it's personal discussion
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~Look Down, You're Talking to Your Highness~[R]
Oh no, it was just horrible timing in terms of current events. Mom said she felt bad because it could've made more than enough back but it just came out at the worst time. So they quickly pulled it from theaters and placed it on Disney+
Mom had to tell me what ‘star-sixty-nine’ was and then she looked at me like she didn’t know who I was anymore lol
“This is the very first time in history quarantines have been in place on such a national scale. Before people just went about their day and spread diseases everywhere!”*The mass quarantines that resulted due to cholera, measles, strep throat, polio, and Spanish flu would like to have a word with you*
I remember telling Mom that I was excited for the rebranding of American Girl but also a bit wary when they said they’d focus more on the fashion aspect of the line and not the historical aspect. But at the same time they are fashion dolls so on the surface there’s nothing wrong with wanting to explore that aspect more as long as the historical stuff was always at the center since they are called American Girl after allThe rebranding introduced a new character representing the fifties and as I don’t know anything about the fifties as well as her being new I was excited to read her books
However after I did so I felt like I learned absolutely nothing about the era and the book didn’t even explain anything. Normally they have a small picture on the side to explain an unfamiliar term; there’s a scene where she wears a crinoline under her skirt for skirt to make it puffier but they didn’t explain what that was. Yes I know what it is but would the target demographic know? The history section was just a page or two at the end basically just regurgitating commonly-known stuff about the era
The books themselves felt very stripped-down and empty compared to the others. This was the story of a young girl living her life in essentially a bubble. Yes I know this is a kids’ series and even barring that the main characters themselves are nine-ten-eleven. However there are things kids are consciously aware of in terms of current events. The other books seemed so daring to ‘go there’ when it came to historical events. I remember Nellie telling Samantha about watching a girl in the factory she worked in get her long hair ripped off by a machine. I remember Molly never taking the war seriously and finding it a far-away nuisance on every day life until an English girl has to live with them and she learns of the Blitz. I remember Rebecca’s family being forced to immigrate to America to escape religious prosecution. I remember Kit barely having enough to eat and her dad lying about finding work when in reality he just ate at the soup kitchens. I remember Caroline having to sneak through enemy-lines to rescue her kidnapped father, Mary-Grace and Cecile having to work together as their friends and family grew sick, I remember Kristen’s close friend dying from cholera, I remember Addy having to escape from slavery. I don’t remember anything from Mary-Ellen’s story aside from a few specific details
But more than that I remember their personalities. Kit is a troublemaking hothead who has a big sense of pride and loves writing. Samantha is a rambunctious tomboy with a big imagination who loves dreaming of fanciful and beautiful places. Rebecca is playful and dreams of being a movie star but also has a sense of pride on her family’s traditions. All I know about Mary-Ellen is that she feels lost in her big family
Now I remember some stuff and there was stuff that I liked about her books because they were the closest I felt to an original American Girl book that’d teach me about an era. I liked how she was sick with polio when she was younger and thus for her birthday decides to try and raise money for polio research. I really liked that because it was relevant to the time. I also loved the scene of her ice-skating during Christmas and learning how to do it in spite of her disability. But that’s basically all I got. There were barely any pop culture references which I felt was one of the book’s biggest shortcomings. The fifties was when TV came out and thus people could watch shows and have more in common with each other. Same with popular music. Mary-Ellen has several older sisters and brothers but not a one ever mentions a popular music artist from the time. Disney was experiencing a rebirth at this time with stuff like Peter Pan and Cinderella and the opening of Disney Land but that’s never mentioned. They don’t get into the politics either like the other books do and it’s true the books are light on that but they do exist. I don’t even think this book mentions who was President at the time. No mention of the Red Scare or the Cold War at its height in the 50’s? How kids back then were trained to hide under their desks if a nuclear strike happened? No Sputnik the first item sent into space? They do make an attempt in the second book where Mary-Ellen befriends an Italian girl at her school and everyone shuns her for it and I thought that was stupid. Maybe if the book bothered to have a history lesson in the back like they used to I’d have learned if this was an actual thing or not but as it is I’ve never heard of it so. They tell her to dislike her because the Italians were in the Axis during WW2 and I just find that hard to believe. She should’ve been a Japanese girl, who were experiencing terrible prejudice from the war, or Russian or Chinese which were communist at the time and heavily distrusted by the American public. But Italian? Really?
The books were a watered-down version of what makes the series so good and I bet this is what people unfamiliar with the books think they’re all like. Fluffy frothy fluff that uses the time period as a mere backdrop aesthetic to tell the life of a boring little girl.
However I still do have hopes for their two newest characters; one is a girl living in Hawaii shortly before Pearl Harbor and the other is a black girl living in Detroit during the Civil Rights Movement. The designs are great and the books seem to be written by people with a huge understanding of the period. I can only hope so at least because being unflinching yet hopeful in their portrayal of American history is what the series used to be so good at. Yes they are fashion dolls for little girls but that doesn’t have to be their only claim to fame. But if we keep getting stories like Mary-Ellen’s it might as well be
My brothers won’t go to school for the rest of the year The library likely won’t even be open for the summer
I haven’t touched a real computer since the thirteenth of March
Every time I lock myself in the house for weeks and months on end I get violently physically ill. Once I couldn’t even walk without excruciating pain and I could barely drink water
God I can’t keep living like this
I literally want to die
message 16507:
by
Elizabeth ♛Smart Girls Love Trashy Books♛
(last edited Apr 06, 2020 02:12PM)
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Mom’s really going to scold me for exercising too loudly? Like exercise in general is loud. What does she want me to do? I refuse to get fat during quarantine. Normally around this time of year I usually go jogging and walking but
What were you doing?
Mom suggested that since we have all this extra time on our hands we should pick a random movie star and watch everything they’re in and I deliberately tried to mess with her by picking really weird roles but it backfired because she loves weird movies
What kind of stuff did you pick?
I picked Keenau Reeves and she said unironically ‘what a great choice!’
Hunter (Totally NOT a communist ☭) wrote: "What were you doing?"Sit-ups/curl-ups, jogging in place, and a lot of dancing. I usually dance anyway but not as much because again I usually can walk. But now I’m dancing for at least two and a half straight hours every other day. There’s lots of videos teaching you
2 1/2 hours *straight* seems like...not the best idea. Methinks you should be taking breaks during that time but hey, I'm no fitness trainer.
You can take breaks
You said *straight* :P
I didn’t mean it like that :P I take breaks
We’re expected to get a bunch of storms some severe tomorrow and Wednesday and at first I was confused as to why until I remembered it’s April AKA spring I’ve been cooped up for so long I genuinely forgot seasons were still a thing
Mom said my aunt and her boyfriend are sick with it and that's why she hasn't been sleeping very well lately
Yeah and I've been giving my mom a hard time lately trying to talk to her and arguing with my brothers. I should've known and left her alone
I mean if you didn't know until now you didn't know
I still should've been more considerate somehow, she only found out this afternoon I think but this morning I was bothering her when I shouldn't have been
I’m so glad I’m not a senior at this time. My high-school graduation was the only graduation I ever got and no amount of compensation would ever calm me down having missed such an important milestone in my life
My brother is a senior this year. Mom is still planning to do a graduation.
I don’t think my parents would care. My middle brother is a senior and Mom has said nothing about making up for his missed graduation
I don't think my brother cares too much :D she seems more passionate about it than him
My brother would be upset he missed graduation since he has this huge thing about always trying to one-up me
Honestly it feels like I’m being punished for something I didn’t do; I can’t use the computer or go outside
Mom asked for suggestions for RPing sites and I really did try my best but I felt like there was only so much I could do because she’s incredibly picky and specifically kept asking for places where partners wouldn’t leave you as if I have any control over that. I gave her decent suggestions but she just refuses to stop being so snobby for once and look around. If she wants to have extremely deep, detailed, lore-filled RPs about her own world and characters then she needs to stick with her best friend because the rest of the RP world doesn’t care about that
message 16530:
by
Elizabeth ♛Smart Girls Love Trashy Books♛
(last edited Apr 07, 2020 03:19PM)
(new)
I see a lot of those TikTok POVs for cosplay where the person is comforting you after getting kicked out of a meet-up or photo shoot for one reason or another like not looking like the character or ‘we already have one of this character’ and they honestly make me feel more depressed because I just know that I’d spend a ton of money to make my cosplay look as accurate as possible and go super excited to my first con and someone there will insult me and I’ll likely sit in a corner and cry and nobody will come over and comfort me because likely nobody will even notice me there and I’d have spent my very first con crying in a corner because of some jerkwad and I know that’ll happen because that’s my luck and it’s happened to me a lot when I was younger and thus I know it’ll happen again
Our power surged even though it’s a super sunny day out that can’t be good
Mom said this is going to be one of the only times she’s not able to cook Easter dinner
One of the only times?*Forgot Easter was a thing*
She’s cooked it every year for as long as I can remember
Controversial opinion but can we just lock everyone who refuses to get a vaccine for coronavirus in a tiny room and just let them get sick and die? Like if they wanna act like it’s the eighteenth century fine but let the rest of us live like it’s the twenty-first century. Do your part and flatten the curve
Why can't she? They didn't close grocery stores, did they?
I second thatIf the virus isn't dangerous I'm sure you'd have no issue being smothered in it!
Well she’s already been to the grocery store and she was told she’s not allowed back for two weeks
Like seriously I was reading a thing that said those people will make the disease go on for far longer than it needs to. Like this isn’t fucking whooping cough or the measles or even chickenpox this is like an actual fucking global pandemic and your ignorance and holier-than-thou attitude is going to kill and sicken a bunch of innocent people And anti-vaxxers in this group can fucking fight me on this(I don’t think there are any but you never know)
Oof. At least this time it's something beyond her control and not her deciding she doesn't want to?Yeah, one of my coworkers said someone asked him where his facial mask was and he went on a rant about how he doesn't want to wear a mask and shouldn't have to and I want to throw a chair at him. His selfish, edgy behavior could get people killed.
I don't want bad things to happen to these people but they need a big slap in the face from reality.
She actually wanted to cook dinner she finds it fun Nah there’s some people who should have bad stuff happen to them. I’m sorry but there’s a point where turning the other cheek won’t work, actual hurtful people need to be taught a lesson
I mean I’m not vaccinated for chickenpox because when I was born babies weren’t vaccinated for it and I spent my childhood under the shadow of possibility that I could get sick and die from it because I was young. I had to see all those crying toy posters and it probably screwed me up badly. In fifth grade we had an outbreak of chickenpox and we got papers sent home talking about it and I asked my parents if I could get vaccinated then and I don’t remember their answer but needless to say I’m still not vaccinated for it. And I’m still worried over it because I hear adult chickenpox is worse than child chickenpox
I didn't mean turn the other cheek. I meant like, I don't WANT them to get sick, lose their job, go bankrupt and become homeless but sometimes that's what it takes to get someone to realize that "get a better job you lazy bum" is terrible adviceWait adult chickenpox or shingles?
Adult chickenpox
My lunch today is an eleven-year-old's dream; Hi-C pizza Doritos fruit snacks and Go-Gurt
Mom wanted to watch a video related to Percy Jackson but then I had to sit down and watch it with her because she saw the thumbnail of Percy and asked if that was Hades
Wait what?
It was a video where an artist was redesigning the Percy Jackson characters drawing them how they were described in the book and not the movie and Mom wanted to watch it but then I had to watch it with her because she thought the thumbnail was of Hades and not Percy Jackson and I can’t let such sacrilege slide
It made me mad how they made Hades look like Satan in the movie. Seriously?
Then afterwards she was like ‘but I wanted to see the kid of hades’ and I was like ‘they never made it that far in the movies’ lol
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I was wondering why it's already on Disney+