The Polyamorous Misanthrope @polyamorousmisanthrope - Tumblr Blog

This is a fairly recent picture of Central Park.

When I was a child, I read a book called Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. In the book, the main character talks about how they live near Central Park and how because of pollution, the leaves on the trees just turn brown and drop off instead of turning colors like he saw once on a family trip.

The book came out in 1972.

So, yes.... Problems that were such background noise in our lives that it was a throwaway line in a children's book can and have been solved.

(Yes, I know. Blume almost certainly wanted to draw attention to it to help people see the value in environmental regulations)

#Judy Blume #Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing #Pollution #Environmentalism

anne-adler

(x)

roostercrowned

DON’T become even a casual nerd about historical fashion because you’ll start looking at pseudo-medieval fantasy and going “that jacket and those breeches are 200 years apart and reflect extremely different social movements” and “oh no they were NOT making shirts like that prior to industrialization” and “a fly front? in MY ~1500s???”

vampire-loving-vampire

hey white people . if u dont know how to pronounce an ethnic persons name *google it* or if its someone ur talking directly to *ask them*. dont fucking do that "erm i dont know how to pronounce but __" or "im gonna butcher this haha" or "im not even gonna bother trying" . ur not funny. do u know what poc think when they hear u saying that ? u sound like a loser asshole and we dont want to spend time with u . im so fucking tired of watching youtube videos about media from my country and hearing those phrases. im tired of people saying that to my face . i respect someone who clearly looked it up and is tryong but says my name wrong over someone who just goes with whatever bad first guess they had without trying. u have too many resources at ur disposal to keep doing this. for the love of god just Fucking Try. if ur confused Just Try.

despair-tea

I highly recommend Forvo.com, the website where native speakers of a language contribute their time and voices to read words and names in their own language. It is a fantastic way to expand your world, open up your ears, and it's way more likely to nab a hit than just googling.

vampire-loving-vampire

wow , I didn't know this existed, thanks so much for sharing the resource !! I will absolutely be using it now too 🖤

polyamorousmisanthrope

Dear God, thank you for this! I have a lot of trainees from all over the world and prefer to get their names right.

willowenigma

I have realized that Steve Rogers would have gone into the ice after The Hobbit was printed but before The Lord of the Rings was released and now all I want is him finding out about The Lord of the Rings and being so excited because “Wait, you mean there’s a sequel?!”

willowenigma

please please please just imagine the following:

Steve reads The Hobbit in the 30s/40s. Maybe Bucky saves up and buys it for him one year for his birthday. Maybe he picks up a copy while on the USO tour. Maybe Peggy lends it to him.

He reads it. He loves it. He goes into the ice.

He wakes up and rereading it crosses his mind but “It’s an old book now, no one’s probably heard of it.” and there are so many new things to read that it gets pushed aside.

(Or maybe he knows that they’re making The Hobbit into a movie and he’s so happy about that but he doesn’t really read into it, you know? It’s going to be a movie, that’s good enough for him. He doesn’t watch interviews, he doesn’t read articles- he hears about The Lord of the Rings, of course, but no one ever makes the connection for him.)

(“I’ll reread The Hobbit before the movies come out,” but there’s still so many new things that it still gets pushed aside.)

Someone (Nat or Sam, in a hotel somewhere while they’re looking for Bucky, or Bruce in the Tower, or whoever) flips through channels and puts on The Lord of the Rings movies and Steve is only half paying attention. Maybe he’s sketching. Maybe he’s reading reports. Who knows.

Then he hears “hobbits” and it catches his attention because wait, is that…? But this isn’t The Hobbit, he doesn’t know this story, but he’s invested now and he’s watching a little bit more.

Gandalf appears, and Bilbo, and wait he definitely knows these characters what’s going on, what’s happening here, what story is this?

“Well, yeah, it’s The Lord of the Rings, it’s the sequel to The Hobbit-”

“He wrote a sequel? There’s a sequel!?”

“…there’s technically a prequel too, mostly put together by his son, but-”

“HOW MANY MORE BOOKS ARE THERE?”

“…three in The Lord of the Rings, plus the Silmarillion, and a lot of history/meta stuff too…”

“I WANT TO READ THEM ALL.”

Steve does read them all.

(There’s a moment of loud indignation when he reads about the riddle game because “It didn’t happen like that!” He has to have the changes explained, and then it’s the funniest thing in the world to him.)

Please just imagine Steve Rogers in his office at the compound with a tiny book shelf that’s just full of copies of all of Tolkien’s works. And tucked in a corner is a first-edition copy of The Hobbit that Tony bought for him, and Steve knows that it has to be ridiculously expensive but he dosen’t care, because it’s almost exactly like the copy he used to have. And even though he knows he probably shouldn’t handle it too much, sometimes he picks it up and rereads the riddle game scene. (The original is still better, in his opinion.)

willowenigma

But please also imagine Steve reading, specifically, The Return of the King.

Steve reading about Frodo and Sam nearly dying on the slopes of Mount Doom, saving the world by the skin of their teeth, and it’s exactly the epic fantasy ending he was expecting. Aragorn marries Arwen, and the hobbits are heroes, and everything is right in the world.

And then they go back to the Shire.

They go through literal war, and they try to go home… but it’s not home. It’s been ravaged by the war, by technology, and “in your heart you begin to understand: there is no going back.”

And Frodo sails. Frodo sails, and even though you know that Sam still has Merry and Pippin, look at what he’s lost. He lost Frodo, he lost Gandalf, he lost the innocence of the Shire. And Sam is left behind, left to return home to his wife and family alone, and its an awful, terrible moment, that moment when you’re confronted with the reality that “We set out to save the Shire, Sam. And it has been saved, but not for me,” that winning the war can mean losing in other ways, that sometimes you don’t get your happy ending-

But that’s not the ending you’re left with. Because the last line of the book is “Well, I’m back.” and Steve, sitting in his apartment, surrounding by a future that never expected to see, that he understands and embraces but still sometimes doesn’t feel like his own world- Steve sits back, and sets the book down, and innately understands Sam’s feeling of pushing forward and finding happiness even in the light of a great personal loss. Steve has literally lived through his own Scouring of the Shire, has tried to go home only to realize that there is no going back, Steve would have every reason in the world to be Frodo and to decide to step back and find his own peace because damnit, he deserves that.

But Steve isn’t Frodo, Steve is Sam, Steve is the stouthearted and steadfast and he keeps moving forward, because he gets home and doesn’t just see the broken edges of the world- he also sees the pieces that got put back together. He sees everything he survived, and everything that the people around him survived, and when he finishes reading that book and sets it down he looks around his apartment and realizes for the first time that he’s finally managed to come home again.

sonandheirofnothinginparticular

reasonsforhope

Wizard frog blessings upon you!

baraphalloplastyclinic

I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?

Don't become a housewife.

ladyfoxfire

And if you do become a housewife, take steps to protect yourself. Make sure you’re legally married, for starters; stay-at-home girlfriends have very little legal recourse to claim their partner’s assets in a breakup. Make sure your name is on the house deed/rental agreement, and have your car in your name, even if your spouse is paying for it. Have your spouse transfer money every month into an account solely in your name, so you can buy yourself things without needing permission, but also so you can save up to leave if needed.

If your spouse fights you on any of this, then don’t quit your job. The tradwife to poverty pipeline is real, and so is financial abuse.

dressedupliketheking

also, many women/people experience controlling behaviour and domestic violence from their partner for the first time during pregnancy. don’t risk thinking “he’s just stressed, it’ll get better when the baby comes” because it won’t. neither you and your child will ever be safe with that man. get out as early and safely as you can

everyonehasamnesia

A good friend of mine married a pastor. She birthed, raised, and home schooled his SEVEN children. SEVEN. CHILDREN. They both agreed that she should do that, they both agreed that homeschooling was the best thing for their family, they both agreed to all of this.

She spent over 30 years doing this. For 30 years she didn’t work outside the home. She didn’t know the terms of their lease. She didn’t have the passwords to “their” bank account(s), “their” assets.

He left her when she was in her fifties.

He said that he needed time to reflect and moved out of their house, but told her to focus on getting their last kid through high school (still homeschooled!) and he would take care of everything.

She reached out to the landlord months later asking where the lease renewal was only to find out it wasn’t getting renewed. Because her husband hadn’t paid the rent in OVER NINE MONTHS. The whole time he was promising her he was still taking care of her.

She and her sixteen year old youngest son found out they had to move out of their house with 3 weeks’ notice. She didn’t have a job or work experience or a degree or any idea how to get these things in 3 weeks. She didn’t own her own car. If she had not had friends to take her in, she and her son would have been literally out on the street.

It ruined that friendship, too. It’s a lot to ask someone to put you up indefinitely while you try to put your life together. She burned a lot of bridges taking what anyone would or could give because she had no other choice.

She did, eventually, hard years later, get on her feet again. But it will always be hard and she will never be where she could have been in life if she’d done things differently.

You might be very sure of your marriage. You might be very sure of your husband. He might love you now, and be a good man now, but the rest of your life will hopefully be a long, long time. People change. It CAN happen to you.

kunosoura

I think it’s normal for people to be mad at each other sometimes even if they’re close friends or family or intimate with each other. Like I think that’s a normal and healthy part of relationships that can happen sometimes

kunosoura

“Why were you on Mad At Me island” because at the time I was mad at you and yet our friendship has weathered that without trouble

tiredragedemon

I went to Mad At You island because my feelings are my problem. I needed to stomp down the beach until I could sit and watch the sunrise. I built a sandcastle and did some thinking. Then I boarded the good ship You Matter To Me and sailed it all the way to meet you on the Let’s Talk Shore of I Love You Island.

quietwingsinthesky

friend is trying to convince me this is a common experience and I do not believe her, so

Do you expect to be paid back if you pay for something for your friend while you’re hanging out? (I.E. a ride, a meal, a trinket.)

Yes, always

Yes, but only if it’s above a limit of money

No, never

I don’t buy things for my friends.

bald button

Voting ended on4h

For a more illustrative example, say you go to the movies with a friend and you buy them popcorn, do you expect them at some point to send you money back via cash or through an app of some kind? Will you be upset if they don’t?

polyamorousmisanthrope

I never loan. I just give. If someone wants to give me a gift in the future, dandy.

Otherwise, I'd have to make an account about it and keep track and I'm not a bank and my personal relationships aren't transactional. If I get sick of giving for some reason, I stop.

theonion

Patting themselves on the back for seeing a film that was neither a sequel nor a prequel, the U.S. populace announced Wednesday that they were proud of themselves for watching and enjoying an original movie. “Learning the names of characters I’d never heard of before wasn’t easy, but ultimately I’m glad I did my part to support the arts,” said 34-year-old Darren Mosley of Davenport, IA, echoing the views of moviegoers across the country who braved unfamiliar faces, storylines, and settings to give a film seemingly devoid of any preexisting IP a fair shot.

Full Story

chronictranssexuality

"you don't owe anyone anything" You are a tar pit. Speak for yourself. I personally owe the cafe employees my dishes put away and my friends a listening ear and small scared insects a cup and a gentle trip outside. Hyperindividualism is a rancid infection borne of capitalism and willfully misinterpreted therapyspeak and I will defy it by continuing to be kind regardless of whether or not it benefits me personally

polyamorousmisanthrope

I mean, yes... we do live in a society and you're right.

I think that "you don't owe anyone anything" would be better expressed as, "Don't set yourself on fire to keep anyone warm."

dndmultiverse

Meanwhile, I have a Liberal Arts degree and have never struggled. What the hell is going on?!

polyamorousmisanthrope

Oddly enough, there are plenty of people with STEM degrees who are genuinely good at MATH, but the branch of math that is arithmetic can be their weak point.

It was a standing joke that my father (math major, physics minor) was discouraged from keeping score when my parents played bridge.

Mom got him a calculator for Christmas or a birthday back when those green lit Texas Instruments calculators were the hot new thing.

higgsbison

happy glorious 25th of may

whatareyoureallyafraidof

I’ve had this meme on my Tumblr page for years. Literally, years. Recently, I noticed that they removed it for “Violating Tumblr’s Community Guidelines.” Really?! Where? How? I know that ceiling is terrifying, but, seriously…

solarpunkfool

What if we win?

What if the children go to schools unafraid of tear gas and bullets?

What if the birds come back, and the bees are healed, and every species moves from endangered, to threatened, to thriving?

What if the rainforest ADVANCES?

What if every parking lot had solar panels? What if every structure had solar panels? What if we built climbing gyms and terraced gardens in the skeletons of old coal power plants?

What if you baked your neighbor bread, and they shared their home-grown blackberries?

What if every person who needed a home, had one? What if every person who needed healing was healed?

What if every body was treasured for what it was, not what it should be?

What if every trans child's parents attended their graduation, their wedding, their new-name-day?

What if every warehouse became a closed-circle repair station? Goods flowing out, and back, and out again? What if landfills started to SHRINK?

What if the water and air were clean? What if there was enough public transit that the cars dwindled, leaving the streets safe for kids on bikes, evening deer, midnight cats and foxes?

What if we win?

How would you win?

aetherograph

And we've won a lot already, mind you.

The condors are back. The whales are saved. The sea turtles are no longer endangered. The cranes are back. The bees are recovering. The air in LA and Tokyo and London is clean again. The aquifers in the LA Basin are refilling.

Children are kinder than previous generations. Parents are stopping the abuse cycle. Being trans and queer is more acceptable than ever on a ground level.

It's hard to see if you're young, if you don't know how to step back from social media and the news. But remember--bad news sells, and the algorithm knows despair keeps you scrolling. It's a skewed lens.

We are fighting and we are winning against this adminstration's bullying. We are coming together against the bullies and they are running away scared because they don't understand that we will do that.

People are working hard every day to find ways to make sure fewer animals get hit by cars and planes and rockets.

Maker spaces are more common than ever. Solar and wind are more common than ever. Coal plants are shutting down every day.

Unprecedented numbers of acres are being bought back or given back to their rightful stewards, and the world heals because of it. People are working hard every day to learn how to help a forest recover faster.

We are not at zero. We are at decades of effort to heal the world. We've come SO far.

In 1982 there were only 22 California Condors left in the world. In 1992, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), with its public and private partners, began reintroducing captive-bred condors to the wild. In 2001 the first wild nesting occurred in Grand Canyon National Park since re-introduction. In 2002 there were only 8 pairs of wild nesting birds population-wide. In 2008, for the first time since the program began, more California condors were flying free in the wild than in captivity. Today there are nearly 500 – more than half of them flying free in Arizona, Utah, California, and Baja Mexico.

When I was born, there were no condors in the wild. I'm 37 now, and there are over 250 condors flying free.

When my mom was born in 1955, there were days when she wasn't allowed to go outside to play, because of the air pollution. When I was born, that never happened anymore.

When I was born, humpback whales were critically endangered, and people thought they were going to go extinct. Today, they've recovered to exceed their recorded numbers. Other whales too!

We fixed it.

We CAN fix it and we ARE fixing it and we DID fix it.

three--rings

Since 1990 extreme poverty has decreased worldwide by over HALF.

This is not the narrative media sells us. We have access to more information about suffering now than we used to, but things are getting BETTER overall. Yeah some people are trying to undo this, but we have made SO MUCH PROGRESS. Don't give up.

kiisaes

everyone eat more vegetables NOW!!! and mention the last vegetable you ate in the tags so we're all on the buddy system. I'll start: bok choy

#red peppers #cucumbers #cherry tomatoes #romaine lettuce

maidthings

"this is unbecoming of me" is genuinely a useful thing to have in your mental toolbox

fake-lancelot

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