interest in two or three years’ time.

What makes Havertz a risky proposition relative to other putatively world-class youngsters is not a matter of talent or lack thereof – go watch a YouTube highlights video if you doubt he’s a marvel – but rather one of style and skillset. Analysts have observed that Havertz’s position could be thought of as a fairly orthodox and old-school number ten, which is a problem given that the clubs interested in him don’t necessarily play with tens. It is not simply that any one club incidentally does not currently play with a playmaker “in the hole”, but rather that the tactical dynamics of modern football have crowded such players out. Just look at the (mis)treatment of Mesut Ozil or Philippe Coutinho by fans compared to the universal adulation given to the likes of Thiago or Marco Verratti for their more “complete” midfield performances. Champions League holders and runaway Premier League leaders Liverpool are generally noted to play with a trio of “workhorse” midfielders supporting their adventurous fullbacks and explosive attackers, and have improved their fortunes dramatically since jettisoning Coutinho to Barcelona, while the player looks like a black sheep wherever he goes in spite of being a much more skilled and “watchable” player than current Liverpool midfielders like Jordan Henderson or Georginio Wijnaldum. Barca themselves were the best club side in living memory on the basis of the genius of midfielders like Xavi and Andres Iniesta on both sides of the ball, and were frankly foolish to regard Coutinho as a “replacement” for all of the things that Iniesta did on the pitch. Top teams attack, defend, and press as an organized unit, and it is hard to see a role for a “free” playmaker who cannot also cover spaces and defend individually in midfield, participate in the buildup of possession, and generally act as a multi-functional cog in a tactical system, or else play as out-and-out forwards stretching play, battling with defenders, and creating and scoring goals. Therein lies the rub for Havertz, who for all of his flashy ability does not really profile as the kind of player who can fill any of the roles in a truly modern football side that looks to dominate with and without the ball, at least without some development on his part, or some shoehorning and accommodating on the part of the team.

What it means to play as a number ten can be variable to different contexts, ranging from deeper-lying playmakers of the ilk of Carlos Valderrama, to creative attackers who would tend to play off of strikers or even as “false nines”, a la Francesco Totti. Havertz is much more in the latter mold, and in fact Totti is a decent comparison to his style of play. What Havertz is truly great at is using his balance, ball control, precise shooting, and passing range to conjure up “moments of magic” – high risk, high reward actions in and around the penalty box that if they work are very likely to lead to a good goal-scoring opportunity. In addition, his height and heading technique make Havertz an aerial threat if the ball is crossed to him. So far, so good – many analysts and pundits regard the scoring of goals as a tactical end worth pursuing. The problem, then, is that Havertz isn’t terribly good at doing much else. His one-on-one defending is nothing to write home about, he lacks the explosive pace to beat all but the slowest and most injured fullbacks if he ends up in a wide position, and he rarely involves himself in buildup play closer to his own goal. It is highly unlikely that he will get much faster, though he may well gain some physical strength and tactical intelligence – nevertheless, simply expecting the player to become a more solid defender or exert a more metronomic influence as he ages is frankly a gamble. If a big club decides to go in for Havertz they should be able to fit him into their plans commensurate to the amount of money they invest in him, and they should be able to do so now rather than in some ill-defined future where his game has become more balanced and less deficient. Accordingly, the thorny task around Havertz is determining whether his game, more or less as it currently exists, could fit into those of any of the superclubs he is linked with.

The most conventional possibilities for Havertz’s future are worth considering, and roughly align with the roles he has played at Leverkusen. He could play as a pseudo-right-winger, though this would necessitate an overlapping fullback or wingback to give width in attack. He is also possibly capable of playing as a withdrawn forward in the mold of Roberto Firmino, chipping in with a non-embarrassing goal tally but also pulling the strings creatively while the goalscoring burden is carried by wingers, a strike partner, or advanced midfielders. Neither of these are totally inconceivable, but unless Havertz irons out kinks in his game and broadens his skillset, they would necessarily pull teammates out of position to fill the gaps he leaves, potentially creating problems elsewhere on the pitch. Top managers quickly notice these kinds of things and are unlikely to be so impressed by his neat touches and controls that they don’t yank him from the starting XI in their quest for tactical impenetrability and balance. Another possibility is that Havertz will play as a “second striker” off of a more traditional number nine for the rest of his career. One system that could facilitate this would be some species of 4-2-4, with midfield areas occupied by a strong double pivot; another would be to position the wingers more conservatively so that the team lines up in more of 4-4-1-1. The former would be pretty absurdly attack-minded, perhaps resembling Pep Guardiola’s 2015-16 Bayern side when Kingsley Coman and Douglas Costa played high and wide, the fullbacks tended to assist the midfielders, and Thomas Muller (a German number ten a decade Havertz’s senior) played off of Robert Lewandowski. When fully functional, that side was mind-melting to watch, and Havertz might strive to emulate Muller’s successful interpretation of the attacking midfield role, with defenders never sure if he had dropping deep to create or darting to meet an aerial cross on his agenda. If Havertz were to play in the latter system, his role might be comparable to that of Antoine Griezmann at Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, or perhaps a frame of reference would be the function of Juan Mata, Eden Hazard, and Oscar for Chelsea under managers like Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte. The allure of this kind of role would of course be that Havertz is less likely to come across as a defensive liability in a system where virtually everyone is responsible for a great deal of defensive grunt work in one way or another and he is the primary creative outlet, constantly looking to locate himself in a point of weakness in the opposition’s structure, receive the ball, and then make the “magic” happen. Where problems come up is when one remembers how much running around the likes of Griezmann or Oscar always did. Even in a counter-attacking side, even if a player does much more than their fair share of creative passing and danger-creation, they will still inevitably be expected to harass opposition defenders and midfielders out of possession, and Havertz has not yet clearly demonstrated the stamina or the tactical intelligence to be apt to such a role.

One last possibility for Havertz would be to play as a kind of “false midfielder”. He could stand in midfield areas to make up the numbers and aid in a tactical plan to create numerical overloads in central areas, and then when able to get closer to goal, really start to add value. The problem here is that Havertz has not yet shown that he can become a safer, higher-volume passer at even the level of, say, David Silva or Isco. Those midfielders are nowhere near the central midfielders that they are attacking ones, and cannot resolve situations in congested areas through passing combinations at the level of their compatriots Iniesta or Xavi, but they can at least participate in such exchanges without constantly playing catastrophic sideways passes which result in counter-attacking opportunities for the opponent, and thereby justify their presence on the pitch for when they are able to be more useful in the final third. Is Havertz trustworthy enough to do so? If so, he has not yet shown it. With all of these hypotheticals, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the player will simply develop his game through practice, coaching, and the last embers of puberty, and be able to play them satisfactorily, but this seems like too speculative an expectation to ground such a large financial outlay in. Havertz is who he is right now, and should be scouted for his demonstrated skillset rather than based on wishful thinking. If a club is to justify the purchase of Havertz, then they may have to fundamentally rethink the kind of player he is, and re-rationalize how they will fit him into their plans.

What clubs should expect to get should they bid for Havertz, is a kind of very expensive water-carrier. When most football fans hear that phrase they likely do not think of a player of Havertz’s qualities. French attacker Eric Cantona infamously used the epithet to describe his international teammate Didier Deschamps, as a kind of tongue-in-cheek way of belittling his compatriot’s contribution to the collective effort. Other players who tend to come to mind as “water carriers” might be Marcel Desailly or Claude Makelele. What all of these players have in common, besides their nationality, is a particular skillset, which was as narrow as it was well-executed. These midfielders had the match-intelligence to step up and engage opponents at the right times without getting caught out of positions, assisted defenders at risk of being over-burdened, covered for teammates who may have been out of position, were precise in challenges, could effectively mark dangerous opposition players as effectively as a center-back, and were mobile enough to cover ground and arrive at the right time and place to slow down or stop opposition attacks or win the ball back. In possession they were all fairly conservative, prioritizing consolidating possession and passing to teammates in space over attempting any risky passes or skills on the ball. They are greats of the game because they “carried the water” for more flashy teammates who were given more license to improvise and take risks closer to the opposition goal, by performing these kinds of simple actions with great competence and consistency. Clearly this does not sound like the kind of player that Havertz is, and in fact quite the opposite, but what if there is more than one way to carry the water?

If the main impression that most fans have of Cantona’s famous phrase is that it describes the duties of a defensive or holding midfielder, there is perhaps another interpretation of it that should be considered, which has more fidelity to his intentions with the quip: a “water carrier” is a player who performs a narrow range of mechanized actions to support the team, in contrast with teammates whose roles entailed doing more different things, in a greater variety of situations, in order to really unlock games and break down an opposition. In Cantona’s time this was arguably a fairly accurate rendering of the dynamics of how a footballing side functioned – midfielders and defenders tended to keep a compact shape closer to their own goal, and tens, wingers, and center-forwards were given the task of breaking down those compact structures with “moments of magic”. In such a (simplified, admittedly) context Havertz would be an absolute star with his skillset, as he would constantly have the game in front of him, virtually daring him to find a distressed point in an opposition’s defensive structure in which he could dribble, run into, or find a teammate with a through-ball. There is no doubt that defenders and midfielders would find it difficult to deal with Havertz’s clever runs, deft controls, and overall skillfulness for approximately half of a ninety-minute football match, and the onus would be on his “water carrier” teammates rather than him to do much of the serious running and remain positionally alert. Perhaps in such a situation Kai Havertz would truly be living high on the hog. Unfortunately for the young German, he was not even born at the time that that footballing milieu existed, and so must contend with the landscape of 2020.

When one watches the football sides of Guardiola, Klopp, Tuchel, Pochettino, or Sarri, it is pretty abundantly clear that the players are not divided into conservatively-positioned grunts and attacking artists running around at the will of their self-governing genius improvising ways to foil the defensive goons. It is a cliché to describe top-level sides in the modern game as “fluid” or praise their “discipline” and “organization”, but there is a good reason for that. Modern approaches are based on using all ten outfield players, and increasingly the goalkeeper, to circulate and advance the ball into positions of overloaded strength in possession, and stymy and harass opponents out of doing any of that out of possession. The number nine is the first defender, and the goalkeeper the first attacker, and all of that. It is somewhat difficult to see a place for a solitary magician like Kai Havertz in all of that, as modern footballing sides tend to rely on the industry and intelligence of their forwards to keep opposition defenders from building up attacks, and don’t tend to rely quite as heavily on one or two especially flashy players to break down defenses as sides of the past. For a modern superclub, an attack might look something like a left-sided midfielder and left-winger forcing an opposition defender to play an errant long pass by swarming them and giving them little option, a left-back retrieving the ball and playing it to the holding midfielder, who consolidates possession with a quick interchange with the right-back, allowing the right-back to engineer a free path close to the opposition penalty area where they can cross to whichever attackers or midfielders are able to plausibly compete for an aerial ball with the opposition defenders. In scenarios of this kind, Kai Havertz is unlikely to play much of a part, and if he does is unlikely to be doing anything that a less costly player with a different skillset would be unable to. This is before one considers his (relative lack of a) defensive contribution. In these kinds of tactically sophisticated, high-tempo “gegenpressing” encounters, Havertz begins to look like something of a flat-track bully and an anachronism rather than a superstar.

How, then, is Havertz to fit in to a modern footballing side, if at all? In the above scenarios, and indeed in the squads of big clubs like PSG, Juventus, and Bayern, midfielders (and increasingly fullbacks) are expected to have broad skillsets, and to be able to move and progress the ball in a variety of ways and to defend actively and passively, and indeed academies across the world are producing players who can “do it all” without any “master of none” caveats. Take potential Havertz destination Bayern for example: Austrian defender David Alaba, who has spent the bulk of his club career at left-back but was groomed for a kind of hybrid center-back/midfield role by Guardiola, and plays as an attacking midfielder for his country, plays as a center-back playing incisive long and short passes to start attacks, and uses his anticipation and speed to expertly mark opponents. Former right-back Joshua Kimmich has played in central midfield this season, and has arguably been the best player in his position in the entire world. Young Canadian winger Alphonso Davies has deputized at left-back, and, like Alaba and Kimmich, has been a strong candidate for the most effective and complete player in the world or at least the league in his position, despite it not actually being his position, using his lightning pace to monitor an entire side of the pitch, overlapping intelligently in attack and showing excellent reading of the game to make vital defensive clearances and tackles, all while looking frigidly cool in building up possession in conjunction with his more experienced comrades. These are as much the stars of Bayern’s juggernaut team as their vaunted forward players, along with the defensive likes of Niklas Sule, Benjamin Pavard, and Jerome Boateng. Whichever system Bayern choose to play, it is unlikely that Havertz would be their most important player or even particularly close despite playing in a role that would render him the traditional “star player”. What would the young German mark himself out as, then, were the Bavarian club to take a punt on him?

In the tactical schemes employed by top clubs of the 1990s, elite attacking midfielders of the ilk of Roberto Baggio, Zinedine Zidane, and Michael Laudrup were not only the “stars” of their club and national sides in terms of press attention and shirt sales, but were also typically the players who would quantitatively have a “starring role” in the sense of touching the ball with greater frequency and significance than teammates. Over the last two decades and under the influence of the “positional” approaches of Marcello Bielsa, Louis Van Gaal, and Guardiola, and the “counter-pressing” philosophies employed by Klopp, Roger Schmidt, and Ralf Rangnick, deeper-lying, less directly creative midfielders have emerged as the “protagonists” in matches where the majority of clubs prioritize ball retention in safe areas, and use structured possessional routines to both keep a compact defensive shape and manipulate the ball into dangerous areas. On and off the ball it has been midfielders such as Sergio Busquets and Mousa Dembele and, increasingly, defenders like Trent Alexander-Arnold and David Alaba who have not only spent the most time directly controlling the play of games, but also had to use the widest array of dribbles, passes, tricks, and controls to keep and manoeuvre the ball, and this has been by design. Even many smaller clubs have come to adopt this style of play, but, most relevant to the immediate future of Havertz, every title-chasing club across Europe with whom he has been linked play this way. Gone are the one-dimensional “water carrier” defenders and holding midfielders, and in their place a generation of deeper-positioned players with the skillsets of traditional number tens (many of whom in fact played in that role at youth level or earlier in their playing careers) have emerged. At the tip of the spear pace has been the attribute that most preoccupies top managers, whose obsession has been with using the coordinated movement of attackers to provide passing options and open up spaces for one another and for advancing midfielders and wingbacks or fullbacks. These attackers have found themselves in the role of “water carriers” for their more cultured teammates further back on the pitch, performing simple actions in a relatively mechanized way, but doing so at such a high level that the new breed of holding playmakers are able to use their broader skillsets to move the ball into areas which have been given situational tactical significance and danger by their water-carrying forward comrades.

If the modern “water carriers” are the quick and tricky attackers whose speedy movements create the chaotic conditions which their teammates exploit, then how is a player with little natural pace or explosive acceleration to distinguish themselves? This is the scouting question that lingers over Kai Havertz – his actual skillset looks quite narrow against a frame of reference where playmakers are expected to do their work in more congested and treacherous midfield areas, but if a club side were able to exploit the young German’s demonstrated capacity to pass creatively in and around the penalty area to its fullest extent, it might well be enough in and of itself to justify his presence on the pitch. The problem is that it is not immediately obvious how his skillset and limitations could be accommodated by the tactical schemes employed by the likes of Guardiola, Klopp, and so forth. In the case of a true two-way midfielder or an explosive winger, it requires little imagination to see how they would be “plugged in” to the kinds of tactical systems used by Man City or Liverpool – the dynamics of these systems are calibrated to balance the extensive skillsets of the star players against the intensive skillsets of the water carriers, albeit in a markedly different ways from the suberclubs of the 90s. In the case of Havertz, it is clear that he would end up being a “water carrier” in a limited role were he to wind up at either club, but decidedly murkier whose water he would be carrying, and what kind of intricate tactical scheme of delegating tasks would mediate this balance. Managers, scouts, and pundits understand the scouting question for an old-school defensive midfielder – will this player’s ability to mark opponents and plug gaps carry the water left at that club by its existing, defensively cavalier squad without creating an awkward stylistic disjunction? The same kind of scouting question will have to inform clubs as they contemplate allocating a large chunk of their budget towards Havertz – in what way can the existing or prospective squad play on and off the ball such that Havertz’s superior skillset around the penalty area will free up teammates to do all of the other important work which they are more suited to without having to worry about scoring and assisting goals as much as they might otherwise have to?

Such a question is radically different from the orthodox perspective from which clubs (as well as football journalists, fans, etc.) tend to approach scouting a “star” player like Havertz, but its pertinence is a consequence of the style of modern football. As Casemiro is a guaranteed starter at Real Madrid because his prodigious volume of tackles and interceptions mitigates his pedestrian on-ball skillset and “frees up” his more expansively-passing teammates, big clubs eyeing up Havertz must consider whether the routineness with which his movement, vision, and skillfulness make the difference in the final third can be utilized as a similar kind of mechanized action to Casemiro’s defensive interventions; such a question is not simply a matter of whether or not the scales can be balanced by such and such a teammate who performs an equal number of opposite actions, but a rather more dynamic one of what types of things a team’s midfielders, defenders, and strikers might suddenly be able to do on the pitch if they are safe in the knowledge that Havertz is reliably carrying the water around the penalty area. This is the kind of complex tactical question that elite managers and sporting directors get paid eye-watering wages to attempt to solve, though it may well be intractable to the point where Havertz is virtually fated to wind up at a club like Valencia or Leicester City in five years’ time. It is also a question with a crass quantitative dimension – if Havertz is only creating and scoring a few goals per league season then the truly big clubs needn’t ponder his unbalanced skillset at all, whereas if he’s directly responsible for two goals every game then all other more nuanced questions become moot in a much different way. In reality, Havertz is in double figures for combined expected goals scored and assisted in both of the last two Bundesliga seasons, and has gone one something of a finishing tear that has made him look like a seriously prolific goalscorer, but he is nowhere near the “get him at any price, figure out what to do with him later” levels of Messi or Neymar, or even Eden Hazard in an average season. Havertz is a seriously tidy-looking attacking midfielder whose flashy skills have led to tangible goal contributions which are nothing to shake a stick at, but he has not as of yet demonstrated that he can shoulder an attacking burden commensurate to the defensive one carried by a Casemiro or an N’Golo Kante.

Scouts, managers, and analysts will have to squint hard at the data and footage, and figure out a way in which Havertz’s skillset can be made to carry a little more water than it currently is - his height and precise heading technique, for example, could probably be exploited more than they are currently being. But this kind of conundrum casts a fog of doubt on the notion of splashing a hundred million Euros on the player – sure, he’s nice, but shouldn’t that kind of a cash outlay mean we don’t have to think so hard to figure out what to do with him? You scour a wine store for half an hour looking for an obscure Greek red on a clearance sale and pair it with precisely the right meal to get the most value out of your wine-buying dollar, but if you go and squander your money on a seventy-dollar Barolo you kind of expect that you’ll open it up and it will just be good – otherwise what’s the point? None of this is to say that Kai Havertz clearly isn’t worth whatever fee and wages a club ends up parting with to secure his services – he can do all kinds of exquisite things with the ball at his feet (and head) that look like the kinds of things that players do in the highlights footage from Champions League and World Cup knockout games. He can do, and has routinely done, the kinds of things that decide those kinds of games, sometimes against the kinds of defenders who try and stop a player from doing them. But rather than looking at him as the next Baggio, Totti, or even Muller, big clubs across Europe should consider the sense in which Cantona belittled Deschamps for doing such a narrow range of mundane things, and stick to the mantra that if they end up buying a water carrier, it is the rest of the squad and the manager who will end up carrying him. If Havertz can end up doing as few things as well as Deschamps did, he will turn into a footballing legend like the current France manager, but if he doesn’t turn out to live up to the “as well as” part then he will only ever be the kind of player who fans and pundits describe as “fun to watch, but limited.”

If the phrase “it is the water carrier who is really the one being carried” doesn’t evoke the image of a white-haired Shaolin monk in a Shaw Brothers film or the sound of a bong gurgling in the bedroom of some philosophy undergrad, then maybe a more traditional brain-teasing dialectic will do the trick – “the more that things change, the more that they stay the same.” When one frames Havertz’s skillset as being that of a traditional number ten, he is cast as an anachronism. When football fans of a certain age hear the phrase “number ten” they are likely to think of big 90s Serie A clubs, and the likes of Baggio, Totti, Veron, Zidane, or Riquelme. Footballing reactionaries sick of the ultra-disciplined grimness through which a club like Liverpool can optimize small advantages and secure a string of one-goal victories on a march to domestic and continental glory might well fantasize about a career path wherein Havertz loafs around at the big Milan and Rome clubs and Fiorentina, playing in a way that gets described as “languid”. In this scenario none of these clubs ever hire a “modern” coach or sporting director, or at least nobody more progressive than Sacchi, and the footballing landscape in Italy is fixed to a particularly simplified representation of the league two or three decades ago. He might even be able to show up drunk, as many football writers seem to insinuate that Andrea Pirlo did when they make gratuitous references to his wine connoisseurship as some kind of synecdoche of his “elegant” and “old-world” style of play. All joking aside, there is a credible case to be made that Havertz’s skillset make him something like a genuine anachronism – he’s likely fitter and certainly has more video analysis sessions under his belt than the old school number tens, but this hasn’t ironed a marked stylistic resemblance out of him. Where this begins to look like some kind of big conundrum is when one looks at where he plays, and who he plays for: Havertz has a starring role at an exemplary progressive, data-driven, modern pressing football club, stewarded by a well-regarded “gegenpressing” manager with stylistic roots in the Holland/Ajax “total football” philosophy.

If Havertz were to play as a “traditional” number ten, more or less singlehandedly acting as a creative outlet in an otherwise defensively rigid unit then he would likely end up under a manager like Mourinho or Simeone, playing the central playmaking role in a 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1 system. It is possible that he would wind up in a system with a three-man defensive line and wingbacks behind him were he to play under the likes of Nuno or Antonio Conte, just as the number ten playmakers in football’s bygone era may well have played in both back-three and back-four systems, but like those players he would expect to play a creative role in front of a well-drilled unit that no one would describe as “fluid”. At Bayer Leverkusen, Havertz has played a non-negligible number of minutes as the team’s sole attacking midfield, in a “free eight” role (similar to the “false midfielder” roles of Kevin de Bruyne and the Silvas at Man City) alongside Julian Brandt, as a central striker or false nine, and in a pseudo-right wing role, and has generally looked very good wherever he has played while never having a hugely different role or set of jobs on the pitch or displaying a different skillset more suitable to the position which he is ostensibly playing. He looks like a classy player wherever he plays, but he always looks like Havertz. This positional carousel is operated by manager Peter Bosz, who has set the team up with back-three, back-four, and back-five defensive systems and rotated his midfielders and attackers significantly, giving minutes to all members of Leverkusen’s impressively deep squad. Bosz seems determined to extract serious contributions from his entire diverse cast of players, and has demonstrated a great talent for devising tactical plans that allow basically any combination of them within reason to be on the pitch at the same time and function according to his broader tactical principles. Havertz will be moved around to accommodate this or that attacking partner, but rather than shining by playing the position in an orthodox manner, much credit should go to the manager for setting up the team in such a way that they are collectively able to engineer the kinds of situations in which Havertz is able to do Havertz stuff.

On paper, the fluid and modern tactical schemes employed by Bosz at Leverkusen could hardly resemble the rigid systems that brought success to managers like Lippi, Trapattoni, or Hitzfeld less, but in a very real sense he has simply found much different means to the same end of accommodating his star playmaker. For the number tens at the superclubs of the 90s, positional freedom and the license to move to where they could do the most damage with the ball was a key condition that allowed them the autonomy to control attacks. At Leverkusen, Havertz similarly tends to “go where the action is”, insinuating himself at the center of counter-attacks and picking up pockets of space in which to pick apart deep-lying defensive blocks when his team have established stable possession in the hopes that a teammate will find him so that he can execute the kinds of high-risk manoeuvres which he is so good at. The boy is not going to drag a full-back very far with an off-the-ball run or physically intimidate an opponent into coughing up the ball in a dangerous area, but let him roam around looking for ways to solve attacking problems with the ball at his feet and he’ll eventually figure something out. In previous footballing contexts, players of Havertz’s ilk would accomplish this with the help of a tight-knit lineup behind them playing in, let’s say, two banks of four, with one or two forwards making attacking runs for them to pick out. At Leverkusen, as in hyper-modern Bundesliga-standard football generally, Havertz does not have as fixed a formation supporting him, but his teammates are essentially trying to accomplish the same kind of support structure as were those of Zidane or Veron, but simply doing so in a more sophisticated and convoluted way.

It makes a certain kind of intuitive sense that in a footballing milieu where the significance of pressing and collective actions on and off the ball have been elevated, and successful sides are more thoroughly drilled than ever with the assistance of video analysis and even the literal use of drone footage, the high-level task of having a bunch of unit of outfield players supporting one “star” player would require a more positionally fluid set-up than the traditional formations. In fact, going back to the earlier discussion, it is not difficult to see how the “stars” would become marginalized and the players tasked with the increasingly byzantine task of freeing them up would increasingly take up the mantle of being their teams’ most significant contributors in this context. At any rate, when one watches Leverkusen play, it becomes clear that apart from Havertz’s colleagues in the attacking line playing in such a way as to maximize his options, the contributions of the players behind him on the pitch are absolutely crucial to his capacity to play the way that he does. Leverkusen have traditional defenders and hard-tackling, orthodox midfielders, but no mere “water carriers”. Bosz often plays with three players in the center-back position, but is disinclined to play three out-and-out center-backs, often preferring instead of play full-back Wendell or one of the identical-twin midfielders Lars and Sven Bender in the defensive band – like Bayern manager Hansi Flick, he clearly considers recovery pace and passing ability to be as important as the ability to win headers and make goal-line clearances in his defenders and is willing to play squad members “out of position” to accomplish this. Full-backs or wingers are often played in wide positions as is customary, but Bosz has shown a habit of playing four true central midfielders in his midfield line, giving a clear window into his tactical outlook and into his strategy for getting the best out of Havertz. Julian Baumgartlinger and Charles Aranguiz are the two most defensively-minded of Leverkusen’s midfielders, with Nadiem Amiri and Kariem Demirbay more obviously skillful technicians when they are tasked with making a creative pass or keeping the ball under pressure. All of the club’s primary midfield options, however, are well-rounded in their skillsets, in the same way that the defensive line are expected to be. All of Leverkusen’s midfielders are instructed to press in unison, play passing combinations, drop into the defensive line, and join the attack when the situation calls for it. When seven or eight players can collectively work at a high athletic and technical level to provide structure, make defensive interventions, create adequate spaces in wide and central areas, and so on, it becomes easy to see how a player like Kai Havertz is able to thrive.

Arguably the most analogous current side to Bayer Leverkusen playing at a high level are Atalanta Bergamo, managed by Italian veteran Gian Piero Gasperini. As with Leverkusen, Atalanta focus on attacking far more than they do on defending, and their roaming playmaker-attackers Josip Illicic and Papu Gomez provide reasonable points of stylistic comparison for Havertz. Within Atalanta’s tactical setup, the importance of midfielders Marten de Roen and Remo Freuler being able to undertake a wide variety of unglamorous tasks related to pressing, defending, ball retention and progression, and keeping a collective structural balance through correct positioning cannot be overstated; neither can the significance of the wide-positioned wingbacks, acting as defensive and especially offensive outlets capable of doing the tireless running that the team’s more technically proficient attacking midfielders are unwilling or unable to do. The team must constantly be able to make up the numbers in various areas of the pitch in order to function in passing, defending, attacking the opposition penalty area, and so forth. Illicic and Gomez are reasonably intelligent players, but Illicic in particular is not exactly renowned for his leopard-fast bursts of pace or tremendous workrate. Like Leverkusen, Atalanta play with anachronistic number ten players by screwing with the formula further back on the pitch, and may provide a window into what ought to be done with Havertz in the future. The problem lies in the fact that Atalanta are a “fun” side, but they are far from a “complete” side. The immense ability of Illicic and Gomez has made Atalanta into something of an offensive juggernaut to the point that they are reliable top-four finishers in Serie A despite having far from the fourth-largest budget in the league, but their presence creates a kind of chain of deferred problem that ultimately results in the club’s center-backs frequently chasing back in comical fashion or playing calamitous forward passes because they are isolated from their teammates. Will a team like Man City or Chelsea, whose problems this season have been much more with their defending than going forward, look at Leverkusen and Atalanta and their status as “entertainers” whose matches produce goals at both ends, and decide that Havertz is a prudent signing? It does not seem entirely likely.

Perhaps if a big club is to roll the dice on Kai Havertz, they should look to play with a support structure similar to that employed at Leverkusen, but simply have better midfielders and defenders than Leverkusen. This is probably not the kind of suggestion for which a sporting analyst in a big club’s employ can hope to receive a big promotion, but it may well work. Leverkusen have pretty talented players all over the pitch, but they do not have any one player as truly excellent as PSG’s Marco Verratti, Real Madrid’s Dani Carvajal, or Chelsea’s Jorginho. It is well within the realm of possibility that a club that can afford Havertz can also afford the kinds of players who are so good that they can sufficiently control the aspects of the game that Havertz doesn’t, and allow him to do what he is exceptional at. The issue, given everything previously discussed, is with the proposition of outlaying such a large sum on the player. Why not simply cut out the middleman, sign some midfielders and fullbacks who can collectively do a reasonable amount of goal-creation and goal-scoring without Havertz’s presence on the pitch and be done with it – is there really a high-level system that is truly balanced in which there is really no substitute for a player of his skillset? After all, an industrious and athletic midfielder can create the possibility of a goal with a well-timed run, and a full-back can cross the ball with a meaningful chance of creating a good goal-scoring opportunity.

The scouting question returns to the one of whether Havertz’s gratuitously skillful on-ball ability makes him viable as a “water carrier” for world-class teammates who can do more than just create and score a decent volume of chances. If not, then surely it is the players whose skillsets are more well-rounded than Havertz’s who should be attracting the ridiculous fees rather than the young German. A more tantalizing question might be whether it is feasible for Havertz to do everything he has shown himself capable of doing around the penalty area at Leverkusen, do nothing more, and still have the rest of the team do plenty of solid attacking work in addition to that done by him rather than burdening him almost entirely with making the attack hum. All of this is of course contingent on the rest of the squad being capable of, firstly, feeding the ball to Havertz in the areas where he needs it, and secondly, doing the defensive and ball-progression work that are not really his forte. Any team with serious structural issues in their defensive and midfield areas should be looking nowhere near the youngster as his expensive purchase is highly unlikely to indirectly solve any issues in defense or build-up, and could quite possibly exacerbate them.

All of these questions could reasonably be rendered moot if Havertz simply broadens his skillset somewhat. It shouldn’t be presumed to be inevitable, but it’s far from unheard of for young attacking midfielders to pick up the aspects of the game which are more subtle than getting a shot away or looking for the killer pass. Genuinely top-tier central midfielders like Luka Modric and Andrea Pirlo initially profiled as classical number tens, and it is not too much of a leap of imagination to imagine the German’s balance and passing range being transposed to deeper areas on the pitch. A version of Kai Havertz who shows enough composure to regularly drop back and assist midfielders positioned deeper than him while also demonstrating the same skillset that he already has is basically Kevin de Bruyne. Then again, a version of Michel Platini whose body hasn’t gone downhill athletically over the past three and a half decades and whose reputation isn’t tarnished by a series of corruption scandals is basically peak Michel Platini. A disgusting, greasy broken Hollandaise that was instead emulsified properly by someone who knows how to cook is a delicious sauce. If clubs get too tempted by the prospect of the kind of player that Havertz could be if such and such conditions are met and base their decision to buy him on that, then they are buying the conditions along with the player, and the potential for an expensive mistake is very much baked into the structure of such a valuation.

Have the scouts for Europe’s super-elite considered all of this and analyzed it in greater depth and with more technical resources than has been done in this piece? Without question. Will this ensure that their decision to bid or not bid for Kai Havertz is the right one? Not necessarily. But regardless of what happens with the young player, consideration of who he is as a player right now, who he reasonably could be, and what kinds of conditions must be met for him to end up a success has facilitated a level of reflection on the nature of modern football that would not be the case with other higher-end players. What kinds of scouting questions need a club ask about Raphael Varane, say, if he’s unsettled in Madrid? He’s ridiculously quick, his positioning and decision-making are as good as it gets, he wins his aerial duels. There is no question, go all in for him. What about another 20-year-old Bundesliga sensation, Jadon Sancho? His quick feet, strength, and quick change of direction make him one of the most effective dribblers on the planet, and he’s demonstrated plenty of end product over the past two seasons in Dortmund. If you could use an attacking player and have the money, you go for him, little analysis is necessary. But human agency tends to orient itself towards problems, contradictions, and puzzles, and when a player is as manifestly brilliant as Kai Havertz is without necessarily fitting into any of the truly elite European superclubs, the urge to philosophize his situation takes over. It is this urge which will guide how clubs scout Havertz, and every other player under the sun, if they are to grab themselves a future superstar or at least a useful contributor and not another expensive disappointment.

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