Riddikulus Nikolas @lostandboundd - Tumblr Blog

More Beautiful After Being Broken

What this trite imagery misses out on is the fact that kintsukuroi requires a lot of work to repair a piece like that. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, a great deal of investment. Sometimes parts of the original are damaged beyond repair, and you have to instead painstakingly create entirely new ones. It’s still not the same. Maybe it’s something more beautiful. But it’s not the fact that it broke that makes it beautiful. It’s the work put into it. It’s the fact that people made the effort to salvage it, because it was worth salvaging, because it was important enough to salvage. It’s the care that makes the beauty. An apology can’t always fix what has been broken. That doesn’t mean it’s not irreparable, sometimes you can go on to rebuild and repair. But it won’t ever be the same as it was again.

contranym-xendo

I really appreciate this addition because I’ve always hated the “more beautiful for having been broken” thing. Being broken sucks and I hate all those tragic romantic sensitivities that try to make it what it’s not. These pieces are beautiful because they’re repaired with effort put in to making them shine.

catchymemes

y0rkminster

Not only did the husband end up falling in love with the peacock (named Chief), they ended up getting a chicken as well!

hishap

That ended more wholesome than I had feared and I’m glad

saintsoup

sillyzone

My last brain cell is heart shaped

crows-curios

Im might be a fool but oh dang am i full of love!

extricating

striders

Hey is the build a bear employee supposed to force us to jump up and down or are we getting hazed

girl-in-the-hitops

as a build-a-bear employee it is my honor to happily inform you that we get to make everyone do whatever the fuck we want during a heart ceremony. jump to get that heart beating. rub that heart to your knees so your furry friend always needs you. rub it to your toes so it’s totally awesome! shake it up so it’s got enough energy to hang out with you all day! close your eyes, make a wish, and give it a kiss you helpless motherfucker

afanofmanystuffs

Look, reanimation is a Process, okay

ohmightysmiter

“Reanimation is a process” is a sentence that just makes me want to play a Necromancer as a very deadpan Build-A-Bear employee.

silverfreckle

999

godzillasflyingpizza

i just want to introduce everyone to this niche genre of postcards

devil-wears-ovo

Netflix: yoo u still there?

Me: I’m literally not allowed to leave

anxietyproblem

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.