#black fungus virus

[ninelivesastrology]

SATURN & MARS: The Astrology of Horror

Scream (1996), directed by Wes Craven

The horror genre is my favorite genre in media and within it are some of the best and honestly, extreme examples of the significations of Saturn, the Greater Malefic and Mars, the Lesser Malefic.

Saturn is the Greater Malefic, its nature is cold and dry. It joys in the 12th House. Saturn is the signifier of darkness and dark places, enclosed spaces, restriction, control, secrecy, isolation, illness and death, taboo...

Mars is the Lesser Malefic, it's nature being hot and dry. It joys in the 6th House, a cadent house. It rules aggression, fighting, conflict, injuries, blood, deception, lying, weapons but especially sharp objects...

Starting off with the Slasher who walked while everyone else ran, I'll start with Halloween (1978).

Michael Myers moves slow, a Saturnian signification, but he gets things done. Michael spends a lot of this movie stalking Laurie, a 12th House signification.

Halloween (1978), directed by John Carpenter

I also find that very act of masking to be Saturnian in nature because of Saturn's signification of secrecy and mystery, which is given to the 12th House.

Moving onto my favorite Slasher.

Scream is the ultimate Martian movie to me. The Scream franchise itself is a masterclass in homage to so many horror films before it, but also in the concept of betrayal, something Mars rules. Its tagline is, "It's always someone you know." And in the history of this franchise, the audience had so much anticipation in finding out who Ghostface was in each entry, a true Saturn-Mars mix of mystery and bloodshed.

Scream (2022), directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Ghostface, like many other Slashers, wields a knife, but isn't exempt to using other weapons, such as guns. Mars rules all weapons.

One of my favorite creature features is Alien (1979). I have not seen Romulus! The tagline, "In space, no one can hear you scream."

One of the lesser known significations of the 12th House is travel, so get this, you're on a ship, isolated from everyone, in the middle of deep space while you and your crew members are being hunted by a large creature. Usually, the 12th House rules large animals and I would like to gently debate that the 12th House rules large, foreign creatures as well.

The Xenomorph is the ultimate monster, Saturnian by its appearance: Black. In addition, the 12th House is before birth and I find it funny how the Xenomorph impregnates it's prey, only for it to burst out in the most Martian way.

Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott

Found footage itself is especially Saturnian, since the 12th House rules missing people. I would go even farther to say that the 12th House rules the unseen. So the Paranormal is especially Saturnian in nature, given its cold and dry nature. Saturn is the absence of life and what persists beyond it.

The Blair Witch Project (1999), directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez

Onto another subgenre, one of my favorites, pestilence and death.

Saturn rules death and Mars signifies pestilence and the survival of said pestilence. Most famously, two of my favorite survival horror franchises are Resident Evil and The Last of Us. Resident Evil's entire premise of infection is centered around bioterrorism, starting with the corrupt Saturnian company named Umbrella.

Resident Evil is infamous for its body horror. In this instance, Mars rules body horror due to the painful injuries sustained from the transformation.

Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023)

In The Last of Us, we follow a man who survived the Outbreak, Joel Miller and a young girl named Ellie Williams who survived being bitten and is found to be immune. I find immunity to be Saturnian because your body is suppressing or resisting the infection. The infection itself is Martian as the 6th House rules illnesses.

The Last of Us Part I (2022)

The Cordyceps virus is very Saturn-Mars, given that the fungus attaches itself to the brain and controls it, causing the Infected to sustain its survival aggressively.

The Last of Us Part II (2020)

Survival itself is Martian in nature. Scarcity, a notable Saturnian feature of the Last of Us' intense and highest difficulty, GROUNDED, makes this a unique entry into the survival horror genre across all media. If you know, you know, the Last of Us has a theme of betrayal running through it and with that betrayal eventually comes consequences. Saturn and Mars.

I wanna talk about the Final Girls for a second. We love them. We root for them. We are them. I consider Final Girls to be obviously Venusian, given that the two domiciles of Venus, Taurus and Libra, are the detriment of Mars. Venus finds herself in trouble in the signs Mars rules, Scorpio and Aries.

In traditional astrology, detriment is considered to be the toughest placement for a planet considering it is the opposite of its home, facing conditions it is not equipped for. Certainly, the worst place and the worst time which is a Final Girl thing. Despite this, they still persevere.

Jennifer's Body (2009), directed by Karyn Kusama

If you loved this post and would like to support me as I am a Saturn Return Mommy, you can reblog this post and/or send me a tip on CashApp or purchase a $20 horary reading if you want to know about your life, click this for more details!

Happy Halloween and be safe!

Oh and what's your favorite scary movie? *wink wink*

—Nine

[zmediaoutlet]

The rot under his skin doesn't feel like rot. Pressing down doesn't make his skin sag and crumple, like a bruised pear, as it's been—other times, when the world felt like it was going to end. Or had ended. Hard to separate the two, sometimes.

Sam presses his head back against the cool tile wall, trying to center. He's not anywhere but here: a hospital bathroom, bleach and lemon-scent sanitizer, emergency lights glowing cool fluorescent white. The rabid's screaming behind two locked doors but that's been going on for an hour now and he can put it aside. Focus on the problem to find a solution. Over a life of messing things up this is actually something he's practiced at. Regardless of what follows.

The rot. Maybe not rot. Maybe something growing instead, a multiplying virus, a fungus spreading. There's heat in the thickening black veins under the skin and what feels like a fever crawling dizzy from the back of his skull and maybe that's where the rage comes from, too, whatever chaotic demand—for someone else to feel like this, for it not to feel as lonely as it does, in an echoing white room with screams for company. Sam feels carefully along the raised darkness in his chest, testing for that slippery nebulous line between thought and feeling and instinct. Trying to decide: does he want what he wants because of what's in him by nature, or from what has been trained into him, or because of some insidious growing blackness that's wrapped under and around his heart, infecting everything he touches with the wrongness of it. Familiar thought-pattern; familiar even with the dizzy unreality of fever. This is another thing he's practiced at.

Buzzing. His phone. D, glowing under his thumb, and he thinks: does he want him here because—? Or because—?

Man, you doing okay? "Dude, don't worry about me," Sam says. A snort. Have you met me? Pissy but Sam feels something settle in his chest, stretching his boots out on the tile floor, closing his eyes. Even with how screwed up it's been—his brother, free, being exactly as overbearing and rough-edged and careful as Sam had prayed for him to be, on his knees, begging help from whatever far-flung corner of the universe it might come. When it was as bad as it got and he thought maybe he'd never get that tone again.

Dude, tell me you aren't getting chewed on by darkness-zombies, Dean says. Sam smiles, tipping his head against the wall. Cool on his temple. "You get the girl safe?" A sigh. You're bad at changing the subject, but then—We're nearly there. Some kind of diaper blow-out emergency. Haven't seen sign of black fog, or—

He talks. Sam listens, his fingertips pressing against the thickest part of the growing under his skin. His throat feels thick and his head hurts and his chest feels—some way that's hard to pin down, although he'll try later, writing notes, making sure he's quantified the variables. In the meantime there's Dean's voice, nattering about the drive and worrying about the circumstances and wondering what the hell's taking the girl so long in the bathroom, it's always like this, and he should know, huh, considering the big ol' girl he got saddled with for a little brother, and Sam can see him leaned up against the side of the car in the sunlight with that furrow between his eyebrows that means he's worrying about twenty different things but knowing that he, Sam, is about five of them at various points on the list, and he wants—wants Dean here, on the tile floor under the emergency light with the smell of bleach around and wants Dean's skin bared under his and wants Dean's eyes wide open on his and wants to take that bare stretch of his forearm where that awful seared mark is finally gone and wants to—sink his teeth in, wants to have him, wants to pin him in one place and get his breath hot and shaking against Sam's own mouth and wants to make him—what?

Oh, here she is, Dean says. Okay. So—it's like a half hour more to her grandma's, and then flipping a U-ey and coming right back for you, huh? Couple hours, tops, you'll be seeing this handsome mug.

"Can't wait," Sam says, dry, and hears a brief hah before the line goes dead.

He holds the phone against his collarbone, breathing in the quiet after. Imagines darkness, spreading from the tender inside of Dean's elbow, filling him up inside. His eyes fever-bright, his hands clawing. What's in him a vile, awful thing. All because of Sam.

Thirty seconds, imagining. Feeling—it doesn't matter how he's feeling. Then he draws his heels in and stands up, forcing himself not to sway by gripping the sink so hard a knuckle pops. When he opens the bathroom door the rabid's screaming doubles in volume. There's still a chance to fix what can be fixed. Whatever else has to take a number, but if Sam's honest—some things he doesn't want to be fixed. He wouldn't recognize them, if they were.

[cartoonfanaticmonsterrobotalien]

Mighty Solars Heroes and Villains (Last Post of Mine Before Someone Takes my Mental)

Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: Invisibility and Super Shlorpian

Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: Super Strength and Mundane

Yumyulack Solar-Opposites/Vil-Gil-An-T: Laser Eyes, Weaponry and Super Shlorpian

Jesse Solar-Opposites/Fung-irl: Shlorpian Fungus and Flower powers and Mundane

Pupa Solar-Opposites/The Mighty Pupa: Telekinesis

Stacy G/Spikerella: Body armor and shooting spikes

Sonya Solar-Opposites/Nighthowler: Elasticity

Phoebe MacCarthy/Starburst: Wonder Woman-like powers and super lasso

Monica Miller/Lightspeed: Super Speed

Janiz Solar-Opposites/Ms. Quasar: Changing colors and super shlorpian transformation

JK-7/Mighty Robo: Super Robotic Powers

Kimber/Crushed Skull: Bone Bending and Mega Angel Shlorpian transformation

AISHA Solar-Opposites/Lady Camo: Shapeshifting and ultra cyber super shlorpian transformation

Lili Solar-Opposites/Mighty Baby: Super Cries

EVA/Syren Songstress: Superpowered Singing Voice

MAX/The Speedster: Super Speed

Evil Terry Solar-Opposites/Shifter: Just like the powers as Inque from Batman: Beyond and Venom combined into strength and Mundane

Parker/Venus Tip: Her powers are like Pidge from Voltron: Legendary Defender

Ms. Frankie/Night Saw: Wolverine claws

Principal Cooke/Trailblazer: Lightning dash

Cherie/Shining Light: Super stealth

Montez/Detroit: Electricity

Pezlie/Jessie-us: Super sonic cries

Nova/Heartstar: Super Empathy

Ms. Perez/Core Burn: Sun powers

Mia/Navigator: X-ray Vision

Kevin/Balanight: Tron powers

Sherbet/Fizziepop: Sweets Powers

Jamie Quilbard/Firewall: Fire Powers

Darcy Quilbard/Sonar Woman: Star Powers

Angela/Tsunami: Water powers

Mark Melner/Laserblast: Shooting lasers from hands

Sister Laffy/Zaffy Taffy: Sweet Bombs

Sister Hershey/Atomic Blossom: Glowing Powers

Bobby/Lightning Rod: Lightning Powers

Tracy/Firefly: Like Katie Power/Energizer from Power Pack comics

Abby/Ultraviolet: Rainbow powers

Owen/Bubbley Blue: Bubbles

Holly/Lil Butterfly: Ultraviolet and Butterfly powers *I found out Holly is Trevor’s daughter in the show, who also appears in the “Stock-a-Verse Ray” and “The Educational Sprinkler Device”, which makes her Shauna’s step-daughter and Stacy G’s step-sister*

Benedog Cumberwolf/Mighty Puppy: Like Underdog ‘07 *He’s Kevin’s new puppy from the pet Deenosuar Solar Opposites episode*

Randall/Blackhole: Voodoo magic

Travis/Bloom Surfer: Slime Powers

Avery/Diamenroto: Diamond Powers

Cheery Smithers/Bloody Sympathy: Blood Bending

Janice/Teleport Woman: Teleportation and flight

Jackie Quilbard/Thunderella: Thunderstorm powers

Pim/Soarin’: Flying powers

Jam/Razzle Dazzle: Star powers.

Keith/Behemoth: Strength and Rage Mode

Ringo/Orb Lord: Spirit Ball Powers

Theo/Techrat: Holo Powers *he is the Wallian who used to help Stephen from “Terry and Korvo Steal a Bear”

Shauna/Magma: Oozing molten green lava powers

Trevor/Slimar: Turned into walking blue goo that sprays baddies with goo.

Alice/Black Moon: Like Silk from Spider-Verse

Dr. Weathertsone/Blizzard: Ice powers

Naomi/Black Mamba: Shooting slithering webs

Glen “Dodge Charger”/Silver Knight: Heroic Silver Powers

Zylenol “Zy”/Lightning Wing: Neon Electricity Powers

Gragger/Sticky Squid: Goo Powers

Skunt/Zamboni: Spinning Ball Powers

Fivo the Ferret Halo/Ice Beast: Blizzard powers

Ruben the Rabbit Halo/Thunder Rabbit: Cyber Thunder Powers

Croaker the Toad Halo/Screaming Toad: Screaming powers

Rita the Rat Halo/Speed Rat: Technology Powers

Shelly the Turtle Halo/Shellshock: Speed Powers

Piper/Sunburn: Star Powers

Tomblr/Turbo Rider: Like the Silver Surfer but different

Sofia/Furiosa: Cosmic Fireball Powers and Speed

Gavin/Lone Defender: Strength and Cowboy-Based Powers

Hedgie/Blazing Hedgehog: Super Speed

AXL/Virus: Super virus powers *He is a new green AI OC Evil Terry created when he first appeared on Earth*

Oscar/La Vulture: Undead Reaper powers *He is Sofia’s Uncle, who was brought back to life thanks to Dodge Charger*

BO/Bonzai: An orange AI assistant Kimber made and EVA’s crush; machete powers

LOU/Bounceball: A yellow baby AI assistant Korvo built for Pupa, Lili and JK-7 as a playmate; bouncing ball powers

Mighty Solars Villains

Darkness/Kano: A legendary sorcerer from the dark side of the moon who can turn people into his own shadow slaves and has been after Shlorpians for a long time. He was return to life as Kano, a mysterious fire bending vigilante until he was finally killed off for reals thanks to Cheery’s other half and late love interest, Naomi. He even manipulated Qourra into turning against her fellow people as an exchange for revenge for her mother.

Lá Smaragdus: A jewel-themed super villainess who was once a Latino tv star, until her salary was cut and she was fired from her show. Her powers are turning people into diamond statues and making minions out of rare gems.

Screech: A muscular super villain with the power of brutal strength that can tear apart objects and innocent people.

Platinum Belt: A manipulating spiritual cyborg controlling a superhero named Blue Belt, and is known to manipulate innocent bystanders by taunting them over their issues and fears and their flaws.

Temptra: A robot disguised as a gorgeous platinum southern-accent woman created by Platinum Belt to tempt people into their own temptations, which ended up failing badly when she suffers the wraith of Qausarblast.

Sun-Yi: An evil young ninja after an ancient artifact known as the Blue Heroin and is revealed to be Blue Belt’s rival.

Piedro Blobsmith: An obese mafia boss in charge of a dangerous alien slime food company that causes aliens, including Shlorpians to become morbidly obese and the size of blimps. His main victims are Korvo and Terry aka Qausarblast and Mighton.

El Minotaur: An evil warlord and nemesis to the Resistance who is after Earth-4 by building for fortress for when he kidnaps innocent bystanders so he can brainwash them into his soldiers.

Mindreader: A villain that tortures people through their minds and send them on weird bizarre trip in the Forbidden Zone.

Simon/Tarantula Boy: A super villain teenager with the powers of a tarantula that can turn into mindless zombie army.

Zahmara Python: A famous well-known evil bounty hunter alien woman who hunts down and kills innocent aliens.

Morlak: An evil sorceress who believes in the power of darkness and sees love and family as nothing. Her powers is to make people give into their own fears and turn them into monsters.

Spirala: A teenage villainess with the power to turn teenage girls into Lust-themed zombies and also turns teenage boys into her own love-blinded slaves.

Zeus: A crook that wants to drain people’s energy for his own powered machine that can make the world entirely dark.

Candy Bitch: A cute but evil and bratty super villain based on candy sweets that has candy-themed powers, including shooting Starburst Fruit Candy slime from her hands.

Rock Fraud: A former rockstar who lost their career after it was revealed that they were lip singing this whole time. They now have the power to steal people’s voices, so they can use it for evil purposes.

Moral Blade: An evil shadow woman with the power of turning people into their worst dark selves and turning them rebellious.

Dreamweaver: A robot that turns people away from real life and put them into their own fantasy worlds from their own dreams, or worse… nightmares!

Merissa: A rogue witch who wants revenge on the human witches of Earth-4 for kicking her out because of her jealousy over newcomers and for turning her son against her.

GeenaDavisTron 4000: A robot built to help struggling students as school, but then rebels and malfunctions into a war machine after labeling humans and the Solar Opposites imperfect beings.

Empress Ophelia Darkstar: An evil empress from the planet Emeralddon that hunts down aliens for their own life sources for her corrupted planet.

Impulse: A super villain with a huge amount of blood pressure that causes her to attack citizens with passive-aggressive behavior and is very dangerous to be around with when it comes to very strong emotions.

La River Bestia: The swamp monster of Earth-4’s Swamp Forest who is revealed to be a young deranged scientist turn into a monster by his own troubles.

Magnesium: A villain who turns out to be a former head of the Bowenian Church that is revealed to be Sister Sisto’s apprentice and is after Pezlie.

Macromanser: Once a famous wrestler woman named Alya Sparks, she is a now a monstrous strong woman bent on crushing people with her own savage strength.

Pinball Brat: A teenage super villain based on a pinball machine that traps people in her house size pinball machine and makes them play the game.

Madame Luna: A witch villainess that was a former meteorologist that has powers based on the moon.

The Rose Triplets: Madame Luna’s manipulative minions who are colored in different shades of rose and are good acrobats.

Qourra- A former water bender who goes rogue and tries to blood bend people for revenge on the death of her mother. Only for her to caused an Unwitting Instigator of Doom which led to the arrival of the Silver Spades.

The Silver Spades- A villainous team of dangerous silver-shaded multi-colored villains that blew up Earth and are actually apprentices and allies of the Silver Cops that are after the Solar Opposites once they heard about their arrival on Earth and later Earth-4. The members are Maverick, the silver-green leader who is determined to take down the Mighty Solars, Loo-Loo, the silver-yellow member with the power of dangerous lightning, Bullet, the silver-purple member with strength powers that rivals Mighton’s, Zelda, the silver-red member with the power of lava and Aqua, the silver-blue member with the powers of controlling water.

Carl Rockwell: A dangerous most wanted criminal that is going after the Mighty Solars’ allies.

Dr. Van Gurbin: A scientist that tested on steroids but was kicked out of his college for testing it on innocent people. Now he is gonna use Mighton’s strength for revenge.

Sister Sisto/Black Mirror: A returned foe from the Wall, who has been revived as a super villain of dark magic and mind control.

RUTH: An evil AI assistant who is red and AISHA’s evil counterpart created by Sister Sisto. *Her voice actor is also Eden Espinosa*

Anthony/Sand Beast: A rogue Wallian who develops the power of sand and moon sand, and has the ability to turn into a monster.

Lava Master: He was originally a teenage boy who is Mark’s former crush has gone rogue and became a villain that turns into a lava monster.

The Nega-Alexes: The Solars’ snobby neighbors from “The Educational Sprinkler Device” who became super villains after forming an alliance with the Silver Cops.

The Thunder Silvers: Lonesun, Glorgax, Ventrez and Pobo, who are now super villains after being exposed for framing Glenn by Quasarblast, Silver Knight and Lightning Wing.

Stephen/Beast Man: A rogue Wallian who now has the power to command dangerous carnivorous humanoid beast minions that were once humans.

I hope you love this post and yes. Glenn is redeemed in this one.

@avaveevo, @almar4121, @themagicwolf6677, all of my watchers, I hope you love this last post of mine.

Oh and by the way, I found out Louise’s real name in the show is Shauna when Korvo give her the McNugget Buddy collection, Kevin’s Wife’s name is actually Angela and their kids are names Abby and Owen. In this version, Sofia used to have a crush on Mia but moved on because she knows how much Ms. Perez means to Mia and is happy for them and now Sofia has feelings for someone else: Nova and Phoebe *it’s a polyship in my version*. Bobby is the boy with the large glasses in some of the Solar Opposites episodes and the one Sonya has a crush, Kieth is the Solars’ neighbor from the Season 2 finale and now AISHA’s love interest and Piper is one of the Wallian girls:

This is Piper:

Also, Skunt secretly has a crush on her after she saved his life. Oh and Glenn/Dodger Charger and Zy are dating now. I hope you love my new and last Mighty Solars post guys.

And here are Sister Laffy:

And Sister Hershey:

Oh and here are Tracy, Jackie and Bobby!

Tracy (the one one Yumyulack accidentally send his mound pic too and is revealed to be Pim’s daughter; Pim is revealed to be a widower. His first wife died when Tracy was a baby)

And Bobby (he is also revealed to be Jam’s son, Jam’s first husband died when Bobby was two)

And Jackie Quilbard (Oh and she is now Jamie and Darcy’s adoptive daughter because her parents went into rehab and lost custody of her)

And this is Holly

[voltstone]

…about the clementine comic (again): why is she illiterate?

I've already written an exhaustive essay about the Clementine comics written by Tillie Walden, and that was before the first book was out. It was more of a discussion of what was already seen from the teaser, Walden being an…interesting choice to write this, but more than that, it was to preemptively stake the claim that no, it isn't canon. Not in the way that's just "ew I hate this I refuse," but more so, "the games (and character) by design and functionality do not allow for single interpretations to adequately continue the story."

These comics can be…a canon. But not the canon.

In the same way as The Walking Dead Game's (TWDG) fanfiction, like my own where I'm writing only my canon interpretation, the others who do the same, and so on.

(This right here is the essay, by the by.)

It has been a couple years since then. I have read both comics, and there is a lot I can say about them. I may one day, but not right now.

Instead, I want to direct attention to how…weirdly anti-apocalyptic it is?? Because it bothers me. A lot. That I'm watching a Clementine as a character get reduced to a kid who doesn't know how to read or write, doesn't know how to dress and care after a wound...

All things necessary for survival—the reading especially within an apocalyptic setting. Which. No. I'm not kidding. I do mean that.

Before I really indulge in my grievances, however, I will start by outlining the world that TWDG has established, and what it actually takes to survive within it.

(And yes, this is another lengthy post.)

[Surviving the Apocalypse]

Throughout the games, we ultimately see the apocalypse under two overarching eras. The initial stage is calamity. The walkers swiftly overrun what people upheld as a stable, and very secure way of life. And the fact that it only takes one factor to destroy the "we're untouchable" notion, it's terrifying. (Which, on that note, though the undead is an extreme, we did maybe learn this post-COVID. Ergo, stories like these may resonate a little bit better than they had before.)

What's different about The Walking Dead (TWD) as a universe is that…, the true calamity arguably doesn't hit until later, because the dead themselves aren't what really destroys the untouchable mindset as before. In most universes, such as The Last of Us, it's something contagious that you don't want. However, it is also something to overcome and fix. Though the dead in TWDG's cousin is far more brutal, if you isolate them, or find a way to vaccinate…, there could feasibly be a future where the fungus is more akin to rabies or the black plague rather than a devastating change in society.

Because that's how diseases like these work. They will never go away, especially if humanity mishandled their responses to them. Rabies is still out there, because it is a violent disease (am also under the impression that walkers is very synonymous with rabies, but I digress). The Black Plague? That whole thing? Yeah, the plague itself is also still out there. The problem was solved by nature, where a fire torched all of London.

But since then, we have vaccines. We know better (…I hope) in how to appropriately respond. And…that's the best we can do. Pathogens will always dictate life.

Of course, this isn't to undermind what outbreaks as seen in those other stories do to the world. They evidently are a turning point, if not the end, of humanity's way of life. The reason why, however, falls more in-line with a society being greatly unprepared, and a virus, fungus, whatever being the perfect amalgamation that spreads rapidly. It's what we as humans have gone through, will go through, to an absolutely extreme. Complete annihilation. That kind of deal.

Here's the thing about TWD, and I honestly could go on and on with this (and why it's my favorite apocalypse I've seen in fiction):

The bite is not what does it. Everyone is infected.

And the longer you think about it, that in itself will not end. I'm in the camp that it would be maternally passed-down given how blood circulation works within pregnancy, so. You know.

The point here is TWD as an apocalypse is very unique in this one change. It fundamentally breaks how people approached these kinds of stories. The walkers are not particularly fast because they don't have to be. They are a looming presence. As they deteriorate, because they're so slow-moving (as apposed to clickers), they manage to tell their own stories in how they died. You can see if they were bit, or starved, or shot… List goes on.

They are representative of nature reclaiming the world, and on top of that, a dangling threat to anyone who has the gall to think they're above it.

Because they're not. So either make sure your head is shot, or deal with walking around like a mangy pile of rot.

It changed how people approached this because rather than a devastating outbreak, this feels like a sort of damnation. There is a very bleak sense of finality to this universe—to the point where… Yeah. They could live on, try to find a cure, but this is it.

This is the true calamity of this world—not the walkers themselves, but the fact that they are there to stay, there is no going back. At least, for a long, long, long time. You can't just isolate them. If someone dies the wrong way, there could be one in the room right with you. Hence…making sure your head is shot.

And as with in the games, it is such a bleak reality that it forces people to just move on.

Which they do. The way to survive this initial era is, amongst a wide scope of things, to accept the fact and carry forth.

The characters that don't, and are simply too rooted in the past, like Katjaa… Well, they don't make it, do they? There's a reason why we don't see that many unable to let go after the first season, because they don't last. If they do, like with Tenn, it's because they got lucky and had a community to fall back on. Regardless, given what we see with Katjaa, Season One (S1) is this time.

The second era of the apocalypse is seeding. Both in the literal sense, and symbolic.

I'm not talking established communities, no. The closest we get to that is the boarding school, given they do have established practices. But, with how many things need to be done, the schoolkids are still within this second era.

Season Three (S3) is arguably the first season of the four solidly within the second era. Sure, there are still scavengers, but there are also several communities at once—enough so that the conflicts between end up being why they fail, not purely the dead. This leaves Season Two (S2) to be the fitting chaos that ensues between the eras, where much of the world is scavenging, they're reminded of how cruel winter is actually, but there are already solid efforts in building communities; then, Season 4 (S4) as well within the second era, with clear signs that there is the gradual chance of establishment.

The second era requires not only what the first proposes—moving on—, but also a sense of ingenuity. They're left with the scraps of the past world, but that past world also grew out of the earth, so they can cobble those scraps and earth together and make something out of it. We have Prescott on the airstrip; that is the epitome of cobbling things together. There's Richmond, and Howe's Hardware as well, where it's making use of the scraps left behind to establish proper farms. Then Ericson's as a meld of both—the kids have their structure, but they needed to feed off the land. (Not quite at the farm stage like the others were.)

All of what I've discussed thus far, however, is on an overarching scale (and isn't exactly exhaustive either). It can be extrapolated and used in reference to an individual's survival, but there are ways to better articulate an individual's survival than just…get the fuck over it, and build a farm.

And what's interesting is there is a vast difference in requirements depending on how they choose to survive.

With a community. Or. Alone.

The benefits to a community is you yourself don't have to encompass the three traits to survive. (Oh, yeah, this essay will have three primary traits of surviving on an individual scale; obviously there will forever be more nuance, but…shush. I'm typing.) Within a community, you can rely upon others that do encompass the three traits—and it doesn't have to be all in one person. The people within a community can specialize in skills.

And the schoolkids best emulate this.

Tenn and Willy, though they have their own skillsets, are example of those who need to rely on others. Both have the school, though they are closest to Violet and Mitch respectively—those, if asked, would likely be considered the closest thing to caretakers that either boys have.

And right alongside them, Louis, because my man…would like to say he's allergic to work, but really, it's the self-doubt. Now, if not a person who is reliant, he is good for raising spirits. He knows games to play. He brings entertainment.

There's Marlon, who's the well-spoken leader. Ruby, who plays nurse. Aasim, who…writes? Writing's important and stuff in the apocalypse, right?

(Yes. It is. Again, we will get to that, so, hush-up.)

Rosie. Dog. (This is also very important. You can pet her!)

Mitch was likely the muscle, or something along those lines. Omar, the cook.

I would say Brody sits near the "needs to rely" camp, given her anxiety, though, she does actually pull her weight, ergo, support. You can task her with anything. She'll likely be able to do it, such as with fishing and hunting.

Violet was also probably another support, though it is difficult to really tell at the beginning because she's withdrawn from the rest of her people. (I've always felt the Violet we meet at the start isn't who she was before the twins left. Of course, Violet is Violet, but… Depression, and stuff. Probably BPD stuff.) Here's the thing though: come to find, Violet is also another thing.

That being deputy. She can step-up and play leader when need be, but will step down because that isn't quite what she is—hence why the leadership ultimately goes from Marlon to Clementine by the end. This has Violet be the ultimate support. She can do whatever, fill in the leadership role, so on and so forth.

As the community develops, the others will find more nuances in themselves like these. Beyond what I've outlined, and the present nuances already in S4.

The thing with this line-up to understand is there's huge variety here. Not only in the nature of each role, but also their complexity. Because…, turns out, there's a lot to living.

Which. I mean. All of that is no shit, Sherlock. Because yeah.

When I go on about, say, Violet, it's to explain a very specific concept that one word is not going to do. There's a specific reason why I say deputy, and not second-hand; there is a thing where roles will and do change depending on circumstance, and time. (As with Willy (and Tenn) when he grows up, and when Louis becomes more confident.) But this doesn't mean it's more important. When I say "Omar, the cook," or "Ruby, who plays nurse," neither are to designate either as lesser roles.

They're actually crucial. Because no fucking shit. You need to eat. You need to learn how to mend yourself.

It's why those roles are so…simple. Because title alone says everything.

Certain roles, like Violet's (which…may or may not be ironic), are very community-centric. Others, like Omar and Ruby's, are fundamental to just life. And what you see is within communities, those fundamentals go from just skillsets to an art or to a science. When you have people who specialize in each, they are given the time and space to truly understand the ins and outs of what they're doing.

Cut to alone.

Those like Clementine.

Surviving alone is difficult because not only are all of these crucial roles in the community on one set of shoulders, there has to be great sacrifice. Of course, a leader or deputy isn't needed because there's just one. The social aspect of a community is not present.

With that social aspect follows specialization of the core fundamentals.

You need to eat. You need to learn how to mend yourself. And defend...

When you are on your own, without the security of a home, you are not given the time nor the space to truly know those ins and outs. So, when you look at those like Clementine, yes. She's not going to know little tricks, or the sciences, in what she does. The stitching for example:

Clean it. Sew the fucking body part shut. Wrap if you can. There you go, you just did stitching.

Which she does. However, S2, part of why the dog bite (oh, and yes, comic people? yeah, there's supposed to be a deep, concerning scar down her left forearm) scarred the way it did is because 1) …um, she was in a shed, dunking-back apple juice in between sutures in my case, getting jumped by a dead dude, and 2) the stitch-work was very rudimentary. Enough to close the wound and have it heal, sure. Then, S3, the same with Javi; Kate upon inspection does mention that she sees it bleeding through, indicating that again, it's very rudimentary. But, we have Eleanor examine it, and she notes that it is satisfactory, so long as it's looked after.

Had someone like Ruby, or better yet Eleanor (who Dr. Lingard complimented this exact skill) done it, they would have known different stitch techniques that not only closes the wound tight, but also leaves minimal scarring. And the other things, like how to adapt the techniques to different parts of the body, because…no, you really can't just stitch a knee like you would a back.

But again, Clementine didn't have the time to really learn the specifics. She's busy learning how to cook, and hunt, and defend, and scavenge supplies, drive, shoot, car maintenance, feeding a child, taking care of the child, protecting the child, prioritizing necessities…

Essentially, in terms of community vs solo, it's an argument between the specialized, and the jack of all trades.

Stay with me now. I'm not exactly done going over what is needed to survive, because there are more. There's the three traits I mentioned. But as I babble on, once the discussion over the comic begins, I do hope it's clear as to why I am going through these things as meticulously as I am.

Now we get to why Clementine of all girls would be able to live in this kind of environment. She's a kid, but like…young adult given the context. (I'm sure the medieval ages wouldn't argue.) She's like…stupid, or something. She only went to so much school, and we all know that only smart people graduate from school. I never met a dumbfuck at college ever! No!

…got a little side-tracked.

Genuinely though, what is it about Clementine?

I'll start this with a curveball:

What is the dumbest thing that she has ever done within the games?

There's room for debate, but the majority will probably point to S1, where she goes on to trust the voice at the other end of her radio—the voice being the Stranger's.

It's the decision that we, as an audience, thought Clementine was above doing even at that age. It's also what ultimately kills Lee.

Here's the thing, though:

Clementine putting faith into the Stranger wasn't just a child being stupid. For one, she is…eight/nine. So. A child. But, two, it was an exercise of her greatest flaw:

"She's a puzzle."

Something that is brought up, time and time again. To my mind, it's most notably done by Katjaa, whenever they're beside the train, and Duck is of ailing health. Clementine sits on her own log. Doesn't respond much to Lee, not until Chuck (as a breath of fresh air) comes to join the party.

See, she heard a voice from the other end of this radio—one of two (including the hat) mementos she has of her family—, and the one thing that she had in way of sanctuary. The Stranger said the right things, so she kept to herself with that radio, and let her desperation flourish.

Finding her parents was the one thing she wanted. So yes, through a child's gullibility, and a man's manipulation, she believed the wrong person.

We see this sort of flaw propagate time and time again. Granted, it does depend on the player's interpretation of her for S2 and S4, given we play as her, but in S3 where she's (quite literally, for the most part) out of our hands, what does she do? She keeps to herself. What happened to A.J? was a question on our minds, largely because of her reluctance to open up. Clementine lies to Javi about the New Frontier, then she turns around and explains her lie…, reveals her branding…, purely for survival's sake, not because she wholeheartedly trusts him.

Of course, in S3 it's understandable that she doesn't just open up to Javi. That game covers only a handful of days—short of a week by the end—, with the exception of the flashback sequences. (As opposed to S1, across several months, S2, a few weeks to a month, give or take, and S4, which sits about the same.)

Still, however. This is absolutely a part of Clementine's character: she's reserved. Without the player, her first inkling is to keep herself from the topic of conversation.

The thing to understand about this flaw, and how it bleeds into the comics, is that…I think(?) Walden acknowledged this part of her character. But…half of it.

The reason why comic Clementine pulled away from the boarding school is because she…, as she does…, kept to herself after her leg, got into her own head, and thusly ran off. I will say, I do agree that Clementine would be an absolute fucking mess with her leg gone because she has to rely on people again. (Which is devastating because of her specific trauma: à la parentification.)

Now…, run away…? Um…

(…it's also this specific trauma that… Um. Yeah no, she would not leave A.J.)

Whatever. Not the point of this essay.

The other half of this flaw, the half that the comics blatantly miss, speaks to quite an…insightful aspect of Clementine:

She is a very, very perceptive individual. Because the thing we see in S1 is that she's not just quiet. She's watching. She's observant. Clementine is quiet, not only because she gets into her own head, but because she's taking in the world, and so she notices things that other people don't pick up on.

Throughout S1, there will be moments where Lee can try to sugarcoat things, particularly after Duck's bite, only for Clementine to say it plainly:

"You don't know that."

Those moments speak to a kid who knows the difference between reality and not, and telling Clementine that she won't get snatched or bit is…not reality. It will likely happen, and it does.

Other moments, she'll notice details in the environment. She can point them out. Help Lee, as with getting into the train station. Make a comment, like in Hershel's barn with the "dookie"/shit/manure.

Or, back in the drugstore, where Carley (…not too subtly) outs Lee as a murderer in front of Clementine. …which, of course, Clementine picks up on. (The trigger for this is to pick up the photo of Lee with his family, hence why it can be before or after moving the desk.) To which, upon leaving the drugstore's office, she'll ask about it, and you'll have the option of being open and honest, sugarcoating it, or just flat out lie.

Staying in the drugstore! Lee asks for something to bar the entrance. Walkers are scratching to get a nibble. And? Immediately, she goes to his dad's cane (cuz that man ain't using anymore!).

S2. Same spiel. Because…, oh boy, incompetence is rampant as it turns out, and as I've stepped into adulthood for myself, I've come to appreciate that season as essentially "Clementine learns why the motel family fell apart, adults are grown ass children, she has to babysit them— KENNY, DOWN! STOP IT! STOP BITING THE RUSSIAN!— throughout a winter."

Because. Newsflash. Adults? About as stable of a concept as a table with a missing leg, then another one of mangled-together cutlery. And I will forever adore stories from a kid's perspective slowly realizing this fact.

(…also, parentification's a knocking. It wants in.)

Then, S3, where she gave up being the hero, but still…, somehow…, rattles off exactly what the player needs to do and where to get the tools when stealing a truck because she just can't help herself.

…okay, I think I've done enough. S4 also speaks for itself.

Point being, Clementine is a very perceptive, very resilient, and very adaptive person. It's why she out of all the kids she comes across is the one to survive.

Sarah immediately comes to mind as someone who really struggled with adapting. She can, but the tragedy of it is that it's not in time. Too little, too late. (Circumstances also don't help.)

With Gabe (if he dies), same kind of thing. He always struck me as someone painfully unaware of how good he had it, and how bad everything else was. And he needed to grow up. Fast. But again, that alone isn't what saves him—his uncle, and/or Clementine do(es). If he's saved at all, anyway.

Duck? Same fucking thing. And it was his death, through Chuck, that spurred Lee to start teaching Clementine the basics.

To which she adapts, and she adapts well. Their first outing doesn't go…all that great. Clementine freezes. But, throughout S1, she does shoot her first walker (with Omid, or in Crawford). If Lee cannot fight off the Stranger, she will be the one to kill him. And then, of course, the whole Lee death scene thing.

The second season starts off with Omid dropping because of a neglected gun. (Clementine freezes again.) Change is always on rocky road—despite the season prior, she still had a lot to learn, and she did throughout said season.

Perceptive, and resilient, and adaptive. To be those is the ticket to survival. Those are the three.

So why…does it seem like the comics don't know?

[VANCOMYCIN]

To anyone unaware, vancomycin is not a random string of letters for Clementine to work her mouth through. In fact, she knows how to read it. Had to, in order to inject this medicine into A.J within S3—whether or not she goes through with it is dependent on player choice.

Vancomycin, to give a better idea of the sheer desperation she was in, is not something to treat the common cold or flu. It's to treat Gram-positive bacterial infections—hence why it wouldn't necessarily work for colds or flu, given most are virus-borne—, and is generally synonymous with more serious infections.

Meaning. A.J was genuinely sick.

(My hunch is bacteria-borne pneumonia.)

I don't know what most of the fandom assumed, but it was not just a little bug. It was…bad. And a legit miracle that he survived (whether it be without the injection, or…with the injection where Clementine poked the syringe through his shirt? Game? Graphics?).

What likely happened was, somewhere down the line, he either just caught something on an off chance (the world hasn't been sanitized), or he got too close to danger and got himself sick that way off of one of the walkers/animals around. (If it was pneumonia, he likely inhaled something.) Regardless, Clementine was at a point where she…just did not have the resources to help him, would not know where to look, wouldn't feasibly be able to scavenge for it, and so she joined the New Frontier (whether or not you had her agree initially) because it was just that bad.

It is a heavy drug. Not only does it give insight as to why Clementine chose to join regardless of your choice for her, it also explains why the group threw her out for even handling it. It's not like aspirin that's easy to come by.

And, of course, there's the pronunciation of it. As with every medical term like this, it looks and sounds convoluted, but as you break it down, it's pretty straightforward.

Keep this in mind as I rattle on further. I find the vancomycin to be a very succinct contrast to what I take issue with in the comics.

Speaking of, the comics.

Hello there.

…Clementine.

The Clementine Comics, by Tillie Walden, read as a hard reset on the series, from S1 onward. Which yes, is the core issue. There was no effort in even trying to continue off from S4, it was just a way to have Clementine still run around, while avoiding the whole Telltale-RPG implications of a continuation.

So, if you're somehow out of the fandom and you're reading this, hi? Welcome. This is why people are upset about the comic, and for once, no, it's not just because this fanbase is being…unhinged. (In a bad way.)

On top of the plot decisions, however, there are things that just prove Walden was not the artist for this project. The artstyle is an interesting(?) fit for TWDG, but ultimately is an aside. There's the focus on romance. There's the dull characters.

And then there's Clementine herself. Very out of character, and that's coming from someone whose Clementine has…made decisions in her life.

What this essay will focus on, however, is the choices made to have Clementine incompetent.

Medically so.

In the first book, Clementine is taught how to clean and dress her amputated leg. I can get behind learning how to wrap the thing properly, because it is a different part of the body, and it's a different angle—on herself, not someone else.

But she asks…why she needs to clean it. Like she doesn't know. Clementine has to be taught that.

This kind of ignorance then follows her into the second book, because she fell ill (and slipped into a month-long coma??), largely due to her not cleaning the wound. Her leg had an infection. And it spread.

…okay. Um.

That's very interesting considering Clementine:

(S2) Got bit by a dog, felt like she needed to take care of it herself due to circumstances, cleaned it, sutured the wound with fishing wire, and then went to bandage it (before getting attacked). (By the way, the scar is not on comic Clementine. So.)

(S2; optional) Can sit beside Rebecca during her pregnancy to help, but then does have to assist with the walker/lurker problem.

(S2) Tended to Kenny's lost eye because he was beaten by a walkie-talkie by cleaning it.

(S2) Probably had to deal with that whole wound in her shoulder, you know, from the FUCKING RIFLE SHOT, either with Kenny, Jane, those at Wellington, or on her own (feat A.J). (No, they did not patch it up because time, and it went clean through. When Jane and Kenny fought, Clementine just had an open bullet hole.)

(S2/S3) Had to take care of a baby. With Jane or Kenny or in Wellington, and/or on her own.

(S3; alone S2 ending) Broke her finger on a car door to the point where she (presumably) had to amputate and cauterize the finger herself.

(S3) THE WHOLE VANCOMYCIN THING. I WILL GET BACK TO THAT.

(S3) Cleaned and sutured Javi's arm after he got shanked (cuz Gabe… never mind).

(S4) Twas a great start. Car accident—boo boo head.

(S4) Had to patch-up A.J cuz he got shot by a shotgun. And was in recovery for two weeks.

(S4; optional) Louis/Violet gets their finger chopped off. Probably helped deal with that.

(S4) Um. Her leg? You know. The one she lost, and the schoolkids managed to get her stable. Willing to bet Ruby would lose her fucking shit if it wasn't cleaned properly.

And that's just what we do see, in regards to Clementine personally.

Do I…have to go on and explain why it's fucking stupid that she doesn't know the basic information she had to learn in the comics? No?

Okay. Good.

I will get back to it, because I think this choice is indicative of a larger issue. We'll get to that weird…bias the comics have with Clementine being negligent and ignorant to all things medical.

Because now, we're here.

Not only is Clementine ignorant medically, she struggles to read her way through a dictionary. There's scenes of her sounding out words like she's in preschool.

For what reason?! Because in a world where people don't have higher education, they just don't read and write?! What?!

Okay, so, no, I didn't outline precisely why reading and writing (more so reading) is crucial of a skillset to have within an apocalyptic setting. I will do so now.

Because it's the crux of this essay. Hence why I've given it its own section. (…that's what this is, by the way.)

Why is it, exactly, "so" important Volt? Society's gone!! You don't need to read!

Listen up, ✨ dipshit ✨ This is an apocalypse. Not a nomadic setting.

Okay, that was a little mean. If you're asking this, you're not a dipshit.

Anyway, I am being genuine here. To the point where even implying that nomads by nature are illiterate is also…wrong. Because that's not necessarily true either, but assuming so falls into such an ignorant bias that people in 1st world countries have. (The same that the comics have.)

And this bias is the reason why I really, really want to have this discussion because the comics really rubbed me the wrong way with this, and, I'm kinda sick and tired of reading other people implying the same thing.

So let's start here:

What distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom? Why is it we consider ourselves more intelligent?

The answer boils down to one thing:

Our mouths.

We can talk. And in doing so, we can communicate to each other very complex and nuanced concepts that require articulation beyond body language and emotion.

It's why we're able to distinguish things like envy versus just being irritated by someone. Because frankly? They physically feel the same because they are the same emotion. The context is what differentiates envy vs irritability. The why.

"I feel [this] because I want what they have." vs "I feel [this] because they're being stupid right now."

The [this] is the same. The body only has so many ways it can tell you what you're feeling, so it ends up boiling down to very basic emotions, where they can be felt at different extremes, or in unison. So. You know. Think Inside Out. What makes envy special is…you have to take context into consideration. Yes, it is also irritability, but it goes beyond that. And it requires language to communicate such a thing.

When you look at animals, that's why they're "unintelligent." They respond to what they feel the way they do because they don't have a way to articulate it. So they just react. Rather blindly in our eyes. Same thing with babies. They haven't gone through language acquisition just yet—they're in the same boat. It's also why a lot of dog breeds are said to "have the same intelligence as a 3 year old." It's related to language. They feel the same emotions, or whatever equivalent (can't claim I know how their bodies process emotions). However, they physically cannot exercise language verbally. Ergo, they're more or less stunted in the acquisition.

And then you have that we are wired to speak. Our mouths by design are made to verbalize complex sounds. A lot of our brain power is in being able to talk, or at least comprehend patterns in speech if the individual is mute. I for one was a child who rarely spoke for my first ~4/5 years, but I knew what people were saying. (Funnily enough, I was a lot like A.J.)

Beyond emotions, it's also to communicate things rather than [follow me, are you following, I'm looking at you, follow me,] it's "okay, I'm going over here, meet me by this tree." There's immediate clarification. There's a passage of thought between two brains. We don't have to interpret body language as much, we have to comprehend words.

To the rest of the animal kingdom, that makes us already mind-readers. Given that people are honest, and can articulate well, we literally are.

…it's also this emphasis on verbal language that has people be real fucking shit a reading body language, but whatever.

The point here is language is so fucking important. And there's a reason why we started writing things down. Some of the first records of written language, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, were to keep track of agriculture. We also forget things, so we wrote those down. Heard of the Iliad? The Odyssey? Those were orally passed down for generations, but Homer decided to scribe them so they weren't forgotten. (From what I remember, he wrote those during the Hellenistic era of the mythos. …I want to say the stories come from the Mycenaean times?)

And above all.

Long distance communication. Or. Leaving behind knowledge.

So there would be couriers. There would be scholars who learned from scrolls of scribes decades before them.

(In modern times…, labels on products so that you know what it is, how to use it… Just a thought.)

Language is what makes us different. And by proxy, writing helps us retain that.

It is never something people are just going to abandon when the world goes to shit. If anything, it's going to be the one thing people will grapple onto by the skin of their teeth.

Out of the two, yes, language would come first. There are many cultures that lived (even thrived) without having a true writing system, and did just fine because the culture had such an emphasis on oral tradition, or other ways in cementing their culture to the test of time. A lot of the Native American cultures come to mind. Nowadays, however, there's been an effort to have them written so they aren't lost because…colonialism. I don't really need to explain that, but I do think the history is important to understand (the linguist in me is also morbidly fascinated). In summary, however, the way in which these cultures were torn apart rattled people, and people saw their way of life was evaporating with every person lost. They couldn't leave anything physical behind.

I do bring this contrast to light, however, because there is a detail to understand about an apocalyptic setting, and its relationship with written word: it's reflective of what society fell. If the society before was like a lot of the Native cultures, where their culture was recorded through oral traditions and other practices, then sure, I would expect the people left behind to be "illiterate". …at least, in terms of writing. They're literate in those oral traditions and practices.

But, that's not TWDG. What we have is a society that is reliant on writing. So much of our world is articulated through an alphabet printed onto a surface.

In any case, back to the apocalyptic setting.

Another thing is, yes, we do see language come before writing. In survival, it does land people in situations where it's "I don't have time, I've been starving, I'm going to grab all the food in this place before the books." Of course. Then you have that books are heavy. You're not going to realistically carry a library around. You're going to choose other things that would help immediately.

Like a knife. Or a gun.

Those do better bashing heads in than a book (but a tome wouldn't do that bad).

Here's the thing though. To step back to how reliant our society is on writing, I don't think people realize just how much they read. (Hint: you're reading right now. You had to read in order to navigate this page.) So here's the follow images of things that, in an apocalypse, are pivotal for survival, and requires of you reading comprehension:

Signs. Food labels. First Aid labels. Maps. Manuals. Guidebooks.

You need to know where you're at. You need to understand what it is you're eating, how to cook it, and quality (ex: expiration). You need to understand first aid, what you're working with and how to apply it. You need to know where you're going. If you have equipment (like, say, a car) that you're not privy to, but need it, you need to learn basic maintenance. If you're not familiar with how to do certain activities (how to make jerky, how and where to put your urine/fecal matter), you can learn in a guidebook.

Literacy is about self-sufficiency. And each of these represent different aspects of how to live off of the scraps of a failed society.

Signs are pretty straightforward. They're articulated landmarks, and given how streets are, they're good to follow for navigation. If they're signs for complexes, they're a good way to know where you should scavenge should you be looking for a specific thing. Ex: hardware supplies; you're trying to build a camp. Either it's get lucky, or go over to someone's garage, or go over to a hardware store.

Food and First Aid labels are different things—the way they're organized is very different—, however, they serve the same purpose: those are there to inform consumers how to eat/utilize. Even though each have a very specific language, they are designed so that people not specialized in food or medicine can use them. This also applies to a lot of agriculture. Things like seed packets. Or anything that can be planted. If it has a consumer-base, there's a label on it. If it doesn't have instructions, it will most likely inform what it is.

Maps is where we start to get into more "optional" territory. Do you necessarily need a map to survive? No. It would be a life-saver to know where you are, even away from where the society was established. It would also tell you where the next town vs city is (which, to someone like Clementine who may be inclined to avoid cities, she would know which roads to take).

Manuals and guidebooks, again, are the same. They also fall into the kind of thing where weight now has to be considered.

But. Here's the thing: how many people know how to go camping? How many people were ever in boy/girl scouts? And how many more people didn't have to learn any of that because society promised security and the fact that…we don't need to focus on survival?

Okay sure, go on and on and on about how people who knew those skills already and prepped for the apocalypse would be the ones to survive. Because, uh, don't know about you, that's not necessarily how that works (luck is always a thing, and people surprise you), but also, within TWDG, I can only come up with so many people who would fall into that camp: Lilly, Mark, maybe Larry (military experience), Christa (got the vibe), Pete. Um… …Carver? He talked about, like, sheep and stuff. In reference to people, sure, but like… Uh. Hm. Well shit.

You know all the people who didn't have the experience before the apocalypse? Everyone. Fucking. Else. Including Clementine.

This is the reason why manuals and guidebooks are invaluable. They speak to a luxury because you do have the space and capacity to carry them around, so that you can gather what knowledge they have. And people just don't know this shit. Community helps, because you may meet someone who does, or has read up on it, so you don't have to. But when you're alone? …kinda a really, really good thing to have.

And none of that is going into how important books are in just passing the time. People get bored. Books are nice if you got a bum leg.

Regardless, my point should be quite clear. Sure, reading and writing will not be important in the same immediate regard, and neither will be as prolifically done as it was before. Within an apocalypse, it's not about texting, or emails, or news reports, or essays… None of that. Ergo, they're designated as an investment that weighs heavy (quite literally). It takes time to read. It takes strength and space to lug them around. You may not have any.

However. With all of what I raised, it goes back why it is, actually, so fucking important to be literate to some capacity. And to build upon that literacy. Because these people are not just living in caves. They're not in a place where humans have never gone before—quite the opposite.

Which makes it an apocalypse.

In order to navigate within the carcass of a fallen society, you need to be able to comprehend the very scraps that you're taking from said society. It left behind food, and medicine, and tools, and machinery, and knowledge. To just put that all to waste because you can't read?! Really?!

And what about a life-and-death situation where it entirely depends upon your skills in being able to read and comprehend information given to you?

I'm going to go back to the vancomycin now.

It's not something the game harps upon, but it is significant enough to Clementine's arc in S3. This medicine, regardless of injection, is why she could not see A.J, and why she had such a resentment for the New Frontier. They said they could help. In her eyes, they instead left him to die.

It is also a significant point of interest as far as this essay is concerned. Because this scene alone encapsulates all of what I'm rattling on about:

The medicine itself is a scrap of her past society. They're not making these anymore, and while I can…question how good that medicine would be by this point in time after the apocalypse (shots do have an expiration date; they also need to be stored appropriately, like in refrigerators or freezers), the vancomycin represents a limited, valuable resource.

Clementine's comprehension of what this medicine is, and why she needs it, speaks to something far from an ignorance medically. She is competent. She even knows to ensure there aren't air bubbles trapped in the syringe (hence why she lets some of the drug out before injecting; air bubbles can lead to…really nasty ways to die).

How she actually knows which drug to use, well… Either someone wrote it down for her, or she wrote it down herself. Maybe Dr. Lingard told her, or she found a resource somewhere and realized that's what she needed. It speaks to literacy, despite the challenge medical terms often have—even for medical professionals themselves.

This…is what it takes to live in an apocalypse. You have to be perceptive, and resilient, and adaptive.

Part of that adaptation is being perceptive of your environment. This environment asks you to read it—because it says everything, wears its heart on its sleeve. Ergo, you have to adapt by learning how to read.

Maybe not novels, or scriptures, but specific things. Like signs, or labels. Maps.

But this comic, it falls into a bias that a lot of people have.

And that bias bothers me. A lot.

[Why Does This Hurt Me So?]

There are three reason why this just does not work for me.

First of which, Clementine's characterization. The continuity of it. I really don't have to go on about this, since if I do, I'd just regurgitate all of what I've established before. For the sake of this section, it's just that Clementine is medically competent, just not in a specialized sense, and she knows how to read to get by. (She even starts to teach A.J how to both read and write.)

Now we'll get to the larger points of discussion.

Secondly...

How the fuck did Tillie Walden get this project?

Say what you want about the artstyle, or the characterizations, or the narrative. None of that is really what this essay is on, but are all viable criticisms down this same line of thought. You have the artstyle being very whimsical…, but…since when has TWDG been about whimsy? Or the characterizations? Which…, by now, we know about that—again, I don't need to regurgitate. Then, the narrative too? Why does it read like a romance by the time the second book comes around, rather than a story of survival?

Actually, that last one may be relevant to this after all.

Walden does not write apocalyptic works. Of course, there is no correct way in writing an apocalypse, but I'd argue this is one of the wrong ways. Not only do these comics misinterpret the bulk of Clementine's character, and precisely why she's been able to survive as long as she has—to the point where her playing the games at all is put into question—, these comics also have a strange notion on basic intelligence, and does the thing where people without school are just…stupid, almost, if not plainly illiterate.

It goes against what I've outlined as a mark of an apocalyptic setting—the survival both within nature, and within the rotting shell of the society it once was.

And, it feeds into this bias that I keep bringing up.

That bias is the third reason, and it's not a comment on Walden herself, because she's far from the only person I've seen/heard make the same assumption(s).

The bias I refer to is what I'd like to call the Modern Intelligence Fallacy. I'm confident that I and this essay are far from the first to comment on this…thing people do.

Essentially, it's whenever people judge the past and/or present group of people for being "dumber" than the current society they're based on, solely because "we're modern; we have technology, and medicine, and schools. And we know how to read and write too." It's when people undermine other cultures and/or time periods because they themselves are ignorant to what intelligence actually means.

Going back to Native Americans, and any cultures alike that didn't have a written structure. I've heard people make comments and assumptions, rather ignorant ones. But the fact is, no. The lack of a writing system is not indicative of intelligence, it's indicative of what the culture valued, and how they wanted to express that.

Part of why writing is such a core element in many European cultures, for example, is because…colonization. Look at English, and why it's such a patchwork language. They had to find ways to communicate long distance, because have of them were separated be countries between. Ergo, they wrote. Nowadays, there's telephone, or video. Then, there are other contexts which beckoned for writing, but I digress.

With a lot of these Native cultures, they valued community. That's why so many of their traditions fall within that, and that's how they communicated and passed down their history. Essentially, they just found other ways to do what the other cultures around the world were doing, and it worked for them, so what of it?

The attitudes behind this fallacy doesn't care, however. This bias does put value on the presence of language in written word in regards to intelligence, and an overall sense of superiority.

Yes, I've gone through and maintained that I do not believe, for a second, that Clementine is illiterate, and I've been defending that tooth and nail. I also do put value in language—I'm a writer, and I love linguistics. Of course I do.

And that's the awkward bent in this essay.

So, I must say, the thing to understand is…it's not really about the language itself. It's the attitudes behind the bias.

You here to argue that Clementine isn't as competent reader/writer like a girl her age would be now? (…present issues with the school system aside,) yeah. Probably.

But then why…does the comic have her be negligent with medicine? To the point where it comes across as, "Yeah, Clementine! Clean your wound! Everybody should know that! And that's just the basics!

"Silly kid in an apocalypse! She needed a grown adult to carefully explain it to her!! Oh boy, we would be so lost without our society now!"

This is why I've also taken note on the medical throughout all this. Because the medical practices aren't really related to literacy. You can be told, like Clementine was in the games, and go from there.

In the comics, however, the moments where she's told about how to take care of her leg, and the moments where she is learning how to read… They read the same. Because they are the same. They're commenting on this weird idea that humans would be stupid without our current advances, which is ridiculous because in order to have said advances…, we needed to be learning this shit before in order to create them.

These moments come from this Modern Intelligence Fallacy, and it bothers me because, let's face it, we're just as smart as we've always been.We have more knowledge. Whether it's we pass them down through specific traditions, or we've written them down to share beyond time and distance. But in terms of intelligence… No.

Do you know how many stupidass people there are out there?

There's tons of them. If anything, there's more of them now because they can rely on their communities to do the heavy lifting. And they saddle themselves right beside the people who need to rely on others, and not by choice.

I'm talking as though I'm not one of them. I don't know. I might be.

I did accidentally melt two plates in microwaves on two separate occasions so. If you want to take my words with a grain of salt, fine.

With that, though, hopefully my point(s) came across well enough.

[Conclusion]

And now I am left here. With…this.

I'm not as resigned as I was of TWDG since the comics came out, because quite frankly, there's so much to these comics where…it just feels like I'm not watching Clementine. Whether it be I'm on a couch silently judging someone else play the games, but nodding along to play nice, or just…this isn't the character at all… Yeah, I'm still stewing on it. But, I have my fanfiction, and I have the games. It is easy to ignore the comics.

The reason why I've decided to write this is 1) I find it interesting, 2) the bias people have is SUCH a pet peeve of mine, and 3) I am BAFFLED by Skybound. I honestly don't know what qualified Tillie Walden to write this, to the point where I'm frankly impressed.

It's one thing to hire someone who's unfamiliar with the franchise in hopes of an objective and new perspective, or an artstyle to try something new and unique...

And entirely another to hire someone who either isn't interested in writing, or doesn't know how to write, the genre. There are so many ways to go about writing in an apocalypse, but at its core, it will always be "no matter what, humans are going to human." This is how you can have stories of hope in an apocalypse. Or have them be bleak. And so on. With TWD, it's always been a meld of both.

Because it's human are going to human, this…bias towards any scenario where people are not traditionally educated gets in the way. Because "traditional education" is not traditional, actually. It's societal. What is traditional is people learning an array of skills to survive, much of which is medicinal, and with writing… That's dependent on the environment. Way back when, in times where the world didn't rely on literacy, absolutely not many people would be literate. But in eras where so much hinges on at least being able to navigate?

Or or, in times where you are relying on a recent past that did write and read as much as it did for survival? Um. Yeah. You do need to be able to at least read, if not write as well, for communication's sake. Which I didn't go much into, but oh well.

And this right here is what TWD is set in. This universe isn't a hard reset. You're effectively just going back a couple hundred years. All the infrastructures and scraps left behind are still there, just not maintained.

So… Yeah. I don't get it. The most I can fault Walden for is being negligent, but this is just…Skybound, not caring enough about this story to the point where they'll hire anybody for some reason.

I also don't get the bias people have about intelligence, and stuff, but I really…, really don't want to go on a spiel again. It incites violence within me. I've already gone and done a mini spiral over the comics themselves, and they were kinda but not even the point.

Ah well. I'll just crawl back to my hovel now. The links to some of the linguistic concepts I raised are below, if you want to do any additional research. The specific articles are more generalized to give a broad picture, but can be used as a jumping off point should they pique an interest.

I'm just gonna continue to write about my alcoholic Clementine.

Hope you enjoyed.

:)

Linguistic Articles:

History of Writing Systems (1), (2) ; Language Acquisition (1)

Native American Language History (1), (2), (3)

[waeirfaahl]

Interesting aspect about Aku's parts

One of the ideas I embodied in my stories and can mention now (and I even developed mechanism of infection and various aspects how it affects etc). Okay, I many times pointed out how deadly and poisonous Aku and hence his blood are. The brightest examples are "Birth of Evil" and "The Aku infection" episodes. It dries out, melts iron, devours its victim out of inside and absorbs, but firstly it takes control on its victim's mind (the authors described it as a virus, but decided to show Jack's fight metaphorically, i.e. in his mind — still one of my favourite scenes). This aspect with mind-controlling and consuming out of inside reminds me about parasitic insects (wasps and worms, for example) and fungus that control other insects or animals and later slowly devour. Simply saying, Aku's blood would take full control over Jack's mind and only after fully devour, absorb and dissolve him, if he wasn't strong enough mentally and physically to oppose (plus, the magical aspect with Jack's soul or whatever). I would argue that the black lake from "Birth of Evil" absorbed and exactly dissolved bodies of dinosaurs, humans and animals, who dared to come very close on its territory. But there's one interesting moment. You could notice in 4 episode of 3 season, how Aku catched Jack, so Jack some time was inside of the demon, but Jack wasn't infected or wounded by Aku's blood (obviously, Aku wanted to kill him exactly with his own sword, but then was utterly shocked).

Hmm, even so he could just choke Jack to death... As well as in other episodes, where Aku is among wild nature, his presense doesn't corrupt the nature.

So, how is it possible, if even the place of his birth literally created lifeless wasteland?

Well, I would tell that it is because Aku's body is covered with a harder, cooler and therefore harmless layer he kinda uses for own comfortable interaction with other objects (and even initially was born this way with this "safe" layer). But if you cut him or pierce or somehow break through this layer with your hands, congratulations, you will get serious burns and get infected. And this aspect actually gave me idea. In this "safe" state Aku's parts actually could be used in medicine as some kind of clay (membrane? patch?) that protects wound until it will be healed or whatever, i.e. it even can help to damaged tissues to be healed faster and even save from blood loss. Although his blood is a mix of acid and petroleum, it is also antimicrobial.

But there's one restriction — these "patches" are harmless and helpful only when the demon takes control over them. For example, if he is seriously wounded and hence weakened, he can lose control over his parts, so they will either stop to protect wounds or try to return to Aku, leaving a wounded person, or start to devour this person. I.e. if Aku's parts are not inside of a living organism, then there's a possibility for something really useful from Aku's side, but if it happens inside... no matter how long organism was infected, there still will be some harm to health. Even if Aku is aware of infection and has control over it, but doesn't want to kill this organism, his blood still like a cancer (or microorganisms of necrotic type) will harm a living organism, just way slower. He can order to his blood to leave this organism, but this organism still will experience pain some time.

So, the thing is in how long the organism was infected. Jack was lucky, since he had this virus a couple of days (and, well, Aku was unaware of the fact that Jack was infected by his blood).

[chocolatenyancat]

MASSIVE TW: GORE!

Equestria was beginning to deshevil. Before that however, there was an unknown virus or fungus going around. To make it worse there were also things called "trollges" wandering around the whole earth. No pony knew where they came from but some believed that when sunset shimmer was using her mirror, she accidentally chose one that led to the wrong parallel universe. One day, celestia was rushed to the hospital by her little sister, Luna because celestia was coughing up blood and some weird black ooze. A few days later, the hospital called Luna back and told her to come there quick. Luna, thinking her sister was alright, rushed to the hospital only to find celestia, her older sister, worse than before. She had been growing a black rubbery substance on her skin and her mane was fading and becoming disheveled. Luna couldn't do anything but watch as her sister got worse. 

[the-arcade-doctor]

Your brother is fungus,

Your barkeep is a beer,

Youre gay,

What next?

Dashes being a black hole?

Darling being a virus?

This economy is in shambles,

[ lullaby is a spider goth lady, havoc’s a shapeshifter who cannot die, i know a lot of people like this. ]

[drawingpad-studios]

This is inspired by those MLP Infection AUs that have been popping up recently.

chartamalady

(derived from the Latin word of papyrus[/paper]; Charta and the Synom of Disease; Malady)

It's a zombie-like "virus" that spreads across Paper Robloxia, especially infecting those that have the paper element in them. It is caused by a fungus that has spores that spreads via air, bodily fluids like blood and saliva, and touch.

Basically once someone is infected they shall change their personality and routine without their control before getting the final symptoms where they lose full control of their deteriorating paper bodies by the virus, along with becoming highly infectious.

Symptoms:

Early infection: slight discoloration of the entire body, a cough, and an itch that starts to grow. Most of the symptoms can be misdiagnosed to be other viruses like the common low and sketchy pox.

One month after infection: development of symptoms that are similar to paper defects you can find in real life. This includes but is not limited to: Pinholes, Black spots, Stripes, and Bugs. This is where their personalities and routines start to change. Though it's slow at first.

3 months: these symptoms vary from species to species, but all species share the same symptoms of body deterioration. Some of the other symptoms that vary from species to species include: Horn/Halo rot, feather itch and loss, Cardboard Mania, infection to the eyes and optic nerve, rust, and purposeful malnutrition or overfeeding.

Full loss of body control and spore release from the fungus.

There isn't really a cure yet, but treatment in the early stages(with the personalities starting to change is the latest treatment can start) can make the fungus leave and find a new host

I will probably draw examples of how the main cast are dealing with the outbreak if I have the time like on my break during work today, Idk.

[deedeeprince164]

Hello everyone! It’s been a really long time since I posted anything on this account but I would like to share this with all of you.

So, as you all know, (and if you don’t, that’s okay!) I started a Tmnt TLOU alternate universe to see if the 2012 Turtles and their allies can survive the Cordyceps fungus. So, this AU takes place at the end of season 4, after the craziness that happened with the Super Shredder. The Turtles defeated their arch enemy and they just want some time to relax and celebrate their victory. Soon, Raphael’s girlfriend, Mona Lisa, comes to Earth for a visit while at the same time, a strange virus slowly takes over the city. The Turtles and their allies are caught up in this new virus mess and Mona Lisa is killed in the chaos, completely shattering Raphael. 10 years pass and Raphael is now a 28 year old black market smuggler, slowly losing his memory and living in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are getting infected or becoming mutants that are also infected. With Casey Jones and Chompy (who’s now the size of a medium sized dog) by his side, they all live in the Boston Quarantine Zone until one day, they cross paths with Marlene, the leader of a militia group called the Fireflies. She asks the boys to smuggle something out of the city in exchange for their guns back but when Marlene shows what the boys are smuggling, it’s a 29 year old girl whose been immune to the Cordyceps fungus for 8 years, my oc, Daphne Prince (Diana Prince’s daughter). When Casey gets bitten by an infected and sacrifices himself, Raphael, Chompy and my oc embark on an adventure across the country in hopes of a cure for the fungus that’s taken so many lives. But of course, hanging out with this girl is making Raph remember Mona Lisa, his old girlfriend. And of course, when you go halfway across the country with someone who has the same personality as you, it’s kinda hard not to get attached to them. After everything they went through together and after such a long trip, the trio finally make it to Salt Lake City. When the Fireflies tell Raph that my oc would have to die for the doctors to successfully extract the sample in her brain, a “demon” from my oc’s past controls him and makes him go a little cray cray, kills everyone at the base (which will have consequences later), and Raphael saves the girl he barely even knows.

[ao3feed-romione]

~and if You go, I Wanna go with You~

~And if you go, I wanna go with you~ by queerchrysalis

Severus Snape thought his life was cut out for him. It was a miserable life, yet a simple one. How would he have ever guessed that a mutation of fungus would take the world by storm. Now with 60% of the world's population gone due to the Cordyceps virus people are desperate. Dark magic is now a necessary defense weapon. The ministry has been wiped out and the global wizard community has been hit the hardest. Only 10% percent of the wizard community remains now and Severus Snape finds himself being one of them. He isn't the oy one, however. His old school arch-enemy Remus J Lupin still lives and it turns out werewolves ate immune to the virus as the lycanthropy is aggressive and fights off the fungal infection. Being a werewolf comes with perks sometimes.

Words: 1606, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Last of Us (TV), The Last of Us (Video Games)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Categories: M/M

Characters: Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Molly Weasley, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Percy Weasley, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort, Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Albus Dumbledore, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Arthur Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Bill Weasley, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black Malfoy, Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Tom McNair, Fenrir Greyback, Minerva McGonagall, Rubeus Hagrid, Pomona Sprout, Poppy Pomfrey

Relationships: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy/Pansy Parkinson

Additional Tags: Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Crossover, Alternate Universe - The Last of Us (Video Games) Setting, Alternate Universe, Severus Snape is So Done, Severus Snape is Bad at Feelings, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape-centric, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Blood and Gore, Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, Depression, Angst, Eventual Smut, Gay, Queer Themes, Canon-Typical Violence, Gun Violence, Violence, POV Remus Lupin, POV Severus Snape, Remus Lupin Lives, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Gay Remus Lupin, Marauders Bashing, Cordyceps Fungus (The Last of Us)

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45109996

[nail-bat-butch]

pardon the forensic entomologist spiel that’s gonna happen, but i feel like this is a great idea!

in real cases of decomposition (both animal and human), coroners and forensic scientists can determine time of death based upon what species of bugs are eating at the body. scavenger bugs appear in waves of succession; black blowflies (phormia regina), start eating and laying eggs in any exposed orifice -usually the eyes, mouth, and any open wounds- within 24 hours. next, green bottle flies, flesh flies, and screwworm flies devour muscles, organs, and other exposed tissue- usually after 48 hours. after 72 hours, carrion beetles and dermestid beetles consume the exposed bones.

it can therefore be surmised in this scenario that- depending upon the zombies’ stage of decomposition- they’d be covered in a certain species of bugs when the virus/radiation/fungus/other zombifying agent kicks into gear. i don’t know, i just feel like that would be a cool idea in a zombie movie or tv show.

If zombies were real, you wouldn't first be warned by the approaching horde by their smell, by their groans, not even a cloud of smoke of the dust they raise coming closer from the horizon. It would be the flies. Hordes and hordes of insects, corpse-flies laying eggs on the carcasses of people who still walk, eating the eyeballs from their sockets, climbing across their unfeeling leathery skin. And the buzzing. The inescapable, deafening buzzing. Everywhere. Like you did not just kick a hornet's nest, but the very ground you walk on was a hornet nest, and each step caused another explosion of insects.

Insects, corpse flies, the buzzing. Their swarms blacken the skies, more horrifying than their migrating meals. The deafening cacophony of constant buzzing, the horrid noise of the living who feast on the dead who feast on the living. The buzzing.

The endless, inescapable buzzing.

[novobacwilting]

Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis: "Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis: A Game-Changer in Biological Pest Control"

Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis: A Game-Changer in Biological Pest Control

Biological pest control has gained significant attention in recent years as the need for eco-friendly and sustainable farming practices grows. Among the various biopesticides available, Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) stands out as a powerful agent against insect pests. With its ability to specifically target harmful insects while preserving beneficial species, Bti has become an essential tool in integrated pest management (IPM) programs. Let's explore how Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis is changing the game in pest control.

What is Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis?

Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) is a naturally occurring soil bacterium that produces toxins harmful to certain insect larvae, particularly mosquitoes, black flies, and fungus gnats. It is one of the many subspecies of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which is widely known for its insecticidal properties. Bti's unique feature is its highly specific action against insect pests, making it a targeted and environmentally friendly pest control option.

Mode of Action

When insect larvae consume Bti spores, the bacterium releases crystal proteins that paralyze their digestive systems, causing the larvae to stop feeding and eventually die. This mechanism is highly specific to certain insect species, which means Bti does not harm non-target organisms, including beneficial insects, animals, and humans. This makes it an ideal solution for controlling pests in environmentally sensitive areas.

Effective Mosquito Control

Bti is perhaps best known for its effectiveness in controlling mosquito populations. Mosquitoes are notorious for transmitting diseases like malaria, dengue fever, and Zika virus. By targeting mosquito larvae in standing water, where they breed, Bti offers a natural and sustainable method of reducing mosquito populations without the need for chemical insecticides. It is widely used in both agricultural and urban environments to keep mosquito populations in check.

Applications in Agriculture

In addition to mosquito control, Bti is used in agriculture to manage fungus gnats and black flies, which can damage crops and reduce yields. Bti-based products are often applied to greenhouses, nurseries, and fields where these pests are a problem. By focusing on larval control, farmers can protect their crops without harming beneficial insects like bees and butterflies, which play critical roles in pollination.

Environmental Benefits

One of the most significant advantages of Bti is its low environmental impact. Unlike chemical pesticides, which can have broad-spectrum effects, Bti specifically targets the pests it is intended to control. It does not persist in the environment or build up in the food chain, making it a safe choice for integrated pest management programs. Furthermore, its non-toxic nature makes it suitable for use in organic farming.

Public Health Impact

Beyond agriculture, Bti plays a vital role in public health by helping to reduce the transmission of vector-borne diseases. By applying Bti to water bodies where mosquitoes breed, health authorities can effectively lower the risk of disease outbreaks. This biological solution is particularly valuable in regions where chemical insecticides have led to resistance or where environmental concerns limit their use.

Conclusion

Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis has revolutionized pest control by offering a highly specific, environmentally friendly alternative to chemical insecticides. Its ability to target harmful insect larvae while preserving beneficial organisms makes it a crucial tool in both agriculture and public health. As the demand for sustainable pest management grows, Bti will continue to play a key role in protecting crops, reducing disease transmission, and safeguarding ecosystems.

[theweirdspacejellyfish]

fictional diseases you can use in writing or drawing

TS-19 (walking dead) - a pathogen that reanimates dead humans into "walkers" or the undead with ravenous hunger who can only be killed if the brain is destroyed

Grayscale ( game of thrones) - a dreaded, highly infectious disease that renders the flesh cracked, flaking and stone like. Victims slowly die over the course of years, with more suffering as it continues. People who have the disease form isolated communities

Purity ( x-files) - a sentient alien virus that lurks in petroleum deposits. it enters through the bodies orifices and takes control of the host. the black oil is the " life blood" of the alien species and their means of conquering planets

hanahaki disease ( hanahaki otomo) - from those suffering from unrequited love. Causes immense pain and flowers blooming in the heart and lungs which eventually get vomited up. breathing may be inhibited, turning the condition lethal

Spattergroit ( harry potter) - a wizarding disease caused by an infectious fungus. Causes a breakout of purple pustules and extreme fatigue and can lead to the inability to talk

flesh eating viruse ( cabin fever) - an infection that begins with vomiting blood and ends with skin peeling off until death. it can contaminate the water supply rapidly. it can wreak havoc on society

Monkey business ( cowboy bebop) - a virus used by an eco-terrorist group in an attempt to return humans to an earlier time which they lived more harmoniously with nature. edits human DNA from the 98% shared with chimpanzees to 100%

motaba virus ( outbreak) - a hemorrhagic disease that infects a small town in california. hoping to use it as a bioweapon, the U.S military attempts to hide and protect the disease by any means necessary

[jackril3y]

Wreck of the Genesis Chapter 6 part 2

Sullivan and Matthews walked onward, the tiny Mantid directing them in the way you lead a dog toward a bone. He didn’t believe the Mantids could grip anything, but he could feel the bug holding onto his luscious locks of hair as if they were reigns. Sullivan winced slightly under the bug’s exacting grasp. He cursed the bug under his breath but followed its directions. He stared forward as the writing on the walls grew dim under a blanket of vegetation. Sullivan reached his arm out to touch it, and the bug made a sharp, raspy noise.

“No! Do not touch it. It will know we are here, and you have come back!” It hissed into Sullivan’s ear. He looked closer at what he thought were large vines hugging the walls, only to see the pale tendril pulsating.

Sullivan reeled back in disgust and took a sharp breath. He could taste something in the air that wasn’t quite right. It was a sickly sweet smell that blanketed the air like an aura of sickness. The scent made him start to gag as he realized what it was. As they pushed forward, he could see the rotting corpses of hundreds of those ape creatures. Their fine tunics were tattered, and many broken pieces of brick-a-brack surrounded them.  Sullivan ushered to Matthews to follow in his footsteps. Sullivan gingerly stepped over a corpse with a shattered ribcage and a wide skeletal smile. He could hear something whistling in the background as the trio approached the Delivery Bay. The sound almost reminded him of the locust’s song he’d heard on Earth practically a lifetime ago, but the trill had another tone. It sounded almost machine-like. Sullivan did his best to ignore the noise as they got closer and closer to the delivery bay. Each attempt was seemingly less successful than the last until the trill reached an almost unbearable point.

Sullivan raised his palms to his ears, blocking almost 80% of the sound. His ears felt like they’d explode if he spent more time with the dreadful sound. Sullivan saw a skeleton with a bright yellow tunic, and its skull looked like it loathed him with every bit it could muster. He brought his foot over it but began to lose balance. As his weight shifted, Sullivan reached out to the cool black wall. As his pointer finger barely grazed the thick, meaty tendril, it stopped pulsating and, as quick as lightning, reeled back like a whip. The whole webbing of tendrils started pulling back as the hivemind processed the touch. The little bug began to climb down Sullivan, chattering as it did so. Sullivan stared as it ran off, jumping over the more giant tendrils as it ran away. Sullivan motioned to Matthews to follow closely. He jumped over more tendrils until he came to a battered metal door. It was partially stuck open as the tendrils pushed through. Sullivan used his shoulder to push the door open as a bellowing roar pierced the unnatural silence.

Sullivan felt the cold in his gut start rising to his throat as he ran through the door. The Delivery Bay wasn’t much better off than the outside hall. It was covered with thick fungus-like tendrils. In the space's center was a purple circle with a pair of black tubes. One extended almost two feet in the air, and the other only a few inches.

“Where’s the virus? Wasn’t this the delivery system?” Matthews asked, his voice frantic. Sullivan approached the larger tube and looked into it. A simple glass vial filled with a viscous green liquid sat inside. Something in Sullivan screamed to leave it alone, but he pushed through, pulling the vial out of the tube. Matthews drew his pistol from the bag as the little Mantids poured through the door. Each one had a fine mesh of mycelium covering its eyes as they moved jerkily into the room. They dashed toward the pair as Matthews opened fire. His shots hit the creatures’ heads, causing part of their exoskeleton to collapse on itself. Each one screeched and ran faster. The first few clamped onto his legs, digging their cockroach legs into his and biting down with their mandibles. Sullivan froze as he heard Matthews scream out in pain.

“STOP!” He shouted at the drones. To his internal amazement, they did. Each one of them stared at him with a dead, dull look. Then they spoke as one.

“The Makers have come back. We can make ourselves whole.” They said, no emotion present in their words.

“We are not your makers! We are men, and this is our planet.” The drones growled as the hivemind processed the sentence.

“If you are not Makers, you are food.” It gurgled from one of the three drones closest to Sullivan.

“We are not your makers, but just as foolish,” Sullivan spat.

“We do not care about your foolishness. We want food!” The drone shouted. Sullivan presented the vial to the drone.

“This, you should care about. I said we’re just as foolish, but luckily, your makers left an off switch,” He said as he flourished it in front of the drones. The green liquid looked sinister in the dim light of the Delivery Bay. The hive mind remained silent as it watched.

“We do not know of the ‘off switch’ you speak of.” The drones started to come closer as he clutched the vial tighter.

“Stay back! If you come closer to me or don’t do what I ask, I’ll break this damned vial, and we all die.” Sullivan watched, hiding his fear behind an unhinged smile.

“What are your terms.” The hivemind asked with its eyes focused on the vial.

“I was hoping you’d be amenable to negotiations. The first term is to pull back to the hallway. Do that, and we’ll continue this negotiation.” The drones clacked their mandibles together, almost mimicking the living ones. The drones backed away from Matthews, brushing aside the door, and the large tendrils followed. They moved like humungous snakes as they pulled away from the floor, breaking their roots as they did so. Sullivan’s smile widened as he got closer to Matthews. He could see that the blood flow was intense. They’d practically shredded the legs below his calf, but Sullivan took his jacket off and ripped the sleeves off. He carefully tied the sleeves above Matthews’s wounds. He could see that without immediate medical attention, Matthews wasn’t going to make it. Sullivan’s heart felt heavy as he stood up and briskly walked to the door; the profuse sweating stained his undershirt, but it suddenly felt unbecoming as he approached the hive mind. He put on his broadest smile as he came closer, vial in hand. 

“I want you to leave the planet.” He said his orderly clearly and concisely. The drones growled again as the hivemind voiced its protestations.

“We need food. How would we live up there, in the sky?” It gurgled.

“On the planet we came from. We once had a bad accident regarding a very long-lived substance. That was about 400 years before our meeting today, but our scientists discovered a fungus just decades after the accident—something like yourself. Instead of controlling living beings, it had learned to eat the radioactive substances left over by this accident. You can do the same, adapt to a diet of pure radiation by producing more melanin to counteract the effects.” The hivemind ceased making noise as it pondered the possibility.

“We can be…free?” It asked. Sullivan chuckled as the hivemind seemed to grasp what he was saying.

“You can, and then you can find your makers and show them how you evolved from an uncontrollable predator slated for extermination to a free organism working to better itself. You can go from here to many places, and there are possibly other worlds like this one. If you do that, we will not kill you.” He added, struggling to maintain his stern demeanor. 

“The knowledge of the Makers lives within us. They left a ship that we can take.” The great mass of tendrils said quietly. 

“Take it, my people are tired of space,” Sullivan ordered. The mass slithered down the twisted corridors and disappeared. Sullivan turned to Matthews, who was unresponsive as he hoisted him onto his back and marched down the quiet hallways. Sullivan ran down the hallways, tracing his steps back to the cafeteria. As the door slid open, he could see Koto and many others from the ship inside. They cheered as they saw Sullivan but quieted down as he set Matthews on the table. 

“Dr. Krieger, please stop the bleeding.” He said to the tall man in thick glasses. Krieger’s sharp features seemed almost ethereal in the light as he retrieved tool after tool from his doctor’s bag. First, he bound the legs to stop the bleeding. Then, quickly, he retrieved a stainless steel bone saw from his bag. 

“The legs are ruined, he’ll need prosthetics if I remove them, but he will be able to walk. If I leave the legs, he’ll never walk again. This planet’s not wheelchair friendly. It’s my professional opinion that it would be better to do the procedure. With a fledgling colony like this, we can’t afford a cripple.” He said, his tone icy. Sullivan nodded as he directed Krieger to do it. His hands quickly moved as he cut through the bone and cauterized the wound. The room was silent, watching Krieger operate mercilessly. Sullivan excused himself from the room and sat on the excellent ground. He leaned his head against the wall as he saw the Mantids approach from afar.

“The Mura, you killed it?” They eagerly asked him.

“No, I convinced it to leave with this,” He said as he fished the vial from the pocket. The Mantids jerked backward upon seeing the vial. They chittered amongst themselves like the drones had before the Mura left.

“So, the weapon is real. We thought that it was a myth from the Creators.” The tiny one marveled at it. 

“Go now. I want to rest.” Sullivan ordered as he closed his eyes and slept.

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Plant Health Care Issues for Roses

Roses are a popular plant choice for homeowners, representing beauty and elegance, gracing gardens and landscapes with vibrant colors and rich fragrances. However, these delicate flowers are also susceptible to various types of disease and pests that can compromise their health and appearance. We have treated rose plants at multiple residences this season, and below we discuss some of the common plant health care issues for roses, focusing on disease prevention and treatment methods to help you keep your roses thriving and disease-free.

Rose Diseases

Common rose diseases in Pennsylvania include powdery mildew, Botrytis blight, Rose Mosaic virus, Crown Gall, and stem canker. Some of these diseases are fungal infections, while others are viral.

Powdery Mildew

Powdery mildew is one of the most common foliar diseases of roses. The white, powdery fungal growth can be very disfiguring, with repeated heavy infection reducing plant vigor.

The powdery mildew fungus that affects roses is Podosphaera pannosa var. rosae, formerly known as Sphaerotheca pannosa. Powdery mildew usually appears in spring or autumn when conditions are warm and humid, though plants can be affected at other times of year if conditions are right.

This a Rose bush we treated on a property for two common problems, including powdery mildew, that are relatively easy to identify. Powdery mildew is the cause of white and light grey spots on the leaves. The holes are caused by slug sawfly larva feeding on the leaves. Both will be treated and this rose will fully recover.

Rose Rosette

Rose rosette disease affects multiflora rose and ornamental Rosa genus plants., is caused by a virus (Emaravirus sp.) that is spread by a very small, eriophyid mite (Phyllocoptes fructiphylus). The mite feeds on the underside of leaves and injects saliva into the leaf tissue. The virus is then transmitted to new leaves when the mites move to new plants. They are wingless, but they can be carried on the wind or on clothing to new plants.

The symptoms of rose rosette appear as raised brown spots on new growth and on flowers. As the disease progresses, it causes deformation in the leaves and stems so that they resemble witches’ brooms.

Botrytis Blight

Botrytis blight is a fungal disease that is quite common in roses. Most common in cool, damp weather, the fungus infects the plant, causing gray spots on the leaves and petals. The fungus can also move to the cane, or stem of the rose plants.

Rose Mosaic Virus

Rose mosaic virus is a viral disease that causes yellowing and distortion of leaves. Aphids and thrips can transmit it. An important distinction between rose rosette and rose mosaic is that the rose rosette virus will kill the infected rose plants. Rose mosaic virus disease may cause symptoms such as slow growth, reduced flowers and increased susceptibility to frost for the entire life of the plant.

Crown Gall

Rose crown gall is a bacterial disease that causes tumor-like growths on the stems and roots of roses. Often considered a minor problem, it can cause considerable aesthetic damage to plants if left untreated.

Crown gall is caused by the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens (AT) and is spread by infected plant material. The pathogen enters through wounds in the plant tissue, which may be caused by pruning, transplanting or other physical damage. Once inside, AT causes abnormal cell proliferation. This results in warty growths on the stem or root called galls.

Rose crown gall symptoms include the following:

decreased blossoms

formation of large, irregular swellings at ground level

brown discoloration of affected stems

The disease can be spread by pruning equipment, or by galls breaking down in the soil. In the latter case, the pathogen can survive up to 3 years.

Cankers

Cankers are caused by a variety of fungi. These diseases cause reddish brown spots on canes (stems) that become covered with tiny black dots. Cankers can eventually kill the cane, and can be spread through pruning equipment.

Preventing Health Issues For Roses

To prevent these diseases and other plant health care issues for roses, good cultural methods such as proper watering, pruning, fertilization, and soil care are vital. Additionally, organic or chemical control methods, such as fungicides and horticultural oils, can protect your roses from diseases.

Good Air Circulation

Proper air circulation is crucial for maintaining the health of your roses. Good air circulation helps prevent the growth of fungal diseases by reducing humidity around the plants. To achieve this, roses need to be spaced adequately, pruned regularly, and any weeds or debris that may obstruct airflow need to be removed. Research has shown that proper air circulation can significantly reduce the incidence of diseases like powdery mildew in roses.

Resistant Varieties

Some rose varieties are more resistant to certain types of disease and pests than others. Choosing resistant varieties can reduce the need for chemical treatments and make maintaining plant health more manageable. Recommended disease-resistant rose varieties include ‘Knock Out,’ ‘Carefree Beauty,’ and ‘New Dawn,’ among others.

Early Spring Care

In early spring, roses need to be pruned to remove dead or diseased wood, fertilized with a slow-release fertilizer, and a dormant oil should be applied to control pests. Proper pruning is essential, as homeowners run the risk of wounding their plants by not making careful, precise cuts.

As an example, the best way to prevent crown gall is to avoid wounding plants when pruning or transplanting them.

Applications

Fungicides can be an effective tool for preventing and treating rose diseases. Botrytis blight, for example, can be treated with a fungicide spray, but it should be done as early as possible, before the fungus has had time to spread. An important note is that fungicides must be applied carefully to avoid resistance development.

Insecticides or horticultural oils can be useful to help control pests, such as aphids, and disease. Viral diseases like the rose mosaic virus can be controlled by systemic insecticides containing antibiotics to prevent infestation of aphids and thrips.

Contact Burkholder PHC for Plant Health Care Issues for Roses

If you want to keep your roses vibrant and maintain other healthy plants on your property, contact Burkholder PHC for more information or to schedule a consultation. Burkholder PHC has a team of experienced, qualified experts that can help homeowners maintain the health and appearance of their roses and other plant life. With years of experience in the field, our team knows how to treat plant health care issues for roses and high value landscape plants.

Blog is originally published at: https://www.burkholderphc.com/plant-health-care-issues-for-roses/

It is republished with the permission from the author.

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