Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Sep 5

update

a crown embroidered in yellow, with red text underneath: Carpe Instrumenta Productionis

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Joakim @iaoth.bsky.social · Sep 4

📈 @lilyisthatyou.bsky.social is blowing up, go listen to her now to get in on the ground floor so you can say you were there when she made it big

1 1

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Sep 4

sometimes you gotta do something that makes sense

a photo of a wip embroidery of a yellow crown, referenced from a 1905 newspaper.

1 4

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Sep 4

"hey rowan you haven't been online much lately, what are you up to"

oh nothing much, just freehand embroidering a graphic from a newspaper from 1905.

1 4

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Gender Census @gendercensus.bsky.social · Jul 30

The 12th annual international Gender Census 2025 is now open until at least 30th August 2025!

survey.gendercensus.com

It's for anyone whose gender (or lack thereof) isn't described by the M/F binary. It's short and easy, and results are useful in academia, business and self-advocacy.

Title: Gender Census 2025.

Text: If you can't easily put yourself into just one of these two boxes, you are invited to take part.

Illustration: Two boxes, each with photos of relevant dictionary pages.

17 2K 1.7K

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Spooky Soma @coyote.band · Jul 28

if you call and they hang up on you, call back and immediately say you want to escalate to a supervisor because you were just hung up on. you don't even need to say any other details, just that you were hung up on and need to escalate

Nodoka Hanamura @nodo.kahanamura.com · Jul 28

SITREP from 4Chan /v/ Re: Collective Shout.

Visa and Mastercard are taking on substantial damage to their sales quots and support times for this. Don't stop calling.

#SaveSpeech

17 3.6K 5.4K

Reposted by Rowan Oats

GamesMarket @gamesmarkt.bsky.social · Jul 28

A new petition spearheaded by prominent German journalists and game developers has gathered over a thousand signatures in the first day. Like other emerging protests, it aims at payment processors to take the pressure from store fronts selling adult games.
www.gamesmarket.global/en/business/...

1 110 160

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Rhiannon Rasmussen @charibdys.bsky.social · Jul 24

worth reading article; wrapup at the end also includes actions to take to push back on this blatant anti-queer censorship. not to downplay the importance of having platforms for NSFW (a hugely broad category) but SFW queer and trans works have been hit by this (anything marked with "adult themes").

The Transfeminine Review @thetransfemininereview.com · Jul 24

🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: In a dangerous evening escalation of the anti-porn war on the gaming industry, indie platform @itch.io has banned a number of NSFW titles and delisted thousands of others.

Trans authors are caught in the crossfire.

MasterCard, Visa, and anti-porn group Collective Shout drove the ban.

Major Indie Marketplace Itch.io Shadowbans NSFW Content, Trans Authors Impacted

A dangerous escalation against free speech and literary preservation from a longtime haven for transfeminine literature.

thetransfemininereview.com

41 58

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 24

it was Hot and Windy and I've never felt more alive

A photograph of the Nobel Prize Museum at Stortorget, Old Town, Stockholm.

A photo of The Obelisk outside the Royal Castle, Old Town, Stockholm

A photo of Riddarholmskyrkan, Riddarholmen, Stockholm

A photo of Old Town, from Riddarholmen, Stockholm

2

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 24

I went to Stockholm (my home, my love, hopefully my grave) for the first time in two and a half years yesterday, (undiagnosed) autistic burnout is a hell of a thing

1 3

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Bog Witch Girl @bogwitch-girl.bsky.social · Jul 24

after a very frustrating call with Visa (US+CAN), I was told that Visa would like inquiries relating to using their bargaining power to destroy adult media to be sent, via email, to

[email protected]

they asked. to be sent. emails. you know what to do.

Iantos @iantos.bsky.social · Jul 24

Maybe we could find out.

Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372
Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111
Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911
Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440
PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000

Mr Peculiar 🔞 @mrpecu.bsky.social · Jul 24

Collective Shout, the group that took credit for bullying Mastercard into recently censoring more platforms, stated that apparently it took them ~1000 phonecalls to convince them to give them what they wanted?

We got like way more people than that don't we?

120 5.5K 6.7K

Reposted by Rowan Oats

the haver of it🔞 @taylortitmouse.bsky.social · Jul 24

personally i think when communicating with businesses like The Card Companies you're better off roleplaying a frustrated customer who wants to spend money. you are just a normal fuckin guy and who are they to tell you how to spend your money? it's a free country. you're an adult with income.

6 900 2K

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Kris Straub (كريس) @krisstraub.com · Jul 22

lysistrata, but for labor in general

5 42

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 22

Not a movie but I read Not Without My Daughter when I was ten.

Boatcka ⚓️ @tainkirrahe.bsky.social · Jul 20

okay as we’re all discussing it I’ll ask: what inappropriate-for-your-age-group film did you watch as a kid?

mine was Terminator when I was 10 or so which was a) brilliant but b) gave me a lifelong revulsion of stop motion

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 22

PSA FOR AMERICANS if you sell things internationally DO NOT USE UPS they are a menace and a scourge and the worst fucking delivery service I have ever encountered in my life.

USPS is fine. DHL is a pain in the ass but if you really have no choice, okay. UPS doesn't know other countries exist.

2 1

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · Jul 15

As far as the great experiment that is the United States is concerned we have just about all the data we need and to put it in scientific terms EEEYIKES

110 1.1K

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Down Here For Your Soul @bombsfall.bsky.social · Jul 15

VALID STIMMING TECHNIQUES:
- tapping/drumming
- singing
- recording a solo metal album
INVALID STIMMING TECHNIQUES:
- bank robbery
- fleeing the scene
- driving to the canyon
- gunning it to the edge, only to skid to a stop a few yards back
- thinking that prison could be cool as like an experience

14 110 750

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Dan Schkade @danschkade.bsky.social · Jul 14

Happy Nonbinary People's Day, you gemstones. A year or two back we introduced FLASH GORDON's first enby, the outlaw lawman Bones Malock. Having known and loved a lot of nonbinary people, I knew the truest way to represent you was as a unsettling desert pirate with a lightning sword

Flash Gordon's Bones Malock: "Hhh. Only think I hate more than somebody cashing in a marker is the idea of backing out on one. Alright, Spaceman... let's go find your girl."

Bones Malock, under captions reading: "Bones Malock spins a rope they've made from strips of their clothing. The moment is now."

Bones Malock and Flash Gordon.

Flash: Okay... wait thirty seconds, then give me a distraction.

Bones: Got just the thing.

Flash: Do NOT blow the place up.

Bones: You're the boss.

5 75 250

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Andrea Corsini :•) @syqkos.bsky.social · Jul 14

Some tape peeling of a quick portrait study I did today. Done with gouache and colored pencils, I feel like I kind of understood how to not get muddy colors a bit

#art

7 20 220

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 11

Been reading 'Romola' by George Eliot from 1863 and this jumped out at me:

And even these mechanical printers who threaten to make learning a base and vulgar thing - even they must depend on the manuscript over which we scholars have bent with that insight into the poet's meaning which is closely akin to the mens divinior of the poet himself; unless they would flood the world with grammatical falsities and inexplicable anomalies that would turn the very fountain of Parnassus into a deluge of poisonous mud.

1

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Arczi @arczism.bsky.social · Jul 10

gay king #zoro

9 130 520

Reposted by Rowan Oats

pseudonym jones @pseudonymjones.bsky.social · Jul 10

a comic about vibleo granes (originally posted 6/23/2016)

A comic drawn in pencil by Emma, meant to look like a Penny Arcade strip. Gabe and Tycho are holding video game controllers and sitting on a couch(???). Tycho: i never understood why gamers aren’t on board with the whole SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR thing. A band of hardscrabble underdogs with colorful hair fighting a massive, corrupt system — isn’t that every FINAL FANTASY?” Tycho: “maybe we’ve just been playing by the rules of masculinity for too long. Since childhood, we’ve had to fall in step or face swift, brutal reprisal — the kind we now gleefully pass on as if it’s ’our turn.’” Gabe: “did you ever notice the weird seam that runs up the middle of your nutsack? Like the plastic molding on a shitty Happy Meal toy? What’s the deal with that?” Tycho: “that’s from when your dick was a vagina.”

10 170 850

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 9

I've had scoliosis surgery twice, once to put in bone grafts/titanium rods and again later to *remove* the rods because they uh. Unhooked themselves from my spine. A thing that Does Not Happen.

Young Deuces 🦅 of WatchMojo @youngdeuces.bsky.social · Jul 7

Share a piece of lore about yourself

Yes I stole this from musky folks site…I feel like we’ll get better answers here lol

1

Reposted by Rowan Oats

Celeste Headlee @celesteheadlee.bsky.social · Jul 9

When NPR left Twitter, traffic dropped by only a single percentage point.

niemanreports.org/npr-twitter-...

19 340 1.5K

Rowan Oats @rowanoats.com · Jul 9

happy birthday!!!!