Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Gabby Gabby My Baby, Some Hideous Modern Garbage, and Those Hair Things I Skipped

I'm back and better and blacker than ever--and so is Gabby!

*drags self out of the Hell Year, covered in war scars, eyes blazing, hair all kinds of messed up and red-tipped, clothes covered in someone else's blood, arms wrapped in the tatters of the Texas flag, holding a large sword over one shoulder that looks too big for her to carry, and an mp3 player fused into a set of loudspeakers she put together with old CDs and blood magic*
*presses play*
*Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" starts blaring at top volume*
*smirks*  

I hope y'all didn't think y'all had seen the last of me. Let's not mince words, I got fucking wrecked for the last two months of that Hell Year We Shan't Speak Of. And yes, I got kicked the fuck down. I had to recuperate, pull myself together, assess the damage, wrap my wounds, sit in the safe spaces, and drink a lot of booze and cry over and over and over. But like hell I'm out of the game. Any of them. You name the game I was playing, I'm still in. Just means I gotta fight harder and blaze brighter and cast spells stronger and swing my Libra swords harder over the next several years. When you're living on your knees you rise up. 2017 is the year of Zero Fucks Given. My fucks for nonsense and garbage opinions died with Prince, Bowie, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Richard Adams, and American Democracy.¹ Rejected Princesses just kick more ass.

That being said, hi, y'all. Sit down and let's get this show on the road. Guess who went to AG Seattle yesterday? It's ya girl, Nethie. And while I have been quiet on the blog front--sorry--I have been on AGC and Instagram talking my doll shit and getting my things done. And when I saw the Girl of the Year leaks, I squealed and burst into the happiest of happy tears.

Because for the very first time in seventeen years and fifteen girls (seventeen if you count Gwen and Sonali) we have a black girl of the year. And yes, I brought her home yesterday. Meet Gabriela "Gabby" McBride. She's a black artist, poet, and dancer. And I've got like, three-quarters of those traits. She's me in a dolly form and I fell so in love with her I am still reeling from her utter preciousness. I'm so happy I could plotz.

Does this mean that we're successful with #AGDoCGotY? No. Yes, we got a Black Girl of the Year, and she's precious. That being said, there is lot to critique. She in many ways feels like a called out afterthought by AG as if they planned another white chick² and then, after GMA pointed out last February that they had never had a black girl of the year on national television, they pulled #46 off the shelf and whipped up some work for her. She doesn't have a movie planned, or a large item--though if that means a trend away from $500 Stupid Bakeries I can live with it. But you know what? She's here. She's here and she's black and she's a beautiful dancing step in the right direction.

Thank you American Girl, for finally releasing a Black girl of the Year.

Now keep doing it. Represent everyone. Release more girls of color for girl of the year. Don't make the next little girl like me, who is a black writer and artist, wait til she's in her thirties to see herself represented as a modern girl. Don't let this be the only step. Let it be the first.

And for those who claim that we still aren't happy because we're always complaining and so we shouldn't get anything else, then? Go sit on a boomstick. Seriously. Get the hell out and eat some Lego. Black people in AG fandom have every right to have what we have, love that we have her, want her to succeed and still want more. I will remind you that this is only the first ever Black Girl, there has still never been a full East Asian Girl or Native Girl of the Year, and the only South Asian Girl was a companion. I want Gabby to blow the fuck up, because then maybe it'll sink into the thick heads that we want and crave and need diversity. We need the doors and the windows.

Oh and heads up? I know Felicity is coming back, books and likely new clothes and maybe even a new face. We'll talk about her when she's out. Lesbians for everyone!

This post is gonna cover Gabby My Baby, the other new stuff I saw, and the hair stuff that I forgot to do. Like I said, hell year.

Gabby, Gabby, The Black Pretty Babby 

Aren't you just a peach and a plum and a dear made of yum.

Gabriela McBride, Girl of the Year 2017: Out, you blasted Lea, and take your octoroon appropriation garbage with you back to St. Louis. I will not forgive you for your religious crimes against me. I said I wanted a girl of color. And now I got one, without question or a heaping helping of whiteness to make white mommy bloggers happy. Damn skippy.

Gabriela "Gabby" McBride is black, she is beautiful, she is what we've wanted in so many ways, and she's the first Girl of the Year since Marisol to not be at least part or mostly white.³ Yes, she's basically a redressed #46. But you know what? Gwen was a redressed #12, Grace was a Chrissa with different hair and pinker lips, and Wonderbread was an amalgam of everything AG could do wrong in a dancer, and Lea's movie cast a white girl. I wish they hadn't retired #46 to put Gabby out, but look she's pretty and Black, she's got super cute curls, and I'm happy to have her. I plan to make her a touch different from stock later, cause she's gonna get eye and cheek freckles like I have.

Do note that Gabby's box states that she's available for 2017 and beyond. This means she'll likely be the first GotY in some time to be around past the end of the year, the last one being Kailey who ran from 2003 into 2004. All the Gabby!

Meet Outfit: Oh thank fuck it's not a single one piece dress or some garbage. Lea, the ways you were a failure lemme count 'em. Gabby's showing up in a purple crop top⁴ with dream in silver, a teal tank top under it, denim jeggings because everything is a jegging now we can't just say denim leggings, pink panties, and purple and teal shoes with a funky groove and gray soles. Also no ego tags. The evil Wonderbread wrought upon our dolls is defeated. She also has a double headband and ten clear hair elastics.⁵

Now for kids.

The outfit comes in girl sizes, and you can probably jack the indigo leggings from the old mix and match sets⁶ or just wear them over pants or something. And if my boobs could wear it I'd wear it. Alas.
 
Gabriela's Accessories: No good picture, because I forgot. Next time I'm at the store. Gabby's accessories include a bag with a boombox logo, a water bottle to drink the tears of her haters, energy mix that is sweet and salty and ready to kill, a pack pack of bobby pins, sticker bandaids I will never use because sticker anxiety, eight pony tail holders, and an apple that is the wrong shape for a green apple because it's shaped like a red delicious, which are by the by not delicious. I got them because discount, doiy. I will just have to find an appropriate apple. Healthy snacks or some shit.

Earrings for a special girl.

Earrings: Three times for more charm. Gabby's special earrings have a pair of silver birds, music notes, and blue roses. I'm generally annoyed by AG earrings being too big in the hole aspect so most of my girls have needle holes. But help they were too cute I had to do it. This means she can totes swipe the Grace-Brand earrings I have and wear them. And all the earrings that Kimmy, Tara, and Abbi wear too. The only error is the notes pointing the same way, so that one will point backwards. Eh. Maybe I'll actually start buying AG earrings on Etsy.

Book: Gabby only has her first book out right now, Gabriela. I'll read it later. I did skim it lightly and there's a chapter called Shakespeare and Sandwiches, and dude I like Shakespeare. Gabby why are you so made of wins.

Box drama, because of course there's drama in a fandom made of nostalgia brats and literal teenagers.

Gabby's Box: I could talk about Gabby's loverly loverlyness all day, but then I won't have other things to talk about later. So let's talk about Gabby's packaging, because that's been edited. Gabriela is the first to come in a new style of box from other AG dolls. Rather than the cardboard cover with a peephole window over the face we've been getting for a while--since what, 2006? fuck, I don't keep track of boxes--we've now got a box with a full plastic window that shows almost all her meet outfit through the front. The lid doesn't lift off the front; instead, the whole back is slid out of the box, and then she is strapped down to the colorful background. Her book is tucked behind her, and her headband and elastics are tucked to the side inside.

Now this is just a casual person here who has never been in marketing, but the main reason for the box change from my perspective is that Gabby--like Lea and the WellieWishers--is going to be put in stores other than the AG stores. Namely, she's gonna head to the Toys R Us AG locations that opened this fall, and are more or less gonna be a thing in the store for the foreseeable future. And while AG stores can dedicate space to displays behind glass and stockfolk that can walk around checking to make sure that people aren't cracking boxes open to swipe the items out of the boxes? Toys R Us is not gonna have that. They are not going to set up a million and five cases that will show every outfit on the doll, every accessory in a case, and they especially are not going to have boxes that can be popped open in the store and swiped from because people do that. So AG has made an effort from the start with Gabriela to have packaging that will work being stacked on shelves in Toys R Us, and that a kid can see in the store and get. They won't have to lift the lid to see Gabriela, and like any other doll they can look in and just see her and want her that way.

And in a fandom full of nostalgia brats, old white women who choke on their pearl necklaces every time someone flips off Saint Pleasant's Visions and mentions not being a straight Christian, and literal teenage girls who fear change, there's drama over the boxes. Wahhhh they're too "Barbie" like. Waaah this is ruining the brand. Wahhhh their nostalgia over burgundy boxes and what about the box preservation and the masses are runining everything about AG and a bloo bloo bloo.

Now if your complaint is about packaging plastic, that I understand in part but still glance aside at because dude, that's what it gotta be in a shelf situation. But if you're bitching that AG is going Barbie, or mainstream, or it's not right that you see AG at TRU or Costco or Kohl's? You're a classist twat and you can go sit back on that boomstick--but this time put it right up your ass, please porridge hot.⁶ I hope your precious fancy doll room gets wrecked in a delightfully karmic fashion and you get kicked in the groin and rolled down a hill into a swamp, right before a mix of jelly, corn syrup, and motor oil falls into your hair and ruins it for good, requiring a full body shave.

I collect AG but I'll be fucked by a bugbear before I act like someone seeing the same doll I got at the stores at the local TRU somehow ruins my precious collection. Y'all been pulling this shit forever. First it was AG opening a full website for ordering was ruining mail orders. Then AG opening store across the country was ruining the delight of ordering online. And now it's "my precious AG in the hands of the rabble that go to TRU instead of the AG stores! Now how will my Precious Skylar Snowflake Daughter know she's better than the other kids at school?" Maybe your kid needs a better parent that isn't you and won't make them put their superiority in the kind of dolls they have. 'Cause bitches, if my grandparents could have gone to a store to buy me an AG when I was a kid? I might have gotten my first one before I turned 25.

There is classism in comparing everything to Barbie, or calling it cheap and saying that anyone can get a doll now that they're available outside the stores. I swear to fuck every time someone says that AG is doing something that's making the line more Barbie-like, an angel loses its wings, falls into lava, and dies before coming back to kick you in the head. If y'all don't stop comparing everything you hate to Barbie out of some womanfight comparison misogynistic bullshit idea that Barbie somehow is the absolute worst because you never figured out that you are not a toy in the reverse of Toy Story, I am going to come to your houses and give all your fucking blonde dolls the most hacked off haircuts my fingers can fing. I'm so fucking tired of people comparing any doll they hate to Barbie or Bratz. Stop being classist. Or, failing that, go fuck yourself unpleasantly with a stick.

DJ Gabby here for the One-Seven, who's ready to wake me up before you Go-Go?

Gabriela's Sparkling Sequins Outfit: Gabriella only has three outfits around right now. The first is a sequin top, black capris, silver shoes, and silver knit fingerless gloves. I'm not super in love with the bare shoulders, as per my "bare shoulders what" initiative. But it's a lovely coordinating set that manages to not be aggressive sparklebarf. I'll get it when I get...

Gabriela's Performance Case: Gabriela's got some funky tunes to blast, and she's got a performance case to do it with. It's smaller than Marisol's trunk and more plastic, but then again I'm not buying a whole outfit with it so net plus.⁸ It comes with stickers cause I didn't have enough sticker anxiety, a laptop to pull up her fresh mixes of Prince and Bowie, microphone for shot outs to the crew, headphones to make sure her mix tape is lit, drumsticks and a drum pad. Tiny drum kit tiny drum kit ahhhhhh. Yep, gonna get it.

Near, far, stretching at the barre--

Gabriela's Rehearsal Outfit: Gotta practice the art of the dance! Leotard, leggings, shorts, shoes, and a sheer overlay top. Everyone was hating on this when they saw it but I think it's hella cute. The dance shoes are a nice color, the sheer top has her own heart logo, and the shorts are super cute. I'm gonna have her and Marisol wear some funky leggings and dance dance dance.

Gabriela's Creative Studio Set: well it's a good thing I didn't get Wonderbread's old barre thing cause this one is cuter so pbbth. Not a lot of extras--a dance barre, two-sided backdrop, a performance sign, and another bottle for the haters and their tears. I like the backdrop. And with the set not costing a pull through the nose amount, I can actually get this and not feel bad that it'll take up space that I don't got.

Gabriela's Showtime Kit: Gabby gotta get her hair and nails did. So she's got a nice case with a blush compact and makeup brush, two hairbands, some flower hairpins because flower crowns, and actual nail polish she can use on her nails and be cutes with. And a hair pick. And normally I hate on hair picks but this one looks like the one my husband uses and my dad used and I have in my house. The metal tine kind. So Gabby will put it in her hair, pump a fist, and fight the power. The revolution will not be televised.

Gabriela's Tap Shoes: They're like Marisol's but silver and not paired with an outfit that leaves much to be desired. And since she and Marisol be hanging? They're gonna be syncopated ladies.⁹

time for sleep--wow that overexposed, gonna have to get a better one.

Gabriela's PJs: Time for bed. No crotch cutting rompers for ya girl, she's got a tank, capri sweats, and slippers. Yeah, they're squish slippers that she can fall over in if not proper balanced. And I kinda wish they weren't capris. But the shirt over jeans and under a plaid shirt? Time to be cute.

Gabriela's Cat: AG cats remain hit or miss, and this is a miss. I like the face, but it's small and non-posable and I have my Costco Gray kitten. So I'm naming that one Maya and she now has a cat. Wow, she really is so much like Marisol that they even have the same poseable kinda cat.

So, do I want all the Gabby things? Yep, I want all the Gabby things but the cat. And can probably afford them, at least.

Truly Me: Hair Did, Nails Did, Clothes Terrible¹⁰

Before I get into the semi-new stuff that came out, I'm gonna cover the hair stuff I missed last time. Cause I did that.

Dat backdrop. Oh and the caddy in front of it or something.

Hair Salon Scene: y'all got me twisted if you think for one fresh hot second I'm paying for a backdrop with other dolls on it that prominently.

Truly Blue Hairstyling Caddy: If I was into paying $50 for hair stuff and a storage for it, I would do it by going to Dollar Tree and buying stuff there, so I can get moar of it.

Now with cape moved so you can see what's going on.

Salon Chair and Wrap Set: Well will you look at that. It comes with some clothes for spaing around, it's only ten bucks more than the caddy, it's a lot more useful, and I can stick a doll in it! One of these damn days I'll get one of AG's spa chairs so my dolls can get their hair did at home.

Same as before.

Hairstyle Essentials Set: If you've ever had any of the hair care kits--any of them--and you somehow haven't stuffed the cape in a vent somewhere, you got this. If yours ain't have bobby pins which is only the first two? Then go buy a pack of bobby pins.

Actual non-water? Oh wait it's just braid spray.

Ready to Style Hair Kit: Ladies and gentleman, it's official braid spray. In a tiny bottle. Oh and there's some hair stuff and a brush and a bag for storage. You can pay $24 for this or you can buy a bottle of braid spray, an $8 wig brush, and get the rest on the cheap.

...does that cover all the hair stuff I missed? It does.

Uh, okay then.

The New Mix and Match Set: Gone is our denim and dots and bubble skirts, our kitten sweaters and hooded jackets. Those didn't hang long, did they? Now we've got a new set of mix em ups:

• Tropical Print Dress
• Adventure Tank Set
• Tiered Tropical Skirt
• Sequin Skirt
• Geo-Print Shorts
• Sunshine Tank
• Pom-Pom Tee
• Fringe Vest
• Blue Sandals
• Green Gladiator Sandals

......wow, those are certainly things made of cloth, now aren't they. I honestly hate all of it. I like the shoes but nothing else at all.  The print dress maybe can be saved if I can take that lace overlay and get it out of here. I was almost down for the shirt but are those pompoms? Nope, all of that goes on the fire. Nope. No one here will wear it. Nope nope you lose get out of my house.

Hoodie.

V-neck Hoodie: Not bad. Someone here would wear it. I'll consider it for an extra thing--oh lord is it doing the thumb hole thing I thought we left that back in 2014. Ugh stop that.

New jams for the fams.

Dream Pajamas: Need yet another set of pjs before you die? Here you go! They've got air balloons on them. Put them on Saige or something. They also have the fail ass slippers that are fail. Stop making these slippers AG they make it impossible for a doll to stand on her own feet.

Fun and Games Sleepover Set: All the things you need for these modern sleepovers where people apparently have fruit and milk instead of giant tins of cheese balls, huge cups of coke, and order in Domino's pizza. There's even a tray and another card game--I don't need tiny Uno I don't need tiny Uno i don't need tiny Uno--

Oh look another purse in no use to me.

Print Purse: Yep, another purse I'm not gonna buy. The best purses are huge.

Draws for all your doll pannies needs.

Just Dotty Tank and Brief Set: Does your doll need some pannies? Buy 'em some pannies. They're pastel dotted for your amusement. Put em on, cover dat ass.

Flowers and Dots Tank and Brief Set: Second verse, same as the first. I may get them cause I like doll underpants but later. They mix and match with the other set, so if I can get them on like, a sale coupon from my rewards I'll get more pannies. Never too many doll pannies.

Is this actual swimwear?

Stripes and Dots Swimsuit: Ugh I hate it. It's like a swimsuit that wasn't sure if it wanted to be a tankini or a bikini and so split the difference and ended up pleasing nobody.

Shining Star Baseball Hat: It's a hat. With a star on it. *half a shrug*

Starry Sunglasses: They are just sunglasses, they're not exciting, I didn't even realize they were here to be seen in my picture. Wear them or not.

Swim Accessories: I want just the bottle out of this set because it matches the one I drink AGIG's ugly racist tears out of. So I will have to buy it on the cheap.

*~*~*

*presses play again*
*raises fist as Beyoncé's Freedom starts basting where it's cued*

I break chains all by myself
Won't let my freedom rot in hell
Hey! I'ma keep running
Cause a winner don't quit on themselves
 
The game ain't over til I say it is. C'mon, Gabby. We got some people's asses to whoop. Grab your drumsticks and let's fight.

--Neth

¹ And I don't give a single fuck abut the dead ass gorilla either.
² Yes, I know about Tenney from Nashville. No, I don't care for her. Some people do and we're fine with that but at the same time anyone who's complaining that Gabby isn't perfect and deserves to fail, and procceeds to start drooling on their boobs over another white girl? Miss me with that shit.
³ I love Kanorbles, but if I had to use the canon books to define her she'd be half white. Which is why she's not canon round here.
⁴ AG calls it a sweater. AG is being dumb.
⁵ Funny thing. So I got my Gabby Bo Baby's ears pierced and her headband fell out of the box. First day glitches amirite? I'm getting one sent to me cause AG Seattle is on their game. 
⁶ That all got retired, by the by; some bits are still available online, but for the most part they gone. 
⁷ I know it's "pease porridge hot." I'm making a point.
⁸ Guess who just made best friends with Marisol. Never mind the tennish year age difference. They're both near the same age in doll formz.
⁹ I love their tapping. Okay ladies, let's get in formation.
¹⁰ Some pics I took yesterday, some the other day, some before that.