#fungal horror

[morggo]

Cordyceps

Acrylic, posca on wood

12" x 5.25"

2023

🍄✨🍄

[flameswallower]

here's the kickstarter for a horror anthology i have a story in. the theme was plants and fungi, and my story is about fungi. it is also about grief and loneliness and the circle of life. there are a lot of other cool authors in this anthology, such as avra margariti. okay thanks for your time

...the biggest fungus of all time was Prototaxites, which could grow 25 feet high and three feet wide. it lived during the Silurian and Devonian periods, well before most large land plants and animals.

[libraryofbaxobab]

May 15, 2024:

Someone should tell fungal horror writers there are other scary mushrooms besides cordyceps.

That's a little unfair to this book, considering it's 10 years old (already?!) so it might have been a bit ahead of the curve. BUT this might be the best Fungal Apocalypse I've read, at least for a long time.

It's easy to compare it with Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist because of the child-who-is-more-than-a-child angle, and for similar reasons it reminds me of Berserk by Tim Lebbon, with the added bonus that the dangerous innocent is-- well, I'll skirt away from even minor spoilers there.

I do have a gripe, and it's a small one but I think it speaks to a more significant attitude: the central relationship in this whole thing is a precocious student and her teacher whom she loves fiercely. But at the beginning the teachers call it "a crush." I hate that. It's never, ever remotely sexual or romantic in any way (that I could pick up on, anyway! And I was paying attention!) and is very clearly a blend of two very understandable pulls: the bond between a curious child and an educator with a unique teaching style, and that of a mistreated child drawn to the only adult who has ever shown them kindness. That's not a crush, weirdos. Maybe it's in there to show that the adults are wrong, that they misunderstand the children?

I resisted this for a long time because I of some misconceptions I had about it, but I'm overall glad I read this.

7/10 #WhatsKenyaReading

[goldfishnyx]

I really enjoy the whole parasitic fungus and host having a Symbiotic relationship not only in the sense of nutrients in return for an expanded physcial capacity and memory but also in the sense of the host teaching the fungus and treating it as if it is a child that needs to be taught. Like if you've ever read 'What Moves the Dead' by tkingfisher or hell the story its based off by Edgar Allan poe, 'The Fall of the House of Usher', the relationship Madeline has with the parasitic fungus is interesting because she treats it like a child, teaching it how to speak and read and referring to it with the Gallacian pronouns used for children. I just think its interesting and I wish more media depicted the parasite/host relationship in this way. It's also interesting that this fungi has the capacity and intelligence to learn at all, although some of it is indeed based in reality given the fact that many fungi do have some form of short term memory. It's almost motherly the way Madeline treats her parasite, and if the book by T. kingfisher was longer, they could have expanded on this even more which would have been so interesting.

Idk maybe this type of relationship is actually super common and it just flew over my head, but if it's so used, I guess its weird I barely hear people mentioning it.

[beforeviolets]

currently reading

A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock 🌿🍄‍🟫

This queer fungal horror is about to be a new obsession of mine. It centers two men who live in a secluded greenhouse, far from prying eyes, both because of the nature of their relationship and because of their lines of work. One is a botanist, and the other a taxidermist. As a queer couple estranged from society, they only dream of having children. Until they begin an experiment combining their skill sets: to build a botanical daughter.

[nebulavertigo]

Don't think I've posted this before but this was a college assignment I did like a year ago that I just completely forgot to post. We were supposed to make a traditional piece inspired by other artists or pieces of media, mine was inspired by Darkwood. I used copic markers and pen.

I might redo this digitally at one point since I do want to make weirder art, and I feel like I could have done better than this.

[cmrosens]

#MonstrousMay 2023: The Monster's Hide

Some body horror today: "The Monster's Hide" went a different direction to the one I intended, but it's partly inspired by Jeff Vandermeer's ANNIHILATION.

cws: body horror, skin, eyes

The Condemnation of 43-55 Starling Lane My neighbour had been dead for days, but I could still hear him coughing through the wall. It was a hollow, hard bark of a cough, forced from his chest cavity and vibrating over his voice box, but it wasn’t him doing the breathing. Starling Lane is a long street behind a disused train track that once branched from the main line to the Barker Mill, and…

[sutexii]

🌕 Queen Plenilunium the Full Phase Lornkin Sovereign, Sword of the Earthshine Knights, Master to Conquest the Champion // X //

[madcat-world]

Arkham Horror Card Illustration: Fungal Cave - Nele-Diel

[whereserpentswalk]

Yes, this new "god" whose entered the land whose followers preach that he is the one true deity is actually a mass of veinlike fungal tendrils throughout the soils of this world, whose body reaches a tiny bit of itself into every place of worship (which is why his churches are always covered in those cute little mushrooms). Just thought that you should know that. Don't hate anyone for their religion of course, no matter what our faith is we all bleed, well actually this god's high priests don't actually bleed, if you cut them open it's just spores inside, but you get the point.

[milfglupshitto]

I think it’s inherently a little ridiculous to insist that certain topics are too uncomfortable for horror, which is famously the Genre That Makes You Uncomfortable. I also think there exists for each individual a list of concepts that make them uncomfortable in a thought-provoking and even disquietingly reflective way as well as a list of concepts that make them uncomfortable in a skin-crawling throat-itching sick-to-stomach i-can’t-handle-this way. so to this end I think it is a little bit more than a little ridiculous to insist on one universal list of acceptable and unacceptable categories of Personal Uncomfort. and this is why I will always be a staunch advocate for and (as best I can) diligent provider of content warnings

[vulturevalentines]

content warning for child death different from my usual stuff but a couple months ago i made this zine about fungal infections and how it feels when a kid you rode your bike with died before she ever hit double digits

[libraryofbaxobab]

July 19, 2024:

Technically this is a prequel to The Girl With All The Gifts, but it is also a sequel and also contemporary with its events. Unfortunately, I think it undermines what the first one was saying just by having the perspective shift to a full human character. Like I thought the whole point of the first one is that the hybrid children are the future and that fearing them is standing in the way of humanity's survival. Things can't go back to the way they were and so we must be fundamentally changed.

I mean in a vacuum it was an okay book, I rather liked the perspective character and it would have been a fine zombie apocalypse, but as a follow-up nah. There's no surprises because what they're trying to figure out we already understand from the first one, and it doesn't add anything but risks taking away from its own message.

5/10 #WhatsKenyaReading

[madzapan]

“AI Karen chatbot gets a redemption arc via Ted Cruz eldritch horror” was not on my bingle card this 2023

laughing hysterically, please help

yeah I paid for people to read this, you’re welcome

[squeakitties]

adoptable design i made :3 mushroomy

[eruptedinlight]

it came out so fuckin sick 🐙🍄🪸