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.
The difference between a small plot of corn with other crops intermixed and a massive fucking endless field is made of eldrich fucking horror.
i dont know how to explain this but. this might be me. i had a brown hoodie exactly like that. the phone on the table? i had a black and white case like that when i was like 12. my middle school’s classrooms looked like that. this literally might be a picture of me in 7th grade, shoveling pasta directly from a ziploc bag into my mouth like some sort of goblin, reblogged by twelve thousand people on the worst website known to mankind. and i dont know how to deal with this
What’s interesting here is that there’s only a possibility that this is them in the picture.
This means one of two things:
1) They remember doing this, but believe it to be so commonplace that it could be literally anyone in that photo. Like if you saw a picture of someone reading a book, you wouldn’t be like “Hey, I read a book once! That must be me in that picture!” because lots of people have read books.
In this case, I bet their belief is based on personal experience. Perhaps there’s a town out there where people regularly eat pasta from a bag in class. Or even a secret society of such people living all over the globe.
2) They don’t remember doing this, but they’ve done so many bizarre (yet still extremely relatable) things that this could very well be one of them. This wasn’t the most noteworthy thing that happened to them that week. There were so many other, stranger, bigger things going on that they did remember, and this event simply wasn’t important enough to commit to memory.
In this case, they’re just out there living their life. Society told them “don’t eat pasta from a ziploc bag in class”, but did they let that stop them? No. They have bigger fish to fry.
i’ve never been fucking obliterated like this before. i dont know what to do. how do i go on when @perfectlygenericblog produced a fucking literary analysis of my life, wholly accurate, from one picture and my reaction to it. i’m getting this tattooed on my forearm
ok but why is ‘potato’ always used negatively in phrases? ‘couch potato’ and ‘he looks like a potato’……… what the hell have potatoes ever done to you? potatos are the mvps of the food world, the backbone of many dishes. they never let u down. potatoes are the real winners here and we should feel honoured to be described as one
I can think of at least one time potatoes have let down a very large group of people.
That was not the potatoes’ faults! That, like most things, was on the British.
My wife and I were were talking the other day and, I don’t remember what we were even talking about, but the idea came up that we would need an oreo for. I joked about getting one from my secret stash. This is where she made her mistake. She said “oh right, like you could have an Oreo stash without me knowing about it.”
I’m sorry?
That’s a challenge.
Oreos aquired.
I’m going to hide them in a super simple place at first
But be sure to follow this post while I chronicle all the ways and places I hide them and also how I plan on taunting her with cookies while she can’t find the package
She is out of the house for a moment so it’s time to enjoy a few cookies
And find a new hiding spot
Hehehe
They up there
Normally I’m a Oreos with milk kinda guy, but I’ll take coffee if coffee is available
Now to hide them right under her nose
She never looks under the TV for anything. Tonight when we are watching Halloween Wars I’ll have a big dopey grin on my face
Time to up the stakes. It was fun having em here and hiding them around her while she didn’t know what was happening. Bit now it’s time for her to be in on the game she is playing
Four cookies packed in her lunch. Game on
I’ve been cleaning house today and feeling like I’ve done a pretty good job. Time to reward myself with some delicious Oreos
Aaaaand put them where she would never find them in a million years
🙂
Got up early this morning and helped pack everyone’s lunch. Pulling a damn Oprah over here
You get some cookies! You get some cookies! Everyone gets cookies!
Then a devious idea struck me…
I put the remaining Oreos in a baggie to hide by themselves. Now to “hide” the package where it will probably be found…
And pin the actual stash to the inside of the closet wall
If you two weren’t already married I’d beg you to marry her because you two are obviously perfect for each other and I love this post with all my heart
This guy’s dopey grin at his success at hiding oreos is exactly what I’m here for
You like that eh? Well you are going to love today’s installment
Look at that. So sad. So few Oreos left
Guess I’ll just pin em right to the middle of the wall in the middle of the living room. She’ll never find em there
Oh, guess I should put this back up
Bwa ha ha ha! You guys! You guys don’t understand! I was planning on doing this and when I got home and looked at it I was like “aww, it’s too thin. They won’t fit.” I even TOLD my wife this and how I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to hide them back there.
But then I looked again. They dooooo
Thank you all so much for the love. I knew y’all would like this, but I had no idea you would like it THIS MUCH. People calling us “goals” and stuff… Man…. It’s kinda hard to take in ya know? Anyways: if this post gets Over 9000™ before I get off work today I will pick up Halloween Oreos on my way home and this will not stop
Dole’s required to defend their trademarks or they might lose them. That vaguely threatening letter reads to me as “I have to legally say this but I don’t want to because I’m laughing too hard and they’re actually giving us marketing, but…I have to say it.”
It lowkey reads like they saw these and went ‘omg we can actually hecking use this idea to make an approximation of these things IRL(except bigger).
…Actually, to be honest, that wouldn’t be an entirely stupid idea. Like. Prepackaged carrots or w/e that could go into school lunches. Maybe with the whole hallowe’en theme.
Steel Phoenix Studios 