Hey y'all--I'm Nethilia (Neth for short). I've been into dolls, toys, ponies and the like since I was a child. I'm the head administrator and founder of the American Girl Wiki and recently started blogging about the dolls (and fandom around them) at American Girl Outsider. While the main doll focus on my blog is American Girl, I personally collect and display all kinds of dolls and toys ranging from easily found shelf play dolls to limited edition resin ball jointed dolls.
I tend to focus my collection on dolls of color because, as a woman of color, I feel it's very important to see other cultures properly respected and reflected in dolls--not just for the sake of people's exposure to other cultures outside their own, but so that children worldwide can see themselves reflected in their media (you have no idea how much it meant when The Princess and the Frog came out and a Disney Princess finally looked like me). I feel it's very important that even the smallest things and influences try to accurately reflect the diversity of the world--and that dolls of color aren't just, as I've heard it said, "re-dipped Barbie dolls" with the only sign of diversity being the color of the plastic/resin/vinyl/etc. So, it makes sense that one of the lines that has really caught my interest is the Hearts 4 Hearts dolls. I fell in love with them soon after the initial release: first getting Nahji and then later adding Lauryce and Rahel to my lineup. When Mosi and Shola were announced at Toy Fair, I knew I was going to get my hands on them the moment they were available:
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| Hearts 4 Hearts "Mosi" and "Shola." |
