The Tale of the Cousins of AGC and Introducing Kira Hickman

Look at Kira's imposter in the case. Wait--who's Kira?

This time last year I had a whole series half done on holiday wear, and now it's been over two weeks since I've said anything. What happened? The good and bad, to be honest: new computer, transfer of files, computer wanting to not behave, customer service, and "unrelated to computer" health concerns, personal sads, and all of this winding into a ball of crippling depression. Disability: It's not ever been just physical, people! All caught up? Good.

No post on the GotY, you ask? Nope. Because I've seen next year's girl, and she doesn't excite me one damn bit. Take what I said last year when we saw WonderBread and tack the new girl on the end, because it's Same Shit Different Year. Next Year's Girl makes a Connect Four of Failure. Not only has AG given us another white character (with PoC sidekicks), they have also given us another character that can't have brown eyes with dark hair. She's Chrissa Redux. She's Vanilla Buttercream--something that is good in metered doses, but when there's so many more options out there and many more stories and no stories that have shown a need to be white, it just becomes a terrible taste in your mouth. She will not become part of my gang whatsoever. We need a Doll of Color for Girl of the Year (#DoCGotY)¹, and at this point if AG wants to remain relevant with this LE thing, they need to do a doll of color. And none of this half-white/biracial/a spoon full of whiteness to get the ethnicity to go down we got with Jess and Kanani. Or side characters we've got with Sonali--which won't happen again, given the death of Best Friends. No ifs, ands, buts or becauses, or bullshit lines about how the moderns are diverse. There needs to be a front line Girl of the Year of Color, and preferably she should be black since that hasn't been touched at all by the line.  AG step your fucking game up.

And that's all I have to say on that. Back to my gang. Well, my gang and many others. 

In the past months since summer, I've added two more gang members to the AGGiB. There's been Sameera Al-Rajhi, a 18" MyTwinn (who will get her chattery bits and review later) who arrived this summer, and Kira Hickman who arrived this fall. Kira Hickman is a My AG #21 that came in a group that collectively has been called the Cousins of American Girl Collectors, and the story of how she got to me is definitely not something that could have been pulled off elsewhere. Kira--and the other cousins--comes with a story of ups, downs, roller coaster surges and large boxes.

Step into the parlor to hear the story: The Tale of the Cousins of AGC. This has tons of pics, but you're used to that--and while some of you have likely not only heard this but been part, this is from my view. There's also a moving gif.

Makeover: Meet Gwenni Damico

Meet Gwenivere Ruth Damico.

So in my last post I mentioned that I was doing a makeover. Well, she's all cleaned up and ready to debut. Meet Gwenivere Ruth Damico. Not bad, huh?

Picture heavy under the cut. Hold on to your hats.

AG Complaint Department: Some Children Are Too Young for AG Dolls

The American Girl company was initially created--so the story goes--to fill that empty niche at the time between the baby doll and the fashion doll. A companion that wasn't either focused on mommying or on dressing up. And with some history in the process, to get your learn on. Sure, we had Skipper among the fashion dolls, but she was a teen (and also small of waist). There was no doll the same age, generally, of that 8-12 year age range with an 8-12 year old body shape. I have to admit that Pleasant Company was hella successful in that task, seeing as now there's tons of 18" Companion girl dolls all over the market and new markets tend to pop up all over the place to try and challenge AG. (Some have even folded; Life of Faith is one of the bigger companies to fall.)

However, when American Girl was created, there's no getting around that they were intended for the 8+ crowd. Hence the whole books and encouragement of studying history and craftwork and stuff, and the focus around a girl of the era turning ten at some point in their series. They still stick to that, even. And society does, in many ways, encourage kids to skip past childhood--or, to paraphrase C. S. Lewis¹, try to rush girls to get to a certain age and then expect them to dawdle there as long as possible. The fact that someone tried to come up with the term "pretween" says some shit right there. Don't get me started on a store called "Forever 21" or I'll get completely off topic. So with this age skewing, the span for dolls seems to be from age 1 to age 8, and after about third grade you're just too old for dolls. Which is another rant altogether.

So yes, the age for doll play seems squashed in our society. Still. There should be a lower limit for getting a doll for a child--especially an expensive, high cost doll like AG--and that's because they don't treat things right.

"Gently played with" my black ass.

Braid Spray and the Ingratitude of the AG Fandom

Tara and Abbi know damn straight how braid spray can make a girl look good.

As a woman with 25 AG gang members--and many other dolls and ponies and other things with silky hair that can go rogue--I tend to invest time into their hair care regiment. And one of the centerpieces of my hair care is a big old bottle of braid spray. Not that the AG community at large really appreciates that I introduced this into the fandom. So this post is part basic care, part backstory, and part bitchiness.