pumpkinfreak

[pumpkinfreak]

I have a head cold and have spent 90% of my day listening to The Troop by Nick Cutter and while I haven’t finished all I can say is

FUCK SHELLY

Also this book makes me both nauseated and hungry

[pumpkinfreak]

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN ↳ DAY #2: THE SHINING (1980) • dir. Stanley Kubrick

[pumpkinfreak]

They suffer from thought terminating cliches.

The second they start to question their beliefs they’re just reminded to refer back to the same tired phrases.

“Gods ways are higher than mine.”

“The clay cannot question the potter.”

“ lean not on your own understanding.”

“ Gods works all things for good.”

If you ever seen any of those Ashiest call-in shows. The livestreams where theist can debate with the atheist host. It’s almost sad how quickly the Christian callers start to panic when faced with an actual theological debate about the validity/ ethics of their faith, and don’t have the crutch of just saying some phrase that ends the debate.

Something that's genuinely so eerie is that after spending enough time outside of Christianity, the responses that Christians give to questions or the things they say in conversation start to sound so canned it stops sounding like you're even talking with a person. It's like one moment I'm talking to my mother and the next she's telling me that God's ways are higher than our ways and in her feeble human mind she cannot begin to imagine what it's like to be God and somehow that means she doesn't have to view the amount of suffering in the world as a contradiction. And the shift is so jarring that it feels like I activated a sleeper agent, like I'm not talking to my mom anymore but the person she was programmed to be by her religion. And she sincerely believes what she's saying too. She may sound like she's parroting the party line but it's a lone she's bought into fully. And it's even crazier because I know I used to sound exactly the same. I know I used to code switch hard into the same sayings and had no awareness of how it sounded. They sound like they're in a cult

[pumpkinfreak]

I think this MST3K clip should be categorized as its own emotion so when people ask how I am doing I can just say Frank With Leech and they will understand. Anyway, feeling very Frank With Leech today

[pumpkinfreak]

More of this age verification bullshit going on in us states. Please call your reps and senators to oppose any age verification bills!

[pumpkinfreak]

In the course of a single day I found out that …

I do not have health insurance (apparently it was canceled in January)

I have to get evaluated for hypertension despite NOT having hypertension. I take blood pressure all day I know what high blood pressure is. I have to get evaluated to be cleared for a higher paying job overseas.

I have to move out of my current place and move in with friends.

[pumpkinfreak]

[pumpkinfreak]

I NEED TO DO WITCH STUFF

[pumpkinfreak]

i think when we used to point out that a story didn't need a sex scene what we meant was "this story reduces its women to mere sex objects and gives them no interiority so the sex scenes are gratuitous and geared towards the male gaze" it wasn't the sex that bothered us per se it was the objectification of female characters while givig them little to no consequence to the overall story but nowadays people mean "sex is icky and gross and has no merit to ever be portrayed in our arts which should be good and pure and never ever make ME feel discomfort" and it's like. i bet a bowl of unfrosted flakes looks real good to you rn

[pumpkinfreak]

Also the hating women part, because if we cared about women we would ensure they had access to healthcare

Another thing about the plummeting birth rate in America is that America is just not a pro-natalist country. No paid maternity leave. No paid paternity leave. Children are treated like burdens. Why the fuck would you have a kid if you’re seen as ‘flakey’ for leaving work early to go to their kindergarten graduation? When you live in this ultra individualistic capitalist hellscape, there is no room for a child.

[pumpkinfreak]

The EU (still) wants to scan your private messages and photos

🚨 You WILL Be Impacted 🚨

Every photo, every message, every file you send will be automatically scanned—without your consent or suspicion.

If you live in the EU*, contact your MEPs NOW and tell them to vote NO! Go here to learn more & FIGHT BACK!

https://fightchatcontrol.eu/

*especially if you live in Germany - they have not yet decided, and their opposition is crucial!

Please reblog! If the EU passes this, it weakens online privacy worldwide.

[pumpkinfreak]

There are three things that humans have universally enjoyed since the dawn of time.

Sex

Drinking

Getting high

Remember way back when America outlawed alcohol? Prohibition did not solve societies real or imagined moral failings. It just created a criminal enterprise with no oversight that resulted in people dying from bathtub gin made with lye. If you think baby-proofing the internet is going to save children and women you are so very wrong.

What society needs is regulations and safeguards so everyone can indulge with the least amount of harm caused.

[pumpkinfreak]

🤠🥰

My darlings in their Western wear, courtesy of the marvelous @katastronoot! 😍

(Her commissions are open, y'all, check her out!)

[pumpkinfreak]

Just to clarify, there's a bill that would STOP credit card companies from controlling who's allowed to spend money on porn or "risque" (read: queer) content. If you don't think big business should be able to tell you what to spend your own damn money on, call your senators and reps to let them know! It's the Fair Access to Banking Act, H.R.987 in the House, S.410 in the Senate.

[pumpkinfreak]

Reading the new checks that might come in due to the Online Safety Act in the UK and this is actually bullshit

[Image Transcript:

And how will I prove my age?

There’s a number of methods a site or app might use to ask you to confirm your age. They might do this check themselves or use another company to do the check. These methods include:

Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 

Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.

Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.

Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.

Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  

Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 

Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours.

End Transcript.]

Not only is this such a fucking breach of privacy, but this is going to hurt adults in vulnerable and abusive situations. Some adults don’t have bank accounts or credit cards or even a fucking phone. I’m one of them. I could not give half of this information even if I wanted to. What the fuck is this. Fuck the UK government. This isn’t going to protect kids, this is just going to hurt adults, and I know full well when they say “sites that allow pornography” they’re going to be going after sites that have huge amounts of queer content, like tumblr and Ao3. Queer kids are gonna lose their fucking communities because of this shit. Abuse victims are going to lose online support systems because of this.

I’m genuinely fucked off about this, and worried about whether I’m going to lose every single one of my online friends. Anyone in the UK, please email your MP and sign this petition. It needs to reach 100k signatures to pass through Parliament.

I’m only hoping the backlash will be big enough for them to stop implementing these measures.

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“The judge’s order makes it clear that we cannot judge a book by its cover or a maliciously selected excerpt out of context,” said Stephana Ferrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project. “This means that the thousands of books that have been prohibited from student access without careful consideration of their value should be returned to shelves immediately. Florida cannot call itself the “freest state” while it blatantly violates the First Amendment rights of our youngest citizens.” Dan Novak, attorney for the plaintiffs, called the decision “a complete knockout. There’s not a single issue that the court did not side with the plaintiffs on,” per the Orlando Sentinel.

[pumpkinfreak]