[ID: A screencap of Jason Mendoza from the Good Place holding a Molotov cocktail. Caption reads “be the light you want to see in the world”. End ID]

The building of rage

against the dying of the lights

@awerzo

Wheat fields are more mystical than fields of other crops. You are 7,000 times more likely to meet an old god or see a portent of doom in a wheat field than in a field of like… soybeans.

For your consideration: cornfields

Cornfields are less mystical than wheat fields but more mystical than soybean fields. Two-bit monsters congregate in corn fields to eat people, but their power is nothing compared to the things that manifest in wheat fields. 

Have been in both wheat and cornfields; can confirm. Cornfields host monsters who eat people. Wheat fields attract old gods. 

I have a theory that this is because the notions most of us have of “old gods” are pretty intrinsically European, and wheat was (and is) the staple crop of European life. It is quite literally tied to the ancestral rituals and beliefs of most white people. Odin, the Morrigan, and even Zeus are actually linked to a set of peoples who cultivated wheat.

Meanwhile, corn (maize) is a crop native to the Americas. It features in the white cultural imagination in a very different way. Corn is a motif seen not in our ancestral myths, but in a much newer genre: the American Gothic. With its focus on the tensions between man and nature and—perhaps more importantly—the United States’s history of genocide against its indigenous population and trade in enslaved Africans, the American Gothic is VERY preoccupied with agriculture. Our monsters come out of corn fields because corn is a symbol for not only what we did to the Native Americans (who were the first to grow the crop), but of what we are doing to the very land itself. Corn is a monument to our cultural sins.

Meanwhile, I suspect that corn features very differently in the imaginations of people of color. If you asked a Native American person or a Latinx person what sort of mysticism they associate with corn fields, I imagine their answer would be very different than ours.

TLDR: White people associate wheat with our ancestors’ gods because our ancestors grew wheat. We associate corn with terrible monsters because it is a literal sign of our own monstrosity.

Native American here, can confirm that small plots of corn feel safe and homey; ideally they should be interplanted with other crops. You find turkeys and possums and raccoons in the corn. It might tell you important knowledge.

However.

Giant monocultures of corn, where the corn grows unbroken for miles and miles, not near human habitation, devoid of local wildlife, just corn on corn in the soft wind? Corn mega monocultures? Those sound like screaming.

“monocultures attract people-eating monsters” is not the take I expected to see today but I’m glad I saw it

The anthropological analysis and discussion on folklore is spot on. 10/10

Corn lore

Neil Banging Out the Tunes (2023)

Air-dry clay over foil and wire armature, EVA foam, acrylic paint, paint marker

ITS APRIL 13 YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS

FETCH ME NEIL

and on April 13th, 2006, niel banged out the tunes, and it was good

I just....I just learned that there's a word in the English language...for when you run into someone to hug them with all the enthusiasm and strength you have....I learned that it's called glomp.

My God, English has so many words to describe physical intimacy, I'm in love

they should make a pill that makes people in their 20s feel good about where their lives are going

"This person has a secret onlyfans!" "This artist does NSFW commissions!" "This author writes porn on the side!" I cannot begin to tell you how swag and awesome that is.

Reblog the writers’ fortune cookie for luck!

Guys I reblogged this and then wrote an 8000 word story I didn’t even have a solid plan for. Reblog this shit.

Worth a shot

round 6: semi-finals

tap to view full images!!

Burza (The storm) by Zdzisław Jasiński, 1925:

Orka na Ukrainie (Ploughing in Ukraine) by Leon Wyczółkowski, 1892:

STOP no more live-action remakes. We're going the other way now. Animated Casablanca. Animated The Godfather. Animated Oppenheimer. Animated Fight Club.

TikTokers are such pussies when it comes to ships. “B-but they’re not canon 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😖😖” honey back in my day we shipped characters from entirely different medias uphill both ways in the snow

We need to reintroduce crackshipping into the zeitgeist. We use to be a society damnit.

calling 911 on sam riegel for emotional damage 😭😭😭😭