Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
banner
aivalentin.bsky.social
Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
@aivalentin.bsky.social
🇺🇦 Writer, artist, PhD candidate | C19 US, New Orleans, immigration, religion, death | Disabled Jewish queer trans | Husband and cavalier of @thelionmachine.bsky.social 🪬
Pinned
Hello new followers!

I'm Aleksei (he/they) and I'm the other half/cavalier primary of @thelionmachine.bsky.social

I'm a PhD student working on German Catholic immigrants and yellow fever in 19th c New Orleans. I write spec lit, dabble in art, and generally nerd around.
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
Happy There Is A Circulatory System Walking Through The Kitchen Day to all who celebrate.
November 10, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, carrying all 29 crewmen to the bottom of Lake Superior. This story has stayed with me my whole life as the son of a sailor.

If you're not familiar with the Fitz, this is an excellent intro:

youtu.be/u0Lg9HygEJc?...
The Lake That Never Gives Up Her Dead
YouTube video by Caitlin Doughty
youtu.be
November 10, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
$219 received. Desperate #UrgentNeed as they won't take payments past tomorrow. Please #HelpSky 💸 💕
#UrgentNeed Sonia just got a 3 day notice to pay her rent or get evicted - $1134 must be paid in full on Monday, plus she's still behind on her car. #MutualAid #BlackCrowdFund help a domestic violence victim who just got a stable situation stay in it 💸 💕 bsky.app/profile/pope...
this lady still needs help tp cover her car payment and upcoming November rent as well as her phone bill; she's starting a new job but needs some #MutualAid to make it through after her abuser wasn't required to pay her damages: paypal.me/MsSoniaD or cashapp $spunkylilminx
November 10, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
We deserve to be comfortable and safe. If people in the Northern Climes had to deal with our houses and our wardrobes they'd all freeze to death and die. Not joking. Let's get our gear together before an unseasonably long winter freeze.
November 10, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
If you DO need new coats or warmer PJs or to buy a heating pad or get weather stripping or whatever, please write it down so that when it's warm again in a couple days you don't say "well maybe I don't NEED it--" you need it bc climate change is real!!
November 10, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
Hello my fellow US Southerners, how are we all doing with the cold snap? Has this chill wind revealed you need gloves, or a winter hat, or new wool socks? Did you find out like I did yesterday that my winter jacket is now too small? Have you discovered a crack in the seal of your window?
November 10, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
#otd in 1989, Günter Schabowski of the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) held a press conference where he appeared to say that citizens could now travel more freely outside of the GDR. By the end of the day, the Berlin Wall had been opened and the stage set for the end of SED rule.
November 9, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
No justice, no peace.
The 8 Dems who voted against ACA are embracing eugenics.

This decision will disproportionately harm disabled people.

Many Disabled people have pre existing conditions & won’t be able to afford insurance.

Many live in legislated poverty.

Guess we aren’t dying fast enough for them
November 10, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Why is the music in every commercial establishment so gotdang loud? I feel like an old man yelling at clouds, but turn it down, for Pete's sake. I want to be able to have a conversation when I get coffee.
November 9, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
This is a good article, worth reading.

Gigantic SUVs are a public health threat. Why don’t we treat them like one?

The anti-smoking playbook is worth studying and learning from, and is completely applicable to oversized cars.

Via @davidzipper.bsky.social in @vox.com #CarBloat
Gigantic SUVs are a public health threat. Why don’t we treat them like one?
The anti-tobacco playbook could help turn the US public against their beloved oversized cars.
www.vox.com
November 7, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
I went and did this.
Wondering why no one likes your posts anymore, even among your friends? It's because @jay.bsky.team and team have decided to hide a huge amount of content from all of our feeds by default.

Here's how to turn it off.

First go to the hamburger menu in the upper left corner
November 6, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
Remember Rev. David Black, the Chicago pastor who was shot in the head with pepper balls? If you haven't heard him speak yet, listen to this.

To ICE: "You can repent"
November 7, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Look, anyone can appreciate the fruits of an intense desire for God, which I'm sure is what makes for some quality father figures here.
She doesn't know it yet, but one lucky lady among my friends is getting this HOT PRIESTS calendar for Christmas. Complete 'with historical notes about the Vatican.'
November 8, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Why is spending money for Lev to get acupuncture reasonable and good, but setting acupuncture up for me is expensive and extravagant?

My brain is so mean to me, I swear.
November 7, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
Today, SCOTUS will discuss whether to review a challenge to marriage equality.  
 
We urge the Court to honor what millions of Americans already know: LGBTQ+ families are part of the nation’s fabric and deserve equal protection under the law. 

Read our statement: tinyurl.com/cv43jj8p
November 7, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
I LEARNED THE ANSWER TO THIS

Chris's Steakhouse was a New Orleans landmark

Chris Matulich periodically got bored, sold it, waited for the new owner to fail, and bought it back cheap

The sale conditions: Can't move it, can't change the name

He did this six times

Then he sold it to Ruth Fertel
what did ruth mean when she said her steakhouse was "chris"
November 7, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
A friend just pitched in again! $1545 needed now to cover November bills! We're getting closer, thank you all so much for all of your help!!

Paypal: affirmationgin at gmail
Cashapp/venmo: showupforthis
Hi yes hello! Is anyone out there super wealthy and secretly longing to pay rent/utilities for a single mom and her little family during her second layoff of 2025??

Just got the news that I'm being laid off from my job of two months after being laid off from my job of a decade earlier this year 😭😭
November 7, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
Cancelled. Cancelled into the Sun. Cancelled into a volcano. Into Jupiter's atmosphere. Cancelled in every gory and visible way. Cancelled back into his snowplow. Again.

www.sfchronicle.com/entertainmen...
Jeremy Renner accused of threatening to ‘call ICE’ on filmmaking partner
Jeremy Renner has been accused of threatening to “call ICE” on his filmmaking partner Yi Zhou and sharing “unsolicited pornographic images” with her.
www.sfchronicle.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
New #AMA is live #Skystorian! Dr. Kristin Roebuck, author of "Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War", has come to AskHistorians to answer all your questions on this fascinating subject!
old.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
I'm Dr. Kristin Roebuck and I teach history at Cornell University. My new book, Japan Reborn: Race and Eugenics from Empire to Cold War, explains racial politics in Japan and its foreign relations dur...
At the peak of imperial expansion in World War II, Japan touted itself as a multiracial paradise. Imperial Japan's government, eugenicists,...
old.reddit.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:05 PM
This is physiognomy with a computer added.

It's racism dressed up as science. I can't say this enough. It's as reliable as the trend of "face reading" on TikTok a while ago.

But if you won't listen to me, here's a white lady saying the same things: youtu.be/NyUT2DxBiDM?...
November 6, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
HAPPENING NOW: Judge McConnell is sharply rebuking the Trump administration for what he said was defying his order to make full SNAP payments by Nov. 5. He has ordered USDA to make the *full* payment to states by tomorrow.
November 6, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
People willing to throw trans liberties away have already handed the right a win in saying there's a gray area to personhood and autonomy.

Trans people are among my beloveds. I want them to live with peace, but if you can't muster decency for them, remember the gray scale to personhood problem.
November 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Nothing like oversleeping by 2 hours, dislocating the knee by rolling over in bed, and still be here as of 3pm.

A cracking day, first rate.
November 5, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Reposted by Aleksei I. Valentín (he/they) ✡️♿🏳️‍🌈
November 5, 2025 at 7:59 PM