The Dichotomy of Fifteen

I've said it before, regarding Abby's bathroom counter, as a weird-but-fun mixture of naked Barbie dolls and stage makeup, LEGO bricks and pantyhose, and strange little combinations like those.

And now Lizzy is there as well.

For her birthday weekend, I took her and a friend to the mall. Build-a-Bear was their first stop, so that's comfortably childlike. They also went to Claire's, Tokyo Japanese Lifestyle, Hot Topic, and Spencers (where they giggled at people buying things too adult for the kids).

That's quite a combination of Kid Stuff and Adult Stuff.

I've warned her, now that she's fifteen, that she is not to go all Anime-Protagonist. That seems to be a very common trope, most of them starting their Epic Quest at 15 and growing up as they go along. Some of them start older (Monkey D. Luffy, Edward Elric, Allen Walker), some younger (Ash Ketchum, Gon Freecs, Sakura Kinomoto), but most of them are 15 or 16, at least to begin with. 

She even has the brightly-colored puff of hair on her head to fit the trope!

And she has just escaped the 13-to-14-yeard old mess that's another stock trope. 

It's such a transitory thing, this mix. And the transition between middle school and high school, "young teen" and "teen," unicorn tees and hot pink hair she does herself, Minecraft minifigs and writing her own fanfic,.etc. 

I kind of love it.