In This House We Love And Protect Lea Clark

AG side blog / I follow/like from @brokenrecord3

[lesbianleaclark]

After all Mele went through, it's no wonder she looks so down!

[lesbianleaclark]

I can at least admit the new AG modern dolls share most traits with the original dolls, minus bangs or eyebrows sometimes - except Molly who inexplicably looks like a 50/50 mix of Emily and Molly? The hair colour change was probably to differentiate from Sam but it's just funny.

[lesbianleaclark]

Welcome home, Kirsten Larson!

[lesbianleaclark]

AG sellers on eBay will make a listing that’s like “ULTRA RARE PLEASANT COMPANY PRE MATTEL RETIRED NEW IN BOX PERFECT CONDITION” and set the price to 100$ then it’s a hairbrush they got from the AG website.

[lesbianleaclark]

Now on one hand I’m happy about the fact that the 35th anniversary dolls have neck strings because ✨historical accuracy✨ but also it means they can’t ship to or be sold in Canada because they aren’t up to toy manufacturing standards. I’m in Canada and I want a Felicity but now it’s a lot harder for me to get one just because of two strings which is :/

[britishchick09]

everything i need to know i learned from american girl

take a peek into the past for wise and witty advice from the american girls. over the centuries, these girls have faced everything from brothers to bullies to boiled turnips! their experiences have taught us how to survive and thrive. they’ve also taught us what it means to be a girl in any era: reach high, dream big, and speak out for what you believe in. with classic illustrations and memorable story moments, this book is a treasure for every american girl.

[in-the-dollpalace]

am I stupid? I really can’t tell if this is real or not

[desertdollranch]

It’s real! Click the link above and you’ll go to the product page directly on AG’s website.  I think it’s great to see the historical characters, including the ones who are retired, officially acknowledged and celebrated.

[lesbianleaclark]

[americangirlstar]

ok so me and @lesbianleaclark watched lea’s movie for the first time a little bit ago and i love the fact it’s a sequel to the books instead of a rewrite? like they were like “we want an action-ish movie and the books don’t exactly fit that so now it takes place afterwards” and that was cool and all 

but also camila doesn’t show up and i. i really want a version of this movie where camila is running reconnaissance for lea offscreen and just getting way too into it

[lesbianleaclark]

Beforever characters in the Beforever launch video “Pass It Along”, 2014

[lesbianleaclark]

Hello everyone!

So I’m aware I haven’t been on this blog in quite some time. I’ve mostly left Tumblr (mental health reasons), but I thought I’d come back for this.

I’ve wanted to create a custom historical character for a while, but I’ve never really found a time period that I find compelling. However, recently I’ve found an era and setting I’ve wanted to explore, so I did. Without further ado,

Meet Jo Song (And her best friend, Thomas)!

(absolutely HUGE thanks to @usagiwithagun for the art <3)

Jo is 10 years old in 1885, the daughter of two Chinese immigrants who moves to Seattle, Washington from the small railroad town she grew up in. Jo is courageous and daring, but tends to judge people quickly and oversimplify things. She makes friends with Thomas Hampton, an upper class boy she meets in Seattle, and the two of them explore the city and cause all kinds of mischief.

I have plenty more about her, doll mock-ups and in depth book summaries, and I’ll post them very soon. For now I just wanted to introduce her and let all of you know the idea that I’ve had in my brain for months.

[lesbianleaclark]

So I’m MAD

So I was looking at Kira leaks and uh 

All I can say is I’m not happy. 

[fyeahamericangirl]

anyway FROM THE ACTUAL-LITERAL BEGINNING AG has never limited itself to stories set within the contemporary boundaries of the US.

Kirsten's stories are set before Minnesota achieved statehood.

Felicity's are set before the US existed.

Josefina's Nuevo Mexico was newly independent from Spain, would be Mexican territory until she was 40, and wouldn't be a US state until she was nearly 100, if she lived that long.

Kaya had probably never seen a white person from ANY of the nationalities settling North America at the time, and might never have for her entire life either.

Nanea's Hawaii wouldn't be a US state for nearly two more decades.

The assumption that AG should be fine to limit itself to white girls within the bounds of states recognized during their time is predicated on the baseless idea that they've ever done that. Some of y'all are really showing yourselves out as either very unfamiliar with the company or again, having completely missed the point when you did interact with it.

[americangirlstar]

it's called american girl... of course most are white.. America was built by british. especially the early years.. also we aren't talking about before natives because that want America then. it's relasric and i think y'all don't like real life history and people right in front of your face lol it wouldn't be called minority if they were actually the majority... makes sense?

anyway call me when white people have contributed more to history than harriet tubman, maya angelou, grace lee boggs, silvia rivera or madonna thunder hawk. in the meantime go watch some schoolhouse rock :)

[desertdollranch]

Saying that Native American histories don’t count because “it wasn’t America then” is utterly ignorant and wrong. Even after the United States officially began calling itself a country, that was still their land, and still is. Native people didn’t just politely back away from all the territory that Europeans colonized and say “sure, you can have it”. They absolutely still inhabited that land. I can literally put you in my car and take you down the street to a village that was built more than 1000 years ago, where the descendants of the people who built it are still living there right this minute. That’s their history, they’re American, and that’s American history. To say that the 500+ years before European colonization don’t count as history just because Europeans weren’t there yet, is absurd.

And saying “America was built by British, especially the early years” is also just flat out wrong. The British (who enslaved people to do the hard work of building a country anyway) weren’t even the first Europeans here. By the time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the Spanish had already established cities in the west and in Florida. The French had done the same in the far northern regions. 

If this anonymous person has read any American Girl historical character books and come away with the conclusion that history is only made by white European men, then maybe they need to sit down and do some re-reading. 

[desertdollranch]

It would be really meta if in Courtney’s book, there’s a scene where someone compares Courtney and her Molly doll and says, “wow, you have the exact same face as Molly… with darker hair and grey eyes, you’d look like twins…..”

[lesbiansamanthaparkington]

I would just like to point out that The Challenger was a space shuttle launched in January of 1986 and exploded in the atmosphere killing its entire crew, one of whom was a civilian teacher. The launch was broadcast on live television.

If that leak of Courtney standing in a classroom decorated to celebrate The Challenger launch is real than i think Courtney’s story might be a lot darker than any of us were anticipating

[nellieandsamantha]

Maybe it will be approached like Melody’s was with the Birmingham school bombing or the Nanea being outside and seeing the planes during the Pearl Harbor attack?

I’m curious because like as a kid I remember watching 9/11 on television with my teachers and if I had had a resource like an American Girl book that kinda covered a sudden tragic event it might have helped to process it.

[superior-dolls]

I like these ideas. I think that the other characters’ traumatic events, while certainly momentous (e.g. Addy escaping slavery, a storm destroying Josefina’s family’s income, Molly’s dad serving in WWII) are really outside a lot of younger readers’ experience.

[nellieandsamantha]

So for me growing up it wasn’t so much that that wasn’t a terrifying and traumatic thing.

Because like Addys and Molly’s war experiences weren’t like this one sudden unexpected tragic event.

Like yes they were tragic and traumatic but they were something that happened over a course of time.

Like addy escaping slavery took several weeks and we knew about the war but she was wasn’t exactly in the mist of it seeing the tragity unfold. Same thing with Molly

By comparison we have Melody and Nanea experiancing very sharp and sudden traumatic life event that greatly impact their lives in such a distressing way.

[lesbiansamanthaparkington]

kits og meet outfit was literally pastel purple with a skirt with a floral pattern a 9 year old whos family is struggling to make ends meet isnt gonna have a huge amount of control of the type of clothes she gets to wear kit in dresses is not the problem

can we please just acknowledge that beforever outfits were generally bad is because they clearly valued aesthetics over accuracy, were often low quality looking by brand standards, and rarely had anything to do with the content of the books

can we stop acting like femininity itself is the issue. one of the reasons i love american girl is its never done the “im not like OTHER GIRLS i, wear pant,s” thing and its really disheartening to see that kind of attitude in the fandom. Like the line between “it feels ooc for the character to wear that” into “ANYTHING PINK IS INHERENTLY EVIL” is being toed far too often

like ya’ll aren’t mad at the the beforever outfit for being “girly”, if you were mad at tomboys in dresses i’d see way more hate towards felicity’s original collection. you guys are mad at a bad product for being bad. you dont have to throw Other Girls™ under the bus to do that

[girlsofmanylands]

I love American Girl tumblr I can really post a couple okay photos of my doll with a cool background and the little accessories in her bag and it's like *twenty notes in ten minutes telling me how cute it is* *gains five followers* like it's just full of Love and Fun

[desertdollranch]

I agree! The boundless enthusiasm from everyone else is so uplifting. We may not have the biggest fandom, but it’s definitely one of the most positive.

[lesbiansamanthaparkington]

Alright what was everyone’s biggest AG Nightmare Fuel moment?

For me it’s probally nellie describing someone losing their SCALP in an industrial accident, and her just telling sam about without any illustrations is still somehow worse than the scene in the movie where you actually see a child get injured

or that time kirsten and her brother just find a corpse of a man who died alone and his dead body is still sitting in his house and they have to spend the night in the house

[lesbianleaclark]

Definitely same on the Kirsten one - That was terrifying. I was already scared when they were describing the pelts, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when they got to the dead guy.

I also got very scared during the scenes on the island while it’s raining in the Samantha books. Something about how it was described made me so scared, not to mention it was raining while I read it for the first time.