autumnapologist

[autumnapologist]

on the other hand i like when you KNOW you're going to get obsessed with certain media and then you're right. when I was living with @gallusrostromegalus i said i wanted to play baldur's gate 3 but I didn't have the console and gallus and their husband were like "use the PS5" and I was like "I appreciate that but I'm afraid this game is going to Do Something to me and I don't want to monopolize your PS5" and they were like "it's really okay don't worry" and I was like "if you're sure......" and then they didn't see me or the PS5 for 5 months

[autumnapologist]

Jay Leno chided late night hosts for being political and only appealing to "half the audience" by mocking Republicans all the time, which is such a 90s sensibility. Back then the majority of pop culture played to a bipartisan audience, but now, even if a show or movie isn't political, it's sorted into left or right. If you see conservatives like a movie, they can't just like it, they have to hunt for reasons it's secretly pro-conservative. When they found Sydney Sweeney hot they had to do weeks of stories after she appeared on SNL about how Sydney Sweeney had somehow "defeated woke" (?). Twisters tried to be "neutral" by never mentioning global warming, and it just ended up being claimed as a Republican movie

There's been a few polls of Republican and Democrat TV show preferences over the years, and they show very little overlap. One in 2016 found only three shows in both group's top ten and otherwise a stark difference: with Republicans loving CBS crime dramas, and Democrats loving shows with people of color in them. The one show that was most popular with both Republicans and Democrats was...Supernatural

A 2019 poll showed the groups agreeing on only five shows: everyone liked America's Funniest Home Videos, Bones, Criminal Minds, and Mythbusters, and everyone across the political spectrum hates Pawn Stars. Thing is, it's not 1995. Consistently, whenever someone asks the right and left their tastes in pop culture, the lists are entirely different - entirely different ecosystems.

(One bigger trend is that people on the left are way more willing to watch right-wing media - or outwardly apolitical media that's been assigned right-wing - than the reverse)

But it's also a 1990s mentality bc nobody is getting "half the audience" anymore. What's the incentive to trying to play to everyone in a time when audiences are so scattered? The 2024-25 TV ratings data showed that the top show was a CBS crime drama about a survivalist called Tracker, and the second was an ABC crime drama called High Potential that stars Kaitlin Olson from Always Sunny as a genius cleaning lady who solves murders. I have never heard of either of these shows in my life. But nothing scripted is getting a million in the demo on linear TV, and few are in streaming. Imagining that if we just play to a bipartisan audience enough we can get tens of millions of people watching late night again is giving

[autumnapologist]

what the hell is going on with texel sheep

[autumnapologist]

i wish he would come down from heaven & kill every instagram fitness liquid diet ozempic green juice low calorie food blogger

[autumnapologist]

Im always so delighted to remember that the blue meth in breaking bad was rock candy and the cast would constantly snack on it. It makes me want a show that uses breaking bad's insanely well crafted cinematography and wonderful writing but it's about an old witch and her young transgender apprentice opening a candy shop in a small village in the alps

[autumnapologist]

How do we lead moral lives in this age of bullies? We do everything we can to stop the brutality, to hold the powerful accountable, and to protect the vulnerable. Putin and Netanyahu are war criminals whose criminality must be stopped. Trump is a dictator who must be deposed. Rightwing politicians who encourage white Christian nationalism must be condemned and voted out of office. Pundits who amplify racism and xenophobia must lose their megaphones. Powerful men who harass or abuse women or children must be prosecuted. Women must have full control over their bodies, including access to safe abortions. Police who kill innocent people of color must be brought to justice. Immigration agents must be prohibited from abducting people off the street or from their homes or court houses or places of work. CEOs who treat their employees like garbage must be exposed and penalized. Billionaires who bribe lawmakers to cut their taxes or exempt them from regulations must be sanctioned, as should lawmakers who accept such bribes. This isn’t a matter of “left” or “right.” It’s a matter of what’s right. Living a moral life in an age of bullies requires collective action; it cannot be done alone. Each of us must organize and participate in a vast network of moral resistance. This is what civilization demands. It’s what the struggle for social justice requires. It’s why that struggle is so critical today, and why we all must be part of it.

[autumnapologist]

The crime:

The suspect (washing her guilty paws):

[autumnapologist]

I know your title says queer history but do you have any recommendations covering the straight movement? Specifically, how did hating queer people become a priority for the straights and why did they build their political project around it?

Wonderful question! Yes, I actually have read a bit about this!

For a more modern look at how homophobia is enforced and expanded culturally:

The Pink Line

(Affiliate link)

For a very expansive historical look at this discussion:

The Construction of Homosexuality

(Affiliate link)

For a book that looks at specifically the heterosexual experience of this:

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

I hope this helps!

[autumnapologist]

The #1 thing I cant stand as a nonambulatory wheelchair user:

UP!

[autumnapologist]

There is a species of butterfly that lives in the mountains.

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

It probably wouldn't mind.

[autumnapologist]

[autumnapologist]

schedule for the week

[autumnapologist]

saw this room at an estate sale and just wanted to nap here so bad

[autumnapologist]

This guy has been rotating around the posts on the porch daily for the past 2 weeks

[autumnapologist]

Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash

[autumnapologist]

found a goat while hiking , thought he was silly.

[autumnapologist]