So Spoopy It Hurts

[use whetstone on crayons] “that won’t work”

[use knife on crayons] “the knives are too dull”

[use whetstone on knife] *royalty free sharpening noises*

Me in 2016: I’m still salty about that

what the fuck is going on with the smizes. they're like... spontaneously generated orbs that are released into the dystopia's water so it like incentivizes everyone to waste water and swim in sewage for the chance to have one because it bestows a magic power that means you can become a famous fashion model. and then when you find a smize it like expands like a ponyo spell in your hands and turns into glasses that make you beautiful??

another wrinkle is that the world of modelland has nations. one of them is france, but the first guy from that nation who we meet is a homunculus with a giant human hand for a head. he's the only one like that so far so i don't know. another nation has ONLY people with albinism, which is really confusing because they explicitly point out that their whole nation-state has a ton of life-threatening health complications because of it

unfortunately i have a lot further to go before i know all the secrets of modelland

The original concept that humans complete the act of creation by making bread from wheat is from the Talmud! And the specific "wheat but not bread, grapes but not wine" phrasing is from Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel but it is missing "clay but not bricks".

And among trans Jews the sentiment was already popular before I ever started seeing this specific phrasing so I knew, knew, knew a Jew and likely a trans Jew was involved.

As it happens, Ortberg's friend Julian is Jewish and they have strongly negative feelings about the way the quote has been removed from the context of their life as someone trans and Jewish. They used to have a thread up on xwitter about it but have since made their account private and only have a very terse FAQ online from which you can glean the treatment they likely received when being more open about their Jewishness, relationship to transness, and the interaction of both.

1. Julian isn't Jewish.

2. The quote actually is influenced by Jewish theology, specifically Rabbi Akiva.