Hey ‘The Last of Us’ fans, maybe stay away from flour and sugar today

Fans of The Last of Us know that there are some foods you might want to avoid. Remember in the show when Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal) and his family survived because they were out of ingredients for pancakes? Well, today, you might also want to forget the pancake mix.

It is probably the only reason that Joel was there to help Ellie (Bella Ramsey) when she needed him most. In the series, the cordyceps infect people through flour and sugar. Meaning things like waffles and pancakes took people out right at the start of their day. And today marks the 11th anniversary of the Outbreak! Don’t get bitten.

Outbreak day in The Last of Us is September 26, 2013. To celebrate, Max released a trailer for the second season of the acclaimed series.

Am I emotional about Joel Miller and his guitar? Or, more importantly, Joel Miller teaching Ellie Williams how to play said guitar? Yes, of course. But it is fun to see fans of the game and the show celebrate Outbreak Day and all band together to talk about this universe that we love so dearly. Even if…many of us would have been infected right out the gate.

Much like the outbreak in The Walking Dead, the idea of friends and family suddenly being gone because of something completely out of our control is terrifying. It is why, for a long while, I avoided zombie stories. Now, the creatures in The Last of Us are the “clickers” and the ones in The Walking Dead are “walkers” but the idea is still the same. Fellow humans want to eat you and you have to fight to stay alive.

So…would you? Today is the day to think about that reality! (Even as a joke.)

May we all survive the outbreak

Personally, the sugar would get me. How am I supposed to have coffee or my tea without sugar? And so I’d probably be out of commission right at the start. But if I did happen to survive on a fluke, I don’t know how well I would fair in an apocalypse situation. I’m not Bill or Ron Swanson for that matter.

I do love that in a show like The Last of Us, we’re seeing a world where communities have formed together to try and survive the outbreak. It isn’t perfect and it is a bit of chaos to live among the clickers but people are at least trying to move on with their lives.

Season 2 of The Last of Us has a lot of fans on edge (for good reasons). We know what the games set up. The question now is what the show is going to do and how different it is going to be. For now, we can all celebrate Outbreak Day by sharing our favorite moments from the game or the series and listening to Linda Ronstadt. Do it for Bill and Frank, they’d love that we celebrated by crying to “Long Long Time” all day long.