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How did you interact with dolls or action figures as a child?

I remember being very self-conscious about how I played with my dolls. Like, kids are supposed to be loud and interactive with their dolls, but I kept my doll conversations in my head, being completely quiet as I played with them.
 
I didn't like dolls at all and I didn't want anything to do with them. However, stuffed animals were acceptable. I had three Beanie Baby cats that I loved.
 
I did not like dolls much, instead I had a few stuffed animals and action figures. I did not really play with them much, at least not like other people did, I usually just put them in order by size or color or whatever, and I kept my conversations with them in my head.
 
Shawn D said:
I made my Barbies have sex [emoji12]
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teen-pregnancy-barbie.webp
 
I loved baby dolls, but had no interest in "girl" dolls (Barbies, etc). My babies were the classic soft body, hard extremities and head (I liked them to be soft, but the cloth always annoyed me because it didn't match). The "real" dolls (hair, open/close eyes, bodily functions, noises) freaked me out, and annoyed me, but my "toy" dolls were fine. I copied my mum with my babies. I'd imitate what she did with my brother. But I kept them mostly in their cradles, because I preferred my stuffed animals. I sorted them by various things: color, texture, species, family, maker, etc. Then I would line them up alphabetically, or taxonomically.
 
I wasn't much interested in dolls before I was about eight or nine, when I started reading the American Girls series. Having an interest in archaeology, I liked that the dolls at that time were associated with a material culture specific to their relative time periods. I eventually acquired two of the dolls and mostly just made things for them, either to copy items in the books or to add other items copied after things I saw in museums. I didn't spend much time acting anything out, just made things to give them a world to inhabit.
 
My dinosaurs went to school, my trolls explored our house plants, and other animals I had were assigned personalities and back stories and I didn't do much with them being hold them and think about that.
 
I had a 12 inch Elvis Presley doll and my parents were surprised when i asked for a Barbie for the next gift giving occasion. When my mom finally got the courage to broach the subject with me, asking why i wanted a Barbie doll, i told her, Elvis wanted a girlfriend and Barbie was the only female doll that was tall enough to make an aesthetically pleasing couple.
 
AsperDragon said:
I had a 12 inch Elvis Presley doll and my parents were surprised when i asked for a Barbie for the next gift giving occasion. When my mom finally got the courage to broach the subject with me, asking why i wanted a Barbie doll, i told her, Elvis wanted a girlfriend and Barbie was the only female doll that was tall enough to make an aesthetically pleasing couple.
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Am I getting this right that you are a boy?
 
I only really dressed them up and sat them in circles, then played scripts in my head while humming. I was always secretive about my play. I would also rip their heads off when I was frustrated about never receiving boy toys.
 
AsperDragon said:
I had a 12 inch Elvis Presley doll and my parents were surprised when i asked for a Barbie for the next gift giving occasion. When my mom finally got the courage to broach the subject with me, asking why i wanted a Barbie doll, i told her, Elvis wanted a girlfriend and Barbie was the only female doll that was tall enough to make an aesthetically pleasing couple.
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Good for her for "broaching the subject" and actually asking you about it, instead of just getting freaked out about it.
 
Okay Doll Type Toys
In my family, us kids (I was the oldest of five) would make puppets out of socks by using a glue stick and toilet paper to make a ball, and putting that in the toe of the sock. We would sow around its base to close it up underneath, and turn it into a round head. Then we would use strands of thread to make hair, etc, make a face, and cut holes partway down the sock for fingers to stick out like arms.
We also had toy soldiers, and I remember arranging them in battle formation.

Favorite and Best Doll Type toys
Me and my (NT) sister who was two years younger than me had legos, and we built many things with them, but I can't remember how we played with the LEGO people. We also had a book of paper dolls which were people from 18th century Colonial America, and I remember the fun of cutting them and their clothes out of the pages of the book, but I don't remember anything about playing with them afterwards. We also had a set of stamps-not stamps like postage stamps, but stamps as in the things you can touch to ink and then to paper to make an image-some of which featured people from some Mediaeval period, and some of which featured parts of buildings-for instance, a section of bricks, or a door, which we could use and reuse on paper, and then use that piece of paper as a sort of homemade paper doll, or building for that doll.

In other words, I remember a lot about assembling and building dolls, but nothing about actually playing with them.
 
For the most part I never lined things up, though I used to line up my barbies and say they were tanning at the beach. But I'd also play with them in a pretty normal way. What I think is funny is I used to carry my dolls by the hair.
 
I had an enormous barbie collection and was very into creating houses & furnishing them for the barbies. I'd literally roleplay with the barbies as a doctor, or as a vet, sometimes as halfway through education lol. I also developed a taste for creating clothes for them as I grew a bit older. Overall, it was one of my biggest, if not my biggest obsession as a small child. I was consistently thinking about it and I collected them. Had a tall bookshelf crammed with barbies sitting next to each other & chests full of accessories. (Part of the way I thought about it was: I need to have item X or Y so that I can fulfill the story I've been creating in my mind).

I was very particulate about them, always kept them groomed & organized etc. In fact, I always felt a bit upset when I saw some other kid with burnt hair on a barbie & what not...
 
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