vacuousdoll

girls are now trying

  • she/her

sometimes i write. trans lesbian age 27. i go by Maya


Over the past few years, a growing number of witches have adopted the practice of giving their dolls servants of their own. These typically take the form of “mini dolls,” a smaller doll that contains only the barest glimmer of consciousness or that is entirely inanimate. The custom is thought to channel a doll’s repressed ire toward its mistress into a scapegoat, thereby decreasing the (already low) chance that it will blossom into witchhood. On a more innocuous level, the presence of a mini doll is said to reduce a normal doll’s stress level, and provide it with a sense of companionship in absence of its witch or sister dolls.

In autumn of last year, the Greater Coven of the Endless Library commissioned a small team of witches to conduct a study on the efficacy of mini dolls, along with their place in doll culture more broadly. The members of the study provided a group of dolls from a variety of backgrounds with mini dolls, then observed and interviewed them every month for the duration of the year, paying particular attention to changes in the participants’ attitudes toward other residents of their manors. The dolls’ witches were only interviewed when necessary. After compiling the data from the study, the following points of interest were observed:

  1. Upward of 90 percent of participants stated that the mini dolls they had been given were no different than themselves, insisting that the mini dolls were “just another doll,” albeit ones of unusually small sizes.
  2. By the end of the study, the mental faculties of every mini doll increased in complexity. This trend was observed even in those that had been devoid of consciousness at the outset of the study. While not every mini doll achieved full dollhood, they all at least gained the ability to mutter “awawawa” when prompted. An investigation into the emotional resonances of each mini doll revealed that even those that had “less complex” minds could produce a few key emotional signatures (most often Stillness, Awe, and Loneliness).
  3. Contrary to expectations, the majority of participating dolls treated their mini dolls as equals, exhibiting sisterly bonds with them. The dolls that diverged from this tendency had strained relationships with their witches and/or were the products of involuntary dollification procedures. Generally, dolls of this category verbally and physically abused their mini dolls, sometimes to disturbing levels.* The research team hypothesizes that the problem dolls’ abusive behavior was the product of their mini dolls, whose presences nurtured a seed of resentment within their caretakers.
  4. Two of the participants became witches during the course of the study. One of these witch-dolls devoured its former mistress, while the other formed a partnership with her witch.
  5. Dolls that had been converted from angels were initially convinced that their mini dolls were shards of Divine Purpose, but most dismissed this notion a few months into the study.
  6. Only about 30 percent of the participants reported that the presence of a mini doll lowered their day-to-day feelings of stress. In fact, about 20 percent of dolls in the study said that their levels of stress had risen since taking on a mini doll, citing feelings of responsibility toward their smaller counterparts. The remaining 50 percent of the participants could not accurately define “stress.”
  7. 100 percent of dolls broke out into tears when the possibility of taking away their mini doll at the conclusion of the study was suggested.

The results of the study cast doubt on the efficacy of mini-dolls in improving doll mood and behavior. That being said, given how adorable mini-dolls are, it cannot be conclusively stated that they have no place in a coven.

*The mini dolls that had come under the care of abusive dolls were given the option to leave the arrangement at the conclusion of the study. When this choice was presented, however, the research team discovered that a few of these dynamics had actually been negotiated between doll and mini doll in secret. Consequently, some of the mini dolls refused to leave.