I've Been Tagged For The Mystery Blogger Award

 

Hello friends and visitors, Treesa here. Quinley, over at the doll blog Q's Creative Corner, tagged me for the Mystery Blogger Award. Thanks, Quinley! I've been 'nominated' for similar blogging 'awards' in the past, such as the Great Doll Blog Award in 2016 and the Liebster Award in 2015. The Mystery Blogger Award specifically was the creation of blogger Okoto Enigma. Basically, these 'awards' are a way for bloggers to connect with and draw attention to other bloggers. The standard format for these types of awards requires any blogger who is tagged to answer a list of questions provided by whoever tagged them. Once these questions have been answered and the answers have been posted, the tagged blogger will then have to nominate a certain number of additional bloggers and write a new list of questions for their nominees.

The specific 'rules' for the Mystery Blogger Award are as follows.

1. Display the award logo on your blog.

2. List the rules.

3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

4. Mention Okoto Enigma, the creator of the award, and provide a link.

5. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.

6. Nominate 10-20 people

7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.

8. Ask your nominees 5 questions of your choice, with one weird or funny question.

9. Share a link to your best post or posts.

That's a lot of steps, so let's take them one at a time. I already completed steps 1 through 4, so we'll skip ahead to step 8 and answer the list of questions that Quinley posted. Now, I'm not 100% sure why Quinley chose to nominate me, since the questions she wrote mostly seem to apply to 18 inch dolls, while my blog focuses primarily on one-sixth scale fashion dolls. Maybe this nomination was actually part of a cunning plan to try to get me and my dolls posting more regularly. Just kidding, Quinley, no offence intended. I do at least own some 18 inchers, so I'll do my best to answer Quinley's questions.

Question #1: Who is your favorite American Girl doll, and why?

My family started receiving American Girl Doll catalogs back when there were only 3 dolls to choose from: Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly. Kirsten was my favorite of the three, mostly because she befriends a Native American girl in one of the books of her series. I had a bit of a fascination with Native American culture back then. My mom actually contacted Pleasant Company after Felicity and Addy were released to suggest that they add a Native American doll to the line, and she was essentially told by a representative that because there were so many different native tribes in our nation's history it would be impossible to fairly single one out for inclusion in the line. So, when young me finally saved up enough birthday and Christmas money to buy an American Girl doll of my own, I chose Kirsten. If Kaya had been released at that time, I probably would've chosen her.

I also ended up developing a bit of a fondness for Josefina when I was going through my 'Zorro'/'Queen Of Swords' phase. For anyone who doesn't know, Queen Of Swords was a short lived addition to the syndicated TV adventure show craze that started with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. In a nutshell, the title character of Queen Of Swords was pretty much a female version of Zorro, a Spanish aristocrat turned avenger of the common people.

Anyway, as far as American Girl dolls go, I don't really have a current favorite either in my own collection or in the present American Girl lineup.

Question #2: Do you like any other 18 inch dolls that aren't made by AG?

I have a few 18 inch dolls that aren't American Girl brand. I have a Magic Attic Club Rose doll that I managed to get, dressed in her 'meet outfit', for an amazing deal at a thrift store. As a grade-schooler, I used to pour over the Magic Attic Club catalogs just as much as I did the American Girl catalogs. Rose was my favorite of the Magic Attic Club dolls because her character had Native American heritage.

However, I think my current favorite of my non-American Girl 18 inchers is my Madame Alexander Wicked Witch Of The West doll, that I bought when I was on my 'fantasy skin tones' doll kick. This Wicked Witch doll has a similar body type and similar features to a standard 18 inch doll, but with a green skin tone. I've redressed her in a contemporary American Girl doll outfit, given her a pair of American Girl brand eyeglasses, and named her Helen, after the legendary beauty Helen Of Troy, because my doll is beautiful just the way she is. Yes, I know I'm a bit odd. In my defense, I may have still been in my X-Men/Marvel mutants phase when I bought Helen. But I can't remember for sure. I also gave Helen a black plush cat as a pet, who she named Gilbert. In my little group of 18 inch dolls, Helen is the one who does the most reading, and her favorite author is Lucy Maud Montgomery, who is best known for writing the Anne of Green Gables book series.

Question #3: What retired dolls do you think AG should bring back, and why?

I think Caroline would be a good candidate for a comeback, given how popular the Federalist/Regency period is in modern society due to Hollywood's perpetual cycle of adapting Jane Austen's work. Granted, I've never actually read Caroline's books, so I'm not entirely sure what aspects of the time period they cover. I've also heard a lot of good things about the Cecile and Marie-Grace AG line. But again, I never took time to read the books, so my opinions of the line are under-informed.

Question #4: If you were to create an AG doll (or any other type of doll), what would your doll's story be? And what would your doll be like?

I've tried my hand at creating character backstories for some of my dolls once or twice. I came up with a reasonably detailed, in-universe character bio for my Monster High Create A Monster Witch doll, who I named Sabina Osborne. I also incorporated a few elements from the musical stage play Wicked into the doll's backstory. In true Monster High fashion, even the doll's name has some deliberate character allusions worked into it. Sabina is actually a reference to the television show Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, starring Melissa Joan Hart. But I dropped the R to make it sound more Ozian, because of course, Osborne = Oz born.

I actually wrote up Sabina's backstory, mostly in the form of a stylized, first person narrative, and then posted it to my Fanfiction.net account with the title Sabina Of Oz, under my pen-name T'Ley. I had started drafting something similar for my Monster High Create A Monster Sea Monster girl doll, who in my mind is now Calpurnia, daughter of The Sea Witch. But I never actually finished writing it.

As far as my 18 inchers go, the only one I ever really attempted to construct an American Girl style backstory for was Drexel, an American Girl Just Like You #24. But that backstory was never fully fleshed out, and because I didn't write it down I can't remember now most of what I had planned. I know I named the doll Drexel after a well-to-do family from the early 1900s who were prominent in the history of my hometown. Drexel, the doll, was going to be a history buff who enjoyed antique hunting and learning about other time periods. I even gave her a miniature, hardcover copy of the book Antiquing For Dummies, to keep in the reusable canvas tote bag she would carry while browsing outdoor flea markets and garage sales. Of course, Drexel's favorite books were going to be the American Girl series.

Question #5: If you could own any of the clothes that your dolls have in your size, which one would you like to have, and why?

For everyday wear, I tend to prefer comfortable clothes over fashionable ones. My casual, summer wardrobe can mostly be boiled down to tee shirts and shorts, while for colder weather I tend to lean towards fleece pullovers paired with long pants. I do try to wear fancier or more formal tops and slacks in certain situations where I want to be respectful, such as attending weekly religious services.

I also prefer to wear loose fitting clothes, and I'm very sensitive to the weight and feel of certain fabrics as well. So, pretty much everything I've seen in the current doll market would, in my scale, either be too tight, or too heavy, or too scratchy, or what have you.

Step 9 involves sharing links to my 'best post or posts'. Since I'm not quite sure how to judge which posts are the 'best', I'll just link to some of my most viewed, and presumably most popular, posts.

Lois' Story

Galoob Anastasia Doll Dress

Update from Dandelion 

(I am a little confused why this post has such a higher number of recorded views than Dandelion's original post.)

Sue's Story

An Inspirational Moment With Misty and Tom Servo 

As for steps 6 through 8, having to nominate other bloggers causes a bit of a problem for me, since so many of the ones I've followed over the years are no longer actively blogging. But then, my own blog has been rather quiet lately, so I can't exactly judge.

That just leaves step 5, tell your readers 3 things about yourself. I thought it might be a good idea to find out if there was anything specific you readers wanted to know about me. So, if there's anything that you've been curious about or that you've wanted to ask me, now's your chance. Leave your questions in the comments, and I'll choose a few to answer in a follow-up post.

Signed, Treesa

P.S. If there are problems with any of the links in this post, please let me know so I can try to correct them.

Geek Pride Day: 2021

 May 25th is Geek Pride Day, which according to the internet is a 'holiday celebrating geek culture'. For fans of English born, science-fiction author Douglas Adams, May 25th is also known as Towel Day, a reference to Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I decided to take inspiration from Douglas Adams for this year's Geek Pride Day photo shoot.

Here we have Ken playing the role of Arthur Dent, the bathrobe wearing protagonist of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 'who really knows where his towel is'. The Superman symbols on the bathrobe are a bit of geeky fandom crossover on my part. That, and the colors coordinate with the towel pretty well.

This second photo is just for fun. I recently purchased a one-sixth scale BB-8 secondhand, and gosh darn it, I was gonna use him. But I only have two Star Wars dolls/sixth scale action figures in my collection at present, and I've already used Sabine for more than one Star Wars Day photo shoot. As for Han well, Fashion Doll Memoirs readers just saw him earlier this month in my 2021 Star Wars Day photo. And when I suggested doing another photo shoot with BB-8, Han wouldn't go for it. He told me he doesn't do 'cute', and not even BB-8 himself managed to win Han over.

The little droid does look a bit out of scale with 'Arthur' in the picture, since BB-8's coming up from behind and is some distance away.

BB-8 crossing the sands of Jakku (or as my brother calls it, 'not-Tatooine')

Happy Geek Pride Day to any geeks out there. May the Force be with you, Live long and prosper, Stay shiny, and above all, Don't Panic. I think that last one is especially fitting for the current times. Thank you Douglas Adams.

Signed, Treesa

Star Wars Day: 2021

 

Happy Star Wars Day from the stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf-herder (a.k.a. Han) and everyone else at Fashion Doll Memoirs.

Han: Who's scruffy-looking?

Me (Treesa): I wrote that with affection.

Han: Sorry, sweetheart. You're not my type.

Me: I think I'm starting to understand why Halle likes hanging out with you.

Han: What can I say? The doll has good taste.

Me: I hope you don't talk that way in front of Halle. She'd probably kick your butt. Anyway, Happy Star Wars Day to all my readers. May the 4th be with you.

Signed, Treesa

A Trip To Virginia, by Annabelle (Disney Frozen Anna Of Arendelle by Mattel)

 

(Note from Treesa: This post has been in draft a 'lot' longer than planned, but Annabelle was having trouble stringing together the photos I'd taken into a cohesive story.)

When Treesa started packing her bag for a long weekend trip to visit her sister in Virginia she didn't get the idea to bring a doll with her right away. Treesa hadn't been bugging her dolls for blog posts as much as she used to either. At least that's what I heard. Everyone I talked to felt like she'd been giving us dolls less attention. Halle thought this was a bad sign and said we should all prepare for the worst. But Suzanne told us Treesa sometimes goes through phases where her priorities shift and things get put on the back burner for a while. Suzanne said she'd seen it before and she didn't think it was anything to worry about.

What matters is almost at the last minute Treesa remembered the blog and decided she needed a doll to take with her. Word got around that Treesa was looking for a doll who would drop everything and come to Virginia. I'd heard of Virginia before at my old home. I knew a little about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from my first owner's history textbook. Treesa is my second owner. I also knew that a lot of important things in American history happened in Virginia like the founding of the Jamestown settlement and several Civil War battles. I've always liked learning about history. It's kind of my thing.

But I knew my chances of getting picked to go on the trip weren't good. I lived in part of the house where Treesa keeps dolls she thinks need some work. Nude dolls she can't find the right clothes for or dolls with molded clothing pieces she wants to cover up are kept separated from the rest of the collection. Treesa says it's because she wants all of us to have the chance to make a good first impression. But some of us end up waiting a long time before Treesa can rework our looks into something she's happy with.

I knew I had at least two strikes against me if I wanted to go on the trip and get my picture posted on the blog. For starters I had a molded top with molded sleeves. Treesa never liked molded doll clothes. When she redressed Sabine in that Princess Leia poncho Treesa was really happy with Sabine's new look and called it a "redress success". Treesa said the poncho made Sabine look "less like an action figure and more like a doll". I don't really understand what's wrong with looking like an action figure. Then again Treesa's a doll collector. She's not an action figure collector. So maybe she's worried her collection will get too big for her to handle if she starts adding too many 12 inch action figures. Maybe she's trying to stick to buying mostly dolls to keep her collection smaller and easier to manage. But if that's the idea it's not working very well.

The other thing that made it a lot less likely Treesa would want to show me on the blog was my failed makeover. My first owner had tried to give me a whole new look by chopping my hair short and adding to my paint. She'd covered my fingers with messy black paint that was supposed to be nail polish. Treesa stopped trying to clean it off when she realized my arms were molded from blue plastic with painted skin and the skin was starting to rub off along with the black paint.I also have a paint rub on my lip from Treesa scrubbing too hard when she was getting off some matching black lipstick. I never really liked how the black paint looked so I was glad when Treesa tried to clean me up. But I knew my paint issues would probably look bad on camera. So I knew my chances of getting picked for the trip weren't great.

I really wanted to go though and I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. So I went to see Treesa in her room. Getting up the stairs was a trip on its own but Halle helped me and made sure I didn't get lost. Treesa was packing some last minute things and didn't notice me right away. "Treesa," I said. I tried to talk loudly enough that she would hear me but quietly enough that I wouldn't startle her. But Treesa must've been distracted because I ended up startling her anyway. "Annabelle,you scared me!" she said. I tried not to feel hurt when Treesa said it but ever since Halle told me where the name Annabelle came from I'd felt sort of bad about that. 

"Is there something I can do for you?" Treesa asked at the same time she was turning back to her open luggage. Treesa does try to keep her dolls happy and she knows we depend on her for a lot of things. I looked down nervously and said, "I was wondering if I could come to Virginia with you." Treesa seemed surprised. "I'm not sure," she said. But then she stopped. Maybe she didn't want to hurt my feelings. But I was pretty sure she really meant no and I tried not to feel hurt again. But this time I couldn't help it. "Is it because I'm scary looking?" I asked Treesa.

She turned around real fast and looked at me. "Who said you're scary looking?" she asked.

"You named me after a doll in a horror movie," I said. Treesa looked angry. "Who told you that?" she asked. I didn't want to get another doll in trouble so I didn't answer. But Treesa figured it out anyway. "It was Halle, wasn't it?" she said. "Seriously, that doll needs a new hobby. All she ever does is cause trouble."

Then Treesa took a deep breath. I guess she was trying to calm down. She bent down closer to me and said, "I named you Annabelle because you're an Anna doll, and I thought you should have an old-fashioned name, since you like history so much." I watched the look on Treesa's face change. It was like she was thinking over what she'd just said. "Maybe it would be a good idea to have you come along," she said.

When we got to Virginia the first place Treesa tried to take pictures was in front of the large photo prints hanging on the wall in the hotel room. But those photos didn't turn out. Treesa said there just wasn't enough light in the room to take good pictures. She tried using the flash but she said that washed everything out and reflected off the artwork. So we had to wait until we visited Treesa's sister on the farm where she's working and living before we could get any photos for the blog.

This first picture was taken at a rock garden that Treesa's sister and another farm worker set up. They named it Stump Rock Village. The other farm worker made a sign and everything.

Then Treesa's sister showed off where she was living and I was left there while Treesa and her sister and the other family members Treesa came on the trip with went out to dinner. There was a cat named Shera who belonged to the other farm worker but Shera was old and she stayed curled up on a cushion the whole time everyone was gone so she didn't bother me.

The next day Treesa's sister met up with the rest of the family to tour the Civil War battlefield at Manassas. Treesa's camera couldn't seem to focus on the field and me at the same time.

 

A lot of the trees there were blooming and looked really pretty. So Treesa held me up by one of the branches to take my picture.

Then Treesa took my picture in front of a wooden fence.

Treesa saw this spot where the fence was a little overgrown and said it was a good metaphor for war. She said during war the ground gets torn up and life gets turned upside down but when the war ends things start to grow back and life goes back to normal. And people forget.

Here's a photo of one of the Civil War monuments. Treesa doesn't remember exactly why she took this picture but she said she thinks it's because the gates gave her a cemetery vibe and were a reminder of just how many people died, on both sides.

The next day Treesa's sister took the family on a tour of a hiking trail that's on the farm property. The trail is mostly for guests who are staying at an inn that's also part of the farm.

Later Treesa's sister showed off the farm staff's vegetable garden. Here I am next to a small tomato plant.

Since everything growing in the garden was for the farm workers and not for sale Treesa and her family actually helped Treesa's sister pick some of the vegetables.

And that's about all there is to say honestly. It wasn't a long trip so there wasn't enough time to see any more historic places. But I'm glad I got to go even though most of the stuff we did was sort of outdoorsy and I'm not really that outdoorsy. Just being somewhere and knowing that before I was even made something important happened there sort of made me feel like I was part of history.

Respectfully Yours, Annabelle

(This was a popular type of closing for letters written in the 19th century.)