Inner Monster "Fearfully Feisty and Fangtastic Love" by Monster High

After finding Avea Trotter, who for me is the ultimate Monster High doll, I didn't think I would be spending as much time in the Monster High aisles of my regular stores.  However, I have found myself quite interested in seeing the new dolls come into stock--particularly the remaining items in the Freaky Fusion line.  It's fascinating to see the different combinations of characters.  So far, my favorites are Lagoonafire (Lagoona and Jinafire), Dracubecca (Draculaura and Robecca) and maybe Neighthan Rot...although I still think he should have been a centaur.

Anyway, while I was examining these mixed-up monsters last week, I noticed a lone box with a slightly different design sitting off to one side.  At first, the bright neon colors on this box reminded me too much of the Sweet Screams collection and I was a little turned off.  But then, I found myself seduced by how many accessories seemed to come with this doll for her relatively low price--it looked impressive.  Finally, a single sentence made me grab the box and head straight for the checkout: push brain to change my eyes.  Well, that's the kind of thing you don't have to tell me twice.  I was sold.  This ghoulish temptress had me at "push brain."

Inner Monster doll, "Fearfully Feisty and Fangtastic Love" $21.99.

The doll I happened to find at my Toys R Us is called "Fearfully Feisty and Fangtastic Love." That's a mouthful (I'll just call her "Feisty"), but the doll has two names because she's supposed to convey two different emotions.  There are other characters in this series, "Spooky Sweet and Frightfully Fierce" (who has a blue body) and "Scared Silly and Shockingly Shy," who is orange.  They all look interesting, and can all share body parts and accessories, so I suspect that this is yet another case where owning more than one doll significantly increases the fun.

Feisty's box is made primarily out of clear plastic.  It has large, bold, neon graphics, but they don't hurt my eyes quite as much as Sweet Screams Frankie's box did.

In fact, the two half-faces that decorate the edges of the box are pretty neat.  I especially like the detail around Fearfully Feisty's orange eye:

Here's a closer look at the two faces:

And here's the decal that made me buy this doll:

I've never touched doll brains before!

Behind that paper hair, the doll's pink brains are exposed, and there's a hole in the top of the box that allows you to reach in, poke her brains, and test the eye-changing mechanism.

It's disgustingly awesome.

The other thing that attracted me to this doll was her range of accessories.  Peering into the box's slanted sides, I could see a wig, a mask (fun!), a saddle stand (yay!), some creepy-looking spider legs, some flaming wings, extra shoes, glasses, and little decorative charms:

That's a lot of goodies for $20!

The back of the box reveals some more of Feisty's tricks:

There's the eye-changing feature, of course:

With three different eye styles.

There's a mask that looks like it snaps on and off...and something very fascinating at the bottom about a changing chestplate and an exposed ribcage:

Then, there are pictures of the two characters (emotions?) that can be made with this doll.  There's Fangtastic Love:

Hearts and spiders.

And Fearfully Feisty:

Flames...and also hearts.

I got a little confused here and had to read the doll's official description.  It says that she can "go from scarily fierce to madly in love in an instant!"  I'm still confused, though, because I'm not sure which represents madly-in-love more...the fire or the spider.  Based on the labels above, I suppose it's the spider, but that imagery doesn't work so well for me.  Isn't fire the more quintessential symbol of love and desire?  If poetry is the language of love, that's certainly what the talented Mr. Frost is trying to tell us:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire, 

Some say in ice. 

From what I've tasted of desire 

I hold with those who favor fire. 

But if it had to perish twice, 

I think I know enough of hate 

To say that for destruction ice 

Is also great 

And would suffice.

-Robert Frost

On the other hand, E.B. White makes a decent argument for spiders:

Natural History

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

- E.B. White

With tangents like this, it's an epic wonder I get anything done.

Anyway...going back to this picture:

...it seems that the little charms represent additional emotions that can be placed on the exposed ribs to express different things.  That's a little obscure--we'll investigate later.

I prefer the traditional Monster High boxes because they are made mostly out of cardboard and are very simple to open, but this box was easier to manage than most plastic boxes I've encountered.  The back of the box is made out of a folded piece of cardboard.  The cardboard is attached to the plastic with little tabs.  I unfastened the tabs from the back flap of cardboard, and this revealed some instructions and a hidden journal:

The journal has blanks for the doll's owner to fill in:

I am not crazy about the journal.  It seems like a throwaway.  My doll's journal came pretty wrinkled, and each page has the same exact blanks to fill in: name, age, killer style, freaky flaw, favorite activity, biggest pet peeve, favorite school subject and favorite color.  Six times.  Probably I am just spoiled by the incredible Maplelea doll journal at this point.

I slid the plastic tabs all of the way out of the cardboard and removed the plastic part of the box completely.  Here's the blue cardboard backdrop with all of Feisty's goodies still attached:

There's a black purse and a brush that I didn't even notice at the store.

Here you can see how a cardboard support holds the fake hair around Feisty's head.  This hair looks neat and doesn't interfere with removing the doll at all:

Spoiler: the cardboard hair is better than the wig.

As with most Monster High dolls, the attachments holding this doll to the cardboard were mostly the easy-to-cut loose plastic threads.  There weren't even any plastic ties in the head (hurrah!).  I had everything removed from the package in very little time:

The brush is a typical black plastic Skullette with no painted decoration:

The purse is also a black Skullette, but it's a much better accessory.  Not only does this Skullette have a pink painted bow...

...but the purse opens and closes and has a nice, roomy interior:

The wig looks ok--it's a mixture of straight pink and black hair styled with some bangs in front.  There's also a small, flat, slightly scruffy ponytail coming out of the top of the head at the back of the part:  

Unfortunately, the packaging manages to include two plastic ties that are holding the wig to an underlying clear support:

Argh.

Now let's take a closer look at the little charms or "emotions" that can apparently be added to the doll's exposed spine.  There are eight of these emotions, and each one has a different color and a different design:

The backs of the charms have small pegs that fit into holes in the doll's skeleton:

I wanted to see if I could figure out which emotion each charm is supposed to represent.  I figured I could call on the assistance of Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions if I got stuck:

We'll start simple.  Here's a lacy-edged pink heart with an arrow through it:

Love.  True love.

This one's a little harder, but since it's red and the Skullette has slanted eyebrows, I'd say we're looking at anger of some kind:

Flaming rage, perhaps.

We seem to be back to a love-related emotion with this next Skullette.  It's cheery and pink with little heart-shaped eyes (and off-set paint):

And they say love is dead.

Now things start to get a little tricky.  There's a black Skullette with some kind of protrusion coming out of its head.  It might be a party hat, it might be a head explosion.  Or maybe it's a brain-eating fungus?  I think I'll stick with party hat and some kind of joy-like emotion:

Because black is such a joyful color.

This next one is my favorite; it's intestines made out of a snake.  It reminds me of "butterflies in the stomach" but magnified, so I'm going to go with some kind of extreme apprehension:

Heebie-jeebies.

This next charm has three dripping pink hearts that all look eerily happy.  They look contemptuous and duplicitous to me, as though they're pretending to love someone, but are secretly mocking them:

Bless your hearts.

This one is hard, too.  It looks like an evil little face hiding inside of a cabbage...or like the Pokemon character Gastly:

Gotta catch 'em all.

Ok, so I saved the best for last.  This looks straight out of the Sweet Screams repertoire.  It's a demonic little laughing jalapeño pepper, which I think represents the emotion where you seem happy, but there's the threat of a spicy explosion at any moment:

If you're happy and you know it...KA-BOOM!

All of the emotion charms fit perfectly into Feisty's black Skullette purse:

She wears her emotions in her purse, apparently.

This next accessory is my favorite piece in the entire set.  It's a two-toned pink spider than can be worn over Feisty's shoulders like a backpack:

My only issue with this spider concerns its number of legs.  There are six larger legs that stick out (three on each side), but all spiders have eight legs, so that's not enough.  The straps that hold the spider to the doll's body also resemble legs, but that would add two additional legs to each side for a grand total of ten legs--too many.  I see the design constraints here, though: any less than three legs sticking out on each side wouldn't look enough like a spider, and there's no way around needing those support straps on the top and bottom.   

I am happy, at least, that the spider's specialized mouthparts (called "chelicerae") have been included.  They're the little pinchers at the top of the head.  All spiders have chelicerae, and they're neat because not only do they contain the spider's venom, but they're one of the traits that classify spiders as "Chelicerate" animals--a group that also includes ticks, scorpions and horseshoe crabs.

Even though this spider is pink, the pattern on its back resembles the markings of a black widow:

This spider would have been neat even if its legs weren't articulated, but the fact that each of the six largest legs has a point of articulation makes it amazing.

It can do a dead spider pose:

And also an attacking spider pose!

The legs have little Skulettes on them and a simple hinge joint:

The legs are also covered in heart-shaped holes that suggest the presence of tiny hairs:

Feisty's other shoulder strap accessory is this pair of flaming wings:

The wings may not be as unique as articulated spider legs, but they're pretty impressive and very nicely painted:

I love the changing shades of orange:

Here are the pink sunglasses that came with Feisty:

On the box, these glasses are made to look transparent--with the doll's eyes clearly visible:

Which is not how they turned out:

Blinded by love.

Feisty's second pair of shoes are translucent orange feathered wedge sandals:

Mercury's shoes.

These have wonderful feather detail, but they're very hard to get on and off.

Ok, here we go on another tangent: in searching for winged shoes (because I couldn't remember if it was Mercury or Hermes who wore winged shoes--it was both), I found an actual pair of winged shoes called "pegasus" by Rachel Comey.  Ah!  They are awesome (and I'm not that much of a shoe person).  Here's a peek.

Feisty's other pair of shoes resemble C.A. Cupid's shoes, with a chain of hearts going across the toe of each shoe and then extending up along the outer edge:

Here are Cupid's shoes as a reminder:

I think Feisty's shoes, with their simplified color scheme and missing heels, are superior.

The saddle stand is great, except for some reason (even with her shoes on) my doll's feet don't touch the base of the stand.  She's levitating about a quarter of an inch:

Finally, here is Miss Feisty Pants herself:

You guys probably noticed that her eyes changed during the de-boxing.  She had her heart-shaped eyes facing out inside the box, and now she's showing her more normal-looking blue eyes:

The brain button that changes the eye design is large and very easy to use.  So easy, in fact, that I didn't even realize I had changed the eyes when I was de-boxing the doll--it must have happened when she got bumped or something.

Here are her blue eyes:

These eyes are relatively normal, with their feline pupils being the only unusual characteristic.

Here are the heart eyes:

These have turquoise heart pupils inside of larger pink heart irises.  They also have a band of shading across the top of each eye:

These last eyes are the most unusual:

These have cat-like dark pupils surrounded by orange irises with a fire pattern.  The most spooky thing about these eyes is that the area that is usually white (the sclera) is midnight blue:

My doll has a defect in the reflective spot in her left eye, so here's a look at the right eye, too:

Adding to Feisty's facial diversity is the fact that she can wear a mask.  She has small indentations on either side of her head, and these accommodate raised strips on the inside of the mask:

Here she is without the mask (left) and with the mask (right):

The mask fits on very easily and doesn't seem prone to falling off.  I can't say I really like the way this particular mask looks (too much like clown makeup for my taste) but I love the idea, the design seems solid, and it would be really fun to swap in masks from some of the other Inner Monster sets.

Here's the mask with all of the eye options:

Feisty's dress is a sleeveless tank mini dress with plastic accents.  The main body of the dress has a print of the (upside-down...) Mocking Heart Trio against a blue background:

The waist of the dress is accented with two layers of transparent vinyl ruffles--one red and one yellow.  

The printed part of the dress has a sweetheart neckline, but then a black fishnet extension connects this area to a tight vinyl collar:

Underneath the dress, Feisty has a transparent peach-colored plastic torso with a visible purple skeleton:

The plastic torso splits along the seam and comes off pretty easily:

The underlying skeleton is made out of bendable vinyl and reminds me of Skelita Calaveras (although it's not the same mold):

The skeleton has four holes in it that look like gunshot wounds.  These are for the placement of the emotion charms:

Emotionally empty.

You can put an assortment of charms into the holes, and then re-attach the plastic torso, like this:

However, if you put the big lacy heart charm in the correct anatomical location (upper left), the torso doesn't fit back on over it...even if you rotate it around so it's sideways.

Two sizes too big.

In fact, it's hard to see in this picture, but one of the connection points on my doll's torso doesn't link together very well even when there are no charms on the skeleton at all.  This makes the torso fall off a bit too easily.  

Failed connection.

Feisty's articulation is similar to other Monster High dolls, but not identical.  For example, this doll's head can only spin around, it doesn't lift up or down at all.  Furthermore, she looks upwards as her head turns to the side:

Feisty's limb articulation is the same as traditional Monster High dolls, but her plastic torso prevents certain poses.  For example, she can't lean too far backwards without dropping some pieces:

Of course this issue can be resolved by removing the torso:

She can do front-to-back splits perfectly, but extreme side-to-side splits cause her legs to pop off.

Feisty's legs pop off on purpose, though.  In fact, her whole body can be completely disassembled:

She comes apart at the knees,  elbows and wrists too.

This makes it easier to photograph the dripping heart pattern that's on her arms and legs:

Her body parts are interchangeable with all of the Create-A-Monster dolls I own.  Here she is mixed up with pieces from the Blob Girl:

Feisty has two large, rectangular holes on the back of her head that were a bit of a mystery to me at first:

They look like wing holes...but that can't be right.

They're actually for holding the wig in place, much like the peg-and-hole design of Liv doll wigs.

The wig has two clear pegs at the back that fit into these holes.

This wig isn't as bad as some of the older Create-A-Monster wigs, but it's not great, either.  Mine came out of the box with a crimp from the packaging, and this will probably have to be boiled out.

Also, the wig sheds a lot:

I'm never very happy with wigged doll bangs, but these are short and uneven.  There's also a patch of hair next to the left side of Feisty's face that seems to be permanently scraggly.

A somewhat amusing problem with the wig is that it can interfere with the brain button mechanism and cause the eyes to get stuck mid-transition:

This reminds me of my Tangkou doll, Loli.

I thought that this might have been an isolated incident, but I took the wig off, put it back on again, and then tried to switch the eyes...and it happened again.  

This doesn't happen every time, but it's fairly common.  It can be fixed by just mashing on the button until the eyes drop down (or taking off the wig).

The wig works with the mask, which is nice...I guess:

But the clear vinyl wig cap blocks the area where the sunglasses are supposed to rest, so the doll can't wear the wig and the glasses at the same time:

...well, ok, I did get the glasses on once, but they popped off a few seconds after I took this picture.

Incidentally, the glasses work fine with the mask:

There are a lot of combinations to try with this doll, so I'll just show you a few of the things I came up with.  First, here is the Fangtastic Love arrangement, with the heart eyes and the spider legs: 

And here is the Fearfully Feisty persona, with the flaming wings, matching shoes, and fiery cat eyes:

Every time I tried adding the wig to one of my looks...

I discovered that the same look without the wig was much better: 

Not only that, but I think this doll looks better without her dress, too. 

I might even like her best of all without her hard plastic torso:

For fun, I tried to find the most normal combination of features, which is this:

And then I tried to contrast that with the most unusual combination of features...which for me is this:

One last combination I wanted to try was Feisty's fire wings with Avea Trotter.  Avea came with her own wings, but I found them unsatisfying--both because they're small, but also because they fall off too easily.

Avea might need a different top to compliment the orange in these wings, but overall I think she looks pretty amazing:

Bottom line?  I have been on the lookout for Mattel to do some fun new things with Monster High lately.  As I've mentioned several times before, the line is still great, but the sheer number of dolls is starting to create a bit of repetitiveness that detracts from the appeal of any one character.  Avea Trotter and her Freaky Fusion friends were a brilliant addition, and I think this smaller Inner Monster series is a smart move in its own way.

The addition of interchangeable eyes is great.  The internal mechanism is much better than the temporary tattoo customization of the earlier Design Lab dolls.  It's easy to change the eyes, the mechanism seems durable, the exposed brains are hysterical, and the creative potential for future releases is vast.  I especially like that this feature was added without taking too much away from the head articulation of this doll...and her head is still completely removable and interchangeable with other Create-A-Monster dolls.

The backpack style accessories are also really fun and well-designed.  They are easy to put on the doll, stay on well, and they add a ton of character.  The articulated spider legs are especially unique...if only there were eight of them.  The other dolls in the Inner Monster series have peacock wings, bat wings, octopus legs (!!!), and curly vines and leaves.  I'd love to have them all.

The mask is yet another creative addition.  It gives the option of unusual makeup, but avoids the alienation that can come from extremes like this.  The masks are easy to take on and off, and they seem to stay in place.  I don't like the decorations on this particular doll's mask, but I love the idea in general, and some of the other masks look great.  There are even extra masks in the outfit accessory packs.

This doll would have been fun enough for me if she'd just come with the three features I mentioned above: the eyes, the wings, and the mask.  I certainly didn't need the wig, and I almost didn't need the dress, either...but it's pretty funky and I'm sure I will use it.  The removable torso and all of the emotion charms border on overkill.  They're not bad, but they don't add a lot to the play value of the doll, and they aren't as well conceived as the other details.  My doll's plastic torso falls off a lot, and the charms only fit in certain locations. 

Still, I certainly don't want to blame Mattel for trying too hard.  Overall this is a very fun, creative doll that makes me want to see (and play with!) the whole series.  She offers a lot of eerie surprises and unusual play options for her price.