Once upon a time, in the far off land of ~2011-2012, Disney debuted a series of Disney Princess dolls- these dolls are the princesses as toddlers, in cute little outfits with brushable hair. However, the main draw was that the dolls were designed by several lead animators that worked for the company- namely, Mark Henn and Glen Keane. The animators worked long and hard to make these dolls look how they would actually appear at that age, to the point where their adorable concept art still decorates the boxes and promotional material.
These dolls were thus referred to as the Animators’ Collection. And, at the time of their release, as I was an 11-12 autistic afab who’d had a Disney special interest since she was five, I was hooked.
I loved dolls, I loved Disney Princesses, and I loved toddlers; I had just started volunteering to work with toddlers at my church, actually. And I fell in love with all the cute little designs. But I had two favorites: Mulan and Aurora.
Now, at this point in time, the Animators Dolls are on Issue 3 (or maybe 4? idk), so every doll’s design has changed since the initial release in 2011. If you go on the Disney Store now, you will not see the original designs, though a lot of them are still quite cute. (And some of them are. Uhh.) So if you just googled “Animators Doll Aurora”, you would see the Issue 3 design and say “oh, that’s cute,” and move on with your life.
However, this was back in Issue 1. Keep that in mind.
I was obsessed with getting my hands on an Aurora. Which was odd, considering at the time I did not care much for Sleeping Beauty and Aurora was probably my least favorite princess at the time. But something about the doll was irresistible to 12 year old me, and thus I scoured every Disney store in every mall, saved up my money, and finally, one day, received my beautiful girl.
And noticed that whenever I showed her to people, they uh. Did not like her as much.
For some reason? Everyone said “that expression is creepy” and “she looks like she wants to murder me” and “jesus that’s a horror movie kid if i ever saw one.”
I was so confused and promptly ignored everyone’s criticisms of my beautiful daughter. Though I guess Disney felt the same way as the adults in my life, as they changed Aurora’s face mold and expression for later issues.
Anyway, I tell you all this to bring a question to you darling followers. Do you think this innocent lamb has killed a man, or was everyone overreacting?
I say she’s probably killed someone but they deserved it so we’ll forgive her because she’s so perfect.
