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@randomvoices
me
Hey, my name is Michael and my pronouns are any/all. I am transmasc agender and an alterhuman, an Eldritch Polymorph to be exact. This blog was created because I was bored, and it will basically be me messing around. I barely ever use tags, so beware of that. I do enjoy horror, so there will be scary content. I'm the host of a plural collective, FYI.
[The sensory-friendly pride flags were made by @theprideful]
Sure AI might poison the lands around us, contribute to mass psychosis, raise our energy costs, steal all of our art and intellectual property without repercussion, exploit workforces in poor countries, give execs reasons to fire you, and ultimately widen the wealth gap, but at least we'll have a little guy on our phones telling us things a google search already could've!
#Please little bird
I love that the modern-day tumblr post equivalent of chain emails only requires me to reblog a relatively pleasant image instead of forward an email to a bunch of my friends and family members to quell my raging anxiety.
Itâs a win win. I get a bit of hope, you get a cute birb photo
Itâs a win win. I
get a bit of hope, you get
a cute birb photo
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
love this genre of post
Some of the best tags and posts with similar vibes
I couldnât find that one tweet where someone says smthing like âI was jamming to the best industrial music I have ever heard and then realized my headphones werenât connected and I was listening to my AC unitâ
Yall sleeping on this Sam L. Jackson interview about trump lmfao.
Itâs your uncle, Sam.
He was an activist before he became an actor. He was told to get out of town before he ended up dead as a young man, due to his activism.
This is just more of him being himself, which is as it should be.
People really forgot that Sam Jackson was a Black Panther
American Girl stories were the best tbh
Dude, read the books, she and her mom freed themselves in Book 1. We donât disrespect American Girl in this house
Donât you dare disrespect Addy, or any of my girls for that matter. American Girl used to be legit. Good stories, good dolls, good movies.
Felicityâs 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.
Samanthaâs stories centered around the growth of industrial America, womenâs suffrage, child abuse, and corruption in places of power. Also, it emphasises how dramatically adoption into a caring family can turn a life around.
Kitâs 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.
Mollyâs 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 theyâre always presented honestly, yet in ways that kids can understand. They just go to show that you donât have to live in a perfect time to be a real American girl.
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.
Donât 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 schoolâs 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 thatâs without even mentioning the âgirl of the yearâ 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.
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.
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 girlâs first lessons in diversity and cultural awareness (hopefully burying that insensitive âweâre all Americansâ 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 âaging outâ of the books, but hearing about some of these kinda makes me want to revisit them!
I wasnât 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.
Iâd like to point out that the company that makes American Girl dolls actually doesnât skimp when doing their research and they donât make the dolls with the intent to be offensive in any way:
And they departed from the norm in Kayaâs 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 weâre taught in school. And these books are targeted at ages 8+, which is a pretty critical time for developing your own thinking and morals.
Reblogging for general awesome
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 âdoll bookâ - 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 âwhy would you treat a HUMAN like that ?!â 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 & sheâll get through maybe four or five sets of books a year. she has the dolls in the room with packets on information from the dollâs time period that her students can âcheck outâ 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 hasnât expected.
iâve 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.
Iâm 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.
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 âthe smart girls guideâ series which covers topics like crushes, worry, middle school, drama and gossip, sports, friendship, the digital world, communication, money, confidence, etc.
Oh I had those too and I loved them!
I want to say I think there was an American Girl Doll magazine series that came out, but donât 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
yo donât 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.
omg yeah i love caroline
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.
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 couldnât 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 canât remember, but they did promptly personally respond to a letter about something that was not exactly on the radar for girlâs media in fucking 2002. So thereâs that.
Iâm 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 Girlâs 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 NAACPâs protests against lynchings, in ways kids can understand, but thereâs 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 musicâ 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 itâs not just girl dollsâ they have boy dolls now, too! And dolls with no gender assigned to them! People complained that they couldnât 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.
Iâm not claiming American Girl as a company is perfect, but I am saying theyâre 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 youâd 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!
Happy Jmart Day, y'all!!! đđ
Don't- No, don't look back there, it's fine. He's probably fine.
Original meme below the cut:
heres the painted piece of the month, vaguely asoiaf related
painting is torture, any tips?
I started playing Fallout New Vegas Iâm only 15 years late I think đ§ââïž
I wish age gap discourse hadn't spiraled the way it has because I want there to be a safe space to say "Men in their 40s who date 25 year olds aren't predators, they're just fucking losers"
... honey you just described a predator LOL
No, I said what I said. But thank you for providing an example of how this topic has become insufferable on the internet.
i am honestly burningly curious about how a 40 year old man who fucks around with college grads is not a predator
"College grad" is not a developmental stage, nor is it what I would describe a 25 year old as. I was 4 years out of college at 25. My mother had two children at 25. You can be a fucking congressman at 25.
There's a difference between a man who is immature and buys into misogynistic views of beauty and aging and one who is a predator. Also, many actual predators? Not losers and able to move through society pretty freely being seen as cool and the ideal, so conflating the two isn't helpful.
This is going to be my final response to any attempt at discourse. You're welcome to continue amongst yourselves.
also sometimes a 40 year old and a 25 year old just weirdly find each and it's a perfectly normal relationship - like all human relationships are complex and situational, it's so rarely an either/or thing let alone just one thing only
if a 40 year old dude only dates 25 year olds, DiCaprio style or something adjacent to it, then yeah he's a loser
if a 40 year old dude meets a 25 year old through social event or friends or whatever and they happen to hit it off and make a go of it, and this isn't some sort of reoccurring pattern for the guy, that's just a relationship with an age difference
being predatory means something specific, and man I agree w/ OP and really wish people just stopped ascribing it to any and all relationship dynamics they personally might not like
predator and groomer - two words that need to go up on the "can't use till you learn their meaning" shelf
Something I find really stressful is this seemingly endless creep of infantilisation and removal of autonomy from young people. Like, not to be all âin my dayyyyâ about it, but⊠at 16, my friends and I were expected to be broadly responsible for our presence in the world. Most of us had jobs, we navigated public transport, looked after younger siblings. We were expected to make informed decisions about our future careers and our sexual partners. We were allowed to leave education and work full time (this was not necessarily good thing - I think increasing the school leaving age to 18 was broadly for the best). Most of us were smoking, or drinking, or both - again, not good things, but just facts - and many of us were sexually active. Many of the AFAB people I knew were on the pill. Legally, we could live independently, or get married with adult consent.
Legally (I live in the UK) we were not minors, although we inhabited an odd legal limbo until we turned 18, and we were certainly not âchildrenâ. Intellectually, socially, though, we were considered (young) adults, or at the most âolder teenagers.â We were expected to read mostly adult books (rather than middle grade or YA), watch the news/read papers, watch mostly adult television.
And I do think we a bit under-protected, under-supported, and in some cases - neglected and financially exploited - and Iâm not necessarily advocating that. But it did make us feel, I think, in charge of our own lives, capable and competent to make decisions.
At 16-17 my parents knew they could leave me alone overnight/for a couple of nights, and I wouldnât starve or burn the house down. I felt comfortable getting cross country trains on my own, or booking and staying at a hotel (yes, with my boyfriend.)
Then there was this⊠creeping of sentiments that we were all Too Young to trouble our heads about certain things. A lot of it was good - more stringent licensing laws, raising the school leaving age, raising the minimum smoking age(!) - but some of the broader cultural stuff was⊠a bit patronising? Eg, the introduction of âNew Adultâ as a category of books aimed at 18-25 year olds, the way cartoons and books written for the 9-12 age group were being marketed as for the 12-15 age group, referring to late teens as âchildren,â etc etc.
Then, in 2008, there was the big financial crash and suddenly my generation were (broadly) robbed of all the usual markers of adulthood and success, meaning that we got âstuckâ in the lifestyles and modes our late teens/early 20s. And suddenly, all the emphasis shifted from social and legal protections for late teens/ younger adults, to legal restrictions on their freedoms/rights, and strange philosophical protections on the emotional states.
So, OF COURSE a 23 year old canât buy a beer without carrying an ID card, and a 17 year old canât have a crush on a 16 year old, but also, because youâre *children* you donât need to live like adults. So the UK government got to save money by saying â18 isnât a proper adult,â then â20 isnât a proper adult,â and â25 isnât a proper adultâ because it meant they could refuse to give single occupancy housing benefit rates to people of those ages (I think theyâve raised it over 30 now.) Or by refusing to clamp down on exploitative temporary/zero hours contracts - because theyâre just âtemp jobs for young people!â, or by raising the retirement age because â60 is far too young to retire. Youâre not a real adult until 35.â
And it means the discursive environment is such that you can claim that a 21 year old trans person is too young to make their own medical decisions, or a 15 year old is too young to consent to the contraceptive pill.
Meanwhile, they are not offering additional *protections* to these newly infantilised adults. 18 year olds are still encouraged to saddle themselves with enormous educational debt, or allowed to have credit cards, or expected to pay rent, or no longer receive child benefits. You still have to *work*. In fact, in the States, theyâre looking to removed child employment restrictions - but thatâs fine, because 20 year olds are being protected from making their own medical decisions, and adults get to say which books their teen kids are reading in school, and kids arenât allowed to change their name or what they wear without parental consent.
We can see what these people are doing to the rights of children - so why are we being so complacent in expanding the definition of âchildâ?
Regardless - 25 is VERY CLEARLY an adult. At 25 I was married, had two kids, an overdraft, rent to pay, and experience of living in the world for 6 years. I had more in common with someone of 40 than I did with someone of 15. Hell, at*20* I had more in common with someone of 40 than someone of 15. Any sexual or relationship decisions you make at 25 are your own to make.
Of course there are likely to be power imbalances in a 15 year age gap - which is why most 25 year olds donât date 40somethings - but not actually necessarily. And yeah, a 40 year old who only dates 20somethings is a skeeze - just like a 30 year old who routinely ingratiates themselves with rich 80 year olds is a skeeze.
But if any young people are reading this (doubt it)⊠your rights are much, much more important than your protections.
Yes, young people should be protected, but if someone claims theyâre protecting you while denying you access to personal autonomy, financial stability, intellectual curiosity, or sexual self-determination because youâre âtoo youngâ to need, or understand those things⊠be very suspicious of their motives.
And if youâre legally an adult, ask yourself why you donât feel comfortable defining yourself in those terms.
This thread is from 2023, and now with the Cass report we have seen the real, tangible danger that comes from infantilizing adults in their 20s.
the long reply above mentiones this, but I want to emphasize this: many western societies have lost their "rituals of maturity". Young adults don't get to buy a house, starting a family is a lot of stress if all adults in the household have to work fulltime, and it's almost impossible to find a job above minimum wage that offers career options. All of which are things which previous generations enjoyed more broadly, and which were seen as steps into adulthood.
Only a few decades ago, 90% of the people in the region where I live owned their own houses. Granted, they were often shitty ones, but they were their own. Today, not even 50% own the place they live in.
We've removed the milestones of adulthood, it's no wonder we increasingly infantilize adults. And the worst is, this does nothing to prevent real predators from preying on under-protected people! With the removal of the milestones of adulthood, we also removed a lot of the safety net previous generations could rely on.
All of these additions are absolutely spot on, but there's one more thing I want to add, and that is to point out how the "a 40yo dating a 25yo is inherently predatory" type of age gap discourse increasingly treats predation, not as a conscious, specific behaviour, but as an ambient effect of being in proximity to someone younger. Because if, as it's so frequently argued, it's impossible for people of different ages to have anything meaningful in common, such that there's no legitimate grounds even for friendship between (say) a 25yo and a 40yo, let alone something romantic or sexual, then what's being implied is that either that everyone is at all times only a single interaction away from natively turning predator, or that predation is somehow natural, automatic, reflexive - neither of which is true. But believing that it is is incredibly fucking dangerous. Because if there's no good or safe or reasonable way for someone older to interact with someone younger outside of a strict workplace or familial relationship (and sometimes not even then), then what we're doing is saying that it's inherently unsafe or wrong for younger people to learn from older people, or for older people to mentor them, or for (say) twentysomethings and fiftysomethings to exist in the same spaces as equal adults. We're saying that an eighteen-year-old should feel bad and weird about hanging out with a two-years-younger friend they've known since infancy because it's inappropriate for minors and legal adults to be friends. (I truly wish this was a hypothetical example, but no, it's not: I have legitimately seen multiple accounts of teenagers getting stressed out about exactly this type of thing because of this discourse.) And by acting as if the age gap power imbalance can only ever go one way, we're also completely ignoring the reality of things like elder abuse or older people being scammed or exploited by younger people.
But beyond all this, if you assume all older people are inherently dangerous to younger people, you're leaving yourself horrifically vulnerable, not only because you're not putting any effort into learning what actual predatory behaviour looks like, but because age gaps are not the only fucking vector for predation or abuse. If you can't distinguish between a safe adult/older person and a suspicious adult/older person or between trustworthy behaviour and manipulative behaviour because you've trained yourself to screen categories rather than actions, not only will you miss out on many cool friendships, but you'll be vulnerable to exploitation if and when someone, be they older or not, eventually sneaks past your guard, because you won't know to recognise what they're doing. Yes, there are absolutely times when an age gap is, in and of itself, a massive red flag, but if you can't distinguish between "45yo man marrying 18yo girl he's known since she was 12 the very moment she's legal" and, say, "35yo divorcee marrying 50yo widower she met at an art show," or "19yo dating a 17yo from the next school over after meeting at a mutual friend's party," or even "22yo has an extremely fun consensual one night stand with the 38yo they met at the bar," then you're going to be very poorly placed to recognise any abusive dynamics that don't perfectly align with the optics you've internalised as being indistinguishable from abuse, because the optics and the abuse are two different things. The one might indicate the presence of the other, but it doesn't guarantee it, and you can certainly have the abuse without the optics. And particularly in the context of conservatives increasingly insisting that just existing as a queer or trans person around children is an inherently predatory act, it makes me feel absolutely insane, how quickly so many people have conceded to the exact same type of logic (that an older person just existing around a younger person for non-familial, non-work reasons is inherently suspicious), argued for the exact same reasons (think of the children!) without stopping to question it at all.
When someone says something reminded them of you. You know
â â
i went to the SCP website
 this shouldnât be so funny to me
weâre so fucked
How would the shadow group react if Graves got hurt? Like almost died hurt?
(Goin down the asks lalala)
Tw: a bit of blood in first three pages; Graves got hurt pretty badly but nothing too graphic
Dadler and graveson AU headcannons
1.Phillip was a sauce addict as a child, no dish was safe for drowning in the mountains of sauce Phillip poured onto them just for him to even CONSIDER eating the actual food.
2. Adler is the kind of parent to forget that they have a child until its dinner and the parent who has surveillance on their child 24-7. there is no in between it's either one or the other.
3. Phillip has exploded the microwave several times throughout his life. (this includes adulthood)
4. When Phillip was a teen Adler gave him a small multi use knife that Phillip then used to whittle a small wooden eagle. that eagle now sits on adler's desk.
5. The shadows are Adler's honorary grandchildren and he treats them as such. (they are all confused as to how an old man can remember 100+ names)
6. Phillip almost gave Adler a heart attack when he snuck into the kitchen for one night. (Adler thought it was an intruder) safe to say Phillip never risked getting midnight snacks.
Stay safe, guys
Get immediate help 24/7/365. The Trevor Project's crisis counselors are just a text, chat, or phone call away. Completely confidential and f
itâs three taps anywhere on the screen on a smartphone!
This is important punks. Deadly important.
Iâve texted their hotline before. It was super helpful and even if it hadnât been the amount of time youâre there can be enough to let your urges fade and stay safe.
We need to go back to using sailing ships full time like immediately. Yes it would take longer to get places but the Aesthetic is unmatched
Like there is nothing sexier hthan this
Canât wait for OP to get scurvy
Are you under the impression that the ships themselves are what caused scurvy
Once again. Do you think this is the fault of the ships themselves
