#goty 2018

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Tenney's wearing Joss's Cheer Practice Outfit, and Luciana is wearing Tenney's Spotlight Outfit.

(Thoughts below!)

Honestly, they both look good in the outfits they're wearing, but not so much vice versa. Tenney is a bit washed out in her spotlight outfit, because all of the light colors, along with her light hair and skin. Luciana looks lovely in it though! Her darker hair and skin really pop in the outfit! The pink complements her complexion well. The cheer outfit makes her look a bit sickly. I'm not sure about other Luciana dolls, but mine has a slight grey undertone, and cool colors really accentuate it. Warm colors make her skin look pinker and less grey.

Put on your tinfoil hats, queens... This is about to get weird.

If you haven't caught up on the latest AG news, a NASA astronomer is suing American Girl for allegedly stealing their name, likeness, and pretty much their entire personality to create Luciana Vega, Girl of the Year 2018.

Before we get into this weird tea, here's some info from TED's official website on the apparent real-life Luciana who is now in the process of suing AG for stealing their image:

"Lucianne Walkowicz is an Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. They study stellar magnetic activity and how stars influence a planet's suitability as a host for alien life. They are also an artist and work in a variety of media, from oil paint to sound. They got their taste for astronomy as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, testing detectors for the Hubble Space Telescope’s new camera (installed in 2002). They also learned to love the dark stellar denizens of our galaxy, the red dwarfs, which became the topic of their PhD dissertation at University of Washington. Nowadays, they work on NASA’s Kepler mission, studying starspots and the tempestuous tantrums of stellar flares to understand stellar magnetic fields."

Now, I know that some people's reactions have included, "it's just a coincidence" or "this is a reach", but hear me out queens; if you dig deeper into the articles surrounding Walkowicz, there are some pretty freaky coincidences between them and the Luciana doll. It kinda makes you question if there really is some truth into what Walkowicz is alleging...

The name: "Luciana" is what AG decided to name the doll. "Lucianne" is the human who allegedly inspired the doll.

The hair: Luciana the doll has dark brown, shoulder-length hair with purple streaks. Lucianne the human is known for their dark brown, shoulder-length hair with purple streaks, although they have been seen with other funky colors as well.

The outfits: If you remember Luciana the doll's collection, her outfits were futuristic, holographic, funky outer-spacey patterns and whatnot. Lucianne the human is known for this same exact style.

The last name: Vega is Luciana the doll's last name. Lucianne the human is known for their extensive studies on planet Mars and the constellation of Lyra. Some of their most famous studies (and TED Talks) include the ones they have done on Vega, the brightest star in the constellation of Lyra.

The ties with NASA: As they do with all their dolls, AG does a boatload of research before and during the process of creating a character to make sure the doll is as accurate as possible in terms of her time period, historical significance, and occupation. So in 2016 (2 years before Luciana's release), AG signed a deal with NASA to bring a group of consultants during the development of the Luciana doll. Rebecca DeKuiper, one of the lead designers for the GOTY line, attended a NASA-related event where Lucianne the human made a presentation at. One of the consultants for the doll attended the event that day as well.

Make of this information what you will, but I theorize that both AG and the NASA consultants created Luciana based on Lucianne, and here's why; Lucianne seems to be a cool, modern young person who is a very prominent figure in the STEM world, which is the perfect combination to attract AG's target audience. I believe they used parts of their likeness in order to gain more appeal from AG's target audience (young girls), and that would help encourage them to pursue a career in the STEM world.

But if AG wanted to do that, why couldn't they do what they did with Tina Hart in Joss' stories and incorporate Lucianne into the doll's story as a role model? Could that have been their original idea, but Lucianne rejected their offer of being in a cameo? I think there's more to what's going on than just a real-life person suing a toy company because a doll resembles them. I think AG was in on this but didn't expect this kind of legal action against them for it.

Another question I have to ask is, what took Lucianne so long to finally call AG out on this? Luciana came out in 2018, TWO YEARS AGO. Usually, Girl of the Year dolls are retired by the time their year is over, but since 2017 AG has continued selling whatever's left of the old GOTY's collection. But most of Luciana's collection is already gone according to AG's website, and I think the physical AG stores stopped selling the doll altogether.

What do you guys think about all this? Is there any validity to Lucianne's claims, or do you think they're just looking for clout? I'm curious to see how this lawsuit will unfold.

When a game plays like a job, you start to ask why you should be paying someone for the privilege. This is The Return of the Obra Dinn, in essence a big matrix you fill out by determining the identity and cause of death (or lack thereof) of all the souls aboard a cursed ghost ship. It sounds like work because it is work; you are an insurance investigator. But it looks very nice, and sea shanties are fun.

Breakthrough moments in games are rare. At least, ones you feel like you had anything to do with. At some point, we were frustrated, stymied on the identies of a bunch of crewmen. In one scene, they were sleeping in easily-identifiable tagged bunks but rendered seemingly UNidentifiable by sleeping with their faces covered by their blankets. This jammed us up until we realized that we could compare the shoes sticking out from under the covers to the deckhands shoes in other scenes. A floodgate opened. A cascade of other factors could then be eliminated one by one, and suddenly a quarter of the crew is known. What a rush. Imagine if real work could be as satisfying as games make it.

(bd4pp 2019 is live at bd4pp.com; hope you’ll join us on November 9th to raise money for the New Sanctuary Coalition!)