American Girl: Time Travel Edition
Nov. 9th, 2014 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI got my holiday American Girl catalog this week (I requested two years ago for my research project, and they have assiduously sent them to me ever since despite the fact that I never buy anything. Thank you, American Girl!), and got the surprise of my life when I opened it, because -
Well, two reasons.
First! They've brought back Samantha Parkington. Yes! The previously retired Samantha has returned. This was nice.
And second. They've redesigned all the historical dolls' clothes. This was appalling. I don't deal well with change. And I don't think this has happened ever. And it looks like they must have redone the illustrations to match, too, because they've put out new editions of the books (omnibus editions, three books in each volume. I have always disapproved of omnibuses. Omnibi?)
And! And! As if this were not enough, they've released a new book for each series: a modern day girl travels through time to visit the historical character!
Yes. American Girl has written its own visitor-from-the-modern-world fanfic. Is that even allowed?
Of course I needed to investigate. So I got the Samantha book out of the library. It's called The Lilac Tunnel, and I figured that the lilac tunnel would be the medium of time transportation, because that has a pleasantly mystical sound to it, and time travel out to be pleasantly mystical when it's not pretending to be scientific, shouldn't it?
Reader, I was wrong. The lilac tunnel is of barely more than incidental importance to the story; the actual medium of time travel is a locket, which probably could be mystical (although not, she says darkly, as mystical as a lilac tunnel. THE PERFECT MEDIUM FOR TIME TRAVEL WAS RIGHT THERE IN THE TITLE, HOW COULD YOU MISS IT?) but wasn't particularly. And! And! The whole thing was choose-your-own-adventure style, which means that none of the story lines were all that well developed, and they ended rather anticlimactically too. The heroine reopens the locket and goes back home. Without any apparent intention of ever returning! I mean really.
And also the whole thing rather requires flattening out Samantha's character, so she's very friendly and...that's about it, really. She's very friendly and a pleasure to meet and completely anodyne, and it's really rather dull.
Not only have they written their own visitor-from-the-modern-world fanfic, but they weren't even competent at it.
Well, two reasons.
First! They've brought back Samantha Parkington. Yes! The previously retired Samantha has returned. This was nice.
And second. They've redesigned all the historical dolls' clothes. This was appalling. I don't deal well with change. And I don't think this has happened ever. And it looks like they must have redone the illustrations to match, too, because they've put out new editions of the books (omnibus editions, three books in each volume. I have always disapproved of omnibuses. Omnibi?)
And! And! As if this were not enough, they've released a new book for each series: a modern day girl travels through time to visit the historical character!
Yes. American Girl has written its own visitor-from-the-modern-world fanfic. Is that even allowed?
Of course I needed to investigate. So I got the Samantha book out of the library. It's called The Lilac Tunnel, and I figured that the lilac tunnel would be the medium of time transportation, because that has a pleasantly mystical sound to it, and time travel out to be pleasantly mystical when it's not pretending to be scientific, shouldn't it?
Reader, I was wrong. The lilac tunnel is of barely more than incidental importance to the story; the actual medium of time travel is a locket, which probably could be mystical (although not, she says darkly, as mystical as a lilac tunnel. THE PERFECT MEDIUM FOR TIME TRAVEL WAS RIGHT THERE IN THE TITLE, HOW COULD YOU MISS IT?) but wasn't particularly. And! And! The whole thing was choose-your-own-adventure style, which means that none of the story lines were all that well developed, and they ended rather anticlimactically too. The heroine reopens the locket and goes back home. Without any apparent intention of ever returning! I mean really.
And also the whole thing rather requires flattening out Samantha's character, so she's very friendly and...that's about it, really. She's very friendly and a pleasure to meet and completely anodyne, and it's really rather dull.
Not only have they written their own visitor-from-the-modern-world fanfic, but they weren't even competent at it.
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no subject
Date: 2014-11-10 02:44 am (UTC)(Full disclosure: I haven't read this book AT ALL and may be completely unfair).
Do you think Pleasant Company would send me some vintage catalogs (early 90s) if I asked them? I kind of want to revisit old times.
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Date: 2014-11-10 02:52 am (UTC)Samantha would be a really good character to write a time-travel fic for, too, because she's close enough in time that the modern girl wouldn't be completely out to sea (particularly if she were a dedicated reader of Anne of Green Gables...), but at the same time things would be really different.
I don't know if they would send you the catalogs or not. I thought about writing to ask when I was writing my American Girls paper, but in the end I chickened out. Clearly foolish of me!