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

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

Let's start my return with a confession. 

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

I almost gave up my voice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: Totally 80s, Dibbly Fresh, and Neth’s Early Childhood: Courtney Moore from 1986 (And What the 80s Were Actually Like)

Let's go to the mall!

Time Keeps On Slipping Into The Future.¹ It's Black History Month, pay reparations on my soul.

It was just thirteen scant years ago that the announcement came down the pipeline for the newest American Girl Historical Doll to be released in five years, with the most recent being Kaya pushing Felicity off her horse and letting the AG world know she and other Indigenous Americans were here first, redhead, now get in the archival vault. And the speculation was all over what era would be picked. Would she be of the 1920s? The 1830s? Maybe they'd finally stick someone between Addy and Samantha, since we'd kinda skipped forty years of history there and clothes and culture had changed a lot, even if black people were all living in our underground bunkers until the Civil Rights Movement.

Nope, none of that was correct. Instead the new girl was going to be from the far flung era of...

The 1970s. The historical era of bell-bottoms, disco, President Ford, avocado colored interior design, and fondue. Her name was Julie Albright, she had long blonde hair and brown eyes, she liked the Brady Bunch and basketball, she lived in San Francisco--our first Californian Historical--and her parents were recently divorced.²

Now I hadn't been in the fandom very long--and the only place there was any fandom outside of AG Over 18 was AG Fans (from which I'd been banned for rampant public paganism) or AGPT--and that mess I still need to go in on, how the mighty fall like a Fall Out Boy song--but the reaction was, from the more middle aged sectors of the fandom? Melodramatic flailing. 

"How dare American Girl say my childhood is historical! It wasn't that long ago!" was the outcry from quite a few women--mostly white--who had been celebrating the anniversary of turning twenty-nine for the past decade or so and had forgotten how to count. Those that weren't clutching pearls over having to realize they (as late boomers/Early Gen X) were way above their dirty thirties and had been kids nearly forty years ago were instead running around in circles and fainting in the pews, because Julie's parents had committed the awful sin of ending their marriage and American Girl was daring to endorse/condone/promote the breakup of good marriages and stable homes. You know how Kira B.'s books were controversial over women marrying women? Yeah it was kinda like that. We had the same levels of outcry from the homeschooling conservative ladies who were terrified of their eight year olds learning about poor people, over the portrayal of women daring to seek no-fault divorce instead of remaining miserable housewives. Women ain't supposed to do anything but take pills and stay married to shitty men that treat them badly, I guess. Karens gonna Karen, Beckys gonna Becky, and conservatives are going to whine that we're destroying the family and all of America by daring to let a woman have a right or something. 

Yet, among all the lamentations, weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the rending of calico peasant dresses, marriage certificates, and Have a Nice Day shirts from Nice Old White Ladies, Julie--and Ivy, the superior Julie--came out Fall 2007 with much fanfare, six illustrated books, and quite a few outfits and accessories. The predictions failed and her release did not suddenly turn people who were ten in the seventies into dust when they had to explain to their own target-aged kids about the US Bicentennial, Title X, the 1976 Election and record players. AG Life went on, and after Julie came Rebecca, Caroline, Marie-Grace and Cécile, a lot of retirements, characters out of the vault, the start of BeForever, Maryellen, Melody, Nanea, the end of BeForever, this blog, and a whole slew of white Girls of the Year.

And in February 2020, American Girl announced that they would release a new historical character from the newly minted vintage era of...

The 1980s. Historical era of Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, wanting your MTV, VCRs being stupid expensive, Walkmans, designer jeans, Cabbage Patch Kids, President Reagan--the second worst president that's ever been president in my lifetime--and hanging out at the malls and watching Saturday Morning Cartoons. Because it was that or go outside, and outside didn't have air conditioning and Nickelodeon.

And as the news came down the pipeline that American Girl had declared another generation "historical" everyone looked at the fully Gen Ex kids and waited to see how we'd react. 

We rejoiced. At least, in my corners. I'm sure somewhere online, a collector fell face down on her bed and cried into the body of her lopsided Kirsten doll with the uncombed hair and shitty hair loops because American Girl was stating the 1980s was now historical and she believed American Girl history should remain firmly before 1940, as it was when Saint Pleasant was still in charge of the company and everything was made of balsa wood and glass but Samantha and Molly's shoes still sucked and Felicity's books wouldn't say outright that Rose and Marcus were enslaved so folk could say deadass to my face that they were just "hired servants." But I haven't been on AGPT in over a decade now and I don't let people who suck that hard around me unless they want to get bodied. 

Anyways. I rejoiced.

My friends and I in that late X early Mill chunk were hype for the news. Unlike the 70s kids who'd been swooning over the fact AG had slapped their asses with the history label, a good portion of us were excited to be folded into the canon of a company we'd known about since we were kids. Many of us had been right around that target age of eight to twelve when American Girl launched with three dolls and required mail ins and calling and $85 for a doll was asking for a lot so no, we did not get the West Germans. Many of us didn't get our first dolls until we were older--if not fully grown--but we cherished our gangs and had memories of pouring over the catalogs and hoping for tiny doll plates. We put on Whitney Houston and Prince and Debbie Gibson and A-ha and talked back and forth about our childhoods in excited voices as we pictured tiny Trapper Keepers, acid wash jeans that zipped at the ankles, scrunchies for days, side ponytails and Get in Shape Girl leg warmers--and we were hot to be here for every neon poisoned, acid wash, Swatch Watch minute of it. 

And we pretty much got it. 

Baby Boomers in 2007: nooooo the 70s isn't history nooooooooooo you can't say we're old nooooooooooooooooooo
GenX in 2020: hehehe courtney go beep boop

I'd long ago created Kimmy Kim and her best friend Tyanna Lewis as my representatives of the 1980s, because the fact is that history and historical events keep popping off every day.³ And Courtney--in all her Valley Girl Southern Cali glory--was going to join them as part of the AGGiRL on day one. As more pictures of Courtney and her collection came out and more information leaked, I just kept here and there bouncing in my seat and going "dolly play the Pac-Man" because dolly indeed, play the Pac-Man. She had curly blonde hair--mistaken for red early on, because lighting was off--and blue eyes--mistaken for hazel, same lighting off--and was wearing leggings and ankle boots and acid wash skirts. 

My body was ready and my wallet was squeaking.  

The AG Brat Pack. L to R: Tyanna, Courtney, and Kimmy.

Courtney Moore launched on the website about a month before my birthday, and Bae--who buys me one AG doll like, every half decade at most and the rest of the time tells me "I love you but I can't tell your dolls apart, honey, I'd probably buy you a double of something you already have"-- gave me a shopping limit, an upgrade to two-day shipping in place of paying for ear piercing since I owned a power drill so she'd be here in two days, and an "I love you, this is your Big Birthday Thing" since we didn't get to do what I wanted on my birthday anyways and I was hitting a big birthday milestone and there was a pandemic out there that'd been ruining my entire year since March. She got here that Friday and I was up for the FedEx delivery and took pics of her arriving like I had with Edith and DeeDee four years prior, meeting the girls like her already here and they formed the AG Brat Pack even though I haven't actually watched The Breakfast Club.  

Step 1: Courtney's Collection
Step 2: Joy

When AG Seattle⁴ put things out in the store the weekend of the 26th, I  went, got the giveaway extras--a scrunchie and some crafts⁵--and got even more of her collection then. In fact, there's not a lot of her smaller stuff I don't own, and that's more of a matter of balancing my desires for other things across the brand and things being constantly on back order. Or not ever arriving at AG Seattle, weep. 

I love Courtney so much, guys. She's now in my top Ten Historical Characters. Maybe Top Five. There's kind of a Fog of War there in the middle. Maybe someday I'll do a proper ranking of Historicals and Why Neth Likes or Doesn't Like Them, and everyone can tell me why I really should appreciate Molly, you guys, because Nanea is a SJW promotion of a tiny part of American History that didn't apply to as many people as much as turnips and tap dancing. The shit I be reading with my own eyes. So in this post, we're going to cover her entire collection that's out now. Including the three new cute and fresh things that just came out recently, are already coded onto the Wiki because we work that fast--me and one of the content mods almost overlapped, we were so hype--and that I won't have personal pictures of until I place an order later in the month and wait two weeks for its arrival unless I want to pay a hit extra for two-day shipping.⁶

This post is probably one of my longest posts, right up there with my covering of the BeForever release in 2014. I, unlike some people in this fandom, know that on the internet we are made of words and don't show up cutting off my own fingers. There's no limit on how many letters we can use to type the whole word out instead of going "skskskkskss lol u say 2 much." I mean, character limits on Discord, but you can type twice! Even paragraphs! Boo boo, we gave up netspeak way back in the days of MySpace in the transition onto LiveJournal--but I'm pretty sure you weren't even potty trained when that was the hotness, if you were even so much as weaned. They don't even use that shit on Twitter and for years we only had 140 characters and could post via text message. In this thread I will--ahem.  

Ahem. If you don't want to summon my death glare, keep your name out from behind your teeth. I've hexed people for less. I don't know why you keep trying to waste my time.

Are they gone? Good. 

Get some snacks, yo. This is a double sided 90 minute cassette, with Side A about Nonsense in the Fandom and Side B about The Stuff. Moonwalk under the cut, and let's talk 80s, babies.

Including how I'm coming for everyone's necks today because these damn children have no idea how anything before 2000 worked. 

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: Around The World in Five Outfits, Knit-ness Meets Fitness, and The Queerest Shoes Ever Launched by AG: The Truly Me Early '21 Launch

Travel in your brain, and don't get on a plane.

What a long, frustrating, set of years it's been.

I've lost family, made great friends, had to face ending toxic friendships, seen the glory of Galarian Ponyta, seen the nonsense that is Karens¹ and Tankies and rising white supremacy, blocked TERFs on sight on the social media places, seen entire transphobia and dumbass shit, wrote books, read books, not written books, not read books, proceeded to gather a whole slew of Copic markers, misplaced my phone and my embroidery floss and a box of Pokémon cards, played hours of Animal Crossing, and bought a lot of tarot decks and a Bluetooth speaker so when I'm lounging in my bathtub-that-is-separate-from-my-shower with my unicorn braids pinned up, I can listen to Spotify play 90s Baby Making Jams while I ask my wonk brain to enjoy the bath bomb I tossed in there and not think about rabbits.

And through it all, I've kept up with American Girl. Not only have I bought several things--look this is a fandom where folk buy things, I buy the things--I've kept my pulse on AG releases and news. Running the AG Wiki and keeping it updated, modding my message board and other places even when it's hard and people's feelings get hurt because they have to be told "no, that's not right of you"², hanging with my fellow dolly friends, and tried to blog here and there. And I was doing a semi-good job. 

Until came the year I moved to an entire new home and that took my focus because an entire move, and then when I had to stay very close to it for an entire next year while a spiky boi was like "hello, I shall bugger the whole human body and make it ded!" and the fucking morons fucking up the government that just got yeeted this week just let that shit run rampant and thus more people have died in the US of Covid-19 than died in all of World War II in the span of not even a year. And I'm still here in my house except for when I go out and shop and yeet people from around me. Privilege has meant that I've been blessed to have the space to be locked down comfortably and that my household is, if occasionally stepping on each others toes and glaring at each other and "I don't think I like you right now"/"no talk me I'm angry", are doing all right through this--and it's a good thing we didn't have to do this whole thing in an apartment because I might have had to strap on a mask just to go out and stab someone in the eye with my snap knife. I miss my mommy and grandma and sisters and con friends and family, but we spend this time apart so when we get back together none of us are missing. (Most of us, anyways. Love you, Uncle Mac, from your Little Lady Nethie.) And I miss the little things, like taking my coffee in with me to sip on while we shop for groceries, sitting down in a bookstore, food samples at Costco--god, I miss food samples, that says a lot--and my husband calling me nightly to say he's on the way home from work. 

And I thought Twenty-Gay-Teen went on forever. At least then I could graze on grapes in Fred Meyer and go to the state fair.

Still, now that I don't have to doomscroll³ Twitter for hours to see how shit is going south and have been getting sleep which means I can do things? I'm slowly swinging back up on my bullshit. I haven't sewn much--that's my next hopeful "get on my shit" task along with cleaning--but these past two days I've been feeling like, better. I've actually done art. Like, got out my watercolor sets and my brushes and done me a fooking artz. Check the IG. There's art! I have two monthly art boxes now. I have ordered new tools to help me do art at my desk more, and I've joined a PoC creative Discord. 

And I just...is this serotonin? I still need to do other stuff for this body of mine and get on more meds, but is this...is this fine? Is this what it's like to feel some degree of peace?

What's a potato serotonin? Tastes very strange!

All that is to say I have eaten the plums this post now means I've done more posts here, even quickie ones to confirm my existence, than I did in both '18 and '19--and on the next one, I'll have done more than both those years combined. Again, y'all don't pay my salary, but I have wanted this even when I couldn't make it happen, and so have my readers. We're doing what we can with the tools we're given. And we finally found the tools! They were in the goon closet.

So let's talk moddie shit.

Recently, AG tends to do a "start of the year" release for moddie stuff that comes out for purchase about one to two weeks before the new year actually flips over. Likely to give the Girl of the Year her own focus, even if it all goes together in the catalog together, and also make it so the staff at the stores aren't doing an entire store turn over of both the moddie stuff and the Girl of the Year in a single night. Or something. I've mostly just blogged about it all together--or would have, but. But.

Best laid plans, mice and men, gang aft a-gley. Putting that BA in English to semi-decent use.

This most recent set was released about the 23rd, and I was able to see it on the first. And also get the queerest shoes released for AG. Look, these shoes are for the queers⁴ and the kids and for the queer kids. There's Travel Stuff, Gym Stuff, Shoe Stuff, and Head Stuff. And some other stuff. 

Be Happy For the Strappy and jump under the cut to go on a trip to the gym and Europe!

Well, not really. Pandemic.

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.