#if these aren’t released as dolls i will be diying my own. I NEED THEM

[calmlb]

skk holding their younger selves excuse me while i sob 😭

source

adding Kyouka under the cut because i love her & she is just too cute 🥺😭

and here’s the rest of them <333

[little-raindrops-blog]

Things for littles or caregivers to do on sad days

Some of these might be weird but they all have explanations, bear with me. Also, they're not in any particular order, it's just a list for everyone

Clean your room- I know, I know, cleaning is no fun but most of the times when we're having sad days and aren't productive, we feel bad that we weren't productive. And if that doesn't happen to you, not only does it give your mind something else to think about but I guarantee you'll feel better once you're in a clean environment. And you can always listen to music

Make a nest or fort- Nests and forts or even a hiding place you might have in your Ikea shelf bed are perfect for sealing the outside world away. If you share a room, please ask your roommate to leave your fort alone and if they're not respective of that, nests are more discreet

Hug your stuffies- Yes, even you caregivers. You can have a stuffie as a caregiver, they're not just for littles. Some people have stuffies and don't even know what age regression is. But when you're sad, your stuffies get sad too so you guys have to hug until you feel better. If you have more than 1, be sure to rotate or hug more than 1 at once

Talk to your stuffie- Your stuffie is there to help YOU. That's YOUR comfort object so you can use them as your own personal therapist if you want (please try to get a real one if you need to, stuffies aren't great problem solvers). If you don't feel like talking, babble or have them read your mind

Eat yummy foods- If eating food doesn't help or food is the reason you're having a bad day or maybe you're sick, skip this part (though, please try to eat when you can). You can make soup or cereal or yogurt or Mac and cheese or chicken nuggets, whatever you want, it's your sad day. Don't eat too many sweets and try not to overstuff yourself

Drink plenty of liquids- It can be juice or water or milk (make sure to meet the 8-10 cups of water a day requirement). Soda probably isn't the best for little ones but caregivers, feel free as long as you're responsible. Definitely drink water if you've been crying to avoid dehydration headaches which brings me to my next point

Cry- I know what you're thinking but crying helps. You don't have to cry in front of anyone but if you feel like you have to, just let it out. Crying releases gross toxins that stress makes that could get you sick so it's scientifically proven that crying is good

Please please please take a break- Don't do ANY WORK. Unless it's something you enjoy as a hobby like diying pacifiers or making bracelets, don't do it. And don't do it to fill out any orders, you'll stress yourself out. If you feel like you need something to do to distract you, try coloring or playing out a fairytale with your dolls or racing trucks or building towers with blocks

Rest- Take a nap, try to get a full 8-10 hours of sleep, whatever you need to do to feel better. You don't even have to sleep, just relax

Take a bubble bath- Yes, it has to be a bubble bath. Shampoo or body wash can make bubbles if you don't have bubble bath solution. Add toys if you want to and can, some of your stuffies can even take baths with you (make sure they can by reading the tags). You can even add a face mask to make it more fun. Then, sink in and relax

[kyleisme14]

My trip to Area 51 - unedited

On Facebook, a kid from Bakersfield created an event. He uses his page, perfectly named, shitposting because my life is in shambles and makes 'storm area 51, they can't stop us all' and seemingly overnight a million people said that they would be attending. I did attend. Shitposting because my life is in shambles is inadvertent the most zeitgeist worthy name for this page. Shitposting is when you share terrible content that you know is bad just to get a reaction. You are sharing a low effort joke for the sense of connection from others.  Because my life is in shambles, this anonymous statement of personal vulnerability, I shall try and make a low effort attempt at connection. This is what our age is all about. We are doomed to be as connected and as isolated as possible. This had a chance of being a real life meme where we'd be isolated no longer.

The page became an immediate stronghold for memes. It adopted other internet jokes like Karens asking to see managers, Kyle's drinking monster energy drink for invincibility, and Naruto runners being faster than bullets, as ways of infiltrating the base. And also generated new ones about what people would find inside Area 51 like the 10th doctor to recommend a toothpaste or where my girlfriend wants to go for dinner or how we'd sneak in with a minivan but escape with a space ship. The killer meme was how once we 'free them aliens' we'd keep them as lovers and bang them so hard that we 'clapped them cheeks'. This was the low effort comedy that this meme page generated.

Was it a joke or would people actually go? At first I did not know why I needed to go to area 51, and everybody seemed to ask me. I failed to recruit any friends to join me on the quest, 7 hours driving to the infamous base. Most thought I was crazy for going. My brother told me to be safe. My sister thought I was joking, and called to counter my bluff. Whenever somebody said they couldn't go, I pittied them because I was sure they were going to miss something incredible and life affirming. I was excited because I had no idea what was going to go down, and nobody in the whole world did. I stopped at the army surplus. I thought we'd either see a humanitarian crisis like fyre fest or a government crackdown. Don't forget, 2 million people clicked GOING online, so even if 1% came that'd be 10,000 people to a town with a population of  1000. The airforce released a warning about 'raiding' active military bases being a bad idea and the use of deadly force being a possibility. Lincoln County, one of nevadas sleepiest, had to call in enough police to potentially break up a neo-woodstock.

I always wanted to go to area 51 since I first learned about aliens as a kid. When I asked the big question of are we alone in the universe? If there was an answer, if somebody had the evidence, if it was anywhere, it was stored at area 51.  UFO's and little green men were hiding somewhere in Nevada... at least according to pop mythology. In grade school I would check out the same book over and over from the library, about aliens and the search for exterterestrial life and the scientists who were looking at the stars. There was a spooky section about times aliens might have visited early humans based on cave paintings and statues. And then the next page was all about area 51, where the government did secret expirements on alien artifacts and maybe had a specimen. So I've been captivated since at least then. Area 51 represents a big secret. A mystery! And somebody powerful, a general or established congress person, knows and is keeping the answers from us. So as an anti-establishment, meme and alien lover, I was fascinated with this 'movement,' that would of 'raid the base'. I wanted to go and find out how many people like me were out there! Turns out I wasn't completely alone! But... for the ignorant... What is Area 51? I could never believe people weren't following the biggest BREAKING news of our lives. But for those out of the loop, Area 51 is an infamous hotspot for UFO lovers. It has a rich history in alien folklore. But here is the factual history: Nevada is almost all federal land. and it was used back in the day for nuclear testing. an original tourist attraction to Las Vegas was watching nuclear testing in the distance...

Some airforce commanders were flying around dropping bombs when they spied a dried lakebed next to a mountain, Groom Lake. They landed on it and found it to be a perfectly flat natural runway. Excellent for testing expiremental aircraft. The facility became known as  Area 51. And was where the airforce and Lockheed Corp developed the U-2 stealth bomber. They brought the best and brightest scientists and engineers to develop new aeronautics and weaponry for the US military. At the height of the Cold War, any foreign technology that was aquired would be brought to Area 51 to be tested and backwards-engineered. You can imagine Chinese reactors and Russian jets being taken apart and used by the best tinkerer's and best test pilots. People at the highest levels of classified access. Because if you are one of the folks who are handling stolen foreign items, you are so classified that your spouse isn't supposed to know what you do all day. Yes honey, I was testing out the Ruskies new fighter plane! They don't even know we have it! These were experts in aeronautics and weapons science who could decipher technology even if the instructions were in another language... so perhaps if the US government were to encounter any other 'foreign technology' of an unknown origin, maybe they'd  send it to Area 51 to be backwards engineered? That's the set up, those are the facts, the rest is conjecture and tinfoil hats stuff. Like unexplained phenomena,  military released sightings that definitely aren't weather baloons and general mysticism. Do you believe in aliens or not?

If you believe that it's more likely that our government would keep aliens a secret than releasing that information to the public... welcome to the club! If not, do some reading. As I drove across the desert, down lonesome roads and through one horse towns, I realized what I was doing. I was driving into the middle of nowhere, likely to stand around doing nothing... and boy was I excited. My plan was to go and maybe film something and if that didn't work out I'd put on an alien costume and hold a sign. I figured that there'd be a bunch of cameras and I could use it to collectively protest all sorts of wrongs in the world. One of the initial reacitons to the playful event was, 'hey there are more imporant places to raid! why not raid the border detention centers, why not congress, why not the oil companies?' To which I say, hell yes... but that's not shitposting. That's being earnest and noble. This was about being ironic and part of a joke. This was about chasing an internet meme into the ground and disecting it until all that was left was the human connection. I had a sign and costume and figured that even if nobody showed up at least news organizations would be covering it.  The sign I held said, Peace on earth ain't coming from outer space, and I really believe that. We shouldn't expect peace to come from somewhere else in the universe, it has to start right here at home, inside each of us. I wanted to get that message out. The day of the event, due to classic internet decentralization, people debated whether the raid meet up (located at the Area 51 gate) should be at 3am on friday morning or 3am on saturday morning. Most people kind of agreed to just gather sporadically between those two times. I monitored a live stream late on thursday to confirm that millions of people weren't gathering to make American History. Instead, about 30 people gathered for that 3am moment. I only missed a photo-op. I awoke on friday morning and drove towards my destiny. There were two events scheduled. One hosted by the facebook Shitposting kid who decided to use his 15 minutes of fame to organize a rave in the desert at the local Little Ale'inn, a motel close to the gate. The other was set up by a filmmaker who made a movie about Area 51 at the Alien Research Center. Both locales are alien themed tchotchke paradises designed to sell the eager UFO tourist any manner of t-shirt, shot glass or Alien doll. These spots have a fun feel and would be desert trinket spots selling only desert sage and gems if not for the boon of being next to an infamous mystery base.

The dueling events were both hoping to capitalize on the rush of people to the desert for the raid. Alienstock, as shitpost called it, was going to be a kumbaya style gathering. But everybody thought it was an alibi for shitpost incase anybody got in actual trouble at the gate and roped him in. Shitpost from bakersfield ended up not even going to his own event out of fear. Also the county sued him for the cost of preparing for a potential fiasco. The Alien Research Center event was going to have famous Alien Community folks speak and some high end music performances. But as I drove down the dusty route 375, known as Exterterestrial Highway, I saw very few people on the roads. Lots and lots of cops. It became obvious that the whole county and the organizers of these events had been preparingor at least 30,000 people. They had nearly 200 port-a-potties. Which makes  sense, if 1% of the people who claimed they were coming online came! The reality was that maybe only 1% of 1% showed up to these sleepy nevada towns on the edge of a fabled military base. The imediate reality of the events was that they were extremely underattended, but that was also a blessing. it made everything a little bit more intimate and accessible. I pulled into the dusty parking lot of the Little Ale'inn to find a rag tag DIY music festival set up. People were essentially tailgating on the side of the road. It was a scene and it was dusty. All sorts of folks were jovially milling about, some in alien themed costume, many with cameras. Many folks with booze, despite the morning. I pulled out a camera and tried interviewing people, but found that everybody I talked to had the exact same talking points. Do you believe in aliens? Duh. Why are you here? Free them Aliens. Do you really think they are in the base? Yes, but maybe now they've been moved. What did you think would happen if we charged? We'd all get killed or arrested. Nobody seemed to have really believed in the facebook post's idea of 'they can't stop us all.' Most people were sure that, especially with the meager turn out, the military and police could stop us all. Everybody just wanted to see what would happen, expecting anywhere from fyre festival 2.0 to a bloodbath to nothing. Everybody had listened to the same Joe Rogan podcast, where he'd interviewed Bob Lazar who claims to have worked at the base. That podcast was the bible of this gathering and  was what had inspired Shitpost to shitpost.

It was special that everybody was a believer. That's rare that strangers are all on the same wavelength. Nobody seemed to have any doubts that the government knew about aliens and weren't telling the public. And it was agreed that UFO's had been tested and stored at the base. Everybody I ended up meeting seemed pretty prepared. They had plenty of water and booze and camping supplies, so the idea that a humanitarian crisis was going to occur dissapated completely and reminded me of a group outting to the desert. Most important was that everybody at the event seemed to be in on the joke. They might believe in aliens but had no plans of raiding the base in actuality. Aliens might exist but the might of the US government is way more certain. The police presence alone was insane, but they merely hinted at the military might behind the base's perimeter. The police actually became quite friendly once they realized it wasn't going to be a boodbath. But the silent and hooded guards behind the gate remained terrifying with big guns and big dogs. There was definitely the threat of violence if you crossed. But we all joked that maybe if a million more people showed up we'd actually start Naruto running passed the guards.

After a while of milling around quasi-interviewing people I decided there were enough people with cameras that I should just put on my alien costume and go to the gate and get in front of the camera. I was taken to the gate by some friends I'd made while trying to get interviews. Evan and Kevin were two dudes I became super weirdly close on the day of the Raid. Each of us had come by ourselves from far away, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles, with a vague intention of documenting it in some way. I had a vision of either a mini doc or article, Evan was a photographer and who took some insanely beautiful photos (featured here).

Kevin was a video creation guru who just wanted to make as much instagram content as possible. Kevin was by far the most successful, he's got that showman's knack to always get on camera with insanely high energy. There were a lot of cameras and each one he'd run up to and start lecturing about how the governemnt needed to release the secret documents! It was a great bit especially with his Boston Townie accent turned all the way up.

Evan explained how he was drawn to the site by a mysterious desire to see what would happen.  He expressed it best as, 'this is like a reddit safe post.' People will find safes while remodeling or cleaning a house and say, 'hey reddit, look i found a safe, i'm going to open it and see what's inside!' Then people get excited trying to guess what marvelous jackpot could be in that old dusty safe. They wait desperately for the original poster to share an update. More often than not the poster never returns and people are left waiting for nothing.

Once and a while there will be an updated post to show what was found inside and sometime's it's a haul of trinkets and dubloons and rare items that were saved throughout time to be found by some noble internet user. but then most of the time it's like, wow a roll of coins from 1953! "so yeah i felt obligated to go and find out what was in the safe and share it with reddit even if there actually was nothing inside. reddit deserves to know.' evan said. Because sometimes those posts are just as important, the safe find coming back to say, 'hey we cracked the safe, but turns out there was nothing in it! here's a picture of an empty safe."

So I was beginning to realize that I was standing inside an empty safe. But wow, all of these people had also come to be here and that was something special. It's not often that we get to organically be around likeminded strangers that all have such clear and imediate shared experience. Here we all were, because of a a meme, just to see what would happen. The gathering had a magical quality because we were an internet joke that had left the cyber space and entered the meat space. It was a silly idea that was reaching a physical end point.

I stood around the gate for a good while, we chatted with everybody, shook hands with the police guarding the gate, exchanged instagram handles and shared jokes we'd heard on the internet. You could tell people were really cutting loose. Most people spent most of their time on their computers it seemed. Hey, me too. We shouted 'clap them cheeks' and 'let them out.' We were all in on the joke. There were still mainly cameras and I got interviewed and photographed by dozens including history channels ancient aliens and the nytimes and countless youtubers and instagramers. It all kind of culminated when Kevin and Evan were getting cold and saying we should leave, I heard a distant 'clap them cheeks' chant and booty shuffling down the lonesome road to the infamous Area 51 gate was Riley Reid! Pornhub's number 1 star. She's somebody I have searched for all my life, on google. She did a strip tease and pretended to rush the gate. She was an internet hero in the flesh, and she was in on the joke too! A perfect metaphor, eh?

The next morning, hungover from the excitement and extrovertism of the day before I was sitting in a diner scouring news websites for mentions of the raid and looking for photos of myself. Behind me I heard some locals discussing, a gravelly voice said, "usually this town has 1 car every 10 minutes. this weekend we've got like 1 car every minute!" The townsfolk seemed to have had the wildest weekend of their lives. Me too. I managed to get into a few articles in my green alien suit.  A USA Today affiliate newspaper even printed a whole write up about me and my sign. On the way back, realizing I expected nothing, and found little more than nothing, I was completely satisfied. I had held my sign for peace and found a version of it, internet strangers, weirdos from all over had gathered peacefully to celebrate an idea. A silly and anti authoritarian conspiracy idea, but an idea none the less. I decided the reason I was drove all this way through beautiful american desert land, was because it's something I would have thought was cool as an 11 year old. A mission to see aliens and the people who wanted to meet them. Radical.