AG New Year Roundup, Part 2. Bonus Melody

[impy]

Non Lea Stuff:



Red Hearts Ruffle Outfit for Dolls
Item # DHV53 // $28


Her Truly Me™ doll will look as sweet as a bowl of candy hearts! This cheery set includes:
A heart-print ruffled chiffon dress
Red strappy sandals with hearts on the toes
A bracelet with hearts all the way around
A red elastic headband

  I'll be honest. When it comes to AG Valentine offerings, I react one of two ways initially:
Oooh, cute!
or
Sweet frick, what pink puke factory exploded now?

   Which is to say I either initially love it or I'm thoroughly confused by it. Pink and I have a complicated relationship, and since AG believes that red is for ~Christmas~, their Valentine's stuff is usually very, very pink. I remember thinking last year's wasn't awful, but it was kind of boring. I feel this year is pretty much more of the same, though I might like it more if it weren't paired with a red headband. Red and pink, man.



Valentine Gift Set
Item #DHV54 // $12

Girls love to show friends how much they care. This set is designed for them—either to give to their friends’ Truly Me™ dolls, or to receive for their own. It features:

A doll tee with a glittery “Listen to Your Heart” graphic
A red envelope to hold the doll tee
How is this a gift set? This is a tee shirt in a cute envelope. That's not a gift set. It's a cute shirt, but... c'mon, AG. Don't start calling things gift sets when they aren't.


Coconut Plush
Item#DKB17 // $20
This adorable plush dog is sized perfectly for girls to cuddle. She has a soft body, shaggy white faux fur, and warm brown embroidered eyes. She can sit or stand, and she comes with a bright red ribbon collar with a star-shaped felt nametag on it.
  Am I the only person on earth who hates felt? I swear, it's used on so many things and it just feels awful to me. It makes me angry when it snags on my fingers and ugh, just... ugh. Texture issues aside... Coconut got revamped. Again. Y'know, if you have to revamp your mascot this much just to get her to sell, maybe she shouldn't be your mascot. I'm just sayin'... Coconut v.44 is very cute and lookit that face! So squishable. Clearly Coconut went to the same eye guy as Bonbon. Good choice, CC. BB knew what she was talkin' about.



Diabetes Care Kit for Dolls
Item#DHV55 // $24
This set comes with a variety of pretend doll-sized tools to help girls care for their Truly Me™ dolls with diabetes. It includes:
A blood sugar monitor and lancing device
An insulin pump that can be clipped to a doll's waistband, plus an adhesive to attach the infusion set
An insulin pen, for dolls that aren't using the pump
A medical bracelet
Glucose tablets
A log book
A special case for the supplies, plus an ID card
Stickers to add personalization
  My fellow old people, do you remember the Chapter 2 bit where Stacey or someone always commented on ew, shots? Yeah, that never freaked me out as much as the idea of the insulin pump. Heebeejeebees for days.
I'm happy for people who've been clamoring for this for ages. Huzzah! Friend Jess (not to be confused with doll Jess) is on the fence about this for whatever reason.


Arm Crutches for Dolls
Item#DHV56 // $14
Nothing can stop your girl’s Truly Me™ doll now! These crutches clip onto a doll’s forearms at just the right height, with handgrips that fit comfortably into a doll’s palms.
  Again, yay for representation! And considering what AG could be charging, $14 isn't awful.


Treat Sweet Set
Item#DMJ89 // $30
Now dolls can share mealtime at home too! This set comes with:
A Treat Seat® like the ones in the American Girl Cafe—it’s designed to attach securely to most tables so your girl can dine with her doll. When mealtime is over, the seat can be easily removed.
A perfectly petite place setting, featuring a doll-sized placemat, napkin with napkin ring, and cup with saucer.
A yummy snack for her doll: a sweet pretend cinnamon roll and glass of lemonade—also inspired by the American Girl Cafe.
  Man, just imagine someone in however many years trying to figure out what the heck this is. The doll seats always amuse me but since I'm not going to be dining with my dolls, they're not for me. If I were buying for a kidlet (or someone who does want to eat with their dolls), I'd consider it but I'm not so it's just an amusement.





I'm lazy, so I'm not linking to each of the new Beforever Minis, but I will share pictures. They're all $28, except for Felicty/Molly/Kirsten who are $25. They're also in their Meet outfits while everyone else is sporting a different look.





If you weren't paying attention, they did revamp the minis so that they now have plastic bodies instead of cloth. Some people see this as awful, some people think it's amazing, and some of us are really more interested in the fact that the molds for the dolls' faces changed again. This does mark the first time plastic bodied minis have been made available for Kirsten/Felicity/Molly.




I'm not super fond of Lissie, but I do think Kirsten's cute and I might snag a Molly. We'll see. Of the actual Beforever dolls (sorry, girls, but until you come outta the archives, you're Historical and not BF), I'm really only intrigued by Kaya, doll wise. I'd love all the outfits but c'mon, $28? Pfft. No. Sam's is the only one I'm most likely to snag because Sam, that's why.


Melody's second book cover leaked, btw.



In general, this year's January release was a little lackluster for me. Usually there are a few more things in this release, but I gather they're possibly debuting a whole new line (Wellie Wishers) next month, so I can see why they'd wait and do more stuff then.

I have to remember to save my pennies for Addy stuff just in case they are being dumb enough to archive her prior to Melody. (AG, don't do this. It's PR suicide. You'll be forced to show Melody off before her debut and at best you'll come out with headlines, if the week is slow enough, proclaiming that American Girl Retires Only Black Doll before you're forced to play the Melody card and then, THEN they'll be able to point out that clearly you think only one black girl at a time is enough and rightly accuse you of tokenism. Just... don't. Seriously. Wait a year and send Addy to the archives next year when Melody's sales are decent enough. Or not.)

Then again, upon closer inspection, I'm only really missing two things from her current collection that I might want. Definitely want her lunch set (yessssssssss) and maybe her bedroom accessories. I already have Ida Bean but I really like the lantern. I just don't want it $42 worth, yet. Maybe at free shipping time, or if there's a code.

Comments

[zallia.livejournal.com]

My brain forgets that Valentine's dress exists WHILE I'm staring at it. But the shoes are pretty cute. I guess strappy sandals are the new flats now and that's not just for Lea's collection, huh? But still the little hearts on them are totes adorbs and I appreciate they're not just a palette-swap generic one.

*snorts* I'm with you AG being demented on what actually qualifies as a "gift set". I got the last one and honey, that envelope ain't nothing. Other people seem much more into the shirt than I am, too. It's that shade of pink I hate. I hate the design. If I'm listening to my heart, shouldn't the jack being going INTO the heart and the earbuds up to your head instead of just on top of the heart? Or at least if they were on either side of the heart, like it was listening, it would look more aesthetically pleasing than this mess.

Coconutty buddy! I keep forgetting they changed Coconut to a girl and think of it as a boy. It's a super cute plush, but I got enough of those around here.

Diabetes Kit-Haha, I too, am of the school of "Everything I know about diabetes I learned from Stacey's BSC books". Uh, yeah, insulin pumps, like I know it sucks when you have them, but it still seems an odd thing to commercialize. Do that many kids have them? Isn't it usually an older person thing? And if this many kids have them that intersect in some way with young girls who collect AG, shouldn't this country be really fucking worried about what the hell we're doing to give so many kids the worst kind of diabetes out there? But oooh, you can put stickers on it! I don't know, I know everyone out there gets all jazzed about disabled representation, but at a certain point it gets to be glorifying it and it kind of creeps me out. But whatever, I probably did weird shit to my barbies and dolls, so if it helps, good for them.

Arm crutches-Yay for not costing an arm and a leg! See...see what I did there? Eh?? I'm just full of bad taste! I thought it was weird that so many people on the board didn't know what these were, but then I realized that they probably don't watch South Park as religiously as I do. They're not pink at least?

Oh boy, more food clumps! When I saw Lissie's reviews and then saw the berry blobs that came with the rainforest set, I was horrified. I can't even tell what most of those things are even supposed to represent, so I think I'm going to be getting all food via OG where they actually like to pretend your doll will want to interact with the food and not just be a show piece of unidentifiable plastic. Also, yeah, not that doll person...yet. >_>

New niblet versions-Are cute enough! They are way too costly for me to ever invest in them more than the...Josie? I think I already have. Although, I think it's funny that the people on the board are wigging about the plastic bodies when they're supposed to be dolls for your doll, but....hell, you guys are probably the only ones that invest those ungodly sums of money into these things and you know what you do with them? Display them! And you know what makes that easier? Plastic bodies! Same with the fervor over the neck string change. I can't even imagine how small the percentage is of people who actually take it upon themselves to mess with those things that it's worth putting up a petition and vowing to never buy a doll again. You've tried to reroot MH dolls! Are you flipping your shit cause they made wigged dolls a few times and never again? No, because you're choosing to alter their product, so guess what, they don't have to kowtow to that. I dunno, it's crazy, yo.

Melody-If I wanted to be that person, I could say that it's a pretty lame copout to have her straighten her hair in the book and apparently keep it that way forever. So is the doll going to have straight hair? Cause it looks really off-place on her here. And that's going to be an interesting dress to make a doll version of. Maybe it's all supposed to look too grown-up?

Is Wellie Wishers what's replacing BT? What is it? I too think BTs are much cuter than the BBs, but I guess they probably do jump straight from baby to full-size, so BTs probably got left in the dust.

[snarky-imp.livejournal.com]

*snorts* Wow, that is a special reaction to the dress. But it is super forgetable, isn't it? I still regret not snagging that bright pink one from like, 2009ish that looked fantastic on Sonali but nooooooo. I was all "ew, pink, why" like a fool. Almost every year thereafter they've just gone out of their way to be lame. The shoes remind me of cuter versions of Nani's meet shoes. All the Nani!

Heheh, I haven't paid much attention to the shirt except in a passing "kinda cute" way, but the sleeves weird me out and now I'll always see it with a shoulder!you shrieking about the absurdity of the earbuds and HOW does this even work, dammit.

Coconut is just too cool for gender. I think I assign different genders based on the design at the time. Except last Coconut who I forgot was even a thing because the kitty was so much cuter.

Huh, I always associated the pump with Type 1, but like I said, I basically nope out of there when it comes up in conversation because it squicks me out and no one I like enough has started to yammer on about it. If they did, then I'd work on getting over myself. I wanna say a Jonas Brother had (has?) one but I don't keep up with things and this was years ago and again, basically my knowledge of diabetes is based on stuff I learned from the BSC and my family.

*cackle* Well played on the crutches joke. Well played. Man, I'm gonna have to go back and see the confusion on the crutches because even I could figure out what they were... possibly due to South Park, possibly not. Huzzah for blue!

Kids these days have it so good in so many regards, but dude. I remember when my Barbies and Skippers had non-clumped food that was awesome. And you know it had to be teeny tiny then. So yeah, OG is spanking AG on that front and it cannot have escaped AG's notice. I hope...?

The minis definitely got cuter with their upgrade, though I kind of miss them being like the larger dolls but shrunk down. It was one of the few things I liked about the first wave (creepy eyes were creepy). But if my choice is cuter and not as accurate or accurate (except for the eyes anyway) and not cute? I'm gonna vote cute on this one, kthnx.

Zip ties, who knew that would be the hill so many people chose to go to war over. I'm a bit worried at the news that the heads are harder to move and that the ties are already rubbing holes in the body but I can honestly say if they'd given Lea any color other than hazel for her eyes, I wouldn't have said boo immediately. As it is, it's not like there are a bunch of options to swap her eyes for anyway since they don't tend to use the medium skintone for a lot of non-hazel options and the eyelid difference would bug me. I dunno, the whole expanding into new markets thing is both yay! and "ohshit, no" at the same time. As is most of the stuff AG does these days. I got off on a tangent. Whoops.


Not looking forward to Mel's hair. :/ I'm not sure love of Sonali mold (which seems to be the going guess) will overcome stupid flip. (Stupid flip!) But it's looking likely she'll get straight hair no matter what. I think she is supposed to be looking like she's wearing someone else's dress (I think I read that on L&L?) so that might explain why the illustration has her looking like she's been pinned into it and the pins aren't holding. I'm curious to see the dress in non L&L pics, though. Or further L&L pics, whichever. Cass's hatred of it was amusing, however.

Yup, Wellie Wishers seems to be the BT replacement but no one knows anything about them except they're gonna be pretty darn small. Because that's always worked well for AG. I mean, the stunning success of Hopscotch Hill, Girls of Many Lands, Amelia (does she count though since she and Angelina were plush and I loved the Angelina dolls?)... Oh. Wait.

Which sucks because BT stuff was usually far superior to BB stuff. And mah BT baby girl is way cuter than even Bitty of the Damned.

[luxken27]

My fellow old people, do you remember the Chapter 2 bit where Stacey or someone always commented on ew, shots? Yeah, that never freaked me out as much as the idea of the insulin pump. Heebeejeebees for days.

I think I'd have a harder time with shots simply because (as I understand it) you only have to "install" the insulin pump once and then you're just doing boluses, instead of loading up a syringe and sticking yourself on various places on your body one/multiple times a day, not to mention finger-prick blood-testing (though these days you can test from some other, less sensitive area of your body as well).