Neon’s A Doll A Day… Again (2020)

[neon_jellyfish]

Those golden shoes look fantasic! Like real gold! I'll attribute that to your marvelous lighting... which actually is quite marvelous in this photo. You must be feeling better... physically, at least!
 

*massive snip*

But we're still here, we're still talking about dolls and playing with dolls and taking pictures of dolls and grumbling and complaining about dolls... so I guess we're still having fun, huh? What's wrong with us?

Thank you!!!

Yes, I'm better, migraine-wise. I'm just totally grumpy because of the latest Circus Government show.

I can understand why would people think of Europe as one place, it looks so tiny on the map, but the differences are really huge. While I am aware that there are huge differences between the individual US states, what I've seen on MH Arena forums made me think that playline doll brands (especially the American ones) were pretty much available anywhere (aside from Alaska), with the exception of some notorious cases of weird distribution, like Haunted Rochelle - people hardly ever complained about not being able to get dolls that were supposed to be regular releases, or even exclusives, when they were exclusive to some normal store like Walmart. However, I can imagine that people on there became collectors and joined the forums exactly because the dolls were available where they lived, and that not having folks from more isolated / not well stocked regions skewed my impression about this. 

As for seeing people from Eastern Europe as lower forms of existence, it pisses me off, but I'd have a hard time denying that it's partially our fault. I can't speak for other nations, but Czechs... Aren't as awesome as I'd like to pretend. This pandemic is casting very unforgiving light on our nature as a nation. Now, of course there are many awesome people here, but the majority... I don't like us, so I can't hold it against others if they don't like us. We're narrow-minded, selfish, cowardly, envious, we can't handle when somebody else is doing well and we wish for other people to suffer more than we wish for ourselves to thrive*, we like having rights but gods forbid we should have any responsibilities. Some of us would even give up some rights in exchange for certainty, no matter how shitty that certainty might be, like it was back in the days of totality... Yeah, we suck. It's as if after centuries of being ruled over by other nations, we lost ourselves and we gave up on finding ourselves ever again.

*I like to think that I'm not like that. At least I, ever since I realised it's a national thing, forbade myself from thinking like that and I keep monitoring myself in case I start doing so. As for selfish and cowardly... Nyeeh, I'd rather not think about that

I wouldn't call the import fees mess an unfair advantage on the US side, I'd call it unfair disadvantage on the EU side. I don't want US folks to start paying them, I want EU to cut the crap and stop milking us. It's one of those common EU politics thingies, so each individual country can say 'look, it's EU, we can't do anything about it' and continue to pocket those fees. Nations in mutliple countries would have to mass protest at the same time for something to change. Not gonna happen.

I hope the postage rates will stay reasonable over there!

No, no, I'm kinda permanently triggered and rant-ready since last week, mostly because of the mess here, so I just start breathing fire randomly because of the tiniest impulses. Glad you find it entertaining!

***

The exclusive bovine excreta are not just a problem of dolls/toys, everything that can (e.g. videogames), tries to capitalize on FOMO, and I wonder how long it will last... I'm very much turned off by such practices, and it usually makes me lose any interest in that thing, even if I like the product itself.

As for pre-sales, for me it depends on whether there is a finite stock that sells out or if there's a pre-order window and the dolls are made to order in the needed amount. The former stresses me out, as the combination of limited stock, bad internet connection and pre-orders being opened when it's night in my timezone (my fault for being too interested in Japanese dolls) means I'm likely going to miss out. The latter further depends on whether I know about the pre-order in advance or not. When I do, I'm fine with that, I can save up and I don't have a problem with waiting.

I try to be understanding, because it's hard to maintain a reasonable amount of everything in stock, and order-made allows for having more variants on offer, but when there's limited amount of limited variant and limited time to pre-order, it's just too much, and it makes me give up. Smart Dolls aren't something I could afford right away, I have to save up, and the ones I like keep getting discontinued, and it mostly leads to my savings getting transferred to Azone when they give an early heads up for a doll I like.

The short-lived lines hardly ever appear here in the first place, so I'm cautious not to get excited before I see them here, however, I generally lost interest in fashion dolls (which I'll adress in a bit), so as of this year, it stopped being a concern for me.

As for the shift in collecting style - I'm actually going through a massive one right now.

As you mentioned, I, too, am shifting away from playline dolls found in stores, for a few reasons. I don't like the new ones as much as I liked MH and EAH, a lot of those new ones don't even make it here and importing them would cost nearly as much as importing a collector doll (so I'd rather get that collector doll), and most of all, quality issues. Despite my best efforts, my MHs (and to a lesser degree my EAHs) keep deteriorating, and it took me by a very unpleasant surprise. When I was buying these dolls, I thought it was for life - my nearly 30yo Barbies are in better shape than my MHs, and I played quite roughly with them. I don't want to buy a bunch of plastic only to throw it away and be all sad about it a few years later, so, no more playline dolls for me.

I'm going through something similar with Pullips - I love the designs, but not the quality, and I don't want to waste money on crappy things. I'm still planning on shelling all the characters, but I think I won't get any more after that.

This shift from playline dolls towards the collector ones, together with the limited pre-orders and exclusive scarab balls changed how I want to collect -  the futility of wanting a certain release because I'm probably not going to be able to get it anyway makes me want to be more picky, to curate my collection using more criteria than just 'I like this one'. I want to have smaller crews with more essence to them, where dolls have bigger roles than just being pretty. I need to be careful with this, as my backstories tend to sprout characters every time I sneeze, but I hope to to turn my collection into something more meaningful and thought-through, where each part has a concept to it, so that I have a guide that allows me to choose my dolls with ease and spend money on the right stuff. I want to invest more into less dolls, which is completely different from my playline collecting, where I was trying to get all the releases I liked for the lowest possible price. It will still be a lot of dolls, I'm not going minimalist, I just want my dollhousehold to have a sense of purpose and direction.

As soon as I'm done with ADAD, I'm going to take a good long look at my collection, and start planning changes. I'm not content with it right now, some parts downright stress me out, and I have no room for that in what is supposed to be a joyful hobby. It won't necessarily be a drastic downsize, but some changes are inevitable. I feel very intimidated by this decision of mine, but also very excited.

Nothing's wrong with us! We're doing this right! Other people should learn from us

Well, you could count back from the end of the year for your day number....?  
Your O'Hair twins are so lovely & colourful -- the red/purple/ginger/black is another nice colour scheme.

whenever I'm taking their photos, Anne is the first one to come to mind. Must be the troll hair...

Hehe, now that you mention it, she does look like she's been outside on a very blustery day  What I like is the blue & white colour combination.  I'm not sure what I would do with "just one" Novi but if I ever came across her really cheap I might grab her.

Oh, I have all the numbers in the spreadsheet, I just forget to check it now and then, make a mistake, notice it much later, and become unable to get my lazy ass to actually edit all the posts that need fixing. I did manage to make my useless self open the spreadsheet, so today's number is no longer a mystery, I just need to fix the previous ones...

Thank you!

I'm also fond of blue and white / mint and white color combo on dolls. Maybe I should take a B(lue)&W group photo...
Be warned, Anne only has (very poorly) articulated shoulders and neck/head (sideways, no up and down), the rest of her is sollid (she's supposed to be a snowglobe, well, snowdoll, her torso and legs are filled with liquid and glitter), so there's no posing her.


Day 348

Violin Day! Demonstrated here by sig Melody.