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~

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The 35th Anniversary Party, Flashback Fri-Year, Stuff Down Under, and Whatever Else Has Came Out Recently

Party down if you ain't no clown. Also don't invite clowns.

Go, AG
It's your birthday
We gon' party like it's your birthday
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday
And you know we don't give a fuck it's not your birthday--

But it is their birthday! At least, it was. Is? How does a year long celebration work vis a vis a birthday? I merely give myself a month, and that's more to allow gifts to arrive anytime in the span around with the actual celebration generally a few days before or after the moment of Actual Birthday. I even redid the layout of the AG Wiki to celebrate--and because hey, it should have a nicer background after this long. Fresh coat of digital paint and what not.

Congrats, American Girl. You were born in a warehouse north of Madison, Wisconsin--one of the two places in the state that has any concentration of black people, go argue with your unseasoned cast iron pan, I was born there--as the brainchild of a former teacher who gets over-revered. You started with just three modified Gotz dolls with the Romina Mold, covering three overly romanticized historical time periods and accompanying books, and outfits and accessories that fit a single two-page spread in the Doll Reader magazines that my mom's crafty and very wonderful friend used to let me flip through because I was a quiet well-behaved kid who didn't tear things up and I loved the blue trunk with the flowers on it and the doll that had the collection for it.

And now, past the invention of the CD, DVD, Internet, streaming and me being Entirely Grown, you as a company are still kicking it. In part because the last twenty-plus of your life have been Mattel run. No one tell the PC Purists, you'll break their hearts and send them into apoplexy when you remind them that Kit never was a PC doll no matter what the back of her head mold might say. Go argue with Samantha's shitty plastic shoes.

This is an achievement, and that's me being sincere. Not every line of toys makes it this long, or every line of dolls. Yes, Barbie's the same decade as my parents, and I'm older than Ponies--another line that still lasts--and I am Classically Trained in that an NES was my first system. There's things that last. But not every brand of toy thing lasts so long. Just a few doll and toy lines born the same year as AG that didn't make it out of the 1980s, courtesy of Ghost of the Doll:

• Jem, truly outrageous and over by 1988¹
• Fluppy Dogs, which didn't make it to 1987
• Shimmers, also didn't make it to 1987 
• Sweetie Pops, weird little dolls that only did a year
• Fairy Tails, birds with happy endings by 1988
• and MoonDreamers, which had images in 1988 Hasbro catalogs but never went into production.
  

Every few years toys and brands are born, live a little and die, burst onto the scene in a surge of popularity and fizzle out a few short years later to scatter thrift stores and wistfully look forward to the day they show up on Buzzfeed lists of Only Decade Kids Remember. Even the Baby Face dolls I like only made it two years, and I didn't know about Year Two until I was older. So congrats, AG, for making it three and a half decades, and thanks for making my life a lot more brilliant. Can't wait to see you make it to four decades and beyond.

Now let's talk goodies before the next set comes out. I am trying to maintain this 2021 energy of staying semi-on top of new things. Let's talk party booths and doll cupcakes.²  

Honestly, I meant to do this earlier this month--and the Wellies Retrospecticus last month before I did this. All these delays from me are for many reasons--including realizing damn near all my Wellie pictures for the past two years are of such poor quality that using catalog pics is just better for the whole damn thing--but the major one is that getting my anti-Covid shots³ whooped my ass. Like whooped it. I still have a cough since the last one at the start of May, WTF. My immune system went into major overdrive, which is good, but meant having hot eyeballs and swollen lymph nodes and a lack of focus to do anything but play New Pokemon Snap which is bad. The swollen knots in my neck, not New Pokemon Snap. That game is my friend. I'm chucking fluff-fruit at everything. But yay, I'm immunized. And still wearing masks in public because even though I'm fortunate enough to be stuck and the CDC claims we can just walk around with our faces out, not everyone is safely immunized, some fools who can be are refusing out of sheer selfishness, and the pandemic is still raging worldwide and other countries can't get all the vaccines they need for their people for who knows how long. Also I invested a lot in cute face-covering wear and I'm continuing to wear it and that way I can cough when my issues act up and know my mouth is covered. We'll decide how I feel about sipping Starbucks in the store later. 

I digress. It's a three day weekend, May is almost over, and I have my attention together long enough to blog about things even if I smell of Halls cough drops. So Wellies later--well, Old Wellie Stuff later, because I'm covering the New Party Stuff today--and New Stuff Now. Including New Stuff that's Old Stuff! But not Bitty stuff. LOL Bitty shit. Go argue with a Safeway doughnut.

Party under the cut!

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Dat Street Chic Urban, Flying the AG Skies, and Sweets, Treats, and Other Neats: The 2021 Early Quarter Releases

We run these exceptionally clean and well-maintained streets.

I got two retrospecticuses--retrospectici? retrobungalows? we'll take that to the workshop--in and started sorting images for the third when a local snowstorm came in and delayed me and my buddies going to AG Seattle together, even though it was good for Maryellen in the snow for pics. Followed by sad over my last day in AG Seattle. Followed by concern over my family and friends in Texas because of their own freak snowstorms. Followed by March yet again I'm just saying, February was wilding and my brain decided every trip up meant focus was bullshit. I didn't even get my Valentine's day takeout dinner until last weekend.¹ Yes, I'm a bougie bitch. Get you a partner that looks at you like a warm cheddar bay biscuit and then gets them for you to eat at home.

Anyways it's now March and as of today, it has literally been an entire year that my life has been affected by this pandemic. "I'll be working from home for at least two weeks" followed by "actually, roomie, don't go on your usual walking trip out to the store this weekend, it's not fun out there" followed by "...all my thingies are getting super cancelled and the Costco is out of  paper towels, bleach, disinfecting wipes, hand soap, baby wipes, hand sanitizer, and rice. And toilet paper, wtf, why is everyone buying all the toilet paper, good thing we restocked last week."² Things are better but we're not out of the woods yet. Wear your masks, stay home, and stay distant. I don't care what your stupid state governor says about opening the entire state up to full capacity right now because their dumb ass wants to force things "back to normal." Fuck a normal. This is the equivalent of going "the flames are only on half the house now, everyone back into the living room to play on the XBox!" That bastard ain't gonna pay your medical bills and you can't contribute to the economy when you're dead. Freedom is not freedom to be a dick to everyone around you because you're weaker than a fursuiter and mewl at the mild inconvenience of some cloth on your face. And if you're like "lol that's what Texas/Mississippi get, backwards states voted backwards and everyone there deserves it" I want you to snort capsaicin up your nose like it's the 1970s and sauce is the new snow. There's millions in the south, many of which are BiPoC, that are being voter suppressed and trying to be heard, and they're not less worthy. Fuck your northern moral superiority, you fucking weeb. Don't make me overlay the Republican dominated states over the diagram of the Confederacy again. 

Ahem.

While I was working on old stuff and also being sad at times, new stuff came out with AG. I already covered Courtney's new stuff--all of it, really--in her own post, but she wasn't the only one getting the goods. The only Historical, true--but not the only line. Lo, have the moddie things been thinging. Due to the local store closure, I knew I wasn't going to see any of it in person and would just have to use website images and details as it came out, with the oldest new stuff coming out with Courtney and the newest new stuff having come out yesterday. 

So to keep on top of that, I'm still gonna blog about it. And Blaire's gonna have to wait another week for me to take my meds, get my new glasses to read better, and slam some black tea with milk and sugar so I can go over the deep interest of her not being able to eat dairy. I could try to do her stuff first, but then I'm delaying more and then more stuff comes out and then we're talking about 2021 releases in 2022 and I've got enough of a 2019/2020 backlog. Also I've got something neat coming soon and y'all might get the first new review of something in forever.

That and those three new girls are stupid cute and I'm trying to decide when I'll get them.

Pop under the cut and run these streets, site-used images and all. 

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.

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: 'Twas The Week Before Giftmas for Moddies and Wellies

Not a Wellie was stirring. Except she was. Because cookie dough.

I was ready to blog for my birthday, after getting decent shots of the new stuff that'd come out on October 1st.

I...did not do that.

Long story short, some stupid shit went down two days beforehand that ate the entire second half of October right up until Nano. Then I spent all November working on Nano, and making up for the fact that I lost my entire planning period dealing with fuckshit.¹ As me and my friend BWI put it, when both the Libra and the Scorpio want out of the birth month, then you know it's been fucky.

If I've told you what happened, then you know. If I haven't told you but you know I would, then you know how to get to me to be told. And if I don't want you to know? Then you ain't gonna know. I'm damn near forty, I gave up fucks for Lent years ago. Silflay hraka and die mad about it.

So yeah, it sucks that 2018 also was a low blogger's year. Which is weird because Twenty-Gay-Teen has gone on for what feels like 200 years already.² Sucks that I am getting out the October release *looks at her phone clock* two weeks before the Girl of the Year Twenty-Fine Bi-Teen launches.³

But then I wouldn't have this cool heading. So, uh, silver lining.

To the stuff that came out months ago and you already heard other people opine about. Or maybe not, because maybe I'm the only doll blog you read. And in case you're wondering, yes, I did get #80 for my birthday, her name is Giselle and she's pretty.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu.

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

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

Z is a victim of Tenney's Shadow.

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

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

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

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

Alas poor Z. You were done so wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness Part 2: Ew, Boys, Moddie Mishaps and Wellies On Stage

This was an all girls' school before you showed up.

*scampers in, keeping to her vow of getting stuff blogged on time*

And now for Part Two of the New Stuff: Moddies and Wellies.

Look, I could have done this in a single part, or I could have finished dinner. And dinner was good. See I took the bone of a ham, and some veggies, and made soup. And I'm having that again today. Because it's damn good soup.

Then I had to fix Wiki mistakes. We so roll blocks for misdone pictures. Read the fucking manual.

And now it's time for the bloggings.

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

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

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

Onward.

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

Aloha, Nanea!

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

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

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

S'all right? S'all right.

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

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The 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---