More ennui

 Sorry I haven’t posted in days hahahah. Trying hard to get through the last few days of summer job before school starts again… 

It’s been rough because I’ve been out of school for 10 years, and I’m planning on trying to get into a program with pretty limited seats, so I’ll really have to lock in. I don’t even know if I even know how to study. I’ve been a burnt out gifted kid since, oh, age 10 or so…

In kinda exciting news, I grabbed a used thinkpad for schoolwork and I’m planning on getting it all set up with a hot pink skin and fun stickers and… Linux???! We’ll see how I like Mint, it seems pretty nice and easy! But I for sure don’t want another windows machine in my life and I’m sick of the iPhone/iPad life under the weight of Apple’s whole planned obsolescence schtick… so maybe this is the way forward?

Arjava is finished???!

 Well, until I decide to sand and dye her again— because while this time was better, it still not 100% there, you know?

Still pretty happy with how dramatic this version of Arjava is. Really want to make Arjava her own profile page— dunno why but I wanna make a real edgy something for her. Spinny skull gifs, flames, everything.

Welp

 When Waifu leaves and I get the kitchen cleaned up, it’s back to the dye mines. Very nervous, have been really looking forward to this for the past week.

The sublime triumph of using a square pan for tamagoyaki

 

Today my life has been changed forever.

Green onion and pickled radish onigiri, ginger apple hijiki, and… what’s that? The world’s most beautiful tamagoyaki? Yes, yes indeed! You see, we went down the housewares aisle at Mitsuwa when we went last Sunday, and we picked up their cheapest square tamagoyaki pan.

When I first started making bento, I pored over as much YouTube as I could, and saw all these bento wives cooking the whole meal in the little square pan… and later, I saw them using these square pans to make the perfect rolled omelettes/tamagoyaki. I was like, “there’s no way it makes that big of a difference.”

Today I made the most beautiful tamagoyaki of my life, with coarse mustard and nori flakes. I wish I’d gotten pictures of this thing unsliced and fresh out of the pan. Jesus Christ. It looked like it was crossed between a perfect restaurant pancake and a bar of solid gold.

I’m not ever going back to making tamagoyaki in round pans.

Cool things coming

Sundae doesn’t know how she feels about her new nose yet… and I plan to do some troubleshooting on that tonight.

 Also putting together a doll dyeing tutorial soon that will just sorta compile all the weird tips and tricks I’ve heard over the years.

I’ll also be testing a new dyeing method I was told about, which involves these big mesh laundry bags, and seeing if it works!

I don’t know, it makes me sad that a lot of the tutorials I followed when I got in the hobby are either long gone or hosted on Den of Angels, which I know isn’t super accessible place for people. So even though my tutorials won’t have any new or revolutionary information in them, I hope they’re at least helpful to someone out there who can’t access DoA and doesn’t want to dig through YouTube or social media posts.

Miso pork tenderloin bento

Here’s what waifu has today! We went to Mitsuwa (a Japanese supermarket) yesterday so bentos this week are gonna be a lot of fun. For today, I made her egg musubi, nori bell peppers in sesame oil, and miso pork tenderloin with kumquat garnish! We had the miso pork last night and it was way better than the last time I did it.

Studs for Lychee

 

Dunno how I feel about these studs on his ear yet!

I also got Arjava’s dye stripped off this evening! Let’s go! I got lots of really good tips and advice for my next dye attempt… hopefully it’ll go alright!

So there’s a few little stains here and there… maybe that won’t be such a bad thing. I know it’s unavoidable to some extent… Nothing tests my ocd tendencies quite like dyeing a doll, unfortunately.

Eyes finished

So after I got Aurora’s feet’s back on, I took off her safety eyes (much easier than my usual attempts— no shrapnel!) and started stuffing her a little to see how everything looks.

And here she is this morning with her eyes installed and head stuffed!

Close-up on her eyes, was going for a twinkly galaxy look to match with the bonnet I hope to sew for her…

Penguin surgery

 Quick mod on Aurora to get her looking a bit more like a penguin. Just took me an evening at work! Would have probably been an hour or so if I’d brought pins lol.

Up next? I need to strip Arjava’s dye tomorrow but I may take the morning to make Aurora some new eyes… and maybe a tongue?? I’m split on whether I want to keep her hair tuft, it’s a bad sensory input for me but it’s a very cute part of the design.

Chicken stew bento

Not my prettiest work but oh well. Chicken stew, Mac salad, and some very squished rice balls.

Aurora is here!

A friend bought a set of BaB clothes and it came with an interesting little pink penguin, so they reached out to me to see if I wanted it. 

My answer? Kabsshhshshswujehsh YES PLEASE LOOK HOW PINK.

She’s here now; it must have been an exhausting journey for her, but now she gets plenty of “spa days” here with me.

I plan to put her in absolutely giant lolita bonnets and shorten her legs a little to make her look more penguiny. New eyes are a must too with any of my BaB, I am undecided but leaning towards purple or blue…

Either way, what an absolute gem! Thank you, Citrusstar! 💖

We’ll see

Really scratched up but hopefully this dyes evenly

Mediterranean bento

 In happier news, I’m much more pleased with the bento I made Waifu this morning. Apple mint couscous, chicken skewers with pomegranate molasses, and a sesame carrot salad.

Recipes pending on the apple mint couscous and carrot salad, just need to figure out how much of everything to actually use past eyeballing everything (my most toxic trait…)

I’m sad about Arjava but feel grateful I have someone I love to cook for so much. Gonna spend today getting high and cleaning I think, the apartment is definitely a mess…

Frustrated, defeated

 So— yesterday I had the day off and worked on Arjava basically all day.

I wasn’t happy with the work I did on her.

Now, she’s pretty in these pictures but irl she was very streaky all over her legs and the faceup was just, well, lacking. And when I tried to use my last little bit of msc I somehow managed to cause a big patchy spot in the dye. So I said, we’ll, fuck it, let’s start over.

I reordered supplies (which caused me physical pain, let me tell you) and I’m thinking about what I want to do different this time:

1. No marathonning. We dye one day, blush in small batches on proceeding days. Faceup is not part of the equation frankly.

2. Get the dye BOILING and have it boiling for an hour. Yes. An hour. The dye was a lot smoother after an hour.

3. Sand Arjava’s chest piece better beforehand?? See, I feel like if the piece dyes even a little less splotchily I’ll be happy….

Things I did really well:

1. Arjava’s lips looked really nice.

2. Skin tone— The reddish tone of her skin is really unexpectedly nice, albeit unnatural looking, but… it feels different from ffxiv Arjava, who was more golden. I like also how dark she got. 

3. I made cute nipples and pubic hair! Blushing is a really fun medium. 

But honestly, I don’t think I want to dye another doll after Arjava. My heart just cannot take it lmao.

Eyeball workshopping

 Made some follow-me eyes today! I like them because I hate positioning eyes, and I can make a doll glance any direction I want this way.

Okuni got this heterochromia set and a wig change today. I was never happy with her faceup but I feel the vibe of it a bit more with this wig!

Here’s a little video of how they work. You can really make them any way you like by gluing a half dome cabochon to a drawing or print of a drawing. I’d like to experiment with maybe making eyes that have patterns or other weird stuff inside.

Finally, Yuzuka got a different outfit put on and I put in the eyes I made for her forever ago too.

Blech I close at work tonight and I don’t wanna go

I did a bad thing

Welp, I’ll probably take Akira off of my wishlist now, as Hisui is so similar. ^_^;; I’ll really enjoy painting her, I think. 

 

Dang it

 Wish I hadn’t seen the beautiful unpainted MSD Hisui up on mercari rn. She’s not quite one that made the “you must only ever have 30 bjd” list but maybe she should’ve considering how impossible the three on my wishlist are to find… Sigh. 

I talk a mean game about not needing any more dolls but then I’m so weak to every weird old Volks doll that pops up. Well, I’ll set aside some money every week, and if she’s still there I may get her. Maybe. Agh…

Well, in Arjava news, she’s just waiting to have her dye stripped now. I’m going to stop by the drugstore on the way home and grab some acetone and get the old color scrubbed off, probably excluding her faceplate and any other parts that are dyed perfectly…

Dye day will probably be Tuesday morning when Waifu is out of the house, so she doesn’t have to smell all that (the smell really bothers her)

I also started brainstorming an outfit for Arjava and I really can’t wait. I got a rabbit pelt for it! And we may need more fur along the way too if I decide she needs big fluffy gyaru legwarmers (spoiler: she will)

That’s more like it

 

So I really got going this morning on Arjava and I think the bones of the mod are done. I still for sure need to smooth the chest down with a finer grit and buff out any weird little imperfections but overall I’m very happy and excited with how she’s coming along. 

Starting to imagine this character in her mid 20’s as well and that’s wonderful—because I had previously played the character in FFXIV as a 17 year old in a coming-of-age sort of story— and now she’s all grown up and is cool and confident and knows what she’s about.

I had a revulsion to playing the character in any sexual situations, for obvious reasons! And I struggled with the character being fetishized by other players against my consent, so I feel like I doubled down on the character being the most nonsexual entity ever as a kneejerk— but I think a 20-something-year old Arjava is sexually adventurous, self-assured, and proud of her body. 

So excited to get brainstorming about this character again, and how she feels outside of the setting she originally came from!! I’m excited to fill in her profile on the doll page now.

Scary…

 But, progress. This is not my first chest mod so I know this is the part where it’s scariest, but when you start to see the new breast shape coming together it’s all magic from there.

It also feels kinda therapeutic to sand the chest off dolls when I’ve had so much trouble getting the stars to align for my own top surgery, but maybe that’s a story for another time…

Alas, Arjava…

 I kept thinking at work— Is sanding Arjava’s chest down to flat the thing I need to do to make me happier with her? (The character is SUPER flat-chested so the DT body wasn’t exactly perfect) 

And if it is… Why not get sanding? Dye is easily redoable. And I didn’t like a lot of her dye job anyhow. So, like… I wanted to redo that anyhow.it’s probably gonna be a long time till she’s back together but maybe I’ll be in a better place with the rest of my collection by then too.

So this is a little bittersweet but… exciting too. Arjava will finally look like Arjava when I’m done with her. And that’s great! I think she’ll be amazing to have around when she looks like herself. I have so many ideas for her!!

Hyperfixation

 So, I’ve been in a state of hyperfixation as I’ve been working on the website. I mean that very literally. I’ve sort of forgotten I need to take my meds and just generally haven’t been taking good care of myself. I haven’t forgotten to eat, at least, thankfully! Testosterone had my back on that. ^_^

But yeah I’m super high and I think I broke out of that hyperfixated state finally! It feels nice, I got showered and ready for work way ahead of time and even refilled my pill calendar! I’m sitting at my desk here with Odette now and it feels good.

Like, I missed Odette so much. The office had kind of gotten taken over by… Well, my late cat Aubrey had an unidentified pancreatic problem and the office quickly became the “litter boxes and sad cat in pain” room. (Maybe it’s good I went into that hyperfixation state? To deal with that grief? Who knows)

I badly want to get back to work on faceups again. Odette has her default still and while there’s nothing wrong with her default face up, I just want to personalize her a bit after all this time. I don’t know if she’ll be first— I’m suffering with a shitty bout of decision paralysis there— but maybe I should just paint whoever feels good on the day I finally sit down and get to work. If I had the chance today and didn’t have to work today but Odette would be my choice today, if I could.

Maybeeee tomorrow before work if I get a nice early start and do dishes tonight?! Yeah like I could work on her anddddd someone else with the same colors in their face as her (that’s the hard part >_<). I like to paint two heads in one session because I can paint the other one while the first one dries, and then just alternate from there. 

Shigehide? ARJAVA, who has sat blank on my desk for literal YEARS at this point? Okay like let me her her this is hilarious she’s so neglected 

Arjava is a very old character at this point and I think I’m just going to let this character have a hypersexualized rokku gyaru phase ok. Don’t shame me. This is for Arjava, not me.

BJD and Memory

 I took Momiji out earlier to adjust her eyes and put a different wig on her, and I started wondering how old her faceup was. Or, more specifically, where I was in life when I did it. Because, well, I remember being very proud of it, no matter how rough it looks to my eyes now. But I can’t remember for the life of me where I lived, or who I was dating, what job I was at, or anything like that.

It’s bittersweet, I think, in a way. I’ve had her for 18 years now. And I can’t remember a lot of the joyful moments I’ve had with her. I know that’s just part of getting older, and that it’s impossible to remember everything that’s happened in 18 years, but I wish I could remember all these little pinpoints of light in a life that’s otherwise been pretty gloomy.

Maybe now that I’m blogging, I can keep that joy recorded and revisit these posts when I feel nostalgic. Maybe this whole effort will be useful after all.

I guess I feel a little weird about how hyper fixated I am on making this thing. It feels great, having a thing I can pour so much into, where I can record all these little bits of information that mean something to me (even if the jargon on my doll page is probably pretty incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t a Volks weirdo) And… well, I’ve always just lurked on the internet. I’ve rarely had any real presence. It feels like I’m finally making a space for myself. A home? I guess. A home I can take with me anywhere sounds nice.

Uh, anyway look how cute Miharu is.

SUCCESS!

 A little bit of magic eraser sponge did the trick, and Biscuit’s… nose dust is now scrubbed off! 

Phew, though, I was sweating, I was so scared of damaging her faceup with the sponge. I never have luck with stuff like that. I usually end up having to scrub off the whole thing because I scuff everything good up while trying to remove the bad stuff.

I’m slowly getting photos snapped of all the dolls for their icons for the main site… just gotta plug through it and not say “oh but I need to give her a new faceup first and fix her blablabla”… ‘cause the icons aren’t permanent, I can update them whenever I want!

I need to look into a few things today:

-How in the flaming fuck does one get favicons to show up?! I don’t know if it’s just because I’m using safari or what. Yeah, should probably check other browsers…

-Dusting doll clothes. I don’t know if maybe it’s a matter of just lintrolling really patiently or I should just hand wash. But there’s so much dust in my doll area…

-Remember those tiny pixel doll collection rectangles from people’s sigs on DOA? (Remember sigs??!) Let’s figure those out for the front page…

-What if oekaki board?!

I’d also like to get a few all-over “whirlwinds” of cleaning in but I have no energy. Maybe after a nap… 

I hate how fast my days off always seem to go down the drain, and then it’s back to my miserable retail job again. 17 days left there, 24 days left till school starts and I can get to work on starting my life over. I’m glad I’ll have the site put together before everything starts, because my priorities are going to really have to shift if I want to be successful. 

Grateful to be able to throw myself into hobbies for the time being though…

Look at this creature, I love her so much. Still really want to replace her nose and feet with yellow elbow and maybe give her a new mouth though. We’ll see! Supplies for that project are on the way, and then I’m on a no-buy for August (scawwy uwu;;)