Physics and Fandoms

Hi friends!

As many of you know, Scribe and I are going to be relocating to Providence, RI in just a few months, so that I can start a PhD program in History. The hard part is getting there. We haven't had much money ever since Scribe got sick, and cross-country moves are very expensive, so we're fundraising a bit to try to ease the burden.

Volume 24, Issue 1 Asexuality in Tolkien's Legendarium

Happy Pride everyone! The Journal of Tolkien Research has just published a new issue focused on the asexual and aromantic spectrums and how they resonate within Tolkien's Legendarium. The mods over here are so excited to read these and will be posting a weekly article summary for the next few months!

Introduction: Asexuality and Aromanticism in Tolkien's Works

Clare Moore and Rory Queripel

“Mythology is Language and Language is Mythology”: Allegory, Applicability, and/or Asexuality in Tolkien’s Legendarium

Rory M. Queripel

“Motions of Love and Friendship”: Elven (A)sexuality

Clare Moore

Chaste Bachelors and Abstaining Husbands: Celibacy and Asexuality in the Line of Finwë

Kristine Larsen

“A Natural Human Activity”: the Split Attraction Model as a tool for reading Tolkien’s Legendarium

Sarah Courtis

“As Bachelors Very Exceptional”: An Asexual Reading of Frodo Baggins

Danna Petersen-Deeprose

What is Unwritten May Yet Resonate: In Search of Female A-spec Resonances in Tolkien

Jackie Sheppard

An Asexual Autist’s Feminist Musings on The Lord of the Rings

I'm taking Tolkien pride art/pfp reqs this month! Just send me the character, flag, and if you want a design from a specific adaptation!

Pfp versions below the cut

We already have amazing submissions lined up and we would love to have you with us to support and highlight our wonderful and diverse community here on tolkien tumblr dot com.

This is a spoonie friendly event! That means Past works!! WIPS!! Doodles!! Gif edits!! And more are all accepted during our flexible momth long event! We also have an AO3 where you can submit year round.

Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click. "Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said. Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from. "If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and therefore came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."

And here's one from Time magazine (May 20, 2026):

While Google already has “AI Mode,” the company will now power the whole search bar through its new Gemini 3.5 Flash model.  Instead of the classic list of blue links, Google Search will now also generate a custom page with an AI-generated summary of what you’re searching about, which will then trigger a conversation with AI Mode on the main page, allowing users to ask follow-up questions—similar to the kind of layout you would see when opening ChatGPT.

And a little more from Time's article on how this may affect the websites that we are trying to search for:

“It will severely cut into the main source of revenue for most publishers and it will disincentivize content creators who rely on organic search traffic, which is millions of websites, maybe more,” she told Technology Magazine.  

Its tiiiiime♡

Starting July 1st ObscureDurins will be hosting

TOLKIEN DISABILITY PRIDE

This event focuses on ALL creative works focusing on disability in Tolkien's universe.

You can do worldbuilding, fan fic, fan art, share a favorite character, your favorite headcanons, write a song, poem, show us your LOTRO Oc!ANYTHING providing-

Absolutely NO USE OF AI IN ANY PART OF THE PROCESS

Ableism and violence against Disabled character should be done with nuance and plot in mind. Remember this is a pride event we are more than willing to have dead dove- provided it is done justly and tactfully.

Tag all your works appropriately and place under a read more.

Tag: "tolkien disability pride" AND "obscuredurins" to get your work featured.

We have an AO3 collection!