Our friend @brainlikeabagofcats went to the Field Museum's Pokémon Fossil Museum exhibit and got us some GLORIOUS pictures of the coelacanth with the relicanth!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I don't know who needs to hear this, but the idea that you can make a little mistake while doing your taxes and then go to jail for it is mostly not a thing. If you make a mistake on your taxes you'll get a letter in the mail that says 'hey you made a mistake on your taxes' and then you can fix it (source: I have made mistakes on my taxes, international tax treaties are complicated). The only time people typically go to jail for tax stuff is if they commit massive intentional (or negligent, like if they run a business and never consult any expert on how payroll taxes work) fraud over a long period of time.
There's basically no way for a person new to doing taxes - and presumably not handling a lot of money - to accidentally fuck up those taxes in a way that's going to end with that person in jail.
GOD the ending of the martian (the movie) makes me so fucking mad compared to the ending of the martian (the book)
the martian the movie: i am the professor of badassery. you yourself can be badass too if only you learn to be completely self-reliant and say fuck you to everything
the martian the book: i am on a ship home. i am on a ship home because the entire world cared about me when by all rights i should have been a lost cause. long-standing borders were ERASED so teams of people who had never met could do EVERYTHING possible to save one solitary member of their species instead of leaving me to die where i should have been unreachable. it wasnt even anybody’s fault that i got stuck. they had every excuse to abandon me. instead, BECAUSE WE ARE A COMMUNITY…. maybe we do really deserve to be here among the stars
The European Middle Ages wasn’t a time of stagnation, really. There’s a reason a lot of people reject the notion of “the dark ages” now.
A lot was lost after the fall of western Rome. This much is true. A lot of knowledge and technology was forgotten about.
But people were still making moves. A lot happened politically, as you’d expect after the fall of a major regional power.
Feudalism developed in the later “dark ages”. A whole new economic and political system!
There was also innovation in the technology of writing. Yes writing is a technology. Monks developed stuff like putting spaces between words and lowercase letters. The medieval period also saw the invention of watermarks.
There were also massive innovations in agriculture. Windmills were introduced. The heavy plow was invented. Horseshoes were adopted. Horse collars. The adoption of crop rotation systems. Improved aqueducts. Wheelbarrows!
If you get into the mid to late medieval period there’s even more innovation. Eyeglasses, the adoption of gunpowder weapons, mechanical clocks, improved water mills, improved ship making techniques, cartography, the mechanical printing press, improved construction technology, modern fireplaces and chimneys! Blast furnaces!
There was also stuff like the first European universities, modern buttons, horizontal looms, the introduction of silk manufacturing, the spinning wheel, new glassmaking techniques, mechanical grindstones, new winemaking techniques, scholarly treatises on physics including on magnets, rat traps, innovations in military technology like kite shields and chain mail and even early versions of grenades.
So much stuff happened in the Middle Ages, dude. People were making moves.
re: the loneliness epidemic post, it's genuinely so so so hard right now as someone whose Job is organizing events for LGBT university students. our whole goal is to help them find peers to connect with, but it often feels like they're working against us.
not on purpose, of course, and I never want to sound like I'm blaming students for their own feelings of isolation. there are a lot of factors that make it hard to socialize, ranging from a very full class/work schedule to various neurodivergences to the majority white attendance at many campus activities to the fact that many of these students spent some formative years in quarantine.
but man, it's hard when students talk about feeling hated and unwanted by a club because no one there talks to them, only to drop that they never even try to initiate any conversation themselves. or when a student complains that they're not making any friends on campus, but when asked where they're going to meet people outside of class they seem confused and say they hardly leave their dorm for anything but class. we're currently administering an anonymous survey to assess student satisfaction with our programs, and one person wrote that they'd like to attend more of our events but don't because they don't know anyone there and don't know what the vibe will be. the solution to both of those problems feels very obvious, to me, and it's frustrating to see mild uncertainty be such a hurdle.
especially given that, again, these are queer young people, who a.) have a lot of reasons to despair right now and b.) have a lot of awful online spaces they could be spending time in instead of touching grass, it's a fucking bummer to see them so wary of hanging out in physical space with real people.
A skill i've been working to get better at when I go to conferences and conventions is to basically approach tables of interesting looking people and going "May I join you?" and listening to their conversation and joining in
And it is a skill! You are approaching strangers, you are making a bid for connection and interaction that may end in rejection, or just not clicking fully, or anything similar, and that can be scary!
But I think a problem that a lot of younger people have in how harshly regimented many schools and then colleges are, and ditto how little free time they're likely to have outside of their workplace and commute, made worse by isolated housing and lack of free or even affordable third spaces
Is that there's very little development of the skill of seeking out the people who look interesting or otherwise compatible with yourself, approaching them, and beginning the process of connecting with them
People are very used to only making new friends and connections when circumstances, and especially an authority, force them into proximity with one another
Esp in a surveillance state where there's anxieties about meeting new people in case they're bad or incompatible with your beliefs, sometimes people only want to connect with new people when they can scope them out on socials first, and that only adds to this anxiety of meeting people as a social skill!
tbh if i was chilling at a table talking with my friends and some rando walked up and said "may i join you?" i would be offended and creeped out
i do empathize with and agree with a lot of OP here but at the same time so much of that post and especially the reblog are placing all the onus on the lonely people. all the work of seeking out connection is being placed at the feet of the people with the least social power and wherewithal. why should that be how it works
if there's a cool group of people talking, i'm never going to walk up and bother them. they're the ones with a solid social footing and comfortable position, they're the ones who can afford to invite me in to what they're doing if they want to.
if i'm new at college and I go to a club meeting, it's not my job as the newcomer to start conversations! I've got no social capital, if I try to start conversations I'm being intrusive and rude! It's their club and I'm some rando who wandered in! If I'm the newcomer it's their job to be welcoming if they want new people. I should be humble and wait, and they should be inviting me in and making me part of what's going on.
all of this follows from the basic fact that our society is structured to reward pushiness and arrogance, and expects people to "assert themselves" and "put themselves out there" and look after their own interests. that's what we admire and that's what we expect, and even OP, firmly goodhearted and wanting to help these people, is seeing it as a failure on their parts that they're not pushy and rude enough to make friends. that's just a bad way to structure a society! the work of fixing loneliness should be done by people who aren't lonely; they're the ones with the power to do so.
I'm going to take this line by line, because there's a lot to unpack here.
"if i was chilling at a table talking with my friends and some rando walked up and said "may i join you?" i would be offended and creeped out"
So, look: given that the rest of your post situates you as a lonely person struggling to find connection - and given, crucially, your subsequent comment that "if there's a cool group of people talking, i'm never going to walk up and bother them" - I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that, rather than being a statement of personal intent, this comment expresses what you assume strangers think of you. Which... I don't know how old you are, but this smacks of high school logic. Yes, adults can also be assholes, but we're expressly talking about events like conferences, conventions and university club events, where the entire point is to meet people. Kill the cop in your head that says you can't approach the Cool Kids! You absolutely can!
so much of that post and especially the reblog are placing all the onus on the lonely people. all the work of seeking out connection is being placed at the feet of the people with the least social power and wherewithal. why should that be how it works
I'm going to come back to "people with the least social power and wherewithal" in a moment, because there's a lot of very wrong assumptions encoded in this language, but to put it simply: if you're lonely and want friends, the onus is on you to seek out connection for the same reason that, if you're hungry and want food, the onus is on you to find something to eat. In terms of both food and companionship, the job of a healthy community is to provide you with opportunities to meet your needs, and as far as our stated example goes - attending something like a university club - the existence of the event itself is the provision of opportunity. That being so, expecting strangers to do all the work of befriending you at an open event is like walking into a supermarket and expecting someone else to put groceries in your basket. You're still responsible for your own needs!
if there's a cool group of people talking, i'm never going to walk up and bother them. they're the ones with a solid social footing and comfortable position, they're the ones who can afford to invite me in to what they're doing if they want to.
Again, the logic you're deploying here smacks of high school. Why are you assigning strangers a context-specific social status simply because they're talking in a group? They could've met five minutes ago! But even if they are established friends, socialization is a mutual affair. For all they know, you're perfectly happy on your own and any social overture on their part would be unwelcome. Your loneliness has not magically become their responsibility just because they arrived before you!
if i'm new at college and I go to a club meeting, it's not my job as the newcomer to start conversations! I've got no social capital, if I try to start conversations I'm being intrusive and rude! It's their club and I'm some rando who wandered in! If I'm the newcomer it's their job to be welcoming if they want new people. I should be humble and wait, and they should be inviting me in and making me part of what's going on.
Framing this in terms of whose job it is to talk first entirely misses the point of socializing for fun, which is that none of you have to do anything. If you show up to an open event that's expressly intended to bring strangers together, then politely approaching people isn't being "intrusive and rude" - it's participating. Similarly, if you show up to your regular social event and only talk to your existing friends, that's also participating! You're not obliged to talk to strangers, just as strangers aren't obliged to talk to you. Friendship requires both parties to make an effort, and if you decline to make any beyond simply being a body in a room, then while it might hurt your feelings to be excluded, you cannot rightly get mad at strangers for failing to take the extra step you refused to take yourself.
Which doesn't mean we have no communal responsibility to one other. Ideally, we should always strive to be welcoming! But community, by definition, goes both ways, and if you're thinking foremost about what you need or want from strangers, and not what they might need or want from you, then you likely won't get very far.
all of this follows from the basic fact that our society is structured to reward pushiness and arrogance, and expects people to "assert themselves" and "put themselves out there" and look after their own interests. that's what we admire and that's what we expect, and even OP, firmly goodhearted and wanting to help these people, is seeing it as a failure on their parts that they're not pushy and rude enough to make friends.
Here's the thing: if it's fundamentally pushy/arrogant/rude to approach a stranger for potential friendship purposes, then that holds true regardless of whether they're part of a group or standing by themselves. Right? You're framing this as though there's some profound difference between you, a solo person, daring to talk to a group of strangers, and a group of strangers daring to talk to you, a solo person, but there's not. Regardless of who initiates things, in order for a conversation to take place, someone has to take that first step! Someone has to submit themselves to the mortifying ordeal!
You're assigning a negative moral value to the act of talking to strangers to explain why you shouldn't have to do it, but your strategy ultimately depends on strangers talking to you. You've attempted to justify this contradiction by saying "well, those Cool Kids have social capital and I don't," but this literally just something you've made up in your head, not because social capital doesn't exist, but because you're assigning it equally to these hypothetical strangers based purely on the fact that they're already talking to each other, and not because you've got any actual insight into the social dynamics at play. For all you know, these people just met and are equally new to the space you're in; alternatively, they might be its founders, possessed of complex, deeply internecine relationships that it'd take three hours, a box of wine and a string board to unpack - but just by looking, at the moment you first walk in, you don't know which is which.
the work of fixing loneliness should be done by people who aren't lonely; they're the ones with the power to do so.
Wrong: you also have this power! You're an autonomous human being! I'm not saying it's never difficult or scary or that nobody can ever face specific challenges that make socialization harder for them than others, but to insist as a general point that lonely people don't or shouldn't bear the lion's share of responsibility for making themselves un-lonely is the voice of learned helplessness talking. You can be made a friend by someone proactive, but you can also make friends, too. There's no shame in preferring the former, but there's no moral dimension to the preference, and it's not the same as being incapable of the latter. And at a certain point, if just waiting for someone to notice you isn't working and you're unhappy with the outcome, then the onus is indeed on you to make a change - because it's your life.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
ok for a moment i was going crazy i was like. wasnt it english built. but apparently the battle of trafalgar temeraire was named after an earlier temeraire stolen from the french
😠 angrywinchester
also fantastic move by william laurence, after stealing a dragon egg from the french. “yknow what would be so funny-"
☁️ dragonflyer
the royal navy: rubbing it in since 1759
☁️ dragonflyer
going through the wikipedia for the temeraire-class and I swear like a third of these things were captured by the british lmao
😠 angrywinchester
“should we build a new temeraire?” “no….just wait….wait for the french to build it…"
fellow dragonfuckers I’m thinking about those tendrils today
🧚🏽 dragonrider69
#girl I am at WORK you cannot be distracting me like this
103 notes
🗣️ morelikeaerialbore
people thinking we can’t let dragons walk around London because of the size of the streets or the citizenry pissing themselves in fear, WRONG, the real reason is dragons talk too loud and you would never escape the sound of Perscitia arguing with the finance bros about bitcoin
#I’m the only one brave enough to say this #dragon rights
437 notes
🪽 wingmanbutnotmid
the captain and tharkay are back from yet another harrowing adventure
#the sight of tharkay literally cured his amnesia and you’re telling me I’m tinhatting
1,527 notes
👑 vivelempereur
New chapter of The Emperor’s Greatest Conquest (E, 183,832k, 42/?) is up!
Laurence does not turn away from the window as Napoleon enters the room. He must not have heard the footsteps, too absorbed in contemplating the beauty of the Emperor’s work, the gracious pavilions, the broad streets, the well-tended and loyal beasts. That is the only explanation; Laurence is ever courteous, even when held as a guest of honour in a land not his own.
It gives Napoleon a chance to study Laurence in profile; the proud raise of the chin, the intelligence in the gaze, the slight frown of the lips.
To any other, perhaps, his face would be unreadable. But to the Emperor…he knows. He knows the war that wages in that noble breast, of loyalty and desire.
Today, Napoleon vows, Today. Today, I will taste a tongue that has never told a lie.
Today, I will have him.
#Napoleon x Laurence #Napolliam #rpf #things are finally getting spicy! #don’t like don’t read #next chapter will post after this one gets at least 500 comments
37,421 notes
👩🏼✈️ themainjane
Longwing captains in books written by men: The wind tousled her auburn locks and parted her shirt, revealing the creamy hills of her bosom, as she stood on the neck of her dragon. She sighed, fearing such would be the only caresses she would ever know. When, oh, when would the admiral look upon her, and see, not a Captain of the aerial corps, but a woman? A soft and tender woman, with a woman’s needs and a woman’s heart?
Longwing captains in real life: I think I left my neckcloth in the tent of the courier I pegged last night
860 notes
💅 notsolittle
Napoleon if he was @kazilikdeeznuts’s captain
🔥 kazilikdeeznuts
As if my Granby wouldn’t look perfectly splendid with his tits out, I will commission this at once
🧯 longjohns
do nOT
692 notes
🇬🇧 ioutrankinyou
@/identifying-ships-in-posts was literally convicted of treason but y’all still reblogging. He is not your “wholesome navycore dad” he’s a fucking criminal. And all you apologists can stop sending me anons, it’s like I’m the only one who has any fucking loyalty to their country
🧯 longjohns
girl….just say you’re pro-war crimes it’s faster
#he’s really out here saying this shit with his whole chest still
72 notes
🏳️🌈 queerthesky
#just met admiral roland #join the corps they said #it’ll be fun they said #you can wear breeches and hang out with dragons #I am here to warn you that this is a joke they are playing on the sapphics #they want us dead
523 notes
☀️ alwaysanensign
look LOOK I’m glad the captain got his memories back too ALL I AM SAYING is it was so fucking funny to watch the most proper gentleman ever invented realize women served in the corps, AGAIN, we got to see it TWICE like you can’t pay for that kind of entertainment
🦅 flyyoufools
I knooooow I’m glad he’s loosened up but remember what he was like when he first got to Loch Laggan idk sometimes I miss that guy
🗡️ rolandinthedeep
petition to hit him on the head once a year and say “it’s ok sir we will take you to meet with the admiral” and re-introduce him to my mom
#please it would be so funny #I would trade christmas for this
953 notes
🪽 wingmanbutnotmid
Captain Laurence when you’ve been serving with him since the year 5 but still call everything that floats in water a boat
IF it really was the poor ice conditions making everyone fall (in addition to the olympic nerves and the men's discipline trending towards higher difficulty higher risk jumps for the past few years etc etc) and if mikhail shaidorov's main advantage really was that he grew up training in outdoor rinks and shopping malls where he was forced to adapt to varying ice conditions... well that would actually be kind of beautiful wouldn't it
Everytime someone brings up the "Backflip was banned because Surya Bonaly did it and the ISU didn't want her to succeed because they are racist" narrative I want to tear my hair out.
Like, she was definitely a victim of racist judging. But, the backflip wasn't banned because of her. It was banned in 1977. When she was 3. 21 years before she did it in the 1998 Olympics.
Was she frustrated and upset about how she was being judged when she did the flip? Yes. But was the backflip illegal because she was a successful black woman (paraphrasing a number of comments I've seen on posts about Ilia's backflip)? No. It was banned after a white guy did it 20 years earlier. Also white boy Ilia Malinin wasn't the reason it was unbanned. It was Adam Siao Him Fa doing a flip (and it going semi-viral) that got them unbanned.
Idk it's just frustrating because people get so focused on the backflip that they don't know that she was also a five-time European champion, and had multiple world medals. People get so focused on her frustration that they don't know about all that she achieved Despite the system and judges being against her. The controversy is what sells and it makes sense that the false narrative is what people know. but it loses nuance in a way that frustrates me.
I think, for me, knowing this history doesn't stop the fact that the way she was treated at the Olympics *was due to racism*, and it's even more annoying that I'm being serenaded by so many people on how incredible and cool Ilia's backflip was.
Child me isn't even annoyed but FURIOUS at it. Child me *watched Surya Bonaly land that backflip so much better* and she was *penalized* for it, and Adam Siao Him Fa did it *so much better* and took the *risk* of being penalized for it, and ye these people around me are talking about a *less impressive* one done *knowing he wouldn't be penalized for it* as long as he landed it like he's the only one who's ever done it!
People are not wrong to be mightily fuckin annoyed about this, and in fact knowing the history should make people angrier. (Also, folks, be annoyed that it's so hard to watch figure skating outside the Olympics. Why is this harder than getting access to as hockey every single year. Perhaps more exposure would help prevent incredible skaters from being virtually unknown outside of Olympics season. But I digress.)
Ilia landed an extremely difficult and riskh jump, and that should be acknowledged! It's going to be very interesting to watch his skills continue to develop, and I'm curious to see what more he'll do throughout his career! But also: he didn't do it best, folks blowing this up like he did do it best/first/whatever should rightfully get push back (also watch more figure skating, everyone should watch more figure skating it's incredible), and that's just the facts.
As a Californian, I was not a fan of Kamala Harris's presidential candidacy. I really feel like she did not align with me on some pretty fundamental issues and I wish the Democrats had had an actual primary in 2024 so that she could have been soundly trounced by better candidates like she was in 2020.
Kamala Harris was a candidate that I was *at best* lukewarm on.
Okay? Okay.
Now. Democrats.
If you dipshits run Gavin Newsom in 2028 or pull any stupid fucking tricks to give him a better position in the primary (like the stupid fucking trick you lucky assholes pulled by not putting support behind a democratic candidate for the recall as a safety measure), i am going to start committing thematic crimes and/or assembling a killdozer.
I was not particularly fond of Kamala Harris, but I fucking *loathe* Governor Gavin "Homeless Sweeps" Newsom. Kamala was not great, but she was also not "using the destruction/disruption of a homeless encampment with her own two hands as a photo op" bad. She was not "I wouldn't want my daughter playing college sports against a trans woman" bad. She was not "inviting Charlie Goddamned Kirk on the first episode of her new podcast to ask advice about running to get approval from fucking republicans" bad.
If, in three years, I have to listen to a bunch of democrats telling me that there's no better choice and I have to vote blue no matter who and the blue that they are handing me is *this motherfucking ghoul* I am going to end up in a federal prison so if you happen to be a democrat and you happen to be reading my blog I would really like it if your party could run better candidates than this piece of shit so if you hear people starting to mumble about how "Well maybe Gavin Newsom has some good policies, he's going to be better for LGBTQIA folks than Vance and he's got experience running a big state" please let them know what a tremendous piece of shit he is so I don't have to walk away from super tuesday and hear that this greasy fuck is the lesser of two evils.
You know how after the fires in January Trump said "we're going to release the water, that water from up North, it's going to come down through the state, we're going to bring it to the cities, instead of giving it to the fish - which are bad fish anyway, too small - that don't need our water, we're going to open the dams, we're going to fill the river" and everyone who knows anything about water infrastructure in california promptly went "what the fuck are you TALKING about are you INSANE that is an awful idea"? You know, that thing? That's what it feels like to see people discussing Gavin Newsom as a national candidate.
Here he is getting ready to throw away the place where somebody sleeps while running a state that has more than twice as many unhoused people as it has shelter beds. This CNN article about Newsom's order to dismantle homeless encampments ends with a quote about tents like the one the governor is throwing away here:
“Every time that you like regain a tent and maybe some blankets and a couple of outfits and just get enough stuff around you to start to really feel – I’m not going to say normal – like you have a safety zone, it’s gone,” he said.
“Even though it’s a tent and a few things, as soon as you get to that point, in that moment, it’s wiped out again… Nobody’s asking the question. The voters, the people. Where are the people going? If they’re not in my neighborhood now, then whose neighborhood are they going to if you don’t have enough shelter beds in your city?”
I personally know people who died after Newsom ordered encampment sweeps. I fucking hate this guy.
In 2026, Ilia Malinin made headlines for landing a backflip at the Winter Olympics after the move was officially re-approved under updated competition rules.
But this moment did not come out of nowhere.
In 1998, Black Olympic skater Surya Bonaly executed a one-foot backflip at the Nagano Winter Olympics, officials had deemed the move unacceptable at the time. She completed it, on one blade, in an iconic defiance of standards that repeatedly limited her innovation and expression.
What governing bodies labeled as “not allowed” in 1998 is now celebrated as history-making in 2026.
Bonaly’s backflip wasn’t a mistake or a gimmick. It was skill, athleticism, and vision, long before the sport was willing to reward it. And while rules may change, her contribution should not be erased or reframed as an afterthought.
This moment isn’t about taking anything away from today’s athletes.
While Ilia Malinin is being credited with making Olympic history in 2026, the truth is that Surya Bonaly made that history in 1998.
Her one-foot backflip was revolutionary then, and it remains iconic now.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Concerning (things about) Hobbits: Meeting the Big Man
One of the most important characters in Lord of the Rings is someone you like and trust. You quote him often, remember him fondly, and rely on his word.
You don't know his name. Fanart is nonexistent; there’s no Ao3 tag, no breakout film portrayal, no Amazon money-milking series for this character. You know his voice, have memorised his words; you've probably never read any meta about him.
I'll bet I’m the only person you've seen on Tumblr who really talks about That Fucking Guy, and I hate that man with a cold academic passion. (I also love him. He's my blorbo. He could be yours.)
I think you shouldn't trust him as much as you do.
Here is why.
This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history...
That is the first sentence of The Fellowship of the Ring.
The prologue of the Lord of the Rings is iconic. Swept away by the story, we forget we’re reading at all. It's understandable. Who can resist the overwhelming charm of the writer, and the bewildering excitement of being taken by the hand and invited into The Fellowship of the Ring.
But even people with deeper takes on Tolkien tend to miss the significance of the Prologue. It’s a place where critical reading abilities and political processors usually turn off entirely - fair enough, it's probably a relief.
Let's talk about the Narrator.
Meeting the Narrator: Time, Place, Person
The Prologue is narrated by a Mannish (Big Folk) Narrator, a modern human being, from an accessible academic standpoint. We are encouraged to think of him as Friendly Professor Tolkien, although you really do need to remember that he is clearly addressing us from within a fictional narrative world. He is a character. Even if he is Tolkien’s self-insert, intended to be read as Tolkien Himself, he is still a character who can be analysed and interpreted. This is a fictional character.
The Big Man deliberately addresses the reader as someone with a shared background, in what is presumably somewhere in the early-to-mid twentieth century. It is stated multiple times that you (reader) and Narrator are both Big Folk together - there is no chance that you, the Reader, are a scholar of another race.
It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves.
Pick out the “later estrangement” and park it for now.
The casting of the Narrator is a deliberate alignment with Professor Tolkien, and we are certainly intended to understand him as an academic, avuncular, rather unworldly male professor in the British Isles.
(Sidebar: for convenience I gender the Narrator as male. I think there's evidence for the Narrator being intended as male-by-default, which can be provided on request, and I personally feel the Big Man narrator is the translator/propagator of the silly convention of referring to modern humans as “capital-M Men.” )
The Prologue is written charmingly, a framing device of an academic translator giving the context of background information before presenting someone else’s text (the translated Red Book, etc). Later, this Prologue connects to the Appendices in The Return of the King, where the Narrator returns in his persona of the translator of the works. Our Narrator is certainly a strong, influential, deliberate character, with a specific and distinctive voice!
Anyway, whether or not you choose to picture the Big Man Narrator as Tolkien Himself doing a folksy Bit, OR as a character Tolkien created - Remember! The entire story is fiction and the Big Man Narrator is a created fictional character. Why would you assume he is telling the truth? Why assume that he is an expert? Where are his biases?
Look what the Big Man Narrator actually says. Look at what he chooses to tell, and what he finds unimportant. There are so, so many posts that pick over the fascinating bits of Concerning Hobbits, mining canon for more information, as if it is a pure source of truth. I suggest that the next time you do, you try this fun exercise.
Before we go into the Magic Thing, the narrator also notes AGAIN that hobbits exist today, but are shorter than they were;
They seldom now reach three feet; but they have dwindled, they say, and in ancient days they were taller.
This continues and reinforces the framing of “hobbits still exist now,” and sounds rather as if the Big Man has interviewed modern hobbits (“they say,”) which we’ll also park.
We move on, parking "it's assumed you're a Man, receiving information from a Mannish professor", the "future estrangement" and "diminished hobbits are available for interview."
The Magic Thing
I was provoked into writing this by a fun Tumblr post pointing out that "hobbits are said to 'not study magic' - does that mean that they don't HAVE magic?" which went off into a separate and funnier reblog chain.
I want to analyse this again, noting that this is information received from Big Man.
Let’s examine the “hobbit magic thing” noting that we are being TOLD all of this by a CHARACTER.
Here’s how the passage about "hobbit magic" starts.
Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today;
In our time, we’ve just been told, hobbits still exist, but had a population drop and are vanishing. To the point where a reader is not expected to have ever heard of them. Chillingly, in typical mid century British academic fashion, the Big Folk Narrator assumes that the reader is also British; when he later mentions that the remaining hobbits only live in the British Isles, it’s a little alarming. There’s a species of humans native to these islands, so rare and so politically silent that you’ve never seen or heard of them.
Hello?!
for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt.
We are told here that Hobbits are going extinct because they cannot readily survive due to, essentially, habitat destruction. (we feel the Narrator’s annoyance about the Industrial Revolution spoiling the “peace and quiet” strongly here, more strongly than the buried implications for indigenous people).
They no longer have any land. Not only have they lost the Shire, they have no towns, small villages or even farms. “Was” is very much past-tense, and they “haunted” land in the past, ghosting lightly and leaving no traces of their presence, rather than living there. so in our modern day there’s certainly no Shire, no Bree (mixed human/hobbit town) and no Michel Delving, which in its time was a market town with above-ground buildings and a museum. For context, it takes a decent amount of work for the British Isles to lose towns, especially on the level of development that Hobbits had - famously anachronistic, they have waistcoat buttons and watermills and good china and museums and smoking habits, while all the rest of medieval-ish Middle Earth is not as developed.
It’s hard to lose all that, without any trace at all, in crowded countries. Wholesale loss always means that Something Happened.
They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools.
“Do not and did not” is further reinforcement of a still-living people. (I love the “understand or like” thing, which is charming - the implication that hobbits are perfectly capable of UNDERSTANDING machinery in textile factories, but would hate it.)
Something that makes the Big Man nuanced as a character is that he obviously adores hobbits, and studies them because he likes them. The fondness and admiration comes through, even as he is showing his own privilege and bias.
To me, the way this passage about machinery is framed - lumping together those machines as “about the level of technology hobbits are comfortable with” - is something that someone standing post-Enlightenment, probably post-Industrial Revolution, would do. The implication I take from this passage is that this is a modern writer describing the current status of modern hobbits; a mid-century British scholar, a self-insert of Tolkien.
This sense of time matters, because of everything else he says, and the temptation people will have to excuse the Big Man narrator as “a product of his time.” This isn’t a medieval writer looking back on Middle Earth. It’s a highly educated man writing in the 1940s: computers existed, there were several Disney films out, women had the right to vote, and feminist essays were published from Tolkien's own workplace.
Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of ‘the Big Folk’, as they call us,
We then proceed to see, across three books, examples of hobbit behavior in “the ancient days”, which may serve as an example of this shyness. Several different relationship with Big Folk are outlined, in which fairly chirpy hobbits, characterised by their ready emotional availability, cohesion, and incredible abilities to build relationships and form massive political alliances, seem to do well on the strength of that. Hobbit shyness may involve glaring ferociously at Big Folk for a moment, but within a few days they are sitting on your lap, and then it’s all over. With this evidence in our memory, casting a coy “shyness” as the reason for their avoidance of “us” becomes uncomfortable.
and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find.
The Narrator is handwaving, in avuncular fashion, why the Reader has never seen a hobbit in their lives, and needs to be lectured, from first principles, on a living indigenous people of the British Isles. Do marinate on it for a moment, though. The tone of a professor or a parent, whimsically explaining to Victorian children why you don’t see the Tooth Fairy - she hides! Teehee.
They avoid us with dismay.
Behind this airy statement, what happened? Massive betrayals, the loss of their land and political power, loss of the conditions they need for their survival, massive loss of their people, and a total breakdown in trust. Humans and hobbits, in the prologue and main story, are shown as natural allies; close kin who understand each other well; humans are shown owing a tremendous amount of their own political influence to hobbits, and even cold/reserved humans end up liking them after a conversation. Hobbits are especially shown for being loyal friends who do not break down under war; noted for retaining cohesion and resisting corruption; who, under unimaginable conditions, will still resist harming or betraying friends.
Hobbits and humans have clearly had some significant breakage of our kinship since the events of the LotR cycle. The Big Man knows this.
Earlier in the essay, when the Big Man told us that “hobbits are closest to (us)” he gave us a lot of additional information, didn’t he? He refers to “later estrangement.” (He also tells us clearly, in that subtext of that sentence, that no hobbit will ever read the book in our hands, no hobbit will ever be addressed as a reader, no hobbit will enter academia, no hobbit will be able to fill in the gaps that the Big Man waves his hand over. Certainly no hobbit scholar contributed to the Big Man’s translation of the Red Book. They’re not just going, they’re functionally GONE. This is what I mean!) Anyway, even the Big Man notes that there was “an estrangement.” Something that has caused them to flee from contact with us in dismay.
whatever happened in that estrangement probably doesn’t reflect well on the Big Folk. A species facing extinction and hiding, dismayed and estranged, from their closest kin, is not having a pleasant time on this earth. Especially when we understand that they’re basically trapped in the crowded and inhospitable British Isles (and still managing to hide from us to the point of the public not being aware of their existence!)
The Big Man Narrator isn’t interested. This is the point where you ought to start wondering about academic bias on the part of the Big Man Narrator. He's fond of hobbits, and has interviewed/met them, but would never treat one as a colleague.
[…]They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when large folk whom they do not wish to meet come blundering by; and this art they have developed until to Men it may seem magical.
so hobbits have an inherent ability of being invisible/undetectable, which they still practice today (teehee, that’s why it’s okay that you’ve never spoken to one) and which is pretty damn effective. Effective enough that people in modern times are completely fooled, effective enough that it still counts as “disappearing,” and the elusiveness of hobbits is so perfect as to conceal their existence from the general public. Effective enough that the few adults who DO discuss hobbits could conceivably think it could be magic. The Narrator has probably rolled his eyes over a rival’s paper about “Slipping Into The Shadow-Realm: how hobbits shift space and time to conceal their vital signatures” (Sayers, 1934).
further, they’ve specifically developed this “art” - from what’s implied to be an instinctive/animal ability - to a higher skill, indistinguishable from magic. The “art” is SOMETHING material and quantifiable, if it was innate-and-continually-developed.
But Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind,
Here is a point that’s been discussed on tumblr, and it is correct to note that “studied” is doing a lot of work. Especially when contrasted against the previous sentence, with the interesting term “art”. “It isn’t science/magic, it’s an instinctive art”.
To me - remembering that this is intended to be a mid-century British academic speaking to us - it resonates with how romanticism of marginalised cultures was treated by academia, in the generation the Big Man Narrator would’ve studied in - full of romantic, unexamined, politically revealing statements like, “The Celts are skilled in the art of music, but have never properly studied it.”
What I’m saying here is that we should not assume the Big Man is a good judge of the difference between “art” and “study,” especially since the next bit reads:
and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races.
Hobbit invisibility is an “art” through “heredity,” but also a “professional skill” refined through “practice.” It has been “developed” until it is mistaken for “magic,” but against this, we are told that hobbits “have never studied magic of any kind.” In the cleavage point here, we can see the definition of “study” that The Big Man is working with. This definition is possibly what makes something “magic” or not. Have you seen this before?
The point I am making here is that the Big Man is speaking to us from the position of a “coloniser.” There are some worldbuilding implications to unpack from this. One is that the Big Man is speaking from a place where magic can be studied, not even requiring hereditary aptitude (if hobbits were excluded from magic by physiology, This Fuckin Guy would’ve said it) but that it is an academic practice. Hobbits are not just nearly-extinct and terrified out of contact with humans; they are fully excluded from academia (they do not translate or contribute to translations of their histories; they do not study) and if they cannot formalise their practices in acceptable study as the Big Man defines it, it cannot be magic. This is exactly the tone in which majority cultures dismiss other practices of culture/medicine/science, by stating it is NOT a form of science, because it is not practiced with the academy, because it is definitionally not allowed in the academy.
We can then go to a higher level of political analysis and reading, and ask: who benefits from a definition of “magic” that includes (academic study) but excludes (hobbit arts)?
You can certainly do some delightful worldbuilding answers for yourself, and say that “perhaps magic is spells, material changes, great works as performed by Elvish or Maiar Ringbearers, etc.” But if we look at the political stuff I’ve just pointed out, why not examine the definition and who it serves and why? Given that we’ve seen this pattern before - colonisers deliberately bundle, define and dismiss marginalised practices as primitive, animalistic, instinctual and unschooled, as part of the PURPOSEFUL WORK of colonisation - I read the Big Man definition as: “Magic is formalised by the bigger races and defined by excluding the practices of the smallest race.”
Who does this benefit? Well, the Bigger Races could in some ways. Magic must be studied, hobbits don’t study, hobbits don’t have magic, hobbits are The Only Unmagical Humans - despite having practices indistinguishable from magic - this could be something. Big Men would have some reason to define “magic” to exclude hobbits. Normally this is done in order to take resources or drain resistance from marginalised people, but as hobbits have had virtually no remaining resources or resistance since long before the Industrial Revolution, you could open this up to other worldbuilding implications - maybe, Big Men didn’t really MIND hobbits going extinct.
An interesting point here is to re-read sections of this work with different interpretations of who the Big Man is. Where are his biases? Who is he as a character?
I personally read him as a friendly, Tolkienesque academic who likes hobbits, follows his linguistic interests, and is too blinded by his bias to think about their political position. He seems unaware of the horrors he's talking about. Perhaps that's down to innocence.
A character crying out to be analysed.
Landless and Dismayed
That sums up a lot of information that can be mined from one of the very first paragraphs of the Fellowship of the Ring. But here's another message to toy with - hobbits exist in the modern space; landless, estranged, fleeing from us in dismay. Quite likely to have been betrayed.
Hate it when TikTok farm cosplayers and cottagecore types say stuff like "I'm not going to use modern equipment because my grandmothers could make do without it." Ma'am, your great grandma had eleven children. She would have killed for a slow cooker and a stick blender.
I’ve noticed a sort of implicit belief that people used to do things the hard way in the past because they were tougher or something. In reality, labor-saving devices have historically been adopted by the populace as soon as they were economically feasible. No one stood in front of a smoky fire or a boiling pot of lye soap for hours because they were virtuous, they did it because it was the only way to survive.
I know that I'll certainly never be someone they'd build a memorial for, but if I could get one, I'd like to get one of those park bench statues that are sitting on the bench. Specifically of me sitting casually looking towards the other seat at an angle, looking intrigued with a "surprised but not disappointed" kind of a look on my face. Kind of a "huh, won't you look at that."
I want that specifically so people can make it a meme to post pictures of themselves showing me stuff. Like memes off their phone.
Or maybe things that they are proud of but don't have anyone else to show them to. Like your school graduation papers, this cool knitting project you finally finished, your baby who's never going to see their grandparents.
And I also want a clause that they will absolutely fucking never put those anti-homeless things of any kind on my damn bench. So if there's ever someone who's got nobody else to keep them company, they can at least spend the night with me.
It’s a shame how much nautical stuff is focused on the royal navy, especially the ships. Enough about the battleships. Here’s some beautiful boats from other cultures.
(Left) This is a traditional Somali ship known as a beden. Traditionally, the planks are sewn together with coconut fiber instead of hammered with nails. Did you know ancient Somalia had a maritime empire?
(Right) Galway hooker, from Galway Ireland. The original cloth sails were treated with a solution made from treebark to protect them from rot, which just so happened to turn the sails their iconic rusty red color, and modern synthetic sailcloth is dyed to imitate this.
(Left) Viking boats (amongst others) were built with the planks overlapping (clinker) instead of being flush (carvel) this provides flexibility for the boat to bend instead of break in rough seas but still maintains strength.
(Right) a Māori waka taua (decorated war canoe). This particular one is Ngā Toki, and it previously held the world record for longest canoe at 123 feet long and 6 1/2 wide).
I can talk a little about Pacific Northwest dugout canoes from a maritime archaeologist's perspective!
So the first thing to understand about PNW dugout canoes is that they're deceptively simple in design. There's a long, bad history of people looking at dugout canoes and going "oh, how primitive", when the opposite is true. They're very difficult to make well, and even more stylistically simple forms require a good amount of knowledge and skill in construction and use.
Image 1: An unfinished canoe in Haida Gwaii
PNW canoes like those of the Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, Coast Salish, and Makah nations (amongst many others) are almost entirely made from a single trunk of red cedar, which, depending on techniques, could even be used to make two canoes. Before commercial logging destroyed old growth forests, these canoes could reach over 60 feet in length (18 meters) — to put in perspective, this is two thirds the length of Captain Cook's ship HMS Endeavour.
Each PNW culture has its own way of making canoes, and styles vary from region to region. The fascinating thing about PNW canoes is that they are essentially tailored to the environment where they're constructed. Nuu-chah-nulth canoes, designed for the west coast of Vancouver Island, have a high prow (front) and a low stern (back) which allows them to be launched directly into the strong ocean surf that is a trademark of the region. (Canoe crews would then have to either turn around or paddle backwards when beaching the canoe.)
Image 2: A West Coast Nuu-chah-nulth style canoe with its signature prow and stern
Broadly speaking, once a red cedar tree was cut, the initial shaping of the canoe would take place right there — if any defect was found in the material, the canoe would be abandoned, as dugout canoes require high quality wood. This is one of the reasons why in some parts of the PNW, you can find half-finished canoes in the forest. Once the initial shaping was complete after months of work, the canoe would be hauled down to the beach for finishing. One of the major techniques in finishing a canoe is steaming, which allows the wood to soften and expand with the addition of spacers, resulting in a light, strong watercraft that is wider than the tree it was carved from.
The technological capabilities of PNW canoes are unmatched for the region. Nations along the coast engaged in long distance trade, as well as warfare, and different styles of canoes were made for these different purposes. Makah canoes were capable of travelling over 40 kilometres offshore during whale hunts, and I have been told a story of Haida travellers many centuries ago who returned after many years away from a place where the locals ate strange white maggot-like food in bowls (possibly rice). It's also worth remembering that canoes perform better in the conditions of the PNW than European-style ships. A key difference between canoes and rigged ships is that canoes can hug the shoreline and are less vulnerable to being blown onto rocks by strong wind. While there are some significant trade-offs, this manoeuvrability makes them much better suited than the ships that Europeans arrived to the PNW in. It is also possible that they used woven bark sails in their canoes, though the existence of sails in pre-Contact North America is difficult to prove.
Unfortunately, with the colonisation of the PNW, traditional canoebuilding was threatened by colonial powers and banned under Canada's Indian Act. The only form of canoebuilding allowed in Canada was the racing canoe, and as a result, all technological development was channelled into the racing canoe, which remains a vibrant part of modern First Nations cultures in BC.
Image 3: The Loo Taas (Wave Eater), built in 1986 by master Haida artist Bill Reid — the first Haida canoe built in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, in over 100 years
[pʰikcha mawkst: kənim ukuk kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam kʰapa tʼɬip-san saltsəqw-iliʔi-uput. saxali iləp pi kikwəli ʔaptsit ukuk, uk t'səm-nim kʰapa nuu-chah-nulth-tilixam.]
wik-saya kwansəm, munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska ɬq'up kikwəli kənim-stik pi alta ɬaska munk-kənim qʰa uk miɬayt. ɬaska tiki dret ɬush stik pus kənim. pus-qʰənchi ɬaska chaku-kəmtəks ɬas stik wik-ɬush, ɬas mash kʰapá ukuk. kakwa ixt-ixt msayka tʼɬap sitkum kʰəpit kənim kʰapa hayu-stik kʰapa chinuk-wawa-iliʔi. hayu mun ɬaska munk-kənim qʰa uk miɬayt. pi alta ɬaska lulu kʰapa pulali-iliʔi pus munk-kʰəpit ukuk. ɬaska munk ixpuy-liplip kənim. munk-kakwa hayash qʰata-kakwa pus munk-kʰəpit kənim. munk-kakwa munk-tʼɬimin stik kʰapa kənim, pi alta ɬaska munk kənim manaqi-hayash kʰapa inatay stik. so kənim chaku wik-tʰil pi skukum. ukuk chaku dret ɬaq'aɬ pi kənim-stik uk tʼɬap ukuk.
kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam ukuk skukum pus hayu qʰata nim mamunk -- dret skukum pi kʰanawi iwa pot kʰapa chinuk-wawa-iliʔi. tilixam kʰapa saltsəqw-iliʔi-uput ɬaska ɬatwa-saya pus huyhuy. wəxt ɬaska pʰayt kʰapa hayash-saləks. kakwa ɬaska munk xluyma qʰata nim kənim. makah-tilixam ɬaska ɬatwa lakit-taɬlam kilometers kʰapa katsaq saltsəqw pus ɬatwa-nanich ikuli. nayka kəmtəks yaʔim: anqati hayu takʼumunaq kʰul, haida-tilixam ɬaska ɬatwa-saya pus hayu kʰul. ɬaska chaku-kʼilapay pi alta wawa ɬas nanich iliʔi qʰa tilixam ɬaska məkʰmək xluyma tkʼup məkʰmək uk nanich kakwa tənas-inəpʰu kʰapa pʰuli iɬwəli (alaxti lays ukuk). ɬush msayka kəmtəks uk kənim kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam ukuk ɬush pus ɬaska tsəqw -- dret ɬush pi bastən ship. ixt-ixt bastən ship ukuk chaku-kakshət kʰapa ston qʰiwa win ukuk hayu-pʼuxən. bət wik-kakwa kənim ukuk -- əbə wik ayaq-ayaq! pi alta kakwa kənim ukuk ɬush pus ɬatwa wik-saya iliʔi. wik kənim ukuk ɬush pus kʰanawi qʰata; munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska huyhuy kəmtəks-ɬatwa-kʰanawi-iwa pus xluyma hayash qʰata. bət kənim ukuk dret ɬush pus tsəqw kʰapa chinuk-wawa-tilixam -- pi dret ɬush pi ship uk bastən tilixam ɬaska chaku yakwa. wəxt tʼɬunas anqati, pi chxi bastən tilixam ɬaska chaku yakwa, shawash-tilixam ɬaska munk ship-sil kʰapa lakʰlwa-kʼaw skin-stik -- bət qʼəl anqati-ikta-dakta ɬaska munk-nanich dret ukuk.
sik-təmtəm-kakwa, wik-shawash-tilixam ɬaska munk-hilu shawash skukum pus munk-tayi-wawa, pi alta wik-shawash-tayi-tilixum munk munk-kənim wik-saya hilu. pʰasayuks-tayi-tilixam munk tayi-wawa uk shawash-tilixum ɬaska aɬqi kʰəpit munk-kənim, kʰapa "shawash tayi-wawa" kʰapa pʰasayuks-iliʔi (Indian Act of Canada). alta ɬush ɬaska munk kʰəpit-ixt qʰata nim kənim: uk ayaq pi tulu hihi. kakwa pus-qʰənchi munk-kənim-tilixam ɬaska tiki-munk chxi qʰata-kakwa pus manaqi ɬush kənim, kwansəm pus kʰəltəs ayaq-tulu-hihi kənim. alta ayaq-tulu-hihi kənim ukuk dret tʼukti pi hayash kʰapa shawash munk pi miɬayt kʰapa British Columbia.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
btw this is not a universally agreed upon "symptom" of ADHD and I think many people would benefit from treating it as part & parcel of ADHD's broad, foundational trait: inability to do emotional regulation. A feeling of total rejection and terror at failure is a treatable and manageable issue. For me, I found it easier to manage once recognized that the reason I was having these reactions is that like many other emotional states, I couldn't "exit" an emotional state related to feelings of rejection once I was in it.
imo way too many people are going through life thinking they're just going to be sensitive to rejection for life because of how some people (not OP, but definitely plenty of ADHD influencers) talk about this "symptom." I don't think it's terribly productive that it gets constantly cordoned off as its own thing. like a lot of ADHD, while it sucks to have it shape your life up to the point you realize what it is, it is indeed possible to exposure therapy & DBT your way out of it.
signed: someone with ADHD who used to not be able to take critical feedback from anyone every and is now a freelancer and gets critical feedback three times before breakfast. still workin on it but it's very possible to go from "whiny crybaby disorder" to "mostly functional, if slightly sensitive ADHD adult"
I also think it's worth noting that rejection sensitive dysphoria is most parsimoniously interpreted as a trauma reaction—a learned response to a potential signals of social relationship deteriorating for reasons the ADHD person can't necessarily control. Social relationships are incredibly important to humans, and ADHD (especially undiagnosed and undisclosed) really sets us up to fail. This is especially true given that perceived social blame for stressful situations is a massive factor in transmuting stressful experiences into lasting trauma, and ADHDers are typically judged to be personally responsible for the failures that happen as a result of attentional, time awareness, or memory failures.
What conceptualizing RSD as a category of trauma response to social triggers does is allow us to treat it like any other trauma response. It pulls RSD out of the bioessentialist framework and into the realm of injuries that can be treated, learned associations that can be unlearned. It turns out that the same techniques that help with PTSD triggers, including the same damn meds (hi, clonidine), are effective for helping reduce RSD. (It also explains why RSD is also common in autistic people, who often have a similar history of social error and narratives of self blame, without requiring inherent neurological differences.)
It's a common kind of stress injury, basically. It's not Whiny Crybaby Disorder; it's more like shin splints. Getting better shoes for running, being careful about the ground you run on, and letting the splints heal properly can all help make shin splints go away when you've been running barefoot on concrete roads your whole life.
idk what i'm doing here @brainlikeabagofcats - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook
titsay
kianamaiart
baratheonpilled
pixelskylines
izzy806
origamiaround
