#could i probably just look at the wig care part of my textbook? also yeah

[strwbrryvagabond]

wanted to get on here and yap about American Girl for some reason today

I'm far from a brand loyalist, and honestly, I was shocked I didn't grow up with the off-brand dolls you could get at Walmart or Target since I grew up poor until recently when my mom informed me that I would save money up for months and months at a time so that I could buy the dolls, and my parents only even actually purchased one for my birthday once we started to do a bit better financially, and after they saw how much I loved and took care of the dolls

I bought accessories for them myself as well, both from the actual company and from other brands like Target and Walmart ones, and even paid my mom to order me a bunk bed for them off of Etsy or something because I was so distraught that they didn't all have their own beds.

Anyways, I know brands are bad and stuff, and American Girl is not without faults and controversies, but tbh those dolls really shaped me as a kid, like I intentionally bought Rebecca Rubin as my first doll when I was a kid after seeing her in a catalog that we got sent by mistake because she was Jewish and looked like me. I had never seen a doll or character, or pretty much anything at that age who was Jewish like me and looked like me, and she wanted to be an actress, and at the time, I also wanted to act

I took that doll very literally everywhere, half the pictures of me from that age, she's tucked under my arm in a different outfit, her hair as well taken care of as I could manage for being so little. I accidentally messed up one of her curls while trying to fix her hair, and I cried for like a solid half an hour until my mom helped me fix it. even after I got other dolls, all of which I still loved and took care of religiously, Rebecca was the one who came everywhere with me

I'd already been a big reader before that, which is a whole other post, but I devoured those books, and I totally blame them for my current love of learning history and historical fiction. and the different dolls were all depicted as activists and feminists, and do not get me wrong here (I say on the 'taking things out of context' website) they were far from perfect with their diversity and activism, like oh jeez they did some very questionable things sometimes, but for the early 2000s and 2010s? revolutionary

the store closest to me closed a little before my birthday last year. I didn't know that it was even happening, and honestly probably still wouldn't have known if I hadn't been shopping with my friends at that mall like two weeks before my birthday since that was the only day we could all make work. Despite not having touched my dolls in a while, everything was super on sale, and I had been planning on taking Rebecca to college with me, so I figured I might buy her an outfit or something.

while the store was pretty ransacked, I was shocked and, no joke, teary-eyed over how many things they had for different cultures, different religions, and how many little girls I saw in there with big starry eyes looking at a doll that looked like them

I ended up buying a Channukkah outfit, and one of the friends I was with convinced me to, against my nature, let them buy a Lunar New Year outfit for me as well, which almost made me cry again. What really did it was seeing one of the previous Girls of the Year, Corrine Tan. Oh my gosh if they had had her when I was a little girl, she would've gone right beside Rebecca with how obsessed I was with her. I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but as a kid, I LOVED Mulan, and when I went to Disney World and the dress up boutique they had, I was DEVASTATED that they didn't have a Mulan costume. I latched onto her so hard for a very similar reason that I latched onto Rebecca so hard; because even though she wasn't the same ethnicity as me, Mulan was Asian, and so am I. I wore out I think three burned copies of that movie I watched it so often

I'm just weirdly sadder than I expected that American Girl is closing so many stores and not making as many sales I guess. I'm really fighting being a brand loyalist right now, because there are about a million other brands that make super similar dolls that I'm sure little kids all over loved, it's just always stuck with me that they at least seem to care about representation in the stories they make for these dolls

I mean, it clearly impacted me growing up, and I think it was for the better. I remember reading Addy's book being one of the first times I was exposed to the idea of children being slaves because they obviously didn't talk about that in an elementary school in the 2010s. I really just wanted to get all of my thoughts out, I've been thinking about it a lot recently since I took Rebecca to college, and I've now been hearing stories from girls who see her in my room about what doll or what toy shaped them as a child. Very excited to dress her up for Channukkah when it comes around, and tbh I've been looking for more outfits for her online. I just want her to be something I take with me throughout my life I guess. I mean, I took her everywhere when I was little, so it kinda feels wrong not to take her with me on this super big part of my life.

yeah anyways uh, if you had one of these dolls go... idk kiss em on the forehead or something. remind the toys that shaped you that you love them for what they did for you and all that. yap session over

[thenerdytomboynewb96]

Samantha Allan Park Ch. #5

Chapter #5

All week I had been trying to read the documents that were held on the flash drive, and every time I began to read anything, my computer was hacked by whoever was on the other side. I basically had to run every time I finally got everything set up and started. Tonight was the last chance I really had to view anything on that drive. I had visited all the locations I been brought to except for the university that Jay attends, and I was running out of disguises. I didn’t know anything about make-up except for how to make my skin look lighter or darker with concealers and foundation, and I had basically used all my wigs and contacts. Since tonight was my last chance, I decided to just go as me. I had a feeling some type of confrontation was coming soon anyways because of how fast this person had been hacking into whatever computer I was using. Their speed and skill made it clear that they were catching up to me, so tonight I made sure to dress appropriately for a fight.

I wore a sporty gray t-shirt underneath a black zip up jacket, denim colored jeggings, and black tennis shoes. Tonight, just like the past few nights, I carried a backpack on my back where on the inside I was sandwiching my tonfa in between a few AP textbooks, and on an outside holder on the back was holding my skateboard, which at the moment was condensed into one thin rod that could extend when a button was pressed. This way I looked like I was just an everyday college student while at the same time I was prepared to defend myself. I also made sure to wear my ring with the blade inside just to be safe. I also had a small pouch inside the bag that had the basics: phone, keys, etc.

It was about nine at night when I left my apartment. Jay was meeting up with some friends to work on a project for one of his classes and told me that he wouldn’t be home until sometime tomorrow afternoon, so I was free to leave and come back home whenever. I decided to take advantage of this and leave later in the day than usual in order to try and mix up when I was leaving to go view these documents. I even skipped school yesterday and still the hacker was ready and waiting for me, and they even stole back some of their documents. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the flash drive after tonight. Maybe I would plug it into a random computer somewhere and just give this person back their information. It was interesting, but it didn’t seem like anything illegal or anything that I would want to hold onto.

Theme: Skillet (Feel Invincible) Skillet (Resistance)

I walked out the back door of the building and made sure it closed all the way and locked. I began walking down the alley when I heard a noise, the sound of something falling. I stopped and stood still, I thought that this might happen. From what I heard, the sound came from further behind me down the opposite side of the alley. I couldn’t tell if this person was by themselves, or if there were multiple people. Luckily, there was a manhole cover a few steps away from where I was. I took a breath, let it out, and darted forward. I picked up the cover and launched it behind me. I don’t know who it was, but I heard a male voice say “Whoa!” and then saw a large dark figure duck and dodge the cover. I wasn’t able to get a good look at the guy because I was already sliding down the ladder that lead into the sewers.

At this point I was just running blind, trying to remember the paths I had gone down this same time last week and trying to avoid them since that would lead me right back to where this person was staying. Hopefully, the further I was away from their main home location, the safer I would be. Right now I was mentally thanking my coach for making us run so many laps and hills during practice, because right now all that training was really paying off.

My main problem was that I had no idea where I was. None of these tunnels seemed familiar, but hopefully that meant I was nowhere near where their base was. Suddenly, I saw some light coming in from the top right side of the wall.  I ran over and looked up through the sewer drain and saw that I must have been under a road near one of the quieter parts of town. I lifted up the drain cover and looked around. I was at a street that was surrounded by small local shops and food markets. No wonder it was so quiet, no one shopped at these places this late on a Friday night.

I went into my bag and pulled out my phone and pulled up a GPS system. I typed in the name of the first street I saw and realized I was actually pretty far away from where I had started running. I then checked the time and saw that it was now 9:20. Dang, I ran pretty far within that amount of time. I put my phone away as I was mentally bragging about how proud I was of myself. In doing so, I had lost my focus, and because of this ridiculous screw up, I hadn’t realized that I was being watched.

I heard the sound of something fly through the air, and the next thing I knew, all the street lights had been blown out. If I had been focused then I would have been prepared for what came next. I went to reach for my tonfa when I heard someone shout “wait, no!” and that fast everything went dark.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I heard some faint noises as my eyes started to open, or at least they tried to open, why couldn’t I open my eyes? As my senses started to come back, I realized that I was wearing a blindfold. I made sure to keep completely still so that whoever had hit me wouldn’t realize that I was beginning to wake back up. I tried to listen carefully to what was going on around me. “You could have been a lot gentler dude.” “She threw a manhole cover at your face! What twiggy girl has the strength to do that?! And her accuracy to! She threw it so fast and her aim was so spot on I actually thought it was gonna hit you!” “Aww you do care.” “Now is not the time for jokes you little-” “Enough! We need to figure out how we’re going to handle this.” “Yeah, since not using force sure worked well, right fearless?” “Oh, and please share how you punching her in the jaw worked out as a much better plan for us.” “Yea man, no wonder she wanted to run away.” “She ran away BEFORE she even saw us, she was never going to handle the situation peacefully!”

So far I had heard three different voices talking. It seemed that the voices were coming from behind me, so my back must have be facing my kidnappers. I felt a bit of a rocking, so I assumed I was in some kind of vehicle, probably the van I had seen in their hideout the other night.

“Well no offense, but if someone hadn’t been goofing off then she never would have heard us in the first place and we could have handled the situation better.”

Okay, now there had been a total of four different voices, so four vs. one, fantastic.

Sam gently tried to move her wrists to see what she could get her hands on. When she moved them backward, she felt something soft. It felt like she was sitting on a couch. That was a bit odd, but then again, there was nothing normal about any part of this situation. It felt like there was just rope tied around her wrists, so she gently started to lean back some, as if her limp body was just moving slightly due to the fact that she was in a moving vehicle. Once her back was against the couch, she then began pushing her finger against the trigger on the ring. It took a few minutes, but finally the blade popped up. While the four voices continued arguing, Sam slowly began cutting away at the rope that kept her wrists bound together.

“So sir fearless, what’s the plan now?” “We take her back to the lair and we’ll talk to her there. I’ll decide what to do next based on how that goes.” “That’s it?!” “And what do you suppose we do then?” “Well first I saw we challenge her! Let’s see how she likes it when we throw shit her way! Then we keep questioning her until we get some answers!” “And if that doesn’t work?” “We go back to using force, that’s what lead us to finally capturing her!” “Well technically it was my planning tha-” “Yea yea I know that your genius is why we were able to track her down, but if we let her keep running then-” “Maaaaaaybe we could have actually talked to her?” “You have no right to talk since you’re the reason she got away in the first place!” “Whoa! Chill bruh……..okay maybe it was my fault a little bit, heh.” “A LITTLE BIT!? Are you seri-”

Before Raph could finish his sentence, he froze as he saw the girl that had been behind them stand up. She was facing the back of the van while Mikey sat in a chair against the back of the couch, so the two had their backs to each other. The girl’s arms were free, and as she stood up she swung her right leg around as she turned her hips to her left and rotated her whole body around. As she swung, her right foot went up in the air. She moved so fast that Raph couldn’t do anything to stop the girl from slamming her foot right against Mikey’s face. Now Raph was more furious than ever. Deep down he had thought that maybe things would have gone better if Mikey hadn’t accidentally slipped and dropped one of his nunchucks and startled the girl, but now all he believed was that this girl was pure scum. If she was really innocent, then she wouldn’t have just kicked his baby brother in the face.

“THAT’S IT!” Raph charged towards the back of the van, but right after Sam had attacked, she immediately turned, ripped of the blindfold, and ran towards the back of the vehicle. Before Raph could get to her, she had already opened the door and swung around to the other side.

Raph quickly backed up, not knowing how to react. He so badly wanted to chase this girl down, but at the moment they were on a highway, and if he wasn’t careful then someone might see him and his brothers through the opening in the back of the van. Luckily there were no cars behind them at the moment, but to Raph’s surprise, the girl was no longer hanging onto the back of the door anymore.

Once Sam had officially gotten out of the van, she tried reaching for the ledge of the roof of the vehicle. She swung herself to the side and was able to get her hand on the ledge. She then swung hard to the right and was able to also get her leg caught on the ledge as well. She carefully pulled herself up onto the top of the truck. Sam had no idea where she was or what to do when suddenly she saw that a refrigerator truck was driving towards them in the oncoming lane. She slowly began to stand up, preparing for a quick and risky leap.

“Donnie where’d she go!?” Leo began to panic as things continued to get out of hand. “I don’t know I haven’t seen her…yet.”

As Donnie was scanning his mirrors to see where the girl was, he saw a figure move from the top of their truck onto the ladder on the back of a larger truck passing by. Donnie stopped the vehicle and sat there staring at the mirror in shock. “She jumped” he said with a dropped jaw. “SHE JUMPED!?” Raph was beyond pissed. He couldn’t wait to start fighting this girl since obviously she had some strength to her and all night she had been asking for a fight. “Dang that chick has a good foot on her, sucks I learned that the hard way though. Ow!” Raph quickly got a cold soda can from the fridge in the back of the van and handed it to his brother. Mikey took the can and smiled. “Hey thanks man!” he said as he opened the can and started to take a sip. Raph flicked his brother on the back of the head. “It’s for you to put on your cheek not to drink!” He rolled his eyes and looked up towards his other two brothers in the front seats. “So how do we get her back now?” he snarled. “Don’t worry, I’m already tracking her coordinates based on the directions that truck is able to follow. A truck that size can only follow select routes coming up, and I know a short cut that will lead us to her.” And with that, the brothers sped away in the van, mentally preparing themselves for what could possibly come next. ______________________________________________________________________________

Once the truck had lead me back to the city, I jumped off at the first red light it stopped for. I winced from the pain in my foot. I was used to foot injuries, but wow that was a hard hit! It felt like I had just run up and kicked a bowling ball. I never expected the kick to hurt my foot anywhere near as much as it did, but luckily I could still walk on it, there were just some sharp pains when certain spots hit the ground. I had experienced similar feelings during some of my soccer games and the pain now was about the same as then, so I just needed to carefully keep walking it off and then I would be okay. Once I got onto the sidewalk, I immediately got my tonfa and put them in the side holders of my backpack, making sure that this time I would be prepared for an attack. I started walking down the sidewalk and looked around at the shops and street signs. I had been here before, but it had been a long while, so overall I was in unfamiliar territory. The next thing I knew, all the street lights went out again. Really? We were going through the exact same routine as last time? I stood completely still, waiting to hear any type of sound. It was incredibly quiet for what seemed life forever. I refused to move unless I heard any suspicious sounds, since running away the first time obviously was the wrong choice based on the conversation I had heard in the van. I now regretted making that decision, but at the time I just quickly reacted to what could have been a dangerous situation. How was I supposed to know whether these guys wanted to peacefully chat or not?

After what felt like years of waiting, I heard the slightest sound of footsteps coming from behind me. I instantly pulled out my tonfa and spun around in time to block what I assumed was an arm that was aiming to hit me in the back. I pushed off and slid backwards some while trying to keep my balance. I heard footsteps quickly coming towards me, but since I didn’t know what this person looked like, I had no idea where to aim a hit. For now I decided to try and fight defensively until I could gain any type of intel on what this person looked like or how they fought, or at least that WAS the plan until I heard what sounded like a sword being unsheathed. Shit, this was bad. I heard the swish from the movement of the blade coming from the right, so I dodged to the left and began to run. I had no idea what direction I was running in and tried to use my tonfa to feel around me so that I wouldn’t run into something.

I felt a wall on my right and just continued to run straight, hoping that it would lead me somewhere safe. Lucky me I ran into a dead end in a dark alley. Now I was really scared and was afraid of what my brother would do to himself if he found out I had been killed. I tried feeling around for anything I could throw and to my surprise I found a pile of bricks. I must have been near a construction zone of some type. I ran along the wall until I was in a corner, and once I heard footsteps again I began launching the bricks in that direction. I still couldn’t see, but I could hear the sound of the swords connecting with and breaking the bricks.  Wow, this guy had to have some muscle to him, and incredible strength in durability to the blades as well if he could actually break the bricks with his swings. I reached down for another brick, but I felt nothing. I kept moving my hands around on the ground as I began to panic, this couldn’t be the end for me already. I stood back up in order to defend myself, but it was too late. As soon as I was up I was hit on my temple, and once again everything went dark. ______________________________________________________________________________

As I started to gain consciousness, I felt a huge pain in the back of my head. I was really feeling the effects of getting hit in the face twice within about an hour.

I could tell that I had been blindfolded again, but this time my hands were bound with twist ties rather than with just rope. I could feel that I no longer had my ring on either, I figured that that was going to happen. I listened for the voices that I had heard earlier that night. I heard them, but they were very faint, hopefully meaning that they were further away from me than they were the last time I woke up. My surroundings were still and I thought I heard the sound of running water, so I assumed they had taken me back to their hideout. I couldn’t tell from sound alone where exactly I was located within the gigantic room, so I wasn’t sure what I should do. This time I woke up on my side rather than sitting upright, so I tried to gently move my legs around to see if there was anything I could feel that would give any type of clue as to where my location was. I also tried reaching my arms forward, since my hands had been twist tied in the front instead of the back. I couldn’t feel anything, so I rolled over and faced the other direction and tried again. My foot kicked against a wall, and when I tried to scoot back I hit another wall, so I was probably in one of the corner spots within the large space. My foot seemed to be feeling a little better now, so that was a good sign at least.

The water now sounded like it had been coming from behind me, so I was guessing, based on what I could remember from last week, I was probably in the corner that was almost directly across the room from where I had entered when I came here alone. I listened for the four voices again and they still seemed to be coming from farther across the room. As scared as I was of being punched again (I don’t know how much more of that I could take) I knew that I had to take this chance to escape. I was able to stand up by leaning and pushing off the walls. I lifted my arms upwards in a straight position over my head when I heard a rough male voice yell “OH COME ON! AGAIN!?” followed by loud footsteps coming closer towards where I was standing.

I then quickly and swiftly yanked my arms down, pulling my elbows in towards my sides as I did so, and was able to break the twist ties. I spun around and yanked off the blindfold as I tried to face my body in the direction that I was about to run to, but once the blindfold came off I stood there in shock.

Standing in front of me was a giant, intimidating, weapon holding…turtle?