Boggled by Mystixx, discovery of the BEST FUTURE SALE ITEM EVER for dollhouse kitchen accessories, and Halloween Barbie

Faced with downright wintry weather (high in the mid-80s) and second-guessing my decision to forego the chocolate-skinned articulated body of Baby Phat Chandra, I hied myself to the newish Burlington at Arcadia Crossing to see if it had a toy section. It did -- one demonstrating much more permanence than at Arizona Mills -- and while there were no Chandras, there were some other oddities, including Mystixx Grimm girls.

Somehow, I had failed on my prior encounter with Mystixx Zombies to grasp that they all are two-faced.

Definitely a head-turner.

I also hadn't realized that, whether Zombies, Vampires, or Grimms, it's always the same four characters: Kalani, Talin, Azra, and Siva. Bird-lady is Siva the Royal Raven, looking like she's ready to go shopping with EAH's Raven Queen.

Kalani as snake-lady is quite pretty in a Berkeley-ite way. She probably runs a vegan restaurant and does macrame. (I looked up her Vampire profile, and she is canonically a vegetarian. So there. Azra is the sporty one; Siva is Raven Queen; and Talin is Barbie.)

Kalani can't decide if she wants Birkenstocks or maybe some of Cleo de Nile's accessories.

But of course, Mystixx have minimal articulation, so owning one would involve a life-long quest for a similarly tinted Monster High body. At $12.99, it doesn't seem like a good risk, especially without knowing how the weird double-faced head handles head transplants. (Also -- would this not freak out Hayden? Yes, it would. Being able to sit on the sofa and have simultaneous conversations with people in the living room and kitchen would be odd.)

Here's Talin as a Mystixx Vampire. The official site shows that skirt is genuinely shorter in front... what?

Kinky Oz cosplay?

Arcadia Crossing also has a Ross, which had achieved a level of picked-over in which there was no point in burrowing through the backs of the shelves because the products were all arranged at the front edge with nothing behind them. I assume some restocking for Christmas is in the future.

Ross is the place to see what Yasmin has been up to during the Bratz hiatus.

Yasmin's super-power is her raw conviction at color coordination.

Bratz had an action-figure phase! I'm more-or-less in favor of this concept -- super-heroes (excuse me, Action Heroez) for girls. Cloe's super-power is speed. Shira's is flight. Yasmin's is... her super-twirl? Couldn't she have telekinesis or strength or something?

While the big lips and the prosthetic feet turn me off, I have to hand it to Bratz that the leader of the pack is the Middle Eastern (or, at least, ambiguously brown) girl, not the blonde, and there are multiple characters of color with different skin tones. This contrasts mightily with. . . oh, say. . . the Barbie section at Fry's Foods.

Your one-stop desperate-for-birthday-party-present-shopping destination.

Why a grocery store even has a toy section is one of the mysteries of Arizona, though I can vouch that the really big Fry's Marketplace up on Tatum and Shea has a section comparable to Target. This Fry's was a scuzzy little store the last time I visited it, probably seven years ago. It has since been remodeled, which means an earth-tone color scheme, dim lighting, and signage that looks like the "spring" skin in Microsoft Office. And it got a very small, very picked-over toy section.

Speaking of picked-over, there is also a Target in Arcadia Crossing, reached by hiking across vast acres of concrete where nobody had the sense to plant some shade trees, much less to put shallow eateries or shops along the endless Target frontage. This is why it had to be cool out for me to bother coming here.

Here's the entire Ever After High section, which I'd swear was half an aisle last time I was in my local Target.

Hail to the Raven Queen! Because you don't have much choice.

The gaps in the shelves were so pervasive that I felt like I was at a Canadian Target, where they have severe supply chain problems. The towel section -- ordinarily a warm and fuzzy place full of reassurance about the inevitability of order, provided one only has enough coordinating towels -- had gaps.

Target also had one of the most amazing things ever, which I look forward to seeing at Tuesday Morning for half-off in a few months. L'il Woodzeez, the Calico Critters knock-off that I thought used to be a Walmart thing, have evolved to the point of having commerce, and the accessories are incredible.

General store: fruit and candy jars and plates, oh my!

Bakery: not just pastries, but baking equipment!

Although the playsets are roughly 1:18 in a wide-bottomed way, the accessories appear to range randomly from 1:18 to 1:12 to 1:6.

At $20.99 each, I'm not ready to buy for disassembly, especially as I've done nothing with any of my houses for weeks. Get it down to $12, and we're cooking with gas. So, probably, is the mole or beaver who's doing the baking. (No, wait, the baking family are squirrels. The beavers run the laundry. Honeysuckle Hollow is entirely populated with entrepreneurial blue-collar animals with strict population control to not exceed the replacement rate.)

She's a zombie who loves fashion!

Hiding behind a pole, possibly from shame at how much she resembles the emerging-market knock-off Barbies at TRU Express, was Target-exclusive Happy Halloween Barbie. She appears to have started to go to the party as Draculaura, perhaps hoping to get the adulation of being the trendier Mattel line.