AG Outsider Retrospecticus: Blaire Wilson, The Girl of 2019 and Character Neth Completely Forgot (To Blog About) and Introducing Fifi Martin-Russell

Blaire Wilson.
Or more accurately, Fifi Martin-Russell.

Beware the ides of March--oh. Right, that was a couple days ago, wasn't it? As well as Pi Day (the only made-up holiday where you can use math to compel people to bake you some key lime pie) and St. Patrick's day, the day all the Irish people and part Irish people get to heritage it up. Hope you maybe wore something green, drank a beer, and I guess posted Nellie on the timeline in the new Irish set. I'll do it tomorrow, to quote Goof-off Goose. Now let's talk dolls. The benefit with my blogging so frequently is that I have little to go on about myself and what I've been up to before getting into the meat of what you come here for: yammer about dolls, reviews, and integrated snark. Day to day nonsense and randomized art goes on the Instagram account.

2019 was a strange year for me. Not as strange as 2020--the high of winning Joss followed by the free fall of literally everything after the start of March, can't wait for the anniversary of face cloth in two weeks--but strange all the same, what with starting the year in an apartment I'd lived in for over a decade with some really awful neighbors yet again and and wanting to move, and ending it in a house with stairs and a lot more doll storage. And yes, I am protected. I also turned 2000 weeks old that year, which was neat. I'll let you know when I hit 2200 weeks old, I already passed 2100. 

Though I barely think about the old place now, the in-person pictures I have of "Blaire Wilson" that aren't inside the late AG Seattle back in the days when people still breathed community air are instead at the previous residence. So I'm going to have shots taken in the past. Flashback. At least these were before the complex painted the place from the various rich jewel tones I liked to I Can't Twerk To This Beige, insisted everything had to be stripped off our porches for two months with no end date, and killed one of my tomato plants in the process. Joke's on you, complex, now I have a front porch, a cherry tree, and digging dirt now and I can cover them both in all the plants I fucking want!

...and paint the banister myself--or more accurately, hire people to do it. Ahem. At least I'll make sure it's nowhere near my plants.

Between 2018's "Go To Space Today" Space Ace Luciana Vega¹ and 2020's Cool Deaf Surfer Girl Joss Kendrick, American Girl released for the 2019 Girl of the Year a little character that could named Blaire Wilson. Blaire--with an E, we had to add that version to my spelling dictionary--started leaking around the end of 2018, revealing herself as a return to white girls after two years of PoC. But she did have some semi-unique factors, being the first and so far only super pale Josefina mold--she was as pale as the very recently released #78--with green eyes and very red curly hair. Basically she's like if Felicity was paler and had Dear Elizabeth's face for more than regular kissy kissy. 

However, other than the new looks, Blaire didn't have a lot going for her as a character. Hence recent reports from Mattel's that Joss outsold her by 20% across the board even in a pandemic and the stores being closed for several months. The theme of her collection--and books, they're not just packing ballast for your dolls--was a little all over the place, and even some angles of it I haven't quite figured out even two years later. That's why I personally feel like AG whiffed it with Blaire. Not that her message wasn't necessary--look, the person with a chocolate allergy isn't going to knock talking about food allergies and intolerance--but in her collection this wasn't given a lot of focus. Furthermore, there was a big issue in that she had the "bad" eyes at the start, and and since I have a lot of old news to go over, we'll be covering the issues with AG's "bad" eyes in depth here.

Step behind the cut to read about Blaire Wilson, her collection, the books I still need to read, and learn about Fifi Martin-Russell--as well as my experience with the 2019 eye-swap and the short lived "bad eyes" that American Girl may have replaced at no cost to the consumer, but definitely at cost to the company, so quit bitching stores are closing. You wanted the older eyes, and the monkey's paw made it cost AG Atlanta.

 Blaire Wilson: Food, Festivals, and Fun Without Lactose

Blaire Wilson, we hardly spoke of ye.

Blaire Wilson launched on January 1, 2019 after Gabriela, Z, and them two irritating white kids had been freshly put in the retirement vault--but with Luciana still about for space, camp, color, and anxiety. She lives in New York State on a farm upstate, and that's not a metaphor for where AG Seattle is now. Again with the New York, AG. That makes how many characters that have been there now? I know of Sam, Becca, Mia, and Blaire off the top of my head. Seriously, go to Texas, there's an entire coastline you can go with. Put someone in Galveston or Houston or Dallas or something. You've got fifty states and you keep going back to that one so much I can nearly use a whole hand to count them off. Blech.

Blaire lives on Pleasant View Farm² with her parents, grandpa, and a younger brother; the Wilsons run a farm-to-table restaurant and a bed-and-breakfast³ along with raising animals and grow things, hence Blaire having three animals and some plastic dirt in her collection. When the parentless manager of the farm gets proposed to by her man, they decide to get married at the farm and Blaire gets pulled in as the wedding planner and gets lost online with it, hence the wedding stuff and themes of balancing online time with "real" time interactions, which is why there's a tablet in her collection? Shrug emoji. Blaire also recently had to go dairy-free due to a recent diagnosis of lactose intolerance, and she's embarrassed to have to mention to her friends that she can't have ice cream and chug milk anymore--which is why it was pretty rude when students keep bringing milky treats to eat and just keep leaving her out.⁴ So she's also adapting to cooking and preparing food that way, and her second book has three recipes in the back as well and talks about people with food insecurity.

I'm so vague about all this in her stories because I'm going to be real with you, I haven't read either of her books yet--and unlike the Tumblr side of this fandom, I don't go in on shit I don't know without research. I started in on the first one--I got them both as e-books as gifts, and then physical copies--but haven't finished them. You'd think I'd have had read them by now, but hah, ADHD makes fools of us all. 

Looking at AG's blog-style post "A Recipe for Resilience: Why Blaire Matters"--and this is a very good thing AG does, articulating what their characters bring to the table and the themes of their collections and meanings--they list out several things. Her themes are, as far as I can tell:

• Cooking fresh meals from fresh foods, and recipes for that
  
• Food allergies and intolerance⁵
• Dat Farm Life, yo,
  
• Balancing your life out, including the Online with the Offline
• Creativity, given the mentions around the store at the time 
• Food insecurity
• Letting a ten-year old plan a wedding
  

And probably other stuff. All very good things to discuss, yes. But her collection? Reflected barely any of that. AG didn't partner with any major organizations for the year--there were discussions on food intolerance, they talked about their work regarding allergies on Spokin, and some focus on food prep--but no full focus or partnering with, say, an allergy awareness organization other than on that site. And the items in the collection almost felt like three separate groupings that had Blaire at the center, each fairly disparate: that big ass kitchen and restaurant was the centerpiece, with some focus on farm life and the wedding. I think we're calling that idealism of farm life cottagecore, now? I dunno, I'm still trying to understand the whole -core vs -punk definition in the aesthetic deal, even though I'd define myself as craftwitch pastel-goth dollycore.⁶ It's hard to put a full pin on Blaire's collection motif when you look it over as a whole, instead of in parts. Compare that to more solid modern collection themes before and after her like:

• Grace: France and Baking
• Lea: Brazil, lol
• Gabriela: Dance Performance, also Being Black
• Z: Vlog Life and Being East Asian
• Tenney: Country music Mary Sue stealing the spotlight from Gabby
  
• Logan: confirming that boys are still gross 
• Luciana: GO TO SPACE TODAY and Being Latina
• Joss: Surfing, Cheering, deaf 
• Kira B. Australian Wildlife, Climate Change, and Gay Aunts
  

Blaire's collection was just...middling compared to all of that. Her collection maybe could be seen as the joys of the farm life, but even that was undermined by wedding stuff. Imagine being ten, going the store to pick a doll of the year, seeing Luciana's Space Everything--as a lot of it was still available through 2019--and then seeing Blaire's stuff next to it. Then coming in a year later and seeing Joss with her surf and cheer turf. Yawn. No wonder Blaire sold less than both the character before and after her. I'm no expert, just a black queer lady with a blog, but I suspect her sales were low partially because the collection was just so dull and disparate at the same time. If there'd been a way to push more of the allergy angle or pastel cottagecore farm life, she might have done better, but even that was kind of yawning after an entire year of Space Today. Even Tenney had a more cohesive collection, and I don't like her one bit. Peek into the Pantry has talked more about the issues with her books and how even the themed tea for her failed by not having dairy-free options for the character whose thing is that she can't have dairy. Many people who I know got Blaire didn't keep her as Blaire and more just wanted her for her unique looks.

I am one of those many people. I get so weak in the knees like an SWV song for a Josefina mold, if my last post about Sonja didn't tip you off to that. I don't have every one of them, but in a battle between a Classic and a Josefina, Classic is Glass Joe. That's why I got her. 

And then promptly stripped her naked in the store and put her in a paper gown to be shipped off for eye surgery. 

Jeepers Creepers, Where'd You Get Those Peepers: New Coke, But It's Eyes⁷

Old and busted, I guess.

I only touched on this slightly in the post I made about Joss's release over a year ago, but we got time today so we'll talk about it more. There's a lot of 2019 and prior things in the news that I'm giving more focus in these Retrospecticuses. 

In about 2017, right around the time Nanea came out, AG collectors started to notice that AG dolls had different eyes than they had before. At first it was the customizers popping out eyes and seeing they looked and were built different--rather than the three parts like before, they had posts and couldn't have the eye-chips accessed. Then people started taking a closer look and noticed the eyes were showing a lot more of the whites than before and gaps on the side. They were overall smaller, sometimes wall eyed, and gave the dolls a downcast, almost off kilter uncanny look. But unlike the permapanties--born Feb 2015, died May 2015--the eyes were not announced by AG at all, just put in newer production dolls quietly.

The collectors--and hell, the other adults--did not like the new eyes at all. I talked about it briefly in one of my 2018 posts, including how annoying and unproductive it was to spam every damn post the AG Instagram account made in tagging the super-annoying AG Quality account and yells to bring back the quality, even if the eyes ended up changing back after public outcry. I wasn't chuffed by it because at the time, the only doll I had with the issue was Luciana, who was wearing sparkly glasses anyways. Later the #80 I got, Gisèle, had them too, and probably Nanea has them. I'm not pausing again to go check. We gotta talk about sheep. 

Well, the outcry through all of 2018 was definitely enough to make AG recant, even if someone using the absolute worst possible tag on IG probably still thinks their nonsense was part of the reason.⁸ After copious complaints from many a fan and parent, AG reverted back to the older style of eyes and offered a one-time free eye exchange starting at the beginning of 2019. Just like the free swap out from permapanties, you sent your doll in for free and got them back with brand new peepers. And they only swapped the eyes, not the whole head. They can do that now with machines to wick out the old peepers and wock new ones in. Thank you, Create Your Own, for expanding AG into new tech in eyeball wick-wocking. This was free until the end of 2019; now if you stumble over a doll that didn't get a free wick-wock and you bought them before 2019, you're gonna have to fork over money for it. Only if you can prove a post-2019 purchase will the wick-wock be free. 

Some people sent in multiple dolls--one particularly awful person in the fandom who ripped a friend of mine off sent in six and then bitched that all her dolls got horrifically damaged and scuffed to the point AG ended up refunding her over $700 to shut her up, because scammers gonna scam⁹--but I didn't send Luciana or Gisèle in. Both of them wear glasses which is a perfectly acceptable reason for off kilter eyes. Also, I didn't want to strip them naked and send them in through the store or UPS. But Blaire? Well I was in the store already buying the doll that April, so I stripped her naked at the counter and sent her off for her free wick-wock.

New hotness, I guess.

Her eyes do look different. Huzzah. And such was my experience with that. I was overall pleased, even if I had barely noticed the eye problem in the first place.

Now, the wick-wock was free for me to send in and get back, and was for anyone else that did it. But it was not free for AG anymore than the body swaps were. Not even counting Miss "Bitched our way into a $700+ refund because of scuffs and entitlement." AG had to pay for each and every doll's shipping in, shipping back, all the new eyes, and the salaries of the people working to do all the wick-wocks. That adds up. The PR in them doing it was good, yes. And it likely cost them thousands. So if you wonder why prices went up, why stores are closing, and why AG was in the red for sometime these past few years, the eye swap was a contributing factor. 

Meet Blaire Wilson Fifi Martin-Russell

With my doll returned to me, I promptly put together her character properly like I'd thought about. Blaire's collection was a messy hodge podge and I was not going with the story it offered even as I bought several components and used several story components. The Blaire doll was to be my blank canvas. My blank queer-representation canvas, based on a joke that if I get any further back in the yarn manufacturing process that I will end up on a sheep farm run by lesbians. I'm still working on a sheep to sweater process. Carding is tiring and dusty.

She also got a rename, because I really don't like the name Blaire. I was an 80s kid, I associate the name Blair--no E--with my least favorite character on The Facts of Life. So no Blaire.

Around these parts, we have two mothers and a baby lamb.

Fiona Bonnie "Fifi" Martin-Russell lives on a sheep farm that's part of a cross-grouping multi-family farming community in Wisconsin with the closest city being Milwaukee--about a half hour away--and is the middle child out of five children with the oldest two being twins. Her mothers are two lesbians who have been together for several years; they own a sheep farm and sell roving, spun wool, and hand-dyed skeins both online through their business and at fiber festivals across the midwest states. Fifi loves to knit--she has for a few years now--and has recently started to learn to spin her own yarn, using her very first drop spindle and wants a wheel like Mama's when she's a little better at it. She's allergic to bananas--and latex, they're related--egg whites, and tree nuts, so her family is very sensitive about making sure she doesn't come in contact with any of it. She loves a good cardigan, thick socks and Mommy is teaching her to raise her first sheep, a lamb named Chrysanthemum after her favorite Kevin Henkes book. 

Some day, when my shit is on my head straighter, I will work on her books and more of her story. I had thought I might put freckles on her, but now I think I'm used to her without. I will also probably make her several cottagecore dresses.¹⁰

Having talked about eyes, ewes, and dangerous foods, let's talk about this collection finally, along with the parts I have from it. It only took me two years. Also nearly everything but the doll and a handful of items are retired, so you're on your own to get them via the 'Bay; I'll point out what still remains two years later.  

I don't know if I stated this for several others--I gotta line up my rubrics for these kind of things--but Blaire's giveaway item was a nice little waist apron. At some point I'll do a blog about all the giveaway items I have, which span from Saige to Kira. Any others will have to be work and friendship to get now.

That Farm/Wedding/Restaurant Life: Blaire's Complete Collection

Dress and flowers and baggies and tablets.

Blaire's Meet Outfit: Since we already talked a lot about her stories and looks earlier--and how I dumped a good portion of her story to make my own--above, let's skip right ahead to talk about her meet outfit. Blaire's outfit was fairly minimal and didn't have a lot of pieces. Technically, that's happened a lot. Kanorbles, Saige, Chrissa--and Gwen with her--Lanie, Lea, and Luciana also only had meet outfits consisting of dress, shoes, panties, and spare accessory or accessories. That even applies to Kailey, only the second Girl of the Year. Some years you get pants, some years you don't. Blaire did not; what she had is a (les)bee(n)-print bow-and-shirred sundress with yellow accent buttons, purple heeled sandals, a flower hair comb, and a yellow cloth bracelet.

The yellow bracelet is an accent that may or may not be in memorial to a prominent collector on AGIG that passed away in 2018 from cancer--fuck cancer--and that AG acknowledged the passing of themselves on Instagram, including using these same bracelets in a post on the one-year anniversary of her passing. I didn't know the young lady well enough to speak much about her, nor will I pretend to,¹¹ but if this was a nod to her and in her memory then good on you AG. Fuck cancer. 

Outfit came with doll, I have doll, so I have outfit. I like the print, but the top feels super busy and I think it looks better with a sweater or cardigan over the dress. In part because argh visible arm cups. The dress also came in children's sizes, but I didn't ever get a picture of it. Live, Learn, get Luvs. The doll is still available, but she could go at any time. It has been two years, and even if Luciana's around their days are both numbered.

Blaire's Accessories: Every dolly has accessories on the side at an additional cost unless your name is Lindsey Bergman or Kailey Hopkins. Sorry, we started that with Marisol. Kailey came with hers, at least. Blaire's got a tablet to be obsessed with, screens to pop in and out of it, a clipboard and pen for planning something--I'm not going to dig the items out right now--notepad full of notes, business postcard full of business, a bouquet of lavender colored flowers--the second gayest color, lavender menace ahoy (but no radfems, No TERFs or SWERFs allowed)--tote for toting, and stickers so I can have sticker anxiety and never use them. When I get a doll I always add the accessories, and this is no exception. They can be part of her Wisconsin lifestyle. While the doll is available, the accessories are not, so no tablet, flowers, or doll tote for you without the 'Bay.

Tote's on the doorknob. No frogs, though.

There was also a tote in people sizes. but I didn't ever get a picture of it at the store. What I did get was the actual tote, since they brought them out during the AG Seattle closing to clear them out and put them on sale for half off, so here y'all go, it's hanging off my bedroom door for the shot. I can use it for a lighter purse if I so choose--it's AG without being overly AG--and it'll hold a book and a tablet. I can also take it with me when I go shopping and the bag ban's back on in WA State as a smaller shopping tote, but you know, Covid's paused that for a while.

Booky cooky goodness.

Blaire and Blaire Cooks Up a Plan: Books! They're not just packing ballast. As said above--and pictured here--I own them. Both in e-form and physical. But haven't read them yet. Maybe in a few weeks I'll do that. Then I can know more about how they go all over the place and fuss about it later on. 

Cake and rice and blue and nice--well that last one is debatable...

Blaire's Bridesmaid Dress: Somebody get a preacher, somebody bake a cake, somebody get some shoes and rice and presents to take; somebody get a sweet negligee--cause somebody's getting married today!¹² And that someone is the manager of the farm, Cat. Who decided a ten year old should be her wedding planner. I'm gonna need more information on that, because that doesn't seem like the smartest idea to have. Let them maybe pick out a couple party favors and help with the colors, yes, but not the whole planning. People get paid for that. Adult people. Anyways, Blaire not only plans this--shrug emoji-- but participates as a bridesmaid in the wedding in a blue sheer-and-satin dress, floral headband, ribbon choker, and pink flats. This dress would have been cute if it didn't have the high-low mullet hem that too many dresses had been doing for a while. I hate that hem style with my everything, hence me not buying it ever before it was gone. I'll just have to make my own. 

Blaire's Party Decor: Wedding's got to have cake. Weddings have had cake forever. They haven't always been white cake--in fact, one ep of Adam Ruins Everything, "Adam Ruins Weddings," explains that white cake in the mid-19th century was basically edible blinging out and flashing that you had the cash for buying white sugar--but weddings have food and decor. Blaire doesn't show the whole wedding off, just parts. There's the arbor--that's the arch thing--hanging fans and lanterns and curtains to decorate it, cake and cake parts--toppers, slices, plates, and all that--a table to put the cake on and a cloth to cover it, and bows and ribbons and a bouquet and a notebook. Did not get this, and did not want this. I have no need for it. Fifi's parents have been married for like fifteen years.

Apron, pig, hat, chicken.
We'll talk about the chicken in another picture.

Blaire's Garden Accessories: Blaire does a garden! And to do a garden, you gotta wear a garden stuff, which is an apron, hat gloves. Guard your pale skin, Blaire, you're one of the lightest dolls ever released. I didn't bother with this because I hated the apron print and design. I can make gloves, and I later got a nice garden hat in the Berry Fresh Collection.

Blaire's Piglet: The animal I really dig above all others is the pig. Pigs are noble, pigs are clever, pigs are courteous--however. Now and then to break the rule, one meets a pig who is a fool.¹³ This little piggie is not a fool, and is in fact a ploosh with pink and black fur and buttony--okay, embroidered--eyes. As a person weak for a plush piggie, I got this and will figure out how it fits in Fifi's stories. Even if I don't, it's a pig. Pig good.

This little piggy went to lap,
this little lambie stayed home.

Blaire's Gardening Outfit: We do not garden in our casual clothes. Or do we? Look 90% of the time I'm gardening in my leggings, and it's almost time to start my 2021 garden. Regardless, she does it in style: a crop top, overalls, a little choker, and wellie boots for mucking about. This was actually one of the first Blaire things I got and put it on Maggie, my #47, and I will be putting it on Fifi too. It's so stinking cute. There is an issue with the straps being too long and thus the shorts sagging enough to show off panties, so I gotta fix that myself.

Blaire's Lamb: Polly owned one tiny sheep, its wool like clouds of white, yet every spot Polly would trot, the sheep did she invite.¹⁴ And this little sheepie is absolutely perfect; not only is it bigger than Felicity's Posie but softer too, with a ploosh instead of a hard crunch. This is one of the things I wished I'd blogged about on time because this was a better deal than trying to hunt down the OG Posie for your Felicity if you couldn't bring yourself to buy a non-AG plush for her collection, lest it not please St. Pleasant or AG Collection Purists. You can fight PC purists on your own. As evidenced up ahead, I have her; not only will she be Posie, the lamb that only showed up for one book, but she is also Fifi's pet lamb. 

Chicken and chives. Also my floor for a semi-decent pic.¹⁵

Blaire's Garden: Gardening! We do it in Blaire's world, and in Fifi's I'm sure they do have a little garden, as a treat. Along with the base garden box, there's six plants with markers that can move around, gardening equipment--can and trowel--a basket, and a chicken! With eggs! In a nest! OMG chicken. I love you, you evil little former dinosaurs.

I didn't get a decent pic in the store, somehow--and of course never realized this until after it was taken down. You try to be a little more complete in things and this is what happens. But seeing as I got it--on discount, had a reward--I just got it out and took a picture of it. I'm way too good to y'all. I kind of want to make more little plants and things for it, if I can be assed. We can grow arugula or kale or another of those things people eat that are green. Not zucchini. That's not a food and is gross and I do not put it in my mouth. 

Lavender's blue, lavender's green,
if you'll be a king, I'll be your queen.

Blaire's In Bloom PJs: Pajamas: a staple part of any girl of the year's wardrobe unless your name is Lindsey, Kailey, or Marisol Luna. Sorry, girls, that started with Jess. And skipped Nicki. No draws or pjs. A lavender top with a design about the mind in overlay print, paired with ruffled shorts and fuzzy slippers with things on the toes. I avoided these because I only liked the top--and mostly just the design on the front--and I wasn't buying an entire set of PJs for a single shirt that I liked only the front design of. We'll figure out something warm for Fifi.

For kid people.

They also came in people sizes, and I somehow remembered to get a picture of that. AG might be phasing out the matching outfits, but they're keeping the PJs for girls of the year so far.

A full sized kitchen with all the fixin. And an ugly outfit.

Blaire's Floral Flair Outfit: Every doll of the year has an outfit in the collection I hate with a burning passion unless your name is Kanani Akina. Sorry, she's practically perfect in every way, that's why I have her whole collection. This is the outfit I hate in Blaire's collection, and boy do I hate it. We've got a cut that leaves visible arm cups, funky weird bows down the front, and an orange headband that doesn't even reflect anything but the shoes. The only good part is the leggings and we don't buy outfits for just leggings. It is awful looking and really clunky and no, I didn't get it, I just said how I hated it. Two thumbs down. Boo, outfit. I can design better for Fifi.

Blaire's Family Farm Restaurant:  Every girl of the year since Mia has a big as fuck playset or item at launch unless your name is Gabriela McBride in which case they gave you a bed later after release because you were a last minute pull into being GotY anyways, or your name is Joss Kendrick in which case you have a big ass expensive van a month and some after launch because it took a while to show up. Between Luciana's Space Module and Joss's Weed Van we had Blaire's Eat and Greet: a multi sided restaurant and kitchen, for $300 smackers. It's got food, pots--not pot, you piece of shit stoner--and decorative lights to hang over the bench table you're eating your fresh fettuccine noodles, salmon filet, and baked pumpkin off of. There's a lot in this set and I'm not listing everything. I have to talk about scarves.

I did not get this, because when it came out I was in an apartment and had no room, and later when we had the house and had room I didn't want a doll kitchen taking up that much space when I wasn't likely to play around with it a lot. Look I have like three doll beds, I'm not getting a doll kitchen. We have a real kitchen. With fancy countertops. If I want a doll kitchen I'll doll kitchen later.

The water comes with free lemon, and the outfit with a free scarf.

Blaire's Casual Outfit: The summer release always brings a little more for the girl of the year ever since Jess came out--at first it was whatever the big ticket item was, then it was an outfit and one more accessory set. Blaire's casual outfit was her summer set, and I loved it from jump. Honestly, this is quite possibly my favorite outfit in her entire collection. That scarf! Those boots! The warm tights! The mix around possibilities! All perfect for Fifi. I can see Mommy and Mama putting her in this for Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival¹⁶ where she gets to help show off drop spinning while Mama works the wheel and they sell plain roving by the ounce, painted blends, and batts and skeins of wool. We got this and we will put it on everyone and will do a review later. Cozy cozy.

Blaire's Restaurant Accessories: Since Blaire's family has a restaurant, they have more accessories for it so they can get the ten year old to help take orders and serve the crème brulee she can't eat. Rude. There's along with the food some water--glasses and a carafe--a pen and ordering pad, some money, the thing to put the check on, a menu and stand, and stickers to give you sticker anxiety. Oh and an apron for Blaire to wear at work. I don't have the restaurant, so I don't need restaurant accessories, and anyways the lesbian sheep farm doesn't have a restaurant, that's elsewhere in their little farm collective. They have a two story house with five bedrooms--the twins share, they don't like it--and a decent herd of sheep and a barn for sheep and a lot of wool and fiber. These are still available, if you somehow want some toy crème brulee, and other than the doll and tote nothing else is. Days numbered.

ETA: oh and the wedding arch is too. My mistake.

*~*~*

Such a pretty girl.
Shame about the weak stories.

And so we close the book on Blaire Wilson, the girl of 2019 whose year was overshadowed on this blog by me dealing with dumb shit from the complex we'd lived in for over a decade culminating in getting an entire house and leaving their shit behind, and not having time to focus on her much while paying attention to things like installing carpet, painting a bedroom Fuck It Nine Bucks Blue, and hanging blinds over the back porch. Joke's on you, complex, I can do what I want inside the place without anyone coming in without me inviting them and have a back porch now that isn't just open to the side forest where a suspicious mattress was for teens to smoke weed and possibly get up to other shenanigans.

Blaire's not a bad character, I don't think. Very few GotY are, no matter how many articles mid-millennial white women like to write about how American Girl doesn't tell the stories that support girls any more and sell Molly's underwear while claiming Samantha's magical labor speech and Felicity's horse stealing in breeches turned them into super cool feminists while they looked at moderns that somehow were customized to look like them in their head. Always with the horse-stealing and the labor speeches and the assumptions that the '95 moddie line was customizable instead of selectable. The doll herself is very pretty and unique, and her collection had parts I wanted and can use for Fifi's story. But the actual organization of the stories apparently leaves much to be desired. Sometimes that be what it be. I'll still buckle down at some point and get those books read, so I can give more facts.

Round these here parts, we read and research, not assume quill pens were used in the 1860s when dip pens had existed in widespread manufacturing in the US since the 1820s. Dumbass. They didn't have retro back then.

Next time on the Retrospecticus: WellieWishers! They're fourteen inches tall, full of silly and sweet ideas, haven't gotten any more books in like, two years--AG what the fuck, give me books--and they might be getting a tweak later in the year, so I'd better get on them doing things like driving jeeps, sledding, going to school, and breaking their ankles. Stinking cute little bugglers. That's why I have six of them.

Now to go spend the rest of my day fixing a bunch of shitty written articles in Blaire's collection on the wiki with overly verbose descriptions and gross coding bloat. Curly apostrophes break the wikitext, stop it.

--Neth

¹ Speaking of which, yes I know about that lawsuit from the scientist that feels that AG ripped off of their appearance and personality for Luciana's design, and no I don't have anything really to say about it so I'm not linking to any articles about it. Did they? Didn't they? I dunno, I'm not digging into it, I don't care, I'm not a copyright lawyer, and this blog isn't touching it. Furthermore, I'm also not signing any petition out there calling to dismiss the lawsuit and you shouldn't either. When called out on the uselessness of the petition, the creator said that they're doing this so that awareness is raised. Well congrats, I knew from a news article beforehand, so you can delete the petition and stop getting people's e-mail harvested off your Tumblr pinned post. No legal decision has ever been swayed based on petitions on change dot fucking org and online petitions don't do dick. But you know, can't let facts get in the way of a dumb time. 

² We all see what you did there, AG.

³ That's what the B&B in AirB&B is. They really ought to offer you breakfast to be a real B&B. 

⁴ Blaire takes it more seriously than most real people, likely to make it clear that this matters in the stories. Lactose intolerance and sensitivity tends to almost be a thing the people with it only give a shit about in the washroom. As the memes goes:

people allergic to nuts: no nuts, I would like to not go into shock and die
people with gluten intolerance: no gluten it'll fuck me up bad, almond flour is my friend
people allergic to shellfish: no lobster, I'll blow up like a balloon, don't you dare
people with lactose intolerance: YOLO, GIMME THAT ICE CREAM life is suffering anyways *toot toot* gonna occupy the bathroom for the next hour, the rocky road was worth it

⁵ AG actually got that wrong at the start; the first editions of the first book said she had an allergy when the text specified an intolerance. They had to clarify later the difference between "my body thinks this food is an allergen, attack" and "my digestive system thinks this food is trash, time for sickness." My books have the wrong term on the back.

⁶ It's actually pretty semi-clear at the root. -Punk is "revolution and defiance in the face of shitty shit, reject the common paradigm, disregard the constables" while -core is "embracing the thing, wrapping it around you, making it style, and using it to feel good and cozy and positive." Now explain dark academia. From what I can tell it's brown clothes, glasses, lots of tweed and books. 

⁷ While I logically know it's a song, once covered by Frank Sinatra--listen here--and made famous in part by Louis Armstrong, the first time I remember hearing it was as a midi-bit version while playing Pick-A-Dilly Pair on the Apple  ][e paired with a giant jumping purple face thing so that's what my brain plays.

⁸ "Make American Girl Great Again." No, seriously. I hate the person that thought that was a decent slogan for a doll quality campaign. Suffering psychic damage. This fandom has too many jerks.

⁹ Not only was there the financial rip off from my friend and AG, there's the bigotry, classism, racist undertones of her characterizations--pearl diving?! A plantation? Hawaiian fetishizing?!!!--and the way said blogger talked shit about one of my oldest and dearest friends which I will never forgive. Point is, she's an awful person. This fandom has too many jerks. 

¹⁰ And not use Addy's plaid dress for cottagecore. Not even on a Kanani doll, and then cry that people were mean to you because someone pointed out the issues in your anti-blackness. NBPoC (non-black people of color) are just as capable of being anti-black, and several are in order to scoot closer to white supremacy. Y'all need to get your shit together. Also you're bad at anti-racism and supporting black people if your first reaction to learning a person did something anti-black is to cape for them and silence the black woman pointing the issues out. This fandom has too many jerks.

¹¹ Unlike some people who only partially knew someone, not even well, and decided that the young lady's passing was relevant to her and has made a child's death all about them and now slaps yellow bows on everything and constantly e-stalks children with cancer with performative actions to make it about her and her praying and fawning over them and no other illnesses. If you know, you know. 

¹² The Muppets Take Manhattan is not on Disney+ because distribution rights belong to Sony, not Disney. I will just have to dig out my DVD. 

¹³ From Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes, that bit. I memorized the poem "The Three Little Pigs" from that in fifth grade for a school wide poetry recital contest, performed it with props and acting that I brought in--including a bright orange prop gun, it was the early 90s and a different time and the school approved it--and it still lives in my head where other people know how to play first person shooters. Also I suspect part of winning one of the fifth grade awards was the fact I memorized one of the longest poems in the entire grade. That one was a whole entire epic, yo.

¹⁴ The Joy of Lex--which some fuck tried to get me in trouble for reading at school, it's the joy of lex as in words--taught me about the lipogram, or stories and poems that specifically leave a letter or letters out in the writing. This little bit has no A in it.

¹⁵ Fifi is wearing an outfit from a collection I haven't discussed yet. I'll get to it.

¹⁶ Last year my spinner's guild did not get to do the regular Fiber Fusion because of Covid. Everything got cancelled. I hate everyone who caused the summer spike by going to superspreader events and claiming we had to get back out and live our lives because you had to get a haircut and blow things up on the 4th and go to motorcycle rallies. This country has too many jerks.