So: back to The Shelf.

Some days you do the best you can just to keep it all afloat. Gladdy and I settled down into a hard-working routine--me trying to finish my e-book project, and her trying to unravel the alethiometer prophecy, such as it was (next up: tea leaves).

( A truly harrowing experience, let me tell you )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, mail, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Mood: time for breakfast
Current Music: Whitesnake - Is This Love

Unfortunately, The Littlest Edward did not have them.

"I can never--never--even look her--in the eye agaaaaain!" he wailed, heaving his dry, tearless sparklepire sobs into the Easter grass.

( BAD! NO BELLA! )

Tags: dolls, lord of the rings, my little pony, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight
Current Music: Garbage - It's All Over But The Crying

I can sympathize with Galadriel a lot these days. We're both worried about the future, and if I had a Mirror to look into, I'd be peering into it half the day, probably. But the Mirror was stubbornly refusing to give her anything more specific than "a darkened room" and vague colors; even Lyra's alethiometer was refusing to give her anything but the same symbols over and over again. But she was ever more convinced that two needle-stops at "hourglass" had to mean death.

( NO! STOP IT! NO BABBLING! THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY! OH MY GOD! )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Aqualung - Strange And Beautiful (I'll Put A Spell On You)

It's always a three-ring circus here at The Shelf. ( The rooster is but a creature of myth and legend now )

Tags: chez jones, dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, pirates of the caribbean, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Mood: complacent
Current Music: Cake - Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps

So, when last we left The Shelf, Faramir Two's day of reckoning had finally come, and... it had not gone well. We sat around waiting for the other shoe to drop (particularly me, waiting to see if I was going to have to take another sword to the cheek for him), but actually... ( Read more... )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, pirates of the caribbean, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Mood: sleepy

Hey, remember the Secret Life of Dolls? Yeah.

So Bella was baking her cranky little heart out in an Edward(s)-free zone, and yet our problems were far from solved. (I did manage to raid our pantry for supplies, and if you were to ask me, "Wait, how do you use real-people ingredients to make plastic doll food?," I would reply, "LOOK! OVER THERE! TEEN HEARTTHROB OF YOUR CHOICE!" just before I ran away.) ( In which Faramir's doom is at hand )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, jane eyre, lord of the rings, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, toys, twilight
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: U2 - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me

Re: the SDCC exclusive Tonner Edward variant: I think my problem here isn't OMG IT'S A TWILIGHT DOLL I MUST HAVE IT; it's that I love incorporating stuff into the Secret Life stories. And "stuff" often gets expensive, although not always--some of the best bits have been small reader gifts (The Littlest Cowboy Hat, for example), or stuff I found around the house (the dessert fork for pitching the ponies' grass), or old toys from my closet (the ponies themselves). I mean, there are dolls I want for myself that I haven't bought because I couldn't justify the cost (even crazy-fantastic bargains) by thinking of a way to incorporate them--but I see something that makes me go HOLY SHIT I HAVE TO PUT THAT IN THE STORY and it's like my brain just shuts down. I mean, I saw Super Special Exclusive Legolas with Cloak on eBay and fought for that thing to the $40 death AND STILL GOT IT FOR HALF WHAT IT USUALLY GOES FOR, SUCKAAAAAS. It's kind of my equivalent of "SQUIRREL!"

But I am trying to talk myself down off the Gratuitous Edward Variant ledge because: Alice. I have to have Alice. I can't not have Alice. I have to bring Alice's awesome to The Shelf. I can't blow this kind of money on a character I already have in a slightly different shirt and afford an Alice. So there's that. I... I'll have to see a picture of the variant Edward, I guess. *hangs head*

Oh, by the way, we have a reader question about dolls--where to find good sites for accessories for 4" figures?

Oh, and my mother has found someone who wants to buy the plates. Not the mugs yet, though.

( Linkspam )

Tags: 9, bad ideas, bond, conventions, deaths, dolls, empire, harry potter, iron man, john carter of mars, lord of the rings, mission impossible, movies, nightmare on elm street, pirates of the caribbean, pixar, runaways, shutter island, sparkle motion, spider-man, the daily show, the hurt locker, the lone ranger, the time traveler's wife, tonner, true blood, tv, twilight, vampires, wank, x-men, zombies
Current Mood: a touch sunburnt
Current Music: Joan Jett - I Hate Myself For Loving You

Won't be around much tomorrow--it's the birthday of a friend of mine, so we're going out to a movie and then meeting other friends for dinner. Have gotten a number of tiny things for Secret Life via readers--they'll be fun to incorporate, but I'm not sure when the next installment will go up. Looks like it's going to be a busy week.

Question from my mother: does anyone out here sell Lia Sophia jewelry? Her old pusher's moved away, and she needs a new hookup.

Also, I have worn out the beloved paperback of Jane Eyre that I have had since I was thirteen, and I need a new copy. I want a hardback this time --I heard something about an annotated version, but can't find one. Can anyone recommend a good edition?

(Man, I don't know that I'd actually sat down and read the whole thing through since I was in college, and it is such a different book to me now. Jane always seemed meek and retiring, in a virtuous heroine kind of way--in comparison to me as a modern, unrestrained teenager. Now that 1) I'm older and 2) I've spent a lot of time studying the Victorian era, it's amazing to realize what a rebel Jane actually is, in her own controlled way. I also thought I'd go back and reread something I thought was so swoonworthy when I was thirteen and find it kind of silly now, but--damn, it is so much more fiery than I remembered. Maybe because I know more about the Victorian era now, I don't know. And for the first time, I actually understood why the hell the stuff about Lowood and the Rivers cousins was in there, in terms of what it says about Jane's moral character, how it was formed, and how that plays out. [Of course, when I was thirteen, I was all just MOAR ROCHESTER.] I'm gonna have to get the miniseries they made a couple of years back now.)

( Linkspam )

Tags: 9, alice in wonderland, book discussion, books, clash of the titans, conventions, crime, deaths, dolls, harry potter, jane eyre, lord of the rings, music, my little pony, narnia, pixar, public enemies, sparkle motion, spider-man, tonner, toys, true blood, tv, twilight
Current Mood: tired

You're going to laugh at me so hard, but I actually thought that getting a Littlest Bella would solve some of The Littlest Edward's problems. ( I think Eowyn was dying a little inside )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, toys, twilight

What I've learned is that some dolls can entertain themselves and others can't. White Arwen didn't come with any accessories, but she's working on that banner for Aragorn and she likes to read and sometimes she just sings to herself. She's got inner resources, you know? And Galadriel's interested in divination and prophecy, for example. Besides, if she just wants to meditate, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to question that. All the guys plus some of the girls have weapons, so they have lots of fun war-gaming. Really, I don't keep up with half the stuff the Middle-earthers do--so as long as they stay out of my hair and don't set things on fire, I don't really care. And as far as that goes, I've got Serafina to supervise Lyra--they've been spending more time outside lately, particularly since Lyra's got summer clothes now. In fact, you know, I still don't know exactly what Dark Materials witches do, but Serafina has been inspecting our weeds with great interest (she's currently trying to convince me to let one of the pokeweeds grow to maturity so she can have the berries), not to mention the rowan tree over the fence. And of course Legolas was right at home in the wooded gully out behind the house, which meant that Faramir Two (very naturally) accompanied everyone.

( I'M DYING OUT HERE )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, toys, twilight
Current Mood: blah

Previously on Secret Life:


I ducked out into the hall and found them rolling around in a Tasmanian Devil ball of fury. They're both crazy-super strong/fast or whatever, but given that Tonner Edward has a good ten inches on The Littlest Edward, I would have put the odds in his favor. But here's the thing: ( It's feeding time )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight
Current Music: Garbage - Boys Wanna Fight

Finally, the long-awaited, long-bitched-for day: NECA finally released their Bella figure, and I finally placed my order.

"It's so COLD here. Is it always like this?"




( Think you can handle it? )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight
Current Music: Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You

Nothing could live up to the previous installment, so I'm not even going to try. Instead, I'll just catch you up on what happened before The Littlest Bella arrived:

( What IS the evolutionary advantage of the pompadour? )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, my little pony, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight
Current Mood: breakfast for the human

I will leave behind the Middle-earthers (and the annoyerist fugitives) for a moment, if only so that I get to say, "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" and mean it literally. So. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, The Littlest Edward was throwing himself into the care and keeping of his equine wards. He had begun to use his journal to chart their development--how much grass each one ate, how often they exercised, how high they jumped, which ones were fastest, which one's turn it was to be groomed. He had even trained them to race across the room while he timed them; they would run to him when he whistled. He had begun sketching portraits of them, and I suspect that if he ever finds any My Little Pony stickers for his scrapbook, I'll never get him out of it again. Two things I gathered from all this: 1) Edward had become a very responsible, fully self-controlled young sparklepire; 2) this was a guy who really, really needed to get laid. I mean, eventually--we were probably in for years of Repressed Virgin Issues, so all the better that we get started now, I figured.

And while I was pondering this, something finally occurred to The Littlest Edward:

( Edward, I'm going to ask you a question, and the answer better be no )

Tags: dolls, lord of the rings, my little pony, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, toys, twilight
Current Mood: accomplished

Bargain shopping in my family is a spectator sport. I am the kind of person who, if you gave me a really great birthday present and then told me that you'd gotten it for 80% off, would not think you were cheap. I would think you were AWESOME, and then I would ask who the hell was having such a magnificent sale. So when I saw Lyra's school uniform on eBay for the princely sum of $14, I had to buy it. And the thing is, you can't buy the outfit separately--you can only buy it on the doll ($119), which doesn't even come with a Pan, and why are you going to fool with that? So, for whatever reason, someone kept the Lyra doll, probably to repaint or redress it, and sold off the school dress, which I then snapped up.

"I EN'T GOIN'!"

( Two new arrivals, and neither of them are a Bella )

Tags: bad cat, dolls, ebay, his dark materials, lord of the rings, pirates of the caribbean, shopping, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Music: Faders - No Sleep Tonight

I feel really crappy, probably because the weather's been hideous for several days now, but it's sunny now, so here's an early linkspam so I can go recharge my epidermal solar panels.

(Re: Yesterday's Secret Life: There are a ton of awesome reader-made icons sprinkled through the comments; The Littlest Hat is courtesy of MaggieCat; and TLE is not technically napping [sparklepires don't sleep, if you will recall], so he has actually stopped for a Q-tip snack break, if you look closely. Also: Let's have a big hand for Squeakers the Cat-Toy Stunt Mouse.)

( Linkspam )

Tags: awards, bad ideas, books, deaths, disney, dracula, harry potter, inception, internet, lord of the rings, lost, movies, pixar, salvador dali, seasonal affective disorder, sparkle motion, star trek, terminator, the da vinci code, the princess and the frog, the road, the secret life of dolls, tori amos, true blood, tv, twilight, twitter, vampires, wanted, x-men, zombies

Took a weekend off from posting--broke my six- or seven-month streak, but what're you gonna do. It was a nice, quiet, rainy weekend, and I probably needed the break. I might do some linkspam tonight; I might not. We'll see.

So. In the middle of Tonner Edward pointing out to me what, exactly, vampires are, Purple Arwen came running in (and she never goes anywhere near Tonner Edward, so I knew it was serious):

( In which a momentous decision is made )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, my little pony, pirates of the caribbean, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Mood: busy

So. The last time we were here, treachery had just been revealed:

"Are you going to take away my ponies now?"

( You just go on and fulfill that prophecy, then )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, my little pony, pirates of the caribbean, poe, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing

So. You wanted to know where Anna is; it's time to tell you. Ever since Tonner Edward arrived and she flipped out like ninja, I've had her incarcerated in a lovely little handmade cabinet I keep in the bathroom (for lack of anywhere else to put it). I can't remember if it was just handmade or if it was specifically handmade for me, but I remember that it was my favorite present on my ninth birthday, for the simple reason that it is awesome. (It has secret compartments! Like, really hard to find ones!)

( Now, I don't think he ever intended to bite her for real )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, my little pony, pirates of the caribbean, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Chicane - Love on the Run

So. Back to Eowyn and Faramir One for a bit. The last time we saw them--well, let's just say that they finally understood each other. Eowyn seemed to have finally set aside the starstruck flailing and had recovered her sense of self, and poor Faramir--it did his daddy issues him so much good just to have someone choose him for once. They looked happy together, and happier with themselves together, and none were so happy as they in the history of ever as they walked hand-in-hand in the sunlit glades of my sister's room. Except that I think Arwen and Aragorn were supposed to be super-existentially happy in Lórien together or something. And I know Beren and Lúthien were supposed to be The Greated Love That Ever Loved. And didn't Melian and Thingol, like, stand in the woods and stare at each other for two hundred years or something, and the Teleri were like YO THING, WE GOT TO GO, THE ISLAND'S HERE and he was all like mmmtrance and then he and Melian finally woke up or whatever and he was like, "S'up, let's go," and the Teleri were all like, "Well, we don't want to leave now, we just got comfortable," and that's why everyone stayed in Beleriand? So what I'm saying is, no one not dating an elf was ever so happy as Eowyn and Faramir. Whatever.

( It’s only inferior if you don’t like crumbs )

Tags: dolls, his dark materials, lord of the rings, pirates of the caribbean, sparkle motion, the secret life of dolls, twilight, van helsing
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: 'Til Tuesday - Voices Carry