MilitarisOsaid

If you ever wondered why they call tattoos and piercings "unprofessional" and "unsophisticated"

So in the intro for Star Fox Zero, we're given this shot of Peppy in a landmaster. Aside from showing us a look at the landmaster's interior, there is another detail that I know several others have pointed out.

There is a photo of Peppy with James and Pepper. This photo is also torn, implying Pigma was also in that picture.

Now, aside from the character detail of Peppy tearing Pigma out of the photo, this picture also gives us some other information. Namely, that the personal touch means each team member has their own landmaster.

So... team moving out in landmasters when? We got to see them all in walkers at the same time, now let's see them all in tanks!

First thing; what is a wastelander? Wastelanders are the freaks of nature in my video game heres what the breeds of Westfield look like. They're drawn on all 4s but they are facultative bipeds, they can stand upright without issue, this is just easier.

You may have noticed I said "breeds of westfield", there are hundreds of breeds of wastelander, even these 8 breeds shown have Dozens of Sub-breeds, we are going to ignore this

This is wastelander sex - you may be going "hey who are those extra guys-" wastelanders have 4 sexes 2 of which are Male and Female responsible for making Grubs and then the Mars + Venus sex who produce HOSTS, a genetic caste whose entire job is to care for grubs. The Venus to Female connection is representative of the transfer of eggs to Host, I am not describing this process. Every wastelander shown in this post is female for simplicity

✨ACTUAL GENETICS ✨

This post is focused ENTIRELY on colors, not hybrids, body shape, armor density, horns, ect ect, this is just fur color because wastelanders are Weird Enough

Because Wastelanders are not Earth Animals and are Man Made, they are not restricted by Eumelanin and Pheomelanin, I sadly dont have any current plans to name the pigments wastelanders use. The most important thing to know about wastelander colors is that they are near entirely developmental or environmental

Wastelander hair isnt Actually Hair, it's not Solid but Quill-like and Hollow on the inside, wastelanders pigment is effectively sent into each quill each time they shed their fur out - the issue with wastelander color is that they lack strict information on What Goes Where - we can see this best on Jiyuu below who looks entirely different everytime we see him, with random patches of color all over his body.

The only consistent traits of his fur pattern are on his toes and tail end - where his pigment transfer sites have been burnt off and as implied - cannot transfer pigment into his fur.

Some common environmental factors that effect fur color will be;

Light exposure - triggers countershading

Temperature - with the appropriate genes, prolonged exposure to Cooler temperatures will increase chances of white and blue patches forming while Warm temperatures will increase chances of black and red patches forming. Green is not impacted.

Patterns are the one scenario where a wastelanders body goes: this goes here no ifs and or buts. The issue is that patterns exclusively come in White or Black - there is no control of coloration

The two current types of pattern genes are Pattern Complex and Capano

Pattern complex usually creates a Point-like appearance on a wastelander with small spots all the way to full stripes, the actual spots and stripes will be the wastelanders color Beneath the pattern. Opacity of the white or black pattern can be strong or subtle and a wastelander can present any pattern in the complex that comes Before it; a roan cannot have stripes but a spotted wastelander CAN look more roan, this is a complex, and highly polygenetic. Patterns are not incomplete dominant or co-dominant in the weird way that color genes are Both, a wastelander with a white gene or a black gene can present Either pattern, but not both at once - they can flip flop through sheds but again, not at the same time.

These patterns are not environmental outside of winter coats, when a black pattern on a wastelander will dissapear alongside the red gene, before we get to Capano heres a cheat sheet on all the colors wastelanders can present in winter;

CAPANO

Capano is most similar to leucistic or piebald whites, it can be a small locket or it can cover the entire wastelander, once we get to the letter sheet we will discuss the genes for Low to High Capano - the main thing you need to know is Capano comes in Black or White, a wastelander can have both Black or White capano because they are co-dominant, grey capano isnt a thing like how grey patterns arent a thing. Capano Drift or Capano areas getting covered up by other colors can take decades, generally where a wastelander has capano spots they arent going to develop any other colors unless an environmental trigger makes their body remember "oh fuck I can put colors here" ( this also applies to some albino wastelanders who arent producing pigment due to minor triggers, there are albino wastelanders whose bodies meet certain triggers and just forget they're albino and present their colors again - color genes are a suggestion to these creatures )

[ please ignore the outdated black patterns ]

S is the stand in for the genes that activate Nothing in this area so a wastelander who genetically presents NO COLOR GENES is written as an S/S S/S S/S S/S S/S and they'd be solid white if you're curious. S is not 1 gene, it's a symbol for several, the important part is that S genes do not control pigment at all.

In order to mark down polygenetic genes I've made Landmark Traits, if your wastelander shows traits of two different landmarks you could write PB2xPB3 for a roan that has some bigger spots but not enough to fully be Spotted

Capano is the most genetically traditional trait of wastelanders, heres a guide

c/S OR C/S = low capano, small white markings usually on the paws, face, and back

C/c = medium capano, can cover a major area of the wastelander but not the Entire Wastelander

C/C = high capano which can cover the entire body and occasionally has openings or spots of the color underneath, this isnt always consistent

All variants of Capano cause freckles

The last note I'll make today is that because wastelanders are assholes they can have ALL of these fancy genes and still go Fuck You and physically present none of them

something quick because I felt inspired

kitbulls becoming anthro furries was genuinely nothing more than a desperate attempt to lure in furry artists because corrin is starting to lose a lot more people than he realized, because he can't stop fucking acting like a jackass who favors his besties and forces everyone to personally fund the game that he made for himself and his friends. none of you will ever be important enough in c-s to matter. you could leave right now and no one would ever think twice to ask you about it. corrin is a rude jerk who doesn't care about you if you're not one of his favorite besties, or a super popular artist with amazing art that he can use for his own personal gain.

he's never going to finish anything he's started, he's too busy making exclusive customs browbirds for his little circlejerk, and making events that pretty much guarantee that the normies will draw tons of art of his and his friends' characters. it's been the same all these years. cannot believe you've wasted ten whole years of the same kind of treatment over and over.

You're a little maniacked out and that's okay I support hating but let's not be like that

Hello! This post by @spyjam24 has been itching me for quite a while, and while I could just include this in a post about Sam and in general the queercoding of the BTTWNS world, this seems important enough to talk about on its own. Sam being a woman while presenting masculinely is another point of discussion in my future Nigel analysis.

BEAR HEIRARCHIES:

Being solitary creatures, bears have a simplistic social structure where mature dominant males are at the top, and sub-adults and cubs remain at the bottom. Male bears assert dominance by marking their area with their scent and challenge other males to gain right to food sources or an area. Larger bears roar to scare away younger bears who aren't as strong. While bears are not territorial and learn to co-exist with each other in safe distances, even congregating in places with abundant food supply (streams, coasts, etc.), the male dominance ensures that all the given needs (food, water, shelter, and mates) are streamlined towards them. Females do not have much say in the matter. Although they are tolerant and can live within the territories of dominant males, refusing advances for mating results in injury or even death.

Female bears are most associated with rearing young and defending their cubs when male bears threaten to kill their children in order to get the mother to mate with him. Females do not go out of their way to kill or challenge other females.

Single females and subadults are almost always submissive to mature males but have a loose hierarchy within their own group.

RE-IMAGINING BTTWNS WITH A MALE PROTAGONIST:

Knowing this, how would BTTWNS play out if Sam was a man? The most prominent selling point fans and comic news outlets use to drive eyes towards the comic is its similarities to the TV show Dexter. Similar logline, similar plot, close enough characters. I have not watched the show in its entirety yet but with the knowledge I've gotten through friends and social media osmosis, it's about a mild-tempered investigator who's a serial killer by night. I have heard from a friend that one of the main storylines in the series is a string of murders happens and it is done to impress the titular character.

Sound familiar?

However, coming from a fan of Beneath The Trees and did not read under the advertising of it being "Dexter but Richard Scarry!", I believe it largely undersells and underestimates the message and themes. It also seems to disregard the importance of Samantha being a woman but also being a butch. Her gender presentation is extremely important as to how and why she kills in the first place.

But let's play this hypothetically. Sam is a man. He owns a hardware shop and is well liked in his community. He's the only bear in town. He's secretly a serial killer and goes out to the city to pick and choose his victim. Sure, it sounds similar enough, but why would he still kill in the first place when he knows he's at the top of the food chain or the social hierarchy in Woodbrook in the lenses of the anthropomorphic animal world? More importantly, if he was a man, why would anyone be brave enough to challenge him by becoming the local serial killer?

Nigel challenges Sam because she is a woman.

Caging The Idea:

Of course Beneath The Trees could work alone if Sam was a man but that would take away a lot of the gravity in the implied horror of the series.

First and foremost, Nigel is a stalker. He follows Sam around and obsessively takes photos of her to collect. God knows what he's doing with those photos, but his obsession with her extends beyond the images and into imitation. Aside from becoming a serial killer himself, he tries dressing and acting similarly in Issue 4 where he confesses to the crime in an attempt to become her equal.

But that's the thing though. He doesn't view her as an equal. He's excited at the idea of her masculinity and imitates what he can learn from the violence that comes with it. She isn't as competent because she is a woman and he needs to assert himself under the guise of assisting her or "doing it together".

He throws a fit when he is rejected, similarly to how certain men feel entitled to a woman or a partner and violently attacks her (although in this case indirectly by framing Charlie's murder on her and creeping into her subconscious in the nightmare).

He fights for dominance he knows she can't naturally have because that's how nature is, correct? Females will always be submissive to males and rejection results in injury or even death.

Now imagine all of this if Sam was a man. It does not feel twice as horrifying as it actually is in its plainest form.

Nigel is a predator as we know it in the modern sociological context, and he confidently does this by exerting the violence that comes with masculinity which he ironically learnt from a woman.

WHY DO YOU KILL?:

It's simple. Nigel kills to assert his dominance.

Sam kills to emotionally regulate, but also kills to assert dominance.

Sam is seen to revere wild bears as she sees herself as a bear (she is, but moreso in the sense she is not "human" or social like the other animal folk in Woodbrook) and chooses to be one with what she loves. Her fascination and kinship with the strength and the power they hold in nature is why she chooses to present, dress, and act butch. However, we do see in gaps and moments that she is aware of how powerless she actually is if she was a bear and if she were to be a person. There's the pressure to be good. There's the social pressure that comes with being a woman. There's the expectations of her gender and the exploitation men will have over her in either situation.

And so she kills. She has no young to defend. She's not interested in love, or raising a family or being social so she'll act like a male bear because that is the closest she'll ever get to having power over anyone.

And that power will be challenged in the Spring.