#human botfly

[rbade-art]

[irradiatedsnakes]

it's so important to me that botflies, known for their particularly gruesome method of maturation (young larvae are deposited onto the skin of a mammal, into which they create a burrow. the larva matures within the host's flesh, and emerges out of a small hole in the skin once fully grown larvae, which then drop off and pupate in the ground.) are often just. absolutely adorable fluffy round things not unlike bumblebees

(deer botfly, photo by karsten heinrich)

(moose nose botfly, photo by henrik larsson)

(rabbit botfly, photo by submitter evan to laptrinhx dot com)

[givingyouarandompathogen]

Pathogen assigned: Hypoderma tarandi

Cause of ophthalmomyiasis, type of warbler fly

(Image from here)

Spread via: Laying of eggs in skin

the existence of "maybe", "perhaps", "perchance", and "mayhaps" suggests there should also be "maychance" and "perbe"

[bogleech]

Anyway while we're on the subject of public misconception towards living things (which is completely understandable because have you SEEN living things? There's like dozens of them!) here's a fresh rundown of some common mistakes about bugs!

Arachnids aren't just spiders! They're also scorpions, mites, ticks and some real weirdos out there

Insects with wings are always finished growing! Wings are the last new thing they ever develop! There can never be a "baby bee" that's just a smaller bee flying around.

That said, not all insects have larvae! Many older insect groups do look like little versions of adults....but the wings rule still applies.

Insects do have brains! Lobes and everything!

Only the Hymenoptera (bees, ants and wasps) have stingers like that.

Not all bees and wasps live in colonies with queens

The only non-hymenoptera with queens are termites, which is convergent evolution, because termites are a type of cockroach!

There are still other insects with colonial lifestyles to various degrees which can include special reproductive castes, just not the whole "queen" setup.

Even ants still deviate from that; there are multi-queen ant species, some species where the whole colony is just females who clone themselves and other outliers

There is no "hive mind;" social insects coordinate no differently from schools of fish, flocks of birds, or for that matter crowds of humans! They're just following the same signals together and communicating to each other!

Not all mosquito species carry disease, and not all of them bite people

Mosquitoes ARE ecologically very important and nobody in science ever actually said otherwise

The bite of a black widow is so rarely deadly that the United States doesn't bother stocking antivenin despite hundreds of reported bites per year. It just feels really really bad and they give you painkillers.

Recluse venom does damage skin, but only in the tiny area surrounding the bite. More serious cases are due to this dead skin inviting bacterial infection, and in fact our hospitals don't carry recluse antivenin either; they just prescribe powerful antibiotics, which has been fully effective at treating confirmed bites.

Bed bugs are real actual specific insects

"Cooties" basically are, too; it's old slang for lice

Crane flies aren't "mosquito hawks;" they actually don't eat at all!

Hobo spiders aren't really found to have a dangerous bite, leaving only widows and recluses as North America's "medically significant" spiders

Domestic honeybees actually kill far more people than hornets, including everywhere the giant "murder" hornet naturally occurs.

Wasps are only "less efficient" pollinators in that less pollen sticks to them per wasp. They are still absolutely critical pollinators and many flowers are pollinated by wasps exclusively.

Flies are also as important or more important to pollination than bees.

For "per insect" pollination efficiency it's now believed that moths also beat bees

Honeybees are non-native to most of the world and not great for the local ecosystem, they're just essential to us and our food industry

Getting a botfly is unpleasant and can become painful, but they aren't actually dangerous and they don't eat your flesh; they essentially push the flesh out of the way to create a chamber and they feed on fluids your immune system keeps making in response to the intrusion. They also keep this chamber free of bacterial infection because that would harm them too!

Botflies also exist in most parts of the world, but only one species specializes partially in humans (and primates in general, but can make do with a few other hosts)

"Kissing bugs" are a group of a couple unusual species of assassin bug. Only the kissing bugs evolved to feed on blood; other assassin bugs just eat other insects.

[professional-jaywalker]

Vermin

a short essay about being bug hearted, and killing bugs.

I think one of the most cruel thing to love might be invertebrates. Insects. Arachnid. Worms. Pest. With any other animal, it is seen as unreasonable to want to eradicate. Some insects do manage to earn human's favors, bees (but only the useful ones), moths and butterflies (but only the cute ones), and if you're facing a true bug lover, beetles and dragonflies and perhaps even spiders and centipedes and scorpions. But not all, and it's still simply reasonable, to hate even seeing them.

I've loved bugs since I was a kid. I think it felt wrong not to, because people didn't like them, and people didn't like me. I don't think I've ever understood what in how they move felt less alive for people than a puppy. Still now I love bugs. I love mosquitos and I love botflies and I love hornets and tiny annoying ants that crawl through the windows and cockroaches and the wasp that stung me on the thumb when I accidentally grabbed a stick she was resting on when I was 9.

You cannot possibly live a human life without killing countless things. It's impossible. The most vegan, most peaceful human, refusing to walk on grass to not harm the grasshopper that didn't jump fast enough, will not be able to live a life without killing an insect even accidentally. It's something I have thought about a lot overall. I'm not vegan. I've thought about it. It would make sense, I don't see a lot of difference between my own flesh and the flesh I eat. But somehow it feels even more insulting, to be something that kills, and to pretend I don't. I eat insects, too. I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how I feel about it all.

Maybe it makes me an hypocrite, to be so perturbed about the way people treat insects when I still eat meat. But it's, I think, in the end, the fracture between someone seeing a dead cow, and a dead fly. Most people wouldn't have the courage to kill a cow. They would feel guilt. In fact, a lot of people already hide the fact that meat is flesh and is, strictly speaking, part of a cadaver. People who refuse to eat a fish with the head. Pork, not pig. Beef, not cow. I hate that too. But insects ? People kill a fly without even thinking about it. It's annoying, then it's dead. A dead fly doesn't elicit guilt.

People expect me to be the same. Even knowing I love insects, it's seen as amusing that I acknowledge them as more than a mindless automaton, and, if I can, if it costs me nothing, avoid killing them. I have killed countless insects. I've had to, purposefully, many many many times. But it is, in fact, killing. I just want to be allowed to recognize that.

I work in a lab, on ants. We dissected more than a hundred, ovaries, poison gland, brains, understanding how they work, how differentiation happens and how they communicate it. Reconstructing brains to evaluate changes in different structures, measuring how many proto-egg each individual has post-dissection and correlation to dominance, reading articles and articles about theory.

These specific ants like shallow humid grooves for their nest. Today we tested a large foraging arena, brightly lit for the cameras, dry, wide, open, empty. Ants panic after being picked up even with the least harmful tools we have. When in an unfamiliar space, we've had them in the past run until they died of exhaustion, unable to find the entry of the nest to hide. Two of them were placed in the foraging arena to test the cameras, test if we could read the tags they have on their back. Again and again, they like to follow the walls, possibly because it feels less exposed. And again and again, they stop, groom each other, and calm down if they meet, huddled into each other.

I can't claim to know what's going on in ants brain, whether they feel things similarly to us. But it's hard not to project.

Ant tagged 16, and ant tagged 12, close, unmoving.

[graceofagodswrath]

Ok ok ok your "Humans of Transformers franchise are space orcs" rant is out of this world.

I detest with passion when humans are reduced to pets and plot devices when instead the story could be about two alien species finding one another equally amazing/terrifying for their own respective reasons.

Here is my question: do humans and Cybertronians see how eerily similar they are? They have love of music, familial relationships, similar urban infrastructure, societal structure, financial systems, competitive entertainment, organized societies and war, colonialism, recreational intercourse, marriage...

Not to mention, why was it never addressed how similar both species look: bipedal, waists, noses, cheekbones, 5 fingers, chins, facial expressions and sense of aesthetics and beauty? Sure, humans have hair but in rather strategic places.

Veins and wires, blood and energon, metal and flesh, nanobytes and blood cells, Sparks and brain impulses, sexual organs...

Imagine Autobots arrive on Earth for the first time expecting some primitive cave-dwellers, only to encounter a less advanced mini-version of Cybertronian cities (New York, Singapore, London, Rome, Tokyo, Rio, Dubai...) and societies running on scientific, artistic and philosophical development which has no right existing on the ruthless, all-organic planet such as Earth is. Societes run by creatures who 4.000.000 (the duration of their war) years ago were hanging from the trees btw.

Autobots would be terrified.

Lemme make sure this response saves this time, cause it took me a minute to answer cause my first deleted and I had so much written I got unbelievably angry and refused to even look at the tumblr app.

But here we are.

So, this is EXACTLY what I have been thinking about for who k owe how long. It’s also the intro to this wack as fuck universe idea I’ve had in my head a while, and have kinda hinted at in my other works, but I’ve never gone into detail about.

And I still won���t.

Anyways, yes. It’s crazy that we backlit humans so much when any other sentient species is about. Transformers, TMNT, etc (I’m on a one track mind, feel free to jot down any other fandoms I can’t think of). The main theme of these stories? HUMANS SUCK. And that is severely unfair. People want to cry about how much our generation doesn’t give a shit anymore. Have you SEEN the media we feed kids???

That’s why I live Humans are Space Orcs so much. It really puts into perspective how unique and batshit our species is.

So, onto the Transformers vs humans concepts. The ONLY reason (forgoing technoism and general hate towards organics) cybertronians don’t see humanity as an imminent threat, or one in general, is because of size. WE BE SMALL AF. Can’t blame them, I get it. We do the same. Insects? Fuck them mfs.

But have you seen a botfly or tick burrow into your skin? The infection that comes form that? Have you seen ants jump a small animal as a colony and absolutely shred it? Or a spider only biting you, and the horror the venom causes (recluses and huntsman’s specifically). We have a good fucking reason for disliking these mfs.

But transformers? These are organic experiences. Worst they go through are rust infections, spark death, the works. They are not at risk the same way we are. That is why they view organics as small and inconsequential. They have no idea how hard we fight to simply stay alive.

And now the similarities. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t immediately recognize the physical, cultural, and psychological similarities between our species. Transformers are an incredibly diverse race, like any other. But specifically in physical form. Your average cybertronian holds a similar appearance to your average human. We tend to have the same features, just with different names. Eyes, noses, faceplates, ears, two arms, two legs. Sure that’s average for them too. But they are unique because of the fact that they have two forms. Vehicle mode. Their mode decides what they’re second mode looks like, which can create extreme diversity is appearance. Small, large, many limbed or not.

So the immediate similarities probably wouldn’t jump out to them in an odd way. There’s also the idea that because they’re so spread out in the universe, they’ve seen other organic races that are also similar. Pairs of every body part could be the common denominator among species.

That goes culturally too. War, love, music, government, politics, it’s all a natural form of sentient evolution. Another common denominator. It’s how it’s done that makes it unique. And the similarities between human and cybertronian culture is uncomfortably familiar.

I think that’s why cybertronians are seen being closest with humans rather than other species in the shows and comics (obviously because the audience is human and they need relation to characters but shhhh forget that for a sec). This is where the theories start.

Let’s say cybertronians begin to recognize the weird similarities between our species. The really, really weird stuff. The itty bitty details. Like:

- how we also mainstream kissing on the lips as the top tier romantic gesture.

- use verbal tone and cues for our language.

- have intensely complicated interpersonal relationships in the exact same manner.

- suffer from extreme mental health issues like depression, anxiety, PTSD (I totally headcannon that forms of adhd, autism, and ocd exist in cybertronian society, have y’all not seen my boy rodimus prime??)

- will also destroy each other in the name of our gods, until we have a common enemy.

That’s just the basics I could come up with. The only time I actually saw a moment where a transformer genuinely take a moment to realize that humans can be a threat, was in transformers prime. Episode 6 of beast wars (I think, correct me if wrong), where Miko beats the ever loving fuck out of an insecticon (I think) and upon Megatron hearing this, just goes blank Kubrick stare for a hot second. Man had an ugly realization that did not fit in with anything he had experienced his whole life.

AND THEY NEVER FUCKING ADDRESSED IT EVER AGAIN. Sick of this shit. Could’ve had the most badass character development, where the humans actually proved useful and did something (it would have fit Milo’s character so perfectly too) and scared the utter shit out of the transformers. BUT NO. They continue to be annoying as fuck.

One thing I loved about TF Prime was that it canonically turned Unicron into Earth. And humans came from the earth. Which relates humans beings and cybertronians so hard. Cousins Fr. We are the cybertronian equivalent of organics, and transformers the inorganic equivalent of humans. The individuality, the chaos, the culture, it clicks. There is so much material to really go into it.

But they never do. Don’t get me wrong, I love Transformers lord and just discovering more without humans being involved. We’re just annoying af at this point. But there is so much u tapped potential in transformers actually taking the chance to LEARN about us. But we’re just friends (pets) to these mfs.

That’s why I love TF Earthspark so far. Transformers ingrained into human culture because they’re not from Cybertron, and cybertronians having to adapt to human culture because they have no where else to go. Granted, it’s a kids show. There’s only so much they can do. But I’m excited for where it’ll lead. It really shows how much of threat and ally humans are, and how we are just as diverse as cybertronians.

I need to write another fic about cybertronians meeting humans their size from our world tho. Need to continue my old piece. Would give me so much life. Y’all help motivate me, college draining my ass.

[deadboyfriendd]

Volare (Remastered)

This is for you, Jo @jo-harrington . I love you <3

Eddie was gentler with you, fingertips dragging down sides with the softest form of reckless abandon. The sweltering heat of the midwestern summers weighing on your bodies hot and heavy in the baking orange glow refracted over darkened water. The bedsheet beneath you is ironed by the steam of teenage awkwardness dissipating from the body– kisses and touches growing less awkward and more tender, as if he knew that they were now supposed to be registered instead of received. 

His buckle made impressions on the inside of your thigh, metal warmed against the plush soft skin. The grass beneath you danced its wavering dance, a sway that welcomed the coolness of the breeze over the exposed expanse of your back, gracing the overlaying flesh in a ritual of human intimacy. 

Songs of, oh, God’s and small giggles composing intricate tincture waltzes– a gathering drum backing and an underlying hum of soul surrounding your form. You can feel the dirt on your back, his fingers unwrapping you from your cloth confines and introducing you to his home like an heirloom– a home in which he himself haunted.The palms of your hands felt the smooth surface of stone beneath skin, and the dewy droplets from his own flesh dampened them with a waxy residue.

He couldn’t decide if you were still human. You felt human, but the way you were in front of him– celestial and heavenly. There was no way you could be. Your quick, sporadic breath rolled humidity out onto his neck, arms folded over you in fluid angles, a flash of teeth and a breathy laugh. No, he was right, you had to have been an angel. 

+

He couldn’t help but to laugh as you plucked the cigarette from his lip, giving him a chide, “Y’know, these things’ll kill you.” before placing it into your own lips. 

He took it back from you, placating a long drag and a smooth french inhale. Showing off. 

“Yeah… so I’ve heard.” He paused for a moment, taking you in.

Looking into his eyes was a mirror reflection of all of the best parrots of yourself– everything you were supposed to be. His skin shone with a pearlescent haze of sweat, soft locks falling over his shoulder. He beamed your image back at you through long lashes and batted yes. 

“I guess there was never anything I cared enough about leaving behind to stop.” 

+

You held him close to your chest, the gathering drum of mumbles and clumsy sentences replaced by the lub-dub rhythm within you, the quiet gasps and scratching of skin replaced by your own melody of whispers into his ear. He sang along. 

Strings of I love you’s and Is this okay?’s replaced harsh staccatos and haste swears, learning the piano pedal overtures of lovemaking, replacing the spoken poetry of fucking.

An almost feline purr escaped the confines of lungs as you stretched your arms over his back, feeling the calf-skin-stretched-over-marble texture of him. You could feel the way life had toughened him through scars and vibrations of proclamations of love in your spine. 

He had never been loved this tenderly. 

+

Your laugh seemed to fill the entire world around him, burrowing into his brain like a botfly. He couldn’t get you to leave, and you ate away and attached to the pink matter within his head until there was nothing left but you. 

He ran with you through the clearing, only slightly wondering how you could move so gracefully as your bare legs scratched almost violently through the thicket and thorn. He could feel it through his own jeans, but he chased your hand- in search of the warmth and echoes of his own happiness as you cleared out to the blue lake before you. The hill overlooked an empty dock. 

He didn’t care about the way his own legs throbbed, or the way his tar-laden lungs struggled for air, it always felt like he couldn’t breathe around you. 

He pressed his fingers to your back, net yet forceful, but still an invitation into his arms.ou happily obliged, your cool breath wafting over his neck as he shivered. 

+

Toes curled and fingers grasped at the tremendously quiet mouse-rumble between you. Your thighs shook around him, and, as he explored your body tenderly, he silently begged for you to shake and tremble away all of the worries that have plagued him to the bone. Your body a flame igniting his wax candle core and melting his insides. 

Hot tears rolled from your sea-spray eyes and down your Cyprus cheeks, hair blown by Zephyr and a small cry left your birth-of-venus lips. 

To you, he was celestial and grounded all at the same time. You could hardly believe that you could even reach out and touch him. He was spiritual, yet attainable, able to be touched by the human flesh, but almost impossible to be in existence.  

+

His head lay buried in the pillow of your thighs, looking endearingly up at your face as you thumbed through the pages of the novel before you. 

You stumbled over words and paused for kisses in between syllables, and alarming lack of flow within your own space-cadet brain. At this rate, the book would never be finished. You would never see an ending, but he understood this as the only correct way to read from that moment on. 

He could never look at a word again and comprehend it without hearing your voice say it. 

+

He wrote his own history into the book of your life, his fingers flipping through the pages of your body. 

His hands, beginning at your thighs and running up the duration of your being, not only read your words, but studied them. 

His tongue rewrote love back into your lines, but not in the form of quiet mumbles.

He wrote the word "love" into you like fire. He wrote the word "love" into you with only the passion of someone who had seen enough heartbreak to truly know the meaning of the word. 

His words were the color of mulled wine, spilling onto you with intention- he spilled these words into you in the form of art, and soft moans of endearment. 

His tongue began at your neck, but all too slowly traced words that you didn't care to make out down your sternum, across your breasts, and further and further down. 

He spoke the word love in a way that he had never known it.

[unnonexistence]

one of my friends is a biologist & i was really amused hearing some of her stories yesterday because they put into context just how believable newt's kaiju drift is as Shit A Biologist Would Do. like my friend has personally met both a guy who got infected with a botfly larva and didn't do anything to remove it (because he just didn't mind), and another guy who identified a tapeworm species by intentionally exposing himself to it (he had it narrowed down to 2 species and needed to know if it was the one that would infect humans) (it was)

[funkylilworm]

Name: Scotty

Full name: Scotty Scout Dimmadome (Scotty being a Nickname from his actual name Dale gave him, that being "ScottMeister1000" )

Gender: Male (transmasc)

Pronouns: He/Him/His

Age: 13 yrs old

Voice claim: Gideon Gleeful from Gravity Falls

Race: White

Species: Human child (teenager)

Height: 5'3 ft tall (short for teenager)

School: Dimmadelphia high school

Occupation:

☆School rich kid, trouble maker, and/or class clown

☆Possibly a second clone of Dale Dimmadome's (Scotty knows and doesn't care)

☆ ScottMeister1000 (original name from his father)

☆SproutX-tremist (YT persona)

Loves:

Crazy stunts, parkour , rollerskating , vlogging , social media, web surfing , getting likes ,getting followers and/or subscribers, challenges , breaking records, chimichangas (favorite food), cotton candy (favorite food), mango slushies (favorite food) , oreos (favorite food), baking , cooking , himself , his younger brother (Dev), his dad (Dale) despite the way Dale treats him, sketching and/or doodling , Robotics, and video recording

Hates:

Wasps, Mosquitoes, Eggplant, Yo Gabba Gabba! 

,Sweat ,Botflies, The beach, Sand , politics, group projects ,hang nails , his crippling fear of rejection, abandonment (fears it), spoilers , idiots , long lines , New Jersey, loud chewing, know-it-alls , and people that fucks with his baby brother

Personality :

▪︎Positive-

Creative, passionate, protective, energetic, funny, hyperactive/ energetic, Happy-go-lucky, loyal (once he warms up to someone), competitive, compassionate, passionate, ambitious, and Cunning

▪︎Negative-

Greedy , short tempered ,jokes around way too much , cocky , arrogant, reserved, insecure, perfectionist , irresponsible, childish, rambunctious, defensive, and mischievous

▪︎Nuetral-

Loves to bother the shit out of / tease his younger brother (Dev), withdrawn , depressive (keeps it well hidden),he has one of those over-the-top challenge youtuber personas, skepticism, adaptable , empathetic, resourceful, easy going ,and sensitive

Hobbies:

Crazy stunts, parkour , rollerskating , vlogging , social media, web surfing , getting likes ,getting followers and/or subscribers, baking , cooking, scrapbooking, embroidery, sketching and/or doodling, robotics , and video recording

Homelife: His , Dale Dimmadome barely pays him or his younger brother ,Dev any attention and Dale would either often forget who Scotty is , blame Scotty for everything, or him and Dale would often get into a lot of arguments

Physical appearance:

5'3 ft tall, chubby, dark blue eyes, a few pimples , orange soft and curly orange hair that's in a mullet , white pasty skin, and freckles

Clothing appearance:

Golden bracs, gold chain, smart watch (created it himself by scratch) ,white and gold cargo capri overalls with a a few embroidery patches and pins , sleeveless dark blue hoodie underneath, golden fingerless gloves, gold and white backwards hate , and glow in the dark white and gold heelie shoes

Family Members :

☆Dale Dimmadome [Scotty's father]

Scotty and Dale's son and father relationship is rocky and extremely confusing, while similar to Dev, Scotty still loves his father and seeks for his love and approval ,he would often get into the most altercations with his father ,while Dale on the other hand would either forget who he is, completely ignore /not acknowledge him, or would straight up argue with him.

☆Devin "Dev" Dimmadome [Scotty's baby brother]

Scotty and Dev's relationship is the usual sibling dynamic which is playing, joking around , teasing ,and with a few arguments fights and altercations here and there, the only difference is that because of Dale's incompetence, Scotty is always left doing the parenting towards Dev.

Design Inspiration for Scotty Dimmadome:

(I thought it would be cool to make Scotty look more the say Dale did when he used to be a teenager)

[sleepyfan-blog]

Rotten Hope (1)

Author’s note: Part one of the Typhus x Reader fics. I blame you all for the botflies that have spawned because of this.  Next

Tagged: @ms--lobotomy @egrets-not-regrets @the-pure-angel @whorety-k @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan

Warnings: fictional illness, quarantine, bodily fluids, body horror, vomiting, please ask me to tag anything that makes you uncomfortable that I missed

Summary: Illness ravages the sector you’ve been quarantined in. Desperate for help as supplies dwindle, you psychically reach out to a nearby Astartes Librarian, who promises to bring aid.

word count: 2, 677 words

In your centuries of life, you’d seen many things. Glorious heights and dizzying lows…  But this creeping, miserable sickness that weakened the bodies and minds of the non-perpetual humans around you was a whole new kind of awful that you’d have been happy to have never seen ever. You’d established yourself on this world as a mid-level rogue trader before the quarantine had gone in place. You were wealthy, yes, but not Very Well Known, as your perpetual nature might attract the attention of the Inquisition, and you’d spent long enough dodging their knives and gang-pressing into their service last century, thank you very much. 

You’d funded the research project into trying to combat and cure the horrible illness that started as excessive lethargy and the inability to focus on any one task for more then a handful of minutes. After a week or two of low energy, the person afflicted with this disease would suddenly get a strong burst of energy and the desire to go out and interact with as many people as possible, alongside a minor cough and the occasional but regular sneeze. After a week of increased energy, a terrible fever would strike, alongside a bright red rash that appeared across an afflicted person’s back, neck and shoulders.

The rash was incredibly itchy and, if scratched, oozed puss that was highly contaminated and spread the illness just as quickly as sneezing or coughing directly on another person did. It took another week for the rash to spread fully across an afflicted person’s body, with pustules appearing wherever a person scratched that often burst painfully, before regrowing. Within a month over half of the total population of the world you’d been visiting had caught the illness and were suffering through one of the first three stages of the illness. That was when the planetary governor instated the quarantine, even as the rash spread across her cheeks and faces, enforced by the arbites and the astra militarum in hazmat gear.

The governor had also sent out a shelter in place order, with rations being delivered to the shelters of the living at regular intervals, to further discourage anyone from breaking the stay in place order. Those who did not have permanent housing of their own were put up in hotel rooms for no cost. The medical and medical research staff on world who had not fallen to the illness were working frantically to come up with either a cure or at least a treatment that would delay the onset of further symptoms…

Especially as after the pustules on an afflicted person’s body had burst and reformed over half of their skin, they had to be put in full-body restraints, as otherwise the altered mental state that the sickness-afflicted person went into was both violent and difficult to stop with anything less than using lasgun rounds to each of their joints and melta-flames to prevent the gushing spurts of puss that sprayed from those wounds from covering everything in a ten foot radius in grey, highly infectious bodily fluids that stunk so badly of rot and death that made anyone improperly attired vomit. While in this violent state, if the infected person or people weren’t properly restrained, they tried to infect as many people as they could by forcibly trying to smear the puss into the eyes, mouth, or nose of any uninfected they could reach.

You’d used your contacts made as a Rogue Trader to desperately call for aid in combatting this illness… There was also the fact that, should things continue as they were, within about six months, all of the emergency stores of rations would be depleted, as the ill still needed to be fed, no matter how violent they became. Not that the sick seemed to be able to die of the infection itself - the only fatalities that had happened were due to the arbites having to kill the infected who broke free of their restraints and tried to infect the healthy.

You… You weren’t sure the fact that the sick weren’t able to die of the illness that ravaged their bodies and minds was a good thing, especially as both medical supplies and rations began to run low. You’d contacted your friends and allies you’d made as a rogue trader and found out that the fucking Inquisition had declared the entire system a no-go zone. Oh, the callous bastards were watching as the healthy of this and the other five living worlds scrambled and tried to keep themselves from succumbing to the illness they were trying to research a cure or at least treatments to ease the worst of the symptoms… But they refused to send so much as an unmanned ship of medical or standard rations, much less anything that would truly help the situation.

Bastards!

You did have ways of sending encoded messages to others that the Inquisitors who were heartlessly watching the people of this system suffer and break under the onslaught of this illness couldn’t intercept and stop. While you were still wary of the genetically altered creations of Neoth’s, you were keenly aware that many of the Adeptus Astartes who roamed the stars did try to protect humanity to the best of their abilities and many of them despised the Inquisition and would come to help in order to spite whichever Ordo of the inquisition was withholding aid to this system… Doing so, however, required that you use some of the psychic gifts that you used as sparingly as possible, in order to avoid detection as the powerful psyker you were.

Dodging curious Astartes Librarians was a small price to pay for aid for the mortals suffering in utter agony all around you… Which was why you settled down into a meditative pose, sitting comfortably on your ship, the murmurs of your frightened crew and anxieties a background hum that you needed to ignore in order to reach out psychically. You had been on semi-friendly terms with Neoth before he’d been interred onto the Golden Throne and did your best to guide humanity towards a better future in whatever ways you could… You also had the verifiable command codes that would prove you were a high ranking - if secret - member of the Imperial Hierarchy when you came into contact with an Astartes Librarian. 

You began your psychic search for an astartes librarian with caution - aware that the Inquisition had their own psykers and you had no desire to reveal yourself to them if at all possible. Time passed as you searched for the particular blend of determination, training and psycho-indoctrination that marked an Astartes Librarian, your mind wandering further and further from your body. 

You could not say how long it took you to find him, but he was a powerful psyker, and held the strict discipline of an Astartes. You lightly tapped on his walls - a silent request to speak, making sure that your pressure against his mind was just enough to be felt, while just as clearly also not being an attack of some kind. 

Less than a second passed before his mind focused on you. You could feel the way his mental presence shifted and stretched, grabbing a rough hold on your consciousness, turning you this way and that, buzzing with confusion and curiosity - and a little bit of indignance that a stranger would dare touch his mind in such a way.  {WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU REACHING OUT TO ME?} He eventually sent coherently.

You explain who you are, giving the psychic imperial codes that would prove who you were as well, before explaining {The inquisition refuses to allow any aid to come to the system I am in. A terrible illness has infected over ninety percent of the populations of the system I am in. The remaining healthy people are doing their best to try and find a cure or at least treatments for this disease. I am immune, but that’s because I am a perpetual. The immunity I enjoy is not something I can share with others.}

The Astartes Librarian’s mind surged back and forth, thoughts and emotions swirling together in a chaotic hurricane that you could only catch bits and pieces of, though you were trying not to peer too deeply into his mind - it was rude to do that without permission after all - and tried not to get overwhelmed by the intensity of his presence. {And so you sought me out because?}

{Most Astartes and the Inquisition do not get along for… Many reasons. I sought to call for help from an astartes whose mind I could communicate with. Please… the mortals are suffering terribly, though the illness does not seem to let them die…} You plead, offering up the memories you have of the terrible illness ravaging through the near half-dozen worlds.

The screams of the deeply afflicted as they throw themselves bodily at the healthy. Teeth and puss smearing against glass and plastic face plates. The awful coughing and sneezing. The low medical supplies and even fewer rations and food that was edible. The fact that the disease had mutated and afflicted the livestock and domestic animals, causing further vectors of infection and misery. 

{You are a perpetual Rogue Trader, mm? Caught between this illness and the Inquisition, unable to help, unable to flee. Very well. You’re in luck. I am in command of many brothers, and our… Specialty allows us a unique perspective into the nature of illness. We can bring all the aid these mortals needs. But in exchange, you will come with me, without fuss, without fighting. I have never met a perpetual before, except for the Emperor Himself, and I am… Curious.} Teh Atartes rumbles, his mind still wrapped tight around yours. 

You sense he has a number of motives he is hiding from you… But you’re also quite certain that he believes that he is telling the truth when he says that he can help the mortals suffering and agonizing in rotting, miserable stasis all around you. {Yes, I promise to go with you and your brothers without fuss after the people here are healed and well taken care of.}

The pleased rumble he makes and the way his mind caresses yours before letting you go back to your own mind makes you shiver and warmth suffuse through you {I look forward to our meeting, perpetual. You will know when I arrive with my brothers. If my younger brothers give you trouble, tell them that Typhus asked you, little Isha, to come to him.}

You’re not sure why his name - and the name Isha - bother you.  Warning bells ring faintly in the back of your mind, but you can’t quite place why. That and the desperation to get actual help fuels your relief {I understand. About when do you anticipate on arriving?}

{Again, you’re in luck, lovely flower. I and my brothers should arrive within the next month. Two on the outside, if the Inquisitors at the edges of the system you are in actually prove troublesome.} The astartes promises. Something buzzes beneath the surface of his mind, but you do not press, grateful beyond words for his aid. His mind squeezes around your tightly. His rifling through your memories is a little rough, and catches you off, as he gets from you where you are in the galaxy. {Yes, I will be there soon. The mortals’ torments will soon be at an end. You should return to your body, I can sense your exhaustion.}

You grumble a little to yourself, but he’s not wrong. This kind of extended mental contact with another person over such long distances in space is wearing on you. You withdraw from his mind and tumble back into your own body before exhaustion drags you into sleep.

“My lady! My lady, Lord Angels have arrived, and have been distributing food and medical aid to the sick and injured. They… Their armor is rather terrifying, I’ll admit, but their aid has been nothing but true and good. Their first captain has asked to speak with you, as soon as you are able.” Your second in command called out, between knocking rapidly on the door to your personal quarters, waking you out of the troubled dream that had been tormenting you.

Gilded flames had lapped at your feet, threatening to consume your body as creeping green rot choked your lungs and turned the mortals you’d been working alongside to agonized piles of mush and misery. You mentally shook yourself as you respond “I’ll be out to meet him as soon as I get dressed properly! Tell him I’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

You’re already stumbling out of bed and over to your extensive clothes’ closet. Considering the direness of the situation, you hope that the lord angel would forgive the fact that you’re going to be wearing simple clothes beneath the hazmat suit that while you do not need, you wear anyways when going outside, so as to not bring the disease back and potentially infect the mortal crew around you. You pick out a simple shirt and pants combo, along with sensible lslhoes that will fit inside the boots of the hazmat suit, not bothering with any make-up or jewelry, dressed well enough in under five minutes.

It takes three minutes for your to sprint your way through the ship, everyone else clearing way for you to get to the cargo hold, slugging back a small shot of recaff and breakfast rations handed to you by your SIC just before you get suited up into the hazmat suit (Which takes most of the remaining time you told the first captain you’d need to be ready to see him). Just as you step out of your ship, you ask your loyal and stalwart second in command “Which chapter are they from?” Depending on which chapter they were from, you could have a guess as to what the first captain might want of you.

“They say that they are part of the Death Guard legion, ma’am.” Your second in command revealed, oblivious to the bone-deep panic and horror washing through you. “I don’t recognize their markings or heraldry, but they’ve been an enormous boon so far.”

No! No no no… “Have any of you taken anything that he Death Guard has offered you? No matter how small?” You ask, terror and failure acrid tastes in your mouth. How had you not noticed the taint of chaos in his mind at the time? 

“Not yet, as our stores have been fine. Is something wrong, ma’am?” He asks, a worried frown appearing on his face. He can see the fear in your face.

Damn, need to work on your mask, which you quickly put on, radiating confidence “OH… I just… don’t accept anything they give you,  if possible. As soon as I start talking to the first captain, take off and activate the warp drive and get as far away from this system as possible. I can… I can guess what they want with me, and as of now, I am resigning my duties as a Rogue Trader. Everything I own, all of my titles, rights and responsibilities I bequeath to you. FLy far, and fly well.”

“W.. What? My lady? I won’t just leave you-” He splutters. 

You shake your head angrily and hiss “I was the one who contacted them, believing them to be angels! But they are not! They are demons! They feed on  illness and misery, delighting in strive and causing Chaos wherever they go. I have gotten their foul attention and cannot escape, but you and our crew have a chance to escape. Please, take it. I will endure.” 

“I… As you command, my lady. I’ll begin preparations to leave now.” Your former second in command acknowledges, bowing his head forward, trembling a little in the fear that you can’t allow yourself to feel as you leave your ship, walking toward your grim fate with your head held high, despite your trembling hands.

[seat-safety-switch]

There’s a sort of false idea out there, and historians try very hard to avoid it. It’s the myth of constant, upward progress. You can’t say that tomorrow will always be better and more liberated than today. For instance, it might be Sunday today, and you have work on Monday. Sometimes, things go backwards.

Think about the last time you were trapped in a corn maze, followed by a bunch of hayseed rurals with chainsaws. It’s a common occurrence, one that happens to the average American 8.3 times over the course of their lives. You didn’t always go forward until you reached the exit and got to your car, which mysteriously didn’t start until the very last second. No, you had to backtrack once in awhile when you went down a bad path and ended up at a dead end.

Corporations love this idea of constant, forward improvement, because it means they don’t have to work to make the improvements actually improve anything at all. The longer they hold onto a product, the more they can change it. And, if they tell you that all change is an improvement, and that things keep getting better, then this change will be for the better, too. Did it instead completely ruin your day, and the day of everyone you love, plus the guy on the subway you complained to about it? Then they must not have changed it enough.

Your average artist, too, probably hits the equivalent of the “undo” button more than they write a word, or draw a line, or paint a line, or god damn it painting and drawing are basically the same thing backspace backspace backspace. That iteration, that constant give-and-take, is what makes something really shine. It can only be accomplished by the beautiful human spirit, and more importantly, a person with actual taste. Which is why a corporation can never attempt it, unless that corporation is mysteriously co-opted by a group of renegade artists which undetectably set up shop inside its body, botfly-esque, and consume its immense resources (free coffee, toilet paper, air conditioning) to crank out mysterious, confusing works that confound the human spirit.

What I’m trying to say is, if you see a new Ford on the road, don’t expect it to be any better at not running over pedestrians than it was last week. However, it will do a really cool celebratory donut right afterward, which is a type of progress.

[onenicebugperday]

Are there any bugs that are considered "parasites", like botfly larvae?

Not sure exactly what you mean as there are thousands and thousands of species of bugs that are parasites.

If you mean bugs that feed on humans in some way then yeah, sure, there are a lot of them. Most just drink our blood, though some live internally. Mosquitoes, bed bugs, lice, kissing bugs, fleas, various mites, guinea worms, tapeworms, screwworms, horse flies, and ticks just to name a few.

[bogleech]

i keep wanting to draw anthro maggots but they end up looking like beetle larvae instead- any ideas on how one might stylize a maggot person to make it a little more distinctly A Maggot? it's especially hard to me bc maggots are like THE MOST featureless insect larvae.... which i suppose counts as a defining feature in and of itself- but i dunno. im mostly just curious to hear your approach!!!

Yeah beetle grubs, caterpillars and a lot of other insect larvae have armored heads with complete jaws structures as well as six little legs, plus they often have a defined looking "top" and "bottom" with ridged and wrinkles almost like they got soft armored down their back

But maggots are weird! They streamlined EVERYTHING down to where they have no legs at all, not even vestigial ones, and their body segments almost evolved towards something like radial symmetry by being the same all the way around!

Then there's the fact that they sort of lost most of a "head." Not only is there no exoskeletal cranial case (bug skull) to protect it but there are no jaws and never any eyes; there's just a little hole for drinking liquefied food, a pair of tusk-like hooks for gripping surfaces, and a pair of eye-like knobs that are actually chemosensory (noses)

The weird, tiny walrus-face is totally unique! They don't have any chewing mouthparts because they only need to "drink" the particles of rotting matter they live on, and like adult flies, they help this along by secreting digestive enzymes!

Maggots also have these very distinct, furry looking bands at every segment, which help them grip surfaces like a tire tread or the sole of a shoe. If you compare this photo with the one above you'll also notice how the segments can retract in and out like a telescope!

The last special thing about common maggot anatomy is that they are technically semi-aquatic animals, because maggots evolved to be buried head-first completely in their own food as much as possible and rotten corpses are WET. In order to breathe, maggots have a pair of breathing spiracles on their rear ends, which they try to keep exposed to the air!

There are exceptions to all of this, though; there are species that can be fully aquatic, fully terrestrial, herbivorous, parasitic or predatory, and some ancient fly groups (including mosquitoes!) whose larvae still have fully armored heads and even eyes. Everything above is universal to the maggots you find in rotten stuff though, so what most people think of when they hear the term :) When I designed a hybrid human and blowfly maggot for the Mortasheen setting I deliberately made it look like a doofy cartoon Walrus, and I gave its segments large spines that can be seen in some parasitic maggots, including botflies:

And when I made a maggot character for my webcomic Awful Hospital I designed her like a little spacesuit or a parka (the resemblance to Kenny was an accident)

Actually I don't think I ever shared this most recent "main artwork" of Maggie. I don't know what idea inspiration any of this might provide but basically a maggot is a prickly living sock with fangs. Or I guess from a design and engineering perspective, a maggot is a biological drill. The tiny end starts a hole, the rest of the body is just a flaring cone perfectly equipped to keep making the hole deeper.

[e-melanorhynchus]

Is it alright to request for the drawing of PM characters: Carmen, Ayin, and Benjamin? If it's too much, is it okay to request for Carmen please? She did end up surprising everyone with how she showed up recently.

I thank you in advance if you end up accepting this request. I hope you have a great day!

HELLO! so i decided to tackle this first because theres no clean way to say i have No idea how to draw her as a creature. because she already is a creature to me. so.

the giant red chest marking is inspired by a luzon bleeding-heart dove and the hair is similar to a rabbit botfly... In all reality its so hard to design a creature design for her because her whole existence hinges on her being human; its really, *really* hard to capture what she means for the narrative with my current design skills, at least. lol. I KNOW THAT SOUNDS REALLY SERIOUS when me designing creatures is very for fun and playing or whatever. but its just a giant roadblock for me.. so i hope you take this and enjoy it

[ghostlykimiboo]

Horror Swap: Larry Larva (Exterminatorz)

Can’t believe this gross man, Larry Larva (in this case Laura Larva), went under my horror/Halloween radar during 2023. Coming from the 2023 Terror Tram event, “Exterminatorz”, he’s definitely not like the previous mascots of Universal Horror Nights. Gotta love the concept how he’s a human possessed by a bunch of botflies and how he runs a pest control company that specializes in hunting down annoying humans that we deal with.

[see-arcane]

I hope we never make it past the moon.

I hope Mars is never terraformed.

I hope there are no spaceships, no colonies on the soil of other worlds, in civilizations that have never had to endure the human race.

I hope whatever poison it is we allow to fester within a privileged handful that’s allowed to siphon every resource, every extravagance, every life and right of the cattle-chattel majority never makes it off the burning bloody sewer it is making of this world.

Active evil.

Active, careless, hateful, bottomless, gold-lined evil is there in the heart of every nightmare headline I have read since I was old enough to make the mistake of looking at the news.

Entire peoples robbed, tortured, slaughtered, and razed over maniacal idiot hate. Dehumanized into less than dirt, less than the virtual vapor of a videogame enemy. For what? Breathing in the wrong place? As the wrong race? For oil and money and a grudge of faith the murderers pretend to follow?

And the empires feeding the killing, lying as fast and loud as they can to a public that has long since learned to stop believing them over the reality of the carnage bleeding out of their screens and dripping from their hands? How are all these heyday Romes doing, Neros?

Bodily autonomy rotting, bigotry booming, literacy in a nosedive, theft-programs lauded as the end of artists and writers, child labor given wholesome glamor shots, inflation waved as a tissue flag while companies gouge and gouge and gouge until a grocery trip becomes a luxury. Buy paper straws and don’t eat meat to lesson your carbon footprint!

As our countries fund a massacre to steal the treasure under the bloodstains and build hotels on the rubble where libraries and hospitals once stood. As private jets and satellites and uncapped lights blot out the stars. As winter and autumn melt into myths.  As the poor and the scrabbling give the most that they can under the table, supporting what their supposed governments refuse to approve, shouting and marching and sharing aloud what their supposed governments must either smother or cry propaganda over.

I hope we get better. I hope time excises these tumors in suits, the botfly campaigners and companies and killers eating holes in the bright beautiful animal of what humanity is. What we could and should be. What so many of us are.

But I have to apologize to the astronauts. The ponderers and dreamers in the space stations.

I hope we never make it past the moon.