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I for one welcome our fungal overlords
I'm writing an essay about Ender Lilies (my beloved) to pitch to Sidequest, and the point I'm trying to make about the game is that it does something really interesting with fungal horror, which is to suggest that there's no normative way to be human.
This is from the opening section of my essay:
One of the more striking works of recent fungal horror is T. Kingfisher’s 2022 novella What Moves the Dead, which imagines the cataleptic sister of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Madeline, as sharing her body with a sapient fungus originating in the marsh surrounding her family’s estate. Although Madeline’s body has technically died, the strands of fungus filling her heart, lungs, and brain allow her to retain her mobility, as well as her mind. Aspects of this possession seem uncanny to observers, as the fungus is still learning what it means to be “human.” It’s learning quickly, however, and Madeline describes the fungal co-inhabitant of her body as being like a child – occasionally clumsy, but curious and well-intentioned.
The novella ends with the symbiotic being that Madeline has become being brutally tortured and physically confined so that it can be burned alive. Even in an alternate past in which multiple queer gender identities operate within mainstream society, Madeline is too queer. Queerness that exists beyond the bounds of normatively abled human bodies must be destroyed.
...I mean, I'm just saying. "Weird" nonbinary people who aren't interested in wearing sharply tailored military uniforms are no less deserving of dignity and respect. And also, as the world changes around us, is it really so horrific to develop radical new relationships with the environment?
This is from the opening section of my essay:
One of the more striking works of recent fungal horror is T. Kingfisher’s 2022 novella What Moves the Dead, which imagines the cataleptic sister of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Madeline, as sharing her body with a sapient fungus originating in the marsh surrounding her family’s estate. Although Madeline’s body has technically died, the strands of fungus filling her heart, lungs, and brain allow her to retain her mobility, as well as her mind. Aspects of this possession seem uncanny to observers, as the fungus is still learning what it means to be “human.” It’s learning quickly, however, and Madeline describes the fungal co-inhabitant of her body as being like a child – occasionally clumsy, but curious and well-intentioned.
The novella ends with the symbiotic being that Madeline has become being brutally tortured and physically confined so that it can be burned alive. Even in an alternate past in which multiple queer gender identities operate within mainstream society, Madeline is too queer. Queerness that exists beyond the bounds of normatively abled human bodies must be destroyed.
...I mean, I'm just saying. "Weird" nonbinary people who aren't interested in wearing sharply tailored military uniforms are no less deserving of dignity and respect. And also, as the world changes around us, is it really so horrific to develop radical new relationships with the environment?