I own 23 Monster High Dolls by accident

It's not as if I wanted to own 23 Monster High dolls for any particular reason, but after the first few, you start collecting them. It started innocently enough with a Draculara I got at Aldi's for about $8. Maybe it was $9. I had no idea what was about at the time. Just that the dolls were cute, different, certainly not common Barbie fodder. Then there was the Skulltimate Roller Maze Frankie Stein. Then perhaps I understood better when they showed some of the animated specials on Nickelodeon.

The gist behind Monster High is that all of the teen student body at the school are modern-day children of classic horror film monsters. And an underlying theme is that we should accept each other and ourselves, flaws and all. Sort of an anti-bullying idea there.

Then I saw the cat-girls, I mean Were Cats. I'll stick with "cat girls." And there's plenty of them. Somehow I managed to get Persephone and Meowlody (twins) at We B Toys when they still had them, but getting the 3 pack Fearleading set would prove impossible, as I refuse to pay extortion for them.

Next was a Venus McFlytrap in a swimsuit from an early set of those, hers being the best of the ones I saw. Only later I find out there's 2 versions of her according to the eyeshadow. One is pink, the other is green - being more desirable for collectors as it matches the on-box illustration. How do people find things like this out? (The McFly part of her name is a nod to the Back to the Future films.)

Out of the sets produced so far, I have 3 from the Scaris collection, with Clawdeen, Catrine DeMew (A Walmart exclusive and yes, a cat-girl), and Jinafire Long, daughter of the Chinese Dragon.

There's been some from other releases I kinda wanted, but I waited for sales and then they ended up selling out. Oh well.

The Wolf family has the most representation among the dolls produced, with 3 sisters and 1 brother, and mind you the boy dolls from Monster High are super hard to find most of the time. Of those I have Dance Class Howleen (younger sister), and Clawdia, the older sister. She wears glasses! I've been thinking of getting another Howleen at some point.

I have 2 Catty Noirs, one in her singing idol outfit and one in her Scaremester outfit. For that matter I have Jinafire in a Scaremester variety, too. I feel the creators of the CG animated specials missed out on a great opportunity to tell Catty Noir's story and show her in concert. Maybe I'm used to idol anime to think that. Oh well.

I have 3 Toralei dolls. Those include Field Trip, Coffin Bean, and Ghoul Sports (she plays soccer). Toralei was one of the earliest dolls produced, so Toralei in the original outfit fetches high prices anymore. There's also fashion packs for the dolls but I've not seen one lately. There's a fashion pack for her appearance in Scaris, which has yet to be released on DVD along with its 15 minute short feature. I had tried to get the Power Ghoul version of her at Target, but due to how Target stocks the shelves (or so I've read) she was always sold out. And if you went online, you'd see them there at rip-off prices. But the ones I have now, I have a short hair, pony tail, and long hair Toralei.

For Freaky Fusion, I have the Cleolei variant. There's one other of Toralei and Scara Screams but I prefer the one I have.

Elissabat is from the same set as Clawdia, the "Frights Camera Action!" special. She was another Aldi's markdown.

There's the Kmart exclusive 2 set, Rochelle Goyle and Catrine DeMew.

There's the Sweet Screams Frankie, the only Target Exclusive I managed to get on sale. She was the cutest of the bunch, so I'm glad with that.

And finally, a rarity I found at Big Lots - Draculara in what looks like a 60s inspired fashion for "Aren't these shoes just a Scream?" Cleo de Nile completes the pair, but to find either one at this point is kinda special.

So why did I collect these? Well, if Sailor Moon items or other anime figures were decently priced like they used to be, I'd have more of that instead. It's just that these dolls are freaky and cool at the same time. Sometimes you can't explain why you like something. And if you want to make fun of an adult toy collector, well then you have problems. My bills are paid and screw you for hating for no reason other than you're trying to make yourself feel superior when you're actually just jealous of other people being happy. Find the thing you like and collect it, just leave me alone. It's not like it's hurting you any.