Put up your dukes.

The girls fight over just about everything any other sisters would fight over - shoes, toys, the usual - but there is one thing they fight about that just blows my mind.  Not so much what they are fighting about, but the depth and frequency of these arguments is just unreal.  I'm not joking - they are fighting over things that are not real.  Allow me to enlighten you.  A cartoon comes on, say Strawberry Shortcake.  Right away, before the theme song even starts, the blonde will shout out "I'm Strawberry Shortcake!"  The brunette, rage building in her little sparkle nail polished fists, shouts back "No!  I'M Strawberry Shortcake!  You are the blueberry girl!", and the gloves come off.  They yell at each other, disputing the other's right to claim imaginary beingness or whatever this would be, and start circling.  Shouting, crying, yelling.  If the argument is unresolved verbally, which is always the case, they move to round two - blows.  Apparently, besides shouting it out, the only other way to claim which cartoon friend you get to "be" is to touch them on the TV.  Yes.  So now, each girl simultaneously realizes that round two has commenced (was there a bell?) and both children lunge at the TV, pushing each other out of the way to keep their hand on the character whose persona they wish to assume.  Kicking, biting, karate, the whole bit.  "No!  I'm touching Strawberry Shortcake, I'm her!"  "No, your hand is on Lemon girl!  I am Strawberry Shortcake!"  It continues like this for a while, and normally when the girls fight and it gets physical I'll step in, but I just can't believe they are fighting over which imaginary character they will be, so I watch confused and let it unfold.  It just doesn't make any sense to me, can't they both be Strawberry Shortcake?  And what does "being" Strawberry Shortcake even mean?  We don't have any costumes to match these characters, so it's not an outfit they are fighting over, and as far as I knew, they were just going to sit and watch the show - will there be a reenactment later that I didn't know about?  I am stumped.  As I consider all possibilities for what the root of this intense fighting could really be, negotiations have begun.  "Ok, fine, you can be Strawberry Shortcake, but I get to be Plum Pudding and the kitty."  "Fine, but I get the Strawberry car, too."  "Alright, but you have to let me borrow it to drive to the cafe."  "Ok."  Both girls wipe the blood off of their faces (not really, this is just for dramatic effect, of course no one is really bleeding) and go back to the couch, sit next to each other and watch the rest of the show.  That's it.  They don't do anything that would indicate that one of them is "being" any of the characters, they just sit there and enjoy the show.  Um, what just happened?