#mushroom clouds

[kekwcomics]

MATANGO trike box

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Ugh, another morning on tumblr... Decided to unfollow someone because I don’t like being preached at.  Well, they weren’t preaching at me and it wasn’t even their post, they were just reblogging someone whom I thought was a little overblown.  It’s not that I didn’t think they had a good point, but the comments, man, the comments.... I don’t know, it’s just that sometimes when people really get into virtue signaling, it makes me want to “be evil.”  Like, you waggle your fingers and tell people not to do something and I’m like “Okay, dead baby jokes, comin’ up!”   So, the nag was about how horrible it was that people were drawing Barbenheimer art - pink mushroom clouds and stuff because of the horrors of the dropping of the atomic bombs.  Yeah, the point of that stuff IS actually minimizing the horror because sometimes you have to minimize the horrors of the world to get through it - it’s about the juxtaposition.  Is it tactless? Perhaps. Someone on the comments compared it to making Holocaust jokes.  Personally, I’m not so sure if it really is the same because I tend to think it makes fun of America’s war-machine as much as anything and the pervasive nuclear-fear we all have.  Once these things had been unleashed on the world and various nations built them up, we’ve all lived in fear of them so I tend to think that this pretending that Barbie has become death, destroyer of worlds isn’t punching down on the victims but a release valve for a universal fear.  That’s just my take on it.   And of course someone in the comments talked about how they’re on a campaign to stop people from having ANY mushroom cloud art at all.  Pheh.  Forgot to get their name and block them. They shouldn’t be coming around my profile - because... that’s kind of my profile-header?  I drew it in Illustrator to go with my Kitten.  It’s my entire handle here.   Is it because I “hate the Japanese” or “the minorities in proximity to the Trinity test site” or the Bikini atol?  Fuck no.  I chose my handle and theme long before Oppenheimer was ever announced (or being made?) and long before this Barbenhemier bullshit.  I chose it after an old blog I had that was dedicated to my writing and since I liked writing a lot of apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic stories I went with something in that family of imagery.  Specifically, the idea of “apocalypse kitten” comes from the trope of the “Post-Apocalyptic Dog” that follows a protagonist in these kinds of stories.  I thought “If I were living after everything went to shit, maybe I’d like a cat.”  I also have a short story that I wrote many years ago featuring a lone human in a deserted city (nukes had nothing to do with it, it was more of a supernatural situation) and her post-apocalypse companion was a kitten.   My imagery was inspired by the Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority bit in Mike Nesmith’s “Elephant Parts” (making fun of suburbia and American-anger) and probably a bit by the Fallout game series, which I am a fan of.   Yeah, person who wants to ban all art of mushroom clouds everywhere, good luck running up against he legions of fans of that video game series.  *Rolls eyes.*   I am not into the Barbenheimer thing, although I am hoping to see Barbie someday.  I’m not doing fanart for it or anything.... so don’t come after me on that account.   I’m just saying that sometimes something ISN’T meant to demean the victims and actually is more making fun of the aggressors or using dark humor to deal with a collective fear.   And sometimes nagging people about it will make them want to do it more.   There’s woke, and then there’s “lay off the cocaine and trucker’s pills.”  

[taxi-davis]

[txttletale]

i thought i was radicalized before but there is something about seeing every respectable institution and politican and media outlet around you cheer on a genocide while at the same time being able to see live footage of its horrors that cracks something in you open with no way to close it up again

[retroscifiart]

🍄☁️ Bruce Pennington x 2, David Mattingly, David Pattee

[digitalfossils]

American Illustration (1983)

[zegalba]

Satoshi Furui: Mushroom Cloud (2011)

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: the evil fungi did it

We all know of The Last of Us, but that franchise isn't the only example of fungal invasions. We've got zombies and apocalypses, we've got gothic horror, we've got fantasy, we've got romance, we've got space - no genre is safe from having their characters become the home of fungal organisms.

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

The Girl with all the Gifts (The Girl with All the Gifts series) by M.R. Carey

Want another fungal zombie apocalypse? Then I come bearing great news! The Girl with All the Gifts is a post apocalyptic novel following a group of characters fleeing across an infested wasteland, trying to stay alive and hoping to find a cure. One of the characters is Melanie, a young girl who carries the contagion inside of her and hungers for flesh, but like many children of the apocalypse has kept her humanity. Is she and children like her the answer to the cure we are looking for? Or are they the start of something entirely new? This book has also been adapted as a movie!

Cold Storage by David Koepp*

Years ago, a quickly growing fungal organism capable of wiping out humanity came dangerously close to spreading. It was contained and kept in cold storage underneath a military repository. Since then, a larger storage facility has been built on top, the dangers on the lower floor being largely forgotten. That is, until it makes a new attempt at escape. Now, two unsuspecting security guards might be all that stands in the way of complete extermination. This book is both funny and genuine in its characters, and genuinely creepy in its portrayal of body horror.

Salvaged by Madeline Roux

Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, and has run so far she ended up in space. Now she works as a "space janitor", being sent off to clean up the remains of failed research expeditions. But in trying to cope with her problems, she has fucked up on her job multiple times, and is now close to losing her position. Her last chance is the Brigantine: a research vessel gone silent, all crew presumed dead. But when she arrives to salvage it, Rosalyn discovers the crew isn't as dead as presumed. But are they still human - and will Rosalyn be able to keep her own humanity?

The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

Novella. Reid is a young woman living in a small community after a climate collapse. Resources are scarce, but Reid's biggest problem is Cad, a mind-altering fungal parasite that lives inside her body. When she is offered a rare chance at attending a far-away university in a secluded dome community, Reid must decide whether to leave or stay to help support her community.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia*

Noemí Taboada is a glamorous and well-off young woman, but when she receives a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin, Noemí must leave her glamorous life and travel to find out what is wrong. As she arrives at High Place, a mansion on the Mexican countryside, Noemí is met with mysteries and her cousin's new English family. As she tries to find out the truth behind High Place and its inhabitants, Noemí's only ally is the youngest son of the family. But will she be able to find out what so scared her cousin before it's too late for all of them?

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

A young pregnant woman flees a cult that left her body strange and changing in terrifying ways. Hiding from both a world wanting to oppress her and the cult seeking to force her back, she does her best to raise her children while trying to find out the truth of the cult and being pursued by a hunter in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Bleak and scary, Sorrowland is a book that will creep under your skin with horrors both fantastical and very, very real.

What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier duology) by T. Kingfisher

Novella. Alex Easton, retired soldier, travels to visit their childhood friends, siblings Madeline and Roderick Usher, after finding out that Madeline is dying. In the siblings' rural, ancestral home, Madeline walks in her sleep and looks to be fading away, while around it wildlife seems to be possessed by a strange force. With the help of a mycologist and an American doctor, Alex attempts to save Madeline and reveal the truth of her illness.

Wanderers (Wanderers duology) by Chuck Wendig

A strange illness has struck the United States: with no warning, random people with seemingly no connection simply get up and start walking. They do not eat, do not sleep, do not communicate, and they do not stop - and if you try to force them, they literally explode from the inside. Teenaged Shana isn't one of these sleepwalkers, but her little sister is. Unwilling to leave her sister on her own, Shana accompanies the growing flock of walkers, protecting them as one of many "shepherds". And this protection proves necessary, as the sleepwalkers is only the first step toward what might very well be the extinction of the human race. An 800 page epic, Wanderers is a slowburn apocalypse story with a multitude pov characters and plot threads, from fungal pandemics and all-knowing AI to the all too real portrayal of radicalization and bigotry.

The Dawnhounds (The Endsong series) by Sascha Stronach

The Dawnhounds is a book where you just kind of have to let the story and the world wash over you. It skirts the line of scifi and fantasy, with a futuristic world of environmentally friendly mushroom houses and deadly fungi bio weapons next to literally god-given superpowers and near-immortality. It’s really cool and unlike anything else I’ve ever read, but also a bit confusing. Bonus: it’s also sapphic!

Agents of Dreamland (Tinfoil Dossier trilogy) by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Novella. A government agent known only as the Signalman; a cult preying on the young and vulnerable, promising to usher in a new age; a woman who exists outside of time, searching for a way to save humanity. Agents of Dreamland is short, but includes many spooky elements, among them an alien and possibly world-ending fungi. The narrative is non-linear and a bit strange, but also fascinating.

The Genius Plague by David Walton

Soon after landing his dream job at the NSA, things get weird for Neil Johns. His brother Paul, a mycologist, returns from a trip to the Amazon, carrying a nearly lethal fungal infection and a strangely sharpened mind. At work, Neil starts picking up mysterious messages originating out of South America, where cases similar to that of Paul starts occurring. And strangest of all: all the infected seem to be working towards the same goal. Recommended with the caveat that, while the fungal stuff is really cool, The Genius Plague is also happy to idolize American intelligent agencies and demonize environmentalism and anti-imperialism.

Little Mushroom: Judgement Day (Little Mushroom duology) by Shisi

An Zhe isn’t human. He’s a mushroom who absorbed the DNA of a dying man, allowing him to take on human guise and leave the wilderness. Entering one of the last human bases, a place struggling to keep out the mutated and dangerous creatures of the wilds, An Zhe must keep his identity secret as he searches for something which was taken from him. While not my cup of tea (frankly, I need more female characters), Little Mushroom is an undeniably unique m/m romance novel.

Bonus AKA these don't technically involve any fungi but have similar vibes of parasites and nature corrupting the human

Parasite (Parasitology trilogy) by Mira Grant*

In the near future, a great leap in medical science has improved human health by leaps and bounds: a genetically engineered tape worm. Within a few years, almost every human has their own personal parasite implanted. But now, something is happening to the parasites - they want more, whether their hosts want to share or not.

Annihilation (Southern Reach trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer

For decades, Area X has been completely cut off from humanity. The only ones to enter are small organized expeditions, many of which never return, or return... wrong. We follow the latest expedition, its participants known only as the anthropologist, the psychologist, the surveyor, and our narrator, the biologist. As they enter into Area X to try to find out its secrets, only one thing is for sure: they will never be the same again.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Young adult. Over a year ago, the Raxter School for Girls was hit by the Tox, a strange disease that killed off many and left the survivors' bodies slowly changing in terrifying ways. The island the school is on has been in quarantine since then, and the girls dare not leave the school grounds lest they become victims of wild animals changed by the Tox. But as they wait for the promised cure, one of the girls goes missing, and her friends are willing to do anything to find her. Unsettling, spooky, and sapphic, this is a unique read featuring body horror and messy, dangerous girls.

(Second) Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer

Ambergris, a city created by a mushroom-like people, is now the home of humans, but the original inhabitants are still there, residing beneath the city.

Creatures of Want and Ruin (Diabolist's Library series) by Molly Tanzer

It’s the prohibition era, and while Ellie does fishing during the day, at night she bootlegs moonshine in Long Island. But unbeknownst to Ellie, some of the booze she smuggles has a strange source: distilled from mushrooms by a cult, it causes those who drink it to see terrible things, such as the the destruction of Long Island.

Bloom by Wil McCarthy

The inner solar system has been overtaken by fast-reproducing, fast-mutating technogenic life. Humanity has fled to the outer solar system, hiding beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon, but even here they aren't safe from possible incursion of mycospores, which lead to deadly blooms. Now a group of astronauts venture back to an infected Earth.

[nemfrog]

Mushroom cloud. World News of the Week. Oct. 3, 1949.

Rumsey

[crippledgiraff]

We did it Helldivers!

[misforgotten2]

Cover by D. Pattee

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Ascending cloud from Redoubt Volcano from an eruption on April 21, 1990. The mushroom-shaped plume rose from avalanches of hot debris (pyroclastic flows) that cascaded down the north flank of the volcano.

[archiveofaffinities]

Las Vegas, Fremont Street early 1950s, Mushroom clouds in the west from aboveground testing of nuclear devices at Frenchman and Yucca Flats by the Atomic Energy Commission

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Marasmius sect. Marasmius.

In an Ecuadorian Cloud Forest, Two Mycologists Catalogue Hundreds of Fantastical Fungi

Scientists believe that less than 4% percent of the world’s fungi have been documented, which adds up to only 150,000 species described out of an estimated 2.2-3.8 million worldwide. Mycologists Danny Newman and Roo Vandegrift have spent the last 12 years focusing on locations impacted by the climate crisis and increasing human interference, like Ecuador’s Reserva Los Cedros. 

All images © Danny Newman

Aurapex penicilliata

Favolaschia sp.A

indet. Mycenaceae

[talos-stims]

DARK IN HERE

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[gummi-stims]

Could I please ask for a stem board of moomintroll and snufkin? Please and thank you 💙

I hope this is good! c:

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