Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Broadway, Brown Skin, and Bollywood Beauty: Kavi Sharma of 2023

On the corner of Broadway and Representation.

Happy Valentine's Day! Or Palentine's Day. Or Fuck James Cook Day. Or Discount Candy Eve. Or Halfway through February Day. or It's Still Black History Month, Run Me My Money. For me, it's the last day of the Chocolate Gauntlet, with tomorrow freeing me from the loosely defined fears of cocoa products lurking in the seasonal aisles until September rolls around. I made it, people!

It's also a month and a half--give or take a New Year's--since the newest Girl of the Year launched. Though I have a backlog of AG posts spanning to before the entire damn still ongoing pandemic and a whole word doc to organize the items in, it won't get any shorter if I don't try--key word, try--to stay on top of newer things. Like news of outgoing girls who have worbs.

Speaking of outgoing things, and I don't mean the character I'm about to discuss. Remember in 2021 when AG Seattle closed, and I told AG Houston to sleep with one eye open?

Yeah, about that.

Spotify, play Chopin's Death March.

In a move surprising both no one and some one, AG Houston got murked like Flash Player at the end of 2020. Not only did it close--yesterday, in fact! body's still cooling!--but so did AF San Francisco Bay Area, which I had never been to. AG Miami is also done; it closed back in Sept 2022. This leaves only five non-flagship stores now, one--still!--in Dallas. AG Houston's demise is because, along with "the stores are not moving product like they used to", the entire Memorial City Mall is getting refreshed into a new look. Since the buildings are going down, AG was like "oh look, a reason to exit strategy the store!" Retail stores: they ain't what they used to be. There's a reason I toy shop at Target. That reason is because it's the only place with a decent toy department that isn't Wally World.

RIP AG Houston, we hardly knew ye.

I also know about the something new coming on 2/22 that involves Historical Jewish Twins and skipping the actual good part of the '90s, but I'll get to that when it launches. Or five months later, who knows, I keep my own fucked up schedule around here. On the real, I'll try to get on top of it before the month ends, hopefully no more than two weeks after they launch. Key word hopefully. For now, we're giving Kavi her diamonds, before people get distracted. I have quite a bit to say about Claudie once I get into that post and how she got undercut by releases and still is being so.

Go to the woods!¹

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Ski Free in Aspen: Corinne Tan of 2022 and Her Entire Collection (With Bonus Kira B. For Some Reason)

The mountains are calling, and Corinne must attack them.

In 2015 I opened the year of AG blogging not with talking about Grace Thomas, then-current Girl of the Year, and her then-the-most-expensive item ever bakery. (That was about four days later.) I started a fresh new year of doll blogging by pointing out that, in fourteen years of having a Girl of the Year, the characters had been overwhelmingly white. At the time, there had not been a Latina character since Marisol twelve years ago, an East Asian character that wasn't half white, a South Asian character that wasn't a sidekick without her own book, or a Black character at all. Nor had there been many characters of color. Lindsey was and has been the only Jewish doll in the line and most of them were long spans of whiteness--four characters in a row, generally, and often with brown hair or eyes but not both at once--that really didn't have to be so. Frustrating. There was nothing in Lanie's story that had to make her be white other than she was from Massachusetts. Hence me promoting--off and on, but still--the hashtag and campaign #AGDoCGotY: asking AG to give us Dolls of Color for the Girl of the Year.

Now it's been seven years and one president (with a four-year gap of fuckery) later¹ and AG has done some major improvements on the Girl of the Year diversity.  Lea was a lot of choices that I didn't care for one bit, but the doll at least wasn't light skinned. Hazel eyes, yes, lightish haired, yes--but she wasn't pale, and a lot of people got her and ditched the very off kilter story to give her more representation than her story gave her. This was followed by: Gabby my Babby--last minute and overshadowed by someone with a guitar but still there; Luciana the STEM Space Ace Latina we all adored; Blaire who...was Blaire but at least wasn't fully boring even if her focus wasn't exactly a focus at all; Joss who was the first disabled doll in being deaf² and the first white one to have both brown hair and brown eyes; and Kira, who gave us gay aunt representation in a land down under.

Yes, three and seven-eighths of them are white, but each of them had something more appealing to them other than being white and fantasy wish fulfillment. Even if I owe myself a read through of many of their books to learn more details. Look, I haven't sat down and read as many books as I'd like--not just AG, but across the board--thanks to my brain wonk. At least I'm not saying with my whole IG account that Samantha was a full fledged suffragette, Saige wasn't radical enough by discussing school art programs, and Felicity never liked a nice dress. The push for more representation from AG has been not perfection, but progress. 

Then at the end of 2021--because that's when they've been formally releasing the new girls now--we got the first Girl of the Year East Asian character: Corinne Tan of Aspen, Colorado. Corinne³ is Chinese-American--which means for the first time in the line, a character offers East Asian rep without a side dish of whiteness to help the ethnicity go down!

...Mostly.

Her parents have, at the start of her story, divorced due to stressed exacerbated by the pandemic, and her mother Judy is preparing to marry her new boyfriend: a well-off Swedish man, Arne Karlsson.⁴ So not only is Corinne dealing with personal worries about what being in a blended family means and moving to a new place, but what it means that her white stepfather got that money money to the level of "has a personal decorator," "her little sister wanted to start ice skating so he just paid for it," and "No, Corinne, put anything you want on your pass at the ski lounge, I'll pay it." She's big into being outside and exploring the woods and mountains around her home, feeling like the outside and nature with it has a lot to give, and she loves to ski. She also gets a new puppy who she wants to train to be a rescue dog, helping find people lost in the woods. Put a sticky note on that, we'll get back to it.

Is this like Nicki from 2005, also from Colorado with a dog being trained? Yes, but Nicki didn't have anything in her book about skiing while Corinne is very much about it left and right. Also Nicki didn't have any underwear. Plus it's been long enough we can return to Colorado skiing. If we can have dancing based collections three times we can go skiing twice. The target age of AG, even at twelve, wouldn't have existed when Nicki had her year.

But it's not all ski slopes and more money woes for Corinne. There's also realistic occurrences of anti-Asian sentiment in book one and some rescuing involved in book two. I think. I need to finish a lot of reading and document a lot of things. I have a lot to do before November.

She's also due a movie on Cartoon Network followed by HBOMax and I'll get to it when I get to it.⁵ In the movie she's been bumped up to thirteen, in part because of the actress. I'm very curious for how the adaptation will go--we haven't had an AG Moddie movie since 2016, and that was a mess.

All these pics will be, of course, promo images and catalog shots, a first for me. Until Corinne's release, I was able to see every GotY since Mia face to face at least once during their active year--the ones until Kanani down at AG Dallas, and all the rest at AG Seattle until it closed. But given that it's October and I'm not planning any impromptu trips down to the LA store, I'm unlikely to see Corinne in the store before 2022 is up and maybe not even after. It's above me now. Other people will have to take pictures in stores of things. Hopefully they won't suck. Also her giveaway item was a poster, which she can't even wear. So I missed out on nothing that I'd later trade money for goods in a Safeway parking lot.

Ski jump under the cut for Corinne's entire collection so far--and a bonus that sets a very strange precedent.

Dat's my sister~ And my puppy~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AG Outsider Retrospecticus: Beach Bum Baby Gay Joss, The Many Closures of AG Stores, And Some Things I Missed In My Last Post

Welcome to the first of a series of posts: The American Girl Outsider Retrospecticus.

No, Retrospecticus is not a misspelling of "Retrospective." Yes, it is a Simpsons ref from the season seven finale episode Summer of 4 Ft. 2 released on May 19, 1996 that's nearly 25 years old. Thanks for asking. I wasn't born at the tail end of Gen X to not make casual Simpsons references on my blog about doll shit.

It has been, minus one post about Joss at the start of what became The Year of the Pandemic--and my last two most recent posts--two years, give or take, since I did a proper snark and opinions on AG Releases. And we've already gone in on why, you can click backwards and read, I'm not saying the same thing yet again. Brain dumb, pandemic dumb, moving good. There, a six word story. 

There is a ton to cover that came out. The Moddies, The Girls of the Year--two of them--the Wellies, and the Historicals. And news to touch on as well, some of which I said in passing in Joss's first post and want to go into more now.

But you gotta be organized. Sometimes. 

So on Sunday I sat down with a Vanilla Coke, the same Journey song on loop on Spotify, cracked open the AG Wiki, went back through the last two years of news and releases, and sorted them into a word doc. Then I printed that out, used it to sort things into sections, and printed the new document out to ref as I go through and write posts. The resulting text doc is twenty-four pages. Twenty-five, with the cover. I'm one of those writers that uses analog paper to help my mind make sense as I type. This is why I have, you know, writing notes and binders for my books stacked a foot high instead of a Scrivener doc.¹ 

We're starting with a relatively short set, even if the costs are high: Joss's last collection items and some things that either came out under cover on the AG site or that I overlooked in my last post. And since some of that was not at the AG Seattle store--and never will be, le grand sigh--I'm already busting out the website and catalog pictures. Day One, baby!

I also am going to talk about one set of news that was going to be in my MegaNews Post, but AG dropped the bombshell on me yesterday and I might as well bite the wax tadpole now.

Dive under the cut for wildly expensive weed vans, hospital bears, a deck of UNO cards, and me explaining why I have reached Acceptance with occasion Lamentations in my stages of grief over AG Seattle.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Kira B.'s 2021 Aussie Adventure, The Future and Past Two-Year Retrospecticus on Releases, and The Reason Anon Should Get Off My Areolas

Be like Kira. Stay in bed and stare at the wall.

I haven't done a substantial blog post since January 2020. 

I haven't done a properly set up review of items in my collection since Sept 2016. I haven't done a craft post since 2018. I haven't done a true Book Blather since May 2016, a Casual Friday since 2018 with Series One Hairdorables, a complaint department since summer 2018, a "Why I'm an Outsider" talk since 2016, and several other things in...whew. *mops face with sweater sleeve*

2019 got barely anything--certainly not any Blaire posts--and 2020 got two posts: the start of Joss's collection (and my joy over winning her for free) and my lamenting that I ever invested in a day planner by July, when I'd basically been no further from NethBae's House of Fabulousness and Sparkles than about a thirty minute drive since March, hadn't been in a group of more than two other people since that February, and masking up was the fashion of those not trying to die on a fucking ventilator.¹ And this is not because I don't care about American Girl any more. I love AG still. I can get things done on the Wiki, and snap pics for Instagram, and sometimes even sort a whole one bin of doll clothes! And Courtney was my 40th birthday present.

So why haven't I blogged in forever? Simple and complicated. Not only is there an entire pandemic throwing my entire groove off like an emperor in a Disney animated movie, but I have a wonk problem.

Wonk? Wonk. 

Cut for talk about my head, and then we can talk about Kira B.'s things to start to try again.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Surfing In with Joss Kendrick, A Double Handful of Moddie Mix-and-Match, and Notes on the 2019 Discourse

Surfing In: It's Joss Kendrick!

Meet Joss Kendrick, 2020's New Girl of the Year! She Surfs! She Cheers! She Can't Always Hear! And oh, how I am buzzing to really tell you why she's my new darling in so many ways this soon into her release. 

We will not discuss my lack of actual review, talk, or new shit posts in 2019.

*gets glared at and someone points to the two--two!--posts I did in 2019*

Okay, okay we will! I'm sorry!

In the past year I didn't cover anything. Not Blaire, not the death of BeForever and Rise of the Historicals Again, not the Moddy Shit, nothing. Between the all new house and the all new other shit on my plate, I let the blog fall aside. I've been packing! Unpacking! Putting up trees! Putting up book cases! Putting books on them! Not having enough book room! Painting rooms! Washing raw wool and processing it and spinning it into things! Working on novels! Spinning yarns in both senses of the word! (I wouldn't be the queer you know and love if I wasn't doing both things.)

...And in all that, not blogging. And now here we are, in 2020, with a whole new Girl of the Year, and I haven't even covered the last one. Entire Mix and Match sets have risen and fallen in the time since I last gave a "new shit" post.

I will make it up to you, my beloved audience.

First, let's talk about what I've missed talking about that can be summed up in paragraphs and expanded on later.

Then, about the new shit.

*~*~*

2019: All The News That's Fit To Blog

What's happened in the last twelve months on the AG Front news wise? Well, well,  well...

 It's All In Her Wonk-Filled Eyes: 

After copious complaints from everyone--some justified, some not--AG has gone back to an older style of eyes. Dolls could be sent in to have their eyeballs popped out and replaced with new ones, so you didn't have to live with inferior peeper. You had until December 31st to get this done for free. Now you'll have to live with your choices in eyes. Or pay, maybe, I guess. I sent Blaire Fifi in as soon as she was purchased, but everyone else is staying the way they are. Including Luciana.

Maybe now that annoying Bring Back the Kwality account on IG can quietly tumble into a bayou.

BeForever Is Dead, Long Live The Historical Characters:

In October 2019, AG publicly removed all the BeForever branding from the Historical Characters. Kit and Josefina have joined the Cube Life with Addy, Samantha, and Felicity--wait, Felicity? We're not sure. Is she there? Is she not? She's in the catalogs but not in the stores. And what of Molly? What of Molly?! Who knows? Anyways. Now every character has their own adorable logo that emphasizes the year and their name, and their books have the illustrations back! Addy, Kit, and Josefina will get theirs in a few months, but Ellie, DeeDee, Nanea, Julie, Becca, and Kaya already got theirs, which meant all new pics for the first three!

Speaking of those books.

We seem to be missing some things...¹

The new books have pictures. And whole chunks of books and story missing.

Guys gays and enby pals, welcome to the Abridged Historical Books. Barnes and Noble was having a yoink one yeet one free sale on AG books right before the switchover and had the new abridged AG books, so Neth got them all and did a few comparisons since I have all the prior volumes. And what changed? 

Well, hope you like illustrations more than all of Maryellen's holiday story. Or Rebecca's. Or Julie's story about helping eagles. Or Kaya's story with Lone Dog other than maybe a chapter. These books said abridged and they mean it. Stories are missing, chopped, remixed, and screwed like a 90s mix tape.

AG answered the demand for illustrations to come back by monkey pawing y'all. Picture's worth a thousand words and I'd say about that many got cut per volume. If you're a person who doesn't already have the books in some prior form, first of all what are you doing with your AG book life, get them old books. And second, you're going to be a sad panda. I suspect we're going to have a new set of readers in the future who won't understand major plot things (for example, there is no conflict of Speaking Rain being anywhere but back with her tribe forever). 

Y'all asked for illustrations back, you should have said you wanted to keep all the words too. You know genies are assholes. Next time specify your wishes into the universe. I'm chill but others won't be.

Maybe unabridged will come out later. Or maybe we're all boned. 

AG Stores, We're Two Down: 

American Girl closed two AG Place locations--Mall Of America/Minneapolis and Boston/Natick--on March 20th. All the petitions in the world online didn't help and just got your data harvested. Enjoy the spam mails! The general thought is that AG, losing money hand over underwear and eyeballs, let them go. Or the malls just didn't want to renew the leases because whatever reason. 

My store seems to be doing okay. 

Here's the Free Shipping You Wanted, and Dolls Are Cheap and Plentiful
  
American Girl in June started offering standardized free ground shipping on minimum orders of $125 or more. Additional charges continue to apply for rush shipping, shipping outside of the US or Canada, and shipping large items.  

Then they dropped the cost of dolls across the board to $98 by October.

So you're going to have to buy more than dolly and a pair of shoes to get them sent to you no cost. Get her accessories. And then some shoes. 

AG Rewards: It's now by Moneys:

The AG Rewards got a revamp, with the biggest change being that that each tier is reached by dollar amounts spent annually, not points accumulated per year. Y'all were gaming the system too hard, now it's dollars. Each reward level will have its own unique annual reward certificate gift, and Berry level members also will not have points expire as long as the level is maintained.

The 2019 Retrospecticus: Neth Will Cover What She Missed

She's got a chicken!

Regarding the old new shit, here's what I'll do: Every few posts here in January,  I'm going to go over the 2019 things. Blaire, the All New Old Historicals, Moddy Shit--even if it's gone forever and your only hope is eBay or crying on Instagram. Hell, half the stuff missed me by. It was gone faster than Sam's Velvet Underworld Dress. I was too busy picking out carpet and bedroom funiture, visiting my mom and grandma, hanging out with cool people, ending up with two Kirstens² and hanging vertical blinds³ to get everything, and what I got I'll be okay with. Hey, Blaire's still around. Hell, Luciana kind of is.

I got pictures of it all! I just didn't blog. So you can still have my thoughts on everything.

*~*~*

Now, we can get to talking about Joss! 

Air over the cut and let's get this surfing party starty.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness Part 1: Blast Off With Luciana Vega (and More From That One White Kid)

Space. The Final Dolly Frontier. These are the voyages of Luciana Vega.

Man, did I get in under the wire with all them reviews last month. I was able to, somehow, cover every release including Nanea. But I didn't do any personal reviews, and very few extras. I don't like that. I like doll blogging. I want to get back into the groove and get my blog on. Let's leave the sporatic posting and bullshit back in 2017. I started my year off right with Beyoncé¹ and I'm gonna do my best to carry that energy through 2018. This year, AG is going all ass to the wall with the release of Luciana Vega for the Girl of the Year 2018.

Woot! Another DoC! Luciana keeps up the trajectory, but I plan to keep up the #AGDoCGotY talk. That's two for two, AG. Well, actually one and a half. Let's be real. Gabby got shanked, and it's clear that Tenney-Sue was supposed to be the GotY but some word got out that folk were watching, and AG swerved at the last minute. Was it the CBS interview, just before Melody came out, when the interviewer straight up asked why there'd only been three named black characters in the line and the person she was interviewing blinked and stumbled over herself? I'm inclined to think it was a factor, because that was semi-national. Gabby is my love but she was done wrong. Tenney coming out not even six weeks later. No large items--yes, a bed, but that wasn't super unique like a damn stage or a hut or a bakery. No movie, no major tie ins, no nuffin. AG didn't even let her have her own earrings. Those were clearly for Tenney--they have birds on them. Gabby's symbol is hearts. Everything was clearly set up for Tenney to be the girl of the year, and then AG got called out, and Gabby got pulled in at the last minute.

I see you AG. You best give me another black girl, and one not done at the last minute. I am not appeased. (And don't gimme no shit about never being happy. I can be happy for Gabby's existence and annoyed that she was clearly slopped together compared to those before her and after her. It's called nuance and critique, people should have more of it.) More DoC. All the DoC. Won't stop til every culture in the US has been covered--and I don't mean five shades of white--and there's just as many DoC as there have been white girls. But I will update my image around IG to include her in the spread of continuing to ask for Dolls of Color. Gabby will stay around for a few months, if you got her for Giftmas and want chunks of her collection for yourself. I dunno when she'll go away, but she will eventually, so love her while the lovin's good.

Before I get into the stuff, a quick talk about why AGC's forums are all gone from sight if you don't have an account. You can read about it here. The TL;DR is that, since we discovered some carbon blobs with no home training acting out on the tubes towards the forums, the mods got together and talked about what to do to protect the teens on our board and other sensitive people. We decided that we were going to lock down the main part of our boards for the time being. So no drive by reading for now. Some people are just ugly all over, got MegaBlox and RoseArt in their stockings, and they were never taught how to be a disappointment to the world silently. If you can contact any of the mods and show sincere desire to be part of our weird and socially conscious doll board, then we'll look at your application and figure out letting you in. And talking in my comments is not a contact.

I don't think I missed taking a picture of anything, but it was harder than normal so the pics might be strange. There were lots of people around, and they kept putting their hands in my shots. It did help, though, that when I went just before year's end, all the new moddie stuff was out and I got shots of it then, so I didn't have to fight everyone everywhere to look at everything. 

World stop.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Stumbling Over the Truly Me Holidaze and AG Gifts Gifts

Girls like ponies. My MLP collection is proof.

Friday was delayed by severe joint pain because of arthritis. Giftmas was delayed by the fact it snowed on Giftmas, which made me happy and I tromped around in the white floofy stuff for several minutes in childlike glee.

There's less than a week til the new shit for Luciana, not including the new shit that came out today,¹ so let's make this quick. And yes, I've seen them and I hate them. You'll get your proper cursing about that on the second. 

Also, since they half count, I'll talk about the AG Rewards outfits and some online only / PWP sets if I have shots of them. Part of the delays on this was that, no shit, AG Seattle didn't get all of this upfront. Very irritating. It took three trips to finally get all of it, and I am sure I still missed a pic or three.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The Truly Me 2017 Summer: Attack Of The New Shit

When life and the world snatches you bald, go on anyways.

Me, at the end of my last post: I'm gonna cover the new stuff on my blog sooner rather than later. I promise not to take fifteen weeks to get to it. Or even more than a few days. I have a lot to say.

The Powers Combined of Brain Weasels, Vacation, Disabilities, Activities, and Fucked Up News Shit: hi, why don't we just make you out to be a big ass liar and ruin your day

Me: why u do dis ;____;

Fuck it. I'm doing the post now, before it gets overlapped by the release of Nanea.¹ And other things I gotta say such as This Year at MCM, AG Chicago, 7 Mile, AG at TRU, Create Your Own, any other news--can just be in my next post.

Cut to the stuff: Less chatter more splatter.

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.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Sing a Song of Civil Rights: Meet Melody Ellison of the 1960s (PS: Some Other New Things)

Come See About Melody!

Me: AHHHHHH---AHHHHHHHHHHHHH MELODY IS OUT MELODY IS OUT MELODY IS OUT TIME TO MELODY STUFF--

Logical Side: Neth, that can't be the opening to your blog post, you have to be articulate and poised and--

Me: *Shoves Logic Side into a wall and beelines for the front door of AG* you're not my momma you can't tell me what to do! I've been itching for since 2015 when AG made a one line Facebook post about a black historical for next year and then her books came out and I've been hyped since last December or longer so if I want the entire opening to be nothing but me screaming my head off like an idiot and singing every early Motown song that ever came out, then I can do that--

Logic Side: ...Neth, there's more that came out than Melody. Also you have to bitch about things for a short point.

Me: ...Damn you, logic side. *kicks dirt*

Well, you heard my Logic Side. As much as I'd like my entire opening to be me screaming so loud about DeeDee that they hear me in Hawaii before the cut, I gotta talk about stuff a little properly. So. On the 25th of August in the Year of our Documentation Twenty-Sixteen, the culmination of books and designs and items and Black history and work came together finally to manifest and release as the cutest American Girl historical released in the last four years,¹ Melody "DeeDee" Ellison. Sorry Ellie, I love you so much--but you knew DeeDee was going to bump you when she got here and you understood that. We major? We major.

It's not like y'all didn't expect this of me, I've been hype for DeeDee ever since they showed her first book cover. I snapped up all her books as they came out, on February I declared my entire wallet dead in lieu of seeing her and Edith realized she was queer, and as soon as I could preorder her I did that without regrets.² And on Friday the 26th, my close AG friend and I went to the store midday to go to Melody's Block Party so we could get tiny doll shirts, poke tiny doll things, talk shit about people there and back cause that's hella fun, actually run into people from IG out of nowhere who recognized us, and buy dolly stuffs as soon as possible. I might have had DeeDee in the gang since the 14th, but I still had to go squeal and dance over her stuff. Melody means a million things to me, as a child of black children who grew up in the 1960s, and who represents me and my history. When AG launched, the grandparents were of the World War II generation³ and about ten when there were victory gardens and rationing and Damn War. But those kids grew up, several had kids in the 60s, and that's the new throwback for grandparents.

Why didn't I write about things sooner, even though I was there Friday midday? Saturday I was exhausted--I'm an ambivert, so sometimes social interaction can be draining for people like me. So I slept until the evening and then pissed around on the internet, making sure all the articles were on the AG Wiki. On Sunday I went out on errands, and Monday I had to go to the dentist because gotta keep my teeth their prettiest. Once again, some of the new stuff wasn't there and others I missed in the walkthrough, because there were a lot of people there to see about DeeDee and her stuff. (The Lea section was being half abandoned. I may have had the schadenfreude.) So I'll have to use the Wiki images until I can go back and take shots, which might be in a few weeks into September. And I'm taking a break from redoing my braids to get my squeal out, because squeal! Not only was there stuff for DeeDee, but some bursts for other Historicals, the Moddie End of Year Release, and a bit of WellieWishers Stuff.

But with DeeDee already, there's a not at all small contingent of people who are out there that are already being racist shitwads. Y'all out there showing your pale chicken cutlet asses and it hasn't even been a month. Y'all think it's okay to take DeeDee's things for your white stank 60s girls from England, disregard her love of Motown⁴ and the rich sounds thereof to have her like only the boring ass Beatles because you're scared of the "race" music like it's the 1920s and the loud Jazz might give you accidental melanin and teach you to spice your food, talk shit about her hair being too rough because you fucking can't get over the idea of silky White Hair being better and you have European Dominance Poisoning and are going to try to straighten already straightened hair and end up with tangled rat nests that even braid spray can't save the soul of, and continue to barf all over Instagram and other locations that her clothes aren't part of Black History (Black folk didn't dress 100% like the whitebread faves) so you want to feel justified in slapping them on your stupid wonderbread brats and then try to come at me like I won't hex your dry overcooked chicken-with-cheese-as-seasoning ass.

I hope y'all get booty rash you can't scratch in public that runs all the way up to your shoulders, the elastic in your dolls breaks at the most inopportune time with restringing nowhere near convenient, your fave customs get unexpected ink stains on their face, you get a bad haircut you have to let grow out for six months, you realize your wallet isn't in your purse after you've already made a custom order at Starbucks that the barista didn't wanna make anyways, and a cat leaves dead things in your house you can't find and suck up with the vacuum attachments. Play me if you want. I'm Too Witches to be challenged.⁵ I will hurt all your little feelings and even some you didn't know you had til I hurt them.

Ahem. *brushes that dirt off her shoulders*

Also two bits of Historical news. First of all, Addy was out of her display box, cut down to almost nothing at the store and a lot of the stuff being online only. I suspect soon they will announce her retirement, which means I need to get one for my mom along with some of her stuff, and her new bed, for me. How do I feel about this? That Addy's had a good long run and that, while it's hella problematic to remove her and only leave one Black Historical again when there's so many white dolls in the historical line that are out and about oh my god Samantha go back in the damn vault already, she is the oldest one out other than Second Release Samantha so it is her turn to go into the Vault and take a break. (Also, maybe now people can stop bitch-barfing in badly written articles that the only black doll is a slave!!1!11!!)

Ah, yes, the Vault. Let's touch on that, because it's come out recently that there's three BeForever books due out in early 2017:  A Stand for Independence, Love and Loyalty, and Gunpowder and Tea Cakes. I don't know about y'all but that sounds like Revolutionary Revolutions to me. So is Felicity coming back out? This is a strong hint. They're at least rereleasing her stories, which means I have to buy yet another copy of them. What can I say, I'm a book crazy kid, and I like having AG books of all my faves. I already have four versions of Sam's books.

Me: *looks at Logic side* Have I said enough proper talk now? Are you pleased?

Logical Side: ...g'won. I can't stop you any longer.

Me: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE---

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Wishes and Wellies, DeeDee Books, and Mix and Match Moddie Musings

--help they're super cute i like them--

"Nethilia! Where have you been for a month, woman!" my blog readers go, hands on hips, staring at the post about Sam's birthday and wondering when I'd effing update because they need more regular snarkitude in their lives.

"See what had happened was," I start. See, what had happened was, indeed. In order: Went to work A-Kon, yo that was stressy. Got home, because the visit to my mom is changed with her not living in Texas anymore. Promptly got my ass handed to me by Con Slime, which completely fucked up my sleeping schedule. Like, completely. So for about two--two?--weeks, I literally was falling asleep in the middle of my days every day, and couldn't get anything done that wasn't laying in the bed or falling backwards in my chair and passing out asleep over and over out of nowhere.¹ But it's fixed, I'm awake and bright eyed and bushy tailed, and there's really cool new things! Also old things I need to review or at least take pictures of so I can review them better. Let's get this show on the road.

June 23rd was when we'd all hope we'd have a lot more Melody in our lives. Well, we didn't. She's not out til late August, which will be post my Milwaukee trip. Boo. Silver lining, at least that means more saving up for her and some of her stuffs. But there still was a huge release. A really huge one.

Laddies and Gentlewim and others, AG has released an actual all-new line! Which hasn't been done since I started blogging, and really hasn't been done since I really started collecting now that I think about it.² And damn it's a cute line. As I said before and will continue to say, full sized 18" dolls aren't always appropriate for small girls. Not only are the books advanced and now generally pictureless, the dolls can get super messed up by children too young to understand how they should take care of them. Even the clothes might be too big to dress like the doll. There was also a gap between the toddler and preschool focuses of Bitty Baby and Bitty Twins, and the eight and up of the main AGs. This gap had been attempted before by the Hopscotch Hill School, but this petered out and became no more. AG's new shot at aiming for the five and up crowd is five girls in delightful colorful wellies, ready for puddle time and good feels--the WellieWishers.³ And fuck me but they're cute. Super cute. "One came home with me without question" cute. No prizes to guess who it is, especially if you follow me on AGC or my Instagram. There's also some good moddie stuff that came out as well, shiny and new and actually useful.

...but I should address the twin elephants in the room. Or, more accurately, the twin elephants no longer in the room. A new line in meant a new line going out, much like Historical removal. And the line thrown out to let the Wellies in was the Bitty Twins. The twins--not much of a diff from the Bitty Babies, same loosey bodies and though more of a preschool feel, wasn't enough to keep them about. We sort of saw the writing on the wall with them not getting anything for a year. So they have been put out to pasture. Bye-bye, babies.⁴ Now when I complain about not paying attention to Bitty Shit, it's just Bitty Baby. Who got two things with this release but lol Bitty shit.

To the new stuff!

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Late April Mini-Mod and TropiKenna Burst of Sunshine

Hanging out at the AG Store with my girl.

First of May, First of May! Outdoor humping starts today!¹ Okay it's the Second. Look, it's close enough.

April I had ambition, man. And then my body said "fuck you in particular heaux" and my mind jumped in to join the beatdown. Chronic illness! It fucking blows. Also one of my damn favorite artists, Prince, died² and Drama happened and the build up of things all coalesced into a storm that rained me out and I ran out of everything. To the point of tremors. It took me two days to restock the shelves with new Can. But I'm trying every day. I'm working on one major project for my Etsy which is actually fun to do, sorting out another to start later on, trying to clean more, and lining things up hopefully. Saving up for DeeDee is going successfully, I would like to take good pics of the MegaBloks sets I purchased and put them together nicely, and Lemonade is freshly squeezed and good. (And I don't mean the drink I mean the Beyoncé album.) Also my garden is growing well, I went to the Tulip Festival up north, and I'm working on a quilt. So y'know, the good and the bad.

Also New Gang Member Alert! Up there is Li-Yue "Lorelei" Soo. She sometimes goes by Lori, is Chinese-American, originally from California, and loves musicals, crafts, and the 1950s aesthetic so she and Ellie have become the closest of friends. Her idol is Phillipa Soo (no relation) who rocks the role of Eliza Schuyler in the Hamilton musical and she will soon be reviewing the outfit she's wearing, the Jumper and Boots Set, and displaying some awesomely designed outfits.

That being said, let's talk about new things; this Thursday was a small release for AG. No BeForever goodies, two Bitty Things, and mostly small others. Notably, there's nothing for the Bitty Twins for the fourth time. They haven't got anything at all since last June; that's almost a year without anything at all. I suspect--but don't hold me to it--that they are on their way out to make room for a new AG line named Wellie Wishers, a set of all vinyl dolls with wellies (rain boots) that are more of the 5-8 range that AG is sorely lacking in covering since the retirement of Hopscotch Hill. Will I bother to get one of the Twins? Likely nah. They're not my thing. The black Wellie Wisher, though, has a chance. Let's see the price point.

To the new things.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The Mid-February 2016 Moddie Quick Release

A Book and Doll Show.

On February 11, AG released a tiny amount of things for the moddies, and a bunch of Bitty Shit that I didn't even bother photographing because let's be honest, Bitty Shit is not my jam. I was too busy getting my teeth cleaned on the day of proper--that and I only go places on weekends. So I went on the 13th. Given the small amount of items released, this will be a short bloggy, and the only reason it wasn't done two days ago is because I spent President's Day watching Hamilton win a Grammy for Best Musical Recording.¹ Then I started listening to the Weeknd and haven't stopped. I especially like the song about the vampire.²

Anyway, that's enough about my music life. To the AG Stuff.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: 2016 TropiKenna Sadness, Modern Dribbles, and How Melody Ellison is Practically Perfect In Every Way

New Adventures. Same Old Bullshit.

Welcome to 2016, my happy campers! That is, if you're into camping. I'm not. The wild can stay there. Still, it's a whole new year and a whole new region! But we still gotta document them all. 2015 was one draining crappy year, and if all the issues that plagued me and mine in that year could stay on that side of the arbitrary time division, that would be cool as shit. Still, 2015 did have some good things.¹ We got Maryellen Larkin, and while I was prepped to be against her in every way, she eventually captured my love to the point that I got her for my 35th, birthday present. She and Amelia were the only actual AG members I added to the gang this year; no other new girls joined, and Amelia still needs new outfits. But my sewing machine is cleared up again and so maybe I can get back to goals of sewing something new once a month to use these hundreds of patterns I owe, and blogging like I want to. My audience likes me, after all, and I like you unless I don't. And you know if I don't like you. I tend to make that very known.

This Sunday, I went to AG Seattle with my closest in proximity AG buddy, who I hadn't seen since my birthday because she was busy traveling during the Giftmas season. We caught up and chatted and we looked at all the new shit together like we enjoy. Some of the new stuff wasn't there, for reasons, so I'll have to use the wiki images until I can go back and take shots. I did that with both Ellie's TV and Addy's new bedtime stuff, which I still need to snap up soon enough.

And we both fell in love with Melody, and are counting down the days to her ultimate release. I will talk more about her at the end. First, I have to take the medicine that is this year's Girl of the Year and all her folderol. I didn't get the clearest pictures because there were quite a few small children running around, so we've got what we've got. If you'd like some clearer pics, take a gander over to AGC's Ace Reporter on all things AG, Lissie and Lilly. Then come back here and see me yell.

To the cut and the complaints. And a very long, very needed historical ending tied to Melody.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Out With the Old, In With the Tru(ly Me)

AG but not Seattle.

Another new release of AG stuff, this past Thursday. Tiny in items--only about ten or so overall--but big in impact. Not to mention two other big BeForever Announcements that came through but, since I don't do short dinky posts I'll just bring them up here. Blog smarter, not harder.

Normally, I would haul buns to AG Seattle and take copious pictures of everything, and then blog crazy about it with said pictures. But I actually happen to be out of town, so I can't go to my local AG place. So I had to do the next best thing: go to AG Houston. I've been there a fair few times since it opened in 2012 since my mom and sister live nearby. So when I take my yearly trip to visit them, I go out there. My mom likes AG, and it's a nice trip for us. I went and took pictures, got a few things, and am ready to add my own opinions since y'all are here for that and I'm pretty good at it.

Jump below the cuts for hellos, good byes, and buttercream bookie goodness.¹

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.