Monster High returns again!

[shockponie]

I'm excited for Venus. I don't care for her shoes, but I can swap them.

Jack & Sally arrived!
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I just love them. My first skullectors.

[shockponie]

Core refresh Lala is here! But her lips are deep red, not black.
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Still, I like her style more than the original core g3.

[brightberry]

Shockponie, congrats on your new dolls!  I love how Jack and Sally look.  Amazing. 

I'm waiting for my Draculaura.  I was going to buy her when she came to stores, but I haven't seen her.  So Amazon.

[Zapper]

Congrats, Shockponie!

I'm a bit tired of some characters always side-glancing. Is there any Draculaura that looks straight ahead?
The glance is cool if you don't end up with ten dolls side-eyeing in a row.

G3 Spectra's doll leaked. Anybody seen her? I'd show a pic but I only saw her in people's youtube vids and I'm too lazy to search for the sources
She looks like a budget version of the recent collector Spectra. Something about her eyes/face doesn't sit right with me but the outfit is nice. I'll always love G1 Spectra (and detest G2 Ari) and G3 Spectra seems to sit somewhere in the middle. I just don't get why the G3 gjouls all need these giant foreheads. They look cutesy enough as is, they don't need a toddler's head.

There is also rumors about Skullector Wednesday and Morticia Addams, Sanderson Sisters and celebrity Skullector line in the vain of the Zombi Gaga doll.

They seem to be pumping out a lot without really adjusting the way they drop the goods. They should finally reveal the production numbers. I'm tired of the distribution stress. I'm always a tad anxious that one day they are gonna release something I really like because then I'll have to pay those inflated costs and hate myself

[Carrehz]

I love the new Venus, she's gorgeous! I just HATE her pet, what on earth were they thinking?!? Why does every pet this gen need to be a generic cutesy cat and/or dog, anyway?? Uuughhh
It's a shame because everything else about her is fantastic; she's probably the first G3 that I like just as much as her G1 counterpart.

I've seen two different leaks of Catty floating around. She's.... hm. I'm trying to withhold judgement until we see a finalized doll, I'm not sure which leak is closer to the final version. I do like her pet cat though.
(I'd post pics but I'm always wary of doing that when I don't know the source :S Also I don't have them to hand right now, lol.)

Congrats on the new dolls Shockponie!! New Laura is SO PRETTY, I like her much better than the original G3 sig doll. I still don't get why Count Fabulous is a cat/dog/thing now though

The Spectra leak I've seen was pretty, probably not one I'd get myself but still nice. I love her pet (and am glad they kept Rhuen as a ferret instead of Yet Another Catwolfthing ).

G3 Toralei and Ghoulia have FINALLY hit UK stores! I saw them both at Smyths Toys last week. Still can't click with G3 Ghoulia... she's so different, I wish they'd just gone ahead and given her a different name instead of trying to "remake" an old character. But G3 Tora is very pretty, definitely going back for her when I can <3
I like G3 Clawd too, I just wish his hair was slightly shorter/less poofy so you could more easily see his cute wolf ears. Not a huge fan of how they did his eyes either (a bit too deer-in-the-headlights for my taste) but I like the rest of the doll.

[Zapper]

G3 Toralei and Ghoulia have FINALLY hit UK stores! I saw them both at Smyths Toys last week. Still can't click with G3 Ghoulia... she's so different, I wish they'd just gone ahead and given her a different name instead of trying to "remake"

I don't understand why Ghoulia had to be so drastically changed. Rumor has it that her moans were "offensive" because she didn't talk like the others. But then why is she turned into a gamer? Gamers are some of the most offensive people out there 

I'm also still miffed about Lagoona but it has become unpopular to say the peachy pink looks weird on her. The newer characters all look very close to G1, just a different spin. Abbey, Spectra, Catty, Venus... their themes and color schemes are all so similar to the originals. But Ghoulia and Lagoona stick out like sore thumbs (to me).

I'm also still not over Clawdeen being a fangirl and nothing else. Can't they make her a little cooler again? She was business-minded, creative, fashionable and a little sassy in G1 and in G3 she's just a geek with Urkel glasses.

[brightberry]

Yay! The creeproduction waves may come back!

https://www.youloveit.com/dolls/3425-monster-high-boo-riginal-creeproduction-wave-2-dolls-spectra-vondergeist-abbey-bominable-and-ghoulia-yelps.html

[Taffeta]

I always saw Ghoulia as someone who communicated differently and did not meet the zombie stereotype. Thus an advocate, not an insult, to people with different communication and who don't fit the generic mould. I know people debate whether she is 'non-verbal' or 'speaking zombie', for me it doesn't really matter because 'speaking autistic/neurodivergent' is a lot different from 'speaking neurotypical'. It is like another language and Ghoulia represented that beautifully. They were moans because she was a zombie - not because she was imitating or ridiculing how any real person speaks. If she had been a cat monster she would have probably miaowed instead. (Maybe Toralei should do that. LOL).

For me the more important aspect has always been that despite her different communication, she wasn't excluded by her peers - who all understood her fine. Cleo is the kind of queen bee character who in real life bullies kids who are different, but although she can be spoiled and demanding on Ghoulia's time, she also understands her and appreciates her friendship as well. Kids who are different need to see that being different really doesn't matter. OG Ghoulia was intelligent, active, included in things. She was still part of the group despite being different - she was still accepted for who she was, rather than being forced to change or conform.

It's not just from a ND perspective, though, since I've seen other comments about Ghoulia being representative of people speaking a different language in a majority English speaking community, and various other diversity flags she put up which have now been removed. I also saw some suggestions they could have made her use sign language, which may have been difficult to animate but would've been a great inclusivity move. *Shrug*. Many opportunities lost.

The sanitisation of Ghoulia is one major reason why I can't get excited about G3 MH. I would have rather they just excluded her, rather than making her into something superfluous and unnecessary.

I'm sure some people were uncomfortable with it and I can't argue with that if they had good reasons, but at the same time Ghoulia was an opportunity to do something with diversity that they just did not do. Apparently her live action actress is autistic, but the character is such a banal non-event that it doesn't really come across.

And yes, there's me talking about Ghoulia again.

I did see her doll in town the other day. It's dull and boring, just like the character is. I still haven't seen any MH doll in person that I would want to buy...Lagoona still freaks me out with her appearance not being blue anymore.

...The only thing I really do love about G3 is Frankie. I feel like they went for it with Frankie but compromised on Ghoulia.

[Carrehz]

Taffeta, your post reminded me of something that bugs me about G3 vs G1 - at least from what I've seen of G3 - and I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, so bear with me...

When G1 did "representation", they didn't beat you over the head with it, the character didn't feel like a token. The point wasn't specifically what/who Ghoulia was representing, it was that everyone accepted her regardless. If that makes sense? It was just part of her character, they weren't going out of their way to go "This is REPRESENTATION btw!!!". (Same for other characters, but I'll use Ghoulia as an example since we're talking about her)

Whereas a lot of G3 feels more token? Like they're just going down a list like "Well, we haven't done this yet". Now granted, I haven't seen the films/cartoons so maybe they're writing them better than the impression I'm getting, but still... I dunno. Like I said, I'm not good at explaining this stuff so I'm not sure if I'm saying it right, but G3 just feels more.... what's the word I want. Soulless? maybe? it feels less like they're putting care and thought into these sort of things and more just "oh we gotta have representation, that's popular these days". I dunno.

I wish I could find this tweet I saw from one of the G3 writers, can't think where I saw it now and Google's failing me It was like "Well G1 Ghoulia was okay but we wanted to do representation Very Deliberately! But don't worry we'll add a non-verbal character too!!!" and the phrasing of it really bugged me, it had this real 'we're better than the old writers' vibe to it and just kind of felt like the nuances of G1 were lost on them...

I like your point about lots of different people being able to relate to Ghoulia, too. IMO that's the best way to do it. One of my favourite quotes along these lines is from an Adventure Time ep, "People just get built different. We don't need to figure it out, we just need to respect it" and that could apply to so many people, I've seen so many people say they connected with the line for different reasons.

(AT also had a minor character that used sign language and I believe it was all correct ASL? It'd be difficult to animate, especially if you take dubbing into consideration, but it's definitely doable - might not be feasible to do for a main character with lots of screentime, though. The AT character was only in like... two eps I think.)

Mostly I just wish they'd stop dramatically altering the established characters x) I don't mind some reinterpretation but I feel like you should remain consistent with the major established traits. I can sorta understand why they'd want to go for a more major design overhaul with Ghoulia since her dolls did tend to shelfwarm (*flashbacks to shelves full of Skull Shores Ghoulia* ), but then G3 Ghoulia is... well she's alright, but she's just There for me. I can't get excited about her either way. She's just kind of bland and safe?

[Taffeta]

@Carrehz, you've nailed it exactly.

It's very difficult to 'represent' an invisible disability anyway. Mostly it ends with cringe overexaggeration or stereotypes, or just plain nonsense. A lot of the time the people doing the writing have never actually spoken to someone with an invisible disability, or if they have, they then extrapolate that one person's experiences and try and make it work for everyone.

Often the best representations of autism I've seen on TV are in shows where a character is not designed to be representing autism, but just fits the criteria anyway. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybjTL13XQ2g

This is G3 Ghoulia from the first movie. It's a very short clip as she hardly appears and is mostly in group scenes.

I have absolutely no idea what they are going for here. Genuinely.

I think the issue is also that people had an attachment to Ghoulia for those reasons in G1. And so making her different and then saying 'we'll add a nonverbal character' like that fixes it disregards all the reasons people identified with Ghoulia in the first place.

If the moans were a problem then they could've found another way to work with that. But by making her speak 'normally', they're essentially telling people that communicating differently is wrong or even offensive.

[Zapper]

When G1 did "representation", they didn't beat you over the head with it, the character didn't feel like a token.

The adult(ish) fandom seems to eat this up, tho. Maybe I am too old to understand.
I was never a fan of "this is YOU" marketing/propaganda because this way you would usually only get one character who was "you" and only more othering and bullying occurred. I am talking about childhood when you'd play with some kids and as a girl you had to fight with five other girls for the role of token girl.

I finally got a glimpse of the G3 cartoon and of course it skews very young. The animation is cute but there is hardly any humor in it anymore and very little edge - for lack of a better word. The King Kong parody in Skull Shores could never be done in G3 because the source material is racially insensitive.
In general, the G3 cartoon retained a lot from the G2 Hotel Draculaura era. Draculaura is a very important character only this time she's secretly a witch and monsters are hateful towards witches and teachers will have students repeat anti-witch slogans like - wasn't G3 supposed to be all about being inclusive? Maybe I need to watch more to find out why G3 monsters have an ongoing, almost Christian Far Right hate campaign against witchcraft but I don't want to I find it odd.

For me the more important aspect has always been that despite her different communication, she wasn't excluded by her peers - who all understood her fine. Cleo is the kind of queen bee character who in real life bullies kids who are different, but although she can be spoiled and demanding on Ghoulia's time, she also understands her and appreciates her friendship as well. Kids who are different need to see that being different really doesn't matter. OG Ghoulia was intelligent, active, included in things. She was still part of the group despite being different - she was still accepted for who she was, rather than being forced to change or conform.

The Cleo/Ghoulia friendship was so special and is sadly no longer existent in G3. Sure, it wasn't handled too well at times in G1 with Cleo being a big old diva and meangirl stereotype but especially in the diaries I loved their BFF status.
In G3 Cleo is in some kind of will-they-won't-they with Frankie and Deuce is her friendly ex. No more "abusive" Cleo. Ghoulia is just a one-note nerd/gamer girl who interacts with the Core Ghouls on occassion.

In a way G3 canon feels like they drew prompts from a hat... or very "hello fellow kids! We know what you want", heh...

Post Merge: November 24, 2023, 06:45:19 PM

It was like "Well G1 Ghoulia was okay but we wanted to do representation Very Deliberately! But don't worry we'll add a non-verbal character too!!!"

Forgot to add this, this just sounds very corporate and by the numbers. Oh, you want non-verbal? We have that in the works. In the meantime, enjoy the wheelchair merman. He's handicapped! You love this, yes?

Will we ever see Operetta in G3? I know she's the next G1 Ghouluxe doll for the Mattel Creations subscribers but would G3 have the guts and give her an actually disfiguring scar instead of artsy scarification? I doubt it.

[Taffeta]

Forgot to add this, this just sounds very corporate and by the numbers. Oh, you want non-verbal? We have that in the works. In the meantime, enjoy the wheelchair merman. He's handicapped! You love this, yes?

It's a lot like that. Disability representation falls into one of three categories really. 1: "inspirational!" 2: "here's a wheelchair in the background, lol, we ticked that box" and 3: "The Odd One Out"

That's not including the times when physical differences are still used as characteristics of villains/bad guys and painted up as sinister (I'm thinking of the Witches remake in particular here).

Iirc in the live action MH movie, which was a lot confusing and a bit harry potter in places...I feel like Cleo is massively hostile to begin with and then they end up kind of buddies by the end?

As for Lala, I preferred when she was a vegetarian vampire. But iirc from the movie it was the vampires not every monster who was anti-witches. I've not seen any of the other G3 material and I admit, I watched the movie after a covid vaccine so who knows how much I actually absorbed, but I think that was right.

Zapper, I agree about representation and 'this person is you' mantra. I've never understood why you have to see yourself on screen or in a book to be inspired by a character. I feel there's too much emphasis on characteristics which people might share superficially, but which maybe don't define them as a person overall. It's another reason I don't really like autistic representations in stuff. I don't think I've ever seen one intentionally autistic character I relate to. But I can absolutely relate to personalities, actions, ideology of characters who are not the same gender, disability status or ethnic background as me :/

Back on the topic of the characters, I am wondering how they would fit Operetta into this melee to be honest. Her background/inspiration seems a bit 'complex' for the pitch of the series somehow. Also, have we seen Rochelle yet? I know there's a doll (although it might've been a collector doll?) but I am pretty sure she wasn't in that movie. Maybe in the 2nd. I can't bear to watch it (lol).

[Lady Frostbite]

(Likely going to delete these thoughts later)

Cleo and Ghoulia were an unlikely but good match in G1 MH and it was an early nod to Cleo having more than one side to her. Initially, she seemed to treat Ghoulia like a dogsbody, and the general sentiment that the student body had against zombies didn't make that any better.

Zombies were treated almost as 'odd' or second class. They are slower than other students physically, are implied to be slower mentally with the exception of Ghoulia, and speak in a language that is not immediately understandable to the audience. They were looked down upon, and it almost seemed like Cleo was taking advantage of that to have Ghoulia 'working' for her. It's only when the series got to explore the characters that we realise Ghoulia and Cleo ARE friends, Cleo's bossy habits are a habit of royalty and elitism rather than prejudice against zombies, and she herself falls into the category of 'undead' so is probably aware that she could face the same sort of snobbishness if she weren't verbal and mobile. The webisode where Cleo rigs winning a prized first-edition comic of Deadfast for Ghoulia and donates it anonymously, while telling the other ghouls to never tell Ghoulia ("it will TOTALLY ruin my rep" but she makes it clear she did it because Ghoulia does so much for her and it's a gift, and she doesn't want to make a show of it and make Ghoulia feel indebted. If she worried about her rep that much, she wouldn't associate with Ghoulia at all).

Ghouls in G1 had their freaky flaws and they were embraced for it. It's easy to scoff at Frankie's clumsiness as 'omg quirky relatable girl!!' writing nonsense, but she has LEGIT REASONS to be clumsy! Her stitches can come loose! And there are moments she uses this to her advantage by having her hand scurry off and do things separately from her. Lala's haemophobia gives her a reason to be vegetarian without preaching or having it be 'visibility', though I was annoyed she was guilting Clawd into also being vegetarian for a time. English is not Abbey's first language, and she has moments where she comes across as very blunt or not meaning to sound so harsh, but she works her way through it, but her status as an ESOL ghoul is never beaten over the head with it and I can only think of a handful or less times she says something in her original language or an approximation to it. She doesn't mix and match her language to emphasis she's a non-native English speaker.

Frankie having prosthetics I really liked, and it made total sense for her character design. I could even see her making jokes about her leg being 'in the shop' or mention she lost it because Whatzit ran off with it and ate it or something. Robecca came more across as a ghoul that could stand in for medical needs, considering she is very literally mechanical and needs maintenance or she will 'break down' in more ways than one.

I guess what I'm saying is that the representation isn't written as well into the character as G1 felt like to me. It felt more like it was highlighted in pink rather than being allowed to be both a positive (Frankie's hand spider-scrabbling up to get something out of reach) and a negative (her leg flying off causes her to absolutely blow her first Fearleading audition).

For Operetta, I liked her stylised scarification, but I do wonder if they will work entirely with the scar and therefore re-write her personality, or start with the personality and warp the scar story around it, if that makes sense. I just don't see G1 Operetta being a shy, anxious, noooo don't look at me I'm hideous!!! girl at all

[Zapper]

Taffeta, the movie canon and cartoon are once again different from each other. I don't mind them not being super connected because we all know G1 had several different media as well. Also Cleo is pretty much a background character in the first movie. In the show she is a partyplanner and managing school activities. She is friendly and outgoing and there is no character development as grand as it was in G1 webisodes.

There is a slight sibling rivalry with Nefera, who is still the first-born on her way to inherit the throne. But aside from occassional envy and self-dount Cleo seems to accept that she will never be pharao and instead calls herself "queen of the school". But she isn't even the student body president or head cheerleader anymore - that's both Draculaura. I don't need G3 to copy G1 to a T, but seeing Cleo so set in her path like this is boring and makes her an jnderused character. Same goes for Nefera and Toralei. Toralei is still antagonistic sometimes but Nefera is barely a character in her own right anymore. Similar to Ghoulia.

In the cartoon, most characters are this generic brand of nice to each other. I guess because the episodes have a very "lesson of the day" vibe. I don't mean to say that's bad. But the conflicts often come from monster shenanigans or the forced (literal) witch hunt the monsters are on.
They have an aczual witch trial in place where students accused of witchcraft are being expelled forever. Can you imagine that taking place in G1 "everyone is welcome" MH or G2's Hotel sanctuary? G3 can just kick students from MH if they do magic. I just hate this. Whoever came up with this idea needs to sit in the silent corner for a while

And yeah, I know the lesson in the end will be to accept witches and put the monster vs witch mentality to rest. But why have it in the first place? In G1 the also removed the human vs monster stuff after a while. Probably because it was too risky? But literal witch trials enacted by Headmistress Bloodgood (now black so I guess it's fine she discriminates against her students?) are worse in my opinion.
Also, only sligjtly related to my rant, but Lagoona now has piranha urges similar to Clawdeen having "wolf mode" in G1. Why was it problematic for Clawdeen to have that flaw/power but Lagoona, who is now Latina, is fine to freak out?

I get that sinking feeling some character traits or plot points - similar to Ghoulia - got removed for the "problematic" factor but in turn they created more problematic content in form of these - I repeat myself - weirdly realistic witch hunts. People, mostly women in medicine or midwifery, were actually killed due to being witches and some cultures still practice witch hunts.
Zombies however, are not realistic like that. What G1 did with zombies (what Lady Frostbite) said, is now done with witches. Except that MC Draculaura is one and the entire conflict is front and center due to her.

They really could have thought up a better way to insert an ongoing storyline or problem. G2 Ghoul Squad and movies aped Hotel Transyvania's concept a lot but I would prefer the "everyone belongs" message and "freaky flaws" concept over " all monsters are cool because we have powers and are different from humans - except those filthy witches".

90s Sabrina the Teenage Witch handled RL witch hunts with more grace than current MH. That's just strange to me.

Andfor the record, I'm not clutching my pearls here. I am not offended by G3. I just think thematically it's a mess and the "diversity" is tacked on and really only shines if you consider the dolls completely separate from their movies/shows/books. Like, my favorite doll in G3 right now is Abbey. Her body is amazing, she is sturdy but very poseable similar to the curvy Barbies. But canon Abbey is now so boring. She is just the one with the ice powers now and was immediatly thrown together with Heath. Remember when Abbey had a personality other than "nice and ice"? I loved her so much, I used Abbey's characterization to pull a friend of mine into MH and she started collecting Abbey dolls just because of how she was written on the webisodes/movies.
We were two twenty-somethings bonding over yak jokes and this character who was perceived as weird and cold just because she was foreign (and literally cold, lol). Now she's just a pretty doll and curvy rep. Sad.

[Taffeta]

Lady Frostbite, I hope you leave those thoughts up because I 100% agree with them. It was done not to be clunky and obvious but as part of the characters, thus expressing the 'everyone is different' angle without feeling like it was a tick list. And particular monster traits also had their uses and advantages.

Zapper, that sounds a bit off. I know G1 had a witch doll, her name is eluding me right now though...Casta? Something like that? Even the human vs monster thing in G1 was kind of settled (for me) in a way in the special around Halloween, which is still the one I like best I think. It tackled the issue head on and then that was pretty much it I think? I didn't see all the web stuff but I don't recall it being a major thing in any other special.

As for the characters, it sounds like Ghoulia isn't the only one sanitised.

I agree Abbey is a pretty doll and I think Twyla looks pretty as well from the pictures I've seen. But I can't bring myself to like this generation really. It's lost the bite and the edge that came from representing actually diverse people being themselves...which is what attracted me to G1 in the first place.