Last Christmas, I Gave Myself Princesses

My usual habit with dolls bought at the dollar-store after-Christmas sales is to save them to be opened around Easter, and this year, I took that practice so far that it's now December.

Among last year's bonanza was two black dolls I'd had an eye on: a black Moxie Girlz Storytime Collection Princess and a black Lovely Patsy. Both had been, up to this point, creatures of legend in Phoenix, never seen by mortal eyes.

Don't piss off Tianna's* fairy godmother.
*the second N is for "clone"

While Hasbro's got the license for official Disney princesses, clearly this stops nobody from princessing all over the place. So let's haul these ladies out of their boxes and take a minute over their respective knock-off princess lines (the Moxie is distinctly slumming).

Here's the Moxie in her boxie... which is halfway to being a cone. The origin story on the back may win the award for Most Vagueness In Establishing Doll Characters.

It's not more informative in French or Spanish. Maybe try Chinese?

The last time I'd seen Moxie Girlz as princesses, it had been a Toys R Us exclusive 5-pack, which even for me is too much Moxie all at once. But wait! There's an earlier, much snazzier line, circa 2006, where the princesses come with a book and look more like Mattel's My Scene Barbie. I've never seen one of these in person, not even mangled at a thrift store.

Meanwhile, luck in Googling determines that last Christmas' dollar-store princess was, a few months earlier, a Moxie Girlz Princess Basic sold in the UK but not in the U.S. The UK ones apparently had their own names? If we match coloration to the known Moxie character names, this is Bria.

Being a Moxie, Bria appears to be posing for her mug shot.

Something I'd failed to note because I was too lazy to haul out my drugstore Sophina is that Bria has attached feet and unattached shoes, unlike the classic Moxie approach of detachable feet. Being an MGA product, Bria is so securely fastened to her boxlet that it's an accomplishment to still have all your fingers at the end of the deboxing.

Unlike the TRU multi-pack, Bria does not appear to be any particular princess. Indeed, I'd peg her as a fairy godmother.

Tianna is, of course, supposed to make us think of the authorized Tiana. Lovely Patsy had a whole line of princess pretenders, including Snow White and Jasmine, and also tends to break out in multi-packs of entirely random princesses. I'm pretty sure I chose the Frog Princess knock-off because faux-Jasmine was too similar to my existing ambiguously brown Lovely Patsy, plus I'm under-represented with black dolls anyway. Also, that hair.

The packaging says "we're barely trying here."

Tianna is held to her box only by two coated wire sandwich-bag-tie thingies, because Lovely Patsy wants you to be able to get your toys out of the box.

The photo backdrop for this ball is really kind of grim.

Her head mold may be slightly different from her Lovely Patsy compatriot of a year or two earlier -- it's hard to tell what's a different in paint (like the eyebrows) and what's actual shape. What's notable is Tianna's hair.

Why's everyone always staring at black women's hair?

That's not an afro. That's a very high ponytail with a lot of pouf to it. Since Lovely Patsies tend to have bald spots, I'm in no hurry to take it down and wash it. Her paler friend just had the second boilwashing of her life and lost so much hair that next time, I'm cutting it all off and doing her head in glitter. Tianna herself is likely, over the long haul, to end up with green glitter hair, but I want to preserve her original 'do as long as possible.

"Frogs," Bria said. "It's always about the frogs."