#malignant amoeba

[random-movie-ideas]

Aquaman Villain Movie Ideas, Part XV: Malignant Amoeba

There's really not a whole lot of information I could find on this one, except as a constant presence on "Aquaman's weirdest villains" list. Basically, it's a one-off, and is exactly what it sounds like. A big evil amoeba.

Origin Movie: If I wanted to do one of the animated Golden Age-based movies centered on Aquaman, it would definitely be my pick.

Sequel Movie: I guess it could follow any number of villains. I'm not sure why though.

Finale Movie: That would certainly be a twist.

Supporting Villain: Tossing it in the background of a Trench scene or something would at least be a fun Easter Egg.

Here are my rankings:

Origin Movie: I'm seriously considering it.

Supporting Villain: Why not?

Sequel Movie: Uh . . .

Finale Movie: Hmm . . .

What do you think? Who should I cover next?

[windvexer]

Hey chicken,

You previously said that you believe even doing simple things in spellwork, like leaving something in a dish of salt, need to be worked over. How would you work over simple things like that? Burning a candle? Just infusing it with some energy?

Even more simple than infusing it with energy, maybe.

This isn't like, set in stone. But I generally believe that the first step of all Witchcraft is permission.

As in, you speak from a place of authority as a Witch, and give permission that reality may become abnormal.

Witchcraft is abnormal, in my opinion. I think it's perfectly nice that people build paradigms based on the idea that magic is altogether completely natural and there is no difference between the magic and normal, but I like the sinister stuff.

So IMO the first, most basic, essential "working over" is to take something (the dish of salt) and, give it permission to become abnormal and begin to effect reality abnormally.

This is the hinge upon which Witchcraft pivots: the Witch going in and taking normal things, and realigning the tracks of fate beneath them, compelling things to start happening which never would have happened if not for that specific intervention.

A dish of salt does not normally just make a space clear of emotions. If it did so, that would not be normal. It would be abnormal. Paranormal, even.

So how do you get salt to stop being normal, and start being a paranormal substance that does abnormal things?

Charging with energy is a later step. You charge with energy to fulfill an intent already set.

The first step is to give reality - the reality of the salt, of the emotions in the room - permission to be a fucked up little guy. It's easy as pie. And it mostly comes down to magical headspace: you seeing reality as something quite permeable, and easy to change, and almost illusory, springing from the web of fate that underpins it; but you can change that fate. Reality likes us. It mimics us to show that it wants to be friends. Put yourself in a state where the world is mutable, and around you the world complies.

So step one is magical headspace.

Step two is telling the salt what to do. "Listen here, you fucked up glorious little guy. Before you were dead, only crystals harvested and mined, sold on a grocery shelf where you've been reduced to nothing but flavor. They chew on your bones and forget to worship your soul. But here, in my house, you are a god. Rise from your grave in this new form, to this new purpose: purify from this room the unwanted, the harmful, and the malignant. By my word and my will, this new fate has been granted to you."

No energy work. No visualization. Just tell it like it is.

Or you could be more corporate about it. "This salt purifies negative energy from the room." It's just setting intent, if you want to be crude.

It's hard for me to do corporate magic. With all apologies to the people who do prefer the very simplified present-tense intentions.

Reality mimics us. If something is stirring inside of you, then something is stirring inside of the salt. No visualizing energy roots required.

A simple sentence may not be enough, or a paragraph. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right words. Maybe the salt isn't really a god. Maybe it's a gnome, a saltwork machine, the dead crest of a long-forgotten ocean wave that preserved a billion amoeba in crystalline purity, ready now to purify your room.

Over time, intuition and experience will both grow and combine to advise exactly what to say.

After all, you're telling it like it is - not making it up.

Go to the place where magic is real and you're doing it.

Assign new fates through words.

These are the simplest steps to working over something.

[svucommentary]

Munch: There should be a special circle of hell for this pus sucking gangerous malignancy of a mental amoeba.

Cragen: Did someone steal your parking spot again?

[flyonthewallmedstudent]

Entamoeba Histolytica

Moving on from Disseminated infections.

and back to parasites, we have this amoeba.

Courtesy of wikipaedia.

One complication is liver abscess.

Image from NEJM

Ring enhancing cysts were seen on CT (requested after the authors noted deranged liver function tests) and on percutaneous drainage (which radiology can do), they had brown cloudy fluid. Under the microscope they noted the pseudopods (leg like extensions).

Classically though, entamoeba causes amoebic dysentery or bloody diarrhoea that develops over 1-4 weeks. However, 90% are asymptomatic. Given the complications/extra-GI manifestations, it can be fatal in a very small minority.

Severe disease/Complications - toxic megacolon (always makes me think of heavy metal bands, in sad actuality it's inflammation that affects more layers and causes the colon to wide. resembling balloon animals) - fulminant colitis + perforation (from inflammation, ulceration etc. that the trophozoites induce, high mortality) - liver abscess (more common, fevers/RUQ/hepatomegaly, transamnitis and jaundice, maybe months before this develops) - rarely: pericarditis + tamponade (from liver rupture, rare but high mortality), pleural effusion & brain abscess (exceedingly rare - but acute confusion + fevers, rapid deterioration) risk factors for severe diseases/complications: malignancy, pregnancy, immunosuppression in general.

Toxic megacolon: Can actually rupture eventually. Courtesy of wiki

Transmission: faecal oral routes (contaminated food/water sources) and it's widely distributed across the world. As with many infectious diseases, it has a higher prevalence in lower socioeconomic groups and regions of the world. Africa & South/Central AMerica have higher rates than other countries (poor sanitation areas, water sources like rivers have multiple purposes for households etc.). Generally, in western countries, it develops in returned travellers who went to endemic areas or immigrants.

Detection: EIA assay for entamoeba antigen in stool, serology (relies on antibodies, so undetectable the first week and last a life time, does not differentiate acute vs past infection), stool MCS for cysts and ova, PCR and colonoscopy (ulcer/erosions, biopsy will reveal cysts and trophozoites)

Treatment: metronidazole in active/acute disease, increased doses in severe/complicated disease or invasive. depending on where you are, also paromycin if asymptomatic or following active treatment to remove cysts.

Consider this in returned travellers with high fevers, abdo pain and bloody diarrhoea lasting > 2 weeks.

Avoids while travelling to endemic areas - uncooked foods, unbottled water/ice cubes, street vendors (what a shame), just anything raw. Practice good hand hygiene.

Sources: StatPearls ON PubMed Amoebiasis on CDC

[harveybwabbit92]

Tregear: There should be a special level of hell for this pus-sucking, gangrenous, malignancy of an mental amoeba.

R/n: Store sold out of the limited edition thin mint ice cream again?

[thatonebirdwrites]

I'm low-key obsessed with this article. Mushrooms and fungi as queer theory? It's so well written and just so convincing, and I absolutely adore it. My Elivera worldbuild is an alien planet that's dominant species tend to be mycellium networks, so reading this made me extra excited. Fungi are absolutely fascinating. I mean just read the introduction: (Then go read the whole thing so we can chat about it please): Hasmik Djoulakian and Patricia Kaishian writes:

Clustered in supergroup Opisthokonta, fungi, animals, and amoebae share a more recent common ancestor than with plants or bacteria. The vegetated environment that enabled the transition of animals to land and evolution of amphibians, reptiles, birds, then mammals, was bound to symbiotic fungi known as mycorrhizae. Over 90 percent of plants form these associations (Smith & Read, 2008), and myceliated landscapes sustain cascades of nested biological systems, from which every evolutionary layer of our human biology is indistinguishable, arising and persisting in conviviality with fungi or fungal-bound organisms. As terraforming bodies, fungal transindividualism is our collective ecological history. Fungi are engaged in continual processes of renewal, interfacing with death, creating life through decomposition, nutrient reallocation, and the spectrum of symbiosis. Fungi can remediate environments by digesting fossil fuels and converting them into fungal sugars. Fungi can accumulate heavy metals and radioactive materials, and a fungus has even been found to metabolize ionizing Cesium-137 in the reactors of Chernobyl. Both single cellular forms and filamentous, hyphal networks of fungi can be found in almost any conceivable niche: of, on, within, and for human and nonhuman bodies.

Despite this dynamic profile of fungi complex social histories have influenced outcomes and trajectories of mycology, rendering it a marginalized science. Kingdom Fungi has been persistently maligned, feared, and misunderstood, and these cultural forces have directly sabotaged scientific understanding of this group for hundreds of years. In Western Europe and in the United States particularly, children are typically raised to fear all mushrooms, which are unilaterally viewed as poisonous, diseased, and degenerate. Although science, in its ideal form, should be an equal-opportunity investigative methodological tool, we know that the history of modern science has been disproportionately written by white, often Christian, men from Western Europe, excluding other voices. Consequently, dominant cultural lenses—heteronormativity, racism, sexism, ableism, and binaries inherent to them—have influenced scientific understandings.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota and scholar at Yale Divinity School and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science, explores relational and egalitarian thinking processes familiar to the Lakota people, as compared to rational, hierarchical thinking processes within Western cultures. Ghosthorse says that, for Lakota people, language is inherently relational and all things are bound together. Ghosthorse (2019) writes,

The rational mind is the human living within the hierarchy of a box that seeks to capture it through its own narcissistic addiction to the anthropocentrism of a society or a people who hold themselves up as somehow more grandiose than others in that box of conscience. It deadens the intuitive or non-dogmatic life. This is where the separation begins—with a concept and a word that doesn’t exist within many intuitive languages, such as Lakota. That word is domination. (paras. 10–11)

By invoking rationality over intuition to defend a viewpoint, a person makes the assertion that the intuitive—often feminized—lens is neither legitimate nor legible, with no footing in any discursive cultural space. Often with derision, it is written out of the conversation. Such disregard for intuition is part of the pathway toward domination that Ghosthorse describes. Dualistic thinking about life and non-life, male and female, and other categories Ghosthorse alludes to, permeate mycophobic discourse.

Western scientific thinking seeks security through objective assessment, but objectivity is meaningless when it comes to gender and queerness because attempts to determine the bounds of queerness are already exercises of power. Donna Haraway (1988) discusses the falsity of objectivity in her essay on situated knowledges, which describes the partial perspective any one person is able to have depending on sociopolitical factors influencing their gaze; these partial perspectives form a patchwork of messy, layered knowledge that inches toward some measure of shifting objectivity. This encourages rethinking scientific endeavors not as observations of subjects, but as interactions with them. Similarly, fungi defy objectivity and standardization. Specifically, sporadic, ephemeral, and unpredictable appearances of fruiting bodies complicates mycologists’ ability to obtain thorough population data. The complex biotic and abiotic forces that lead to a species producing a fruiting body remain unknown in many cases. While some fungi, like some species of morels, can be reliably found in the same place on more or less the same calendar day every year, other species, such as members of genus Ionomidotus, may be seen once in a given location and then never again. But is its mycelium still present in that spot? We often do not know. If so, does that count as being present? Then there is the issue of quantification of an individual. If you find a scattered grouping of mushrooms growing around a tree, are they one genetic individual? If so, do you quantify them as one mushroom? Or do you count the number of mushrooms, reporting them as individuals? There is not a clear and universally applied answer to these questions. This lack of conformity to quantifiable boxes has put many fungi at a greater risk of extinction. Their biological realities are not given necessary accommodations in our current conservation assessment framework, whose attempts to standardize data diminish many essential properties of fungi. Interrogating our dualistic, mycophobic view of fungi—and our often pathologizing attempts to understand them—can help make Science more accountable.

Mycology is a science that, by its very nature, challenges paradigms and deconstructs norms. Mycology disrupts our mostly binary conception of plants versus animals, two-sex mating systems, and discrete organismal structure, calling upon non-normative, multimodal methodologies for knowledge acquisition. Mycelium is the web-like network of fungal cells that extends apically through substrate, performing sex, seeking nutrients, building multispecies and multikingdom symbioses. This essay seeks to remediate our relationship with fungi and all organisms—thereby queerness—by collapsing and myceliating the emotional space between human and nonhuman. In order to do this, we explore dogma of institutional (capital S) Science, as well as the biology, history, and methodologies of mycology through a queer theory framework, as seen by a queer mycologist and a feminist educator.

Read the Rest Here.

[dailycharacteroption]

Creature Corner: Ooze part 3

 Foes

 The sheer number of oozes that serve as foes for adventurers, but for the most part, they’re usually neutral threats the same way that most creatures of the animal or vermin type are. However, there are always exceptions.

Firstly, we can’t mention oozes without going over the classics. Whether they are true giant amoeba, colony organisms, or living protoplasm that defies the notion of cellular life, creatures like gray oozes, black puddings, ochre jellies, slithering trackers, and even the one that started it all in ttRPGs: the gelatinous cube, have been sweeping dungeons clean of debris and interlopers for decades now.

Popular fiction also gives us plenty of other, more direct inspiration as well, such as the carnivorous blob inspired by the movie that cemented the idea of ooze monsters in public consciousness, as well as the Formless Spawn, Fire Vampires, and Shoggoths of Lovecraftian mythos.

A great many oozes either resemble or are odd forms of life made up of familiar substances. Animate hair supposedly arise naturally from the vanity of it’s original owner, freezing flows and magma oozes are living masses of ever-changing ice and molten rock, respectively, gravesludges blur the line between life and death as animated grave dirt, ectoplasm, and rot, hungry fogs and living mirages mimic atmospheric phenomena, carnivorous crystals are living geolithic life forms that crystalize other creatures to feed off their minerals, plasma ooze are terrifyingly powerful living entitites of raw plasma, roiling oils possess all the properties of their namesake, and shard slags resemble molten metal.

Others have psychic or mystical connections, such as both the alchemical ooze swarms, emotion oozes, the black magic-enchanted coven ooze, extradimensional slithering pits, occult vespergaunts, and perception-warping warpglass oozes.

A few oozes are less goo, and more flesh, such as the cancerous hungry flesh, vile boilborn, and the grisly skincrawler, not to mention the foul, rotting globster.

Another handful resemble plant, fungal, or protist matter, such as the slime mold, garden ooze, ambergrim, and the symbiotic verduous ooze.

Unfortunately, the fact that most oozes are unintelligent means they don’t make for compelling villains. You would be hard-pressed to present an ooze as the final boss to a dungeon outside of the “mindless terror unleashed by the villain’s meddling” sort of deal, but there are certain powerful oozes that possess malign intelligence and power, making them potential final threats for your party to face. Any of the corrupted natural forces called blights, as well as the divine immortal ichor, the all-consuming masses called oblivions, and the symbiotic psychic entities called tyrant jellies.

 Even with this deep list, there are still plenty of oozes out there to provide an unreasoning and intractable foe for the party, and while it might not be the most diverse creature type, you can probably find one that fits whatever sort of adventure you are running.

That does it for today, but tomorrow, we’ll be looking at how the ooze creature type can help inspire and empower your player characters!

[shadowfromthestarlight]

“there should be a special level of hell for this pus-sucking gangrenous malignancy of a mental amoeba.”

“somebody steal your parking space again?”

[random-movie-ideas]

And here's the fourth of our animated Golden Age stuff:

AQUAMAN

Aquaman spends every day defending the ocean from pollution, until one day, a fisherman uses a special growth hormone to create a gigantic monstrous amoeba.

Starring:

Arthur Curry/Aquaman – A friendly guy who discovers he can talk to fish

Lori Lemaris – A mermaid that Aquaman meets and falls in love with

The Fisherman – A mysterious scientist seeking to hyper-evolve the creatures of the sea

The Malignant Amoeba – An amoeba hyper-evolved by the Fisherman

Topo – An octopus Arthur makes friends with

King Neptune – King of the sea and Arthur’s father

Black Manta – An enemy of Aquaman

Patrick O’Bryan/Plastic Man – Stan Lee-style cameo

With a few shakeups to differentiate from the regular series one. Also he'll be the blonde wimpy version everyone likes to meme about.

What do you think? Who would you cast?

DC Cinematic Universe Pitch

For the last several months, I have been working through the various DC heroes and their villains, discussing movie ideas and coming up with possible plans for how a movie universe could incorporate all of their most important characters naturally. I now have a full plan, which I will be presenting day by day until we reach the finale, starting with:

PHASE ONE

WONDER WOMAN*

While pursuing a dangerous terrorist, Captain Steve Trevor and his team stumble upon a lost island, the home of the Amazons of ancient Greek myth.

Starring:

Princess Diana/Wonder Woman – Princess of the island of Themyscira

Captain Steve Trevor – Captain of a special forces unit tracking the Baroness

Baroness Paula von Gunther – A dangerous international terrorist

Queen Hippolyta – Queen of Themyscira and mother of Diana

Barbara Ann Minerva – A scientist and member of Steve Trevor’s team

Doctor Poison – A chemist developing a biological weapon for the Baroness

Donna Troy – Diana’s adopted little sister

Etta Candy – The communications officer of Steve Trevor’s team

Nubia – An Amazon and guardian of the Doors of Death

What do you think? Would you watch it? Who would you cast in the principal roles?

*Title is subject to change and open to suggestions.

[purplelizardman]

The History of Slimes

Slimes and Ooze

In modern RPGs, there are few monsters as iconic as the humble ooze. Enjoying a recent surge in popularity thanks to That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime, a light-novel and anime of the same name, and their inclusion in dozens of popular titles, slimes have never been more prominent RPG and mainstream culture.

 On a recent project, I’ve had the odd privilege to journey down the short rabbit hole of the ooze’s origins. It was a fun journey learning about the myth, history, and culture behind oozes, but the best journeys are shared. I hope you will enjoy The History of Slimes as much as I have enjoyed researching it.

What is a Slime?

The ooze or “slime” (used interchangeably) is usually a weak monster in RPGs. It is characterized by an amorphous, ooze-like form, and is generally of low or non-existent intelligence. It almost exclusively attacks by ingesting its target, swiping with tentacles, or (rarely) using magic.

Slimes are unique in that they do not derive from classical mythologies. They are recent phenomenon in storytelling and one that’s gaining traction at a surprising rate. Before we uncover their origins, let’s take a journey backward through time.

Slimes in Popular culture

Slimes are prolific in popular culture among the RPG crowd. They are featured in dozens of games, including the ever popular titles:

Dragon Quest 

Dungeons and Dragons

Minecraft

Mother Series

Final Fantasy

Not to mention, anime, manga, sci-fi, and fantasy novels.

The modern tradition of dewdrop, almost amicable slimes in RPGs dates back over three decades to the release of Dragon Quest in 1986, where it was so beloved that it became the series’ mascot. 

In all likelihood, Dragon Quest borrowed the idea of slimes from other RPGs such as “Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord” (1981) which was a part of a wave of RPGs inspired by the famous “pen and paper” rpg called “Dungeons and Dragons”.

In 1977, the original Monster Manual hit store shelves and in it was one of the most iconic creatures of Dungeons and Dragons: the “Gelatinous Cube.”

Gary Gygax included this cube-shaped monster was mostly a joke: a transparent cube that fit perfectly into the 5x5x5 hallways of the grid-paper dungeons, travelling along and sweeping up anything in its path. It was a magical, monstrous Roomba, before Roombas even existed.

But Gary Gygax did not conceive of oozes in a vacuum, he had a little help to come up with the idea.

Slimes in Movies

There is no more iconic slime movie than the “The Blob“ a 1958 cult sci-fi horror classic, The Blob tells the story of a mysterious thing that falls from the sky and begins devouring everything it can find. As it eats, it grows. Then a group of plucky and unfortunate youths stumble into its feeding ground while on vacation.

At a runtime of 86 minutes, and with special effects that solidify its place as sci-fi cult classic, it’s well worth a watch.

But even Hollywood wasn’t original enough to invent the idea of a slime monster out of thin air.

Slimes in Sci-Fi

Before the cinema, slimes had a far more literary legacy in science-fiction.

One of the most iconic and disturbing representations of slimes was the Shoggoth from H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. The Shoggoth first appeared in publication in 1929 and is a disturbing monster with the ability to shift its form, imitate speech, and wield its large strength to crush enemies. Perhaps unique about the Shoggoth, was that it was the first time slimes were presented as beings of higher intelligence than humanity.

Despite being a truly terrifying iteration of the slime, the shoggoth is far from its origins.

As early as 1926, we see the slime appearing as villainous monster in The Malignant Entity, published in the renown pulp magazine Amazing Stories. 

During the early 1900s, the slime made a slew of appearance across pulp magazines. In 1923, it even made it to the front cover of Wierd Talesin the story “The Ooze.”

But the earliest recorded usage of slime as an antagonist seems to be in The Odyle a short story published by Charles Edmond Walk in 1907 in The Blue Book magazine.

It’s a story about a scientist who brings life to cells that start growing and just don’t stop. 

At last we arrive at the origins of the humble slime: the amoeba. 

Born in the early 1900s out of an intersection of rapidly growing medical knowledge and human fear of medical science, the humble slime is the embodiment of human hubris gone awry. It is the crystallization of the fear that we have waded too deep into the unknown waters where only gods and darker things dwell and that we have used that forbidden knowledge to make the device of our own undoing.

At least, that’s what the slime was and what it would still be, had not Gary Gygax and pulp movies from the 1950s taken an otherwise intensely threatening concept and transformed it into the humorous, lovable slime we all know today.

Notably, the slime still appears in its amoebic form in many space sci-fi iterations, including the popular turn-based strategy game series Masters of Orion and an episode of the original Stark Trek series: The Immunity Syndrome.

Unique to the space sci-fi version of the slime (amoeba) is that it is almost always large enough to engulf entire ships and sometimes even pose a threat to planets. It always represents an unending hunger and primitive, malevolent intelligence, such that negotiation is never an option.

Conclusion

The humble slime has enjoyed many interpretations during its short life. From the small, but dangerous amoeba, to adorable animated dew-drops, to dungeon cleaning roombas, the slime has been it all.

Outside of space sci-fi and space fantasy, the modern slime enjoys a whimsical feel due to the representation of the slime in 1950s cinema culture, and then again in the pen and paper game “Dungeons and Dragons” which enshrined its position as an iconic and somewhat silly monster.

How will slimes be in the future?

It’s hard to say, but there is a growing slime presence in modern media which, in the past, has lead to exploration and even humanization of mythic creatures, and the humble slime is no exception. Look for representations of slime that push the boundaries between humanity and ooze in a lovable and relatable way.

Happy sliming to you all!

  Do you have additional information about the history of ooze as a monster? Do you have a link to an online-readable version of The Odyle? If so, please leave a comment below.

The History of Slimes was originally published on Friendly Neighborhood Lizard Man

[leviathan-supersystem]

ooh this is interesting. this is very interesting.

here we have an outright admission that the ““““““Effective””””””” Altruism movement is, in fact, as i have argued, just using global poverty as a smokescreen to manipulate people into being recruited into the lesswrong/miri AI doomsday cult/scam.

of particular note:

On the other hand, it is much easier to convince people of AI risk if you get them into the EA community by claiming this is a community about global poverty, and then all their friends take AI stuff seriously, and the cool people are doing AI research, and it would be kind of awkward to say “I think this is bullshit” so they don’t, and cognitive dissonance takes you the rest of the way there. Of course, that’s kind of throwing out the whole “reason” and “evidence” thing we’re supposedly here for, but it works, and isn’t that what really matters?

this is such a detailed and accurate description of how people can be manipulated (and manipulated is definitely the right word here, they even specifically used that term in the tags) into falling under the sway of absurd, nonsenseical belief systems- and fits in with what i said earlier in my post on currents as a model for understanding the social superorganism, [link] particularly the amoeba as a metaphor for understanding it’s structure- an outer membrane designed to draw in outsiders, then once within, a structure designed to pull people into the nuclei.

this kind of structure is very common among currents/memeplexes/superorganism/[whichever term you prefer], but usually a current will simply emphasize the aspects of itself which are most appealing to outsiders while still giving an overall fairly accurate impression. when a current needs to resort to outright deception, presenting itself as something wholely different than what it actually is, that is massive red flag that a current is malignant and dysfunctional.

what frustrates me most about this is that global poverty is obviously an extremely important issue, and that it is being  exploited as a cheap tactic to manipulate people into giving their money to useless scams like MIRI is abhorrent to me.

[monsterrates]

Yo! Your Cu Alter review was fantastic and thank you for that, may I request the pillar men from jojo's bizarre adventure for a rate?

THE PILLAR MEN (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure)

Thank you both for your compliment and this suggestion that I would never have thought of but is DEFINITELY a good idea. Disclaimer: I’ve only gotten through like 2/3 of Battle Tendency and it was ages ago so if I get anything wrong, that’s why.

INTRODUCTION: The Pillar Men are a bunch of scantily clad buff dudes that are members of an ancient race of sort-of-vampires, with the ability to polymorph and absorb people, that Joseph Joestar fights in part 2 of JJBA.

PROS:♥ I mean, if you like muscles, JJBA is basically your one stop shop, and the pillar men have all theirs on display because I guess clothes are for lesser beings like humans. Personally the bulging musculature of JJBA is a bit too much for me personally, but I’m certainly not going to say a bunch of buff naked guys is a BAD thing.♥ Weird design choices aside, those are some pretty handsome, chisel-jawed faces. Kars (right) even has some luxuriously long curls, he’s definitely the prettiest which of course means by anime logic that he’s the leader.♥ I’ve mentioned my feelings on unicorn-type horns before, but the one’s Kars seems to just kinda have all the time? Perfect length. Anything longer is foolish.♥ They guys.... they are the captains of body horror. When they first appear one of the first things they do is cleave a man right in half (the bad, vertical way), and then proceed to do even worse to their own bodies in ensuing fights. Esidisi (left) there? Those strings are his goddamn BLOOD VESSELS, he uses them to attack because he can like heat up his blood or something, it was absolutely ridiculous. When he’s defeated he’s reduced to literally just his nervous system, but he’s STILL ALIVE and manages to hijack someones body to continue being a threat by threatening to turn them into a BOILING BLOOD BOMB. Also whatever the fuck this is;

♥ More than anything else he’s done, the fact that Noted Fuckboy Joseph Joestar didn’t see that and then immediately just decide to go home to New York is what makes him a protagonist. There is so much going on here from the exposed, predator-esque fangs, to the apparent ribcage on the back of his head, and then the horrid fleshy horn. In this moment Esidisi has achieved the aesthetics of Alien AND Predator, while still being effectively humanoid, and that is such a fucking  accomplishment in a look.

CONS:♥ As always I’m obligated to point out that they don’t ALWAYS look like waking nightmares when they very well could. However, their behavior is so goddamn alien between their just true disregard for human life and odd expressions of emotion, that when they do turn into horror terrors it isn’t even that surprising. Still, when Kars becomes the “Ultimate Life Form” he doesn’t turn into a shambling monstrosity or even grow a tail, so I’m still deducting the point because they clearly aren’t dedicated to their true monster potential.♥ As far as I can tell, Wamuu never truly goes fully apeshit like Esidisi, and Kars just like, grows some wings and other various animal features when he becomes the “Ultimate Life Form” (FALSE ADVERTIZING, WHERE ARE THE FUCKING SPIKES AND TEETH). The one constant is the horn, but only Esidisi’s has the good taste to be cragged and malignant while the other two just have the traditional spirally type which is BORING and LAME♥ Is it racist for these characters to be vaguely coded as mezo-american and have them literally be monsters that feed on humans, when everyone else is white and also there’s Nazis running around that aren’t 100% the bad guys? As usual I am far too white to weigh in properly but it sure doesn’t have the best Optics.♥ Araki had monster ideas like this in him and instead went on to have the main recurring antagonist be just some blond British asshole who generates memes wherever he goes. The Pillar Men could have been so much more.

RATINGS:MONSTRUOUSNESS: 7/10There’s easily potential for a perfect 10 here, but when it’s so sparingly actually seen, I can’t give it to them. However even though they spend the majority of the time basically humanoid, Esidisi’s insane look up there alone is worth this score.

FUCKABILITY: 2.5/10Like, aesthetically, I get it. I absolutely get it. But you will die. You won’t even get to fuck and THEN die in the process (See: Cu Chulainn Alter), you will just die without getting any D in the first place because they literally eat humans by sublimation like big, Governator shaped amoebas. I’ll give them a few points just for the Looks but just like, constructively, their fuckability is a big Can’t.

PERSONAL RATING: 6/10I would like them better if they talked less and turned into disgusting cryptids more. I don’t want to hear anything about how you’re superior to human beings if you won’t even grow some extra features prove it, Kars.

[enanna-h]

munch: there should be a special level in hell for this pus sucking, gangrenous malignancy of a mental amoeba

cragen:

i'm loving their quips to each other sjdksjdhs

[drone-corleone]

Mitosis Definition

What is Mitosis?

Who in the world cares? Everybody should! It’s how we stay alive!

Even if you and your boyfriend or girlfriend broke up, and you’re left with scars, literally, Mitosis will heal your scars (at least the literal one) by replicating cells that were torn off your skin! And if ever you’re abused by your partner in this manner don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Cell Cycle and Cell Division

To understand Mitosis, we must first understand the terms Cell Cycle and Cell Division. The Cell cycle is the life of a cell from the time it was formed during a division of a parent cell until its own division into two daughter cells. Cell Division is the phase of the Cell Cycle in which a single parent cell divides into two daughter cells. What’s all it got to do in Mitosis?

Mitosis is a type of cell division wherein an irganism reproduces two genetically identical daughter cells (which both consist of 23 pairs of chromosomes) from a single parent cell without the need for intercourse. Mitosis is responsible for producing all our bodily cells except for the sex cells (sperm and egg cells). This type of cell division is important for 3 main reasons:

1. Asexual Reproduction. many organisms are able to reproduce its own kind by itself without the aid of another organism through sex.

2. Growth and Development. we are able to sustain life and functions due to this process.

3. Tissue Repair. mitosis replaces cells that die from accidents and normal wear and tear like wounds, creation of new blood cells etc.

Stages of Mitosis

1. Prophase

2. Prometaphase

3. Metaphase

4. Anaphase

5. Telophase and Cytokinesis

To understand this stages, have a look at our group’s wonderful output for our Biology subject :))

Watch this entertaining video of The Amoeba Sisters if you want to learn more!

https://youtu.be/f-ldPgEfAHI

Oh nooo..what if Mitosis fails to be kept in check?? What if cells continue to multiply without stopping???

Cell Division and Cancer Cells

Cell Division processes like Mitosis is regulated by the Cell Cycle Control System. It is in place in order to pace the sequential events of Mitosis and prevent complications. When old cells do not die, a mutation happens in the old cell’s DNA and it does not acknowledge the cell cycle control system. Mitosis is uncontrolled and cells keep reproducing without stopping.

There are 2 types of Cancer Cells:

1. Benign

-> Characterized by abnormal growth of cells but are not deadly. These cancer cells can be removed by surgery and is not harmful.

2. Malignant

-> This type of Cancer cell is the alarming one as their structure enables them to spread to new tissues and impair the function of many organs. This type of cancer cell can cause serious medical problems and can be deadly.

Can Cancer be prevented? Can cancer deaths be avoided? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 30% to 50% of cancers can be prevented by a healthy lifestyle such as avoidance of tobacco and preventive public health measures such as immunization against some cancer causing infections.

Here’s some more preventive measures to prevent Cancer:

1. Avoid tobacco in all its forms

2. Eat properly

3. Exercise regularly

4. Stay lean

5. If you choose to drink alcohol, limit yourself to an average of one drink a day.

6. Avoid unnecessary exposure to radiation

7. Avoid exposure to industrial and environmental toxins such as asbestos fibers, benzene, aromatic amines, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

8. Avoid infections that contribute to cancer, including hepatitis viruses, HIV, and the human papillomavirus (HPV)

9. Make quality sleep a priority

10. Get enough vitamin D

Reference: https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-10-commandments-of-cancer-prevention

Conclusion

Mitosis is a tyoe of cell division in which a single cell dupliactes into two genetically identical daughter cells. It is responsible for producing an organism’s bodily cells except for one, the sex cells. Mitosis undergo 5 stages in order to complete. Complications at the Cell and in its Cycle Control System to regulate this process can end up producing cancer cells which may or may not be deadly. Cancer may not be entirely prevented, but we can lessen our risk to have this disease by taking the right measures.

**Now that you know the importance of Mitosis, be grateful for your body and treat it like a temple!

References:

Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., Reece, J. B., & Campbell, N. A. (2017). Campbell biology (11th ed.). Pearson.

https://biologydictionary.net/asexual-reproduction/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/the-10-commandments-of-cancer-prevention

[dailycharacteroption]

Creature Corner: Ooze part 1

 Intro

 Ah, the ooze, a longtime staple of rpgs, harkening all the way back to the original Dungeons and Dragons. We’ve seen them all manner of forms (or lack thereof!) both serious threats or adorable and cute in popular media.

But what exactly is an ooze, and where did the idea of them come from?

Almost certainly, oozes as monsters were inspired by single-celled amoeba, protozoa that live their lives formlessly engulfing food. However, not every ooze monster is just a protist somebody hit with an embiggening ray. Many more are inspired by science fiction and horror, such as Lovecraft’s shoggoths or The Blob of early cinema. Even Steven King got in on it with his short story “The Raft”. Additionally, plenty of fiction exists where a mass of dangerous material comes to life with malign hunger.

So, to break it down, an ooze must be a formless or mostly-formless being. While many of them follow the stereotype of mindless eating machines, this is not necessarily the case. While some may be literally giant amoebas, others might be more akin to slime mold colonies, if they even possess a cellular structure as we understand it, being made from some form of strange protoplasm instead.

Others may be made of unusual materials suggesting a non-carbon-based origin, such as magma oozes or crystal oozes, while others blur the line between ooze and other creature types, such as gravesludge being grave dirt and rot given malign will, a mezlan being a liquid startmetal construct imprinted with the soul of a warrior, or an immortal ichor being the spilled blood of an evil god given will.

Indeed, a good number of oozes are intelligent as well, though the majority are not, making for a nasty surprise when an ooze antagonist demonstrates tactics.

Oozes also carry the stereotype (at least in JRPGs) of being weak, low-level monsters, fodder similar to how goblins and kobolds are often treated, though a significantly-powerful ooze can be quite dangerous in the right circumstances.

 That being said, oozes are often considered “Same-y” because of their unified formlessness and most having similar power sets, but as we’ll see throughout the week, there are plenty of ways to subvert that!

[lgbt-history-archive]

"RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS – OUTBREAK OCCURS AMONG MEN IN NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA—8 DIED INSIDE 2 YEARS," by Lawrence K. Altman, The New York Times (@nytimes), July 3, 1981. . Just a month after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) first published a report announcing that five gay men in Los Angeles had died of a rare form of pneumonia, a second CDC report confirmed that the disease—identified as the typically malignant Kaposi's Sarcoma—was spreading among young gay men beyond California. . On July 3, 1981, thirty-six years ago today, in what is considered to be the first mainstream coverage of what ultimately became known as HIV/AIDS, the New York Times included a piece on this second CDC report. . “It said that all the guys had the same history of having had all these sexual diseases: amoebas, hepatitis A and B, mononucleosis, syphilis, and gonorrhea,” Larry Kramer later told Eric Marcus (@makinggayhistorypodcast). “The late 1970s were the years of the amoebas—we forget that. Just as everybody talks about AIDS now, you couldn’t go to a party in the late 1970s without everybody telling an amoeba story. When I saw that article in the Times I was scared because I had had all of those diseases. . “A few weeks later I had a conversation with Dr. Friedman-Kien from @nyuniversity, who told me in essence, ‘This is what’s happening. You’ve got to stop fucking.’ … As a result of that conversation, Dr. Larry Mass, who had been writing about this new health problem in a local gay paper even before the Times wrote about it, and two other guys—now both dead—and I, invited everyone we knew to come to a meeting here at my apartment.” That meeting resulted in the establishment of @gmhc, the world’s first AIDS service organization. . Significant mainstream media coverage of the AIDS epidemic did not begin for at least five—and, some would argue, ten—years after the July 1981 article. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #Resist #NeverForget #NeverAgain