The Bookwench 🇨🇦🐱🏳️‍🌈

@shiftercat.bsky.social

1730 Followers 1947 Following

Another cis feminist for trans rights. She/her. Not quite a crone. Bad-faith arguments get you muted, slurs get you blocked. I repost a lot of geekery, some of it NSFW. https://linktr.ee/shiftercat

Top panel: a 1950's picture of a man in a suit holding up one hand, captioned, "Calm Your Tits." Bottom panel: a cartoon of a person making an unamused face, with a pair of comically distorted breasts waving in the air. Caption: "NO."
A series of three photos. Photo 1: someone is holding a cat down and pressing an ultrasound wand against her belly. The cat appears to be meowing. Photo 2: the cat has turned her head to look at the ultrasound display. Photo 3: the cat has turned back towards the camera with a comically wide-eyed expression.
Screenshot of a post by kica333: "My walk of shame is going back for a shopping cart after realizing I can't carry 23 items in my arms through the store."
This occurrence enabled Justin to survive his immediate danger, and as time went on he acquired great power. The Emperor Anastasius gave him command of the Palace guards, and when he himself passed away, Justin on the strength of this command succeeded to the throne, though he was by now a doddering old man, totally illiterate -- in popular parlance, he didn't know his ABC -- an unheard of thing amongst the Romans. It was the invariable custom that the Emperor should append his own signature to all documents embodying decrees defined by him. Justin, however, was incapable of either drafting his own decrees or taking an intelligent interest in the measures contemplated: the official whose luck it was to be his chief adviser -- a man called Proclus, who held the rank of Quaestor, as it is called -- used to decide all measures as he himself thought fit. But to secure authority for these in the Emperor's own handwriting, the men responsible for this business proceeded as follows. On a short strip of polished wood they cut a stencil in the shape of four letters spelling the Latin for I HAVE READ. Then they used to dip a pen in the special in reserved for emperors and place it in the hands of the Emperor Justin. Next the took the strip of wood I have described and laid it on the document, grasped the Emperor's hand and, while he held the pen, guided it along the pattern of the four letters, taking it round all the bends cut in the wooden stencil. Then away they went, carrying the Emperor's writing, such as it was.
A screencap of Blackbeard from Our Flag Means Death holding someone at knifepoint and looking especially wild-eyed. Caption: "Where's the link? Where's the fucking link?"
From an 18th-century debate on criticism: George Dempster: "We have hardly a right to abuse this tragedy [performed at Drury Lane]; for, bad as it is, how vain should either of us be to write one not near so good!" Samuel Johnson: "Why no, sir; this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables."
Against an image of the sky over a desert (blue fading to starry black at the top) is the Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert's Dune: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
An image from an old VHS tape, showing a great deal of tracking static at the top. In the middle is a Klingon from Star Trek TNG, looking like he's yelling about something. Caption reads: Everyone was harmed during the making of this video.
A picture of a bus stop ad showing a WWII-poster style nurse saying, "I can't eat applause! Maybe vote for someone sensible next time, eh?"
Tweet from vexwerewolf: Okay clown you say you "sexually identify as an attack helicopter" as a transphobic joke but I can actually respect it because you're a high-maintenance tool with severely limited utility and you seem like you can only function when you've got two Adderall addicts inside of you.
From ThatBoomerKid: Bard: "What's all this?" Paladin: "The druid is in time-out." Bard: "What'd you do?" Druid: "I was selling a gluten-free organic all-natural weight-loss thing." Bard: "And?" Druid: "It was just hungry wolves. Lots of 'em." Paladin: "DO NOT GIGGLE AT THE DRUID'S ATROCITIES."
Tweet from kica333: My walk of shame is going back for a shopping cart after realizing I can't carry 23 items in my arms through the store.
A picture of an elevator notice showing an adult and a child standing near a row of elevator buttons. The child, who is reaching towards the buttons, has a red X over them, conveying the message not to let your child touch the elevator buttons. However, the row of buttons happens to be stylized in such a way that it looks a bit like a Scottish shortbread cookie. Conor Collins has tweeted the picture with the caption, "No Scottish shortbread for you little man!"
Tweet from Patricia Lockwood: Me, lightly touching Miette with the side of my foot: Miette move out of the way please so I don't trip on you Miette, her eyes enormous: you KICK Miette? You kick her body like the football? Oh! Oh! Jail for mother! Jail for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!
IBM slide, 1979: "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision."
Nobody will be surprised to learn that they [proslavery politicians] insisted that the federal government be kept weak to prevent it from interfering with southern slavery. But the history of taxation revealed a far more comprehensive impact of slavery on American politics - and much earlier than the 1820s. Here is the thunder. From the beginning of the colonial era, American governments were more democratic, stronger, and more competent where slavery was a marginal institution: in those colonies where most people were free and there were few slaves or slaveholders. American governments were more aristocratic, weaker, and less competent where slavery was a major institution in the economy and society: in those colonies where large fractions of the population were enslaved and there were many slaves and slaveholders. Democracy and liberty produced stronger and more competent governments in early American history. And, from the moment the colonies banded together to create the United States, slaveholders realized that strong, competent, and democratic governments were the only institutions in American life that posed credible threats to slavery. The American mistrust of government is not part of our democratic heritage. It comes from slaveholding elites who had no experience with democratic governments where they lived and knew only one thing about democracy: that it threatened slavery. The idea that government is the primary danger to liberty has many sources, but one of its main sources in the United States involved the “liberty” of some people to hold others as chattel property. The allied idea that government is the primary danger to property rights also has many sources. In the early United States, however, it made the most sense where large amounts of the “property” consisted of human beings. - Robin Einhorn, American Taxation, American Slavery
A panel from a Daredevil comic, illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. The Kingpin is rendered in an extremely stylized way, his head considerably smaller and lower than the enormous bulk of his back and shoulders. His disproportionately small hands are folded pensively on the desk in front of him. Thought boxes read: "I have built an empire on human sin. I am feared by the honest and the wicked. Elected officials obey my will as swiftly as the lowest pimps and pushers. I have everything I desired..."
Screenshot of a pair of tweets by Alexandra Erin: "But dark humor can help people cope with life!" Sure. There's such a thing as gallows humour. But are you the one on the gallows? If the person on the gallows makes a grim joke, that's gallows humor. If someone in the crowd makes a joke, that's part of the execution.
"What's my JND?" (referring to a colour perception test). "Your friend's score: 0.0022 They're watching. Probably."
The cover art for Delirium's Mistress, the fourth book in Tanith Lee's Tales From the Flat Earth series. The art, by Michael Whelan, shows a dark-haired woman wearing a star-embroidered black cloak seated on the back of a winged white lion. They are flying over the ruins of some ancient city.
A set of three glassware mixing bowls from the 1970s. They're in a brownish-orange colour marketed at the time as "Harvest Gold", with the biggest bowl in a darker shade. They also have a wheat stalk motif on the sides, and white insides. What might be mistaken for handles on either end are in fact pouring spouts, one slightly bigger than the other.
A picture of a large hole in a tiled wall. It's followed by a message from the social media account of the Chester Fritz Library. Wanted: Someone to climb into this hole in the library for us. Job Requirements: - Limber - Trusting - Has not read The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe
Value A in the logical statement that is the structure of ‘The Cold Equations’ – the EDS is so finely calibrated that it carries only enough fuel to get the pilot to his destination – is the least questioned part of the story. Godwin passes over this point in less than a paragraph. We accept it because it is stated so simply, as a given: ‘The cruisers were forced by necessity to carry a limited amount of the bulky rocket fuel and the fuel was rationed with care’ (443). Who would question that? It is the key point upon which we suspend our disbelief in order to accept the rest of the story. And yet it is upon this precise point that the story stumbles and falls. Let me make this absolutely clear: it is human agency that designed and created these ships; it is human agency that decided the ships should operate this way; it is human agency that wrote the computer program that rations the fuel for each ship; it is human agency that wrote the Interstellar Regulations that govern the ship; it is human agency and human agency alone that determines the situation in which the girl must die. This has nothing to do with the law of nature, nothing to do with our relationship with the environment. If hard sf has one characteristic hero, it is the competent man, and that competence is most often displayed in a knowledge of engineering or of science. And yet the thing that lies behind this situation in this most archetypal of hard sf stories is incompetence. Because the EDS is a prime example of bad engineering, and if the engineering wasn’t bad there wouldn’t be a story.
Let me make this absolutely clear: it is human agency that designed and created these ships; it is human agency that decided the ships should operate this way; it is human agency that wrote the computer program that rations the fuel for each ship; it is human agency that wrote the Interstellar Regulations that govern the ship; it is human agency and human agency alone that determines the situation in which the girl must die. This has nothing to do with the law of nature, nothing to do with our relationship with the environment. If hard sf has one characteristic hero, it is the competent man, and that competence is most often displayed in a knowledge of engineering or of science. And yet the thing that lies behind this situation in this most archetypal of hard sf stories is incompetence. Because the EDS is a prime example of bad engineering, and if the engineering wasn’t bad there wouldn’t be a story. The ships are deliberately designed to have no provision for anything that might go wrong. If this truly were a story about humanity’s relationship with its environment, then humanity should show a damned sight more respect for the dangers of cold, hard vacuum. If you were to design a ship that had one shot, and one shot only, to meet life-threatening emergencies across the universe, would you make certain that any slight variation in the original plan would doom the ship, the pilot, the cargo and, of course, those waiting at the other end? Of course not, that would be to display such a cavalier attitude to the laws of nature as to amount to criminal negligence. But that is what we are asked to accept as the basic premise of this story.
The meme of one schoolgirl standing against a wall while another one plays a large brass instrument whose bell is placed directly over the first girl's face. The girl with the instrument is labeled, "Me", while the girl standing against the wall is labeled, "Everyone I have ever met", and the brass instrument is labeled, "Capitalism fucking did this."
DC Comics' Swamp Thing, as painted by Michael Zulli. The red-eyed plant elemental stands waist-deep in a sunny bayou. Wrapped around each of his large hands is a bunch of wild roses, their roots dangling into the water.
Post by InternetHippo: "Oh you're upset about a thing? Well, would you be mad if the situation were different in a way I designed in my head just for this argument?"
Vance knows that protesting, fleeing or even interfering in an ICE investigation (which there is no evidence that Good did) does not carry a death sentence. Vance knows that lying and killing are sins. Vance knows. He doesn't care. Vance’s twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity has been repudiated by two popes. His Catholicism seems to be little more than a political prop, a tool only for his career ambitions and desire for power. The vice president's comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith. His repeated attempts to blame Good for her own death are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel. Our only recourse is to pray for his conversion of heart.
A picture of some buildings on a street. Overlaid is the message, "Everyone disliked that."
A boy with an alarmed expression reading a book labelled, "How to cope with what the fuck I just saw."
On a black background is a symbol consisting of three yellow triangles joined at the point.
A picture by Samuel Deats of the main trio from Netflix's Castlevania series: Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, and Alucard. Sypha is conjuring up little magic lights, while Trevor and Alucard, looking slightly embarrassed, are holding up a platter of roast turkey with a little birthday candle stuck in it.
Title: "Proof that a basketball is flat!" A closeup photo of the surface of a basketball, too close to see the ball's curvature. Inset is a picture of the photography setup for the basketball. "I used the zetetic method to examine whether a basketball is really a ball, or is it actually flat. Upon taking a closer look with a macro lens on my Nikon P900, I can only conclude that the surface of a basketball, while bumpy, does not appear to have any curvature. Therefore, basketballs are flat. Their roundness must be some kind of illusion caused by perspective and mirages."
The cover for Tori Amos' 1992 Album "Little Earthquakes". It shows her crouched in a little wooden box wearing a sleeveless blue top and blue jeans, barefoot, next to a tiny piano.
On a colourful greeting-card-style background: "Holy Shit, that was a really bad take. I hope this was facetious cause, damn. What the fuck were you thinking."
Cartoon by Sketchplanations of the Curb-Cut Effect. It shows a street with a curb-cut, which enables a wheelchair user to cross easily. Also in the cartoon are a person pushing boxes on a wheeled dolly, parents pushing a stroller, a person with a rolling suitcase, a skateboarder, and a pair of bicyclists. Caption reads, "When we design for disabilities, we make things better for everyone."
A photo of a referee, captioned: "Illegal proof reversal. Attemted to shift burden of proof onto the doubter."
A slightly altered pair of screencaps from Peaky Blinders. In the first one, Tommy forcefully points a finger at an underling: "No defeatism." In the next, he is shouting to the whole room, "NO FUCKING DEFEATISM!"
A post from Guillermo del Toro, accompanied by a screenshot of The Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth. Text: "The Pale Man represents all institutional evil feeding on the helpless. It's not accidental that he is a) Pale b) a Man. He's thriving now." Reply by LegalizeVore: "My dad Guillermo laying it out." Reply by UnlimitedTrashWorks: "His table is piled high with food he will never touch, but he will kill you for taking the smallest morsel, even if you are starving. Shit, how did I completely miss the point of this."
A screencap from The Princess Bride, showing the grandfather pausing in the midst of reading aloud to his grandson. Caption: "Yes, you're very smart. Shut up."
Woman: Who are you? Soldier: We have exercises here. Please go this way. Woman: What kind of exercises? Are you Russian? Soldier: Yes. Woman: So what the fuck are you doing here? Soldier: Right now, our discussion will lead to nothing. Woman: You're occupants, you're fascists! What the fuck are you doing on our land with all these guns? Take these seeds and put them in your pockets, so at least sunflowers [Ukrainian national flower] will grow when you all lie down here. Soldier: Right now, our discussion will lead nowhere. Let's not escalate this situation. Please. Woman: What situation? Guys, guys. Put the sunflower seeds in your pockets, please. You will lie down here with the seeds. You came to my land. Do you understand? You are occupiers. You are enemies. Soldier: Yes. Woman: And from this moment, you are cursed. I'm telling you. Soldier: Now listen to me -- Woman: I've heard you. Soldier: Let's not escalate the situation. Please go this way. Woman: How can it be further escalated? You fucking came here uninvited. Pieces of shit.
Cartoon by Kasia Babis. Panel 1: a man in a t-shirt and jeans stands behind Adolf Hitler, saying, "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Panel 2: a group of KKK members, one carrying a sign saying, "We want to kill Black people." Across from them is a group of Black folk carrying a sign saying, "We want civil rights." Between them is a white man carrying a sign saying, "Compromise?" Panel 3: a group of people carrying signs saying, "Peace is just not realistic", "It's complicated", "Ok I guess", and "Reasonable amount of wars". Panel 4: a man with his head in a guillotine, about to be decapitated in front of a crowd. The man is saying, "I don't really care about politics."
Cartoon by Jacob Andrews. Panel 1: A crowd of Nazis facing a crowd of anti-racists. A smug man stands in the middle saying, "Why so much aggression on both sides?" Panel 2: A woman being attacked by a bear. The smug man says, "Frankly I think both sides are at fault here, no doubt about it." Panel 3: A firefighter spraying water onto a fire. The smug man says, "So sad to see this aggression on both sides of the conflict." Panel 4: A man is firing a gun at a horror-movie-style slasher wearing a hockey mask and wielding a bloody machete. The smug man says, "Wow, so much for tolerance, can't believe the hate and violence on both sides." Panel 5: An asteroid is speeding towards the Earth. A speech bubble reads, "Sure, the asteroid is violent, but the Earth is also violent, so obviously there is blame on both si-" Panel 6: The Earth explodes. No dialogue.
A screencap of Hugh Laurie as the Stupid Prince in Blackadder the Third, dressed in Regency finery, holding a small glass, and wearing a perfectly credulous Upperclass English Twit expression. Caption reads, "A riveting tale, my dear chap!"
A 1980s-style graphic that says, "Disappointed but not surprised".
Oliver Darkshire's one-page game "I Do Not Want A Mastodon", available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/i-do-not-want-74555460
A poster done in the same style as the British World War 2 "Keep Calm and Carry On", but this one says, "Freedom Is In Peril. Defend It With All Your Might."
A white man, looking like a stereotypical douchebag with a backwards baseball cap and index finger raised, is wearing a black sleeveless top onto which has been Photoshopped, "Satire requires clarity of purpose and target lest it be mistaken for and contribute to that which it intends to criticize."
Screencap of a post by keithpille.bsky.social: "Worth thinking about how long Tolkien goes on in Return of the King about despair being a weapon, and presenting defeat as a foregone conclusion being a deliberate and effective tactic."
A screenshot of Blackbeard from Our Flag Means Death, looking wild-eyed and threatening someone with a large dagger. Caption reads, "Where's the link? Where's the fucking link?"
Top: a photo of J.R.R. Tolkien, labeled as such. A stick figure eating cereal is gesturing at the photo and saying, "He will never say trans rights." Bottom: a quotation from Tolkien's Ainulindale: "But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby." The cereal-eating figure is doing a spit-take in astonishment.
From Existential Comics: It is an enormous mistake to think people only defend the rich because they think one day they might be rich. Conservative women don't defend the patriarchy because they think one day they will be men. They do so because they believe in a natural hierarchy. People defend the rich because they believe in a society of masters and servants. That's it. Look at the Elon Musk fanboys. They don't want to be in charge themselves, they want Elon Musk to be in charge and they want to serve him. So they invent all sorts of mythology around him to justify his natural superiority and position. They want a kind of feudalism.
From A.R. Moxon (JuliusGoat) Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man. You take a step toward him. He takes a step back. Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
Dress With Pockets, a D&D item from DropTheDie.com Wondrous Item, Varies (uncommon - legendary) This otherwise mundane yet stylish sundress has pockets that lead to an extradimensional space much larger than the dress itself. These dresses come in different varieties and rarities depending on the dimensions of the storage space and the protection offered to the wearer. The two pockets on either hip have a six-inch opening that leads into an extradimensional space. If the dress is overloaded, pierced, or torn, it ruptures and is destroyed, and its contents are scattered in the Astral Plane. Should the wearer be complimented on this dress and not respond, "Thanks, it has pockets!" all contents within the dress are lost, ejected into the Astral Plane. Breathing creatures inside pocket-space can survive up to a number of minutes equal to 10 divided by the number of creatures (minimum 1 minute), after which time they begin to suffocate. Placing a Dress With Pockets inside an extradimensional space created by a Handy Haversack, Portable Hole, Bag of Holding, or similar item instantly destroys both items and opens a gate to the Astral Plane. The gate originates where the item was placed inside the other. Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can't be reopened. (Stats, cost, and AC bonuses for Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, and Legendary versions of the Dress With Pockets.)
A black cat lying on a cream-coloured blanket decorated with brown hearts. She has all four of her paws wrapped around a man's arm.
Cartoon by Lee Gatlin. Panel 1: A man asleep in his bed at night. Panel 2: Bats fly into the open window. Panel 3: With a "voit" sound effect, the bats have transformed into a stereotypical vampire, fangs bared in anticipation of his meal. Panel 4: A vampire hunter in a wide-brimmed hat appears behind the startled vampire, holding a wooden stake. Panel 5: The vampire is showing the vampire hunter the wall above his prospective victim's bed, which is hung with a Confederate flag, a swastika, an "America First" poster, and a "Keep Calm and Make America Great Again" sign. Panel 6: The vampire hunter is on his way out, tipping his hat to the vampire, who is one again bending over his victim's bed in a predatory fashion.
Tumblr post from cumpriest: "so funny to me when white American Christians are like 'ooh I incorporate my religious trauma into my art and that's why I draw these stained-glass Gothic church gold multi-eyed Renaissance sculpture angels agnus dei' like I know your Protestant Southern California ass didn't have any of that. Go make some art about this" Below this is a series of pictures of oppressively bland office and assembly hall spaces. Post from deoidesign: "ok". Below is an art piece showing a boxy indoor space rendered mostly in greyish-green, with a suggestion of flourescent lights overhead. The space is filled with folding chairs, which appear to have water dripping towards the ceiling. In the middle sits a silhouetted black figure who is headless, blood dripping from their severed neck to splatter on the floor by their feet. Post by arsonsara: "Damn, way to read the assignment and go above and beyond."
"Mud Company" cartoon by Neal Skorpen. Panel 1 shows a person holding a "Defund the Police" sign. Someone is saying, "Defund the police? How is he supposed to carry all that?" while gesturing at a policeman struggling under a load of boulders labelled "Keep the Peace", "Domestic Violence", "Homelessness", "Prostitution", "School Security", "Drug Dealers", "Drug Possession", "Gang Violence", "Theft", and "Every Unexpected Crisis". Panel 2: the person with the sign is saying, "He's not." Various people are rolling away boulders into containers and buildings marked, "Decriminalize & Regulate" (for sex work and pot), "Affordable Housing", "Education", "Drug Treatment Programs", "Mental Health Services", "Social Workers", "Job Placement", and "Universal Health Care". The policeman, now looking much relieved, is holding one boulder labelled, "Keep the Peace".
A version of the "angry goose" cartoon meme. Panel 1: a close-up of a goose. Text reads, "Your kids cut contact with you? What do they say you did?" Panel 2: the goose is angrily chasing someone wearing a down jacket. Text reads, "WHAT DO THEY SAY YOU DID?"
A picture of a yellow-and-black caution sign with a picture of a moose standing in front of a ruined car. Sign underneath reads, "Invincible Moose, Next 5 Km."