#Ashkaztra overanalyzes

[gatesnladders]

So here's a fun thing.

Did you know that Iratus bugs aren't insects? Also not bugs, except in colloquial use, because bugs are insects with piercing, sucking mouthparts. And while they have the mouthparts, they are not insects, so also not bugs.

See, insects specifically have six legs and antennae, as well as a body divided into three segments. Iratus bugs have the body, but no antennas and only two pairs of legs. Which makes them arthropods, but not insects.

Given their particular feeding habits and bite, I'd say they're probably a specialized chelicerate. As a sub- order of arthropods, chelicerates are signified by the moving mouthparts, the chelicerae, and tend to use enzymes for feeding, to turn their prey into slurry.

Given the Wraith enzyme being a feeding aid, it makes sense. At least somewhat.

This would make the Iratus bugs, and by association also the Wraith, closer related to spiders and horseshoe crabs than to insects.

Or, you know, the designers just messed up and didn't realise that their design wasn't an insect. Also entirely possible, given that the Iratus bugs do appear to have elytra, which are not present in chelicerates.

[gatesnladders]

So today's object of pondering is Wraith body mods.

Obviously, in Wraith culture tattoos seem like the rule and not the exception. Most Wraith we see on the show have at least one, and they also tend to wear very covering clothing, so they might absolutely have more. I'm relatively heavily tattooed myself and if I wore a Wraith coat you couldn't see any of them.

Interestingly enough, though facial tattoos is shown to be the norm in Wraith, none of the Wraith on Michael's hive appears to have any. Obviously this is because the retrovirus wouldn't change tattoos, so it'd be a glaring hint when they were turned human, but I like to headcanon it as a per-Hive/Clan preference.

Now, we don't see a lot of Wraith with piercings. Todd has his earring, and the Queen in Submersion seem to be wearing plugs.

(Also, her ears are definitely just standard ears, re: the ear post)

There might be more, it's not exactly the easiest to see. Todd and the Queens get more up-close shots than most Wraith do.

Now, obviously from a costuming POV, it's a lot easier to paint on tattoos than to glue on piercings on top of all that makeup. But as I said in the ear post, most of the time you can't even see their ears since most Wraith on the show are long-haired and wear their hair mostly loose. So I figure we can headcanon ear piercings if we want. Which I do, because I am a piercing fan.

Besides, if you lived for that long and healed that fast, I feel like experimenting with body mods would be a given.

[gatesnladders]

I spent today looking at screenshots, because I should be doing something else. Go figure.

And I noticed that a lot of the earlier Wraith costumes lack the lip colour we see later on, at least up until the third season.

It's primarily James Lafazanos' Wraith who do this, but then he was most Wraith until the third season anyway.

Michael is hard to say with, because it varies a lot.

In the first they look green, in the second they look pink.

In this one, it looks like they painted his lips but it's coming off, which makes sense from a makeup point of view.

Todd's lips are green from our first look at his face and stay that way throughout the show. His teeth and gums also look grey compared to other Wraith.

In Sateda, we get a variety pack. The two first ones seem to have pinkish lips, the leader clearly doesn't. He also has the darker gums and teeth Todd has.

These two, from Midway, both have green lips.

The Wraith from Vegas has green lips again, and also a much more mottled skin, which is something we also see with Todd. Michael and Steve have subtle mottling to their skin, but far less so than Todd and the Vegas Wraith do. This is true for the Midway Wraith as well. This guy also appears to have the darker teeth and gums.

While this probably actually represents a change in costuming, it's interesting from a fandom point to see the variety we get, and especially with the lip colours, which is always fun.

James Lafazanos has a very particular way to move his mouth as a Wraith (potentially due to the hassle of speaking clearly with the teeth prosthetic in), so it's possible they also left his lips pink to draw more attention to his toothy grin.

And for fun, here's not!Todd from No Man's Land, who also appears to have more pinkish lips than his makeup as Todd does.