My blood smells funny!

Plus a quite rough slight Headcannon doodle of Mask Guy, Tall Guy and Kenneth

I imagine Tall Guy and Kenneth being quite close to/caring for Mask Guy a lot due to him being the only one who's able to understand them

people in the comments will be like "okay but we could at least get rid of ticks and mosquitos because those spread disease."

we actually CANNOT get rid of ticks and mosquitos. not only do we plain lack the technology to lead a pointed extermination effort against them specifically without taking a score of other species down with them, but if we developed that technology and did eradicate mosquitos and ticks, it would be the catalyst of utter ecological collapse the likes of which i think people are not quite comprehending.

the problem is not the existence of bugs. the problem is that our current global systems ensure that specific Peoples in specific places are disproportionately impacted by zoonoses (illness spread between animals and humans).

those same populations also disproportionately lack access to preventative tools & PPE (down to things many of us take for granted so simply as effective bug spray), and crucially access to medical treatment.

the goal should not be an eradicating effort against bugs which would quite literally collapse entire ecosystems, but equitable access to healthcare, investment in medical research to improve preventative and acute treatment for zoonoses, and the destruction of systems which are currently rapidly increasing the threat of zoonoses worldwide (climate change!)

i am not defending the existence of bugs because i think they're cute and because i don't care about the devastating suffering zoonoses cause millions and millions of people.

The way we do this is by breeding sterilized males en masse and releasing them. They mate with females who then lay eggs that never hatch. In places like the Everglades, this reduces invasive populations to the point that native populations can out-compete them (and yes, it's the invasives that carry disease). In places like Hawaii, it's a bit trickier because they're trying to get rid of invasive mosquitoes in a place where there is no native competition, but they're doing it to save native animals from malaria, and crucially, there are parasites in other ecological niches that science is leaving well enough alone.