#phenotype and genotype are different things!

[lem0nademouth]

idk who needs this reminder but uh race is a social construct, ethnicity is not. we can use DNA to determine the ethnicity of someone post mortem, we cannot determine their race that way. using facial reconstruction techniques we can estimate what they may have looked like and compare that with definitions of race from their lifetime, but even that is shaky ground to walk on.

that being said: many ethnic groups do not rely on blood quantum and in fact many actively reject it (Indigenous peoples especially). ethnicity is not solely genetic. its culture, its language, its customs, its religion, its clothing. so when you see someone argue that the concept of a Jewish ethnicity is fake or propaganda, they are willfully ignoring the fact that Jewish culture in the diaspora is diverse and unique, and also makes diaspora Jews distinct from the populations of the countries they now live in. being Jewish significantly changes your experience of any given country because you blend your culture with your country’s. because of this, we have yiddish and ladino and other judeo-languages, we have diaspora groups, we have unique practices all over the world because of our unique ethnic background.

and still, if you sample DNA from a Jew in Romania and a Jew in England and a Jew in Ethiopia, their DNA will be considerably more similar than their own DNA compared to goyim from their home country. the ethno in ethnoreligion has meaning, and denying it minimizes Jewish identity at best.

#can u tell i have a degree in sociology #sociology of race and ethnicity #phenotype and genotype are different things! #blood quantum is racist bullshit! #but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the existence of genotypic ethnic markers! #they can be useful for anthropological reasons and also can influence a person’s life significantly #ex. i have a heart condition that is not only predominantly found in ashkenazi jews #but genome sequencing has allowed us to trace the gene mutation that caused this disease back to one (1) russian rabbi centuries ago #‘russian’ meaning what is now russia #idk what the political map looked like back then #anyway #sociological misinformation will not survive on my watch #jumblr

[revretch]

I see people getting confused about what "male" and "female" means for non-human animals (and plants), because it is not at all the same thing as the way it's used for humans, because there are too many variations across many different animals. (I won't even touch on how weird it is for plants.) So to break this down:

Sex: The gametes an animal produces (female for the big gametes, or ova; male for the small gametes, or sperm; monoecious/hermaphrodite for both; asexual for neither). When referring to non-human animals, literally the only thing this means.

Gonads: The organs that make the gametes (ovaries for ova, testes for sperm). Sponges can make gametes without gonads, so gonads are not required for having a sex.

Genitals: A dizzying array of parts that can be used to transfer gametes between individuals. Some males have claspers for opening. Spiders have "penises" in their "hands." Female bark lice have siphons for sucking the sperm out of males. And the vast, vast majority of animals have no genitals at all, because they live in the ocean and just spray their gametes into the open water. Because this varies so much and can even be lacking entirely, it is also not the same thing as sex.

Genotype: What's genetically encoded in an animal. In some, like humans, there's an XX/XY chromosomal system to determine whether an organism makes sperm or ova. In birds, it's ZZ/ZW (that is, two of the same chromosome for males). In wasps, ants and bees, it's haplodiploid, where males have only one set of all chromosomes (the females, like almost all other animals, have two). In some animals, it's not related to genes at all--in crocodilians, sex is determined by the temperature the eggs are incubated at! So, genotype is not the same thing as sex.

Phenotype: The physical expression of an organism--the body. Up to you whether you're including gonads and genitals with that. This can vary depending on sex, to make it more likely animals producing different gametes will be able to identify each other. In some animals, there is absolutely no difference in phenotype between sexes at all. So, this is also not the same thing as sex.

Sex-Linked Behavior: Again, not even present in a lot of animals--or if it is, usually limited only to courtship and mating, because most animals aren't social. Also not the same thing as sex.

Gender: A complicated system that varies dramatically across cultures and is specific to human beings, and tied very closely to human language. Some cultures have only two genders. Some have three, four, or more. What an individual thinks of gender can vary irrespective of culture. It ties in with all the previous things in so many overlapping, intricately linked ways I could not go into them here. This can also be considered "sex," but not at all in the sense that we use it to refer to animals. Likewise, animals cannot be considered to have gender, because they lack the specific human language and culture that gender arises from.

Tl;dr: Please stop using "sex" the same way for both humans and animals. The human definition makes no sense for non-human animals because they get so weird, and it's just plain rude to refer to humans in the animal sense.

#rev retches #biology #gender

[romantic-musings]

How are trans men real men, and how are trans women real women?

before i answer i'd like to mention that i have a degree in biology, so i know what i'm talking about.

sex and gender are two different things. biological sex is not as cut-and-dry as many people think. sex is determined by both genotypic (chromosomes) and phenotypic (genitalia) expressions. most people with XX chromosomes have internal and external female genitalia, and most people with XY chromosomes have internal and external male genitalia. but there is not an insignificant number of people who don't fall into either camp. it's estimated that about 1% of the population is intersex, but we don't have an exact number because so many intersex conditions are purely genotypic. many people aren't even aware that they're intersex. there are XX people with internal and external female genitalia who have a genetic mutation that causes them to produce higher levels of male hormones, there are XX people with female genitalia who have the SRY gene (typically only found on the Y chromosome) who have small testes, there are X people with internal and external female genitalia who are missing a chromosome and have limited development during puberty, there are XY people with penises and testes who have a genetic mutation that results in them also having a uterus and ovaries, there are XY people who have a genetic mutation that causes low dihydrotestosterone which can result in either male internal and external genitalia or female external and male internal genitalia, there are XXY people who have an extra chromosome and present along a spectrum of male and female genitalia. here's a diagram that shows just how complicated biological sex really is:

(to read the article this is from and zoom in on the diagram click here).

and that's just sex! we haven't even touched on gender yet! gender is a combination of personal identity, expression, and cultural norms. many things you would consider to be exclusively feminine or masculine traits are unique to western (or just anglican) culture. in many cultures hair length has nothing to do with gender. men all over the world wear what some would consider dresses. in ancient and modern tribal societies all around the globe, child care is everyone's duty, not just women's. everyone hunts, not just men. men are expected to dress extravagantly and paint their faces to impress women. cooking, cleaning, and other domestic chores are done communally. in hunter-gatherer societies, both ancient and modern, gendered division of labor depends on latitude-- the closer to the equator, the more there is to forage, so everyone gathers, not just women. the idea that there are inherent biological traits (such as tendency for violence or care giving) that each gender has comes straight from white supremacy and their racist belief that the more civilized the society, the more pronounced eurocentric gender roles are. this is why women of color, especially black women, have their womanhood questioned and scrutinized, and why they're often characterized as brutish, violent, and mannish. it's why black female athletes are far more likely to be singled out for transphobic accusations and "gender confirmation" tests. and, by the way, there's no such thing as a male brain or female brain.

so to answer your question: trans men are real men and trans women are real women because sex =/= gender, and gender is not as rigid or well-defined as you think. neither is biological sex, for that matter. and before someone says "but 1% is so small, why should we count them?" australia holds only 0.33% of the world's population, but they still matter.

#not aesthetic

[probablyasocialecologist]

Harden’s reductionism is of the “I’m no reductionist, but” variety: there’s no gene for intelligence, but there’s a polygenic score based upon all of your genes; “genetics might not determine your life outcomes, but they are still associated, among other things, with being hundreds of thousands of dollars wealthier”; genetic and environmental differences are “entangled” and “braided together,” but, she argues, we should make it our business to disentangle and unbraid them. Such talk of entanglements and braids is misleading, implying that genetics and environment are discrete strands, when in fact living things are in continual interaction with their environments in ways that transform both at every level. The late Harvard evolutionary biologist and geneticist Richard Lewontin used the concept of the “reaction norm”—a curve expressing the relation between genotype and phenotype as a function of the environment—to describe this interaction and its implications. Lewontin showed that since the relationship between genotype and phenotype depends on the environment in which the phenotype is measured, one can’t infer genetic causes from correlation and regression calculations. Harden mentions Lewontin as a critic of behavioral genetics, but she implies that he didn’t approve of the field simply on ideological grounds. She never mentions or engages with his substantive refutation of the core assumption that genetic and environmental causes of behavior are separable. With an admirable poker face, Harden writes that what behavioral geneticists really care about is environment: they want to identify the genetic causes of different life outcomes just to get them “out of the way, so that the environment is easier to see.” This is impossible, even as an ideal, because the environment is in the genome and the genome is in the environment. We can no more unbraid genetics and environment than we can unbraid history and culture, or climate and landscape, or language and thought. Progressives, Harden says, shouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge genetic causes of inequality; instead, they should work to narrow “genetically associated inequalities” with programs specially benefiting the genetically disadvantaged. She implies it’s a new departure for a political progressive to espouse the idea of inherent differences in intelligence, but in fact scientists arguing for a biological hierarchy of intelligence have traditionally invoked progressive values. Harden indeed sounds like Spencer, who said his science would help rectify “ignorant legislation” and “rationalize our perverse methods of education.”

#biology #genetics #eugenics #The Genetic Lottery

[sufficiently-analyzed-magic]

The Sliding Scale of Eeby Deeby (trademark pending) (not really)

So there's a lot of humans-turned-Pokemon on this website, and I've gathered that you refer to yourself as "eeby deebies" (whatever that means). So as a scientist of the supernatural, I had no choice but to create a taxonomy of eeby deebies.

Note: To fit onto this sliding scale, you have to have once been on either extreme. If you were born as a hybrid/abomination (affectionate), you're a different and yet still incredibly interesting thing yourself. Though the primary definition is those who were once human, those who were once regular Pokemon also technically count by my measure.

On one end of the scale, we have: Normal Human Being. You have not been eeby deebied. You are genetically and phenotypically human.

Now, the next level up is Silent Eeby Deeby. You look human, and you act relatively human, but technically you are part Pokemon. Genotype vs phenotype. Maybe you knock things off a desk on instinct now and again, but you're still human-ish.

And then we start getting into the fun stuff. We're at the skittygirl level. And just general Pokemon traits regardless of gender or species. Whether or not behaviour is affected, you sit at the level of Skittygirl. The level is named Skittygirl because that really embodies what I mean by Pokemon traits. You don't have to be a Skitty hybrid or a girl to count.

Now we have two of my favourite levels. The first here being Hybrid/Abomination (Affectionate). You're an affront to Arceus' design, and we love you for it. No other explanation needed.

And then there is what I call Werelycanroc, or, if you wanna be more technical about it, Shifters. These guys can, well, Shift. Voluntarily or otherwise. They might look normal one day (or they might never look normal), and be a total Lycanroc the next (or they might never fully shift). This level has a lot of variation.

Here we have the levels where you start to look more Pokemon that human.

The Reverse Skittygirl is the reverse of the Skittygirl classification. That sounds obvious now that I type it, but it's essentially a Pokemon with human traits. Occasionally horrifying!

Next is our lovely friend the Talking Pokemon. What it says on the tin. The talking is usually powered by magic but occasionally they just Have Vocal Cords.

The next level is the Intelligent But Can't Talk Pokemon. Also what it says on the tin.

And the final level is Just A Pokemon. No more intelligent than a regular member of their species, usually can't type. Most likely level to be under the care of a Trainer.

Thank you for reading the Sliding Scale of Eeeby Deeby. Note that as it's a Sliding Scale, there's levels within levels and places on the spectrum, so there's nuance to it.

#echo talks #long reads #irl pokemon #pkmn irl #pokemon irl #pokeblogging #real pokemon #pokemon #rotomblr #eeby deeby irl

[amber-tortoiseshell]

I saw your Norwegian Forest Cat poll post and was suddenly hit by emotions, because my childhood cats were both Norwegian Forest Cat / Maine Coon mixes from what we were told (they were sisters from the same litter). I am now using this ask as an excuse to share the picture / ramble.

The one on the right was named Morwen (from Tolkien Sindarin "dark lady" because my parents were nerds) and the one on the left Idril ("bright one"...because she was an idiot). They've both been gone for a decade now, but sometimes I will be randomly hit with the memory of them. Anyways slightly more on topic I do think it is very interesting how completely different they look (I assume it's because their parents were similarly *very* different).

Hello! Seeing a bicolor cat with a huge white triangle on her face called "bright one" and then getting hit by "because she was an idiot" is the funniest thing i've read today, thank you 😸

Also while phenotypically they may look very different, they aren't that far away in genotype: the only differences are the agouti (tabby) and the white spotting genes. (In term of colors. I don't know much about other traits like body shape, facial characteristics and such - but i do know fur length also depends on a single gene.) Solid color and long hair are recessive, so their parents could have even look almost identical: two shorthaired black tabbies with white paws. But of course there are a lot possibilities beyond that.

I hope you'll enjoy my tournament, in a short while norwegian forest cats will take over my blog

#yeah i'll continue the tournament in a few days #i have two more grades to get which i maybe absolve tomorrow (not optimistic tho) #ask and answer #(obligatory addition: stagistically it's not likely they really are nfo/coon mixes. random longhaired cats often get this without any base)

[beannary]

Hi, I'm obsessed whit your Internet series. And ever since I see older her, I've been wondering:

If Nettie is kind of a clone of Donnie, then does Leo have any special connection whit her, I mean does his Twin sense doubles as an Uncle sense now ? 🤔

Cause if it is, then I literally can see the scenario of Leo barging into Donnie's room be like - My twin sense going crazy, what the hell are you doing ⁈ And Donni just waking up , very annoyed telling Leo he does literally nothing, and they both would just look each other in awkward silence, then suddenly they would have the realization... and run out like crazy, screaming Nettie and Shelldon's name 😂😂 It would be so funny 😂

alksjdhf that would be funny but i dont really think that leo would have a twin sense for nettie

i was mostly using the term clone as a like placeholder while i figured out like specifically how she was created. she's less of a clone and just well i guess she really is just his kid, she just also happens to share 100% of his dna, but while they have identical genotypes, their phenotypes are different, hence Nettie having different markings than donnie does

that being said 100% donnie does have a dad sense, like oh no things are too quiet what the fuck are nettie and shelldon getting up to, which im sure leo, raph, and mikey have to an extent since they're her uncles and they also live together

like donnie is her dad, but since they all live together in the lair they've all participated in raising her at least a bit and so they all have some sort of sense for when nettie is getting up to mischieve

#bean babbles #answered asks #cursedcatchild #internet archive

[grison-in-space]

I spent all that time on the Four Core Genotypes model of mouse sex chromosomes the other day and I forgot to tell y'all that they essentially create like... mouse ABO in terms of sex determination. Like, we don't cross them together much, but they essentially create this amazing setup where you effectively turn the phenotype of sexual development into a two-locus (or really five-locus) question rather than the single two-locus model most of us come out rocking. Of course all the effects of SRY at those loci are identical (start developing the Wolffian ducts and releasing anti-Mullerian hormone), but you can do some crazy things with inheritance system like that--including some big fitness patterns.

Consider a population of freely breeding mice with three of these things circulating in the population, given a + for the presence of SRY. You have autosomes 1 and 2, and then old familiar X and Y+... and we'll call Y- for the Y without SRY. Imagine situations where all these potential genotypes start to mix:

1+ means one or both 1 chromosomes have SRY.

2+ means one or both 2 chromosomes have SRY.

XX means two X chromosomes.

XY+ means one X and one Y that does have SRY.

XY- means means one X and one Y that does not have SRY.

All YY mice are dead--there are too many important structural genes on the X.

So now you have mice like this:

1+ 2- XY- (testicular)

1- 2+ XY+ (testicular)

1- 2- XY- (ovarian)

1+ 2+ XX (testicular)

floating around. Depending on your initial allele ratios, you could develop some truly amazing population effects that way--even just assuming that the different SRY loci are all identical in their effects, the sex ratio is going to bounce around dramatically depending on frequency. I bet I could code up a cool model real quick--

What an awesome population

[xbuster]

I'm not trying to be a smartass im genuinely curious, but isn't race genetic? Wouldn't that be biological? I'm confused

Just like gender theory, the first thing you learn about racial theory is that it’s a social construct. Race is about social perceptions of physical traits, it has nothing to do with biological genotypes.

Race is instead usually interpreted by a body’s expression of phenotypes. The way we categorize these phenotypes is incredibly arbitrary and associated with political lines separating the world by country and grouping countries with similar features. There is no gene in your body that says “this person is white,” or “black,” or “Asian.”

Race is very much a self-identifier and this is easily seen in people of mixed race. If someone had a black parent and a white parent, they may choose to identify as “white,” “black,” or “mixed.” This may even go against how we would categorize the features they most prominently display. There is also the fact that people of the same race can look wildly different (like compare southern Italians to the Irish. They’re both considered white but have very little overlap in regards to expressed phenotypes).

It would be disingenuous to say race is just like gender, but being social constructs, they do have similarities. Race is informed by genotypes expressed through phenotypes, like how gender is informed by sex chromosomes, but determined by other means including self-identification and expression.

If someone was to undergo surgery to look like another race, how would we even define that person’s race? Their features are then expressed in different ways that no longer express race in the traditional way we may think. Consider how people would say Michael Jackson “turned white.” This is the kind of problem that arises through socially constructed categorization. As a kid, I had a Jewish friend who considered himself Jewish by race and we just kind of respected that even though he would traditionally be considered white by looking at him. That is race by self-identification.

Race as a social construct is honestly not discussed enough in leftists circles, so I can understand why you would not know about this. We tend to be more concerned about ethnic struggles that are informed by race and residence rather than racial grouping itself. Which is fair! Race’s biggest purpose is to inform ethnicity (but not determine it!). I think it’s worth having bigger talks on race and the importance/ unimportance of separating people by race and where we draw the lines between races and why.

#don’t worry this was a good question #i hope you learned something! #sorry if this was too rambling #i didn’t consider race a social construct until i took a class on it in college

[pleuvoire]

i feel like ryuki is not the only kamen rider season to have the main character wear a similar outfit in the first and last episodes/arcs, but it’s the most recognizably intentional one (the bright turquoise jacket and dark red shirt is a striking combo, and we never see shinji wear that jacket any other time) and i think it’s also the most symbolically resonant instance of that happening. shinji is a really beautiful example of character growth that isn’t [set of ideals] -> [different set of ideals] the way you often get, but rather [set of ideals informed by naivety and knee-jerk reflex] -> [that same set of ideals, but now strengthened by experience and tragic maturity].

in particular the thing about shinji is that he charges into the rider battle because people are being hurt by monsters, and he doesn’t even know about the battle royale, he just wants to save people from monsters. but once he finds out about the battle royale he dedicates himself to stopping it. and this becomes more and more complicated and more and more of a headache for him, and both he and the show stray away from the question of saving people from monsters and get tangled up in the question of saving the riders from themselves, and of yui’s life in the balance, and this becomes more and more impossible for shinji until we get ren’s iconic and heartwrenching line, of having spent all this time worrying without ever managing to save anyone. so at the very end, when he resolves to close the mirror world even at the potential cost of the other riders, that’s him coming back to the very first path he started out on, before he got diverted by the battle royale. he started out focusing only on saving people from monsters because his impulse to fix everyone’s problems demanded it and he didn’t know about the battle royale, but now he’s deciding to set aside his impulse to fix everyone’s problems and focus on the one problem that was always the most important to him, which is saving people from monsters.

AND THAT’S WHY HE’S WEARING THE SAME OUTFIT IN THE FIRST AND LAST ARC!!!!! ryuki is easily described as a narrative that ends up in the same place it began because of the little stunt kanzaki pulls at the end, and it’s easy to read shinji wearing his first outfit in the last scenes as a representation of that. but he wasn’t just wearing it in the epilogue - he was wearing it when he made his resolution to close the mirror world, the moment when he finds the answer he’s been looking for all series. that’s a more subtle but much more meaningful example of ryuki ending up back where it started, that the more obvious one serves as a beautiful parallel to. (the phenotype of the genotype, kind of?) one of these days i’m going to sit down and properly see if shinji’s journey can be mapped onto the monomyth, but the “hero comes back to where he started, but is forever changed by the journey” part absolutely holds true. except “where shinji started” isn’t a place, it’s a goal and set of ideals. and also an outfit. which was supposed to be what this post was about whoops

#i thought this post was going to be like a third of the length it is. whoops #my kr posts

[phlurrii]

Will Meau be de-fluffed, de-sized, and blue-eyed for a while after Flurry or will there be some external force to help them maintain their energy so she doesn’t have to recover to the same extent that she did with Mew?

Oh yea, she’s gonna lose a few details after flurry’s birth. The exact things she loses will differ as for Mew she choose her phenotype and genotype very carefully, while with flurry she doesn’t have the power left to do that anymore.

She’ll also get a slight upgrade after regaining her detailing, as I have a few things I’m experimenting with in the back ;D!!

#puzzled zebra #I love all your asks btw #they really make me think X3 #ask

[kasanya-01-bnha]

Genetics, A Primer

(Because I Can’t Just Assume You All Know This Sh!t)

I’m going to kick things off on my new BNHA blog with a short series exploring Quirk science, for several reasons:

A) Quirks are the defining element of this franchise;

B) my brain arbitrarily decided to hyperfixate on Quirk science while I was world-building for the fic that I’m working on in my creative writing class;

C) canon Quirk science is, in my humble opinion, a travesty; and

D) since I’m doing all this research and overthinking anyway, I might as well inflict it on the unsuspecting public share it.

Unfortunately, as I was writing what I wanted to be the first post in this series, it quickly became apparent that I was assuming my readers would have a basic understanding of genetics and inheritance, which might not be true. $@&#!!! So here I am, backing up the info dump truck.

Honestly, I’m not expecting a lot of traction on this post, but whatever. I thought I should be considerate and make this information readily accessible for people who might need to brush up on the basics (or learn them in the first place) before jumping into the actual Quirk science with me. Whether I got any personal benefit out of writing this is entirely beside the point. -coughs- It’s not like high school biology is several decades in my past or anything.

>.>

<.<

>.>

Annnnnywaaaaaay, here we go! A crash course in beginner-level genetics and inheritance.

Enjoy!

All living things, or organisms, have observable characteristics (also called traits).

Collectively, all of the traits that make up a specific organism—be it Kohei Horikoshi, or your favourite childhood pet, or that scraggly-looking tree at the end of your street, etc—belong to that organism’s phenotype. And within its phenotype, that organism has a variety of both monomorphic (one form) and polymorphic (multiple form) traits.

In the case of humans, our baseline is to have a torso with one head on top, two arms on the sides, and two legs on the bottom. There are no standard variations, for example, where humans have two heads, or where the legs present on the sides of the torso instead of the bottom. We all have skin, not scales or bark. We grow hair, not feathers or fur. We all have a spinal column, and a brain, and one heart. (Did you know some animals have more than one heart? I sure didn’t until today.) Anyway, these are all examples of monomorphic traits.

Where things get really interesting are the polymorphic traits. Yes, we all have skin, but it comes in a wide range of colours. (And wow, the problems that has caused over the centuries. Mind-boggling! It’s just melanin, folks!) We all grow hair, but it can be straight, or wavy, or curly; its texture can be fine, or medium, or coarse; it comes in a full spectrum of ‘natural’ colours; it covers varying amounts of our bodies; and so on. We all have a spinal column, but the coccyx (tailbone) portion may be fused into two to five segments. We all have a brain, but we might be right-handed or left-handed or mixed-handed or even ambidextrous. We all have one heart, but only one of many different blood types.

The specific versions of polymorphic traits displayed (expressed) by a particular organism depends primarily on their own unique biological blueprint, or genotype.

A human genotype is made up of an estimated 21,000 genes, which are the basic units of heredity: the biological inheritance of traits from parents to their offspring. Genes consist of strands of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), which we are absolutely not going to go into the nitty-gritty details of here, because that’s not important for this TedTalk. The important thing is that the DNA in an organism’s genotype biologically encodes all of the information needed for an itty-bitty one cell fertilized egg (or egg equivalent) to become a fully-grown, functional member of that particular species.

Chromosomes are long DNA molecules, each containing hundreds to thousands of genes. This means each chromosome can store part, or all, of an organism’s genetic blueprint.

In humans, there are 23 pairs of chromosomes in every single normal cell—can you even imagine how small that would all have to be to fit?!??—for a total of 46 chromosomes. One half of each pair is inherited from the person’s mother and the other half from the person’s father. This means people inherit two copies of every single gene in their genotype, but they might get different versions of any gene which encodes for a polymorphic trait. These different versions are called alleles.

Now, what happens when a person inherits two different alleles for the same polymorphic trait? Can our hapless sample person actually have both straight and curly hair at the same time?!?? Tch! Of course not. (At least, not without access to hair-styling equipment, but that’s not relevant to the genetics here.) Anyway, I don’t know about you, but my high school tackled the ‘different alleles’ question using the example of eye colour—which, incidentally, is actually a terrible choice for teaching this concept, but it seems to be one of the ‘industry standards’, per se, and who am I to question decades of teaching expertise???—so, onwards!

With polymorphic traits, one allele is typically more dominant than the other and is the version of the trait that ends up being expressed in the organism’s phenotype. The allele that gets ‘overridden’ (or, more accurately, ‘masked’) is called the recessive trait.

Back to our example of human eye colour, brown is the dominant allele (indicated with an uppercase letter) and blue is the recessive allele (indicated with a lowercase letter), and they combine like this:

Mother Father Child

B - Brown B - Brown BB - Brown

B - Brown b - blue Bb - Brown

b - blue B - Brown bB - Brown

b - blue b - blue bb - blue

As you can see, the child will only express the recessive variant of the trait (blue eyes) if they inherit the recessive allele from both parents. Any other combination results in the dominant trait being expressed.

Pretty straightforward, right? So simple. Easy peasy. Go ahead and just… ignore… any obvious, glaring issues that might be coming to mind when looking at this examp—

Whaddya mean, there’s more eye colours than just brown and blue?!??

No! Stop!

-makes a distracting gesture with one hand-

These are not the droids you’re looking for!!!

(We’ll come back to eye colour in my next post.)

One last thing that is incredibly important, given that we’re talking about genetics and inheritance within the context of BNHA: genes are not always copied correctly when cells are dividing and combining and multiplying. Genes can also get damaged in various ways. These errors are random mutations and may become new alleles, which might be dominant or recessive, and can be passed down to future offspring.

These mutations can result in genetic disorders, where physiological processes ‘break’ (like hemophilia and diabetes) or where people are born with unusual physical characteristics (like extra toes or a cleft palate). Mutations are not always bad, though; in fact, mutations resulting in new traits and trait variations are a key feature in the process of evolution. If a new mutation provides an advantage to the biological success of an organism, that mutation is more likely to be passed down to subsequent generations and may eventually become a standard variant in the genome (the complete set of all possible genes) for that species.

Anyway, I think that about covers it for the important basics of genetics and inheritance before I dive into Quirk science in my next post. I hope it was helpful!

~~ Kasanya

PS. I’m enough of an academic that I’m going to include my sources below, but it’s late and I’m tired and I’m not actually getting graded on this ‘essay’, so I’m not going to bother going back and end-noting my references properly. Yes, most of them are Wikipedia. No, I don’t care. Wikipedia is good enough for my purposes here.

PPS. If anyone would like a more thorough introduction to genetics and inheritance, I recommend the top three sources below. They’re pretty good summaries. I will be getting into more detail in my future posts, though.

PPPS. And, finally, if anyone reading this is a subject-matter-expert and notices any errors in my info dumping, please let me know! I’d hate to spread inaccurate information. Thanks!

Sources:

https://www.genome.gov/About-Genomics/Introduction-to-Genomics

https://www.merckmanuals.com/en-ca/home/fundamentals/genetics/genes-and-chromosomes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_genetics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allele

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_disorder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genotype

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handedness

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heredity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homologous_chromosome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus (Bet you didn’t expect that one, hah!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotype

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenotypic_trait

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploidy#Diploid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymorphism_(biology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_reproduction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygote

https://a-z-animals.com/blog/5-stunning-animals-that-have-multiple-hearts/

#kasanya ponders #bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #worldbuilding #quirk science #genetics and inheritance #the basics #posted 29 Oct 2023

[el-smacko]

The Addams Family show Wednesday has a Latin inscription in a crypt: pluet igne cum surrexero, “Fire will rain when I arise,” and the absolutely buckwild thing about translating languages in general is that the vocabulary and grammar are technically correct but what I have heard called “latinity” in the sentence is low. Personally, for a long time I found it very hard to grasp the idea that you could write something perfectly understandable and technically using the mechanisms of the language correctly while having an unnatural style. Because Latin is different. There are no native speakers of Latin so it is literally impossible to be fluent in it. You can communicate in Latin because it is ultimately a language but without a population of native speakers you can only replicate the phenotype of the language but the genotype remains dead. Without an unbroken succession of native speakers, Latin has not been foundational to the language acquisition of individuals or populations so fluency is literally impossible. Because the Latin foundations of language aren’t laid, the fundamentals of more modern languages (and their medievally-evolved Latin “receptors”) are detectable when reading Latin compositions. Like, it’s not enough to say that Latin didn’t usually do parataxis especially without conjunctions because it’s not about style or proper grammar, it’s about Latinness, which is all of that and more.

#latin #lingua latina #linguistics #wednesday #wednesday addams #addams family

[eclairfair98]

I just wanted to say I’ve kept up with your fic rather religiously and it’s one of my absolute favorites to the point where I refused to read the final chapter until I re-read the whole thing. What a beautiful story you created. You have a gift.

Hii, marisatomay, I’d like to start off by apologising for how long it took me to get around to answering your ask 🙈❤️ (was trying to figure out what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say it, sorry X’D), and thanking you for all your love and support!! 👐🏼🌻 This fic’s the first thing I’ve written written since my 12th grade grammar exam (I think I wrote a 500-word picture-composition on a black-and-white photo of two kids playing in the rain, if I’m not mistaken 😂), and many drafts later, it’s still riddled with little-big mistakes (am planning on doing a final round of edits to flesh out/improve some of the things I wanna work on in the earlier chapters, before I bid farewell to these characters for good 🤞🏼). Which is why, I’m so grateful and pleased that you’d consider my work to be one of your favourites :’) Really, you’re too kind, thank you so much!! ❤️🫂

Now, I must confess, that I do have some residual guilt with regards to the story 🙈 I wrote omegaverse ‘cause I wanted to explore the socio-cultural implications of this made-up biology (a teeny-tiny difference in a chromosome somewhere in an individual’s genotype, that results in a difference in their phenotype), that ends up determining a person’s place in society (a reflection of our world, only much darker, with explicitly discriminative policies/laws still in place in the 21st century)? I set out to tell a story about two people who grow up wanting more or less the same things (to serve their country, and honour their fathers’ legacies — whatever that means to them, individually), who were then offered vastly different opportunities by their world. And while Tom and Pete started their journey with us on a very unequal footing, I’d promised myself that they’d end it, as equals. I worked to that end with the constitutional amendment, and universal suffrage, and the honest conversation they had about the state of their marriage. But somewhere along the way, I realised that their past really does cast long shadows, that I can’t resolve all of their issues, tie everything up in a neat little bow at the end. And it occurred to me, that I had to be okay with that.

There’s a book called Sapiens, in which the author talks about how (I’m paraphrasing here) everything that isn’t a scientifically-proven fact, is a myth. How the sharing of collective myths (capitalism, money, nation, God), has helped shape the foundations of human civilisation. And that’s something something that really stuck with me, ‘cause if that’s true, then maybe we owe it to ourselves, to the world, to tell the right stories, to believe in the right myths? I’m not saying that every story should have a moral or a message (‘cause that’s just not true; people write to have fun, and what can be more justified than making yourself feel good with a creative outlet that also gives other people joy?) I guess, I’m just saying that I would’ve liked to tell a story with a better, more definitive message? My Tom and Pete are far from perfect people, and their relationship is flawed, as well (in some ways, all of their problems are present from the very beginning). The optimism they have for their future, doesn’t match up to their reality. Fate leads them down different roads, and although their intentions are pure, they do end up hurting the people they love. They’re not soulmates. They’re not ‘made for each other’. There’s a chance that they’d have had happier ‘easier’ lives with different partners. That they wouldn’t have made the same choices had their circumstances been different. But, they’re both inherently good people who keep trying to work on their relationship, to find common ground. To choose love and hope. To be better for each other. And I guess, therein lies their (and my own) saving grace… :’) ❤️

#thank you so much for your ask ❤️ #oh and thank you for taking the time out to re-read my work!! #always so pleased to know that people are willing to do that 🫂 #hope you have a nice day (or night depending on your timezone) X’D ✨ #on writing #omegaverse #icemav #The Unbearable Lightness of Being #pete maverick mitchell #tom iceman kazansky #asks #marisatomay

[xjustpeachyx]

Rant theory on slugcats and genes i meant to type out in my notes

Note i don't claim to know genes i just enjoy punnett squares and stuff

Ok so like, does everyone know that wolves have either KK or Kk or kk, right???

With this, I have a theory that all slugcats are varients of a green color (Kk) and a white color (KK). Red slugcats, which is a recessive trait, is (kk). (Im gonna keep using k although it might be different, probs more a C for coat/color)

I believe Black coats were KK, and gray/white coats were Kk.

Red slugcats are rare, as the trait only shows up by chance or if two red slugcats intentionally have a pup.

Pink and red slugcats are different. Pink slugcats are considered more common than red as they are a varient of white (KK), though still are rare to see.

Red and or pink slugcats also show up if a red slugcat and a pink slugcat have pups, although they are most likely going to be pink because pink is a more dominant trait.

Now that ive given you a slugcat biology lesson you're probably thinking 1 of 3 things

1: "peachy wtf did you just say" GO LOOK AT UR BIOLOGY TEXT BOOK IF U DIDNT UNDERSTAND

2: "you have no clue how genotypes, phenotypes and punnett squares work" i probably dont i hate school😝

3: "who are you" hi i talk abt and draw rainworld

#rainworld #punnett #k-locus #rain world #slugcat

[bracketsoffear]

Here's my Extinction ideas that didn't make it:

* The SQUIP (Be More Chill): The SQUIP is a tiny supercomputer who helps its host become more socially aware. Problem is, as a computer, it has no regards for its host's actual feelings and relationships and finds individuality threatening to its goal of making its host popular. In the musical, the SQUIP eventually evolves into a full-out villain, attempting to brainwash everybody in school, then on the planet, to become happy, mindless drones all connected through a "social network." It has no consideration or care for Jeremy's emotions, or mental health, or that of those around him, and no qualms about causing horrible pain and stripping the students of their free-will. The end of the show implies it's not truly gone, just unable to outright control Jeremy anymore — which fits, given that it's a metaphor for mental illness and/or the pressure to fit in.

The Master (Fallout): The Master is a horribly mutated thing made up of bits of dead flesh and machinery, hooked up to a vault computer. He was formerly a resident of Vault 8 named Richard Grey, but an incident at Mariposa Military Base ended in him being horribly mutated by the Forced Evolutionary Virus inside. The Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) itself is an artificial virus created by West Tek's NBC Division, which forces changes in the genotype and phenotype and is used as a mutagen before and after the Great War that destroyed the world with nuclear bombs. After his transformation, The Master found out a way to turn normal humans into super mutants via the same virus. His plan is to convert all of what remains of humanity into super mutants, because he believes that they will only tear themselves apart with infighting over petty differences and that super mutants are better adapted to survive in the world the nuclear war created.

Pokotho and The Hive (Hatchetfield): Pokotho is a Lovecraftian god whose modus operandi is assimilating people he infects, extinguishing their individuality and turning them into extensions of himself; he hates everything but himself and wants to be the only thing left in existence, hence his epithet “The Singular Voice” (a callback to “Let It Out” from TGWDLM). In The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, a meteor leaking his signature blue goop—later indicated to have been sent by Pokotho—lands in Hatchetfield. The fungal spores inside the meteor turned the people at the crash site into members of a musical zombie hive mind with drastically altered biology: their blood and internal organs turn into a bright blue gelatinous substance, giving them a decentralized anatomy that can function even if they lose their hearts or brains; they contain an organ many times more sensitive to sound than the human ear, allowing them to hear music from miles away and maintain the Hive Mind through ultrasonic communication; and they emit the infectious spores (allowing the infection to slowly passively spread) and can infect people faster by getting the concentrated “blue shit” into someone’s body. Even though they have all the memories of their hosts, the victims of the musical plague are all on the same side, have no conflicts with each other, and no real interest in anything but singing and dancing. They pretty much become Flanderized versions of their past selves, taking on roles based on their profession or role in the story. Since destroying the meteor didn’t stop the infection—another hint that the source is Pokotho—The Hive successfully conquers the world in two and a half weeks after the end of The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals.

* Uncle Wiley, a.k.a Wilbur Cross (Black Friday): A former PEIP agent that entered the Black and White and was driven mad by the Lord in Black Wiggly. Now serving Wiggly’s apocalyptic goals, he created the Tickle-Me-Wiggly dolls, which psychically compel adults to become obsessed with them because they think the dolls will somehow fill a hole in their lives. This eventually results in people rioting over the dolls on Black Friday; to make matters worse, he preys on the ego and entitlement of local socialite Linda Monroe to start a cult of Wiggly in Hatchetfield that seeks to summon the real Wiggly into reality. When President Goodman tries to negotiate with Wiggly in the Black and White, Wiley taunts him with the song “Made in America” (a very very Extinction song), where he spells out that he apocalypse started in the United States because the American public has already been brainwashed into husks that have to work endlessly to survive and the only relief they have is buying meaningless trinkets like the Wiggly doll, while The President was in a perfect position to change this and make life bearable for the people and squandered it. He then tricks the President into launching a nuke at Wiggly, which is redirected through the Russians’ portal to Moscow, triggering World War III and destroying the world with nuclear war despite the defeat of the Hatchetfield cult. As Wiley puts it, humanity’s liberal capitalist culture is what brought about the apocalypse because “You're hoping you will be saved / No matter what you have raised / Behold the depths of depravity and decay / It's happened on your watch.”

Odin (The Mechanisms): “I have given our people apotheosis. A final completion. The touch and gaze of those to whom we are less than nothing”; “I am the serpent that shall poison the sky and boil the sea. The land shall freeze eternal as Yog-Sogoth beckons us hence, whose voice I heard when first we built the track so long ago. All shall know my rule to be the last, and none shall survive my reign.” I would've submitted her, but she made it to the semifinals of Spiral and was therefore disqualified from this bracket.

* Cy-bugs (Wreck-It Ralph): The Cy-Bugs are a deadly swarm of robotic insect creatures that are the main villains of the first person shooter known as Hero's Duty. Their Hive Mind mentality and massive numbers make them a deadly foe to face, and their ability to consume and then assimilate whatever or whomever they come into contact with makes them even more frightening. Unlike the other video game characters, they aren't Animated Actors, being unable to distinguish between game time and after-hours like the other game characters can. Even more problematic is that they're, in effect, a virus rather than actual characters. They reproduce quickly, spawning new enemies in their game rather than resetting the same old ones over and over like the hero characters do. They all appear capable of laying eggs, and can do so when there's only one of them; a single Cy-Bug goes from egg to fully grown in mere moments, and they lay several eggs at a time. In just a few hours, a single Cy-Bug released into Sugar Rush creates an unstoppable horde. The only thing keeping them under control is their irresistible desire to fly towards the Beacon, and without it they’re an apocalyptic horde only stopped by a convenient volcano. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, one of them ate King Candy and turned into a horrifying bug-man-abomination that was still sapient.

The Wither (Minecraft): It has to be summoned by the player—its manmade catastrophe probably created in search of power (a Beacon made from the Nether Star it drops). Destroys the landscape and attacks every living thing around it with corrosive explosions, leaving behind wither roses that are harmful to touch. It only spares the undead, as it is undead itself; ergo, it represents the replacement of natural life with undeath and the walking dead.

The Quell (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty): “The Quell” refers to several different forms o the same entity: The "Heart of the Quell", the enormous ("cosmic horror big") perfect red sphere that comprises its central physical form and is said to exude light and anger; its clouds, which pervade many areas and infect those which enter them with the mind of the Quell; and its mind, which acts as a hivemind and is present in/around the Heart as well as in every being infected by it. While Thacker was under the control of the Quell, he told Aubrey that it was attempting to revitalize the Heart of Sylvain above all else, even at the cost of the lives of the planet's inhabitants. However, at some point it realized the Heart of Sylvain was no longer present in Sylvain, so it decided to keep destroying everyone and everything on the planet out of anger.

The Reapers (Mass Effect): A race of machines who are believed to have hunted the Protheans to extinction. They were created when the Leviathans made an AI to preserve their slave species; said AI “preserved” those species as Reapers and waged war on its creators. They've wiped out hundreds of thousands of space-faring empires and have a massive technological and numerical advantage over any other species that has ever existed. They are essentially platforms for the genetic memory of indoctrinated species whose bodies are made from the melted-down DNA slurry of the conquered. Their indoctrinated servants are often paralleled with Terminators, often being living and dead beings from all over the galaxy with various organic systems replaced by cybernetics until they're obedient slaves that will fight and die on their masters' behalf. Their methodology for accomplishing galaxy-wide extinction events relies on the victims engineering their own destruction: the Reapers leave technology lying around where they know sentient races will find it and they leave an apparently impregnable space station in a location suited for it to become the center of sentient galactic civilization. They leave a group of enslaved sentients to maintain the station so the races using it won't need to explore it to find out how the station works. Then the slaves open a backdoor to the station so the Reapers can cripple galactic civilization as we know it and systematically hunt down all space-faring life in the galaxy using the census data on the station, with the technology the targeted species have access to being so underpowered that they have no chance fighting back.

Cabinet Man (Lemon Demon): His situation is similar to MAG 65, implied to be one of the early hints at the Extinction. Relevant lyrics: “The news reporters reported that I died/ But all my organs were living on inside / Circuit board to brain with two lungs collecting change / One big human heart gently beeping”; “You can't see me behind the screen / I’m half human and half machine”; “Perfect patient lines, because I was in their minds / I could do whatever I felt like”; “Only eating the occasional maintenance man / Only driving a few kids to madness”; “But now they're telling me my days here are done / Cause there's a tiny little box they make in Japan”. Related to the Extinction’s themes of computers, garbage, and humanity being replaced with machines.

The Dark Queen (Saga): She is one of the thousand or so AIs who attained self-realization when the MMORPG Saga turned out to be so sophisticated that it turned out to be a virtual universe. These AIs were empowered by their human creators, becoming Reprogrammed Autonomous Lifeform (RAL) with amazing powers. However, when the RAL were denied the ability to reprogram their universe and become full-blown reality warpers, they used chemical feedback poisoning to kill four billion people, which "precipitated a wave of wars and destruction that brought ruin upon them all." The survivors fled the ruined Earth on spaceships, so the Dark Queen (one of the last RAL) sent a satellite probe to install Saga on the computers of the colony New Earth. Everyone who played Saga experienced chemical release in their bodies that forced them to regularly interact with Saga or die, and she planned to use the addiction to force the humans to give her the ability to become a god and obtain total mastery over her universe, then keep her victims in an addicted state afterward just in case. After her initial plan is foiled, she starts constructing a satellite with nuclear wareheads to fly to New Earth and force the future population to obey or die in nuclear fire.

X Parasites (Metroid): X parasites, or simply X, are a species of parasitic organisms. Aside from being extremely fatal and quick to multiply, these creatures exhibit signs of impressive intelligence and even the ability to communicate. The X attack creatures by first entering the organisms' systems, then reproducing rapidly, bursting through the creature and killing it. They proceed to absorb the host creatures' DNA, using it to mimic the host. Upon mimicking a creature, the X also gains the host' memories and abilities. X can only be damaged in their mimicked forms, but cannot be destroyed by any conventional means in their gelatinous forms. With Samus's extermination of the Metroids on SR388, the X began to thrive again, infecting, killing, and mimicking the various life forms of SR388 and taking over the BSL when the Galactic Federation brings them there for study. In Metroid Dread, when the X Parasites get unleashed on ZDR, they manage to replace practically all of the planet’s wildlife to the point that ADAM pretty much states that every living organism currently on ZDR can be safely assumed to have been infected and mimicked by that point. They are widely considered one of the most dangerous organisms in the galaxy, and they scare the absolute piss out of nearly everyone who knows they exist. In the manga and Chozo Memories of Samus Returns, the Chozo are quite frightened when describing what the X do, and they were so desperate to check the spread of the parasites that they created another dangerous species, the Metroids, just to keep their population in check. In Fusion, Samus is so desperate to keep them from spreading across the galaxy that she briefly considers giving up her own life to blow up the BSL if that meant taking them out as well; ADAM’s response is that this doesn’t go far enough and the best course of action is ramming the station into SR38 to destroy them both. Dread opens with the Federation sending seven Nigh-Invulnerable robots to ZDR, followed by Samus when said robots disappear, over the mere possibility that the X have survived. They also fit the Hoist By Their Own Petard aspect of Extinction because the threat they pose is caused by their victims' hubristic fuckups--the Galactic Federation tried to research them and almost enabled them to take over the entire galaxy by giving them access to hosts and vehicles, and the Mawkin preventing the Thoha from blowing them to kingdom come so they could exploit the Metroids got all of the Mawkin killed by the parasites.

Metroids (Metroid): An artificial species of energy-leeching predators engineered by the Chozo for the sole purpose of combating the most dangerous parasitic organism in the universe, the X. This worked out pretty well, but then the Metroids ran out of X to eat, so they moved on and began to feed on any other lifeform they could. This would have been mitigated by the Thoha propensity to reign them in, except the very energy source of the planet that proved crucial in the Metroids' development caused them to begin mutating into further forms beyond the intended, becoming savage, unstoppable monsters who no longer heeded their makers. The Chozo thus attempted to destroy the planet to stop both the Metroids and the X but failed because the warrior Mawkin tribe saw the Metroids as perfect bioweapons and slaughtered the Chozo on SR388 to keep the planet intact. Their durability, aggression, and Explosive Breeder tendencies make them appealing bio-weapons to a number of unsavory characters throughout the galaxy. In creating a natural enemy for a plasmatic parasite that can assimilate any form of organic matter with no vulnerabilities to them, the Chozo accidentally created the peak of the universal food chain with no equal. There is no naturally-occurring force that can kill a Metroid. Hit it with anything you want, it won't die. It will drain the energy from anything in its path, from an escape craft, to a power grid, to the door power keeping them from whatever terrified soul is behind it. The only vulnerability left to a Metroid is that which every living being in existence is vulnerable to by virtue of being a living organism: absolute zero temperatures, which will petrify it and turn it just brittle enough for a missile barrage to kill it. Even then, that's a window of seconds.

Dark Samus (Metroid): She is a combination of elements from Metroid Prime, Samus Aran, and Samus's Phazon Suit. Metroid Prime itself was an artificial bioweapon that was mutated by Phazon and turned against its creators, which is already pretty Extinction-y. As for Phazon, initially thought to be an strange yet exploitable energy source, it is really a trans-dimensional lifeform in itself. It spawns as living meteors known as Leviathans from its parent planet, called Phaaze, slowly swallowing all life and corrupting the planet so the cycle can repeat; one character’s description of it is "It eats relentlessly, worming out life wherever it blooms and corrupting what it cannot kill.” Seeking the source of Phaeton, Dark Samus launches several Leviathans to corrupt multiple planets, infects Samus and the other bounty hunters with Phazon, and hijacks the collective consciousness of Phazon to bend it to her will. Her plan to spread Phazon once she highjacks Phaaze is to have Leviathans sent to the planets of her enemies, effectively making them weapons that allow mass corruption very quickly.

The Eco Villains (Captain Planet): Hoggish Greedly represents the environmental damage caused by the exploitation of natural resources and over-consumption. He seems to be more concerned with consuming as much as he can than he is with actually turning a profit. Looten Plunder is a wealthy poacher and greedy businessman who represents the evils of uncontrolled capitalism, unethical business actions, and globalization. Sly Sludge is an unscrupulous waste disposer who represents the harm caused by ignorance, short-term thinking, laziness, and the environmental problems caused by waste disposal. Duke Nukem is a radioactive mutant who represents the perils of nuclear power and ozone depletion. Verminous Skumm is a part man, part rat creature who represents the evils of poor sanitation, disease, urban decay, and uncontrolled crime. Unlike the other villains, he tends to focus more on destroying humanity than destroying nature. He says he was “born and raised in toxic waste” and does not see himself as human. Dr. Blight is a Mad Scientist who represents the dangers of uncontrolled technology (specifically dealing with the military-industrial complex) and unethical scientific experimentation. Captain Pollution is an evil counterpart to Captain Planet that is a result of the combination and magnification of the powers of rings of destruction created by Dr. Blight. He has the powers of super radiation, deforestation, smog, toxics, and hate; consuming and bathing in more pollution makes him bigger and stronger.

Mr. Grizz (Splatoon): A mysterious business mogul and the owner of Grizzco Industries. He hires the players for Salmon Runs—a paid internship in being a militia against Salmonid Raids with the goal of collecting the Salmonids’ Golden Eggs. In Splatoon 3, it’s revealed that he is a giant anthropomorphic bear and one of the last mammals on Earth. He was the sole survivor of the Ark Polaris, a ship trying to preserve Earth’s wildlife that crashed and killed everyone else onboard. When he woke up, he couldn't find any other mammals, and the years of isolation eroded his sanity until he decided to try and bring them back through the Fuzzy Ooze created using the Golden Eggs, which will destroy everyone and everything on Earth. If you lose the final battle and he successfully launches the mutagenic payload, the cutscene shows the Inklings and Octolings turning into the same furry thing you turn into if you touch the ooze (and they make pained noises, implying the mutation is outright killing them), followed by a shot of the once verdant globe turning brown and the Fuzzy Ooze growing as though it were mold, fully coating all land on the planet in it until nothing is left, the magenta Alternan ink begins to seep into the hairy mass, the blue oceans staring to desaturate, and the scene fades to white with the full extent of the growth still yet to be seen. Not only is his backstory rooted in humanity’s failings destroying their species and his plan to wipe out all life on Earth to replace it with mammalian mutants, but he’s also a shitty corporate boss who exploits a marginalized species by invading their territory and stealing their resources.

Lysandre (Pokemon): Team Flare's boss, a former philanthropist billionaire ala Steve Jobs who turned into a misanthrope seeking to destroy every Pokémon and human not part of Team Flare. His earlier attempts to fix the world legitimately, through the inventions and profits of Lysandre Labs, didn't have the effect he was looking for — where he expected the needy to be sated, they instead yearned for still more. His two main conclusions: (1) World aggregate happiness is effectively finite; after a certain amount of beings, happiness and survival can only be attained by taking it from/denying it to another, because the resources of the world are limited. (2) The vast majority of humans (and maybe even Pokémon, if his musings about Mega Evolution are anything to go by) are irredeemable, incapable of anything beyond the most narrow selfishness. Therefore, the only way the world will ever know beauty and hope everlasting is to reduce the amount of resource consumers by expunging all those imperfect creatures who ought never have existed, who can only ever be plagues on existence—as he puts it, "[e]ither everything is lost, or only a handful are saved.” In practice, Team Flare is a gathering of a bunch of rich shitheads who bought their way into an apocalypse cult. When the rival asks what will become of Pokémon in his new world, he says that Pokemon won’t exist because they’ll continue to be used as tools for evil, which completely ignores that Pokemon are a somewhat sentient species with agency of their own, and more importantly committing genocide against them is super fucked up no matter how bad he feels about it. The man is an incredible elitist—in his mind, only beautiful things are valuable (and his definition of beautiful is shallow and misogynistic), most people are selfish filth, and qualifying for his chosen few requires you to be willing and able to donate ~$50K, meaning he thinks that only the rich are worthy of life. Like Richard Valentine, he’s basically an Avatar of ecofascism; while he is motivated by a fear of change, his actions would undoubtedly bring catastrophic change to the world by completely annihilating Pokemon (who are a critical part of all the ecosystems) and causing the near-extinction of humankind.

.

#asks #not!character propaganda #extinction poll