Hannah

Download signal if you haven't already. Pick a resistance pseudonym. Make a proton email that has no indicators to your real name. Start buying and printing whistles and whistle zines.

Organize your school patrols and foot patrols NOW. Talk to your community and your mercados and your Hmong and Somali grocery stores, ask them what support they need. Get "ICE are not welcome here" signage for businesses and homes. Familiarize yourself with the difference between an administrative warrant and a judicial warrant.

Learn how to take down a SALUTE report. PRACTICE salute reports. Learn, memorize, and embody radio etiquette for rapid response work.

Pick your lane: rapid response or mutual aid-- you can't do both, because rapid response often puts you in direct contact with ICE. They've been taking down plate numbers and leading responders back to their own homes here in the Twin Cities.

Remember that being under siege is a marathon, not a race. Try to remember that while your neighbors are being kidnapped in their underwear, from their own homes.

Meet your neighbors. Attend your city council meetings and demand separation ordinances NOW. Tell your congress people and representatives not to give ICE more money.

Prepare yourself to see high school children being stopped and harassed. 5 year olds being used as bait for their mothers. Old men being dragged out of their houses in underwear and Crocs simply because all of them are not white.

Be flexible, be ready to pivot on a dime as situations change. Be ready to be paranoid. Be ready to be distrusting of every Texas, New York, California, or Illinois license plate. Be ready to be suspicious of EVERY out of state license plate. Dark sedans and SUVs with extremely illegally tinted windows. Unreadable or missing plates.

MN Community Response Resources

ICE Are Not Welcome Here sign

Private Property Sign

Know Your Rights Sign

Judicial Warrant vs Administrative Warrant

SALUTE Report Graphic Rapid Response Patrol Handbook

Legal Observer Basics MSP Whistle Hub

Whistle 3D printing File

Talking to children about ICE actions

OG Whistle Zine in ENGLIGH || SPANISH

MSP whistles which also have zines in Somali, Amharic, Oromo and Mandrin

Hmong Whistle Zine

“ICE NOT WELCOME” signs are great for solidarity and breaking morale, but please make and help pass out signs stating a home or business is private property. Make sure your business has an area explicitly for employees only. What we’ve seen in the last week makes all this seem like sticking a post-it on a viper and none of us know where we’re headed now, but it’s easy to do and could make a difference. It’s made a difference here.

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.

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.

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:

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 learned a lot of my core beliefs from these girls.

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.

Since I have been obsessively drawing her, I thought I might as well make a proper ref sheet to make the process smoother. And possibly help others lol It is NOT super detailed. Just enough to help map out the ship. (I can already tell Tumblr is gonna nuke the quality so please click on the images and open in a new tab to see them better)

Room labeling of the Dormitory area and Mental Health Room is purely guess work.

Credit to this wonderful video showing off the centrifugal system, for the closer look of the model that made this possible/easier, especially for the actual crew space.

Barry: hm-Wha?

Iris: Someone is in our house!

Barry: Is it Wally?

Iris: No, he's still on that space mission.

Barry: Okay. Stay here. I'll go check it out. *Picks up bat* If you hear me shout Code 16 use our home invasion plan delta.

Iris: Okay.

Barry walking through the dark house until he sees a light in the kitchen: AH-HA!

Danny eating out of the open fridge: Hmm-whaa!?

Barry: Wait a minute, you're just a kid. What are you doing?

Danny: I'm sorry! I was hungry! I didn't know anyone was home, but I swear I didn't mean any harm!

Barry: I see. How long has it been since you last had food?

Danny: I don't know.

Barry: Really?

Danny sniffing: I'll leave, I'm sorry. Please don't call the cops.

Barry putting the bat down: Leaving before my one am meal? You can't! Stay, I could use the company.

Danny: ....one am meal?

Barry: Yeah, I can whip us up some pizzas. *turning to yell* IRIS, IT'S ALL GOOD. GO BACK TO BED. I'M GOING TO EAT

Iris: OKAY! ENJOY!

Danny: Um?

Barry: I have pepperoni, sausage or plain cheese. Which do you prefer?

Danny: Wait. Are you really going to make me pizza?

Barry: Well, it's frozen pizza. It takes about 15 minutes in my toaster oven, but trust me, it's the best brand. My nephew swears by it. My name is Barry, by the way, what's yours?

Danny: I...Ugh I'm Danny.

Barry: Nice to meet you Danny. You want to crash here after we eat?

Danny: What?

Barry: Spend the night here. A nap after eating always feels best.

Danny: ....what?

A few hours later Barry slipping back into bed: Iris.

Iris: Hmm?

Barry: I've adopted a son. His name is Danny. He's fifteen, meta, and running from his parents. Sweet thing. He took over the guest room, so now when we have guests stay over, they have to sleep on the pull-out couch.

Iris half alseep: Sounds good. Does he have your eyes?

Barry: Yeah surprisingly he does. I tucked him into bed.

Iris: That's nice.

Rocky and Adrian sleeping dynamics before and during the astrophage mission