Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 21m

You’ve got this, buddy.

Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 16h

Actually, I'm going to throw my hat out: would anybody like to have me on their podcast/newsletter to talk about Appalachian pulp, folklore, witchlore, and the benefits of weirding historical fiction? I think these stories are good, and I want to talk about them!

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 3d

Fuck Prime Day. PDFs of GHOST DAYS and IN THE SNOW, THE JUNGLE are on sale for just 3$ today, which means you can grab this fully illustrated short story collection AND its followup novella for just $6.

Get your Appalachian historical folklore/horror fix here!

www.asherelbein.com/store

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 8h

This is AI.

Jenn Budd @jennbudd.bsky.social · 8h

Seems like they are going after reporters who are women. They hit one w/pepper spray ammo in her car, the WGN reporter and now this.

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

The Lincolnshire Poster @desiderratum.bsky.social · 8h

Netanyahu wouldn't have accepted this deal from Biden, but some commentators don't seem to realize that this makes Biden's deference to him all the more damning. He was obviously in the tank for Trump! So why didn't Biden play hardball?

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 14h

We have truly not yet figured out how to cope with a person or institution that is "aware" of climate change, "accepts the science", but then decides to continue actively worsening it anyway

We don't even have a word or a phrase for this!

theconversation.com/mark-carneys...

Mark Carney’s climate inaction is at odds with his awareness of climate change’s existential threat

Climate action no longer seems to be a priority for Prime Minister Mark Carney, despite his previous activism. This is bad news for Canadians and the climate.

theconversation.com

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 12h

The stories are somewhat in conversation with the sort of Mythic Timeless Appalachia of writers like the great Manly Wade Wellman, but are also an attempt to do that kind of fantasy in way that's more tied to the actual place and history

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 12h

Pulp as in "pulp fiction," particularly the blend of weird fantasy storytelling common in the 1940s and 1950s sci-fi magazines. These are stories that blend folklore, history, and genre blending, set in and around the southern Appalachians in 1900

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 13h

Worth noting that if it *were* transparent virtue signalling, you'd expect her to drop her advocacy at the first moment it became inconvenient, when she has in fact been quite consistent in the face of persistant and vocal criticism

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 13h

I think the conclusion you're drawing here has much, much more to do with you than her, dude

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 13h

No joke, this is a great book pitch

Zach Rabiroff @zachrabiroff.com · 14h

From Pussy Hats to Protest Frogs: The Fall and Rise of America in Furries

Adam Selzer @adamchicago.bsky.social · 16h

The frogs have landed in Chicago!

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 15h

Look, should he have been mayor (or entrusted with any sort of power of any kind) at any point? No. Am I happy that my New York friends no longer will have to suffer him? Yes.

...but I'm kinda gonna miss him

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 15h

"You're a dark, sick person, man, you know that? ... Some of you [reporters] are so sick and dark—and you're the leader of that. ... Your personal sick vendetta and the sickness of how you think, of oversexualizing a Black man ... that's typical of the sickness and the darkness of your sick mind."

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Riley Black 🦕 🏳️‍⚧️ @restingdinoface.bsky.social · 15h

If you've been curious about When the Earth Was Green, you can read a sample over at Smithsonian. It's about an unlucky bug caught in goop and how oozing trees helped make the fossil record.

How a Fragile Insect Living 100 Million Years Ago Becomes a Fossil

A bug, a dinosaur and a tree intersect, creating the perfect conditions for resin to capture a moment in time

www.smithsonianmag.com

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 15h

If you’re a grad student you can have both at once

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Good Old Claire @illusclaire.bsky.social · 16h

They’re so good

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 16h

Actually, I'm going to throw my hat out: would anybody like to have me on their podcast/newsletter to talk about Appalachian pulp, folklore, witchlore, and the benefits of weirding historical fiction? I think these stories are good, and I want to talk about them!

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 3d

Fuck Prime Day. PDFs of GHOST DAYS and IN THE SNOW, THE JUNGLE are on sale for just 3$ today, which means you can grab this fully illustrated short story collection AND its followup novella for just $6.

Get your Appalachian historical folklore/horror fix here!

www.asherelbein.com/store

2 5

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 16h

Actually, I'm going to throw my hat out: would anybody like to have me on their podcast/newsletter to talk about Appalachian pulp, folklore, witchlore, and the benefits of weirding historical fiction? I think these stories are good, and I want to talk about them!

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 3d

Fuck Prime Day. PDFs of GHOST DAYS and IN THE SNOW, THE JUNGLE are on sale for just 3$ today, which means you can grab this fully illustrated short story collection AND its followup novella for just $6.

Get your Appalachian historical folklore/horror fix here!

www.asherelbein.com/store

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 17h

Maybe it's worth it for the company to choose not to kick that particular hornets nest, but it's worth being honest about the nature and amount of the hornets in question

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 17h

The thing about this that's worth recalling is that it *wouldn't* even offend most Americans: just the group of reactionary grifters who make money by being professionally offended online.

Mark Lemley @marklemley.bsky.social · 22h

Assassin's Creed pulls planned game about the Civil War, apparently because having a black protagonist fighting the KKK would offend too many Americans

www.polygon.com/assassins-cr...

The canceled Assassin's Creed Civil War game was a powder keg waiting to explode

Ubisoft was reportedly working on a game set after the Civil War era, but canceled it due to politics and Assassins Creed Shadows backlash.

www.polygon.com

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 17h

Been a while since we've seen Babs Tarr on a book, hasn't it? This seems like it'll be a lot of fun.

AIPT @aiptcomics.com · 18h

We're at the Gotham City panel at #NYCC. Announced: Sirens: Love Hurts. The girls are real; they fight and get pissed off, talk about each other behind their backs, but they're still all friends. The book has something for everybody. It will make you want to go party and get married.
#NYCC #comicsky

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 17h

Sale ends this evening! Get 'em while they're hot!

Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 3d

Fuck Prime Day. PDFs of GHOST DAYS and IN THE SNOW, THE JUNGLE are on sale for just 3$ today, which means you can grab this fully illustrated short story collection AND its followup novella for just $6.

Get your Appalachian historical folklore/horror fix here!

www.asherelbein.com/store

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 17h

Um!

Parker Molloy @parkermolloy.com · 18h

Caitlin Flanagan
@CaitlinPacific
I’ve missed hearing Woody Allen’s voice - I’d been so rattled this week and there he was, his full self.

⁦
@bariweiss
⁩ is the perfect interviewer. She seemed almost like a daughter to him - in a way she is. We all are.

Order Life with Baum!

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 18h

It kills me, man. They aren't even homegrown lunatics!

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Adanedhel🌹 @danielwaweru.bsky.social · 18h

A slightly overlooked thing is that this was and remains a colonial war with a global audience. Unlike other colonial wars, where the mutual discovery of deeper hatred than either suspected is limited to combatants, the mutual discovery here occurred even among non-combatants.

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 19h

it was obvious from the moment the attack happened that this was not only a tragedy for Israel but was going to become a tragedy for Palestine, and I still remember who was cheering it on.

Michael E. Carter @deckofcarterhist.bsky.social · 19h

If you were online on October 7, 2023, this is no surprise.

Overshadowed by the fact that Israel retaliated with a genocidal war is the reality that amid the attack seemingly professional/moral people spent days praising every report they found of Israelis, including children, being murdered.

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 18h

Are any of my followers lawyers (or know of lawyers!) who can discuss IP law around fan fiction and publishing? I have some questions about this practice for a piece I’d like to pitch

Stefan Mohamed @stefmowords.bsky.social · 20h

honestly why do we even bother

Substack post from Lincoln Michel:

"Alchemised debuts at #1 with massive sales, making it the THIRD Harry Potter Draco-Hermione friends-to-enemies fan fic to be turned into a bestselling novel in 2025. It's easy to say that publishers are just feeding readers slop, but harder to admit that they... enjoy it. They’re going to keep publishing it if people gobble it up by the ton."

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Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 20h

I think Ewing and Camp are doing interesting work, as they tend to do regardless. I'm just stuck wondering what Ewing in particular could be doing if he wasn't working in such an over-determined set up!

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Reposted by Asher Hellbein

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 20h

The correct response to Republicans widely depicting the coming protests as terrorism is to go out and protest. Each person should get 10 more people to do so. If Republicans are going to hint at violent state responses to legitimate protest, the only answer is bigger numbers.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 20h

By contrast, JB Pritzker told me that people should flood the No Kings protests precisely in order to let the American people know that something is deeply amiss.

More Dems should be doing this, to send the message widely that we are in real trouble right now.

newrepublic.com/article/2016...

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