Hi, I’m doing a research project on Captain Marvel and her fans for my dissertation, if anyone can spare 5 minutes, I’d love to hear about your experiences!
currently, the world’s largest single organism IS a mushroom. it’s a massive growth of honey mushrooms, growing under a forest in oregon. it takes up about 4 square miles, stretched out over 60 miles.
the caption is also true, although also completely unrelated to the (fake) picture. here are real pictures of them:
(lol)
the fossils found are called prototaxites, and there’s actually still some debate about what exactly they are- mostly because a lot of scientists simply can’t wrap their heads around the idea of giant mushrooms covering the earth. the alternate theories of what they were are lichen or rolled-up formations of moss, but giant mushrooms seems to be the leading theory.
conclusion: ANCIENT EARTH HAD GIANT DONGS GROWING OUT OF IT. ALL OVER THE PLACE.
thank you for your time.
I do love factual content matched with misleading images. It’s also great to see some love for the fascinating problematica that is Prototaxites.
Note that Prototaxites isn’t really strictly a mushroom, since the term “mushroom” applies only to the fruiting bodies of basidiomycotes, agaricomycetes, and asomycotes. The best we can do is to assign Prototaxites to an indeterminate fungus.
Years ago I once mentioned to a coworker at a theatre where I was interning that my boss was bi (he was out, I wasn’t doing anything I shouldn’t) and she said “Oh! He sometimes shops at the other market!”
I almost fell over laughing at the expression, and I reported the conversation to my mum later. She picked it up and would joke about it for like, YEARS after. It became a running joke in our family, the expression “He shops at the other market.”
This ended up being REALLY funny about five years later when we were trying to find a grocery store on a family road trip and ended up buying what we needed from a grocery store with a big sign out front reading BI-MART. We pulled into the parking lot and I leaned over to my mother and said, “This is the other market he shops at.”
OK someone write me a fic where Steve uses some of these in conversation and nobody figures it out until someone (Natasha?) has a Classic Movies marathon. (you’re fond of your mother? um, me too? I ought to warn you that hitchhiking isn’t as safe as it used to be, by the way. OH, THE POSSIBILITIES FOR CONVERSATIONAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS.)
And at the center of it all: Chocolate. Chocolate as a discourse on imperialism. Chocolate as a metaphor for sex. Chocolate magnifying the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation. Chocolate as currency. Chocolate as power. Oh, Tremontaine is an adventure, and at least two love stories, too — but it’s also a savvy commentary on the economics and ethics of cultural exchange. Kaab is a woman of color, hailing from a people of color, from a land far away, where chocolate is crafted and exported to a nation of people the color of ant-eggs who bastardize the Kinwiinik’s sacred preparation and consider their sugared up, creamed up version of the drink the height of sophistication. It’s not just an entertaining series; it’s an incisive cultural critique.
Well, and the gayness: One thing most of these writers of have in common is that their previously published works all give prominence to queer characters in worlds where being queer is a non-issue. The same is true of Tremontaine, where every love story is between men who love men, or women who love women, or men and women who love both men and women. The sex is good fun, but the romance is deliriously well-written. Such aching and longing and pining and promises (amid cups and cups of chocolate!).
Kimchi and Justice 