#longlongpost

[firespirited]

me doing a doll unboxing:

Part 1: cuts all tabs, removes tabs with tiffy’s plier roll method, strips doll naked immediately, looks for stains & seams, tests joints, test head movement, heats head, removes head, examines makeup in detail, examines hair line, examines hair fibre and rooting density, looks inside of head with a flashlight for rooting sealing method (heated, glued, woven), pulls on small hidden strand to see if it requires sealing in, removes or modifies head anchor, replaces head, (if the clothes don’t require colour-fasting) dresses doll, comments on how easy or not it is to redress, shoes on, attempts to make it stand alone,

Part 2: comments on futher mods for flexibility and items to handle with care and how to safely display. I’ll pose it next to a standard barbie and take head measurements. I’ll explain which parts of packaging are recyclable if you have recycling in your area and don’t want to keep it, but also I’ll cut it into elements to keep and elements to upcycle into scrapbooking materials, containers for sticky/glittery crafting and acrylic paint pallettes.

Part 3: Finally I’m ready to gush at length about the design and choices of each and every element (including the packaging) and how well it fits the retail price. Customization and rebodying options, then talk about the rest of the line. If possible i’ll probably research the sculptors, design team and illustrator and talk about other work they’ve done. We’ll talk about tie in media and character. We’ll talk about inflation and why this 35€ doll is worth the same as that really good 25€ doll from ten years ago  ... if the doll is Krystal Bailey, Barbie MTM Curvy dancer or Wheelchair Daya and doesn’t arrive broken.

...If the doll is Barbie Fashionistas 147 aka Sev (and many other painful memories), I will verbally rip you to shreds for each and every bad design choice, every corner cut, every bungled opportunity for representation. I will walk people through how to rebody her, tidy the face, seal it, potentially rehair and link clothing options that are actually nice. I will compare her to past dolls you made and make you look terrible. I will tell the world what to look for in a doll to make it worth it and why that money’s better spent on previous lines.

I don’t gush til part 3 or I buy secondhand and factor in repair time as money invested because the burn of stained, wonky, dotty, gritty, glueseeping, can’t sit dolls makes me feel spat on. Dog knows I’ve paid for more than retail to import dolls and a lot of not really fair trades back when. I’d buy more new, if the new releases didn’t keep disappointing.

[light-of-judgment]

Zombie AU starter for @oflockhearted

Under the cut because #longlongpost

The fall from grace that accompanied the God of Magic’s defeat at the hands of the Returners was likely sweet relief for the world at large, but it was also relief for the fallen God himself. Defeat meant death and death meant rest. He fell. His tower fell. He was buried underneath the monument to nothingness that had been the symbol of his rage-filled existence and the world was able to breathe.

Residents from the town of Thamasa (descendants of the Magi, who’d built the town 1000 years prior to escape persecution for their magical abilities) partook in a ceremony to seal the tomb of the God, drawing defensive glyphs and performing rites to ensure that he would never awaken again in fear that Kefka truly had become an immortal Divine. Kefka’s defeat signified the disappearance of magic from this world, though the Magi weren’t going to take chances with it. The rest of the people, however, were able to sleep much easier at night knowing he was gone. 

The disappearance of magic may have seemed a good sign to many, especially those that liked to recount the War of the Magic and feared the potential for history to repeat itself. They were loud in their declarations after Kefka’s defeat, as though the existence of a Mad God outweighed the proven good that magic had brought to society. Conveniently, they never spoke of how Kefka had obtained the power in the first place. No one ever did. And overtime, he became a reference parents made to frighten their children or a name uttered to make a scary story that much more threatening. Over generations, he was forgotten, as was the need for magic at all.

What the disappearance of magic actually meant was that he was healing. All of the magic left in the world concentrated into him and slowly, for the world had been leeched dry in his destruction, grew over time while he rested.

Time passed, as it always does, and the world had healed again. The lands were fertile, the water was pure, the people were happy. Magic flourished, though by now the Magi were long gone and had long since stopped bestowing knowledge about their practices to their family. Why would they when there was no magic? That didn’t save them when the day came that someone was looking for it.

The Shinra Power Company of Midgar, a place no one on Kefka’s world would have heard of, had recently built a device capable to bringing them to other worlds. At the head of this project, a man named Hojo, who’s lust for power through experimentation seemed to have no equal. The purpose (and justification) to building such a thing would give them access to nearly limitless resource and possibility for knowledge and they’d begun sending excavation teams to different lands where the data showed the potential was great. This particular world seemed to be overflowing with energy. Hojo wanted the source. 

The team was able to reach the area with the greatest concentration of energy fairly quickly though one or two members hesitated at the sight of the warning glyphs. No one knew what they’d uncover and so, it was decided that they would retrieve the glyphs as well. With that, they began to dig. When they uncovered the pale man wrapped in the massive wings, the sensors they carried shorted out and they knew he was the source of the energy. He looked damaged but untouched by age. He was warm. It was as though he was simply resting. They carried him back to the lab and delivered him to the scientist, who immediately began to run tests on him to figure out exactly what he was and what he was capable of. His body was washed and examined and his blood was drawn. Samples were taken from his nails, hair, and wings. He was locked in a cage like an animal.

Kefka barely remembered any of that happening but he did have flashes of it. He vaguely recalled the feeling of being dragged out from the earth and being bathed in hot water. He struggled but had flashes of a blond man and a scientist arguing loudly about him but he didn’t know what they were saying. He recalled feeling a needle being pressed into him...no...several needles. What had they put inside of him? He remembered the feeling of laying naked in the small cage. But now, when Kefka finally opened his eyes, he felt the cold steel of a table under his back and the tightness of restraints on his wrists. He was drowsy, but aware and he had no idea where he was.

There were voices outside the room that he could just barely make out and he looked to one side to see the large window. There was that blond man again. There was the scientist. Why were they fighting? He grunted, trying to pull from the restraints, trying to break out. When he realized it wasn’t working, he glanced at the two again and saw them both staring at him with wide eyes. They knew he was awake now. Shit. 

Hojo was more than annoyed with Rufus Shinra at this point. The man was simply too much of a coward to see what kind of opportunity they had here and he wanted all kinds of information, that was frankly none of his business, about the experiment before Hojo could proceed. Hojo had discovered that this man...creature...whatever, was a God and the potential that unlocked in his twisted mind was almost more than he could handle. His blood had the potential to completely override their reliance on Mako. His abilities had the potential for weaponization. Hojo would give Shinra what he wanted but not until he understood more. Though now this thing was awake and he needed to proceed. He picked up his table saw and moved to the subject.

“Don’t try to fight it. You’ve been drugged,” he declares to his new plaything as he moves to observe the other. “I suppose I should be bowing in the presence of divinity, but I’m afraid I’m an atheist. Though I must say that I’m absolutely tickled to have someone as legendary as Kefka Palazzo himself to toy with.” He plugged the saw in.

How did-

Kefka stared at this strange man with utter confusion on his face and it was enough to make the scientist laugh. He certainly did enjoy seeing the powerful helpless.

“There will be time enough for questions later, I assure you, my precious Divine. But for now, I’m behind schedule and so looking forward to mounting one of those big wonderful wings in my office once I’m done draining it.” He flips his protective mask down and turns the saw on, the whine of it cutting through the otherwise silent room as the team of assistants stop to observe him. Then Hojo rushes forward and presses the blade to the stem of one of the wings.

White hot pain rushes through the mage and blood begins to spray everywhere as he begins to scream out in blinding pain and fury. Kefka’s fists clench and his eyes roll back. His feathers harden and sharpen like razors and slice through the restraints. Hojo yells for an assistant to hold him down as the saw screeches when it connects with metal and inevitably begins to overheat and die. The God is panting when the cutting finally stops and he looks to either side of him before giving one giant beat of his wings. The razor feathers fly everywhere, stabbing the men around him, seemingly in an effort to make them all drop.

It wasn’t. 

Hojo is laughing at the incident and looks straight at the God, who has a smirk on his face that he just wants to wipe off.

“You think dropping my assistants and guards will stop this? You must not be as-AAHH!” His statement is interrupted as he’s attacked suddenly by one of his assistants, who seemed to be utterly crazed and trying to tear Hojo’s throat open with his teeth. All of the people in the room that had been hit were acting like this. Kefka looks over toward the window again just in time to see the blond man fleeing in a panic. He focuses on the chaos surrounding him breathes deeply, seemingly melding through the restraints to free himself. The last he ever sees of the crazed scientist as he leaves the room, is the sight of him being torn apart by the people he’d once ordered around. 

With the door opened, the creatures run free through the building, attacking anyone in site. Those that manage to get away don’t understand that a scratch or a bite won’t simply heal. They’ll turn soon enough. Kefka walks calmly through the corridors as the alarms blare around him and the people flee, chased by these creatures. It isn’t long before they’re escaping from the building and out into the streets. It only takes a half hour for the alarms in the city to start going off. By the time night falls, Kefka gazes out the windows of the executive suite of Shinra tower and sees the fires being set in the distance and the flashing of gunfire. He’s dressed himself in familiar silks and robes and he’s drinking a large glass of wine.

Perhaps this world would provide entertainment for some time. 

[firespirited]

In order to talk about this year’s dolls I kinda need to explain that i sold 22 customs which is less than usual but sold lots of my personal dolls in three purges:

I went through my bratz collection to keep my favourites and let the others go (This was before the market exploded LOL)

I realized my arm wasn’t going to heal enough for me to do hard reroots for at least six months and gave up my precious project heads except for a couple I felt could wait in a drawer for as much time as it’d take.

I gave up dolls with paint needs beyond my skillset or ability to find faceup artists.

Let’s talk about the dolls that came in: 

10 Rainbow Highs of which 5 are customs and 2 Rainbow Surprise dolls! 2 dyed Star Darlings thanks to being able to use hair dye to cold dye nylon and kiwi nylon hair.

I started january with Barbie Sev 147 a fantastic new sculpt from Barbie with very dissappointing hair, clothes and body and with the leaks of new Barbies all with grainy or shiny faces, I gave up on modern Barbie. AhuaStore provided the last of the 2016+ fashionistas LA Girl before going dormant. While searching ebay for a customer I found Dreamhouse Midge then SiS Kara and fell back in love with older barbie. Aliexpress started unloading old stock of fashion photo, mermaid fantasy etc... These dolls required partial to full reroots but with very few customs selling or commissions, I had the time to do this as slowly as I needed to. 10 new Barbies! I hadn’t done that since the 2016+ fashionistas in 2019 or fairytopia in 2012.

August-ish saw us all checking on our Monster Highs and finding ~BAD THINGS~  so the wishlist and search began to purchase my faves before they yellowed or hardened into oblivion, even if that meant extensive degluing procedures that often ended with the head split open or a reroot. This was hit and miss. I’m still working on refining the cif cream process. The old floor cleaner was way too harsh on my dolls. 9 came in, 4 of them may leave next year.

A whirlwind of 28 out, 37 in. I have a couple of ‘not!regrets but just meh’s: Bratz became really expensive so getting a few missed ones is going to be hard. Some of my Monster High were too far gone or further damaged by the floor cleaner, they were damaged anyway so no loss in experimenting. I hit my Rainbow High saturation point and may part with a few. Maybe Barbie Daya, red/white Snow and the Failfixes too so this year may still end up as 28 out, 29 in.

Raya is my 250th full reroot. not counting partials (even large scale) or yarn. Oddly enough though this was the year I mastered the art of repairing cracked open, just nasty, gaping split scalps. It involves heat, liquid superglue and getting your fingers stuck to the doll, yep that’s a crucial part of the process.

Thankyou to everyone who’s stuck around for my odd mix of doll repair, movie reviews and musings on ethics. For being supportive through my stilted, word fumbling, topic-hopping stream of conciousness writings. For being inspiring when you made and did things and very relatable when you didn’t or couldn’t. 🤣💞