James P. Taber

@taberiusrex.bsky.social

696 Followers 739 Following

He/him. Writer, editor, ex-ex-librarian. Rolls dice to make nice. Father of Orm and Tog. Better a pig than a fascist.

My Bluesky license, posted so everyone here can steal my identity.
Kingfisher's editor, who looks strangely like Solid Snake, pulls off his headphones with a disgusted look on his face.
A lawn dart-shaped spaceship with a large (rotating?) ring section at the rear, from Battlestar Galactica. It's actual name is the Zephyr, according to the nerds who run the wiki I stole this image from, but all the real ones call it the Ring Ship™
A title card from STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE but with the episode title replaced with a quote from Shaxs in STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which reads: "Please, Please Let Me Shoot Their Warp Core, I Have Been Very Good This Month"
A title card from STAR TREK: VOYAGER, but the title of the episode has been replaced with a quote by Shaxs from STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which reads, "Janeway Didn't Mess Around"
A title card from STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, but the episode title has been replaced with a quote from Shaxs, of STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which reads: "Fighting Fascism Is a Full-Time Job"
A title shot from an episode of STAR TREK: VOYAGER, with the original title replaced with "Pegasus," the title of a Battlestar Galactica episode.
A title shot from an episode of STAR TREK: VOYAGER, with the original title replaced with "Bastille Day," the title of a Battlestar Galactica episode.
A title shot from an episode of STAR TREK: VOYAGER, with the original title replaced with "33," the title of a Battlestar Galactica episode.
A quote-skeet that says "This is beautiful." The quoted skeet says "Deleted."
Lying Cat (from Saga) detects and calls out lies for what they are. She is understandably dubious about Harley's claim, as well as the means by which she secured this certificate. Therefore, Lying Cat decrees: "LYING."
Screenshot from mino.mobi that shows I got a circle 97% right. I will not disclose how many times it took me to manage that well.
The USS Enterprise-B, a refit Excelsior-class starship. It has a distinct art deco, White Fleet aesthetic with teal flashes and gentle curves. Combined with the maroon uniforms of the era, it's (in)arguably the classiest vessel to bear the name Enterprise.
The cover for Philip Connors's "Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout," read by Stan Runnette. It depicts a lookout tower in the middle of a forest silhouetted by a setting sun.
Screenshot of a quiz question asking what the best die is, providing each option and commentary. I've circled the d8, which says "liar, no one's fave is a d8"
A screenshot of my Bluesky timeline, which is empty, and there's a warning ribbon across the top that says "Forbidden!"
The DVD cover of Hot Fuzz, directed by Edgar Wright and co-written by Wright and Simon Pegg. It depicts the film's two main characters in tactical body armor, wielding firearms, and walking through an explosion.
The DVD cover of Sunshine, the 2007 film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It depicts the main characters of the film on a walkway with the sun and a disintegrating space ship in the background.
A tweet by @CryptoNature— "Hummingbirds: I shall sip nectar from this flower in a silent ballet. "Woodpeckers: I'MMA STAB THE BUGS OUTTA THIS TREE WITH MY FACE-KNIFE!!!"
Ma'ah and Malor from Star Trek: Lower Decks. While they serve as an example of embracing multiple cultural interpretations of Klingons in a single show, I think the series overall does a great job at portraying the breadth of Klingon society while demonstrating why their culture works as a foil for Starfleet
Screenshot of a direct message that says: "@0x3e7.bsky.social has added you to the 'Attie Haters' moderation list"
Screenshot: a skeet by Emily Gorcenski suggesting that trans people should be allowed to develop cloaking technology and cross the Romulan Neutral Zone with impunity. Immediately following Emily's skeet is one by Jadzia Axelrod, in which Galaxy (the superhero) is shocked to learn she is, in fact, on the visible spectrum. Hilarity ensues in the juxtaposition.
The poster and his wife dressed as redshirts (Starfleet Operations) being devoured by tribbles.
Screenshot from Halo: Reach, with text that reads, "Current Objective: SURVIVE"
A still image from Star Wars: A New Hope, in which Luke Skywalker—on the cusp of leaving home and beginning his legendary journey, not understanding how far he will go or how many lives he will touch—stares out across the dunes of Tatooine at the setting of its twin suns.
Screenshot of my DMs that says, "@schizanon.bsky.social has added you to the 'Ineffective Tech Critics' moderation list"
Mako thinks these people should read other books
Screenshot of Metal Gear Solid V
Excerpt from the article. Relevant passage reads, "Superhuman—the parent company of Grammarly—made fake editor versions of a range of people, including the novelist Stephen King..."
"No cheeses for us meeces" quote done up in the Zohran Mamdani campaign sign generator
Here is Mako, a medium-hair black cat. He doesn't have a brain, just a roll of Bubble Tape that's poking out of his mouth
Screengrab that highlights the words "makes weird shit" in the word cloud (could also be parsed as "makes shit weird," which is also applicable)
An excerpt from the article that describes Ryan Lizza as "51 years old." This is the smoking gun that none of this is real, "Ryan" Lizza is a mass hallucination, and we can all wake up from our collective nightmare.
Joyce discusses the finer points of Transformer manufacturing and sculpting details with Ruth and Carla in the horizontal webtoon Dumbing of Age. This is official and canon! Just ask David Willis!
A Viper Mk. II, from Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Joyce, who is definitely not getting up to Lesbian Shenanigans™ in her dorm room later, is saying the above comment word-for-word, canonically, in the Eisner-nomimated Dumbing of Age webcomic. As drawn with correct plaid by writer and illustrator I forgot, the bit is already getting away from me.
Who's got two thumbs and is saying the above comment in the Authentic Dumbing of Age comic? Our gal Joyce! Her plaid shirt is even the fixed version.
Excerpt from the article: "While squeezing as much life out of your device as possible may save money in the short run, especially amid widespread fears about the strength of the consumer and job market, it might cost the economy in the long run, especially when device hoarding occurs at the level of corporations."
Pope Leo rocking the mic like a boss
Poster for ABC's FLASH/FORWARD, featuring a sphere made up of still images focused on various cast members. The tagline reads: "Everyone in the world will get a flash of their own future."
Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica (2004)
The poster/VHS cover for ONCE UPON A FOREST, an animated children's movie from 1993. The tagline is, "An adventurous race against time!" What it doesn't tell you, however, is that the race is against the brutal gas poisoning of a little girl badger while the heroes are hunted by WWI-era gas-mask-wearing humans. But there's a musical number!
An anime girl points a gun at you with the caption "Dark Woke: Put Your Pronouns Back in Your Signature"
A screenshot of my DuckDuckGo search for "how to delete someone else's post," which I did before putting in a double order of brain bleach on Amazon
A four panel meme. 1st panel— Lungs: "I breathe air for you." 2nd panel— Heart: "I pump blood for you." 3rd panel— Liver: "I filter waste for you." 4th panel— Brain: "Play Mass Effect again."
Screenshot of my search on DuckDuckGo, which shows the Wikipedia article on Grokipedia appearing before Grokipedia itself does. Die mad, Elon.
Now there are two black cats, one snuggled up on my lap and the other draped across my lap. Also please don't tell my wife that I wore my shoes on the couch, my feet were cold
A black cat in liquid form draped across my lap, passed out with his tongue sticking out. Not pictured: him snoring
The mayor of Albuquerque in The Simpsons episode "Hungry, Hungry Homer." He's getting uplighting in shadow to make him look like a villain.
From Imani Gandy's linked article, "White People's Performative Ignorance Is Exhausting:" "This country would not exist if Black women had not birthed it from their wombs on the blood-soaked earth of Native people. Enslavement, lynching, Jim Crow, genocide, the prison industrial complex aren't footnotes in American history. They're the main text. Trump isn't some un-American aberration. He's the logical next chapter."
The Nether Gundam, the windmill fighting machine of Neo-Holland and a menace to birds everywhere. No, I am not fucking making this up.
Two skeets in succession on my timeline. In the first, Emily Gorcenski reskeets an account of a Samsung Galaxy ring in which its battery swelled around the finger of its wearer, causing them pain and being refused to board their flight. Emily writes, "Potential thermal runaway on a lithium battery that swells itself shut around a body part that can't be cut off for fear of triggering said thermal runaway is a new level of horror" In the second skeet in the sequence, The Verge reports on a similar device, with the headline: "Oura adds colorful ceramic rings and charging case to lineup"
A black scruffy cat, eyes closed, tongue out, passed out on my lap
A comic by Sarah Anderson. PANEL 1: A recently deceased soul arrives in Heaven, where she's greeted by the spirit of her long-departed dog. Off-panel, someone says, "Welcome to Heaven! Here is your dog!" PANEL 2: The soul smiles and pets her dog, saying, "Where's my cat?" PANEL 3: Confused, the soul looks around. She sees happy-looking dogs romping around the bright, cloudy expanse of Heaven. "Where's ANY of the cats?" she asks. PANEL 4: In the depths of Hell, surrounded by flames fueled by damnation, a handful of cats hold paws and dance joyfully in a ring. They have conquered the Deepest Realms, and they are finally satisfied.
Push, a sci-fi thriller from 2009 that starred Chris Evans as a telekinetic fugitive. It has a 23% on the Tomatometer (123 reviews) and a 42% on the Popcornmeter (more than 250,000 ratings).
A screen capture of DuckDuckGo where someone is searching "how to delete someone else's post"
A faded panel from a comic book depicts Dr. Doom holding something that looks like a cornucopia but is probably something else, given that he can play it like a brass instrument. Namor chides him, "Do not use it!" Dr. Doom replies, "Fool! Doctor Doom does as he pleases!" He blows the horn—hornucopia?—with a TOOT sound effect. The next panel is cut off, but it appears Dr. Doom suffers grave consequences for his careless tooting.
A library spine tag that reads "914.371204 Lonely/Prague 2022"
Image of John Q. Shepard from Mass Effect with the text "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is the dumbest take on the internet"
Zoidberg tells it like it is, shouting from the crowd: "Your post sucks, and you should feel bad!" And man, if even Zoidberg thinks you're a creepy weirdo who thinks about bathrooms too much, you've probably lost the thread.