Teatime Tangents and Toys: February 2023

One of the more interesting Monster High movies was Freaky Fusion, a story that introduced a (pretty implausibly small) minority of hybrid monster students, and fused eight of its main characters into four bodies. These Freaky Fusion Freaky Fusions dolls were Lagoonafire, the fusion of Lagoona Blue and Jinafire Long...

Mattel stock photo of Lagoonafire.

...Cleolei, the fusion of Cleo de Nile and Toralei Stripe...

Mattel stock photo of Cleolei.

...Dracubecca, the fusion of Draculaura and Robecca Steam...

Mattel stock photo of Dracubecca.

...and Clawvenus, the fusion of Clawdeen Wolf and Venus McFlytrap:

Mattel stock photo of Clawvenus.

These fusion dolls blended body details, fashion senses, color palettes, skintones or finishes, and facial features of the component characters to fun effect, and it must have been a fun character design challenge for the team. I always wondered, however, what could be done to take their designs at a surface level and turn them into cohesive standalone monsters, so I decided to get the three I saw potential in and look them over before transforming them into unified original characters.

Just to note, there's going to be some atypical syntax when referring to the fusions in overview pre-makeover, since each doll represents two simultaneously-conscious people who share a face in a single humanoid body. I refer to the fusion entities in the plural since, as portrayed in the film, both ghouls' consciousnesses are active within each fusion's body and both can "take the wheel" and speak in her own voice, so each body with a portmanteau name is two people at once.

I always enjoyed how the fusions had some logic to them-- they weren't completely random character combos. Lagoonafire combined due to fish and dragons having fins and scales, plus the two characters had opposing elemental affinities. Cats were sacred to ancient Egyptians and were often mummified by them, making the personal bitter rivals of Cleolei into a monstrously harmonious pair. Dracubecca are both long-lived characters with a Victorian fashion influence, and both had elements of gender-blurring in their fashion as well. And Clawvenus were both toothy monsters with edgy fashion senses, with what I'm sure were some unspoken puns about "bark" and maybe even "wolfsbane" in there as well.

The three fusions I thought had potential as interesting standalone characters were Dracubecca, Cleolei, and Clawvenus. Lagoonafire were the only doll I saw in person at Walmart, and I nearly bought them, but now, they just feel like a scaly blue monster to me. If I was inspired enough to make a water dragon doll, they wouldn't be my ideal base for it. Not with mostly-yellow hair.

I ordered bases of each fusion I wanted, with the intention to repaint a little and redress, so getting complete dolls wasn't necessary so long as they had key pieces I wanted. My posts will be more about the transformation than the origin point.

No work in this post, because I think each of the dolls deserves their own, but stay tuned for the rest of DIFFUSION!

[..which you can find here!]

* DIFFUSION part 1: Smiling like Clockwork! (Dracubecca)]

* DIFFUSION part 2: Basking in Ra's Sunlight (Cleolei)

* DIFFUSION part 3 (finale): Bark with Bite! (Clawvenus)