New Doll, Going [to her] Old School: Monster High G3 Scary Sweet Birthday Cupid Asteria by Mattel

Monster High G3 has had some unexpected picks for secondary characters to bring back in its media.

Take Mouscedes King in the cartoon--she's a ghoul who really skirts the "monster" concept of the franchise and never seemed to be much of a contender for revival, given that she was from the end of G1 where all movie-debut characters had no incorporation into future media. Finnegan Wake is also an unexpected return in the cartoon, though a welcome and sensible one given his creation as a depiction of wheelchair use. These are dolls I'd be game to see again, but thus far, the actual toyline cast picks for G3 have all been pretty unsurprising mainstays. Abbey, Venus, Catty, the werecat twins, Spectra, Twyla, Toralei, and Jinafire all had a healthy run of dolls previously, and while some G3 doll characters never got into G2, they were all frequent enough in G1 where they debuted. I wasn't expecting G3 to surprise me too much in the doll line because its freaky factor is still lower than G1 and its cast has been predictable and fully composed of characters who were in G1's frequent fliers...

...and then along comes Cupid?!?! 

Cupid, a character who had only one Monster High doll before getting shunted off to another franchise where she made a bit more sense and had a longer toy/story tenure before that franchise was canned and abandoned?!?!?!

What?!?!?

This is likely to be the most out-of-left-field doll surprise of 2025, and it's definitely the weirdest cast pick for G3 thus far. This is the only G3 doll so far whose G1 counterpart had only one edition (while MH Cupid did have two releases with subtle manufacturing changes, it's the same design). Even Mouscedes wouldn't hold that honor if she made it to the G3 doll line, because she had two dolls in the Boo York, Boo York line! (A G3 Finnegan Wake would be remaking a G1 one-off doll, as would a G3 Headmistress Bloodgood, though Bloodgood was a significantly more prominent character throughout G1.)  

I never thought I would ever be writing this review, that such a doll would exist. Cupid returning to Monster High? Yes, I wanted that, on record. I previously said here that it would be a great Valentine "alumni" collector doll in the G1 style. But a Monster High G3 Cupid? No f***ing shot. Pun intended. And ending up with a Cupid review each of these three blog years? Get outta heeeere.

Putting Cupid back in MH is a fascinating move, and it scans as fan-service. Mattel has to know how sought-after the first MH Cupid became despite having two runs, so a new MH Cupid is a major gift. What's even more fascinating is that she's very visibly shaped by the more antique and rosy look she adopted during her time in the EAH franchise. It's a super neat evolution from monster to cherub to monster again where each step has built on the last. 

Canonically, G3 Cupid has been rebooted. Her name is changed: "Cupid Asteria" rather than "Chariclo Arganthone ('C.A.') Cupid". (This makes it awkward to universally refer to all three versions of the character under one name. I've had to tag my blog posts featuring her with the label "Mattel's Highschool Cupid"!) So this is a different person from the Cupid who debuted in G1 Monster High and moved to Ever After High. I wouldn't have put it past a franchise-traveling character to end up hopping continuities so she entered a reboot universe but remembers the older stories she was in, but the name change indicates she wasn't being thought of that way. It's just a full reboot of the character. Still, she is visibly a product of both previous designs on a meta level.

As mentioned, Cupid's two franchise incarnations have been reviewed previously in my previous two years of blogging: Monster High G1, the big grail, in 2023, and a selection from Ever After High (her Thronecoming edition) in 2024. It would have been wise to get EAH signature Cupid when the getting was good, but she priced out of my zone of interest by the time Asteria came around. I'll get the EAH sig if there's ever a good deal on her complete, but it wasn't currently worth it to bring her in for this review. Maybe she'll work out for a topic next February.

Now, for context of where this G3 doll comes from. Cupid Asteria is featuring within the Scary Sweet Birthday G3 line, which is a transparent remake of G1's Sweet 1600 line...and that was the line where the OG Monster High Cupid featured. Both lines are focused on Draculaura's birthday, which is Valentine's Day, explaining how Cupid got roped into the scene either time. The full narrative of Sweet 1600 and Cupid's original Monster High role are found in the G1 special Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love? The original G1 Sweet 1600 line has previously been referenced with the designs of Monster Ball Draculaura and Clawdeen, while Scary Sweet Birthday brings in Cupid and Frankie as cast members to match the Sweet 1600 cast, and naturally includes Draculaura again, since neither line could exist without her. Cleo in SSB does not correspond to a Sweet 1600 doll, as Cleo was not in that line. Cleo didn't correspond to a Sweet 1600 doll in the Monster Ball line, either! 

I really like SSB Frankie too; they're possibly one of my favorite Frankies from G3, which means admittedly little with a character who's had such a good run. I want to get them on the blog very soon.

Because of the narrative theming of Valentine's Day and the obvious opportunity to release the lovey cherub character in February, I was stunned to learn Mattel was dropping Scary Sweet Birthday in early summer. Horrible planning, and I could have made something festive of it had the release been timely. I had Living Dead Dolls to cover my Valentine's celebration this year, but still disappointing.

There was a significant deflation in excitement the moment we saw early stock photos of Cupid boxed up vs. the stock photos which revealed the design to the world. In her stock photos, she had a piled poodle puff of curls, her skin looked ivory-toned, and her cage belt was gold. In her first boxed stock photo, her hair was a shapeless frizz, her skin was pink, and so was her cage belt. Discouraging. It also seemed that Frankie's prosthetic leg was going to be their typical silver instead of pink like in the stock photos, when the pink tied their SSB look together so much better.

This was discouraging, but not defeating. I got Cupid as soon as I could...find her at retail price. I wasn't paying $50 for her in the brief period where scalpers got early copies. The early bird gets scammed.

Having the real thing in the box? Well, the colors are all as shown in the first stock photos!

It does seem like the first boxed photos of the dolls were actually more prototypical and unrepresentative than the display stock photos, which seems counterintuitive...but Cupid's cage belt and Frankie's prosthetic match the presentation stock photos rather than the boxed ones. I think it's probably the case that Cupid's skin was the same color the whole time but the boxed photo made it look pinker...but her hair is still shapeless.

The Scary Sweet Birthday boxes are functionally blister packs with a glued window that tears off the card backing, like the slim-box releases. It's odd seeing it on a deluxe doll. The doll line's text logo forms Draculaura's fangs at the corners, which is very clever, and features art of the four dolls. Cupid's new G3 name is put on a card insert in the accessory tray of the doll, which interestingly lets it be taken out for decoration or collage or scrapbooking. 

I wonder if Cupid's name was changed the way it was because it made sense for the name everyone already called her to just be her first name? I was fine with it before. I think it's kind of cool to have a character who goes by her last name, and it makes a little more sense for Cupid to be a surname since it's the name of the god who adopted her in the first incarnations of the characters. He wouldn't make her first name his own Roman name, would he? We don't know right now what G3's take on Cupid's story is, though. Maybe she's not Eros's daughter. Maybe she's not adopted and undefined. Maybe she is a monster and has a known monster type this time. Maybe they just designed her without writing for her. Narrative media for MH is currently dead, so she's left vague at time of writing. It took me forever to realize, but the name "Cupid Asteria" does have one bit of logic to it--it keeps the initials "C.A.", calling back to the character's abbreviated name in G1/EAH.

The back of the box shows the four dolls again, and has no character-specific blurb, even the very minimal ones G3 has used thus far. We don't learn anything about Cupid here.

I don't think Frankie's art does them justice. The doll looks great, but I wouldn't buy them based on the art.

The side has a blurb about the doll line itself--midnight on February 14, you're invited to celebrate Draculaura's birthday (dolls sold in June!)

The invitation says the locale is the "boo-tique hotel"...which can't be coincidental because that's the name of a new playset sold separately, releasing this summer!

One of the play features is supposedly a "hidden bed where boogeymonsters can sleep", which I'm guessing means the bed can have a monster on its surface and Twyla or whoever can be hidden under it? I'm curious how the tricks all work, but I have little need or space for such a playset!

Here's the backdrop of the box uncovered.

Here's Cupid unboxed.

There's considerably less goth to this doll than in her first stint at Monster High. 

G3 Cupid has more colors, less contrast, and more sweet vintage fantasy to her theme, borrowing quite a lot from Ever After High. She does take back a few unnatural touches from her first doll ever, and is still in the Monster High art style...and she also has her own distinguishing touches. G3 Cupid features a lot of primary Valentine red and accents of light blue beyond her eyes, plus a new motif of candy hearts. All of this is encapsulated by her headband!

G1 Cupid tried and disappointed with the idea of shaping a twist into a heart accent on her head. It just didn't work at that size. EAH Cupid replaced that with a heart accent on a headband, and G3 follows suit, showing off the new colors and visual symbol for this design. The candy hearts make sense for a Valentine character, and while they're kitschy and perhaps a little too cutesy for some, I appreciate the G3 takes on older characters introducing new motifs and trying things. And candy hearts with messages on them are old, older than most would think--1901 was the debut of the classic candy as we know it.

The headband came attached with elastics and plastic tags, but it stays on fine without them and tucks into tied-off sections of hair on the sides.

While Mattel didn't mislead us with the coloration of the dolls, those stock photos did us dirty with Cupid's hair, because the doll just doesn't match. Her curls are not nearly as tidy nor tight as the stock photo, giving her more of a 1980s loose triangle of curls falling behind her, not a rococo puff above the head.

I wasn't asking for Honey Swamp-level springiness, and she's not depicted as a Black character who would earn that hair texture, but surely Mattel could have given more of a crap about making her manufactured hairstyle match the intended design? We can see the artwork on the box, and this ain't it.

The hair is all coming from a single high ponytail tie. 

I actually don't mind the silhouette too much. It scans as a bigger, longer take on the G1 hairstyle and certainly works for Cupid on those grounds. I guess I'd prefer if it wasn't tied behind her ears, but her ears showing makes sense with the headband, and the hair being arranged like this makes it easier to work with. It doesn't get in the way of the wings, nor does it get tangled in the earrings. I'm still very interested in seeing what curling manually can do for this ghoul's hair shape, because I don't want to settle for ineptitude.

The hair itself seems to be saran, and is a pale powder pink with off-white streaks. The pink is much lighter than her G1/EAH signature coloring, though she's worn it this pale in EAH before:

Birthday Ball EAH Cupid.

Cupid has bangs rooted in a row at the front and rolled under into a tube, held in place with gel.

Tube bangs like this were previously done in Monster High for Freak du Chic Twyla. That doll had a similar hair texture to Cupid, and most of her copies seemed to have disappointing topknot curls, but I was lucky enough to find one whose hair looked great...and then I ruined her. Both MH and EAH Cupid also had bangs, but they were curved out and not fully rolled.

Cupid's face sculpt is closer to her Monster High original than her EAH model, since it's narrower and more defined.

G1 Cupid reused Ghoulia's head mold, giving it a sharper look than any of her later dolls, but G3 Cupid is no circle-face like EAH. Her skintone here is a pale shimmery off-white tone that has some slight greyish or cream tones depending on the lighting. It's definitely an unnatural nonhuman tone, but it's a tamer, prettier look than the stark white of G1.

Her face paint is really gorgeous. It feels vintage and colorful in a fun way, even if it's not so spooky. Her eyebrows are pink with light strokes to texture them, and her eyes are the same blue-green as ever. She has eyelashes with white strokes highlighting them and red eyeshadow surrounded by shading in purple and grey, with red heart markings dotting around her eyes. Her eye reflections are hearts and arrows.

The red hearts are not fully opaque over the layers they fall on top of, and the purple shading breaks up into dots, but I think these eyes are so beautifully painted all the same. 

Cupid's cheeks are blushed a lot with pink, and her lips are more like EAH in the way the eerie heart design in the middle is on a pink backdrop to make her lips and expression look less harsh. I wish it was just the red part of the lipstick.

Cupid's head is stamped with the year 2025, which is maybe a little surprising, because there's often more lead time on when a mold is finalized, and it's not uncommon for stamp years to precede the first release of the dolls who use X or Y mold.

Cupid's earrings are symmetrical, depicting red hearts with bony structures on them. They're hanging from chains of hearts which look like vertebrae stacked up like that--I hope that was intentional!

I'm glad to see something grim about this doll, but it's not a whole lot in comparison to G1.

Around her neck, Cupid has a black choker shaped like a heart-tipped arrow bent in a ring, with a candy heart seeming to depict a clasp. This spins around the neck easily like a lot of doll necklaces and often needs realigning.

I'm glad the candy hearts keep it simple by just having kiss-hug "XO" text on them instead of cheesy messages. It's probably too unconventional for Monster High, but it'd be really fun to see a lip makeup for Cupid that's literally an kiss X shape in the middle of her mouth.

The Cupid Asteria wings mimic the silhouette of the original Monster High wings, which the original EAH wings also did. The wings are partially heart-shaped and the ends curl upward. These do appear to be bone from the color and the vague ribs stretching across them, but the anatomical element is downplayed in favor of the rococo fancy aesthetic with heart-shaped swirls and flourishes. It's a fusion of the two previous Cupids' wing looks, but the monster side is subtler. 

The wings are larger than the MH pair...and look much less wretched. That's not really a compliment.

The only EAH pair of Cupid wings I have are feathery, but are cast and painted to look like marble or ivory and have an ornamental laurel accent that further makes them look decorative.

The signature Cupid EAH wing shape can be seen in the Birthday Ball photo above, which had the same mold--they were feathered wings in the same silhouette as G1 MH, but without the spine in the middle.

It's kind of ironic, given how much less organic the G3 wings look, that this is the first time Mattel's highschool Cupid's wings are unambiguously a part of her! In G1 Monster High and Ever After High, Cupid's wings were always attached to a neck collar that clipped on, making it ambiguous whether they were meant to be real or if they were literally a costume piece. In EAH, her wings changed often enough that they could be fake, and she was the adopted daughter of Eros, so it made sense if she had to cosplay the role a bit...but the Monster High doll preceded the first MH dolls with wings that attached to the body, and no EAH wings were pieces that plugged into the doll; they were all on collars and so it wasn't clear what the deal was in Cupid's case. G3? Wings plug right into the back with two vertical tabs.

If G3 Cupid's still adopted and not naturally a love spirit or deity, then I really gotta know where the wings come from, because these are clearly real.

Cupid's costume has a fair bit going on.

The first piece that can come off is this golden vinyl piece over her chest. It's kind of a harness, or kind of a breastplate? It's shaped like a heart shot through with an arrow and the heart is just a ring, meaning Cupid herself could easily get shot in the heart with an arrow while wearing this. Uh...maybe didn't think that design through. The piece attaches with two loops that pull over her arms from the front, like a reverse backpack.

All of the Scary Sweet Birthday dolls feature a plastic structured cage element to their skirts, but Cupid is the only one whose cage element is inside their skirt, making it function like an old-fashioned crinoline frame to give the skirt volume. The piece just clips around her waist with an opening in the front, and is a fairly rigid springy plastic. This is what it looks like removed. The lines are textured like cord, while the intersections of the lines are heart shapes.

I think it's very appropriate, given her rococo tones, for her to be using the cage functionally for a puffy ballroom silhouette. It's also wider than it is deep, giving it that squared look of the rococo period. The cage does stop Cupid from lowering and extending her arms to hang straight down.

Here's what the doll looks like without the breastplate and cage. I think this declutters things a bit and works pretty well.

The skirt itself is tied on with a black ribbon bow at the front of the waist. There was a time I'd resent this, but I've gotten so much better with bows that I can work it now.

The skirt is all sheer, with white for the body, printed with metallic gold hearts, and pink ruffle trim on the hem.

Under the skirt and harness and cage, Cupid is wearing a romper. The sleeves are sheer pink matching the skirt trim, and pull down the arm in a nice way, longer on the outside, and there are ribbon straps in black as well. The romper fabric is printed satin with candy hearts including Skullette hearts and the legs are wide and ruffled at the ends. The piece also has cutouts at the waist.

I don't adore the cut of the costume, but I do appreciate how much primary red is here. It's a fun new color for Cupid, and I like it just as much as I did on Valentine Howliday Draculaura.

Cupid's arms are the same color as the rest of her with no fade to black, and she has a bracelet on each wrist. On her right, she has a red piece shaped like another bent arrow.

On her right, she has a golden two-looped bracelet with a miniature crossbow tipped with a candy-heart arrow. This is a translation of her G1 crossbow ring!

It's up to you whether this is a functional mini-bow or just jewelry on either doll. EAH Cupid was the only one unambiguously armed, with a "full-size" (still unrealistically small) archery bow as an accessory. I like the G3 piece. It's not likely to get lost like the G1 ring was since Asteria's hand needs to come out for it to be removed, and its size and shape give it a tough edge. 

Cupid's legs bring back the strange limb fade of the G1 character, where her skin transitions into lacy black as if there is no boundary between stockings and skin. As usual, the doll's primary skintone is sprayed onto the lower legs, cast in the color the legs fade into. G3 Cupid's lace pattern features hearts with archer's bows and ribbon bows mixed in, while G1 Cupid's lace design was more netted with hearts mixed in. The heart/bow images on G3 Cupid's legs are quite similar to the images on G1 Cupid's skirt, however.

While the skin-fade aspect is underplayed in G3 since it's only on the legs, like G1, the lace pattern is only on the front surface of the legs and does not encircle them. I can see how this design for Cupid wouldn't work with the arms having the same effect, because she's overall brighter and cheerier...though Mattel certainly could have made it easier by changing some more accents to black and tipping the color palette more in the goth range. 

G3 Cupid's color fade offers another difference, in that the black part of her legs is actually translucent rather than solid, making the fade even stranger.

All G3 characters with a limb fade have it over a translucent plastic--Lagoona fading to translucent turquoise and Spectra fading to translucent clear. G3 Spectra is thus far the only G3 doll with a fade effect on her arms and legs alike. 

Cupid is wearing golden platform sandals with red candy hearts on the straps, heart cord formations at the back of the foot, Cupid bows for heels, and Greek columns for the platforms themselves.

The use of clear Classical imagery is also owed more to Ever After High. While G1's dress might have a tiny Greek thing with the shaping of the black wrapped element to the bodice, EAH made the girl's rooting in Classical mythology much clearer. The G1 doll could be purely based on the modern Valentine holiday, but EAH took Cupid's established parentage and ran with it.

Cupid uses the shorter body model that G3 Twyla has, with a standard torso sculpt but shorter legs.

It would have been nice if it was the curvier Draculaura body mold too, but this is nice. It makes sense for a Valentine cherub to be a little smaller! Both previous Cupid incarnations were standard height. 

Cupid's purse is shaped like a quiver, which is a brilliant and obvious concept. The handle is also shaped like a bow!

The ends of the implied arrows are emerging from the right side, and they look a bit better poking behind Cupid, meaning this purse is probably best hung on her left wrist or elbow. It fits easier onto her right wrist, though, thanks to the differences in the bracelets and how far it slides up her arm on either side. It's an awkward shape to hang from her elbow if you take the bracelets out and slide it onto her arm, so it does look a bit better hanging from her wrists.

The purse opens on folded plastic hinges and clicks closed.

Cupid has a makeup palette with a clear case and three pans of product matching her colors--though she's not wearing any of the blue makeup straight-up. The purple might be blended from the blue and pink on this palette, though. The pans are shaped like candy hearts and the lid has a Skullette design. The clasp to open the palette also has a finger loop so she can hold it.

The finger loop prevents the palette from fitting into her purse. Otherwise, the shape would be ideal for the bag.

Each of the Scary Sweet Birthday guests also comes with a gift for the birthday ghoul Draculaura, in imitation of Sweet 1600 having a similar gimmick where the dolls had gifts for her there. These are done nicely by having the gift bags packed so the item inside is a surprise for the buyer. Cupid's gift bag is pink with an ornate golden heart and spiderweb sculpt.

The bag is sculpted the same on both sides, but only painted on one.

The gift is inside a plastic sleeve hidden in the bag.

It's a fancy heart-shaped perfume spritzer that looks like a vintage glass piece!

While this is a good gift for Draculaura, it's also a very Cupid gift to give, and I like that the gift reflects the giver as much as it does the recipient. Now I'm more curious about Frankie! I can't wait to see what they got Draculaura (so please don't tell me)!

The bottle has some molded text on it. I can easily see "Love" on top, but the rest is illegible to me.

Cupid comes with a heart-shaped balloon. It's too heavy for her wrist, and the handle isn't tight enough around her fingers. I'm also not sure it makes sense being this translucent. The piece is printed with another heart-and-bow motif like the symbols on the G1 skirt and G3's legs, though I think the balloon graphic is directly copying the G1 skirt.

Cupid also comes with a card for Draculaura, which is made of folded printed cardboard which isn't the best-aligned in print. This card ends up feeling like a Valentine as much as a birthday card, which makes sense--both for Cupid giving it, and for the recipient having to celebrate birthday and Valentine's at the same moment. Holiday birthdays are rough.

That's the G1 wings on the front, of course, covered in stacked hearts over the spine--so those are intended to resemble vertebrae!

The back is similar but also includes Cupid's custom Skullette symbol.

Inside is a message for Draculaura.

I love this brief snippet of writing. "Best witches" is a hilarious piece of monster vernacular but also suits G3 Draculaura because she is a witch, and the X.O.X.O. signoff for Cupid is perfect, tying into the hug and kiss letters being everywhere in her costume. I just wouldn't capitalize "birthday" in this usage.

The last bit of paraphernalia is a cardboard invitation to the party.

Okay, "dressed to the 13s" is also hilarious. I used to find Monster High slang a little cringeworthy, but I've embraced it since as camp, and I'm now finding some of it to be genuinely clever and funny!

Cupid is the first G3 deluxe character debut not to include a pet. Heath Burns didn't get one either, but he was a budget doll and a clear warning sign that boys were going down the drain. It would have been fun to see a pet for a character who never had one, and this is something G3 Catty and Jinafire did do, creating pets for the characters for the first time...but I also don't like the G3 pet art style, so it's no real loss for Cupid not to have one. Could have been a lovebird, though. Just saying.

I was able to work with Cupid having the factory hair she was left with, but I really wanted to see if I could improve it any, so I put her whole head in pipe-cleaner curlers and boiled it.

I was a little surprised how well it worked after worrying I was pulling out and damaging the curls in the pipe-cleaner extraction process!

Her bangs did get loosened and less tidy by the water getting to them, but they're fine. I do appreciate Cupid being able to reach her intended silhouette! This hairstyle is one of her distinguishing factors, so I'm glad to see it done better justice. 

This also may inspire me to chase down Freak du Chic Twyla and get her back in my collection, since I now know I can fix her hair if its curls suck! That Twyla is absolute hell on the aftermarket, so of course I wrecked mine...but this hair success means getting Twyla is not contingent on the shaping of her curls, and I only need one who's got her bracelet, costume, stilts, and socks. (I don't even need her special Dustin; I kept my original one.) I do know Twyla's hair never boiled straight completely, but curling it tighter? I believe in the possibility now! I loved that doll, and I'm itching to see what I could do for her in a proper photoshoot now!

It's fitting that Cupid Asteria was a curling test subject, because her first doll was, too, and was the first doll whose hair I curled. I did not do so very well then, though, and I messed up cutting her hair so short and leaving so little to work with when I found myself disappointed by the hair texture. I'd love another try on a fresh G1 Cupid too, but it feels greedy and irresponsible to seek out such a sought-out doll a second time. I did try re-curling her hair so it looked less choppy and flat and re-reworked her heart twist by using fabric glue in stages to shape the sides, then the top, then putting a pin through the tie at the base and her scalp to keep it in place. 

It's still just too short, though. I got her too early in my second doll era to do fully right by her design.

At the end of the day, it's really hard to buy that Cupid has become a Monster High character again because the spooky edge has been so greatly underplayed.

G3 is a beautiful, fanciful doll, but she's not goth and she's not creepy. G1 Cupid could be menacing, which I loved.

G3's skin is pale and her legs fade and she's got a couple of bony motifs, but the impact of G3 is a whimsical vintage fantasy doll, perhaps just a bit surrealist, while G1 is firmly a horror character. I like both, but I can't say I like G3 more at the end of the day. 

I wasn't compelled to repaint the doll physically, but I think the bare minimum that could help the G3 doll be spookier is a simple repaint to replace the blue hearts on her headband with black, change the lipstick center to black, and add matching red hearts on her cheeks to make her makeup more uncanny and impersonal. It's still a lower-contrast and more ornate design, and keeps the gold coloring, but this has a more eerie bizarre tone with its less friendly coloring and face paint. 

While this looks nice, I did realize one of my issues I could fix with G3 Cupid that didn't involve a repaint. I noticed that her rolled bangs sitting so high on her forehead were making her face look a lot softer, and when I pulled them down more, they hardened her facial expression a bit and brought back the sharper tone I associated with the G1 face. As such, I deliberately boiled out her bangs to relax them and trim them. This was such a big assist in giving Cupid the character I associate with the MH original. Sue me; I like my Cupid a little menacing or cynical. Especially a Monster High rendition of Mattel's character.

With this done, I felt no compulsion to repaint the doll.

I started taking portraits.

I also took her over to oversee the lovebirds that are Frankie and Cleo. I already shared this photo on this Frankie's review.

Cupid's skin looks pinker against a lot of backdrops, but actual pink makes her look pale white.

Here she is in a fancy tableau, hung from fishing line to fly.

And being wistful inside that vase.

And outside on a column surrounded by the flowers.

Valentine's Day is a winter holiday, but gosh, Cupid Asteria suits a springtime aesthetic. MH G1 Cupid is more apt for snow and cold.

Cupid Asteria is not as spooky as Monster High Chariclo Arganthone Cupid, and Mattel's factory production did not hand us the doll we were promised. That hair is a flat-out failure to deliver. But when she's fixed up, she certainly has her charm and is able to walk the line of eerie and sweet in her own way. There is something to be said for G3's presence, too. Her silhouette is grandiose and big with her hair and wings and skirt, and leaves G1 Cupid looking rather modest and slender. 

G1 is still beautiful and striking, but she can feel a little spare in a way...a little less substantial. I think she plays it off as chic, but I really like the idea of bigger more ornate tones for the Cupid character, and G3 rocks it. G3 also outdoes EAH sig on the "presence" factor.

Even if Monster High is no longer quite so spooky, they still land over-the-top tones perfectly.

Here's the full spectrum of my Cupids from spookiest to sweetest. My Thronecoming Cupid is not especially representative of the EAH incarnation because it's not her signature look from that franchise and I repainted her face a little moodier, but you can broadly see where Cupid Asteria is drawing from the two girls on either side of her.

Again, if signature EAH Cupid wasn't horrendously expensive, I'd have gotten her to have a proper full lineup of the character's three debut dolls, but she's just too pricey right now. I don't like the doll enough or find her presence quite valuable enough to buy in on her current prices...I do know the chances of getting a better deal on her are slim, though. It's a shame because this character has such an unusual history and having the three sig dolls in conversation is really illuminating.

Eh, heck with it. Why shouldn't I end up curling all three Cupids I have?

I'd thought about doing this last year when I reviewed Thronecoming, but I concluded the doll was fine with her ponytail. I decided to curl it now, though. The weight of her ponytail was tipping her head backward and making her always look up, not helped by the saddle stand tilting her body back and the doll's head not tilting down much on its joint, so cutting and curling the hair alleviated the issue and lets her head hold a pose better. I think the shaping also brings something extra to the doll and contrasts with the bangs and straight side locks in a fun way, as well as now staying well out of the way of her wings. I did have to end up redoing the black of her lips and cheek dots after they rubbed off, though. I must have used paint then, but it was swiping off now and so I resorted to permanent marker with the second pass. I can go over it with paint once I restock on fine brushes, but I didn't need it that fancy to finish up this review. It's not even this doll's spotlight!

I'd like a darker take on Cupid Asteria, for sure. Now that she's back at Monster High, she ought to look it a little more. I want MH to have attitude and spooky imagery. But I understand why she is the way she is. Cupid had a far longer run in Ever After High and was explored and developed more upon joining that franchise. EAH shaped her more as a character than Monster High. She fit better in that franchise, despite being outside the concepts of either monsters or fairy tales. On a meta level it makes sense that the longer school attendance at EAH shaped the G3 take so much, and if G3 Cupid was the same person as G1 and EAH narratively, of course she'd be so heavily informed by the school she spent more time in. Still, G1 Cupid is a hot item for a reason, and G3 doesn't cater a whole lot to that doll's appeal or demand. I first saw Cupid Asteria and went "Wow, what a great treat for the G1 fans who missed Sweet 1600 Cupid"...but is she really? I wouldn't call her a market substitute. 

Hm. 

I understand that Mattel playline releases are not really the place to try to appeal to nostalgic adult collectors. The target market is current children, so I can forgive this doll for not substituting the best for G1's vibe. But hey...if G3 Catty can get a G1-throwback deluxe edition, maybe G3 Cupid can too and regain her creepy side there. I'll gladly take a new actual-G1 Cupid doll too, of course, but I might be even more interested in seeing G3 take on G1's tone more fully.

No matter how, I do want Cupid Asteria to stay around in Monster High this time. Cupid was the first "guest star" G1 character to never come back to the dolls after her debut edition(s), and this was well before that was the norm for the new characters debuted in specialty doll lines/movie specials (it became the standard starting with Freaky Fusion). I don't want Cupid Asteria to be the spot where that "guest star never returns" phenomenon begins happening in G3. Let her be MH supporting cast this time! It'd be great to see her build a proper Monster High design repertoire (even if still informed by EAH and tamer aesthetics) with future doll releases--at the minimum, I want to see a second standard-release playline doll (not a low-articulation Buried Secrets doll). I'd also like a gothier collector doll comparable to Fang Vote Catty which brings Cupid more toward G1, and I'd love to see the design team take this love-themed character and associate her with a Pride message in the future...if they even can pull off a Pride tribute again. Keep fighting, design team. 

At the same time, I can't deny it would be kind of hilarious if Cupid was a one-off MH doll again...and Mattel rebooted Ever After High and packed Cupid up to ship her off there a second time. That would be a really funny way to bring EAH back, by using G3 Cupid as a foot in the door. I do not sincerely think G3 Cupid is a sign that EAH is coming back, though. I'm just saying...you have an opportunity to harmlessly mess with us, Mattel.

At the moment G3 Cupid was revealed, my money was on her being the Monster High doll of the year in the way signature Venus was for my 2024. But I don't think I feel that way toward Cupid now. Venus came out of the box flawless and needed no work, and her design admirably maintained the attitude of the original doll and changed very little of her design scheme save for very gracefully shifting Venus's demographic representation. I still adore that doll, and I can't wait for her Fearbook release (speaking of factory hair concerns, though...). But Cupid is a design that's a little messier visually and production-wise, and she does lose something of her original doll and speaks to the boundaries of the brand's tone in G3 in a way Venus didn't. Venus seemed like a signal that Monster High could keep things edgy and tough, and it's not like they haven't scraped back some attitude...but Cupid didn't aim for her G1 creepiness in the way I wanted and it feels like maybe the vibe of G1 Cupid crossed a line for G3 in a way that the vibe of G1 Venus didn't. Cupid Asteria, in addition to being flawed, is also just not as culturally important as Welcome Committee Frankie, who may win the MH doll of the year award by sheer virtue of making it here in this moment. I think the Cupid doll is a worthy design who's fascinating in conversation with her other versions. Cupid as a character has a fascinating meta story, transcending two vastly stylistically different franchises under one continuity, then rebooting into her original franchise long afterward, shaped by the character's previous two versions. Merely having this doll is an exciting moment, and I love how odd this character's journey has been. This doll is enjoyable as her own design, too, capturing a pretty, whimsical, and lush Valentine style with a bit of ethereal strangeness. I'll just gladly take a little more of that last part in another edition, please. I think there could be better in store for this character.