The Return of An Outsider and Regaining My Voice in the Fandom

Claudie Wells and one of my many sunflowers.
Finding peace where it can be found, some days.

Let's start my return with a confession. 

Sometime early last winter--December or so--I considered quitting this whole blog. Shutting it down and leaving. Writing a "goodbye" post, then packing up shop. Not taking down any of my posts, mind, like I did when I was removed from AG Playthings and felt that my reviews shouldn't remain on a site I wasn't welcome on. Right call, that. But I was ready to call it quits, and leave AG fandom to the next generation: AGIG meme accounts, TikTok videos, and whatever the fuck is going on on AG Tumblr involving book piracy. I'd go dark and just stay in my own little corners where maybe people would leave me alone and stop hurting me. Because people were hurting me.

I almost gave up my voice.

And to start to bring it back, I need to say that and several other things.

I'm being vulnerable in this post, but not too vulnerable. Some of what I went through mentally and emotionally is for the select circles who know the best ways to reach me and treat me the way I ought to be treated--gently, and with love and care. There's some things about me that aren't worth the energy I'd spend trying to talk about it on a public blog about dolls and shit, where any yahoo serious with too much free time on their hands tries to scan every paragraph I write and twist my words for their agendas and vendettas. 

But the truth is I almost quit, and I want to be direct about it. 

That's the tone we're starting with. And this post is not so much about AG or even dolls or toys as it is about me, the Gen X black demifemme human behind this blog, and what I've done to even get back to where I can write this. So if that bothers you or you don't want to hear that shit because it's not the tone you enjoy, then go ahead and back out now because actual feelings on "new" things this past year to catch up and "old" things to look back on in Retrospecticus Posts won't happen until later this week or so when I have the energy to do research for the posts I want.

I'm a person behind this, same as anyone else, and I ought to be allowed to be myself.

The rest of how I feel and where I'm going--as much as I'm willing to share--is below the cut, along with some random pictures of dolls that I've taken pics of.

Even The Woke Need Rest: The May 2021-October 2022 Silence

Jellybean Bunny, one of my BJD.

This is your friendly reminder, as I stated on my Instagram in June,¹ that I am not a strong black woman. Or even a woman always. I'm delicate. I'm fragile. and I need to be taken care of. 

And a lot of people refuse to see that in black people, especially black women, especially dark skinned black women. As has been seen most recently when a bunch of people shit themselves publicly over a mermaid being brown in a remake and Lizzo playing a 200 year old flute that they probably didn't know about until they heard she'd touched it. Hell, I didn't know about it or the other things the Library of Congress has in their storage but now I'm curious. That aside, I'm no Lizzo, I don't have nearly that prominence and I don't claim to. But I am a black demifemme that has been shat on many times in my life by others for being who I am and doing my best to to do it unapologetically--in a thousand ways that other people don't like seeing or hearing. I'm loud, I'm black, I'm enlightened and liberal and intelligent, and I'm not humble about any of it--and that pisses off a lot of people who wish I'd shut the fuck up.

So they treat me like shit, because they think I deserve it. And it fucking sucks.

The way I've been treated by so many people since I've dared to, you know, be black and upset and speak up about racism and bigotry and the way people act towards me in the AG and toys fandoms--and the lies and disparagement that came with those attacks from others--wears a bitch down. And with more pandemic going on, with missing a lot of people, with fears and aches and pains and just all the trauma going off and on for so long finally resulted in severe burnout combined with depression.

Depression is a fucking liar of a mental illness. It tells you that no one loves you, no one wants you, that you don't and aren't wanted anymore, and that the world would be better if you weren't here mucking it all up. It gives you ahedonia and lack of appetites and you might sleep too much or not enough. It steals your ability to write, read, draw, sew, craft, create, or anything. Thanks to it, I don't remember most of April and May of last year without scrolling through my IG and trying to put together my own memory. Depression sucks. It sucks like a motherfucker and I have it.

And it and the burnout is one of, though not the only, reasons why I almost quit blogging permanently. September 2021 was a rough time, and I sincerely struggled to consider if my voice was still needed in the American Girl community outside of running the AG Wiki. I couldn't open things here without thinking that the replies would be like that person who shit on me for daring to post on the low-effort spaces of IG instead of opening my blog and writing long form for all my doll things.

I was in a terrible pit, and as things came out and I saw my backlist of things I hadn't spoken about grow longer and longer, I felt worse and worse about what I hadn't spoken on. When I missed the World By Us launch--though I did have Makena come as my birthday present--that's really what kicked me down a hill. The 2021 launch I anticipated the most, I missed. And all I could think, as I sat there having missed something I cared so hard about, was that by the time I got to it, who would care what I had to say? Who cared about anything I had to say?

I was not following the new way of things: Produce Content. Produce Content All The Time, and Produce It On Time and Quickly, or we'll move past you. Why are you still talking about things from 2019?! You're talking about shit that isn't even available anymore, Neth, what are your opinions on that worth? Fuck you. You're a blight and a bitch and there's a reason people don't like you. The running problem in all your bad relationships and interactions is that you're in them. Go away forever, you terrible human, and leave the running of the AG community to the names much bigger than yours now and the youth and the meme accounts that shit on Chrissa for no reason and constantly think that Maryellen would be an anti-vaxxer.² This is the new age, and we move at the speed of a three-minute clip on TikTok, not your long form paragraphs with words with links. No one wants to read things longer than a tweet thread or ten images. Web Social Media! Leave the fandom to the producers and the youth, Neth. It's late Millennials and Gen Z's party in the fandom now, and you're just an Xer whose ruining their historical inaccuracies about the 1980 and 1990s by daring to have lived through it and remembering it and correcting things that are wrong.

I really did believe that I didn't have a place here in the American Girl Fandom anymore that wasn't just making sure the Wiki kept going. And some people think it sucks because I have rules and regulations, not just vibes and let any old edits go. Where, indeed, is the quality.

Then, this February, a follower on IG sent me a small care package after asking after me. Some unique Wellie clothes with a card that--well--

Exactly what it says on the cover.

Even the Woke Gotta Rest Up.
We'll hold it down, Fam. 

The message in this card meant the world to me. It reminded me that people I haven't seen face to face care about me and what I have to say. And it wasn't just them. I have had other people reach out and say, when I mentioned that I'm thinking about a blog post on this or that, that they're excited for what I'll say. I've gotten so many comments about how they're ready for when I'm ready. My post on IG warning people not to buy AG braid spray cause they're screwing themselves financially if they do went around IG everywhere, and I've probably saved people some dollars and given them some sense.

People are reading and caring about what I have to say this, even if it's only me and my friends. And it's more than them. My haters may be in the world, but they can get flushed.

So that is what I've been doing. Resting. Like a seed waiting for spring.

I've been sorting my AG things and non AG Things. Adding to my collection regularly. Been about new brands like Rainbow High (off and on--right now it's an off, but might be on again soon)--and Disney ILY and other doll and toy lines. Busy in my garden--I grew a whole baby watermelon! (Even if it got damaged.) I grew more sunflowers, several of which just sprung from my compost. I had a friend move up here in the early summer and it's so refreshing that we can see each other regularly instead of what used to be just once a year in the height of stress. I've been working on an AG Historical pattern series that yes, has taken years, but at the end I hope I'll have done something magnificent.

I see and connect to other friends. I have family, friends, and a partner that loves the shit out of me. I'm in several communities that think highly of me and respect me. 

And in those communities, with those people, I took the time I needed--and I'm ready to light up again.

Back in Black: The Upcoming Posts Here

Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth, "You owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that; it lights the whole sky.
~~ Hafiz

So where am I now with this blog? Basically where I was in 2021, with the new addition of now needing to go back over 2019, 2020, the other parts of 2021 I didn't cover, and pretty much all of 2022. Daunting.

I've added most of that to my Retrospecticus document, but now comes the part where I've going to work out when and how to do that.

The rest of the month will thus be trying to cover:

• Corinne Tan's Entire Collection
  
• Claudie Wells's Release and Entire Collection So Far
  
• The LoveShack Fancy and Janie and Jack Collab Mix and Matches
• Whaddup Molly, You're Back

While the rest of the year will be:

• WTF, They Remodeled All The Truly Me Dolls
• The WellieWishers Revamp--and the Stuff Before Then in a Retrospecticus (It was the last post I was working on before I got hit with the messy.)
• Any Other Truly Me Stuff That Came Out in 2022
• Any Other Historical Stuff That Came Out in 2022, so the Historical Retrospecticus doesn't end up at 35K words long or some shit
• 2022 News And Shit, Best I Can  
  

Then once I'm caught back up on 2022, I can go back to before that, and intersperse it with the things I've wanted to cover for a long time.

November may be sparse--after all, it's Nano time, and I've got a lot of work to do then in my novel style writings. There may be a lot of casual Fridays and short news posts that don't take a lot of brain for me--but only after I hit count and help my Nano Community, though. Responsible Neth!

I'm hoping maybe a planner might get me back into noting what I want to do. Not one for tight daily planning or bullet journaling, no, gods. Asking my ADHD ass to just use a planner and write it down and remember is like saying that I can cure my arthritis by not eating gluten and thinking positively. No, just to write down what I'd like to do in my posts and where I am.

I'm hoping to set up to I can get back into doing the things I used to: casual Fridays, magazine flashbacks, and the return of Book Blather and actual reviews.

But there's a release that I'm blatantly skipping.

What We Not Gone Do Here: Dropping The Wizarding World

You will notice one major exception that released I will not be covering: the Harry Potter collaboration. This is because that media series is dead to me, and I won't be promoting anything HP ever again.

I'm never covering anything Harry Potter on this blog or in my personal life, from this day forth. Before this, actually. It is clear to anyone who's not self deluding or in agreement with the bigotry that the author of the series has transitioned her popularity from the rise of those books to promoting her transphobic, anti-queer views. When the author of the series says "my fans support my beliefs, they're just unable to speak up about it" and takes any promotion whatsoever as support, I won't be part of it.

As a queer demifemme with a different look on my gender than I had before recently, and multiple trans friends, I will not be promoting anything from that series anymore. And I will not be interacting with it. I don't buy HP things anymore, or put those I have on display in my house. I have been working on getting rid of things from the series in my life that I don't need or want to have, including retconning the backstories of any of my dolls that have those references. While I won't retroactively delete any refs to the franchise that have been made on this blog--I'm not digging to do that--I have and am doing all that I can to remove the series from my life. I will not be making any further refs, or reviews, or promotion.

I believe in supporting trans joy and gender euphoria at any age.

Gender joy for all genders, across the spectrum of them.
Picture scanned from A Smart Girl's Guide: Body Image by American Girl.

I said it on the Wiki and I'll say it here: This is not a debatable situation. There's nothing to be debated. Every person, at every age, has the right to live as who they are no matter where or whom they are on the gender spectrum. This includes trans and nonbinary youth as well as adults. There is nothing wrong with children, from any age, to know that trans people and LGBTQ+ and queer people exist. We and they always have, even if society has historically suppressed this information in bigoted ways. Trans people are a real, truthful, honest part of our world. Children have the right to know not only about trans people, but about themselves.

Trans people and trans lives are worth more than any media series. No TERFs on my turf.

And before someone says that it's a hyperfixation they can't shed, or a childhood memory they don't want to let go of? I'm neurodiverse (ADHD), there's many things that have been my special interests and still are--hell, this whole blog. And several topics I've given up, for one reason or another. And some of those reasons have been because they're bigoted. I and many others have made the choice--sometimes very hard--to cut off our hyperfixations because they were harming ourselves or others and/or were morally wrong to keep doing. I used to, as I said in my 35th Anniversary post, be big into Laura Ingalls Wilder's books and history. I'd say obsessed, but that word has become annoying to me with how overused it's used lately. But I gave that up as more and more came out about the truth behind Laura Ingalls Wilder, her daughter Rose, and the underlying messages and propaganda in the stories, including learning why my school's readthrough always skipped Little Town on the Prairie.³ And unlike the HP author, she's dead and not, you know, using my past like of those books to spread hateful messages about trans people.

To claim that ND people are incapable of separating themselves from harmful media consumption because they are ND is to do them major disservice and treat them like incapable of being mature, respectful, and kind to others.

It's hard to give up something that means something to you for whatever reason, but it's possible when you really believe in not causing harm to others.

Thank it for its service and let it go.

Love is Stored in the Addy: Conclusion for Now

I have two Addys. There's a story on that.

Barring real life getting in my goddamn way, I plan to spend the rest of this month and year working on trying to cover as many of 2022's releases as I can. Nano-Heavy November can be lighter and Downtime December may be more in the line of Retrospecticus, Reviews, and The Like along with the last of the stuff from this year.

It's been well over a year now, and a year alone is a lifetime online. Oceans rise, empires fall, a queen that had been alive before your grandmother was born and had her coronation when your mother was a toddler has died and whole series of things have come out and been retired and come back out again.⁴ And I have a lot to do, with another year and more lost to...*waves hands weakly at everything around her*

But it's okay. The best time to have blogged about the new American Girl things was when they came out.

The second best time is now.

*~*~*

Love is stored in the Addy
Joy is stored in the Cecile
Discovery is stored in the Claudie
Hope is stored in the Melody
Dreams are stored in the Makena
Creativity is stored in the Gabbi.

--Neth

¹ These are not my words. I used audio that was from roffy_babs on IG, which is credited here in the footnote. It may come from elsewhere on the TikTok, but I don't know. And I don't do reels or stories, just pictures. So I typed it out.

² AG addressed that on their TikTok. The fact they had to says a lot. I can't stand Isabelle Wonderbread more than anyone, but I'm not calling her a Karen or implying the things these meme accounts do for five seconds of snickers. C'mon, y'all. Humor shouldn't suck that hard.

³ Spoiler: it's racism and blackface and lies about "independent living" and how Laura really treated others in her family awful later on.

⁴ Hi, Molly. And think, someone wanked and wanked and wanked about her in my comments almost a decade ago.