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Abigail Larson @abigaillarson.com · 02/10/2026

“I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you." 🩸 Carmilla, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

illustration by Abigail Larson inspired by the 1872 "Carmilla" novella by J. Sheridan Le Fanu depicting Carmilla leaning into Laura whispering passionately to her. Laura looks a little concerned by what she hears.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The toughest thing about doing a PhD for me personally has been watching people publish on or around topics I'm working on, knowing that I CAN'T just publish at that pace, because I'm doing phd-level rigorous work (part time while working) which takes time.

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Internally Screaming FML

ALT: Internally Screaming FML

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

It's the final push! Surgery is Oct 8th, and truly every little bit helps! Share around, tell your friends! Help me come out the other end without financial Fear!

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Finally home and recovered (back in the saddle anyway) from Oxonmoot. A truly amazing one all round, so glad to see some of the best people in the world again. Thrilled that Homecoming of Beorthoth went down as well as it did, watch this space for more news possibly!

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Woman Winks and Forms Heart Gesture

ALT: Woman Winks and Forms Heart Gesture

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Todays great podcast rec! "Medieval Europe's Biggest Sex Scandal" from Betwixt the Sheets, about Abelard and Heloise pca.st/episode/f218...

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I can now confirm: if you're attending hybrid, a playbill is uploaded to sched! If you're in person? First come first serve, we have about 200 of them.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Deposit has been paid! Thank you everyone for your help and support, but more is still needed! I have just enough for the procedure, but still need to cover everything else surrounding the procedure, including travel and hotel and feeding myself! Every little bit helps ❤️

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Another fun detail from the Tolkien archives (that isn't about content so I should be fine to share). Tolkien turning over some student grading & writing the first lines of the Hobbit isn't unique. So many of his notes & drafts are written on student grading. It's very charming and SO deeply ADHD.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

There's very little I can share from the TCBS letters without permission bc Estate Rules, but I have double checked and the following fun fact doesn't seem to break the rules so, ONE THING FOR YOU ALL: I love Geoffrey Bache Smith's handwriting.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Sometimes I just think about how Rob Gilson died on the first day of the Somme, with 19,239 other people, and how often the bodies on No Mans Land just kept building up, rotting in the mud, especially when the numbers were too high for a proper body collection, and get extremely sad about it.

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Sad Crying

ALT: Sad Crying

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Now that the Oxonmoot 2026 schedule is out....CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG about my secret project this year! With Dennis Massmann directing, I've been producing the (first ever I believe) staged production of "The Homecoming of Beorthnoth"!! With @erikjampa.bsky.social and Kit Hannah as our actors.

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Lake Michigan @lakemichigan13.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Public lands and waters must be protected - they belong to you and all future generations 🌊🌊

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

tmw you spend a significant amount of archive time reading the letters of a group of friends where, actually, about 50% are just them trying & struggling to coordinate a group hang. The more things change, the more they stay the same. At least we have group chats now, imagine THE STRUGGLE VIA POST.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Currently reading a chapter which will go unnamed, and I really feel like....the reason I roll my eyes at most "Did you Know Tolkien was a Catholic" takes isn't because I don't think his Catholicism was unimportant. Of course it was. But it's one of the least interesting things about him?

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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

there is no such thing as "age verification." All "age verification" is actually "identity verification." You can coat it in glitter and "privacy-preserving" wrapping paper. But in the end, mandating age verification means mandating surveillance be built into software and hardware. Period.

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Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

For the record, the proportion of professors at Cambridge who are Black is 0.4%. The number of Black people in the UK population is 4%. So the number of Black professors at Cambridge is ONE TENTH of what you would expect in a meritocracy.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

This horrible Jason Arday situation is shining a light on how rampant academic dishonesty is in the community. Cis white (usually) men get away with it & everyone else foots the bill, either by being taken advantage of, or by following the lead of others & having consequences where they wouldnt.

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eddietg51-42.bsky.social @eddietg51-42.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

More cops have been arrested for using flock cameras to stalk women than there are trans athletes in youth sports.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I've just realized that (I think) I never shared my Opinion on the Stephen Colbert LOTR filler-movie! While I expect Hunt for Gollum to be absolute dreck, this one I am CAUTIOUSLY hopeful for. But I think it can ONLY work one of two ways--

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Today's podcast ep rec! pca.st/episode/83c6...

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

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Daniel Delgado #CeasefireNow @ddelgadovive.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Reminder that "remigration" is a white supremacist term that specifically means ethnically cleansing a country of all nonwhites.

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Ken Jennings @kenjennings.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Why didn't the eagles just fly Odysseus straight to Ithaca

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Julia Serano @juliaserano.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

gonna say it again: ChatGPT & other LLMs use em-dashes BECAUSE ACTUAL WRITERS OFTEN USE EM-DASHES AND THESE DEVICES HAVE BEEN TRAINED ON OUR STOLEN WORK!

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

If you feel the need to Show Me or Tag Me in photos of s3 ROP Sauron, please Do Not. I have seen him. My blood pressure is already through the roof about it.

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Its Always

ALT: Its Always

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

This is exactly why I think adaptations are great!! They are an accessible gateway drug to reading and learning more!!!

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🔞sylly sylvepachi hours🔞 @gabethesqueak.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

there are occasional headlines that make me smile

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Every so often I remember the old adage "Those who can't do Teach" and am completely baffled at how that was meant to be a negative criticism. Teaching truly is the greatest thing we can do as human beings, and teaching about the arts is a gift!!! Truly my favorite thing to do.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Random fun fact with absolutely no importance (that with a little thought is unsurprising given Oxford, and is publicly available information on the Bodleian's archive database) Tolkien and Evelyn Waugh went to the same shoemaker.

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Vsauce Fun Fact

ALT: Vsauce Fun Fact

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I am once again out here saying that Gossip has Social Functions, namely are protecting the group from bad actors and giving consequences to those who will never get any other consequences (which is why women and queer folks are so good at it). Gossip can be used for evil, but it also can Very Good.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

My night job is adopting too much AI for my comfort, so I am casually on the market for a new one! If anyone hears word of any remote part-time work that isn't freelance or short-term, consider me!

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Everything is Bad in the Tolkiensphere today (boo Andy Serkis, boo this man!) But hey, I taught my first (paid) Classroom Class today on Tolkien so, small victories in a broken world! Fittingly, about Authorial Intent, Applicability and Historicity.

A photo of a desktop monitor with slides titled Fellowship of the Ring Seminar 2: Authorial Intent vs the 21st Century reader, with art by Lee Ostertag of Frodo, Bilbo and Sam that reads Bag End Social Club, a queer place and its folks are queerer

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Clare Moore @clarelmoore.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Apropos something… it’s time to bring back my “Concerning Racism” in Tolkien fandom and scholarship piece: journals.tolkiensociety.org/mallorn/arti...

journals.tolkiensociety.org

Concerning “Concerning Racism and Tolkien” | Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Another amazing podcast rec for today. I take issue with how the guest (Henry Tanner) interprets sources (negative bias in sources does NOT = total negative social opinion, I will push back on this) but EVERYTHING ELSE is brilliant.

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Today's podcast ep rec, but specifically bc this quote from Anthony Delaney HIT: "So few people get to enter into what they study [...] when I die, I become part of history, so I get to become the thing that I study, and that is fascinating to me."

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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Widely applicable.

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 12/07/2026

Amnesty International put out a major report documenting the influence of UK based anti trans gender critical organizations and their funding. Within hours, GC groups threatened defamation lawsuits and Amnesty was forced to pull it down. Proving the point they're anti rights. Anyways, here it is.

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Abby @arobertswrites.com · 12/07/2026

Oh no someone spare the children from Long Sentences.

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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

To be a historian is to speak ill of the dead and the rest of you should take more history classes and join us.

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Christian S. Trenk @cstrnk.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

@uofgfantasy.bsky.social scholar @mercuryreads.bsky.social reflects on #Tolkien and his characters #cruising Faerie, torn between artistic hobby and domestic duties, among others. From "you cannot always be torn in two" to "reunited in the end". #TolkienAtLeeds #LeafByNiggle

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Sometimes I'm reminded that I'm unusual for how conversational I am about sex & sexuality. I won't ever apologize! My truest activism is sex positive pleasure activism. Eating, Sex and Death are the three most base Human experiences and we don't like talking about two of them. it's WILD to me!!

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Mercury Natis @mercuryreads.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

I have a proposal. I'm considering writing and running a two session workshop/class on Giving High Quality Conference Papers. Would you be interested in paying for that? If enough people are interested, I will probably offer a half-off trial run guinea pig class first!

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anattmar 🕊 @anattmar.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

[wip] why am i doing this to myself

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