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.

Rambled Opinions, General Snarkiness, and Crafting Creatively: Two Kids of Mid 20th Century Release, A Smackering of Books, and the 1952 Walk-Away Dress for 18" Dolls

A fancy striped dress was not one of the things released. It's one of the things I made.

Me, Jan 2018: 2018 will get me back up on the proverbial AG horse! I'm gonna get back on that blogging wagon! Luciana exists, I will get to do cool things, I will be seeing HAMIL--

Depression: siddown bitch, be humble *kicks me in the solar plexus of my brain*

Me: yes brai--*does not finish sentence because she just puked, curls up, can't move*

And that's where I went for four months, because the brain weasels are shitgibbons and resolve to ruin my world like so many mansplainers going "well actually--" and the very existence of election manipulation because white people were primed to vote stupid or throw shit away because they fell for racist, self-centered bullshit.¹

Have I done stuff since then? Well, yeah. I just haven't been blogging. Which I feel bad about. Let's start over again and don't hold my problems against me. As the song by Rag 'N Bone Man goes, "I'm only human, after all." It's okay to be a sad Neth.

What's happened in four months?  Um, well, a quick gloss. 

Gabbi's still hanging in there, even unto May, even if her bed is gone. Tenney-Sue still stinks. Logan is a No-gan. There was a short leak of the nu!Molly which was then instantly yanked down, but not so quick that I didn't put it on the Wiki. Luciana became part of my gang,² known colloquially as Space Girl Lucci, and enjoys things such as knit sweaters, Houston Town Pride (mine moved, I know more about Houston than Virginia), and Sailor Moon. The end of January had a purple moon--when a blue moon gets eclipsed.

There's the books listed for the GotY for 2019. Toys R Us is shutting down--and it's not dying from WalMart or Amazon or millennials not having enough babies, but because people like Mitt Romney murdered it and are looting the corpse to fund the rich-poor divide.³ And it's ruining the world of toys--AG sales dropped badly last quarter, but I try not to freak out about AG dying. MCM is coming up this year but I have family stuff to attend to at that weekend so I shan't be going. HAMILTON.⁴

I continue to spin yarn. I actually used some and now I'm not scared to use my own yarn. I saw Black Panther, added to the destruction of Titanic in high rankings, and now Wakanda Forever. (Infinity War what now? Nah.) My local AG store no longer has a cafe, because the economy is crap and AG picked the Seattle and Scottsdale stores to get kicked from having a cafe. We had a successful Secret Snarker, but I didn't post about my outfit because of brain weasels so I'll get on that soon. I went to Emerald City Comic Con and I loved it and I want to get a full pass for next year, like three days if I can dig it. I now have four of the AG Craft sets from the 90s. Janelle Monae came out as queer and I am a Dirty Computer but I do not consent to be cleaned.⁵

And such and such. 

Oh, and the part that's in this post: I released a pattern and there was a short AG release that consisted of a handful of Historical stuff and the Bitty stuff I tend to ignore. I did get to get pics in February. February. Ugh, my stupid brain. So this is a short post, since there's not much to yammer about. And at the end of this post, I'm going to be a little more proactive about my Etsy shop. If I can't pimp me, who can?

But on the real, I'm sorry that I made y'all worry about me. I try to let people know I'm alive--if struggling--on Instagram by posting fairly regularly. But these past four months, every time I went to go work on any blog post, my brain screamed "shut up, no one wants to read your garbage words about toys aimed at little girls,⁶ you're an adult, this is stupid, you're stupid, you care too hard, no one cares this hard when they're normal. You're weird and ugly and boring and garbage for being damn near forty and being so ass to the wall about girls' toys. You should be an adult and into things such as homeowner's fees, shot glasses, babies, long form stories about soup on recipe blogs, eating at Applebees and the stock market--you know, things that might matter to people. Or nothing, because caring about things isn't cool, South Park and Family Guy said it so it must be true." And as the span got longer since my last post, I kept feeling more and more like I should just like, give it up and pack it in and stick to silence because no one really cared.

But you know what? No. No, I can talk about what I want on this space of the internet I've chunked out for myself. And what I want to talk about in this chunk is American Girl Dolls and race and gender and sexuality and intersection as a person who lives the intersectional life by the nature of who I am--black, queer, female, and into dolls. At least one person cares, I know they do.

And if there are in fact people who don't like me doing this and wait for every post online I make to go spend their time reading all that I blog and 'gram and tweet, and hover around my e-presence in order to see me say something they think is dumb and run over to their own e-space to go "ah ha ha what a freak" and talk shit about me?

Okay. Fine. Let them. If these people really do enjoy spending their precious free time looking at me or anyone else doing shit openly and complaining that people are living, when they themselves could be using that time to do literally anything else in this span of life they have to themselves? I hope it's fulfilling to them. I'm too old for that shit. I been too old for that shit since the days of Cloak Girl and Barefoot Jimmy. Dolls and race and being queer and shipping characters and social justice are fulfilling to me, and I'm gonna do what I can to be a happy person.

Are you hate reading me? Did you stumble across my space, sneer, and decide this is fucking stupid? Okay. "Enjoy" this post and all the posts I've made and will make after it. You could spent that time watching Netflix, reading a book, editing TV Tropes, playing D&D, carving swords, spending time with people in your life that love you, or doing anything in the world to add to your skillset as a human, but instead you're spending it with me in my room in the internet for some reason I don't understand and frankly don't want to. You do you, boo-boo. It's your life to do with as you will. I'm going to keep blogging.

Are you reading me for joy? Did you stumble across my space, smile, and decide you want more? Are you one of the people who, for whatever reason, like and enjoy reading what I have to say or think or anything about dolls made for 8-12 year old girls? Do you understand that just because a toy is aimed at preteen girls, the company has been around thirty-plus years and like anything it has people who have grown up with them, found love or peace in them, and who have made bonds with others over doll collecting? Do you like seeing people find affection for things instead of only derision? Am I kinda cool? Did you miss me? Then hey. I'm back, and I'll do what I can to get back to the rhythm.

Go under the cut and read on.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Nanea and The Historicals, or Four Months Late Ain't Shit When History Is Far Away

Aloha, Nanea!

*Gets up* 
*Gets back on horse* 
*Horse is dusty* 
*Gets off horse* 
*Gives horse a dusting* 
*Gets back on horse*

Okay. This is what I'm going to try to do, my loves and adorables, to get things back into a steady pace. I haven't done any rambled opinions on the old shit, we've got like two weeks before a whole slew of new shit comes out, and I really should get the old shit yammered about in some form before that.

Today, we do Nanea and The Historicals. Wednesday, we do the Contemporaries and the Wellies. Friday, we do the Moddie Shit. Giftmas, I'll just do a big damn post of All the Shit That's Fit To Blog About covering everything cool and good that has happened in My Dolly World since then. Then next Wednesday, we can talk about news and things that I've missed, in prep for the new shit.

S'all right? S'all right.

To Nanea and the Historicals. I've made you wait too long.

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.

Why I'm An Outsider: Part Eight: Summer Chaos in AG > 18 and Persona Non Grata, or How I Got Banned (Temporarily) From A Goddamn Community I Started

Felicity in a flower garden. I need all the floofy pictures for this one.

Good lord it's almost October. Where did my month go? Oh, right. Seasonal Affected Depression. Or something like that. Fall comes on and I get moody and sad like a punk. Pbbbth. Well, that should be the best time to pull this painful tooth of my time in the AG fandom in the late 2000s, right? Right.

I've been trying to do my posts in chronological order, which is why this one has been hard to get to. Which is probably why I've been putting it off forever, even though I wrote about it once before. But not in a huge public format like this. But I can't get to the garbage that happened to me on AGPT if I don't get through the garbage that happened to me by my then-best friend in the fandom. I honestly thought it had happened after my AGPT shit, but when I started to dig through the archeological mess that is my recordings, I found out that no, this happened first. Fun. Welp, can't have my arsenic til I have my strychnine.

So, the setup, for those new to the Outsider Series who will later go back and read the other seven posts.¹ By summer 2007, there were two major American Girl groups to participate in, not including flittering  message boards which were the way tweens and teens begged for fandom attention before bokeh pictures with song lyrics on Instagram. The first major gathering of AG fans--called, appropriately enough, AG Fans MB--was slowly dying after restricting everyone from the group that didn't fit into their doorways, because you can't live when you close your communities to a small faction. But I was beyond them for the most part. I was part of two major AG fandom communities. AG Playthings was the big, open forum gathering, like the main hallways of a high school. AG >18, which had been started in summer 2006, was the back woods near the school where we smoked, drank, talked shit, and shipped queerly. They worked in balance with each other: AGPT was the public place found when searching for American Girl collectors,² and AG >18 was sort of an open secret place where you could talk some shit and not get hit. I'd started it with my then best friend, PNG, whose name--online or otherwise--I don't use. AG > 18 was doing pretty good at that time. That April, we'd installed two new mods: Bean and Colette. This took the modship of AG >18 to a grand total of four, including me and PNG. We were a self-running community, so we didn't need huge amounts of moderating. At most we were just semi-public figures, who if some one needed some business taken care of beyond public work, we did it. But we were all friends of varying levels, and PNG was my closest friend. To the point she had my address and even my phone number. She complimented my sewing. She praised my Fel-Beth shipping--I was even writing fic.

So that's why it hurt like a motherfucker when, in the summer of 2007, she stabbed me in the motherfucking back.

Prologue: Not Such a Sweet Baby Face
Part One: Finding AG Fans, or How Periods are Bad For Children
Part Two: There's Fundies in My Fandom
Part Three: The Wicked Witch of Customizing and the Birth of AG > 18
Part Four: Halloween is for Jesus, or How Otters Offended a Nation
Part Five: The AG Fans Revamp: No Pagans Allowed 
Part Six: The Great Mass Banning of Aught-Six
Part Seven: The Rise of AG Playthings  

Crafting Creatively: Things I've Made: Kit’s Lavender Scallop-Edged Dress

Everyone looks good in lavender. Everyone.

I like to sew. 

I get bored and sew things. I get angry and I sew things. I get excited and I sew things. I get depressed and I sew things to feel better. I get sleepy and I don't sew things because I would rather not sew through my fingers, but I dream about sewing things. It's a cool ass hobby that, when I'm done, has something to show for it. My mom started me sewing when I was four years old at the basics, I started putting together doll clothes when I was five or six with my own scrap bags and children's books on dolls, and I've never stopped. I would sew more outfits for myself but I have yet to obtain either a dressmakers double or the space to set one up. I plan to do some things like casual lounge pants--a t-shirt and lounge pants are my home uniform--but pretty historical simulated outfits are a lot more work. Also sewing for me takes like, five or six yards of fabric and laying things out and lots of lace and lining and invisible zippers and buttonholes and modifying nearly every single top or dress pattern to fit around my huge rack o' tatas¹ and oh my gods. I'm going to need more space for that.

But doll clothes sewing? Super easy and satisfying for me. It takes a yard or two--and that's more because I overpurchase; if the pattern calls for 3/4 a yard I buy a yard and a quarter to give me space to layout. The trims are generally on the smaller side, and I need fewer of them. And rather than having to set in zippers or, Athene Save Me, make buttonholes, I can mostly get away with velcro and the occasional snaps. Plus, if I want to do a historical look, I have so many people to model my creations. I have stacks of doll clothes and doll craft books in my house (some of which are older than me in both the technical and actual sense) and a whole comic book storage box of just AG sized patterns alone--and that doesn't count the ones I've purchased digitally.

I've got a lot of AG patterns, is what I'm saying, and I like to and want use them. The most recent use has Kit in a new outfit that's very springtime.

Kit’s Lavender Scallop-Edged Dress

Kit is not a flouncy girl, but dresses were de rigueur in the 1930s. So it helps that this dress suits her tastes just right. The light lavender print is complimented by scalloped short sleeves which are mimicked at the overbodice and the plain white collar has double topstitching and a neat button flower accent. She also has a matching button-flower hairclip to pull her hair aside.

Double the dresses, double the fun!

Also, if you've seen this dress on one of Gwen's girls from A Peek Into the Pantry, that's not because she broke into my place and swiped my dress after I finished it. I made two and sent one to her. Just because I like to sew and I like to sew for others and send them gifts when they're my friends. =3

Under the cut for crafting deets.

Historical Clothes Reviews: Kit's Limited Edition Chicken-Keeping Set

The care and keeping of chickens, by Kit.

The availability of Historical and BeForever Characters marches on. In only about five weeks or so, Caroline will head off into the archives and be replaced by the red headed, some-colored eyed,¹  Florida living Maryellen of the 1950s, leaving only three girls not placed in the 20th Century--and all of them girls of color. AG's balance is, shall we say, hella imbalanced.

I'm still up in the air about Maryellen's collection--the doll is still on the miss me side for now--but I will be reading the books and jacking things for Edith and Dorothy. Speaking of which, if you haven't preordered Maryellen's books, your best bet right now is Amazon. Thanks to Lucina on AGC, I've been informed of a huge sale. Her Central Series dual books are almost half off;  The One and Only is down to $5.23 and Taking Off is down to $5.18. The Sky's the Limit--the My Journey With book--doesn't have as steep a discount at $9.18, but all three books have the Amazon Preorder guarantee: If the price goes down before release then you get the cheaper price and if the price goes up, you still get the cheapest price that was offered. Right now that's pretty much like buy two of her books and get one free, and all still less than $20. Along with Josefina's Journey book and any item of about 6.50 or more, you can even get free shipping, and you won't be charged until things ship. This is cheaper than getting the box set from them and definitely cheaper than the $10 that AG will be charging for each book and $30 for the box set. Game the system and go read books. They're brain making, and can make folks like a character more than if they'd just gone on looks and sparkly collection things.

I know that was the case with me and Kit Kittridge. Kit--along with Samantha and still-vaulted Molly--used to be part of what I called the 20th Century Block Out. Starting at about the time I got into AG collecting in 2005, AG tended to be on a trend of releasing sets that only focused on Kit, Sam, and Molly. First it was the Rolling through the Ages sets of outdoor wheeled activities and outfits. Then the swimwear through the ages sets, which again, was the three of them and their beachwear. Then the Scrapbooking collection of books that and even though Kit did not get a new outfit for those, she was included by having a book. So I didn't like Kit, and felt she was kind of an usurper taking emphasis away from Addy. Then I picked up her books secondhand and started to read and found that Kit, for all her blue eyed, bobbed blond hair self, was more than just another classic molded face. Girl was struggling in poverty, dealing with a best friend who didn't always get it, and liked to write news. Six read books later Kit went from "do not want" to "do want" and so became part of the gang in 2007 soon after I moved to the place I'm at now, and she's in my top five Historical loves. Addy keeps winning at BeForever, but Kit's not so far behind her and often places second in the race, and if I have to dicker about who to get something for after busting the budget on Addy, it's quite possible that I'll go for Kit. Especially now that her BeForever Wardrobe is less 40s mashed with 20s and more properly early 30s.

Like Addy, Sam, Julie, Kaya, and Rebecca, Kit was included in the BeForever Limited edition release as well as the prior Limited Edition Release with Rebecca, Julie, and Kaya.² This spring, she got Kit's Chicken-Keeping Set which had me geeking from the moment of release. At the cost of $48 dollars, Kit gets a cherry print blouse, green checked overalls, brown buckle shoes, a headband, and a plushy chicken to tend. Accurate to the books, even--in Happy Birthday Kit!,³ Aunt Millie comes up from Kentucky and stays with the Kittridges for a bit, and in the process sets up chicken keeping and selling the eggs for money. Kit's mother thinks this makes them look even more country rube than anything, but Kit really likes the chickens and loves helping take care of them. During the spring sale, it was offered for $38 and like Addy's Sewing Set, went quickly on backorder. Unlike Addy's sewing set, it's practically stayed that way. First until April, then August, and currently it shows backordered until October. Sweet Polly Oliver, Kit. At least when things are on backorder, they can still be ordered, so that's what I did. I managed to order it during the sale over the phone at AG Seattle and while this meant paying shipping, it meant also that I got the set at discount. If you're small enough or have kids that are small enough, you can also get into the Cheery Blossoms Top and Cheery Checks Jumper for historically inspired cosplay. The set's only here in this form until December 31st or as long as supplies last--and Kit's supplies on this have not lasted worth a damn, so place the backorder and wait til it ships out this fall.

Under the cut!

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: '15 Summer Launch with BF Bedtime, Grace by Space, and Modern Comforts

Just because we don't get along doesn't mean I can't frame you well, Samantha Parkington.

It took me a bit to handle the new shit. The weekend right after the new launch I went to the mall that has my comic books but not AG stuff as well as a festival, and since the Bae does the driving we can go to one mall a weekend if they're in opposite directions from each other, and they are. Look, I don't argue with the conservation of gas. Save the Planet. So instead I went to AG on the 3rd, spent the 4th burning things in the name of AMERICA, and the 5th complaining that it's too damned hot to type. It's still too damned hot. I think I brought the Texas Weather back with me to the PNW. But I'm at least in a position to get my blog on for you, the eager consumers of my content and happy audience--and if you're here to be a hater, then hate on, I don't give a fuck sweetie.

AG is getting fairly good about their social media presence, even if I'm still unable to interact wholly with their FB page.¹ Not only was the Spring Fling given leaks on Pinterest (which I hate to deal with) and Instagram (which I like dealing with), so was this Summer launch, giving us eager buyers and collectors an idea what was up and coming. Even if I pretty much knew a huge amount from scoop fairies and unethical eBay sellers selling factory seconds that folk be finding, that doesn't mean that everyone does, and I like to see how AG pushes their own hype. Which is why I hate hate hate comments on posts like AG, Monster High, and Ever After High media posts that are all "we already know this is on the way and the name of that character and her monster parent and blah blah blah give us something new."² Companies have their own way of announcing things and building up marketing for their products, and it's not by you finding leaks of shit on line and spreading it among your little small media circles to the point you're bored already when they start talking. Not everyone knows everything already from leaks and dig ups and is in the loop like that. Don't be a fucking killjoy about new stuff to people that maybe haven't seen it. It's arrogant, rude, and dickish. Don't be a dick.

This summer release comes right on the very heels of  the Truly Me Revamp--only about a month later, in fact. This is because, come August, Caroline sails away to the big Archival Vault and Maryellen pops out and that is going to be the thing to sit in the spotlight and the book set I'll buy immediately. Ah, I remember when Addy was launched and she only got her first three books and the rest came in the next spring and there was nothing to be done but wait on the entire second half of her story. Be glad you little cheeky baubles get things much more upfront now.

To the shiny things!

Crafting Creatively: Picking Perfect Prints and Fabric

Kit's dress looks good because I started with good fabrics.¹

So there you are, doing your first AG sewing project! You've already decided to avoid the Generidress profile--or if you're working with it (because it's a great starter project), you're tweaking it to look like more than that. Maybe you bought a pattern or two from Etsy, or are doing a basic gathered skirt, or something. Either way, you're all ready to cut and sew and make something neat for your doll wardrobe. It's go time!

Wait, no it's not. Don't cut that fabric just yet. Let's make sure that your fabric fits what you're doing. Set the scissors down and listen, cause we can all learn a little something before we get into the cutting. Learn twice, cut once, cause you can't uncut fabric or trims.

There's a lot of good, cute fabrics out there, and a lot of good, cute clothing patterns. I own several patterns and like buying them from Etsy shops. But part of working with an American Girl doll and making clothes for them is working to scale. Like I said with my knitting post, messing up the scale, the print, or the add-ons and not trying to work within some limits for dolls can turn what might have been a nice outfit into a hot, oversized, terrible looking mess. And this is especially true with fabric. I got a lot of my mistakes out as a kid on other doll brands, but I also didn't have the internet to show these failings.² I fucked it up so you don't have to.

This doesn't just include the fabric, it includes the trims. Let's hop below the cut for the things to do, and things not to do.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: '15 BeForever Spring Fling with Modern Add Ons

Addy forever slaying these ButterCream and Wonderbread Heaux.

All right, it's the American Girl Spring Fling Release! Some leaks came out a few days ago on Pintrest, which I saw and had early squeal. I only have a Pintrest account because there's no damned way to get links to interesting things without one. I still use my bookmarks, I know, what. (Ignore they need to be cleaned as much as my damn non-virtual bookshelves.) I went up to AG Seattle last weekend--tea with friends if you've seen my Instagram account--so I won't get to go back until next week at probably the earliest. Official shots it is. Also, gods bless the other admin of the AG Wiki, Akaikaze, who swoops in and gets all the new stuff up fresh and hot while I'm still having mini fits over doll scissors and chickens. This release was a lot of BeForever and some Spring stuff for the Moddies. With some Bitty shit but lol Bitty Shit, I ain't here for that, my Polar Bear not withstanding. 

Since I probably won't post tomorrow, I want to announce this as well: Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the opening of American Girl Collectors. What a year it's been! I thought when I started this blog that my time in a huge fandom space was behind me, and the board launch would ultimately be tiny space dwarfed by the looming power of AG Playthings and their chaos. Now we have almost 350 members and a bunch of active ones, and together we've build a beautiful, safe, exciting community of people with open minds and lots of full discussion. We've talked about everything from the launch of BeForever to the still lingering remnants of WonderBread; instructions on rewigging and body fixes to how to pop the eyes out of a head; we're bringing back DollerDay, and of course there the heartwarming tale of The AGC Cousins, Lightning in a Bottle. Boom, Starzz, and I couldn't have done this alone without the people there that keep us a community. If you haven't joined already and you're of age, what's keeping you? Run on and join the lovely chaos.¹

To the new stuff. Some of these images are the larger Pintrest shots because no need in double saving images.

Historical Clothes Reviews and Historical Accessories: Kit's Classic Meet Outfit and Accessories

Kit, old school in more than a few ways.

Kit, like everyone else in the Historical group except Kaya and Caroline, received a complete outfit revamp and collection refreshing with the launch of BeForever. Her teal color scheme on the side of her books migrated to her clothes. This brand new outfit look--teal and red, the basic Generidress silhouette done well--led to a lot of misinformed, uneducated mewling about how teal was somehow invented after the Great Depression and how her now-Classic meet set was so much better. I have to wonder how many people are blinded by nostalgia. It's not a terrible set, but--well, I'll go into details.

Kit was one of the two Historical characters that came around in that lull I had when I wasn't really focusing much on American Girl in college, the other being Kaya. Her books brought me around to adoring her and adding her to the group. Kit is not a flouncy fluffy pink girl¹ (this is why I didn't get her Easter set, along with the faux chocolate) and both her meet outfits have reflected that well given the confines of the 1930s in girls' wear. My girl's not just into waste-not, want not--she's into recycling, the environment, canning and jelly making, and socialism. And drinking out of Mason jars before hipsters Columbused² that shit. So I'm really kind of glad that Kit's one of the girls who got a major revamp from BeForever, since she's one of my up-there girls. Since her movie, things have gotten pretty fluffy in her collection--Ruthie, what did you do?--and while there's been a few things I've given major side eye to, I've gotten a lot of it. Including all her original Base Six outfits, which includes the meet set.

Kit's Classic Meet Outfit was released with her back in 2000--a mauve-lavender sweater and cardigan set, floral print skirt, closed toed canvas sandals, and basic white bloomers. Fun fact! Until later in the set's run, this was the only meet outfit that contained no Velcro; when it did, it was solely on the shoes until later versions also velcroed the skirt. My set doesn't have either. Currently it's available for $36 while supplies last. Her classic meet accessories included a woven clutch purse, Buffalo nickle, cloche hat, handkerchief, and compass necklace; these were available for a limited time after the BeForever release but now would have to be purchased on eBay and the costs are high. I've had her meet outfit since she joined up the gang in 2007 and brought her meet accessories with her--but not her underwear, so I had her wear some close-enough pink bloomers until I got her some closer white drawers.

Those are some pink panties, girl.³

Kit, like pretty much all my Historical girls, displays her own outfits here on the blog and doesn't have to share them with anyone else. She's a little more willing to share clothes with those that like her style for casual shots, but for reviews she's here to do the stuff herself and so she gets to do the stuff herself. So all you people bitching that I seem to be "racist against white people" by putting most of the outfits for Historicals I Don't Own on my Dolls of Color can shut the entire hell up. I don't know how you managed to not notice that Felicity only shares her clothes with Dear Elizabeth.⁴

Unlike Josefina, where the meet changes were mostly in two items, everyone else who was revamped got a lot of major changes. So when I do the BeForever meet sets for everyone else--I own them all--I'm going to do separate posts.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: BeForever: Dropping It Like It's Hot

Bring in the new noise, bring in the funk!¹

It's been a wild ride for the AG fandom in 2014 regarding the Historical line. We've heard since February that Samantha Parkington, the Pretty Princess of American Girl, was on her way out of the AG Vault like a Disney animated flick. We've heard of the end of the Best Friends Line and the way it screwed Marie-Grace, Cécile, and Ivy over. (Oh and Ruthie. But eh, whatever.) We've seen people whine about the historical accuracy of items and cite the 1940s and black and white pictures to say that color wasn't invented before 1970 like they're Calvin's daddy--you know who you are--and the terribleness of them without actually seeing the stuff out and mewl that Addy's skin is lighter--hat tip it's not any lighter than it was on August 27th. (ETA: Proof from someone who got Addy and BF Addy a day apart can be seen here at Lissie and Lilly: BeForever Addy vs Original Addy Comparison ) We've had happy squeal, new book covers and book rebundling, mini spoilers, eBay leaks, and videos on the official AG Youtube leaking images to us and revving us up for the new looks. We've seen the hype and smelled the haterade. And now, we have the official Launch of BeForever. *trumpets and confetti* Whoo, BeForever!

What's BeForever? Have you been under a damn rock for the past several months? Oh, no, you're new to AG fandom somehow. All right, I'll play nice for a sec. Basically, BeForever is a rebranding of the Historical line to make the characters of the past appeal to the hip youth of today--what with their touch tablets and Internets and cell phones and iPods and hip hop and Wonderbread Girls of the Year. Out go best friends--Cécile and Marie Grace included, alas we hardly knew ye--and in place returns Samantha as the backbone of support for this new launch, since AG has relied on her for the launch of new things. The Historical characters all got new meet outfits except two: Kaya--who really can't get much of a change in wardrobe since her era is pretty stuck in the past; and Caroline, but she's only been out for two years so we're letting it slide. There's outfits inspired by the meet outfits--both loosely and pretty close--and new items, and the books have adapted into a new form. And many things changed--but many stayed the same. Sort of like the line is advertising again.

Yesterday, the whole thing dropped. After seeing things online at 10 pm my time--two hour diff from AG's headquarters--and losing half my shit at AGC, a buddy of mine and I went to AG Seattle and squealed the hell out and I lost the other half of my shit. I snapped a bunch of pictures and then got several things to bring home. I wondered in June if my body was ready and OH NO IT WAS NOT. There's so many new things and if I were a rich girl with a house large enough for everything I would have gotten the world of stuff. As it is, I came home with a decent amount, and will be doing reviews on the newness later.

This post is about all the shiny good-good and new hotness--including the All New and Semi-Improved Samantha. Pics are all my own pictures taken at the store--some of mine are off center, I was too busy jumping around in excite. I'm already excite about something else in AG fandom (if you're part of AGC you'll know what) and so the last week and change has been an utter crazy whirlwind of ups and downs and swings and swirls. I tend to have a lot more feels on historical things than moddy stuff, so this is a long ass post. I had to start the post, go to sleep, wake up, finish it, and then back time it. There will also be handfuls of animated gifs so if those bother you, take that into account. I know photo sensitivity since I have it, and warnings are appreciated.

Before I start into this all new Historical minty freshness and the new hotness in the streets for the young jeezies, a mini rant. We already have a stupid split between PC stuff and Mattel stuff hovering around and stinking up the place like spoiled Similac formula. It's irritating and annoying and people should slip into the sea for it. We don't need another split. The first split is terrible and I really can't stop it except to hiss at people. But we can prevent prefixes on titles right now.  Don't do it. Don't do it. I swear to the gods, fandom, if you make "pre-BeForever" a thing like "pre-Mattel" I'll find ways to make you hurt like I rammed glass and Legos in the soles of your feet. I will curse you to never find the last item you need in your Molly collection in a sensible price range and for your first edition Kirsten to develop silver eye and you to never find a person to do an eye swap to keep her soft lashes and for your favorite girl to get a mysterious stain on her cheek that won't come off without a full head replacement. Consider this my preemptive strike against your stupid smelly failure. Also the old stuff isn't coming back, BeForever is the way things are from now on. You can't have the old looks, the NOLA girls are gone, Pleasant Rowland wasn't the Lord Goddess of Historical accuracy by a long shot, and there's not going to be any return to the past of how you want AG to be or plaid dresses for Samantha no matter how many likes your ill punctuated mewling little wet pants baby rants on the AG Facebook page and Instagram filtered Samantha selfies get. Stop being an irritating little buttboil on Facebook and move on. I have worked customer service and the people having to reply to these things are both sighing in irritation and laughing at you. You're now in the file of "stupid jackass customer." Ahem.

We're starting with Addy, of course. She's my first girl--and the best.

AG Complaint Department: The Ten-Year Rise and Fall of the Best Friend Line

So long, girls. The Era ends with you.

Have you been living under a rock for a few months in the AG community? I haven't, even if I have no need to post something every day on this blog. This is not Tumblr¹ and I'm not a news blog cause I don't need to be. I've got stuff coming up that y'all will like--the gang is up to another girl--and tons of reviews and shit. But I'd like to address the end of the Best Friends line before the launch of BeForever at the end of this month, so that on occasion my articles can seem timely.

If you've had a pulse on the AG community for any time since about January to March, you'll have heard whispers of both Samantha's return and the retirement of Marie-Grace and Cécile. Many people saw the end coming through whispers, catalog scans that didn't include the others, and jabber from personal shoppers. Finally in May, AG officially stepped up and said that Marie-Grace, Ruthie, Ivy, and Cécile are going into the Archives. This is in preparation for the launch of BeForever--a rebranding of the Historical characters to focus on the main AG characters and appeal to girls again. This includes new clothes, the return of the emphasis on girls being the same in essence through history, using new ways to appeal to old ones--aw yiss, apps and nets--and rumors that include removing illustrations from the books to appeal to older children.² This does not include their best friends or the NOLA Girls. There's several articles that have been published on news sites and around discussing how this removes the only black character that hasn't been a slave and the only Asian-American character in the lineup. I'm not going to knock them in any way. They're right in saying that with Ivy getting booted, we don't have a Asian American character represented in history anymore--and that Cécile is the only well to do pretty princess we've had that was black. But neither girl really got a chance to hold down the fort herself, and the best Friends Line was a poor way to put both of them in. 

For the most part, the Best Friends Line did not do much for AG's bottom line or their appeal to the historical characters, and the one time it touched the moddies it tanked hard. While the Best Friend Line had its appearances of successes, it also had its problems--lots of them. I do kind of like the idea of best friends and two girls sharing an era, and a lot of my historicals have theirs. Edith has Dorothy, Kimmy has Tyanna, Addy has Sarah, and Felicity has pretty brunette Elizabeth. I'm even debating finally creating Charlotte's stepsister/close friend from Caroline.³ And the most technical sense, I have several of the Best Friends: Nellie, Cécile (though she's not a best friend, she's a split collection--more on that later), Kimmy ("Ivy"), and Sonali. A lot of people will talk about the good of the line. But I feel like the AG community and the purchasing population at large didn't really feel the Best Friends Line, and that it going down is going to overall be a good thing.

If you haven't clicked onto this, this is all my perception. I'm not a marketing mogul, I've never worked for AG in my life, and I majored in English. These are just my opinions as someone who came into AG at the small start of the Best Friends Line, and saw how things came--and now, how they're going, along with things one of the members of the forums has observed and I'm alright with passing along. You're not here for numbers. You're here for my opinions, education, snark, and to learn better about the kyriarchy and how to tear it down. 

Let's start the same way AG did: with Samantha and Nellie.

AG Identifications: Historical Underwear

Insert "Panty shot" jokes here, with Cécile.

Hey, so as of tomorrow I will have been AG blogging for a year. Not bad work for a year. Let's keep going.

So a discussion came up on the AG Collectors board¹ about the historical underwear--basically, if Addy and Caroline had the same underwear. And they do and don't. From that I decided that it would behoove us to have an ID post showing the slight--and the not so slight, in some major cases--differences among the historical panties, bloomers, and undergarments that the historicals came with. And so snapped pictures as I was changing everyone around. That way if your girl comes without her panties, you can--if you so choose--seek out her drawers and bloomers and cover her ass, as the case may be.

A little history before we start looking up skirts and down pants. Most of the historicals have white underwear. To modern eyes, white underwear might not seem to make sense, because white is traditionally harder to keep clean and shows dirt fast. But here's the sitch, Mitch: white can be sun bleached. As in laid out in the sun and allowed to fade. And in the days before Clorox² this was was the best way to get out major staining without scrubbing the entire hell out of clothes. Other colors will and do fade (which is why old clothes can often look really pale, when they likely had vibrant bright colors.) So underwear were white because you wore those often and maybe had one or two sets (one to wear while the other got washed) and you had to get those stains out with vigorous abuse of the cloth. Sure they might get dingy and faded, but honestly no one was looking at your underwear most of the time anyways. Also, why would you waste expensive dyes on underwear? Again, no one was looking at your underwear.

Furthermore, the girls between the invention of pantaloons and the later shift to bloomers--from Caroline to Addy--have sealed drawers. That is, not split crotch. Split crotch drawers weren't wide open, but there was an opening front to back so that when you squatted down to attend to nature's call, you didn't have to pull down your pantaloons. Like elastic instead of tie strings, we're letting it go. I could go into historical underwear all day, but that's for review posts.

Listed in Reverse Historical--starting with Julie Courtney (as of 2021) and going back to Kaya. Note that the petticoat Cécile is wearing under her meet dress isn't one that's made by AG. I have a Laylie³ who got out of all that frilly historical stuff and Cécile now wears her petticoat as ruffly cute under her dresses.

Historical Clothes Reviews and Historical Accessories: Kit's Christmas Outfit, Aviator Doll, and LE Mini Doll

Merry Christmas from Kit Kittredge!

There are no major holidays today. Well, there's a feast day for a saint but I'm pretty sure there's a feast day for a saint every day of the year so we're going skip most of those for sanity's sake. Instead we will talk about traditions, briefly. Everyone has one or another for the holidays, even if they don't say it. Some people throw the tree up as soon as the turkey is cool, some wait til the first of December, some wait until a week before. Some get the tree out of the house as soon as everything is over and some wait til the first. Some people insist on Christmas morning in pajamas, or not opening presents before the whole family is there, or opening in semi-private. Some do new pajamas on Christmas Eve. Some let the kids tear through everything first before the adults, and some go around in birth order and one at a time until everything is open. For years, we opened everything at midnight, had a blast until about two in the morning, went to sleep, woke up, and then went to my paternal grandfather's for Christmas dinner and gifts and all that stuff from them. And by the time I was six or so, I recognized that the toys and gifts from "Santa" were the ones from Toys from Tots, because I grew up poor enough to qualify. That's why, in part, I try to donate to them every year--and try to do something name brand. People who do the cheap, off brand toys because they think poor kids don't notice are jerks and should choke on a stocking.

Nowadays my traditions consist of remembering to put up the tree--this year there's only the tabletop one, since I'm in a transitional phase--my husband and I hitting up Cyber Monday Sales to get TV series we like on the cheap, and me blowing about a hundred or so bucks on AG's Cyber Monday because half price AG stuff is the goddamn bomb. I'll probably make more when I do finally sprog out, but that's pretty much how it's going. Yes, I'm going somewhere with this. Let me babble.

Kit Kittredge had her own traditions too--Christmas waffles, lighting up the tree, and her mom and her going out with Ruthie and her mom to downtown Cincinnati for the whole the day after Christmas and going to lunch at a fancy restaurant and a show. She was thrown for a loop during the course of her books because of the impact the Depression had on her family--for one, the power bill was hard to pay, presents were scarce, the phone bill wasn't even paid, and there were borders in the house. And she was pretty pissy when Ruthie's solution to "I don't have a new dress to wear on some fancy date with you, baby, I got real problems" was "How about you wear my old one from last year and we'll pay for the whole date?"¹ And rightfully so, because Kit's issues were deeper than a new dress, seeing as they were looking at eviction. But, like AG books often do, everything was wrapped up nice by the end and she and Ruthie kissed and made up and gave each other gifts and were back together at the end--and then in Really Truly Ruthie Ruthie, not wanting her girlfriend² to lose her house, went on the train to Kentucky and got the money from Aunt Millie. On that note, fuck Uncle Hendrick's rich old selfish ass. Selfish people like him are the reason we're in the shit we're in right now. But politics. Anyways, after they make up, Kit accepts the red dress as hers, and she and Ruthie still go out on their date the next day.

Margaret Mildred "Kit" Kittredge was released in 2000, the first Mattel released Historical. So if you ever hear someone talking about how AG was so much better when it was PC and all characters after Mattel suck, and then claim that Kit was a PC character, they're a stupid moron and you have my permission to throw mini dolls at them until they shut their face. I actually was very reluctant against Kit because eh, blond dolls are so not my thing. But then I read her story and warmed up to her because if there is one thing I can ID with from my childhood, it's wearing old clothes and struggling to pay bills and threats of evictions and people thinking their charity is accepted when it's half assed or really condescending as fuck. I ain't too proud to beg, to modify the meaning of the TLC song. But some well-to-do-people think anything they give you is to be appreciated because they were generous enough to give anything at all, and that's how you get pumpkin pie filler and endless rice along with mock-Barbies with cracked legs and yo-yos that break four minutes later. But I digress. Kit joined the gang in 2007 when I moved to where I am now--her last family left her behind, and when she saw the new folks moving in also involved people her height, she became part of the recently renamed AGGiB.³ Here, she's what I call a 50% Modern--she bounces back and forth between her 1930s clothes and modern clothes, and likes a computer over a typewriter. So--even though they wouldn't be Wiki refs--you might see her in a modern set here and there.  What can she say? Jeans are nice.

Like Josefina before her, Kit's Christmas Outfit (or Kit's Holiday Outfit, because she technically wears it post Christmas proper) was released with her Fall 2000 along with her first three books, so that you could have her all cute for the holidays--and like Josefina, I ordered her holiday wear in 2007 so she could look her very best for Giftmas in the new place. The set consists of the red dress, a red polka dotted hairbow, white net stockings, and black t-strap shoes. Originally, the Scottie pin was a separate piece, but now it comes as a button permanently attached to the dress and that's the version I got. Or, it was attached. You'll see. I paid $24 dollars for it but, again, prices rose and the cost is now $32. Unless you've got a hard on for the Scotty pin with the magnet and can't mod it yourself--and it's really easy to do if you're not incompetent--there's no reason to bother with eBay. It almost never shows up with everything, and most of the time it's just the dress. Don't do that to yourself. Order the dress from AG.

Fun fact? Every AG character had a unique letter in the ordering codes before a revamp in about 2007. And they were really easy to break down when, if you were anything like me, read the catalog voraciously. For example, Josefina's Christmas dress had the code "JCO"--Josefina Christmas Outfit--and Addy's Lazy Susan Table and Chairs was "AF" - Addy's Furniture. Since Kirsten already had a monopoly on the letter K, Kit got "Q". Told you Kit was bisexual--she's queer.

This review will also include the Aviator doll and--like Josefina--the LE Mini-Doll.