#so I have a dog in this fight

[airyairyaucontraire]

The Wikipedia article for corn mazes gives possible earliest dates as 1993 (but the source is marked as possibly unreliable) and 1989 (in the Los Angeles Times, presumably more reliable). Unfortunately the LA Times archive is behind a paywall so it's hard to get a good look at the article (here's what I mean), but I believe the paragraph reads:

The pumpkin patch at R & H Ranch, 100 Kent St. at Avenue J in Lancaster, features scarecrows and a corn maze, and it is adjacent to additional you-pick fruits and vegetables. Hayrides and tours for groups are available with reservations. Open daily from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

What I note about this is that in 1989 no explanation or further description of "a corn maze" is given, implying that it wasn't a novelty at the time but a reasonably familiar seasonal attraction, right alongside hayrides and pick-your-own pumpkins.

Until some keen sleuth finds earlier records to help us narrow down the dates, it seems fair to say that corn mazes originated sometime earlier than 1989. A thing may exist in common knowledge for a while before it makes it into print in a paper of record, particularly in the pre-Web era when every new thing didn't immediately have trend pieces written about it.

The notes on this post include people pointing out that a corn maze is typically cut through the dried-out corn plants after the cobs/ears of maize are picked, so you don't lose any of your crop by making one*, you actually get a bit more money out of it after the main harvest, and people who remember or whose parents say they remember corn mazes in earlier decades, one as early as the 1960s. I can't speak to the accuracy of any of that, but perhaps it will provide a clue for someone else to find more solid information.

*OP may have been confusing corn mazes with crop circles, which are constructed in fields of growing crops and damage the plants by flattening them down in pretty patterns, not cutting paths through them.

corn mazes were invented WHEN???

[puppyeared]

so fucking normal abt this cat

[knockknockwhosthereartistism]

I see your “Bill and Ford go to therapy together” and I raise you “Ford being the therapist”

[egophiliac]

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY, THE NEXT BOOK 7 UPDATE FOR THE JP SERVER IS SET FOR MARCH 1ST.

HOW WE FEELIN LADS!?!?!

AHHHHHHHH NOOO I'M NOT READY, I thought we'd be getting the fourth anniversary first and then Sebek's birthday and then maybe some more episode 7, I didn't -- I didn't think it'd be Friday --

oh god and they're rerunning the story cards, they didn't say this was the final part but it feels like...maybe the penultimate chapter? could the end of episode 7 finally be looming in the distance?! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO

[fumifooms]

I don’t like minimizing the importance and gravity of Laios and Toshiro’s fight into just being a childish squabble, even if to a degree it is framed that way, because to both of them it has a lot of personal significance and emotional weight and runs very deep to their characters… The fight isn’t nothing it’s a LOT, they made up but it’s not something easy to express and to get over for either of them which makes it all the more meaningful! I’m on both sides but there very much are sides, there’s no "they’re both having a ball, Toshiro and Laios hand in hand yay" side to the fight, that comes after

The fight with Toshiro WAS very scary to Laios, almost existentially so, but it’s moreso the "I thought I’d made a friend!!" bit and my god. My god actually

Like it’s not "just" about oh his friend liking him less than he thought, THAT IS SO MUCH. It’s a bond he thought he had being a lie it’s all the time and moments spent together either being a lie from his perspective or marred now looking back. It’s not only being upset at Toshiro for lying but upset at himself that he’s so easy to fool, it’s being upset that there’s something so wrong with you that you can’t even tell if your "close buddy" even actually likes you or not, it’s like. Holding my head. He can’t trust his own vision of events that happened do you see. There’s always this film of distrust that it could be a lie that should be there when he interacts with people there’s always this sense of cloak and dagger to expect backstabs out of nowhere because you CAN’T see it coming you CAN’T you CAN’T there’s something about you which makes it impossible so you CAN’T-

He’s so scared of not being able to read people. He knows it’s a weak spot he has, he’s always known. All of these bits are centered around social expectations and betrayals, the assumption that he doesn’t belong either in society or with other humans.

And Laios’ level of awareness is actually sort of complex to analyze, but it’s there, there’s how out of him and Falin he was the one sensitive to the ~aura of hatred~ he felt from the townspeople, there’s of course his nightmares whispering to him about the mocking looks, and how yeah actually he realizes that his gold stripper coworker was taking advantage of him. There’s of course the Winged Lion speech about his trauma and how he fundamentally mistrusts/dislikes humans to some deep seated degree, this distrust that he still keeps under control always. There’s how pre-canon he often wanted to suggest eating monsters but never worked up the courage to bring it up with the others. There’s how he gets across as stoic when he isn’t being enthusiastic…… We don’t know how aware and wary he is exactly in the moment but we do know he has some anxiety around social stuff, and looking back he does notice and aughh augh, the sense you have to hide yourself to not get hurt and be on your guard and shit and.

When you don’t know what to look out for and when to look out for it, the general ‘common sense’ of not always trusting people or noticing when someone’s messing with you becomes hypervigilance in social settings

"Man they really know what you hate huh". Being socially unaware literally plagues him, he knows, he knows it so well.

It’s so quick that it’s almost hard to digest how literal and blatant Laios summoning his monster to crush all the people who’ve hurt him is. His literal go-to coping mechanism for comfort in his literal monster-induced emotionally intense nightmares, saving him by taking away the upsetting element (the humans)

"Monsters are his coping fantasy, where they can whisk him away from humanity, all the hurt it’s caused him and its arbitrary rules" with the subtlety of a brick. Monsters are his comfort safe zone "because they kill humans" yes but no it’s because he pits them as the guardians against humans who to him are in the role of the agressors. To him they represent freedom from the shackles of what it means to be part of humanity, a fundamentally social species

[lovereadandwrite]

“I shall protect you, & you alone… even if…you stand as the last person on this earth”

[jellydragons]

been watching a lot of hermitcraft recently and am happy to report that i am hopelessly endeared by these little goobers 💕 they’re like bugs to me

close ups under the cut!

gonna be real this was absolutely just me taking the opportunity to get my grubby lil mitts all up in their character designs lol i heart interpreting mc skins

[lotus-pear]

i think you guys are onto smth..

i unironically got invested in this HELP

[starcurtain]

Just caught up with Natlan's archon quest and lord help me, I have a burning need to see Alhaitham and Ororon interact.

I truly feel that they would vibe perfectly. Not in a ship way, but like, in the way of Kaveh quietly wailing: "For archons' sake, he's brought another tacky thing into the house. Traveler, please do something; they've been staring eye to eye over the coffee table for like an hour now but haven't said a single word. I don't know what to do. Send help."

[whathorselegs]

I've had a thought.

I think Kyouka needs to join the fight against Amenogozen.

It's an established pattern that when Shin Soukoku end a conflict together Kyouka also has a hand in it.

She's with them in Dead Apple. She's the reason Atsushi even attempts to work together with Akutagawa during those events. And at the end of The Guild conflict, Shin Soukoku are the ones the defeat Fitzgerald, but Kyouka is the one that prevents Yokohama being destroyed.

Listen, maybe the answer to Atsushi's "With Just the two of us?" and Akutagawa's "Do we need any more than that?" is actually supposed to be yes, because when it was just the two of them Akutagawa died.

Shin Soukoku needs Kyouka.

[sableeira]

hiii long time no art and I’m late but I’m not immune to skk 109 angst

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[fairylando]

i really do admire how lando tries to not give a fuck (that 'whatever' really saddened me so much) but he actually does, and a lot.

guy doesn't even want anything absurd, he just wants the support of his team for the last fucking 4 races but no... let's just get humiliated for one point on international tv💀.

they're really stretching him thin — and i mean it in a emotional and mental wellbeing way. he is obviously inherently selfless and quite literally does not hold self-esteem, but in the last year we've seen him trying to be more sure of himself and trying to be selfish for once. the moment he does that though, he gets accused of being the spawn of satan. and then the team does everything in the world to make it harder for him.

so i really do admire him, because i literally would PERSONALLY leave the sport after this one season.

he's so much stronger than i am.

[martyryo]

*posts and crawls back in hell*

[front-facing-pokemon]

[dykedvonte]

Benny x Courier but the Courier is increasingly in denial for their feelings for Benny cause they see him as this loser pretty city boy Vegas type and they slowly (or rather quickly) realize that there were in fact reasons why Benny was able to manipulate so many people, infiltrate the Fort and avoid serious injury for all of it.

Like surprise the corniest loser you know is actually pretty badass and you kinda find that infuriatingly attractive.