Когда у тебя нет куколок в Луге и можно пофоткать только Фиби, которая устроилась полежать на мягких медвежьих лапках 🐻🤭

Finding information on Jamila wasn't particularly easy, but from what I can gather...

(credit to @eepop-stuffs btw for getting her on my radar!)

Jamila was first released in 2006 by Simba Toys Middle East. According to an article published upon her debut at the 2006 Middle East Toy Fair in Dubai, her prototype initially intended to include fashions representing Turkey, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. However, these concepts never made it to final release, and we unfortunately have no photos of what they would have looked like.

Her initial lineup consisted of four dolls: herself, her male Arabic friend Jamil, her Indian friend Sunayana, and her Egyptian friend Kareema.

The name Jamila means "beautiful", and she seems to have only really been released with one outfit. She wore a black abaya with silver detailing with black shoes, and underneath wore a light blue tanktop with a white pencil skirt. Like her friends Sunayana and Kareema, Jamila has dark hair, brown eyes, and henna on her hands and feet.

(Credit to Bababolond on Flickr for the images)

For those unaware, Henna is a form of body decoration which originated from Africa and the Middle East, used with a natural dye from the Mehendi (lawsonia inermis). It is commonly tied to religious ceremonies such as engagements, weddings, Diwali, and Eid!

For Eid Al-Fitr, Henna would be applied towards the end of Ramadan as a symbol of the earthly delight of being alive. Jamila (and Sunayana if we're to believe they had identical Henna) seems to have eye imagery in hers, which represents protection from evil thoughts or wishes. It's also found on the top of her hands, also symbolizing protection, and on her feet, meant to soothe the nerves.

The name Jamil means "handsome". Jamil was initially released clean-shaven, but it seems later releases gave him facial hair. This might have been around the same time he was changed from Jamila's male friend to her husband, likely because (although opposite-sex friendships aren't explicitly forbidden) certain Muslims worry such friendships might result in inappropriate romantic thoughts. While this doesn't seem to be a unanimous belief across the board (many believing opposite-sex friendships are fine so long as you're careful), it might have caused enough controversy that Simba felt the need to marry the two so there weren't any implications. (Credit to Jan Unwichtig and Bababolond on Flickr for the images)

Ngl tho he is giving me major Kenergy...

Jamil comes with a white Thobe with silver buttons, a white Serwal ( undergarments traditionally worn beneath the Thobe), a white cotton undershirt, a white headscarf known as a Ghutra (tied with a black band called the Egal), black sandals, and a small dagger.

I'm actually not sure why his doll comes with a knife? The closest I could find was the Kirpan: a knife or sword which serves as a reminder to promote justice and protect the weak, mandatory for Amritdhari Sikhs to wear at all times. However, although non-Muslims sometimes confuse the two, Sikhism is a completely separate religion from Islam.

If anyone knows what this knife might be intended to represent, please let me know and I'll reblog an edit to this post!

After they were married, Jamila and Jamil had two children: Asad (meaning "Lion") and Almira (meaning "Princess"), both seen in the first illustration on this post. However, I can only seem to find one doll release for their daughter Almira, and none for Asad. Jamila comes in this playset in her base outfit, while her daughter (who cries when you press her stomach) wears pink pajamas. The playset includes a crib and several plastic accessories, including two hair brushes, a blow drier, and a baby bottle. Not only is this only release for Almira, but this also seems to be the only other release for Jamila aside from her initial core doll.

Sunayana means "woman with lovely eyes". She has long braided black hair, wearing a blue Lehenga Choli with a yellow Dupatta. Like Jamila, she also has henna on her hands and feet. She wears silver bangles, a silver necklace, and what I believe might be a Maang Tikka. Based on her images on the back of the doll boxes, I'm fairly certain she came wearing yellow sandal heels as well!

Honestly she might be one of my favorites of the line, since you sadly don't see many culturally-accurate Indian dolls compared to other ethnic groups. I especially love the use of color, and just how much jewelry she comes with!

Finally we have Jamila's Egyptian friend Kareema, whose name means "generous" or "kind". She has pale pink undergarments painted on beneath her clothes, which I assume Jamila has as well. Weirdly enough, however, she doesn't seem to have Henna like the other two.

Like Sunayana and Jamila she has long black hair, which is kept beneath a white hijab. She wears a long blue overcoat, matching jeans, blue shoes, and a multicolored striped shirt. As far as I can tell, her clothing doesn't seem to have Egyptian cultural roots like Sunayana's has Indian, however her modest style of dress and hijab are common for most Muslim women.

I've been meaning to make this post for at least a full week, and it's nice to finally get to share another beautiful yet obscure Muslim doll! It's a shame this doll didn't have more releases, since I'm honestly curious with the direction the might have taken with her and her friends based on the prior illustration! Regardless, I'm happy I got to share her and her friends with you all :)

Ramadan Kareem!

Random Disney dolls made by the toy company, Simba

Most of (but not all--my Little Mermaid mouse and mousepad, for example, aren't pictured) of my Little Mermaid collection circa 2004 on a sheep skin rug.

Twilight Teens Snaky (2013)

Getting myself emotional over childhood toys 🥺

Have you ever tried aerial silks? I stared taking classes about two years ago, but had to stop because I moved abroad. But it was quite challenging 😁

colour comparison between twilight teens bodies by dollydollyuk

We’ve gotten tiny reader, how about tiny TCE? 

I wanna annoy miniature Vinnel until he stabs me with a mini knife; give Morell a panic attack by fake trying to eat him; ruffle Belo’s feathers and turn him into an actual smol puffball...

I just wanna hold the guys and torment them!! 

What about tiny angry Krulu 👌🏻

They're tiny 🤏

Vinnel is a menace. You cannot contain him, he's like an annoying pixie and he will butt against you several times like a flying missile.

Morell is honestly more worried about falling to his death, so put him on the ground please. Or on your head, he's going to use you to man the kitchen like Ratatouille in Linguini's hat.

Patches will not stop his work because of this. Unless, of course, a giantess were to squish him like a pea... Or something equally depraved. Likewise, Stitches can still kill a person in this size. Imagine hearing a tiny man squeak someone's name and that person dies immediately. He's going to try to ride a rat outside.

Gallon is now your actual slime! You can probably use him like those slappy hand toys. He's vaguely scared, please hold him in a glass or something.

Nebul is very busy trying to run away from Purpur, who is cooing and warbling incoherently because his dad is A DOLL NOW. And no force in Heaven or Hell can stop those tentacles from grabbing him.

Santi is now ready for you to sit on him. No really, please carry him in your cleavage. Fuck, just slide him in your panties. OH OH OH- Put him in your mouth! Can he ride your tongue?! There are limitless possibilities, he's vibrating.

Grimbly likes being small in general, this is fine for him. DO NOT call him a mosquito. First he's going to feed off you like a tic, because he can now, then he's going to cry until you carry him everywhere in your palms and treat him like a purse bat.

Sybastian is swarmed by his mimiclings and you probably don't see him for the rest of the day, honestly. Or, alternatively, he becomes a bracelet on your arm.

Belo is very upset with the circumstances. Can you stop grabbing him like a parakeet?! It does make him puff up and coo. He's finally ready for his role as an annoying stereotypical angel sitting on your right shoulder.

Fank-e is ballin'. He wants you to pick him up like Simba so he can play that scene's sound from his speakers. In fact, he wants you to throw him around a lot, which you probably shouldn't.

Krulu may have drastically reduced in size, but he's still your lord. And you better get that giggling under control because he can still force your skull to the ground hard enough to chip your teeth. He's going to manually use your body as his for the rest of the day until this is solved.

Ariel with extra long hair (based on Simba Toys doll)

I think what is so amazing about the Barbie movie is it’s fully embracing every beautiful, bright, unrealistic aspect of the dolls. After years of gritty remakes, what if simba was just a normal lion, what if nothing was cartoony or colorful, what if winx got their clothes from shein, everything is real and nothing is unique, it’s such a relief that Barbie isn’t just a woman, she’s fucking plastic babeyyyyy

Happy Eid al-Fitr, everyone!

I've had so much fun looking into Muslim dolls and culture this month, and with how much more there is left to cover I look forward to continuing to do so in the future!

For anyone unfamiliar, here's a rundown of the dolls shown above from left to right:

𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐚 ~ The line she's from, "Saghira", is unfortunately one of the Muslim dolls I didn't have the time to make a post on this month. Made to reflect Moroccan fashions and culture in 2007.

𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐥 ~ From the doll line "Arabian Friends", released by Newboy in 2007.

𝐉𝐚𝐟𝐫𝐚 ~ A doll which celebrates the beauty of Palestinian culture, whose dolls each wear an embroidered thobe. Released in 2016.

𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐚 ~ The most popular Muslim doll to date, and Barbie's main competitor in the Middle East. Released in 2003 by Newboy.

𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚 ~ Released in 2006 by Simba Toys Middle East, she and her friends show the fashions of various cultures.

𝐑𝐚𝐳𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐞 ~ Created by Muslim couple Ammar and Noor Saadeh in 1996. Made to promote inner value, education, religion, and career aspiration in Muslim girls.

𝐔𝐦𝐦 𝐀𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐡 ~ A cultural education tool for children, teaching the practice of Salah. Created in 2023 by family-owned company Allova.

I wish you all a wonderful time with your loved ones, and may you only know peace and happiness!

Do you think Wish would have been better if they kept the concept of romance between Asha and the star boy, and the kind and queen being a villainous couple?

TL;DR...maybe.

I admit, I do really like human!Star and Magnifico/Amaya being a villainous couple as concepts -- but I don't think adding those ideas alone would've fixed Wish's shortcomings. Because I strongly believe the main reason so much of the Wish fandom has latched onto the idea of a romance for Asha in particular comes down to people feeling more for their mental AU concepts of Asha and Star than for Asha and the rest of her canon cast in the real finished product. There are no relationships in Wish -- ones featuring Asha or otherwise -- that I feel really prompt much investment or emotion in the audience.

Asha's mom and grandpa really don't have much time devoted to them, especially early on when we could establish some real history and pathos in their relationships with Asha. (Positive examples of this would be Ember and her dad in Elemental, Tiana and James and Eudora in The Princess and the Frog, or Mama Coco and Miguel in Coco.) We never even learn Asha's mom's dream even though it's picked up multiple times and the narrative makes such a big deal about Magnifico crushing it. The few lines discussing Asha's deceased father could've been cut from the story altogether and we would've lost nothing. Asha's friend group gets so little focus as individuals that it's hard to even remember most of their names. They were clearly envisioned as just "the Seven Dwarves but as teens," and honestly, them being vaguely like the Dwarfs is the only real impact they leave on a lot of people by the end. Or did a bunch of kids that went to go see the movie beg their parents for dolls of Simon and Bazeema after the movie was over? Asha and Star's dynamic can't be that interesting because Star doesn't spark any real character growth or change in Asha, nor does Asha really bond emotionally with Star. Star honestly just floats around looking cute for most of the movie, rather than doing that much of consequence. Valentino doesn't provide any significant emotional support for Asha, the way that even other cute Disney "pets" like Pascal or Pua do for isolated characters like Rapunzel and Moana. He also doesn't advance her journey in any meaningful way like Sebastian or Jacques and Gus do for Ariel and Cinderella, respectively. Asha and Magnifico's hero-villain relationship has no teeth because they have no real history prior to the events of the story (unlike Ursula using Ariel as a way to get back at her father Triton or Mother Gothel raising Rapunzel in isolation in an attempt to use her hair's magic to keep her young) and they don't serve as any kind of narrative foil to each other (unlike Jafar, who like Aladdin also uses magic and deception to try to advance his own goals, or Scar, who like Simba at the beginning of the movie "just can't wait to be king" and is focused way more on the perks of kingship rather than the responsibilities). Even Amaya and Asha can't have much of a relationship because there's no time set aside for it, and even if Amaya put in a good word for Asha with Magnifico, she didn't speak out on Asha's behalf after Magnifico vindictively cast her aside and really only decided to fight alongside Asha after Magnifico "went too far" by threatening Amaya herself (as opposed to, say, anyone else).

When my mum and I went to go see Wish, we came out of the theater feeling oddly blase about the whole story. My mum even -- upon me asking her about her thoughts on this topic before I sat down to write this -- admitted that although she "wanted to see evil defeated," and all that, she honestly just hadn't cared about any of the characters that much. She wanted Magnifico to lose because it was justice for Magnifico to lose -- not because she was actively rooting for Asha, her friends, or Rosas overall. She wanted good to triumph and evil to fail, but none of the characters and their relationships had made her that invested in seeing how that came about. And considering that every single character in every story ever written is largely shaped by the relationships they have with other characters, that means that Wish's primary failing is not a lack of romance, either for its main lead or its villains --

It's a lack of love.

Any kind of sincere, selfless, development-inducing, chemistry-fueled love. Not necessarily romantic love -- Disney's Revival work has actually shown just how diverse love can be through films like Zootopia, Encanto, and Frozen -- but real love between the characters, built on the back of history and camaraderie and meaningful screen time. Love that adds layers to their personality, fuels their choices and actions, and ultimately helps them bloom into better, more complete people. Instead I would argue that the only "love" in Wish is with ideas from past Disney projects -- that's why there are more Easter eggs and overt meta references to other projects in this movie than there are scenes that actively stir your emotions. You know -- the way Mulan does when she decides to steal her father's armor, or Marlin does when he gingerly picks up Nemo's cracked egg in his flippers and cradles it, or Cinderella's stepsisters do when they rip apart the dress the mice made for Cinderella, or Pinocchio does when he watches in horror as Lampwick turns into a donkey, or Tarzan does when he comforts Kala after he comes out dressed in his biological father's old clothes and she starts to cry.

The reason a lot of fans love these two ideas -- villain!Magnifico/Amaya and human!Star/Asha -- so much is because these two relationships, even just in concept art, prompted more emotion out of them than any relationship in the entire finished film.

Perhaps if that same level of emotion was brought out in these relationships in a real movie, that would've helped, but only if the rest of the film had also been trimmed down and edited so as to help tell a story with those two elements. Slim down the overstuffed cast. Have Asha's family actually have a point, or cut them. Give Asha and Magnifico some sort of real history and/or compare-contrast dynamic. Develop Star as a character. Give both Star and Asha character arcs. Make the music more essential to telling the story.

Without a lot of additional changes on top of those two concepts being used, I think the ideas of a hero and villain couple would've only just made the list of ideas that were only half-baked in the final product longer. After all, if Star was Asha's love interest, you'd still really have to have good writing and a lot of chemistry between the two characters in order to sell your audience on a love story between them. Not saying it can't be done -- Tangled and Elemental both did it quite well -- but just throwing the two characters together as is (namely, rather underdeveloped) and making them romantic partners by itself isn't enough. Honestly, I think a platonic or even familial-esque relationship between Star and Asha could've been just as powerful, if that love between them really came through. Just look at the bonds between characters like Judy and Nick from Zootopia or Miguel and Hector in Coco. Even keeping Star as less explicitly human could've been fine, if the relationship between them and Asha was strong enough. Stitch and Lilo's relationship is rock-solid in Lilo and Stitch, and Stitch isn't even remotely human. Even Soul did something kind of interesting with Joe Gardner and his relationship with 22 by giving them something of a mentor-student bond. Maybe a quasi-"young parent/child" relationship between Asha and Star could've even been interesting, if it was written well!

I do think both ideas had great potential in giving Wish more of an identity that could help set it apart from its predecessors -- I mean, we've never had a human character have a romance with a supernatural being or a villainous couple in a Disney animated film before -- but including them wouldn't have fixed Wish by itself.

Love giving some of my toys from when I was a kid to children. I gave up my Simba plushie to my cousin's toddler and it became her favorite one and I see it carrying it everywhere and I smile every time she shows it to me.

Then my mom suggested I give her Romero (my Iberian lynx plushie), or my Monster High dolls when she's a bit older and I said absolutely fucking not. SOME toys but not those lmao

Twilight Teens Ghostilla (2013)