#ordinary barbie

[cantevenbeachhere]

Dear Ken Diary,

So remember yesterday when I said I would ask President Barbie about the Beach Off Battle for the Barbie Land Olympics? Well I asked her, and she said she’d think about it. She’s a politician though, so I don’t know if that means she really will think about it or no she won’t. I really hope she does and she’ll say yes, because my team would win. Unless like…it’s Barbies versus Kens. Maybe. I dunno, we’ll see.

Also! I asked Allan what he was going to do in the Olympics, and he shrugged and was like, “I don’t know, maybe jiu-jitsu or karate or wrestling,” and I was like whAT?!

Can you imagine Allan wrestling people?? I can’t, dude, I just can’t. I bet he was just joking. He’s got that kinda humor that makes me wonder if he’s serious or not. I bet that was it.

Oh wait yeah, going back to President Barbie, she said I need to talk to her again tomorrow because she had an important question to ask me, but she had a meeting to go to and couldn’t ask me right then. And to be honest? The thought gives me an icky feeling in my stomach. I’ve been told by Ordinary Barbie that is something called anxiety. Been feeling this feeling off and on for like 60-something years and just now learning what the word for it is! Thank you, Ordinary Barbie!

She says that doesn’t mean I’m Weird for feeling it either. Neither does Weird Barbie, but I dunno…I’ll have to think about that. 

Anyway, I’m gonna try to sneak around tomorrow and see if I can catch Allan practicing for the Barbie Land Olympics and see what he’s really doing. I’ll be like Ninja Ken. Now that would be cool! “This Ken can sneak around in perfect stealth mode and act all mysterious and cool and have a sword and can protect you from harm!” Yeah, that would sell. Somebody needs to tell Mattel.

Gonna go practice being Ninja Ken for tomorrow now. Talk tomorrow!

[sacrilegious-divinity]

[loderlied]

sometimes i'm really like what if people are right what if wanting to write about dark topics really does make you a horrible person and i am one of them. and by sometimes i mean right now

[lvebug]

an andie eliot reading guide (tags drop pt 1)

[elpsycongruent]

best halloween costumes this year:

the family dressed as pokemon trainers (parents), a snorlax, and the teeniest toddler munchlax

the toddler dressed as a bowl of spaghetti (with meatballs!)

the two little girls who explained, very seriously, that they were ballerina princess giraffes

[priceprime]

It's an addiction I can't shake.

The rumbling thunder of men

Talking the economy, the universe, the self.

Quoting Shakespeare and Socrates.

Tables I am welcome at as long as I am quiet,

As long as I am a friendly listening ear.

They are not so wise as they like to think

And yet I can't stop hunting their words

Cannot stop begging for approval.

I see the surprise in their eyes

When I open my mouth

And something profound falls out.

I can see it fade the next moment

When they decide it is an anomaly,

Because what else could it be

But a broken clock on it's twice daily anniversary.

I need it so badly

Even as it corrodes me.

But I am not my mother's little boy.

I am not her extraordinary daughter.

I need it so badly

And I'm too inhuman to have it.

[casinoticket]

Barbie movie would have been great if they had just shut up and given us a campy, fun unserious movie

[demonlorddante]

Sorry for being a gatekeeper when it comes to toys and toy history it’s not that I don’t want people to learn is that I DO want them to learn BEFORE they confidently say incorrect things about toys and toy history

[chickenisamazing]

There are a lot of really good criticisms of the Barbie movie but I rly did not feel any of that when I was watching it lol, maybe bc I had such low expectations for a movie that Mattel was part of. Like u rly think they're gonna make an intersectional feminist masterpiece? You think they're gonna address human/workers' rights violations in their factories? They can't do that unless they're actively trying to change lol. It's a marketing strategy for them. And an excellent one too, they're gonna make so much money from this. There was a lot going on and I realize this is a lazy take but it didn't really bother me bc the whole movie is kind of absurd and feels like how kids play with dolls. It jumped around and didn't get deep into a lot of things but I wasn't bothered by it. I also wasn't mad about the focus on Ken. Idk I really liked the story and Ken and Barbie's arcs and both characters were hashtag relatable

I do think Gloria and Sasha's characters could have been more fleshed out, but I don't mind all the different things the movie was trying to do, I didn't feel like the messaging got lost and I feel like I got from it what I wanted to get

Also how could anyone say this movie is anti-man lmao did we watch the same movie

[madigoround]

The barbie movie was SO GOOD!!! Excellent ordinary girl representation lol

[cantevenbeachhere]

Dear Ken Diary,

So I totally think I’m like improving and progressing! At least a little bit anyway. I’ll tell ya why.

Soooooooo like we all know what next month is. It actually starts tomorrow now that I think about it. But anyway, tomorrow starts February, and we all know what holiday’s in February. Yup. That one.

Valentine’s Day.

Last year was rough. Like really rough. The first one without Barbie and the first one where I’m like “Ken is me but who is Ken??????” I used to look forward to Valentine’s Day because Barbie and I actually got to do things together. No girls night, no boys night, no whatever. Just a day where it was more than okay for me to dote on Barbie. And for me to get some doting on in return.

And yeah, before you ask, Barbie did dote on me some on Valentine’s Day. Regardless of what she actually felt about me, she at least cared enough to not make Valentine’s Day embarrassing for me. And not doting on me would’ve done that.

But retrospect definitely tells me she didn’t dote as much as I did, but whatever.

Anyway! Back to now! So like last year sucked, but this year I’m actually not dreading it? I mean, it’s still like too early to tell. We’ll see how I’m feeling once February rolls around and all the Valentine decorations and candy and flowers arrive. Then I’ll have a better idea of how this year’s gonna go.

Let’s see, I know Lawyer Barbie and her Ken are hosting the Hearts Entwined Dance this year. Probably won’t go to that.

Beach will be kinda busy because a night under the stars by Ocean is a pretty popular venue for dates, especially Valentine’s Day.

The cinema will be pretty crowded too probably, maybe. The theater might not be though, so that would be a fun option for me that night.

Valentine’s Day would be on a Friday night this year too.

Well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet on that day, but I’ll figure it out.

I do have special treats for Pepper and Polly! They’ll be my valentines this year. And they like all the snuggles and treats and attention.

I’ve also heard that like some people take themselves on dates? Like that can be a thing? According to Ordinary Barbie anyway, and she like knows stuff like Weird Barbie knows stuff. But I think that might be kinda like…I dunno, a little too much for Valentine’s Day.

I also kinda sorta wonder what Barbie will be doing on Valentine’s Day but at the same time like I don’t wanna know. Like at all. But I do. But I don’t.

I miss her.

But not like as my girlfriend…or whatever she thought we were. But as my friend. Ya know, for a long time it was just the two of us in Barbie Land. Lots of time to get to know a person. Not to mention having her in my life for over 6 decades.

This is my new normal, but it still doesn’t feel normal. Sometimes it feels like it’s the first day where it hits me what it means for her to be gone, and some days are a lot better than that.

I’m making myself sad; I gotta stop.

I have enough trouble with feelings sometimes without me adding more to it on purpose.

I’m gonna go see if any of the Kens wanna play video games.

[medievalgreen]

We need ordinary Barbie as a real thng

BARBIE — dir. Greta Gerwig

[emmathompsonegot]

Also, “ordinary barbie” is stupid. The whole point of Barbie is that every Barbie is both ordinary AND extraordinary!!!

[mango-ti]

Watched the Barbie movie! Was fun, i didn't like some things, but it's a good movie! Like a solid 7,5/10

[ayo-edebiri]

That shiny plastic Barbie hair is so iconic. Everyone knows what it looks like. We went through different versions of weaving plastic hair into regular wig hair. They made a whole wig of it for Margot. 

It was very interesting trying to find the right shade of blonde. I started off with the color that the first 1950s Barbie is, which is quite a yellow blonde. We kept that one because we do see her as a 1950s Barbie in a stripy black and white swimsuit. We kept that color, but we didn’t want her to have that color all the way through. 

We basically allocated all of her 14 wigs and 14 different looks to different costumes. It all started from knowing how Greta wanted her to wake up in scene one on a good day and what we wanted from the bad day, and eventually joins the Real World and stoped being a doll. And I suddenly thought, « Well, then, she has to have normal-world hair. ».  so there was another wig to make and another look to make where she becomes just an ordinary girl. 

It’s incredible to see the progression of the whole looks, so when you look back and when you revisit all the different looks and when the film is put together, we will suddenly see huge differences between the looks, and that will be fun.

Barbie (2023) DVD extras

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

Tamsyn Muir's writing beyond The Locked Tomb

Y'all, turns out there's lots of imagery and themes in TLT that Muir was already playing with in her earlier fiction. A lot of it is easily available online, in which case I'll link to it. (The short stories that aren't can also be easily read if googled, to be quite honest—that's how I read The Deepwater Bride and Why the Mermaids Left Boralus). • The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011)

5K. Short sort-of-cozy romance (?) with (you guessed it) a time travel loop. Explores a very queer potential relationship. CamPal enjoyers might find a similar sweetness.

• The Magician's Apprentice (2012, Lightspeed Magazine)

5K. This is the one that stopped me dead on my tracks. It features an older, male mentor figure called John (a “very ordinary man” with “dark eyes”) who introduces the young, female main character to magic that has a terrible cost—and to literature such as Lolita. This excellent post by @familyabolisher does an incredible job of analyzing the very deliberate intertextual links between TLT and Lolita.

• The Woman in the Hill (2015, Lightspeed Magazine, originally for Dreams From the Witch House anthology of Lovecraftian horror by women)

4K. Possibly my favorite! It's a straightforward Lovecraftian horror, centered on the image of the woman (is it human though?) trapped in an unnatural pool inside a cursed cave. Chain imagery too. It does something different from Alecto, mind, but you can see links, ways of playing with facets of a strong central image. It's fun to consider how reliable the two narrators are. Here's an analysis and afterthought from Reactor Mag.

• Chew (2013) 4K. Zombie abuse and cannibalistic revenge story ft. an uncanny woman revenant, told from the eyes of a traumatized German boy. I was strongly reminded of Harrow's conversations with the Body. Tamsyn gave an interview on the themes and her intentions. Interesting to read in light of Alecto, I think, although I don't think she's going the same route in TLT: “the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired. […] I love cannibalism […] it’s innately spiritual […] any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too.”

• Apothecia (2014, published on Tumblr and tapas.io)

Short webcomic where an alien monster tries to corrupt the ruthless human girl who holds it captive. Musings on responsibility and murder, mention of child abuse. The alien's speech patterns remind me of a Resurrection Beast. You get wonderful dialogue like “Murder is a profession. Job. Employment, you tiny leg dog. There you are, walking along. Walk walk walk. Now you are a walker. Good job. Special child. Murder is like this.” Art by Shelby Cragg.

• The Deepwater Bride (2015, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

The opening line is: “In the time of our crawling Night Lord's ascendancy, foretold by exodus of starlight into his sucking astral wounds, I turned sixteen and received Barbie's Dream Car.” Need I say more? Extremely fun. A novelette where a young queer girl from a clairvoyant family struggles with an apocalyptic event while being annoyed by another very plucky girl. Lots of descriptions with nerdy marine zoology terms. Close in tone to Gideon. In the background, someone dies EXACTLY like that one death at the end of Gideon, which makes me wonder what happened to make Tamsyn interested in this particular image. I also liked that Tamsyn is aware of Nightwish. No link, but you'll get a PDF immediately if you Google.

• Union (2015, Clarkesworld Magazine)

5.5K. Very weird, extremely Kiwi story about a town that gets sent lab-grown wives by the government, but they're not made the usual way so they're Weird and people have feelings about it. Fascinating and eerie description of non-human (in some people's eyes, sub-human) women (?) who cannot be observed to have recognizable feelings or thoughts, yet have some sort of inner life. Quite touching, very uncanny.

• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (2020)

Short novel (~200 pages). Very funny. I was reminded of Coronabeth because the whole plot is “princess finds herself branching out into decidedly non-princess-like activities”, but other than that—this is a fairytale for adults about people who make eachother worse. No particular links to TLT but a very fun read with some gut punches. Extremely Tamsyn through and through, what with the dubious morality and all.

• Why the Mermaids Left Boralus (2021, in Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth by Blizzard Entertainment)

Set in the World of Warcraft universe. Haven't read this one yet, will report back lmao. As with The Deepwater Bride, no link but I easily found a PDF of the entire compilation. It's illustrated!

• Undercover (2022, from Into Shadow, Amazon Original Collection)

Haven't read it either. Will edit once I do.