simpleEnthusiast

I'm simpleEnthusiast. They/them pronouns please. I reblog stuff from my friends. Hit me up with an ask if you want me to write something for you!

[simpleenthusiast]

Does anyone have a decent image of Simon's tattoo or alternatively the bloody bandages on his arm before he peels them off? I am convinced that the marks are supposed to look like chromosomes but without an image I can't be sure.

[an-aura-about-you]

btw while people continue to fight the system don't forget about Undue Medical Debt (formerly RIP Medical Debt), a charity that buys and forgives medical debt. on average a donation of $10 will forgive $1,000 of medical debt.

[an-aura-about-you]

I'm fairly confident that this is now the one original post I've made that has gotten the most notes, and I honestly couldn't be happier. the more attention we give this, the higher the chances that someone will see this and donate. medical debt is both one of the most crushing things a person can deal with and one of the stupidest things humanity has invented. and if you live in the US, I have no doubt that you've had to deal with medical debt in your life, either for yourself or a loved one. even a small donation can do so much good, and now is the time of year when we are encouraged to think of others.

[byjove]

whenever I see archeological remains of a human who suffered from a terrible disease that couldn’t be treated in their lifetime but could be fixed now, this wave of sorrow and mourning washes over me. a woman in the 14th century who spent her 35 years of life bent at the waist because of congenital scoliosis. a man from the 18th century who died because of a non cancerous mass on his jaw that made eating progressively more difficult. remains of a woman from the Neolithic who died in childbirth having evidence of peri-mortem trepanation on her skull.

and yet she survived to 35. and yet the physicians in his time tried to strengthen his jaw. and yet someone 4,000 years ago tried to save someone they loved from dying of preeclampsia/increased cranial pressure. we tried. we tried and we tried and we tried. we failed and we learned but we tried. that’s what makes humans so beautiful.

[lyricwritesprose]

My mom sometimes talks about a child in her neighborhood who was born with hydrocephaly and died of it. His parents strove to keep him alive for years, but he ultimately passed after a long decline. No treatment available. No hope at all, and the parents knew it from his birth.

Several decades later my sister had an MRI, as a long shot, to try to figure out why she was sick and deteriorating with a number of symptoms that were close to being written off as anxiety. She was sent straight to the hospital for adult onset hydrocephaly. Two days later she had brain surgery to put a shunt down her neck into her stomach and drain the fluid out. (No, you cannot usually get brain surgery that fast. Yes, it was that urgent.) Recovery was long and squiggly but it happened.

I think of that boy every once in a while. The one who died. I have no doubt that treatments developed for people like him, and tested on people like him, saved my sister's life.

He never knew he made the world better. His condition was severe, he never knew much of anything, I don't think. I think if I ever track down a God or something like one, that'll be somewhere on my List of Wishes. To make sure people like him know that they helped.

[mutedtempest]

I think about this a lot.

I've been type 1 diabetic since I was about one and a half, and was incredibly sick. If my mother hadn't also been type 1 and recognized the signs I likely would have died.

I was born in 1982. Insulin was first given to a patient in 1922, and he survived. Before that, type 1 meant death, often very slow and agonizing. Before insulin, doctors advised a super strict "keto" diet to prolong life, and it could work for awhile - up to a year, I believe. But it was a miserable existence as the body was literally eating itself as the blood turned acidic until the patient eventually died.

60 years. Only 60 years before my birth did that procedure work for the first time. That's absolutely nothing given the span of human history and I think a lot about the people who died from it throughout time.

But yes, people tried. Healers and doctors of all sorts tried all manner of things to allow these (mostly!) kids to live. The fact that it was accomplished at all is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that I've been alive 42 years is fucking insane considering my body doesn't produce a hormone necessary for survival. If you think that doesn't blow me away on a regular basis you have another think coming. It's nothing short of a miracle.

Every medical advancement is. The amount of work that goes into it and the vast amount of luck necessary to get it right even when all the research and information is sound is just astonishing.

Thank you, humanity. Thank you ingenuity and determination to save lives and make them better. Thank you to every medical practitioner and medical researcher in existence now and through all of time. Thank you to all the people who died so I could live.

[hyperactivehedgehog]

Diabetes is one of these illnesses that really throws medical history into perspective. It's so common, everyone knows someone who has it, people live pretty normal lives with it. And yet, a hundred years ago, it was an instant death sentence. And then we were able to treat people with insulin and yet - it was extremely disabling. The insulin was extracted from animal pancreas had severe side effects, even with how similar the hormones are, there is always an averse reaction to proteins from foreign species, especially during long-term treatment. Injections had to be given every few hours, at-home-tests were only available from the 70s onwards. Insulin pumps entered the market in the 80s. Genetically produced insulin - humanized insulin - was first available in the US in 1982, in many countries only around the year 2000.

In 1930, having diabetes type I would basically mean being hospital bound, being woken every few hours for regular injections.

In 1965, you'd be able to live at home and get by with a very strict diet and a few timed injections. You'd struggle with chronical side effects. Having children wasn't done - passing on your genes would be immoral, and it might not even be legal for you to marry.

In the year 2000, you'd have a device clipped to your belt that would measure your blood sugar and distribute insulin, you only need to change the needle a few times a day. You might even be allowed to join in P.E. class

In 2025, you stick on two patches that do the same thing. They're synchronized through your phone.

That wasn't fate. It's not natural development that made diabetes a common chronic illness. It was hundreds of people who cared. It was the people who created the keto diet. It was the people who came up with tests. The ones who went through different species, trying to figure out the closest analogon to human insulin. It was the people who fought in court to get genetically produced insulin approved for medical use. It was people who looked at a rare, incurable disease and said "but what if it wasn't?"

[dragonmasque]

Trees evolved and lived and died and did not rot long, long before the organisms that can break down and metabolize their corpses ever came along.

And now, humans are working with fungi that can safely break down petroleum plastics, and with techniques that allow us to actually recycle these materials.

The world is full of difficulties... Medical, mechanical, environmental, so much more. But the world is also full of change, and humans are capable of working with that change purposefully, intelligently, cumulatively across time and populations. There is always a value in trying, in learning, in making an effort or building a community. Even if we don't succeed, every effort helps build the support for the thing that will, even if we can't always see how.

We owe it to those who did the best they could with what they had then, to do the best we can with what we have now, so that those who will come after us will have even better, more useful, more humane tools for the problems they will face. Who knows what we can accomplish together, for each other, when we don't give up?

[loveridden1999]

i hope something good happens to me. i hope something good happens to you too. i hope something good happens to all of us soon

[bottlezap]

Visit Original Link

for anyone who might need a little valentine encouragement today

[liminalbeauty]

Holy crap.

[artphobos]

WELP, that ends my account.

[thelittlenoctua]

Qobuz is the most ethical alternative to spotify and even tidal (tidal is just pandora radio in a different font; you can't curate playlists, which i absolutely fucking hate, but you can curate playlists on qobuz, and the royalties they pay to their artists are far larger than spotify) that i've been able to find, thanks to this post on instagram by singer-songwriter laura burhenn. the post also lists other alternatives, including tidal, but qobuz is by far the best of the lot. they even have a free feature called soundiiz where you can transfer all of your playlists from spotify to qobuz!

[liminalbeauty]

Worth a reblog for this great info.

[nonglukest]

KHEMJIRA | EP. 10

[simpleenthusiast]

@daggertongue

this feels up your alley

[sergle]

are you guys hearing about this dude working to developing a vaccine for cats that he's hoping would like. theoretically double their lifespans?

[sergle]

turns out i wasn't making that up, his name is Dr. Toru Miyazaki! he also wrote a book called "The Day Cats Live To Be Thirty", so cats are kind of his thing.

apparently, cats' kidneys tend to be the thing that takes them down, something about their bodies being unable to self-clean their kidneys, and the vaccine is supposed revitalize the body's ability to do just that. It would be very VERY fucking cool to have cats suddenly reaching 30 years of age be the normal thing.

Could the macrophage-derived protein AIM save cats from kidney disease?

As they age, almost all cats develop kidney disease, from which they eventually die. Just as in humans, kidney disease i

Cat Kidney Disease Cure Nears Reality: Dr. Toru Miyazaki’s AIM Therapy

Dr. Toru Miyazaki’s AIM injection for cat kidney disease enters trials in 2025, aiming for a 2027 release. Greycoat Research supports the sc

[moki-dokie]

whoa wait i actually read the articles and it's so much cooler than just that!!

dude cracked the case about WHY kidneys fail, across the board as far as i can tell. turns out there's a specific molecule whose job it is to attach to waste and signal macrophages to come eat it. it remains inactive in cats for some reason, but the molecule is still there. basically what he's done is found the switch to activate them. this will be profound not only for our domestic babies, but for big cats too - especially cheetahs!

although his research was focused on cats, it's already being used to develop drugs for humans too!

on top of that, since these molecules are tags for waste, this could also dramatically lower the rate of fatty liver disease, liver cancer, urinary crystals, rheumatoid arthritis, and even some neurological cases! like, they're hoping it may have an impact on parkinson's and alzheimers, but it DOES have an impact on stroke recovery. like. holy shit.

furthermore, he's insisting that the feline drug be affordable if and when it rolls out onto the market. he wants this to be something anyone can get for their cat!! idk how much sway he'll have over the human drug, but hopefully enough that it, too, won't be that expensive.

annnnnd in his research that he's still doing for the human side of things, he's found a potential link between this molecule and estrogen. in the 20,000 samples he's tested, women between ages 10 and 29 had the highest amount of this molecule present in their blood (a higher amount means Something Fucky is going on, essentially. There's a higher amount of waste the body is trying to clean out) but it drops down to be almost equal amongst men and women after menopause. it hasn't been looked into yet, but fuck, just the fact it's noted and known and probably WILL be looked into soon??? imagine if this is what leads to figuring out all the various ways the ovaries and uterus fucks with people and how to fix it. or even like, maybe there's something about estrogen that makes it work better. who knows! but it's rad the link is there to be researched :D

man just think, not only could our kitties start living longer, healthier lives, but just maybe dialysis will become as rare and obsolete as the iron lung is for people. what a badass Dr. Toru is!

[fluxxdog]

"But I don't want to turn people into dinosaurs. I wanna cure kittie kidneys!"

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

I’m sorry but if there is one thing the Tumblr left needs crucially, it’s the ability to celebrate.

I remember when marriage equality was called and there were waves of rainbows and love wins posts. When we successfully defeated Donald Trump, there was lukewarm relief, a reminder that you were only allowed one or maybe two days to celebrate and then it was back to work. That is if you were even a good person for voting Biden. We never did settle if he was better than Trump. (We did.). We didn’t celebrate student loan debt relief or any of the accomplishments of the Biden administration, or any of the times Trump was blocked, or other countries succeeding in keeping fascists out of office. Who cares if we had successes? It’s not good enough. Back to work!

And this anti-celebratory attitude stretches back to the past. On the 100th anniversary of female suffrage in America, we were reminded that not all women had the vote and so we weren’t allowed to celebrate. The only post I saw about Juneteenth was reminding us that there were enslaved people who were killed instead of freed and therefore celebrating the end of chattel slavery was wrong, and besides, we have prison labor so nothing really changed or got better and there’s nothing to celebrate anyway. Trans Day of Visibility comes with Trans Day of Remembrance so that people don’t fill the tags with hate crimes and death. So on and so forth. Nothing gets better. Nothing changes. Back to work!

So of course when we have a major setback, we fall apart and have to start frantic damage control. Frantic discourse ensues over how much people are allowed to unplug before it becomes bad and selfish. Yes, maybe you can have this one day off Mr. Cratchit but you better be here and miserable early the next morning. Like abusive bosses always insisting you squeeze out more, more, more, and any achievement is just proof you were lazy the other times and impetus for more work.

If we are never allowed to acknowledge any of our victories, how are we supposed to survive our defeats?

[copperbadge]

On Saturday I said to my partner, as I have said for months, "A ten thousand dollar a year raise would solve so many of my problems."

As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don't want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.

As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I'm going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can't even.

May all of you get the $10K raise your soul has yearned for. And whatever level of sex you can be satisfied with for $200.

[vergess]

hey bestie i think ur post might be charmed 'cause you aren't gonna fuckin believe what happened today

[queeranarchism]

One of my pet peeves is when people describe cave-dwelling homo sapiens or even late hunter-gatherers with only names like 'grug' and 'ogg'. They're homo sapiens! They have the same brains and mouth and vocal cords that we do.

The earliest name we know from oral history is an Egyptian king named Iry-Hor, the earliest name we have written down is a Sumerian accountant called Kushim. The earliest known author is a Sumerian priestess named Enheduanna. Another name we have from that period is Enmebaragesi. I probably forgot some other beautiful names in this directly-from-wikipedia list. We can't look further back, but there is nothing to suggest that we were less capable of giving each other beautiful complex names.

Why does this matter? Because the idea that we as a species are constantly becoming superior is bullshit and is tied up closely with a lot of very harmful ideologies (capitalism, eugenics and fascism, to name a few). We're not becoming a superior species. We're passing on information and inventing more stuff and figuring out how to live longer, but those are social processes, they come from humans taking care of each other and valuing the preservation and free exchange of knowledge. They don't come from being fundamentally better than our ancestors, we're not.

[headspace-hotel]

This is true and you should say it.

[sophie-frm-mars]

I would like to add to this that there are people alive now called Greg

[the-haiku-bot]

I would like to add

to this that there are people

alive now called Greg

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[fxlthyangxl-deactivated20240122]

website

[hesbythecampfire]

StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that everyone should benefit from technology, free from harm. Founded in 2000, SWGfL works with a number of partners and stakeholders around the world to protect everyone online

Sounds legit

[songue85]

StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that all should benefit from technolog

[nosferatusnoopy]

everyone reblog this!!

[oflightningandstars]

"actively hungry" + "none of the foods sound good at all" is one of the worst combinations. who let this happen

[rvllybllply2014]

Love this so much

[robinade]

the practical magic musical looks great

[sffan]

well this fucking bangs

[joeyclaire]

? did ao3 change its url or something??

[joeyclaire]

who is this…

[artistic-arteries]

That's a fake site that has been Google's #1 search result for ao3 for a few weeks now. Don't log in, don't make an account, leave the site immediately, report the search result

Here's a link to the correct site, bookmark it and warn others about this

[joeyclaire]

THANK YOU I KNOW NOW 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[corporationsarepeople]

[katelyn-danger]

And then the 'Real' cops show up and arrest you for obstructing ICE. In what suburbanite liberal fantasy land is someone calling the cops to arrest another cop going to work?

[because-im-freaking-greed]

You give them too much credit for unity and coordination. Whenever things take too long or seem like they'll be too much work, ICE just give up and try to find an easier target. It's not about the cops actually helping you, it's about making the gestapo wannabe think that the cops are gonna help you.

Also, given cops' tendency to shoot first ask questions never, it's not infrequent that they'll show up to a scene and just open fire on the military cosplayers. This isn't good for obvious reasons, but can provide an opportunity for you to get away.

Don't present these situations as hopeless- that's just doing free propaganda for the enemy. It's bad, but these fuckers are near-unanimously incompetent individualists barely capable of the teamwork required to lift a couch.

[3liza]

normally i am fully blackpilled on this blog about cops, so understand im not speaking from a white liberal never-been-arrested standpoint here: im actually inclined to agree that if you cant run or try any other tactics, calling the local pigs in to an ICE raid may not be a terrible idea, and is unlikely to make anything worse, and i will explain why in a readmore because its kind of boring

especially if you are not the target of the raid (ie, if you're white and "respectable"-passing). and i agree with the reasons ^^ this person mentions, having seen it happen irl at protests where different agencies all arrive at the same time and basically get in each others' way, fight over who gets to do various things, fight over who is allowed to harass "their" civilians, get more and more pissed off dealing with paperwork, etc etc. they are capable of cooperating but usually dont unless theyre all on the same operation for a long time. this person is also 100% correct that ICE has been making a habit of abandoning raids that didnt have soft targets. i dont know if they'll continue to do so, but i think that if they *wanted* the local pigs to be there, ICE would already have notified the locals in advance to provide backup. cops never miss a chance to get overtime or arrest civilians, and if i had to guess i would guess that local precincts are fuming that ICE gets to have all the fun. it's unlikely in the extreme that any local pig will *help* targets of an ICE raid, however it is a legitimate possibility that they will get in the way, delay, or distract them, at least that's my impression of the current state of things. it may change if trump wises up and starts organizing better, but right now i think it could be effective. i dont know for sure, no one does

"making a big stink" is a valid tactic even if you are fully expecting the local cops to ideologically agree with ICE. it also creates a public record that Something Is Happening, which can have various benefits legally or if not that, then historically.

"these fuckers are near-unanimously incompetent individualists barely capable of the teamwork required to lift a couch" <<< this is absolutely true, and differet branches of emergency services hate each other. cops hate firemen, firemen hate EMS, and everyone hates feds, etc. so in conclusion yeah if you happen to find yourself with your hand on your phone and directly involved in a raid, might as well give it a shot

[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!