Ever After High - Dexter Charming

I admit it, i'm not hugely sold on the Ever After High line. The story line is muddled and riddled with flaws that piss me off (and no, i'm not reading the books. people keep saying "oh it makes much more sense if you read the book" and I keep saying I shouldn't freaking have to read a book to understand why anyone shouldn't just punch Apple in her stupid head gah.)
But my biggest problems with the line are NOT the story (which I get stupidly wound up about lol, I know! it's a kid's line! but it bugs me ok?), my biggest problems are twofold.

1: the price point
and
2: those huge flat moon faces.

I HATE those flat moon faces the girls have. They look like Moxie Girls or something and the fact they all look exactly the same is a huge let down after the uniqueness of Monster High.

The price point is a huge sticking issue for me. In the Uk the EAH dolls retail at anywhere from £19:99 to £26 which is ridiculous. Monster High is creeping up to those prices too now, but Monster High has 5 years of success behind it, it isn't an emerging line trying to gain fans. And pricing your product so much higher than the big kid on the block (Monster High) is just asking to be left in the dust.

This said, I like the boys. They remind me of the Bratz Boyz with their soft, somewhat effeminate faces. I love the Bratz Boyz, so the EAH boys give me something MGA never has. Cute boy dolls with full articulation!

Monster high - Dawn of the Dance slim box rerelease - Frankie Stein

What an unexpected surprise this line was. The first Monster High dance line, rereleased way back in 2010/11!?? Dawn of the Dance was a popular line and sadly for the UK, only the second wave ever made it to our shores.
This meant we never saw Frankie, Clawdeen or Draculaura available in our stores, and being exclusive to Argos, finding the ones we wanted was an excercise in immense frustration.

I only ever saw Deuce once, and his glasses were broken in half. Boo.

I always wanted Frankie and Clawdeen, so much so that I eventually ended up buying a Clawdeen on Ebay. But Frankie I never could quite justify the expense of shipping, so when slim box versions of Frankie, Lagoona and Cleo popped up randomly on Ebay.co.uk, I couldn't help but excitedly hope they were legit.

I'm glad I held out on paying the £20 the ebay seller was asking though, because only 2 weeks later what should hit Asda supermarkets? You got it, the DOTD rerelease! And better yet, they're £9:98, a good £4 CHEAPER than any other budget line.
Wowza.

I popped to my nearest store hoping they'd have them in, and I was right, they'd just stocked one case. 2 Frankie, 1 Cleo, 1 Lagoona. I grabbed Frankie.
She didn't scan at checkout though, despite being on the shelf someone hadn't bothered to put the codes into the system *eyeroll*. Thankfully the staff were feeling helpful and scanned her through at a flat £10. I wasn't going to quibble over a few pennies.

Monster high - Freaky Fusion - Bonita Femur

I wasn't going to pick up Bonita till she went on clearance, but on Friday my father offered to buy me a doll and who am I to refuse the offer of a doll? lol.
So Bonita came home with me. I decided on her over Dracubecca or Lagoonafire because i'm still certain those two will go on clearance at some point and be fairly easy to find. I was starting to get a bit paranoid i'd miss out on Bonita completely.

As it turned out, Toys R Us had about 6 of her on the shelves and all seemed to have pretty good faces. But that £26:99 price point is just plain ludicrous. I don't know what the hell stores are smoking, but it's not good stuff if they think that price is reasonable.
But tru had Buy One, get one half price going on. So I grabbed I heart Fashion Venus (who I have wanted for a while) and got Bonita for half price, sweet!
well... my DAD got her for half price lol. But hey, semantics.

Anyway. Bonita was the only freaky fusion new character I honestly considered completely passing on. Much like Gigi, I felt like her pink skin was just a terrible idea pandering to the "little girls like pink" stereotype. and I was one of those little girls who came to DETEST pink for how shoved down our throats it was.
I  have a term for these dolls, they're called "pinkrifices". Those dolls that get "pinkwashed" so other dolls in that line can be released as intended by the designer. I have absolutely no doubt that with Freaky Fusion the exec at Mattel got a bit antsy when presented with a skeletal fairy chick, a centaur, a ghost mermaid and a half rotting zombie unicorn. Something had to give, and the sacrifice, or rather, the pinkrifice, was Bonita. "Girls like pink! Girls like fairies, moths are kinda like butterflies and they're kinda like fairies right?"
So she becamse inexplicably pink, despite the fact there's only 2... TWO moths that i've been able to find that are actually pink. Most people think of browns and greys when you say "moth" right? just like you think "bone coloured" when someone says "Skeleton" not Strawberry milkshake pink!

So for me, Bonita just felt like a hugely wasted design. A skeletal moth with a fairy vibe could have been so wonderfully gothic and creepy, a wonderful "twist" of what is fairly staple "girliness". Sirena managed to pull of the twisted mermaid look with the black and purple and chains, but Bonita just felt like she belonged in a Barbie movie instead of Monster High.
She was offensively pink and the pink bones just drove me batty.

But as time went on and I saw more photos, I came to appreciate how sweet her face was, and how damn awesome that body sculpt was. Under all the "pinkwash" was a truely macabre design. But this only served to irritate me more. Why oh why hide that detail! And why that HIDEOUS dress?

Poor Bonita. She was never going to be a doll I loved but she was a doll the completist in me needed just to be a completist.