Art is to console those who are broken by life

[hotvampireadjacent]

Memphis is “under full-blown occupation” by ICE. Here’s why you may not know that.

Community members face retaliation for trying to spread the word out, a lawsuit alleges.

Ice operations have moved to harassing folk in Memphis

[castformbignaturals]

Huh. I wonder what else is going on in Tennessee (and specifically Memphis) right now?

Oh well, I’m sure it’s a total coincidence.

[quasi-normalcy]

(For those not in the know, @castformbignaturals is alluding to the fact Memphis is a majority Black city that stands to have its congressional representation entirely wiped out by redistricting led by the Republican governor of Tennessee who has, of course, welcomed the ICE occupation with open arms. Again, the project of MAGA is to reintroduce Jim Crow)

[voyage-of-the-porn-spreader]

tgis is so fucking funny to me. they accidentally Rock Lee'd a retired racehorse

[voyage-of-the-porn-spreader]

imagine youre a fat horse and your new neighbour is a personal trainer

[voyage-of-the-porn-spreader]

horse that reads Marcus Aurelius

[voyage-of-the-porn-spreader]

I was wrong. they didnt rock lee him. this horse is literally Gai. and i wish he was my dad

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i need to come up with a way to say “i mean like, movies for grownups” that doesn’t make me feel like a villain

[cheaphalloweencostume]

*peeks in the replies* *gets really nervous and locks my house up and leaves*

[cheaphalloweencostume]

well, i mean more like La Piscine or Mulholland Drive,

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i think i am going insane

[mrblackhaironthestreet]

Apparently it is impossible for Tumblr users to think of a not ageist way to describe their tastes, because everything must always be compared to how inferior children are -- despite the fact that it is pretty much never the choice of any child or children when media aimed at them is dumbed down etc.

Things when bad: kids and children are involved!

Things when good: this is very Adult this is specifically Adult only Adults can understand or want this

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i literally just don’t want to watch Kung Fu Panda

[cheaphalloweencostume]

okay we’ve come all the way back around. let’s pack this up. this post is done. “who asked” you just walked into my post that i made on my blog..? who asked YOU?? am i losing my fucking mind?????

[lady-of-math-and-rope]

"I want to watch movies where the writers assume the audience can handle complex themes and sensitive material."

"Do you mean porn? Or are you being ageist? You're ageist if you don't like Kung Fu Panda."

[dracula1992soundtrack]

being online is so scary aren't you guys worried about the world wide spider

[redfagdiver]

It took 36 years for someone to make this joke and by god it was worth the wait

[herpsandbirds]

Phainopepla (Phainopepla nitens), L - male, R - female, family Ptiliogonatidae, order Passeriformes, Tucson, AZ, USA

photographs by Tim Lewis

[gasteracanthacancriformis]

have i ever shown u people my hand sofa

[gasteracanthacancriformis]

my prized possession is this loveseat I bought from a divorced dad who couldn’t tell me anything about it and in the years i’ve owned it i’ve never been able to find out who made it or where it came from. it’s got nails and finger creases and palm lines but they’re all kinda hard to see in this pic.

[sepdet]

[emeraldwhale]

[kleefkruid]

[professionalchaoticdumbass]

[spiribia]

Creative workaround for those who haven’t seen it

[silly-filly]

Someone in the reddit comments made a similar dress inspired by it and posted a pattern with it!

[dappermouth]

i can understand the trials but were the tribulations really necessary

[goingonanadventuremaybe]

tribble-ations

[plum-soup]

I think this has been posted on here before but this one always makes me laugh

[vicholas]

It's still crazy that Anita Sarkeesian did some pretty basic Feminism 101 videos about things like "It's bad when a woman only exists in a narrative so her death can serve as a man's motivation" yet gamers act like she's some sort of Radical Feminist Satan.

And to be clear, me calling it Feminism 101 isn't a dig against her. Her videos were meant to be introductory pieces to feminist analysis and that's perfectly fine. That's what makes it crazier that people act like she killed their grandma or something.

[vicholas]

If I made a video about how I wish Princess Peach had more agency and this made people declare me a permanent harassment target I would become the Joker. She's way stronger than me and she deserves way better.

[gahdamnpunk]

American Girl stories were the best tbh

[that-catholic-shinobi]

Dude, read the books, she and her mom freed themselves in Book 1. We don’t disrespect American Girl in this house

[allthefandomss]

Don’t you dare disrespect Addy, or any of my girls for that matter. American Girl used to be legit. Good stories, good dolls, good movies.

[smugkoalas]

Felicity’s story was set in the beginnings of the American Revolution, and addressed the conflict that she faced when her loved ones were split between patriots and loyalists. It also covered the effects of animal abuse, and forgiving those who are unforgivable.

Samantha’s stories centered around the growth of industrial America, women’s suffrage, child abuse, and corruption in places of power. Also, it emphasises how dramatically adoption into a caring family can turn a life around.

Kit’s story is one of my favorites. Her family is hit hard by the Great Depression, and they begin taking in boarders and raise chickens to help make ends meet. Her books include themes of poverty, police brutality, homelessness, prejudice, and the importance of unity in difficult times.

Molly’s father, a doctor, is drafted during the Second World War. Throughout her story, friends of hers suffer the loss of their husbands, sons, and brothers overseas. Her mother leaves the traditional housewife position and works full-time to help with the war effort. They also take in an English refugee child, who learns to open up after a life of traumatic experience.

American Girl stories have always featured the very harsh realities of America through the years. But they’re always presented honestly, yet in ways that kids can understand. They just go to show that you don’t have to live in a perfect time to be a real American girl.

[chaos-in-the-making]

Dont you fucking dare disrespect the American Girls in my house. ESPECIALLY Addy!! That was my first REAL contact with the horrors of slavery, as I read about her father being whipped and sold and her mother escaping with her to freedom, but also how freedom was still a struggle.

A slave doll. Please. Read the books.

[ironwoman359]

Don’t forget Kirsten, the Swedish immigrant who had to deal with balancing her own culture and learning the english language and customs of her classmates, or Kaya (full name Kaya'aton'my, or She Who Arranges Rocks) , the brave but careless girl from the Nez Perce tribe, or Josefina, the Mexican girl learning to be a healer.

And then there are the later dolls, that kids younger than me would have grown up with (I was just outgrowing American Girl as these came out), like Rebecca, the Jewish girl who dreams of becoming an actress in the budding film industry, or  Julie, who fights against her school’s gender policy surrounding sports in the 70s, or  Nanea, the Hawaiian girl whose father worked at Pearl Harbor.

These books, these characters, are fantastic pictures into life for girls in America throughout the years, they pull no punches with the horrors that these girls had to face in their different time periods, and in many cases I learned more history from these series than social studies at school. And that’s without even mentioning the “girl of the year” series where characters are created in the modern world to help girls deal with issues like friend problems, moving, or bullying. We do NOT disrespect American Girl in this house.

[razzleberryjam]

American Girl is probably going to be the only exposure young girls are going to get to history from a female perspective. This is actually kind of important considering that in history classes we dont really get that exposure. We dont hear about what women felt and endured during these time periods cause schools are too busy teaching us about what happened from the male perspective, which is not unimportant, but we need both. Girls need both.

[star-linedsoul]

These books were such a crucial part of my childhood and shaped my love of history, which still ensures today. These books can be a young girl’s first lessons in diversity and cultural awareness (hopefully burying that insensitive “we’re all Americans” tripe) and looking at history from more perspectives than just that taught in school. They also are an example of how women have ALWAYS been part of history, which some people would rather us not believe.

I think Kit and Kaya were the newest American Girls when I started “aging out” of the books, but hearing about some of these kinda makes me want to revisit them!

[breezeinmonochromenight]

I wasn’t gonna say anything, but you know what?

Nah.

OP (of the tweet thread) was either a actively trying to start shit or is just a huge fucking moron. Probably both.

I’d like to point out that the company that makes American Girl dolls actually doesn’t skimp when doing their research and they don’t make the dolls with the intent to be offensive in any way:

[physicsandfandoms]

And they departed from the norm in Kaya’s doll to fit her culture! The other dolls all show their teeth, and Kaya does not because that is considered rude in the Nez Perce culture!

It is absolutely true that these books covered the stuff in history that was absent from our history books. I still distinctly remember reading about Addy being forced to eat bugs she missed on tobacco plants, and that started me out from a different perspective and made it easier for me to know to reject the sanitized version of the slave trade we’re taught in school. And these books are targeted at ages 8+, which is a pretty critical time for developing your own thinking and morals.

[lunacorva]

Reblogging for general awesome

[hey-marlie]

when i was in 3rd grade i was reading the Meet Addy book at school & a couple boys made fun of me for reading a “doll book” - my teacher overheard & started reading Meet Addy to the class after every recess. everyone became extremely invested & by the end of the year we had read the entire collection of Addy books & did a presentation on the civil war at the end of the year that we all presented to the class one by one.

i think back on this & realize that as third graders we were talking about how awful slavery was & because we were simply innocent kids without any societal or institutional influence yet, all of us could kept saying “why would you treat a HUMAN like that ?!” this one girl for her birthday invited all of us for her party & she got the Addy doll - every single one of us (boys included) held her & was in awe of this doll - it was such a touching experience.

i went back home about a year ago & ran into my third grade teacher in the grocery store. she said that year opened up a whole new teaching structure for her. she now reads american girl stories to her students starting day one of class every day to calm them down after recess & she’ll get through maybe four or five sets of books a year. she has the dolls in the room with packets on information from the doll’s time period that her students can “check out” to take home for weekends to care for them.

we oftentimes overlook how powerful toys can be in influencing young children & american girl honestly knew that kids could read intense moments in history & synthesize the issues to learn how to be a better person. my grandma bought me my first doll, molly, when i was only six & the dolls became a huge part of my childhood. when i turned 21 a couple years ago - we were living in minneapolis - she took me to have lunch for my birthday at the american doll place in the mall of america & bought me the Addy doll for my birthday. it was such a powerful moment i hasn’t expected.

i’ve since gotten rid of majority of my childhood toys, but i still have every single one of my dolls & all the books that i plan on gifting to my future children.

[iamthecutestofborg]

I’m white and my first real introduction to slavery and the underground railroad was Addy. She was a young girl like me I could connect to and care about her story. American Girl does a great job of making history relevant to kids.

[boldlygoing-nowhere]

Also American Girl sells all sorts of books unrelated to the dolls. The Care and Keeping of You books were super important as I started puberty and were the most comprehensive, non judgemental account of what was going to happen.

They also have “the smart girls guide” series which covers topics like crushes, worry, middle school, drama and gossip, sports, friendship, the digital world, communication, money, confidence, etc.

[iamthecutestofborg]

Oh I had those too and I loved them!

[fishfrommars]

I want to say I think there was an American Girl Doll magazine series that came out, but don’t quote me on that. there were lots of helpful girl guides that used the American girls as examples for doing good or learning lessons or trying to understand why girls did what they did

I learned a lot of my core beliefs from these girls.

I remember being very invested in Molly, Addy, and Kaya. Mostly cuz I look like Molly, and the other two had a lot of information on two of my favorite time periods. But I owe a lot of my personality to these lovvely girls

[dragonqueenzoyaa]

yo don’t forget my girl Caroline. Her father was captured by the British during the war of 1812 and she basically learned how to sail and rescued him herself.

[janeslandrys]

omg yeah i love caroline

[beggars-opera]

I can confirm that they really do their research - during the creation of Caroline the company called a museum I was associated with and quizzed them extensively about what sort of food kids would have eaten at the turn of the 19th century.

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

When i was like ten I wrote a letter to the American Girl magazine saying that the girls in their magazine were all really skinny and it made me, a chonk, really sad because it was showing that I couldn’t wear any of the outfits they suggested, and I got a personal letter back from the editor apologizing for making me feel that way and saying they would work on that. Dunno if they actually did, i can’t remember, but they did promptly personally respond to a letter about something that was not exactly on the radar for girl’s media in fucking 2002. So there’s that.

[torchlake]

I’m happy to report that the messages from American Girl have only gotten better in recent years.

These are from one of their latest books, A Smart Girl’s Guide to Body Image:

They got a lot of flak from conservative parents for this and they did. not. back. down.

Their newest historical doll, Claudie, is a black girl growing up in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her story is about Black artists thriving, and making a safe, beautiful place for themselves in a society that tries to reject them. It teaches about the NAACP’s protests against lynchings, in ways kids can understand, but there’s also so much Black joy and creativity showcased in her story.

Another historical doll, Melody, is growing up in the 1960s during the Civil Rights movement. She faces the struggles and triumphs of attending a newly integrated school, and learns about the bombing of a Black church in Alabama that killed four little girls her age. Her stories show how black people found support and community within the church, as well as music— she loves to sing! If you have a free hour, I highly recommend watching her special on Amazon (free with prime). It stars Caila Marsai Martin from Blackish and it will make you weep.

The girl of the year for 2022, Corinne, is Asian, and her story touches on the issues of anti-Asian hate in the wake of covid. When conservative parents threw a fit about this, American Girl went ahead and made the girl of the year for 2023 Asian, too.

Any of their dolls can be customized with assistive devices like hearing aids, service dogs, and wheelchairs. They also have bald dolls, to include stories about girls battling cancer or alopecia. And it’s not just girl dolls— they have boy dolls now, too! And dolls with no gender assigned to them! People complained that they couldn’t find any dolls in the Just Like Me line that looked like them, so they now give people the ability to create their own custom doll, with tons of different options.

I’m not claiming American Girl as a company is perfect, but I am saying they’re important. Girl perspectives, girl stories, and girl communities are IMPORTANT. If there are kids in your life who would benefit from these stories, or if you’d like to read them yourself, you can find any American Girl book for pretty much dirt cheap on eBay, and libraries usually stock tons of them!

[hollowboobtheory]

knowing when not to open the comments is a skill

[hollowboobtheory]

internet soft skills

not opening the comments

letting people be wrong

letting people be wrong about YOU

letting people have a bad impression of you (see above)

knowing when your input isn't needed

spotting bot comments

block button

[hollowboobtheory]

blocking tip: you don't have to wait to have a negative interaction with someone to block them. you can block them without ever interacting with them. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone being rude to someone else and preemptively blocked them

[bigbigbigtruck]

"why'd they block me? we've never talked" bro if i see you being nasty to the bartender i'm not gonna chat you up

[parkchanwoohoo]

[purble-wav-fandom]

prev this is too good to just leave as a tag, you should've added it

[busket]

the disrespect and hatred people have for trans men who are or have been pregnant is disgusting, all under the veil of trying to support trans men, too. like ok so pregnant trans men dont deserve representation because you think its just a weird mpreg omegaverse fetish right? you want to see a story about a trans man embracing the full extent of his own body, doing one of the hardest and most miraculous things we are capable of as human beings, all while still being a man and not relenting to society's expectation that only women can do this? what are you some kind of pervert???

trans men get pregnant all the fucking time and its normal. it doesnt make them women and it doesnt make them porn subjects. all it does it make them fathers.

[kimmycup]

Like I don't think you guys comprehend what happened in Poland just now but everyone needs to be talking about it.

A random influencer decided he'll listen to an anti cancer song on loop. People liked it enough times he ended up listening for 9 days.

He raised 90 million in these 9 days, and then 160 million more over the last 10 hours, for a total of 250 million.

Hundreds and thousands of people signed up to donate marrow.

Hundreds of celebrities shaved their heads in solidarity.

The Foundation receiving this money had to create a special commission to figure out how to distribute the money.

The national TV stations got highjacked to stream this for hours because it was better news than anything happening in the world.

Because we broke and DOUBLED the world record for this kind of thing.

They raised about as much as the biggest running charity event in Poland did in a whole year with three decades of tradition and a goddamn army of people.

And they did it on a goddamn amateur set up in a shabby room sitting on folding chairs.

[kimmycup]

Little update: people keep donating despite the stream being over. We're at 280 million in the fight against cancer.

Łatwogang refuses to collab with companies that only reached out to him now because of popularity or give interviews. He said any medals people wanna give them should go to the doctors and nurses and the cancer patients.

Someone offered to renovate that shabby little flat for him as a thank you. He refused.

Someone counted up how many people appeared in that room during the whole thing - it was 319 total.

[belladonna-rx]

Love to hear it. Love news articles too.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/polish-nine-day-charity-stream-breaks-records-support-kids-with-cancer-2026-04-27/

Just love this headline phrasing.

Streamer crushes MrBeast charity record with $70 million raised for kids with cancer - Dexerto

Polish streamer Łatwogang’s charity livestream has raised over 203 million złoty for children with cancer, breaking the charity stream recor

[chronophobica]

what they DONT tell you about clarinets is that you have to fucking build the damn thing every single time. "what instrument do you play" fucking legos man idk

[alphabetizing-posts]

about build clarinets damn do DONT every fucking fucking have idk instrument is legos man play" single tell that the they thing time. to what "what you you you

[howverychaotic]

I really need to start reading the blog name because I thought I was having some sort of moment right there.

[socialjusticeinamerica]