A-M-W-Worlds

I'm new to Tumblr and have no clue what I'm doing, so, cut me some slack if mistakes are made!

My name is A. M. and I'm a girl with too many thoughts in my head who's hoping Tumblr can be my new outlet! I like fashion dolls, niche videogames, and writing fanfiction, and I make no guarantees about what kind of posts I'll make or how frequently I make them, you have been warned!

Star Stable Online Masterpost

Game Reviews and Discussions Masterpost

Media Analysis Masterpost

Writing Prompts Masterpost

Five Realms AU Masterpost

Danny Phantom AU Masterpost

The Lisi Harrison books are weird as heck, I'm not here to argue that point, but they do have redeeming qualities that I've never seen anyone talk about that are worth acknowledging.

This series has a lot of really odd things about it. Most of the characters are very different from their cartoon-counterparts, in their personalities, the way their monster traits are portrayed, or both. The series focuses on the characters attending a human school, Merston High, while hiding the fact that they're monsters. And the main character of the series is Melody Carver, a character that does not exist in any other MH continuity.

The closest these books and the animated series ever come is in the Ghouls Rule movie, which share plot points about monsters being in hiding from normies, Jackson having a romance with a human girl, Claire/Melody, and monsters and normie allies working together to end discrimination against monsters. Even with that overlap though, Ghoul's Rule and the Lisi Harrison books are very distinctly separate entities.

The books can really feel like a fanfiction with unusually high production value and can be pretty enjoyable if you're in the mindset to read a canon-divergence AU with an OC main character!/gen/a

There is something about these books that I really adore that no other piece of Monster High media has ever captured quite so well; how tactile and specific they get.

I've seen people complain about these books constantly name dropping brands and celebrities, and I definitely see how someone can find that distracting (I find it funny because it just makes these books so time capsule-y), but that is only part of what I'm talking about. This series of books goes into so much more detail about the MH characters home lives than the animated series does or even the diaries that came with the dolls. We see more of the character's family members, get descriptions of their houses, learn some of their favorite singers, beauty products, and clothing brands.

Some examples:

The Stein home is described as an L-shaped, grey concrete slab of a house fenced in by electrical wires and phone lines. It has white shag carpet and a fifteen foot waterfall behind it that's used as a backup power generator because the Steins use so much electricity. Frankie's room is half teenage girl daydream, half utilitarian laboratory ,and she refers to it as the Fab. The mad science elements mixed with a modern home just feels so right for the Steins!/gen

The Stein family car has the black doors of a Mercedes coupe, the white hood from a BMW, silver trunk from a Jaguar, red convertible top from a Lexus, Bentley whitewall tires, a bose sound system, and hood ornaments from each model dangling from the rearview mirror, and the license plate reads MUTT. Again, this is just perfect for them. The Steins having a car made from a bunch of clashing pieces is so on brand, but the fact that they went out of their way to get a vanity plate that reads MUTT just proves that they have a sense of humor and makes it that much more endearing!

Cleo's household is run by a husband/wife duo named Beb and Hasina, the house has a manmade river that flows through every room, and the de Niles own seven cats named Chisisi, Bastet, Akins, Ebonee, Ufa, Usi, and Mui-Mui.

Medusa wears white pant suits, Pucci head scarves, and Dior sunglasses, and once accidently turned a bunch of horses to stone and donated them to the local park as carousel horses.

I'm not saying all of this to try to prove that these books are actually hidden gems or must reads. They are still weird as heck, but I do think they did a great job when it comes to fleshing out the character's personal lives and want to praise them for that. We don't need to know about Cleo's favorite amber scented perfume or Clawdeen's black current body wash, but added details like that make fictional worlds feel more authentic and lived in.

Now, I am massively excited about Moonspell Magic!/gen I've wanted a witchy Monster High line since G1, but, of course, Bratzillaz put the kibosh on that. Moonspell Magic so far is everything I ever wanted from a witchy doll line, but there are some things that worry and/or frustrate me about the line.

It being called Moonspell Magic instead of Moonspell High. Come on, it should be Monster High, Ever After High, and Moonspell High. Don't break the pattern, Mattel!

On a related note, I'm very confused as to what Mattel's actual intentions for Moonspell Magic are at this point. EAH is our only previous point of reference for an MH spinoff and so far MM has been handled very differently. EAH, despite being in a shared universe and having Cupid transfer there, was very much it's own thing, separate from Monster High. MM on the other hand is being marketed as Moonspell Magic by Monster High. And unlike EAH, that heavily invested in tie-in media, so far there hasn't been a single mention of MM getting its own TV show, webisodes, books, or anything. Is MM going to truly be it's own thing or are these characters going to become part of the Monster High webisodes? Maybe Moonspell High will be a rival school in the series? With Monsters and witches not getting along in G3 and having Draculaura being a monster and a witch, there might be some storytelling potential there. Maybe Draculaura could be an exchange student? It would explain why MM isn't being treated as much like a separate entity.

Another oddball idea I had regarding the lack of media for MM is what if the line is meant to be temporary? It's not meant to last the way EAH was. What if there will be other "by Monster High" lines in the future that will replace MM? I remember back in the day all of those other "High" trademarks, Cosmic High, Robo High, High Seas High, that one comment that Cupid was supposed to transfer again, and, most tellingly, the conversation between Astranova and Apple and Raven about other high schools being real. What if Mattel is still interested in the concept of these other spinoffs, but instead of trying to sustain them long-term, they're going to have them be temporary things. So, maybe MM will last a year or so and then be replaced by an alien line "by Monster High" or a robot line "by Monster High". I have zero evidence to support this theory, it was just a thought.

If MM is meant to be a long-term line though, I am worried about the current lack of news of any tie-in media. I'm kind of concerned that we're going to have a repeat of what happened with Wild Hearts Crew (R.I.P. I still remember you...) where they just came and faded away without so much as an attempt at any kind of story. And even if they do get webisodes, Mattel just doesn't seem to care as much about accompanying animation and books as they did in the 2000s and early 2010s. Barbie and Monster High can cruise on brand recognition and survive without genuinely good media, but I don't think a new line would be that lucky. Novi Stars and Bratzillaz both had webisodes, but they were bare bones and couldn't sustain either line for very long.

I've already talked too much about MM tie-in media, but this last point is very much a subjective opinion. I want them to have media to appease my own curiosity. I adore the design of the girls, but currently those designs exist in a void. I genuinely want to know more about these characters and their lives. I want to see Moonspell High, as in, the actual school they attend. I want to know what it looks like, who the teachers are, what kind of classes the students take, all of it! I want to know what kind of mischief the characters get into between and after class. What are the characters personalities like? Were they born with magic or did they just decide one day to try to learn it? How does Moonspell High relate to Monster High? I'm desperate to know more!

Why was Cupid brought back? Cupid was one of the stranger characters in MH G1, since she was the daughter of a Greek god and didn't have a confirmed monster type, but her inclusion made more sense once she transferred to Ever After High, because then she was an outlier in two schools and therefore fit equally well in both. When she was first introduced into G3, I was confused, but then the Moonspell High trademark hit and one of the characters was codenamed "Love" and like everyone else I assumed Cupid was going to be a transfer student again and it all made sense, until it didn't. "Love" turned out to be Carina Song and Cupid is still a Monster High character, just as weird and out of place as she's ever been. Why? Why would you bring back Cupid of all characters? Especially before more popular ones like Rochelle and Operetta, or ones who have already been in the Nickelodeon series like Howleen, Mouscedes, or Iris? Heck, even other one off G1 characters like River or Luna would have made more sense, because at least they're more recognizable types of monsters.

Percy Jackson movies: *makes changes that actively confuse me as a fan of the books* Did the people making the movies actually read the books or did they just read the Wikipedia synopsis and wing the rest of it?

WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS???/gen

I always see people complaining when boy dolls have plastic hair, but why? I promise I'm not trying to be a contrarian, I just honestly don't understand why people prefer real hair on boy dolls. Long real hair is fine, but short hair just doesn't have the weight to lay like it's supposed to without so much product that it may as well be plastic anyways. And if even a bit of the product gets washed out or worn out with handling the hair ends up looking awful. My Picnic Casket Jackson Jekyll's hair is a disaster because it's been "crunched" a few too many times. And my Music Festival Clawd Wolf's hair is laying at a weird half mast instead of being truly flopped over like it's supposed to.

Plastic hair a lot of the time ends up looking better in my opinion because it lays in a way that is more accurate to real short hairstyles and can't be destroyed if run under the tap for cleaning. Plastic also makes it easier to give dolls more detailed styles like cornrows that would be really hard to recreate at such a small scale with real hair. And plastic hair can also be repainted!/pos Shout out to my Ken I gave blue-streaked black hair!

I recently read The Cruel Prince by Holly Black for the first and the second I read the words Fox and Geese, I just set the book down and stared into the void for a few seconds until my brain rebooted from being abruptly thrown in to Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek flashbacks!

Rant incoming! It bugs the absolute snot out of me when people criticize others for liking certain media because it's "bad". Bad in this context can mean anything from cheesy and riddled with plot holes to just being made for kids. But I have two major reasons I think these criticisms are really narrow-minded.

For one, there's this weird narrative that a story being complex and deep automatically means thought-provoking and a story being simple and more surface level automatically means not thought-provoking. But the thing is, media is as deep as we make it. I've seen people walk away from Hunger Games thinking it was just a love story while someone else has a genuinely meaningful conversation about societal views on disabilities while talking about Barbie Fairytopia.

There's this insane double standard where everyone loves to complain about people not engaging with media critically, yet every time someone puts a show aimed at kids under the mental microscope and walks away with a dark theory they get told "it's not that deep, stop ruining our childhoods". I love returning to shows from my childhood as an adult because I end up picking up on new things every time I do and sometimes that results in dark theories. That isn't me sadistically trying to corrupt something innocent though, it's me trying to more deeply engage with a story I care about.

I'm going to be completely honest, despite being an objectively much better show, Arcane doesn't get me thinking even half as much as Danny Phantom does. Danny Phantom is a wholeheartedly mid show, yet the sheer amount of untapped potential and interesting ideas that never went anywhere gets the neurons firing in my brain in a way that a "good" show never could. And I know I'm not alone in this as DP managed to develop one of the most vibrant, creative, and enduring fanbases I've ever seen.

There is always a meaningful story to be found if you're willing to look closer. Even if you can't find it in the source material itself, you can still be inspired to create it yourself in the form of fanfiction and head canons.

Summarizing; if you want Invader Zim to be about the toxic codependency shared between two characters who have been wronged by every authority figure in their lives and use their rivalry as a maladaptive coping mechanism, then that's what the story is to you! At the same time, if you're the person complaining about politics in Star Wars and somehow missed the fact that Star Wars has always been political, then that's what the story is to you.

Now, my second reason for hating when people judge others for liking "bad" media. Sometimes "good" media will just make you feel worse.

Most media that gets deemed "good" is dark, heart-wrenching, and/or designed to challenge your beliefs. It's meant to make you uncomfortable, but what if you're already uncomfortable? I'm a lifelong Star Wars fan, yet I've been procrastinating watching Andor since it first released despite how positively it's been received. Everyone talks about it being this gritty, ground level view of the rebellion and the empire, and I'm just not in the headspace for a realistic look at the horrors of war yet. 

If you've had a bad day and just spent the past half hour sobbing your little heart out, you're not going to want a gripping, psychological thriller, you're going to want a slightly cheesy rom-com, and that's okay! Last year I went through a really bad spell with my mental health and you wanna know what my go to movie was? The Super Mario Bros Movie! This movie has been criticized endlessly for playing it safe and being pretty fluff with no substance, but that was exactly what I needed at that time. I was spending entire days feeling like I was on the edge of a panic attack. An emotionally un-demanding movie with enough sensory input to temporarily drown out the demons in my head was what I needed to calm down.

The first two game consoles my family got were both purchased when I was way too little for most games with Teen or Mature age ratings and then we went for basically a whole decade without buying another console or gaming computer. Now here I am in my twenties having never touched a single game from many beloved series, barely knowing what half of them are even about, how many games there in the series, or what consoles all the series entries are even available on. I hear people talking about GTA, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Balder's Gate, Metroid, and a million others as if everyone has played them, and I'm just sitting here not even knowing if I would enjoy any of these series or not.