#but also the link between cordyceps being *considered* our version of real life zombiefication

[not-poignant]

Different anon here but wanted to mention that the last of us doesn't have zombies. It's actually just humans that are infected with a fungus infection that similar to the thing that happens to insects and turns them mad. Just thought I'd mention that since i was confused about it too lol

Hi anon,

I feel like you're kind of quibbling here to ignore the fact that I just broadly don't like zombie content. I appreciate that you want me to have something to do with TLOU, but I don't. So let's talk about this fungus and zombies.

Did you know that when Cordyceps was first introduced on mainstream media via David Attenborough in 2006, it was called the zombie fungus?

Did you know that the common name for Cordyceps when it was first discovered parasitising ants was known as the zombie-ant fungus? And did you know that the ants parasitised were commonly called zombie-ants? Not just by people who knew nothing about science, but by the scientists who discovered this.

I know a little more about Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps than the average person (for a start, I knew about it before TLOU existed), so I know it's got a lengthy history with being considered the first biological evidence of something as close as we could ever get to zombieficition, and it's since inspired horror authors (and video game creators obvs) around the world.

So you pointing out that the game is about a new form of Cordyceps doesn't make this game any less about zombies as far as I'm concerned, because you know...the science and discussions around Cordyceps.

I mean obviously Cordyceps doesn't create literal zombies in the classic sense (these ants aren't doing anything more than trying to spread the fungus, even as their brains are completely taken over and they're directed into strange behaviours by it), but I also know that TLOU isn't a little fun slice of life romp in the sunshine.

I don't like horror. And I really don't like horror that has anything, on any level, to do with zombies, or anything like zombies. And while you can be like 'oh but they're not really zombies it's a fungus' I just want to point out that this fungus - Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps - has been literally associated with zombies in the mass media and by scientists and by authors for like...decades, including by David Attenborough himself when he first drew more global attention to its existence.