BJD fate

When I was fairly new to the hobby (a year or two in) I looked for an Iplehouse JID girl. I looked at the marketpalce in a Swedish forum and ther was a listing for one at a reasonable prize. At the time I didn't even care about what sculpt, I just wanted that body. This is a long time ago and Iplehouse was probably the first well known company to make a truly mature msd-sized body that wasn't just a "child with boobs stuck on", you know the look.
So after a short period of buyers nerves, I reached out to the seller, only to be told that the doll had just been sold.
Dissapointed and a little bit frustrated I went back to looking, only to find that another JID had just been listed. At a better prize and with a few extras too. I jumped on it and that doll is still with me today.
Not that I don't think I would have been as happy with the first doll, but I can't see my collection today without this one. She was my second full doll and she is an improtant part of my core collecton.

 

Last year a friend was getting married and moving in with her husband, and while clearing out her things she found her old Volks SD NoNo and gifted it to me! The doll is very old, from 2002, and has been untouched in her box for over 10 years..! I never had an interest in old Volks dolls, but I just fell in love! I even hauled across her the world when I moved to Sweden from Korea! I never would have bought this doll, but she's so precious to me, it feels like fate!

 

I used to really want to buy a Dream of Doll Ducan. Along with Angel Region's Ren, he was one of the dolls that got me into the hobby, and I wanted to add him to the collection. Unfortunately, every time I tried to buy him, it didn't work out. First, the company itself shut down, so I had to hunt him down secondhand. But then the seller just wouldn't respond, or more commonly, the doll had already sold, sometimes minutes before I sent my message. A couple years ago I threw my hands up in defeat and decided I didn't need him.

As an addendum though, I did end up buying a DoD event head off the mp, one that looks a lot like Ducan but without some of the features I wasn't so keen on. So I guess I ended up with what I wanted anyway? I just didn't know what it was.

 

A few years ago I bought a Peakswoods doll in stock from Denver Doll. They had the open-eyed version of the sculpt I wanted, and I thought I was settling because I really liked the dreaming version better, but she was in stock and I wasn’t keen to wait months for her when I didn’t have to.

When I opened the package they had sent me the dreaming version. She wasn’t even listed on their website! I was not complaining.

 

Very interesting! Love reading all these cool stories. I have one nice/fateful story to share of my own. When I first joined the hobby, I lived in a smaller College town in Texas. Very conservative/agricultural school, so finding people who were into BJDs felt impossible. I was also into JRock and a bunch of other Asian culture things that most people didn't know/care about, so I never managed to find a 'friend group' outside of my roommates.

In ~2007, I joined DoA and saw a bunch of group orders for JRock celebrity Minimees (because those were all the rage!). Of course, I had to get one of my favorite JRock celeb (Gackt) and placed an order. While perusing the other GO's (because at that time EVERY celeb had an order going); I saw a GO for Hyde that had already been placed. Looked at the person who posted, and lo'behold I found @Kitsuna Ri account, and her location listed was College Station, TX!!! I PM'ed her to let her know I existed and if she ever wanted to hang out, I'd be happy to find new friends! Her and I became BFFs, and we always joked it was fate because we also bought a Hyde/Gackt (at that time they were close friends/did a movie together) etc. So it felt very 'fateful'.

The funnier part though; some years later she moved to another city and started re-organizing her collection. Her and I both independently made the decision to sell our Minimees. One day we were talking on AIM (we old), and I told her I had sold my Gackt, and she said she just found a buyer for her Hyde. She mentioned she would need to go to the post early because he was traveling all the way to the Philippines. I had just shipped my Gackt to that country and asked who her buyer was, and it turns out the same collector bought them both! Seemed so fitting that the dolls that brought us together, traveled to their new home together.

 

This is such a great story! It's so cool how a love of JRock and BJDs brought you and your friend together. I wonder if the dolls are still together too?

 

Many moons ago, I discovered one of the cutest doll faces to ever exist, BF Sarang. I previously wasn't super into Blue Fairy, but my comm was. I saved a bunch of photos of her and thought "if I ever get a BF, then I'll get Sarang!"

Not too long later, about a week before a meetup, one of my friends listed a BF Sarang for sale after upgrading her BF Xiao's body. I threatened that I would not let her into my home if she did not bring Sarang with her! A few days later, I had my box of unassembled cuteness and she remained my favorite doll for about 10 years!

 

These stories are so neat! One day, I was looking through the bjdsale hashtag on IG and I came across a Crobidoll Yeonho. I had been unofficially looking to get an SD boy to go with my F60 girl, and he was just beautiful. I didn't have much money back then, so I asked the seller if they were interested in trading for custom clothing. We talked, and eventually they decided against it.

But then, about a week later, they messaged me again out of the blue and said that they wanted to trade after all! I was so excited. That will always be one of the best trades I've ever done, and getting Bastien at the end was so incredibly worth all the hard work to make the trade items. He's one of my most beloved dolls to this day, and I can't imagine ever parting with him.

Side note that also felt like fate, it turned out that he had also previously been owned by one of my dearest friends at the time, and I'd had no idea! He even still had a tattoo that she had painted on his arm many years ago. That just made the experience even more special and amazing.

 

So just before I re-discovered BJDs, this time with full intent to buy one, I had actually pre-ordered an action figure with movable joints, removable wig etc. It was pricey for me back then, but still nowhere near the cheapest BJD cost, and payment was to be collected automatically from my account in a year time, once company actually completed preorders.

A month later I have sank fully into BJDs, made my first purchase of Dollzone Gray SD boy and several accessories etc. I sort of "forgot" about that preorder I did not want anymore. The closer I got to the planned release date the more anxious I got, fully aware I'd one day log into my bank account and see the missing amount. And then I got email from the company, confirming they had an issue with my payment method, blah, blah, they will try again later. "Later" never happened and my order was cancelled automatically.

So I'm grateful that thanks to this figurine I was able to rediscover BJDs world and that in the end my preorder never came to be, leaving me some saved funds for more BJDs related stuff.

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Oh, and the incredible new doll collector's luck, to get two of my discontinued grails [Doll Chateau Christina and Dennis] in less than 6 months and in great condition...Not that they are incredibly rare, but just the fact I was able to hunt them down after being obsessed for a few months feels like a gesture of good will from the universe

 

A couple years ago, I saw Fairyland’s Feeple65 Ingrid and fell in love. Between her size and brand, she was very expensive and well out of what I was comfortable spending. Last year, I got a gift card for my birthday that would have significantly cut her price down. I was delighted when I realized I could afford her. The problem was that I wasn’t sure what the next few years were going to look like. According to expected wait times, I was expected to start college when she would have shipped. I was also looking at trying to enlist. While I would be okay with moving with my dolls, I did not want something so valuable and breakable in the barracks. Either I could bring her or let her sit in a box for months to years. So I put off ordering. Even once I knew I was doing college, I procrastinated. What if I waited forever and didn’t love her? I had checked the expected production times and knew it would be a long time.
I moved on and started browsing DDE’s in stock dolls, just seeing if something popped up. There were a couple stunning Feeple60s I liked, but something held me back. I grudgingly started figuring out an order for the Ingrid. I loved her faceup, but that was too much to spend if I could do it myself.
And then, at the same time she would have arrived had I ordered on my birthday, a Feeple65 Ingrid with faceup came into stock. Not what I intended to order, but it was in stock. I waited a painful three or so hours (at work) before I could buy her. Her current name is Livia and she still has that faceup. Her “birthday” was earlier this month and I still have no regrets. She got a necklace this year. Ironically, my procrastination meant she ended up arriving on the birthday of a dear friend.

 

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Currently going through one of those events!

I've been on the hunt for K-doll Kasiel for a couple of years and got a lot of help from friends who are looking for it for me as well. Found many leads that got nowhere or that I missed by a couple of days, got scammed twice, wasted a bunch of money and time trying to track down this elusive head with no success. At this point I feel like it's gotta be fate trying to tell me something

 

I think a good fate transaction was how I got my Soom Azur. I had been in and out of love with the sculpt for a few years when I first started collecting but by 2016, I had decided I did want him. However, I was after the human version, not the siren version, and I wanted his full set (since back in 2011, Soom sold you everything that was in the promo photos). Well, I kept finding siren only versions, or here's his head but on another mini gem's body, or I would miss him.

But in summer 2020, Soom either found more of him in their warehouse or decided to re-release him. He was limited in number but I got him! He is on his human body at the moment though I did also get his siren lower half. Soom also later sold his wig and siren clothes which I also bought. I am missing his original eyes and his human outfit but I have more patience for an outfit now that I have him. I also couldn't get the Soom faceup (they weren't offering it) so I got him painted as close to those prom photos as possible by a very talented face up artist.

As for bad fate, I'd been on the hunt for a specific Volks outfit for 2-3 years with no luck. Suddenly one popped up (off DoA) and I jumped at buying it. Sadly, it smelled terribly of cat urine. I did my best to rescue it but parts of it are still sitting in a zip bag with baking soda. I did that maybe over half a year ago (it has gotten buried on the kitchen table aka the table of projects and paper stacks) and it's just not a priority because the disappointment is still very real. There was a lot of advice to return it/get your money back, which isn't bad advice, but every time I saw it pop up second hand on Japanese sites, it would sell out before I could buy it. In my eyes, it was rare and still is, which is why I still have it, despite the bad feelings surrounding it. I'm hoping time will warm me up to it. I won't sell it unless I get it 100% scent free.

 

My story's also currently in-progress. XD

Okay, in 2018, I met & started dating my boyfriend. His nickname for me is "Foxy," so we'll send fox-related pictures back and forth. Somehow I managed to see a picture of DollZone MiYou, and sent him a picture of the cute little fox doll I had seen. I wasn't that wild about the outfit, but MiYou's basic look was pretty cute. I'm not even sure how I came across the picture because I wasn't really actively looking at BJDs at the time, but I've hovered around BJD-adjacent doll hobbies for years, so I probably saw it in one of those groups. Regardless, nothing much other than "Oh that's cute" came out of that particular instance. At the time, I didn't make much money and had an impending surgery. I kinda lowkey occasionally remembered that I had seen him, but didn't really think about it too hard.

In 2022, I started playing D&D again and decided to 3D print a little pocket-sized BJD of my character since I had a model for his mini anyway. He's accurate 1/12 scale, so I decided to look on AliExpress to find tiny shoes for him since all my shoes revolved around 1/6 scale fashion dolls/action figures and I didn't have anything that fit him. I tried out a couple pairs of Ob11 shoes. Aaaand then I started imagining him in Ob11 style. So that sucked me into Ob11 dolls of him and his friends & family and other characters and oh these blind-boxes are cute and etc, and AliExpress's algorithms got aggressive about suggesting BJDs to me.

Spring 2023, Since I was already aware AliExpress is flooded with recasts, I didn't really pay too much attention to the BJD suggestions, but I did notice that it was suggesting a few fox themed BJDs at me. At this point, I've had a promotion and a few raises (although I still make well less than a living wage, but I do make enough to afford dolls in a higher price range than in 2018). I realized that maybe affording a resin BJD wasn't out of the question anymore, and had remembered that I'd shown my boyfriend a little fox BJD shortly after we met. I decided to Google for fox BJDs and re-discovered the one I'd shown him (and cross-confirmed it by digging into our Messenger history). I saw MiYou on the legit dealer sites and saw that his price was easily attainable with a little saving. A story/character idea started brewing in my head for him, so I decided that I might get him eventually.

May 2023, DollZone really said, "By 'eventually,' did you mean right now? We're gonna discontinue him." So I asked around for advice on which dealer to get him from and got him on layaway via Alice's Collections. XD Between the discontinuation sale, layaway, and not opting for his fullset since I could find similar hair/eyes separately and clothes that I like more for a lower price (plus I can sew), he wasn't too badly priced.

Still waiting on him. It's only about the 3 month mark and I did order the faceup, so I expect he'll be another month or two most likely. My boyfriend and I have a few anniversaries coming up in the next few months so that'll be interesting if MiYou will turn up right around one of them. (We first met during Labor Day weekend at a convention, then shared our first kiss together about a month later at another convention, then our first date at the beginning of the following October, said "I love you" for the first time to each other mid-December, then in 2021 moved in with each other at the beginning of November. xD) We don't want actual kids but MiYou's kinda gonna be our resin child. XD

 

I told a friend that I was only going to buy another doll within a specific time frame if I found a Soom Garion, as he's the only doll I've ever considered a grail. A couple months later, pictures of his grey Dokkebi version started popping up in my Instagram feed as an artist I follow had just finished and returned him to a collector I follow. I commented on one of the pictures that I love the sculpt, and was really hoping to get a normal skin human version some day. The collector wished me luck and for Soom to release him again soon.
Not two weeks later, he was released with options for human head and normal skin. Not only that, but he was available around one of my pay days, so I could afford a layaway down payment. He's halfway paid off now, and I'm very much looking forward to his eventual arrival. I still cry thinking about it.

@jessholy or anyone else who needs help with de-scenting – I was recommended a product by a friend that I have yet to see beat! Definitely better than baking soda. Message me or link me to the right thread and I'll gladly share.

 

I have so many stories, but three of my favorites:

Bren. He was a character I had floating around in my head, wanted to shell him, but had no idea what sculpt he should be. My sister had traded me a Migidoll Siho head to use for a different character, but it was so wrong, I had listed the head for sale. Being broke and nobody wanting the head, I decided to test out the head as Bren. It was....ok? But over time, it grew on me, and I eventually modded the nose and repainted him and....omg...he's just perfect. I can't even imagine him as any other sculpt, and he's one of my favorite dolls.

Pepper. She had been shelled as a Dolkot Bera, but over time, the body frustrated me, she was very yellowed and while the face itself was good, it looked too serious. I decided to reshell her as a Fairyland Chloe, and ordered her around the same time she got engaged in my roleplay with a friend. I waited about 6 months, but her new shell and her wedding dress arrived the exact same day, and the dress fit her like it was made for her!

Amir. He was my first doll, and I was just so excited to finally be able to actually buy a BJD that I had too many ideas for him and was really struggling to pin down his personality and style. Nothing was really cementing "him" in my head no matter what I did. I thought I wanted him to be either kind of goth or Final Fantasy style. At the same time I was struggling, my sister had a ResinSoul boy who was supposed to have longish blond hair, but every time she put the wig on that boy, he'd jerk or snap and "throw" the wig. We laughed and decided fate said that boy should be bald. While just being silly and joking, I stuck the wig on Amir, expecting this bleach blond wig to look ridiculous on this white skin goth/fantasy boy, and.....it was perfect. Not at all what I planned, but I just knew immediately that he should be blond. After that, the rest just fell into place--he now has a fully developed character, full backstory, extended family and more! All because I tried a wig on him as a joke. I've had him over 15 years now.

 

My fateful chance happens to be with my first love Little Snow from DollZone! Around this time last year I was just dipping my toe in the hobby and wanted to buy her. Unfortunately, I missed the sale and then got second thoughts about the wait times, so I put it off for the better part of 1 year. Over brunch recently, the topic came up about what I would want for the holidays and Little Snow came back to my mind. I had the money, now I had to get over the wait. On a whim I checked eBay and found a Little Snow doll for sale with a CoA!! She is about a week away now, and I am so excited that I just happened to check at the right time.

 

Mine is simple.. my first human bjd (first was a small pet doll) was second hand (third hand?) on Mercari here in the US and the seller had bought him on mandarake but he didn’t work out for their needs. He’s a Volks kuuta yosd from 2006/2007 and he’s my one OC doll I have and the one that I’ve done the most projects for.

But he’s special. Someone who had him earlier in his life loved him so much and took such good care of him. Every joint was sueded with real cut and glued suede and every surface was clean and undamaged.

He doesn’t have any of his original face/wig/eyes/box etc but seeing him blank made me see who he could be and also made him affordable for a new collector who was *stoked* to have a real Volks. I have about a dozen dolls now but he’s never leaving me