Guest Blogger: Girl Talk

I’ve been in the middle of trying to move and, after the dust cloud I kicked up last night, my brain isn’t working. Luckily, the lovely Cleolinda, who I have squeed over before, has been kind enough to write something for me. I think that after reading this, you’ll want to know more about The Secret Life of Dolls.

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So Elizabeth Swann and Anna Valerious are still on the outs, and while I’m starting to wonder if they even remember what they were fighting about, Elizabeth’s still a bit depressed over it. Even though she was the one who stopped speaking to Anna first. You know how it goes. So I was trying to cheer her up with doll browsing (hey, a girl can look):

“How about a Will Turner? Would you like one of those?”

“Maybe if he were in his pirate clothes,” she said dully.

“They do make one of those, I’m pretty sure–“

Lyra popped up over Elizabeth’s shoulder. “That scarf is a girly scarf.”

“Well, that’s just how guys dressed back… now.”

“In tights?”

She sighed. “Sometimes Will was prettier than I was.”

“Do you ever miss fancy clothes?” I asked, pointing to Court Gown Elizabeth Swann.

“Hell no. Well… maybe. But the last time I wore that dress I fell off a battlement. That’s not a dress for people who like breathing. I’m much happier in pants.“

“I like your swash. Someday I want to have a swash.”

“Who’s that in purple?”

“That’s, uh… Catwoman?“

“I wanna be a catwoman.”

Elizabeth pointed to Catwoman’s precipitous neckline: “Is that–can you actually see her articulation?”

“Uh… maybe when you’re older, Lyra.”

Serafina fluttered down to the file cabinet as I hurriedly scrolled up the page. “That Tia Dalma, is she a good witch? I have no patience with bad witches.”

(I closed the tab I had up with Bellatrix very quietly.)

“Can she see the future?” Galadriel called from over on the printer table (she was fiddling with Lyra’s little alethiometer). “I would be interested in another colleague!”

“She can,” said Elizabeth, “but she’s a very, very strange… I don’t even know what she is. Or what that stuff in her teeth is, either.”

“Octopus ink?”

“OH GROSS!” But she laughed pretty hard, which was heartening.

I scrolled up some more, and Lyra pointed to the Lara Croft doll. “Is she an explorer? My Uncle Asriel’s an explorer. He’s up North right now fighting Tartars, I bet he fights Samoyeds too. Do you think Samoyeds’ daemons are dogs? Are they named after the dog or are the dogs named after them? That lady’s name is kind of like mine. Does she explore anywhere cold? Because she’s gonna need furs if–“

“Well, I’m definitely I’m cutting down on the sugar in your diet.”

“Perhaps she, like me, does not feel cold.”

“She looks plenty cold to me,” Elizabeth said crisply. “As if it were, perhaps, nippy outside.”

And there, next to Lara Croft on the page was, of course, Edward Dollen.

Elizabeth lowered her voice: “You’re not seriously considering getting one of those still, are you?”

“I don’t know, I mean… you know how much I like Tonners, and the Bella is super cute, and you can’t get a Bella without an Edward because she would never, ever shut up, and–things settled down with The Littlest Edward, didn’t they? It’s all about keeping the sparklepires properly fed–“

“You realize that Anna would actually kill you, right? She’d never stop pushing Bella off the shelf at the very least. Does mind-reading come standard with those things? Because I don’t want her putting that tinhat back on–” She shook her head anxiously: “It’s just not good for her, having vampires around.”

“We’ll work something out,” I said uneasily. Because… well, Elizabeth’s right. I’m definitely going to have to try to get her and Anna back together, that’s for sure, because if I ever do add any more sparklepires to my collection–and you know how I feel about future Alice Dollens–I’m going to need Elizabeth there as a… calming influence, let’s say.

Clearly, I’m going to have to get out the rum.

You can find more by Cleolinda Jones on LiveJournal or @cleolinda on Twitter.