Every now and again I feel obliged to repost David E. Alter Jr's brilliant 1982 pic Bilbo's Great Adventure. Like a cross between a Victorian neo-medieval tapestry and an 8-bit platform game it condenses the whole story of The Hobbit into one image. My fave #Tolkien detail...that awesome little Bard

My review of QUEER APPROACHES TO TOLKIEN (ed. Robin Anne Reid, Christopher Vaccaro, & Stephen Yandell) is out in the open-access Journal of Tolkien Research. I had a lot of thoughts on this book, mostly very positive! Thankful to Douglas A. Anderson for commissioning this. tinyurl.com/ezbhcxn7

Mythcon 54 is featured in this article from TORn on North American Tolkien-related events happening in 2026! www.theonering.net/torwp/2026/0...

Y'all, why does my hotel room in Philly have a dimmable wizard's staff in it?

A whistleblower just told Congress that ICE is teaching new recruits to violate the Constitution. They’re telling agents to enter homes and arrest people without a judicial warrant. This war on our American rights and freedoms has to stop.

POV you just told me there’s only one way to interpret The Lord of the Rings:

Millennial fantasy protagonist who refuses the call to adventure because it’s from an unknown number.

Here is my latest Substack where I give a friendly and critical response to “Between Mount Doom and the Wall of ‘Likes’” by Paola Castagno and Leandro Pascual, which was published in the latest issue of Amon Hen, the bulletin of the @tolkiensociety.org open.substack.com/pub/tolkienp...

easy slogan for the next democratic presidential candidate is “i will reform the corrupt supreme court and repeal citizens united”

This is the second account - the first being in Chicago - of DHS agents mass detaining people and then *sorting them by race*.

"More pointedly, one of the Orc masks was specifically designed to look like producer Harvey Weinstein who had caused Jackson so much trouble in getting the movies greenlit; Weinstein's film credit also appeared on a page featuring a troll." Based.

Expanding Jeff's question. Is there any rigorous/legal argument against describing AI as a technology that is fundamentally based in plagiarism? I would argue that there is no use of AI that is not ultimately rooted in intellectual theft. @jeffsharlet.bsky.social

I always have trouble with "favourite song" choice, but here's one song with a longish title that I've been enjoying lately: Caroline Polacheck "So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings"

Chuck Shumer thinks this is “common sense”. The rest of the world thinks this is “lipstick on the fascist pig”. America, if history will judge you by your opposition to fascism, you better be sure they don’t think Shumer’s Democrats are considered “opposition” or you will be judged harshly.

❤️

Submitted today! Following a few years of rigorous peer-review and working with my co-editor @lukebshelton.bsky.social and many Tolkienists! - 44 chapters - 46 Tolkien scholars globally - over 280K words overall Still tons of work to do as proofs arrive, but feels like a moment to celebrate. ☺️

It sometimes feels ludicrous to study literature when jackbooted thugs are murdering people in the streets and shipping innocent people to camps. But if I'm going to be an academic in such a moment, at least I get to study this.

I am a single-issue voter and that issue is "Nuremberg Trials for Kristi Noem."

some of y'all are going to need to come to grips with the fact that being a citizen of the evil nazi hegemony threatening to start a world war is enough for people to get angry at you, personally, sight unseen, and there's no dignified way to get defensive about that.

Terrible restaurant could close unless people enthusiastically embrace bad food, complains chef.

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the bus has figured out we are not going to the right place

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was spotted earlier today, January 20, 2026, on a plane heading to Laguna Beach as the state of Texas braces for a rare ice threat and arctic cold front.

1. Did you know that Girl Scouts has, for a long time, accepted trans girls and nonbinary scouts? Trans kids are under attack. Every year, I make a thread of trans and nonbinary girl scouts you can get your cookies from. Lets get our cookies from them this year in solidarity!

An important thread. The Trump administration will continue to expand the categories of non- & partial-citizens this year. Fascism used "qualitative citizenship" to describe the flexibility they gave the term. That's what we're watching unfold.

NEW — DHS just posted this as an apparent explanation for why they arrested an elderly US citizen with no criminal record (it's a quote post of a post about ChongLy Thao's arrest.) The implication seems to be that all Asian men look the same, and it's not their fault they mistook one for another.

Our new members area is live! You can now log into our website and update your info whenever you want and also set your membership to auto-renew if you always forget to renew it too😅 members area: mythsoc.org/members/logi... a short explainer for first time login: youtu.be/lwKo4H-hNcs?...

Fucken hero. This is art.

i once read "the rights you think criminals should have are the rights you think everyone should have because the state can criminalize anyone" and it changed how i think about everything

Accelerating ICE violence & MAGA imperialism might finally push the opposition past the near-decade-long definitional debate about fascism ("but is this REALLY fascism?") into a pitched battle between those who demand, "how do we STOP THIS NOW?" & those who get primaried & swept aside.

I've harped on congressional war powers for a long time and we do need to fix all that, but threatening to invade Greenland while ranting at Norway about the Nobel Peace Prize and imposing trade sanctions on NATO is more the kind of thing you can only fix by not having a literally insane president.

Rabbit version of my very pukey dog.

To be clear, Disney asked for quotes, then deleted the post because folks passed the vibes check 😂

Why is Frodo Baggins like. Ideal ace person rep.

I'm SO GLAD @bsky.app finally added reposts to custom lists. It means now when I'm looking at my "Friends Only" list I see not only their own posts and quote-reposts, but also items they've straight reposted. This is the one thing that was missing to make Bluesky feel like pre-Musk twitter for me.

fwiw these are unionized hotels and their local sent a formal request to employers not to accept ICE bookings or allow ICE to use their facilities www.facebook.com/share/p/1aV9...

Some Choices sure were Made in this translation of Paul's letter to the Romans.

Living a moral life in an age of bullies requires collective action; it cannot be done alone. Each of us must organize and participate in a vast network of moral resistance. From this solidarity we will grow stronger. This is what our current moment requires.

I don’t think people quite understand that the occupation by ICE in the Twin Cities has more or less erased non-white people from public life. They cannot safely exist in any space accessible to the public and moving between private places leaves folks vulnerable to kidnapping by armed masked goons.

Boromir if he was Cory Booker.

typical ai use case

This could be the unified Dem position. It is wildly popular. Puts the regime on defense on two fronts at the same time. Good policy, good politics.

They nearly killed this woman. Then they went on national TV and tried to smear her.

I DO NOT CARE IF THE PERSON ICE IS BRUTALIZING IS A U.S. CITIZEN OR NOT AND EVERY TIME YOU MAKE THE DISTINCTION IT'S LIKE YOU'RE SAYING YOU'RE FINE WITH THEM BRUTALIZING IMMIGRANTS

banning X is a national security issue for every country, plain and simple its explicit goal is to amplify and empower the largest Nazi-adjacent party in every country in which it operates it is also the largest deepfake porn generator in the world this is not a difficult call to make

I love when you tell people how terrible Newsom is, they're always like, "Well, it's nice to have ideals, but if it comes down to him or the Nazi in the general, *I* am going to vote for him" WE'RE TELLING YOU HOW TERRIBLE HE IS NOW SO IT'S *NOT* A CHOICE BTW HIM & A NAZI, CARL. THAT'S THE POINT.

Important shit that I’m still trying to learn.

Like, you're killing me DDG