Drifting into the endless dream

Dibaeis absoluta

OK, so why does this lichen look like it is growing mushrooms, even though these are decidedly not mushrooms? My first answer is "just to fuck with you," but D. absoluta evolved long before humankind, nonetheless you specifically. So my second answer is because the mushroom shape just makes functional sense when you want to produce a fruiting body by maximizing the physical area that produces spores, and raising them above the substrate by a thin stalk so they can get caught in and distributed by wind. Ok, so they are the spore producing structure of fungi, shaped like that, how are they not mushrooms? Mushrooms are we typically think of them are the reproductive structures of basidiomycete fungi, the spores are typically released from the lower surface of the fruiting bodies like this:

And in an ascocarp, the reproductive structure of an ascomycete fungi like that of D. absoluta, the spores are released from the upper surface of the fruiting bodies. So like this:

OK this is waaayyy simplified. There are also a bunch of internal physiological differences but you, dear reader, can look those up yourself if you are curious about the nuances of fungal development. But very generally speaking, basidiospores come out the bottom, ascospores come out the top.

So not tiny mushrooms, but very very cute just as they are!

And a lot of people would rather keep it unfinished and perfect in their head than done and flawed and out there. an unfinished draft can still be anything. once you finish it, it becomes one specific thing with specific failures that specific people can point to. so you keep tweaking. you keep saying it's not ready. you go back to the beginning again.

short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.

That type of bevor seen in the first picture wouldn't usually go with an armet-style helmet, but rather with a helmet without its own built-in neck protection, such as (what is neologically called) a sallet or kettle helm.

If you wanted to get more neck protection out of an armet, you'd use what is usually called a "wrapper plate" which is kind of similar to a bevor but shaped to fit armets.

Arming jackets/doublets (usually also called gambesons - the thing about the Middle Ages is that they didn't actually have a lot of standardized words for things at all and many words we use today to refer to specific pieces of equipment are either completely new, or they refer to something specific today but a medieval person would have used the same word to refer to many different things) have strings all over them not just to keep them tied together but because that's how you attach the plate armor to the body. Their padding also not only acts as padding, but also offers some basic resistance to blades in the event that a blade gets between the plates and through the maille (chainmail) armor that usually fills the gaps between the plates. There is almost no chance at all of a blade penetrating the plates themselves.

Bigger thicker gambesons were worn as a form of armor themselves for poorer soldiers who couldn't afford anything better. They are surprisingly cut-resistant and cushion the body against blunt force as well. Stabbing weapons will go straight through them, but even then it's better to have it than not, because if you're wearing 2 inches of padding and get stabbed by a 5-inch blade in the heat of battle when everyone is constantly moving around and your opponent has no time (or desire) to drive it all the way in, that's only 3 inches deep into your actual flesh instead of 5.

Oh one tip I will give that technically is a correction is that that belt in the bottom-left picture is anachronistic. It's hard to describe how 15th century belts buckle but it usually looks something like this.