Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: New Tones, Veggie Stands, and No Driving with Cell Phones: The Summer 2018 AG Release Two Months Late

When you go on a trip, you don't blog.

AG's most recent new stuff came out in mid-June. And new stuff is probably going to come out in a few weeks to cover the holiday spreads. Why am I just now getting to the new clutter? Well let's see.

A week or so after my last blog post, I set my online life down and prepped to head out of town for about three weeks in the Lake Michigan area. I spent those three weeks with family, including a full fledged family reunion--and while I do take my laptop with me for long trips and mess with my social media, I don't really blog there because I'm generally either busy enjoying festivals and fairs or just enjoying spending time with family. Look, I have one living grandparent and one living parent, I get all the time with them I can and I actually half unplug from the internet. I got back mid-August, had to handle some other stuff, then after this weekend of getting my brains rebrained I moved the pics I'd taken off my phone and onto the computer to start this opinionation about AG stuffs. And here we are. August is hot, I can't go outside because the air is hazy¹ and so it's a good day to blog.

Before I do, all the AG News that's worth my time and maybe yours: now with opinions from Yours Truly, Me!²

1) That new Molly coming out? She might be a Costco only exclusive; in which case I might end up with a not!Molly just to get that sweet new meet. We'll see. The glasses are apparently plastic. Welcome to the new age.

Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu.

2) The news has gone out about modern collection retirements. At the end of 2018, Tenney-Sue is retiring and taking Nogan with her! Good riddance, you two, I'll get what little I need before year's out.

...and also, Gabriela and Z are retiring. Well. Gabriela I knew would eventually: she got two whole years, she's not been in stores much since Luciana came out, and she was due to leave eventually. Z, on the other hand....Z got boned. Outright screwed over by AG. And I have my personal theories why.

Z is a victim of Tenney's Shadow.

AG was planning for Tenney to be the girl of the year in 2017, quietly extending the line of white and white IDing Girls of the Year out even further than they had (with Lea as a little speedbump of ambiguous brownness). They hyped Melody early in 2016 as the new historical after MaryEllen, getting ready to make a big deal about all the good research they'd done for her time period and all the black people they'd consulted. But then there was public media call out in 2016 on CBS which pointed out both the retirements of Cécile and Ivy and how there had never been a black GotY--in fact, that out of the twenty-odd character dolls created only three had ever been black and none of them had been modern. And the company backpedaled. AG snatched #46 out of the moddie line, made her their new GotY and had her first book written in a few months, and tossed together something quickly to get that Black GotY out.

But there they were with a whole collection's worth of a modern white girl, complete with fancy earrings and a big stage to perform on. The stuff was already being made and had been. They weren't going to just let millions of dollars worth of product catch dust for a year, would they? Hell no. They had stories about songwriting girls from Tennessee to get out while people might still remember that Taylor Swift once sang country. They were not going to take that L on Tenney Grant.

So they created the contemporary line as an excuse to get Tenney released anyways. They had Tenney and Nogan--who we were already getting leaks about as early as summer or so 2016--wait six weeks and then released them under their new line to make it like they had totes planned to just make a new line of modern dolls. They created Z from their online Stop-Motion blogs, and got her together a quickie collection they could release a few months after Tenney--see, we're totally just making a non-limited GotY line! They even kept Gabbi out longer, to make that whole Choose Your Character a big deal--and tossed in Felicity and Nanea as well, to make it very clear that they were going gung-ho with pushing out six characters in only eight months.

But now that Tenney's had her little spotlight and all her stuff and Nogan have been out long enough that they can pretend they weren't going to make her a one-year thing, they're pulling her like they planned. And Z? Well, not only was poor Z the named face³ of the permapanties fiasco, but she had done her job of helping push the illusion that Tenney wasn't just GotY 2017 but held back for six weeks. She's gotta go too, or we can't keep this lie up.

Alas poor Z. You were done so wrong.

3) AG opened a new outlet store! It's in Hershey, PA and thus the air smells like Deth Food. AG would put their outlet in the one city I would probably puke my guts out in. Then again, when will I ever be in PA? They sell some old stuff, some exclusives that may show up oneBay or online or something--I only like a shirt or two--and moddie dolls! For full price. Hah you thought outlet stores were cheap always? Nope.

4) There has been some noted changes in production in recent dolls. The most noticable, if you notice doll eyes a lot, is that the eyes have changed their design since Luciana's release. Instead of the large metal weights in the back and a slight hollow behind the eyes, and clear plastic as the base, the eyes are now a different weight style and made of solid white so the white pegs can be visible. The change in weight leads to some dolls having a downcast, off center eye look, more visible eye whites at the sides and when the eyes are closed, and trouble when eye swaps are done. I've only gotten one new doll since the change⁴--Luciana, who I had to really have the eye whites pointed out to me recently, and had to look in with a flashlight to see the white pegs. So I have no first hand knowledge of the new eyes. I have seen some images of a wig swap gone wrong with vinyl peeled up, with and cracked and "squished" vinyl accompanied with hands pushing so hard the white person's fingertips are white from pressure, so I'm leaning away from that.

Has the production design changed? Yeah. Could parts of it be improved? From sources I know well and trust enough not to throw a fit: sure could. Would I like this to be looked into? Sure.

Is blowing up every IG post with the same four words helping? Hell naw. Cause this is what AG's comments on the official IG account  have looked like for about a month:

AG Official IG account: This month our monthly book is one of Gabby's! Read along with us!
Twenty people in the comments: bring back the quality!!

AG: It's Friendship Day, Tag a friend you're happy to have! 
The same twenty people in the comments: my friend says bring back the quality!!

AG: It's Campfire Day with Maryell--
Those Same twenty people in the comments again: bRiNg BaCk ThE qUaLiTy!!!!!11!!!!eleventy! WE HATE YOU FIX THE QUALITY BRING BACK THE QUALITY QUALITY WE HAVE SIGNED A PETITION TO ADDRESS OUR GRIEVANCES EMAIL THIS TO THE CEO HERSELF 

Hey, kids and kidlike adults? You're not helping. One bit. Take it from someone who used to work for a large corporation who got a lot of correspondence insisting their feedback go right to the CEO: The CEO is not looking at these comments on IG.⁵ You can scream "we will be HEARD" in the comments until you've basically tripped the spam filters, but Marketing isn't even reading those comments. You're spamming the mentions of a Customer Service rep who, after about the fifteenth comment she's read while trying to ask about National Brownie Day to make her 10 bucks an hour, is wondering if she really can't ask IG for a mute function like Twitter has.

Y'all will not get heavy weighted eyes back this way, even if they do come back. You're just being a ass.⁶ Customer service can take your feedback, and forward it on, and like the permapanties I suspect that enough complaints are likely to get things fixed on some form even if it's not back to what it was like before. But flooding the IG comments won't change things faster. Send your data once, be clear and polite and articulate your exact problems, then let it be. CS can't change the eyes themselves. They won't port your e-mails or comments to the CEO. They just can forward your feedback and hope that it gets up the chain so they can stop hearing about it and get back to the other parts of the job.

And yes, I know what the complaints about permapanties did to change the lines. I also know that those got a ton of noted media attention. The permapanty controversy made People's website. A change in eye weights and the vinyl being squishier haven't so far. Maybe you should try sounding less like a nine year old who just discovered they could copy paste comments on social media.

Onto the shiny things, with their wonky eyeballs and all. And enjoy long pics until I get a better digital camera. I'm not changing the aspect ratio on my phone for my general blather.

AG Complaint Department: The Top Five and Bottom Five A*G Events in the Past Ten Years of the A*G Wiki

Ten Full Years!

Where the sweet hell did June go--oh right, A-Kon work, Pride, swapping doll eyeballs, raiding the corpse of Toys R Us, Memorial Day, and family business. Don't beat yourself up, Neth. Just, you know, go take review pictures. There's lots of stuffs you could be covering. Just set up your photo spot and take the damn pictures, woman.

*dusts off cookies*

There's new summer stuff out! Woo, releases! And I have several opinions on it, good and bad. I plan to post about it soon--I wasn't able to get complete pictures of the stuff until the end of the month, because that was the earliest I was able to get to the store. I'm aiming Sunday or Monday's post.¹ Today though, is a super cool anniversary for me in the AG fandom.

Guys, gals, and non binary pals, today is the ten-year anniversary of what's been called the best database for American Girl Info since its 2008 conception, the American Girl Wiki.

Lemme set the scene for the launch. Picture it, Seattle Area, 2008. I'd been officially banned from AF Playthings that March, though I hadn't really visited in weeks at that point and was trying to get my stuff down from the site at the time of my banning.² I was overseeing training at my then-job--which mostly consisted of shadowing over someone who'd done all the main education and was now doing live work with assistance. Since it was a niche section, those of us that normally did the work were not doing it so they could get as much practice as they possibly could. So since I'd been doing the work for two and a half years, I was being paid to sit by my trainee, listen to their calls out, walk them through steps, and answer simple questions quickly so they didn't have to ask the supervisors. I needed something to do between questions and call listen ins, so I was surfing the net trying to get some AG data on upcoming new stuff and characters.

Look it was that or bike back and forth on the long path through Solaceon Town hatching eggs in Pokemon Pearl. Smartphones were not as widespread as they are now and I'd already done some sketching. 

But I couldn't get any data on anything that wasn't locked behind forums or on slowly updated personal sites--and what data that existed was primarily about the items and buying them. While AG is a merch driven thing and so it made perfect sense to talk about the stuff, that was all that got talked about. the Stuff. Very little on any site at all was about the actual characters, there was sporadic history on the line itself, and most of that was heavily coated in the idea that everything that came out before 2000 was perfect and flawless and everything that came out after was Mattel's Hot Garbage trying to turn the line into Barbie. Hell's chicken and fries, there was little to be found about the books. Many places had a list of book titles, but nothing about what happened in them. Not even character parent names.

And it occurred to me: why didn't the American Girl fandom have a wiki-style database? Other toys had them. Lego had one, the Brickipedia. There was an entire one about yo-yos. I'd just been using Bulbapedia to look up some Pokémon data, followed by getting lost on the Muppet Wiki. Hell, there was Wookiepedia--all Star Wars, All The Time.

Was it because someone had never done that themselves? Taken that step out to make an American Girl Wiki? Well, I would be that someone. TV Tropes had the right idea with the The Wiki Rule: There is no area of interest, no matter how narrowly defined, where a person cannot put up a wiki for it and attract at least a few editors with similar interests. So, even if I spent weeks alone coding in character and book pages, making notes on Addy's younger sister and Kirsten's father, I could do it.  Plus, it'd give me something else to do with my fandom knowledge. I did have like, almost all the books. All of them. I might hate the people who'd banned me and shunned me, but that didn't mean I couldn't do something for the AG fandom, even if I'd likely never be appreciated for it.

I submitted my proposal for the wiki to the Wikia staff--which, like onions on your belt, was the style at the time. I got approval and was sent the URL and given my admin and founder rights. I started to clean up the main page images, then started creating pages for each Historical Character and Girl of the Year. I created basic collection pages.  That was enough to start making more character pages and some item pages. I searched and scanned images from my books, making references and internal links here and there and coding. I couldn't post links on any forums, but I could promote on AG Over 18 and my own personal journal, and I did. By August  we'd been featured in the Wikia Spotlight. By September 2008 we had 300 pages. By the first anniversary, the Wiki had just over 850 articles.

Ten years later and with two other admins, we're at a touch over 4000 articles--and I often hear across the fandom how useful the AG Wiki is to pull up information and how nice it is that within days of new stuff coming out, there's at least something on it even just a stubble. And to think, I started the AG wiki with just about 100 or so pages, supervising training at Nintendo, and hoping I was able to do something for American Girl fans with my information, because I was getting damned sick of sites that only talked about the stuff and most of that was in forums people could be banned from.

Oh and the moddie line has gone through about three names--but since category changes are hard, we still call the category by a name several years out of date. Edits, whatcha gonna do.
 
We're fairly quick with the updates--and if you're curious about, say, that one-off character in Felicity's mystery? You can probably get some data or add it in yourself--as long as you follow the rules, are over thirteen, don't edit in garbage, pay attention to the rules about descriptions because a single line edit is not a description unless they're just plain white socks, and don't spam the wiki with petitions to bring back flash games from your childhood because AG is not going to bring back flash games from your childhood. Flash is a terrible thing anyways.

I'm very proud of what the AG Wiki is and has become, and what it will be in the future. 

That being said, I have more to say. Since it has been ten years, I decided that I'm gonna babble on about the Top Five and Bottom Five Things AG has done in the past decade since I started wiking. All opinions are, of course, my own. Of course they are, this is my fucking blog. There will also be some honorable--and dishonorable--mentions in there too.

Hop under the cut and getcha read on.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Wellies in Winter, Gabbies in Celebration, and Z in the Rain (and a White Girl Book)

Books on Location.There's three in this post, all modern.

Today's rambled thoughts are shortish since I'm only covering a few categories, and have a strange mix of pictures. I blame the fact that AG Seattle has a bad habit of never having everything out all at once, and also using my phone instead of my camera for some of the Wellie shots. I'm going to have to actually check if, for Friday's babblings, I have a shot of everything. I have a checklist and a huge chunk was Bitty Baby Shit, and you know how I feel 'bout that.

Onward.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The Real Z of the AGGIB, Gabby's Glorious Art Revolution, and Wellie Wishing and Dressing (oh and Those Two Damn White Kids Redux)

The Real Z of the AGGiB. And my vainglorious return to not sucking at blogging.

.....

aye, fam. Been a while, huh?

So there I was, middlish of March, doing okay if not my best because what is wrong with me, can I uninstall or suspend some of these apps that came with Human.¹ I was anticipating the release of Z and blogging about it, saving my funds for Nanea, about to post about what I got in the Secret Snarker--I'd even took pictures!--ignoring the Two White Kids in the fandom more and more every day, and staying firm on my position that permapanties were not Satan's Own Dolly Butt covering.²

And THEN.

Everything went to shit on a Broadway stage. We're talking Peak Neth Distress, fam. You ever see that old Bugs Bunny Cartoon "Little Red Riding Rabbit" where at the end, Red's ass is over a shovel of hot coals and she's holding a ton of weight, trying to keep herself from falling ass-first into the fire? This shot right here.

That was my April. And May. And the first part of June. I would rather not go into full detail but between several fannish dramas, severe friend worries, family issues, more drama, financial instability, travel distress, the TV dying right in the middle of an episode I was watching and me not realizing this for like 10 minutes because it was right after the show faded to black, yet more drama, some people not getting it in their head that intersectionality is not about white folks feels, news that my only good local roving store is shutting down, stabs in the back, and bullshit? I got boned.

Thus I had...shit, what is this, fifteen damn weeks since my last blog post? *uses Time and Date to calculate* Shiiiiit. Fifteen weeks of just not being able to pull off more than at little bit of functioning. No one Mage should have all these problems, but there they was. Oh, and working con which, while a stressor, is mostly the opposite of fucked up. In fact, being at con and talking shit through with other people and getting my energy back that way is how I've gotten my head back on straight and able to bring you another fine Nethie blog post.

Fifteen weeks since my last one. I'd apologize for the delays but fuck it, I've been through too much shit to say I'm sorry about not being able to put dolly/fandom blogging higher in my life. The Universe is being a total dick, and my queer ass don't need it.

So what have I not talked about in AG News? Um....shit, a lot happened since March. Fuck me running. Let's do as much as we can.

Then again, maybe we won't.

First of all, the whole permapanties thing. So that was snatched back faster than New Coke. In May--about three months after announcing permanent underpants on doll butts, while I was still in the middle of my life trying to crush me--American Girl saw the news was eating this shit up over the controversy, that people left and right were throwing fits, that drama was turning into llamas, and said "well that's going over about as well as swimming the English Channel with balls on chains tied to all our limbs." So nah, they actually won't be doing that. And they will actually be doing a one time free body exchange if you bought any dolls with the permadraws and just can't suffer another minute with a pink cloth butt with silver tape waistbands, by damn it!

And the fandom rejoiced! And then ignored anything else we asked to be heard or spoken up about like PoC representation and the minimizing of racist/bigoted elements in the fandom forever, because fuck any other representation or issues we're having when everything's safe now for dolls to sit bare-assed on toilets and wear pretty panties. Fine, whatever, I don't change underpants that much anyways.

The Reals and My Feels! I want the books.

Secondly: AG coming out with books not just about characters! Books about history! Books about people! Books about real people. Books about Hillary Clinton and Rosa Parks. My little broken heart is a little more healed now. I need like seven copies of the Hillary book, with at least one to put in a plastic sleeve and smack haters with.

Making it yourself!

 Thirdly: AG is gonna soon offer custom dolls. For the low, low cost of Two-Hundred Dollarydoos,³ you can get a doll you design yourself, an outfit and accessory set, a ~Fancy Keepsake Box~, a six-month subscription to AG Magazine which works out to three issues, and free shipping! So far I have not seen the travesty in the world that would be a white skinned Addy Mold. They do, however, appear to be doing a light Sonali mold, and ugh ugh uuuuuuuuuuugh c'mon son stop it. The Sonali Mold has very ethnic features. Who's ready for a flood of blondie blue eyed customs all looking the same but being super unique~ and teenagers on IG fighting that someone else copied their doll by ordering another blond one themselves? Not me. I'll probably get one later on though. After other things.

So is that all the news? Okay. To the stuff.

I managed to get the pictures at Z's release, back at the end of April. And then at this new one, before my camera battery died, got stuck in my camera, and when Bae removed it found it had swollen, thus destroying my camera nice and proper but the SD card was saved.

...Oh, yeah. That happened too. So I barely got these pictures up for everyone.

God damn it. To the stuffz. Oh and some good shit. Today I'll cover Z's release, the Two White Kids, Gabby, and the Wellies. Next time--which will be within the week, I will do my best, promise--I'll do the new Truly Me shit.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The BeForever Activations, Moddies on Parade, And Those Two Damn White Kids Again

Dump Tenney, Buy Gabby.

So last weekend, I hauled my buns to AG Seattle, got pictures of everything, and then spent the week listening to Talking Simpsons podcasts and working on replacing my braids. Because I really really don't like Tenney-Sue and Nogan. The new Historical stuff? The new moddie stuff? That I'm excite for, even Julie's Potty and Accoutrements in a way. But I really just look at those two white kids and roll all two of my eyes and the inner one too and make retching sounds in a way I did for Wonderbread. I swear to fuck. Le Sigh. Anyways, I am going to behave and get this done so that I can stop having it hovering over my head like so much miasma.

This release includes some BeForever, Truly Me stuff, Wellie Wishers, Bitty Baby Shit that I don't fux with, and Those Two Damn White Kids. And if you don't like me calling them Those Two Damn White Kids, then you are on the wrong fucking blog, not even sorry to tell you the exit is available for you to go through. This place is for my opinions, and my opinions involve hating Them Two, and the fact that I manage to edit even a single fact about Nogan The Face And Spotlight Thief on the AG Wiki without leaving "reason for edit" as "FUCK YOU AND THE DRUM SET YOU RODE IN ON" is a testament to my goddamn professionalism on that project, heaux and foes. So you will give me this or you will eat unpleasant ham and catch a butt boil right at the top of the crack of your ass. I'm that bitchy woman your momma warned you about.¹

Take the cut.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: AG News Catch Up: Fused Underpants, PoC Everywhere, The DeVaulting of Felicity, and Two Annoying White Kids

Nanea! Gabby! Z YANG! FELICITY! oh and those two no one here loves they can eat paint.

Bitch, blog more and stop playing with your spinning wheel.¹ Well that and being sad for several reasons. Also stop stepping on your drop spindle and requiring a repair.

Anyways. There is a lot of hot buzz in AG that's been going around for months. And since I just hate doing back to back store visit/New Shit/Release talks, I'm getting off my ass and making a post before I take my ass to AG and use that AG Rewards coupon to get some of the new hotness on the Discount and talk about that. And take review pics. God I owe reviews on everything. I am the second worst.

Also if I get all my angryfeels out now about things in the AG News, I can spend tomorrow snapping pictures and just posting middle finger emojis every time I have to talk about Nogan the Face Stealing Bastard up there. GUESS WHAT I THINK ABOUT HIM. Go on and fucking guess. Have a WILD guess.

Ahem. Get under my cut and put lotion on me,² we're going in.

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.