Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 4h

Sometimes those of us who say y'all because we live (or lived) here or close to southern folks who don't "sound southern" get shit over it and I think it's just so useful filling a gap in American English.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 4h

It's just the standard Southern US way of addressing a group of people, and a lot of us prefer it to things like "guys" or "gentlemen and ladies" because it's more friendly and implies absolutely nothing about the audience except there's more than one person there.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 8h

Unstylish lesbians knitting the same style of homemade rustic solid colored sweaters and simple colorwork will have tattoos or piercings or dyed hair or weird art in their background, they'll talk about stuff that isn't homemaking, they do not have faces always sad like mine in 2009.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 8h

There is a very specific "unstylish lesbian or Evangelical Christian?" hair and makeup thing that I keep seeing where something about the physical unhappiness in people's faces is just a dead giveaway to me

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 8h

I hate that my superpower is looking at someone's KNITTING CONTENT and be able to tell from their hair style and sweater selections they're an Evangelical Christian even when there is NOTHING else I know about them.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 9h

It remains extremely delightful to me whenever a non American with a very strong regional accent adds "y'all" to their vocabulary, especially queer people using it to be inclusive in English, 10/10, please keep using it, you sound great

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Reposted by Lev Mirov

Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 10h

Yeah
Here to stay but I totally get why people would leave. Esp marginalized folks who don't get as much support (I remain convinced the industry loves its marginalized debuts but hasn't scaled up to supporting long term careers)

Georgina Kiersten @ingloriousgigi.bsky.social · 21h

You should be concerned about the rate of authors leaving publishing. Especially from marginalized communities. This year I have seen so many authors just pack it up and go. And it's only getting worse.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 9h

This thread speaks for itself as a Catholic Explainer, but it's very cool to see something I worked on in my MA(the Eucharist as a ritual object in the middle ages) wielded against the oppressors. Detainees deserve and are legally entitled to receive religious rites.

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 11h

It's always good to see priests who still remember there are *seven* Catholic social principles. Also, that noise you hear is the USCCB screeching to the Vatican and getting back nothing, lol

Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 12h

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 9h

It's good to see an American Catholic with authority wielding the power of the institution's beauty and ritual on the side of the oppressed. Seeing some people step up in spite of the atrocious leadership is very moving.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 10h

I hope the USCCB are having the worst time with the new pope. I hope every day the folks who covered up the sexual violence in the US are simply fucking miserable, I wish them acid reflux and magie attacks and reprimands and dismissal from the Vatican and that they all die excommunicated.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 14h

This thread is really interesting.

Philip Purser-Hallard @purserhallard.com · 1d

It occurs to me that the Doctor's polyethnic identity in recent times recontextualises Peter Davison's casting in quite an interesting way.
(For context, although you'd be unlikely to guess it by looking at him, Davison's paternal family is Guyanese. He has close relatives who are visibly Black.)

Peter Davison, a fair-skinned blond man, as the fifth Doctor, circa 1982.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 15h

But the only true members of the white race are physically perfect. That has always been a huge component of white supremacy, the only real people are a rarefied top tier of rich and powerful aristocratic white people with pale, athletic bodies. Eugenics can't be separated from white supremacy.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

The texture of vanilla soylent made me extremely motivated to find anything solid I could digest, even when that meant eating cashews and Parmesan cheese for two meals a day.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

I tried living on only protein shakes during a period where I was very unwell and unable to eat normal solid foods and nothing makes you more pro solid food than an enforced diet of chalking protein shakes for multiple meals a day

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Reposted by Lev Mirov

Air and Nothingness Press @aanpress.bsky.social · 1d

Announcing our first open call for 2026 - "Tea or Coffee, Stars, and Gravity" which will ask for hard SF stories with tea or coffee, stars, and gravity all playing a prominent narrative role. Info here - aanpress.com/submissions.... Important: Be sure to read the cover page to the PDF.

Cover image to the book, showing the back of an astronaut in a space suit as he steps off into a psychedelic swirl of cosmic colors and stars. The title circles around the figure.

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Reposted by Lev Mirov

OTHERSIDE - Kickstarter is LIVE! @othersidespec.bsky.social · 1d

YOU DID IIIIT! NOW WE HAVE MORE ART!! This means pretty interior illustrations, small divider details, the little flourishes that will allow us to hire more queer artists per issue! Thank you so much.

Our NEXT stretch goal is NONFICTION 👀

www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyb...

Over a hazy purple background, there's the header "stretch goals." Five goals, of $6900, $8300, $9700, $11000, $12000, and $13000 are now illuminated in rainbow with a picture of an open lock next to them. The remaining goals of $14000 (Nonfiction) and $15000 (+1 Reprints!) show a closed lock next to them.

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Reposted by Lev Mirov

Jen Donohue @authorizedmusings.bsky.social · 1d

these are also all available on itch! (and the first three Run With the Hunted are pay-what-you-want)

jenniferrdonohue.itch.io

also-also available on HOOPLA, if you've got access to that through your library

Jen Donohue @authorizedmusings.bsky.social · 1d

If you wondered, THESE are my novellas!

Run With the Hunted is a series

authorizedmusings.blogspot.com/p/run-with-h...

The Drowned Heir and Between the Blood and the Sun each stand alone

books2read.com/DrownedHeir

books2read.com/BetweentheBl...

Novellas (with pictures of book covers): The Drowned Heir, Between the Blood and the Sun, all 8 Run With the Hunted covers together in a grid.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

I had no great experiences with the actual books or films, all my good experiences were in fandom with my friends, it could have been any fandom and I was into several!

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Because all my friends loved it I tried to put aside the impulse to DNF the series because I really disliked the first book, but as an adult it's very obvious that every single thing that made me uncomfortable was me understanding how racism and misogyny work.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, this. I have basically no nostalgia for my youth because it did not have less responsibility than now, just different ones, and I often find myself just fuming at reviews like "everything was better when I didn't have burnout so this objectively sucks"

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Re-experiencing your past self is an absolutely unhinged standard. You're often projecting it onto works that don't ask you to feel nostalgia!! Works that could become new favorites and bring you catharsis or comfort or pleasure or rewarding intellectual effort, but you don't want new experiences.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Even the very best Star Wars or Doctor Who or Marvel stories or creative reboot or whatever, that function on high registers, that are objectively good and skillful, cannot make you feel like you did when you didn't know Donald Trump was capable of becoming president.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

Especially the "but nothing else makes me feel like Harry Potter"

Yeah because you can't find and replace in your memories a specific childhood experience with a new one! You can't read with the ignorance of a child again. Grow up. Get a new favorite.

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Lev Mirov @thelionmachine.bsky.social · 1d

I was just having this conversation but about music. A lot of experiences are packaged as nostalgia for something old, but a new book (or album or film etc) can't make you feel like you're STILL 16 or 22 and know nothing of what's to come. It's not a flaw with the work. It's not a problem at all.

🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈 @haileypiperfights.bsky.social · 1d

They say they want new things in fantasy, then authors from marginalized groups do new things, but they don't like that, they want the new thing to be like the old thing except new.

What they really want is a book to rewind time and make them young again, something no book or anything else can do.

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Reposted by Lev Mirov

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 1d

Since Link is banned, his mutual aid Fridays have gone with him. This was one of the most altruistic things I’ve seen anyone on this site do.

In light of this, I’m gonna try to fill the gap.

Drop your mutual aid requests under this thread and I will repost them for as long as I can.

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