So. I slipped up. Well actually, I was busy. I missed the 23rd day of this challenge, and only just realized about 50 minutes after that day was over. So I'm combining the two together today. Luckily, the two things go together like a nice little pros/cons list. Today's themes are: least favorite part of the hobby, and favorite aspects of it.
There are a couple things I don't like about the hobby, but they basically stem from a few collectors. Generally that would be people who tell others what to do, and people who are too self-important to just answer somebody's damn simple questions. That last one seriously frustrates me. There's a better-known (you could say infamous) hobbyist who actually has, in their FAQ, this exact question with this exact answer:
where do you get dolls like yours?Click Here
As if they expect everyone else in the entire world to be such fucking dumbasses that they can't use Google. And the rest of their "FAQ" is basically just them telling everyone to fuck off because they're just too important to give an actual answer to anything (or because they have "specific protocols" for everything) Then again, this is the same person who sold a doll with a faceup and when the buyer sent the head to a different artist to get something that was only faintly similar, she threw a big shitfit about it on the artist's pictures and acted like an entitled bitch because it was "her" design. If you know who you are and you're reading this, you are fucking ridiculous if you think you own the rights to giving a doll eyeliner, and even more so for trying to scrutinize it down to "similar" freckle placement that only you could see. Then again, she did deem me a "fake" collector before kicking me out of her precious little DA group, so it's unlikely that she'd be reading this. But just in case, fuck you.
Anyway. That got kinda ranty. I'm probably going to sound hypocritical in a second, but let me try to be clear: what I'm about to say is about what people do publicly in Facebook groups. I have no problem with people getting ranty in their own little corners on Tumblr or even their personal blogs like this. That's their business. If I don't want to see it, I just use Tumblr Savior or just take note not to get into something with them in the future. My rant actually made me remember another thing I don't like: People who start drama rants in public discussion threads and rather than keeping it on-subject and making everyone else feel really uncomfortable. Seriously, what is this--the Youtube comments section? I go to answer somebody's question about wig size, and notice some really malicious comments at the tail-end. I go to see what could have started it, and it's something as simple as wig sizes turned into racial slurs and lame attempts to insult each other's grammar.
Just the other day, I was looking to help someone who's friend's ex-boyfriend had snapped all the fingers off some poor girl's doll. I noticed one little comment that just hinted at questioning why the girl wouldn't stop the boy (to be fair, the situation wasn't made very clear on this, so it may have been legitimate) and that spiraled into paragraphs-long comments that were longer than my wordiest blog posts, and these comments were just nitpicking grammar and trying to criminalize one simple question that could have easily been ignored. If you're going to say "you're not worth my time, you victim-blaming whore," the first thing you should do is really think about whether you want to post that publicly. Something like that in a group that's supposed to be lighthearted, and in a situation where the question could have been perfectly innocent, doesn't do anyone any good. You aren't helping the person with a problem, and you aren't doing anybody any favors by examining every letter and trying to read between lines that aren't even there. Those words are just to hurt somebody else, in front of other people. Second, if you say you aren't going to give anyone your time, leave it at that. Walk away. Don't rant about their "lack of morals" or their sentence structure, or try to make them out to be a victim-blamer. Don't continue to throw out horrible names, even long after they've tried to explain themselves and apologize.
I hate seeing people fight publicly, because even though other people can see it going on, most won't hold back when they're on the offensive. Sometimes it even seems like a person will start drama just so others can join in and take their side to gang up on somebody else. Nobody goes to a BJD group to see other people call each other child molesters and rich bitches. Either keep it to yourself, or try to be rational and understand that other people have different views on things.
Then there are people who blatantly tell others what to do with their dolls. I'm not talking about a situation where an owner buys a doll and asks people what wig would be the cutest, but a situation where it's unsolicited and where somebody who doesn't own the doll and doesn't know the owner is trying to push their own ideas into what goes into a doll. Or when they try to shame people based on the general idea of what their doll is. The most common example I see is people who don't like fem-boys. I'll say right now that I'm not the kind of collector who collects male dolls to make them into traps or just simply give them elaborate makeup, but you can't just generalize dolls into one group. There are some really over-the-top fem-boys out there that some people could see as done in "bad taste" but at the same time there are several well-done feminine male dolls that seem to be ignored or lumped into the whole "I hate fem-boys, there need to be less of them in this hobby".
The thing is, you have to think about the general makeup of people in the BJD hobby. There are males around, but what seems to be the majority is female collectors. Many of them found out about BJDs via anime conventions or sites or even stumbling across a character doll while they were looking up said character (or their respective franchise). I'm definitely not going to say this is the only way that people learn about BJDs, and not that all female anime fans are into yaoi, but there is a significant enough group of them that you've got to understand that it's likely there are a few of those fans who are in this hobby as well. I don't see why they shouldn't see fit to combine their interests if they want to. I mean, it's their dolls, and many people's dolls reflect their own interests or other hobbies. Why should they be told their concepts and characters are overdone and ugly, just because you don't personally like the theme?
I'm no hardcore yaoi fan, but I've learned to appreciate a lovely bishie boy.
Even if it's not fem-boy related, I don't think people should tell each other what to do with their dolls unless the owner has given them permission to input on their dolls in general.
Well. That was enough for its own post (guess it was supposed to be anyway) but if you've lasted this long, it's time to talk about what really drew me in and what continues to keep me here today. Possibilities. In this hobby, with literally hundreds of companies with so many sculpts of their own, the number of sculpts available not just from the popular companies, but from total unknowns as well, are virtually endless. You could go through a list of known BJD companies and go through every sculpt, and to look at each one carefully would take quite some time. Just finding the sculpt that's right for you could take a really long time, but, when that feeling when you do find the perfect sculpt that you've been looking for is great. The next part, trying to rationalize to yourself about why you can't/need to buy that doll is kind of like an inner monologue of "I shouldn't get it" and "does this dealer offer cheap enough shipping? Do I like the body it's coming with, or should I look at others? Resing matches--UGHHH" Back and forth until you finally decide to either get the doll now or save your money until that beautiful day when you do have everything together for that doll.
And even once you get that doll, even if it's a really common or popular face, the simple choices you make like wig color or eye size distinguish that doll from others in a simple, interchangeable way. Even if your doll shares a similar faceup to another, something simple makes that specific doll in your hands your very own. The very fact that it's your doll makes it special. Even the way you look at that doll is different from how everyone else looks at it.
That's before you even really touch on the endless possibilities modding can offer!
BJDs, in themselves, are realistic and beautiful. The amount of creativity that can be put into them is astounding and the way they work is different from any other doll I've seen. That's basically what I love about them so much >3<
~~Aronzo~~
