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;;)