she/her ~ brain rot gang âď¸đ ~ it's a trash pile within this hellsite that lacks nuance but it's MY trash pile ~ I really need to remake at some point
She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.
She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.
81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.
The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.
Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.
Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.
The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.
She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.
Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.
When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.
The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.
When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.
The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.
You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
one of the hardest things to learn as a depressed former Gifted Kid⢠is that half-assed is better than nothing. take the 50%, 40%, even 20% job. scrubbing your face is better than not taking a shower at all. picking up your clothes is better than never cleaning. nibbling on some bread is better than starving.
DO THINGS HALFWAY. NOW YOUâRE 100% BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE BEFORE.
One of my college professors used to say âanything worth doing is worth doing poorly.â I didnât understand that for years because I didnât do anything poorly, I couldnât do anything poorly, I had to Do Everything Perfectly.
But brushing your teeth for 30 seconds is better than not brushing them at all when that 2 minutes seems exhausting. Doing ten minutes of yoga is better than 10 minutes of sitting when 30 minutes of cardio sounds impossible. Changing my clothes is good when a whole shower is impossible. Standing on the porch for a few minutes is worth it after being in the house for three straight days because I donât have the energy to go anywhere.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly⌠because doing it poorly is better than not doing it.
You must understand that perfectionism isnât striving for excellence, itâs a crippling fear of being flawed and therefore worth abandonment or punishment. Itâs a kind of psychological avoidance. Youâre avoiding fear and failure , not embracing the thing you want to do bc if it was about the thing you want to do youâd be fine with partial victory.
OK lads but. Why is the r slur coming back. It's 2026. Why am I hearing so many of The Youth use this word liberally and at whim. Do you need me to ground you. Do I need to sit you on the naughty step. Do you need me to strap you into the Learning Chair and deliver a 4 hour lecture about the history of the r slur, ableism, and why using that word is neither big nor cool. Or do you just need me to punch you in the mouth.
And I'm being so for real right now: most people I see using this are self-described progressives who would literally cry themselves to the point of atomic dissolution if they were accused in the online town square of being Not That Woke Actually, so like, maybe stop using the ableist slur to try and seem edgy and cool and acerbic, because it's super fucking weird to see you all post your pithy little paragraphs of Marxist commentary to your blog called Capitalism Kills or Postfeminist Rants or whatever, and then tie it all up with a nice big fuck you to disabled people.
There are so many better words and phrases you could be using to describe your nemeses that don't carry the weight of centuries of eugenics. For example: you're all acting like a bunch of crusty teatowels and you need to do better, else I shall be forced to unplug your WiFi and put your phone in the microwave.
#it's coming back for the same reasons as the OG rise of modern eugenics #authoritarian politics + financial downturn + pandemic + national orientation toward total war #= the need for the elimination of the 'burdensome' disabled other and superstructural justification for it (via librarycards)
Also it's coming back among progressives in particular because there's a widespread refusal to acknowledge that conservatives are rational, thinking human beings who decided that conservative politics are better based on the information they have. instead, they must be clueless, unthinking NPCs incapable of rational thought being controlled like sheep.
Rather than discussing the role of propaganda, the corporate control of media, and the failure of neoliberal politics as an alternative solution to the problems conservatives want addressed it's just constantly attacking the intelligence of people that vote for right-wing politicians, to the point where it was inevitable the r-slur came back as the "strongest" way to call people ignorant.
there is a stripper pole in my attic. i saw it in a dumpster one day, and i went, shit, this is exactly the kind of thing my wife would want. and i didnt really want it in the house, what with it being a used stripper pole lightly seasoned with dumpster juice, but i mentally decided that if she were to see it and ask for it, i would say she could have it, and then sure enough, later that evening, she went soooo baaaaaaaabs there's this thing by the dumpster and i want it but i get it if you don't want it in the house but i have to show it to you- and i went, no you dont, you can have the pole, and that was the most surprised i have ever made her look. even compared to the day when i proposed to her, which she was prepared enough that we both knew she would say yes, and she could also get her hair done up and have a cute outfit, but not so prepared that she was not fucking flabbergasted by the 12 empty decoy ringboxes i sprung on her. i handed her so many decoy ring boxes that day. still one of the funniest things i've ever done to her.
anyway we like pacing around together and ranting in the attic but sometimes instead of pacing one of us will just hang on the pole and spin, and the other person will watch on the beanbag, which makes for these really goofy conversations where the person on the bag will say something that gets the other persons goat, such as, hypothetically, that xylophones do not belong in rock music, and then the other person will go on a tirade about this, but they'll actually only be facing the Hot Take Speaker half of the time, what because of the pole, so the response will sound something like
I can't believe
you would even suggest such
a stupid opinion. You've
been to a Danny Elfman
concert! How can you
have heard Oingo Boingo
live and say with a straight face
that they alone do not justify
rock and roll xylophones
and then that person will continue until they get too dizzy, then they'll get off the pole, and by unspoken agreement, the person on the bag will get up and trade places with them to deliver their rebuttal while also spinning and it just creates this sort of crazy strip-court lawyers debating absolute nonsense for no reason kind of vibe that frankly just really does it for us.
i don't really have any marriage advice for this i guess its just a look at what being married can look like. i thought that being married would involve a lot more stuff like carving the turkey, or barbecuing, or watching the sunset, and if id known how much time it would involve arguing for xylphones in rock music while spinning upside down i might have prepared for it a little differently.
I think people need to understand that everyone has to unlearn misogynistic behaviors and thinking patterns. Cis women and trans women and cis men and trans men and anyone who doesnât fall under those categories are all completely capable of being misogynistic and actively hurtful to women. Trans men are included in this, obviously, but when you only call for trans men to unlearn this mindset, you are no longer being progressive and fair. You are singling out a minority.
it pisses me off to see cis women saying 'trans women are misogynistic because they were raised as men' and trans women replying 'no we aren't because no we weren't!' and i'm sitting there staring at the camera like it's the office. because like women are ALL raised to be just as misogynistic as men. it's a notable goddamn feature of the patriarchy.
like if you are marginalized it is in your own self-interest to interrogate and deconstruct the cultural narratives that position you as subnormal. this is what starts a lot of queer people on wanting to reform the world into something more compassionate and egalitarian.
but it's not the marginalization that makes you any more or less ethical than anyone else. it's the work. you gotta do the actual work.
I feel like part of the problem is a really popular misunderstanding of bigotry.
Misogyny is not just prejudice experienced by a woman. It is not simply something that happens TO a woman. It has nothing to do with the woman. Itâs about the misogynist.
Bigotry is not determined or defined by the target of that bigotry. The bigotry is stored in the bigot.
Misogynists will be misogynistic towards any person they associate with femininity, including cisgender men.
When a misogynist cis man tears another man down for liking something he thinks is girly, he is still being misogynistic.
A cis male coach telling his cis male student he runs like a girl is being misogynistic.
A cis woman punishing her son for wanting a âgirlâ toy or policing her boyfriendâs hygiene habits and interests for anything she considers emasculating, is being misogynistic!
When a woman gets in a car accident and is injured more severely because the safety testing on that car was only done using crash test dummies and models based on men, sheâs experiencing misogyny.
When the medication she takes for her injuries doesnât work right or has unexpected side effects because it was only tested on men, sheâs experiencing misogyny.
When the tools she uses at work that are the wrong shape for her hands, and the jumpsuit thatâs part of her uniform which she has to take off completely to use the bathroom, and all the spaces she moves through and everything within them are designed with the assumption that an average male body is the only body that mattersâ she is experiencing misogyny.
Misogyny is the belief that women are inherently inferior, and the systems and institutions built around that belief. It can be experienced by anyone, and anyone is capable of having misogynistic beliefs and doing misogynistic things.
Bigotry is not about the target. Itâs about the bigot, and what the bigot believes, and the way those bigoted beliefs have shaped our world.
I donât care what race gender or sexuality you are, you were raised with racist, sexist, homophobic beliefs. Because itâs literally impossible not to be.
And the harder you try to cling to the idea that misogyny is something that happens TO women, rather than something coming FROM misogynists, the more blind youâll be to your own misogynistic beliefs, and all the ways everything in our society is a product of or directly reinforces those beliefs.
Incredible book alert for you all, since I know how many of my friends and followers are also neurodivergent. I've been requesting that our local library buy more ADHD and autism-friendly cookbooks aimed at adults, in an effort to find one that might help me with fixing my extremely broken relationship with food. And for a while it was a bit demoralizing because a lot of them are more recipe-focused, so I'd read them and go "Wow, this book is aimed at people like me and I can't eat any of this stuff, I must be even more broken than I thought"
Enter "How to Eat Well for Adults With ADHD" by Rebecca King.
I am about to sound like a sponsored ad, but this book is absolutely incredible. It's written by a nutritionist with ADHD, and does include some recipes, but they only make up a part of the third section of the book. The rest of it is focused on practical, broadly applicable advice for neurodivergent folks (and frankly, other disabled people) on unlearning internalized ableism around food, how to best organize your kitchen and meal plan (and what to do when meal plans fail), the connections between food and dopamine and how best to use food for stimulation in a healthy way, how hyperfocus and time blindness can get in the way of eating well, how to make sure you're eating enough while on stimulants, the fact that many ADHD people also have ARFID (and the book even emphasizes that ARFID is an eating disorder, not just "picky eating"!!), and takes the strong stance that we should do away with the idea of "picky eaters" altogether in favor of a more compassionate stance on people's complicated relationships with food and eating.
It is strongly anti-diet culture while still emphasizing that good nutrition is important. It has extremely specific tips that make my ADHD heart sing a little, like how best to store specific vegetables so they last the maximum amount of time in your fridge (since we are all very good at forgetting they are there) and what tools can make doing the dishes more manageable. And perhaps most importantly, as someone with severe sensory sensitivities and some very real trauma from having them ignored as a kid and being shamed for them, it made me cry a little bit with how understanding and compassionate it is.
Anyway. I am going to buy a copy of my own immediately, and I cannot recommend it enough. If you, like me, are trying to unfuck your eating habits and neat someone to hold your hand a little in the process -- while still making you feel like an adult, and still offering actionable tips along the way -- this book could be a lifesaver.
(And for those of you who use Instagram, the author has an account that's equally helpful and affirming over there, too, that I followed immediately, @/adhd.nutritionist)
Link to: https://www.theverge.com/tech/896490/google-replace-news-headlines-in-search-canary-coal-mine-experiment?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI
What we are seeing is a âsmallâ and ânarrowâ experiment, one thatâs not yet approved for a fuller launch, Google spokespeople Jennifer Kutz, Mallory De Leon, and Ned Adriance tell The Verge. They would not say how âsmallâ that experiment actually is. Over the past few months, multiple Verge staffers have seen examples of headlines that we never wrote appear in Google Search resultsâââheadlines that do not follow our editorial style, and without any indication that Google replaced the words we chose. And Google says itâs tweaking how other websites show up in search, too, not just news.
the batman (2022)!! would especially love non-batman recs because i've read most if not all of what actually inspired it/shares vibes with it :eyes:
Ok so I will fully admit this one is very skewed towards mysteries. For me personally one of the things I liked about Batman 2022 was how it wove comics into itself so that makes it a little harder to rec comics for!! That said, here's my instinct, excluding the obvious influences like Long Halloween (which was my first thought)
The Good Asian. This is genuinely the best historical comic I've ever read. The art is great, the setting is thoroughly grounded, the characters are compelling. Noiresque mystery set in 1930s San Francisco.
The One Hand/the Six Fingers. I'm highly recommending this one to you in particular, because it's by Dan Watters. This is two entwined series, one by Watters and one by Ram V, a dark mystery noir set in the far future.
Fallen - a rec for if you're more looking for a fantasy mob story. Takes pantheons from various mythologies and reimagines them as mobsters in the modern day.
The Deviant. If you're looking for the horror mystery vibes of The Batman (2022), or if you like Tynion, you'll enjoy this one. I might compare it to Silence of the Lambs but with queerphobia as a plot element rather than a writing element.
GCPD: Blue Wall. For when you really just want some noncapes in your Batman. Or some nuance and shades of grey. It's by John Ridley, and definitely better than I expected it to be. Somewhat reminiscent of Gotham Central and The Wire.
Ever since I took a class on material culture and the significance of things and objects in our lives, Iâve started taking note of relevant readings I come across. For those interested, below is a partial list:
Objects of Despair: Inspired by Roland Barthes, Meghan OâGieblynâs monthly column examines contemporary artifacts and the mythologies we have built around them.
Fake Meat | Mirrors | Mars | Drones | The 10,000-Year Clock
Concrete: The Most Destructive Material on Earth (more on The Guardianâs âConcrete Weekâ)
The Unfortunate Fate of Childhood Dolls by Rainer Maria Rilke
AirPods Are a Tragedy
Thinging the Real: On Bill Brownâs âOther Thingsâ
Sum Effects: âPersonal or real, tangible or intangible, durable, hard, soft, consumable, or perishable: my grandmother owned none of it. Goldyne Alter died with no possessions.â
A janitor rescued migrantsâ possessions from a border facilityâs trash. Now theyâre art.
Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, ed. by Sherry Turkle
Friendly Floatees
Great Pacific garbage patch
Plastic: an autobiography by Allison Cobb
Curating the Anthropocene: âImagine a future archeologist on a dig in what was once downtown Los Angeles, excavating, exposing layers of history, like the paleontologists at the La Brea Tar Pits are doing today, finding bones of saber-toothed cats, mammoth, and dire wolves. What does the archeologist of the future find?â
âoh no we need to practice for our fake datingâ is the funniest trope to me cause like. there are so many people who force themselves into a shitty relationship they hate just because of amatonormatiivity that itâs an ingrained part of popular culture to joke about hating your partner.
which is to say, oh my god you dont need to hold hands and go on fake dates, you donât even need to agree on a single detail of your cover story beforehand. you can literally stand 6 feet apart at all times and look profoundly uncomfortable and all anyone will think is âyikesâ˘. not my problemâ
actually people should address this in fanfic more because âi know we could half-ass it, but i would never fake mistreat my fake husband, how dare youâ is absolutely delightful
âLook, my only goal here is for our pretend relationship to be demonstrably healthier than Aunt Rita and Uncle Carlâs fifteen year, three child marriage - which means the bar is so low we probably canât fuck this upâ
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; thereâs 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 Iâm 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 weâre 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. Itâs 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 Tolkienâs 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 âlater estrangementâ 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 âcapital-M Men.â )
The Prologue is written charmingly, a framing device of an academic translator giving the context of background information before presenting someone elseâs 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 âhobbits still exist now,â and sounds rather as if the Big Man has interviewed modern hobbits (âthey say,â) which weâll 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.
Letâs examine the âhobbit magic thingâ noting that we are being TOLD all of this by a CHARACTER.
Hereâs 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, weâve 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, itâs a little alarming. Thereâs a species of humans native to these islands, so rare and so politically silent that youâve 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 Narratorâs annoyance about the Industrial Revolution spoiling the âpeace and quietâ 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. âWasâ is very much past-tense, and they âhauntedâ land in the past, ghosting lightly and leaving no traces of their presence, rather than living there. so in our modern day thereâs 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.
Itâs 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.
âDo not and did notâ is further reinforcement of a still-living people. (I love the âunderstand or likeâ 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 âabout the level of technology hobbits are comfortable withâ - 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 âa product of his time.â This isnât a medieval writer looking back on Middle Earth. Itâs 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 âthe Big Folkâ, as they call us,
We then proceed to see, across three books, examples of hobbit behavior in âthe ancient daysâ, 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 itâs all over. With this evidence in our memory, casting a coy âshynessâ as the reason for their avoidance of âusâ 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 donât 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 âhobbits are closest to (us)â he gave us a lot of additional information, didnât he? He refers to âlater estrangement.â (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 Manâs translation of the Red Book. Theyâre not just going, theyâre functionally GONE. This is what I mean!) Anyway, even the Big Man notes that there was âan estrangement.â Something that has caused them to flee from contact with us in dismay.
whatever happened in that estrangement probably doesnât 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 theyâre 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 isnât 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.
[âŚ]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, thatâs why itâs okay that youâve 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 âdisappearing,â 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 rivalâs paper about âSlipping Into The Shadow-Realm: how hobbits shift space and time to conceal their vital signaturesâ (Sayers, 1934).
further, theyâve specifically developed this âartâ - from whatâs implied to be an instinctive/animal ability - to a higher skill, indistinguishable from magic. The âartâ 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 thatâs been discussed on tumblr, and it is correct to note that âstudiedâ is doing a lot of work. Especially when contrasted against the previous sentence, with the interesting term âartâ. âIt isnât science/magic, itâs an instinctive artâ.
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 wouldâve studied in - full of romantic, unexamined, politically revealing statements like, âThe Celts are skilled in the art of music, but have never properly studied it.â
What Iâm saying here is that we should not assume the Big Man is a good judge of the difference between âartâ and âstudy,â 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 âartâ through âheredity,â but also a âprofessional skillâ refined through âpractice.â It has been âdevelopedâ until it is mistaken for âmagic,â but against this, we are told that hobbits âhave never studied magic of any kind.â In the cleavage point here, we can see the definition of âstudyâ that The Big Man is working with. This definition is possibly what makes something âmagicâ 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 âcoloniser.â 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 wouldâve 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 âmagicâ that includes (academic study) but excludes (hobbit arts)?
You can certainly do some delightful worldbuilding answers for yourself, and say that âperhaps magic is spells, material changes, great works as performed by Elvish or Maiar Ringbearers, etc.â But if we look at the political stuff Iâve just pointed out, why not examine the definition and who it serves and why? Given that weâve 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: âMagic is formalised by the bigger races and defined by excluding the practices of the smallest race.â
Who does this benefit? Well, the Bigger Races could in some ways. Magic must be studied, hobbits donât study, hobbits donât 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 âmagicâ 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 didnât 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.
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