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!

Get Vaxxed, Puppies

Filler Kendal, since the next post is wellies.

Me: I'll blog after my covid shot! 
Miss Moderna: go take naps all week
Me: oh okay

See y'all next Monday when hopefully my brain is not all the sleep. 

Get vaxxed. 

 ETA, May 9th: that next monday was foggy and unable to focus, though i got things sorted. by the time i wasn't fogged, i was getting shot two, and it knocked me on my ass. lmao, i forgot that any immunization fucks me up.

 let's see where I am Tuesday. 

--Neth

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.

Crafting Creatively: Things I've Made: Kendalls's Wafrican-Loli Dress and Underdress

The grace of Japan, the beauty of Africa, and the cuteness of lolita all in one outfit.

So there I was on the IG like ya do. Checking my feed full of friends, yarn, dolls, more yarn, more dolls, random stuffs, cosplay, nerd shit, and the lifestyles of the cool and Hamilton.¹ As I was scrolling and waiting for my morning meds to kick in, I saw that Requiem Art Designs had released a new pattern. That wasn't unusual--she releases patterns practically weekly, on a schedule that I could only hope to wish to maintain even if I could get my brain together. I started following her on Etsy and Instagram because I wanted to start looking into buying patterns for my BJD. I've personally yet to make the leap to sewing for anything slimmer than my Iplehouse Benny Nikki, and even then I've been nervous, but hey, support your local art faves and crafty peeps. Most of what she's released has been for Barbie, Monster High/Ever After High--what she's labeled the Petite Slimline--and various sizes of BJD. I kinda want to get into making some customs of the dolls now that they're plentiful at second hand shops and I have several drawers of the teens.²

That week was an alternate week--something off her usual release schedule. And she had released---wait for it--a WellieWishers pattern. Okay, the top image gave it away, but that day I got flappy hands.  And one that wasn't historical based, frilly frou-frou aprons and ruffles and bows like a doily and a ruffle foot had gone off the rails and both eaten the doll halfway and met in the middle, generidress (but now with bow!), or something that a person whose aesthetics for a seven year old's dressing fashion had stopped somewhere around 1958 had made? Sign me, as they say, the fuck up.

Her first Wellies-sized pattern, the Wa-Loli Dress For 14 inch Kid Dolls, came out in August. She's calling the size 14" Kid Dolls, so this covers Wellies, Heart4Hearts Girls like Rahel, Mosi, and Shola³ and those Glitter Girls I saw at Target for a blip before they went to get retooled and haven't shown back up yet near me. That covers quite a few dolls of the style.

But it got better. She wanted to promote the new size she was trying--because she didn't want the size to fail and her to commit designing for a a size people weren't interested in. So she offered a new promotion. If you buy the first pattern, make a version of it, and message her on Etsy with an image of the completed test of the pattern, then she would add you to a list to get her next 14" Kid pattern absolutely free! And if you make the second one before the third's release, then you got the third free. And so on and so on and as it goes. If you get the pattern, can make it in a month, and then keep it up, then you would stay on the list to keep getting free patterns as long as she made patterns.

Conditions apply, read the fine print. You have to buy the first pattern--the one she had just released, the Wa-Loli Dress. No getting in on pattern #2. And you have to make it and show her you made it before the next one comes out--in about a month. And the moment you don't make the next month's, you're off the list and you don't get back on. Well, it was a month at the release, now it's less than a week. So if you can buy this and make it by the 21st of September and show Requiem, she'll send you the next one free. Yeah, I should have blogged about this sooner. You should have been following me on IG because I told everyone there on day one. Bllpth. Also if the size didn't sell at least 15 in a year, the pattern would be considered a failure size and she'd stop making patterns. Well, it sold more than that in the first week. I'd like to hope I added to the buying with some IG and posting on AGC.

I did as I was offered, bought the pattern, and went out to get some fabric to make a doll dress the next weekend. I had initially decided that, since Ashlyn and Zeblyn are my two half-Japanese Wellie twins, I was going to make a dress for each of them--or at least one for Ashlyn. But in Joann Fabrics, I came across kente cloth and the plans instantly changed to making a set for Kendall. The gods are capricious, knew I was being too ambitious, and wanted to remind me that Kendall was first one to arrive and like Addy, deserves the best. The pattern includes pieces and steps for a dress, underdress, and faux obi-style sash with optional center and bow.

Note that if you're a person who needs a pattern to give a total walkthrough from layout to closure, full color step by step images of every seam and how to sew it, and everything on every pattern marked so you get your hands held, then you're going to need to work around that for Requiem's patterns. Requiem's patterns have the patterns to proper scale, some basic data on the pattern pieces so you know what goes on the folds and all that, and then all the steps in text of how many pieces to cut out (and if you need long rectangles, their dimensions) and how they go together. No pics walking you through every seam, press, and step. They get to the heart of a pattern and expect you to know what you're doing. This to me is kind of refreshing. The pattern tells me what to do, gives me some details, and then expects me to know what I'm up to and how a thing goes together. I like that, especially with how long I've been sewing now. I don't need to be told how to gather, press, run a straight seam--just tell me how the thing runs together and let me do it. The guidance is slim and if you can't tell a seam ripper from a zipper foot, you might be in trouble. Time to jump that hurdle!

Go under the cut for deets on Wafrica, Lolita dress, wa-loli, and how I made one damn cute outfit for Kendall. Also guess who found the aspect ratios on her phone? Yeah, buddy.

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.

AG Complaint Department: The Top Five and Bottom Five A*G Events in the Past Ten Years of the A*G Wiki

Ten Full Years!

Where the sweet hell did June go--oh right, A-Kon work, Pride, swapping doll eyeballs, raiding the corpse of Toys R Us, Memorial Day, and family business. Don't beat yourself up, Neth. Just, you know, go take review pictures. There's lots of stuffs you could be covering. Just set up your photo spot and take the damn pictures, woman.

*dusts off cookies*

There's new summer stuff out! Woo, releases! And I have several opinions on it, good and bad. I plan to post about it soon--I wasn't able to get complete pictures of the stuff until the end of the month, because that was the earliest I was able to get to the store. I'm aiming Sunday or Monday's post.¹ Today though, is a super cool anniversary for me in the AG fandom.

Guys, gals, and non binary pals, today is the ten-year anniversary of what's been called the best database for American Girl Info since its 2008 conception, the American Girl Wiki.

Lemme set the scene for the launch. Picture it, Seattle Area, 2008. I'd been officially banned from AF Playthings that March, though I hadn't really visited in weeks at that point and was trying to get my stuff down from the site at the time of my banning.² I was overseeing training at my then-job--which mostly consisted of shadowing over someone who'd done all the main education and was now doing live work with assistance. Since it was a niche section, those of us that normally did the work were not doing it so they could get as much practice as they possibly could. So since I'd been doing the work for two and a half years, I was being paid to sit by my trainee, listen to their calls out, walk them through steps, and answer simple questions quickly so they didn't have to ask the supervisors. I needed something to do between questions and call listen ins, so I was surfing the net trying to get some AG data on upcoming new stuff and characters.

Look it was that or bike back and forth on the long path through Solaceon Town hatching eggs in Pokemon Pearl. Smartphones were not as widespread as they are now and I'd already done some sketching. 

But I couldn't get any data on anything that wasn't locked behind forums or on slowly updated personal sites--and what data that existed was primarily about the items and buying them. While AG is a merch driven thing and so it made perfect sense to talk about the stuff, that was all that got talked about. the Stuff. Very little on any site at all was about the actual characters, there was sporadic history on the line itself, and most of that was heavily coated in the idea that everything that came out before 2000 was perfect and flawless and everything that came out after was Mattel's Hot Garbage trying to turn the line into Barbie. Hell's chicken and fries, there was little to be found about the books. Many places had a list of book titles, but nothing about what happened in them. Not even character parent names.

And it occurred to me: why didn't the American Girl fandom have a wiki-style database? Other toys had them. Lego had one, the Brickipedia. There was an entire one about yo-yos. I'd just been using Bulbapedia to look up some Pokémon data, followed by getting lost on the Muppet Wiki. Hell, there was Wookiepedia--all Star Wars, All The Time.

Was it because someone had never done that themselves? Taken that step out to make an American Girl Wiki? Well, I would be that someone. TV Tropes had the right idea with the The Wiki Rule: There is no area of interest, no matter how narrowly defined, where a person cannot put up a wiki for it and attract at least a few editors with similar interests. So, even if I spent weeks alone coding in character and book pages, making notes on Addy's younger sister and Kirsten's father, I could do it.  Plus, it'd give me something else to do with my fandom knowledge. I did have like, almost all the books. All of them. I might hate the people who'd banned me and shunned me, but that didn't mean I couldn't do something for the AG fandom, even if I'd likely never be appreciated for it.

I submitted my proposal for the wiki to the Wikia staff--which, like onions on your belt, was the style at the time. I got approval and was sent the URL and given my admin and founder rights. I started to clean up the main page images, then started creating pages for each Historical Character and Girl of the Year. I created basic collection pages.  That was enough to start making more character pages and some item pages. I searched and scanned images from my books, making references and internal links here and there and coding. I couldn't post links on any forums, but I could promote on AG Over 18 and my own personal journal, and I did. By August  we'd been featured in the Wikia Spotlight. By September 2008 we had 300 pages. By the first anniversary, the Wiki had just over 850 articles.

Ten years later and with two other admins, we're at a touch over 4000 articles--and I often hear across the fandom how useful the AG Wiki is to pull up information and how nice it is that within days of new stuff coming out, there's at least something on it even just a stubble. And to think, I started the AG wiki with just about 100 or so pages, supervising training at Nintendo, and hoping I was able to do something for American Girl fans with my information, because I was getting damned sick of sites that only talked about the stuff and most of that was in forums people could be banned from.

Oh and the moddie line has gone through about three names--but since category changes are hard, we still call the category by a name several years out of date. Edits, whatcha gonna do.
 
We're fairly quick with the updates--and if you're curious about, say, that one-off character in Felicity's mystery? You can probably get some data or add it in yourself--as long as you follow the rules, are over thirteen, don't edit in garbage, pay attention to the rules about descriptions because a single line edit is not a description unless they're just plain white socks, and don't spam the wiki with petitions to bring back flash games from your childhood because AG is not going to bring back flash games from your childhood. Flash is a terrible thing anyways.

I'm very proud of what the AG Wiki is and has become, and what it will be in the future. 

That being said, I have more to say. Since it has been ten years, I decided that I'm gonna babble on about the Top Five and Bottom Five Things AG has done in the past decade since I started wiking. All opinions are, of course, my own. Of course they are, this is my fucking blog. There will also be some honorable--and dishonorable--mentions in there too.

Hop under the cut and getcha read on.

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

Come See About Melody!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahem. *brushes that dirt off her shoulders*

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

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

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

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

Me: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To the new stuff!