BJD fate

I have a character I first shelled with a Soom Galena head on a 2nd hand Soom body. I loved everything about the Galena but the nose (too big for the character) and I didn't feel good trying to mod her since she at the time was limited. Then I saw Souldoll Karin and realized that she was absolutely perfect for the character. Problem was, I was poor. Really poor. The opportunity arose to do some sewing commission work in exchange for a Souldoll Shiva G, and I decided to go for it, thinking that I could perhaps get a Karin head during the head sales Souldoll had occasionally. But then Souldoll discontinued Karin. I even emailed them asking if I could get the head and they told me no. I had resigned myself to never getting her, then about a year later, a head showed up on the MP for a very reasonable price!

 

I feel I've had a handful of fateful BJD moments over the 15 years I've been in this hobby, but the one that always jumps to my mind is about my Elfdoll Red, Miki. Over all these years, I've almost never browsed ebay for dolls (doll wigs maybe, but not dolls) but I came across his listing as an auction and decided to try for him. I think I was the only one to bid on him, and got him for an incredible price. He came with a faceup and full body blushing which was beautifully done. The whole transaction was so nice. The seller and I emailed back and forth and he came home to me without incident until.....the fateful part.

At the time I purchased him, I was working for a pest control company.....and maybe you see where this is going. When I got him opened up I noticed some...'dirt'..showing in one of his joints. So I pulled him apart a bit to see and...um. Yeah. He was full of cockroach frass and empty egg cases (but nothing alive, aside from a spider in the box, thank god). Basically, he had been the home of a cockroach nest. For who knows how long. Now, horror of horrors aside, because of my job at the time, I knew exactly what it was and how to deal with it, and how to clean him. He got a very thorough scrub down, his box and packing materials were fumed (correctly, again, thanks to my job knowledge) and all was well. He had to have his body blushing redone and new elastic but I absolutely adore him and I just can't imagine what would have happened if he had ended up with someone else. It felt very fateful that he landed in a house with someone who knew how to help him.

 

Finding my delf breakaway boys felt like fate. I had been browsing the marketplace for cp delfs in general and came across a blank breakaway head in my country. I got really excited about it, but when I messaged the seller I had just missed out. I was heartbroken - I hadn't specifically been looking for a breakaway before I saw it, but then I suddenly had to have one. I started searching and within a couple of days managed to find one on Dollyteria (this felt very lucky in itself because they don't exactly come up for sale often). It was a full doll with the extra vampire head, unmodded and with original faceup! And when it arrived it also came in the original box, outer box, with all the paperwork - everything! None of this had been in the sales photos or description.

I look back on that and I am so glad I missed out on the first one and had to go hunting. The vampire head's original faceup is so beautiful. I do feel like it was meant to be!

Oh, and to add to the fatefulness of this story - since I got them I was casually on the lookout for another body for the vampire head. I'm really picky with my delfs and won't settle for hybrids, so I knew I might be waiting a while for a type 2 or 3 white skin delf body to come up. During this time I came across another delf head for sale - a white skin yder - and decided to buy it because it was a good price and in my country. While I was messaging the seller they mentioned that they did have a body they could send with it, but it was in bad condition so they would let me have it for a much discounted price. It was a white skin type 2! I ended up not bonding with the yder so my breakaway got a matching body.

And one final piece of fate - the hands on the body were stained, which was part of the reason for the cheaper price... but my breakaway had come with spare hands. Considering that I like to dress my dolls in many layers, the hands are the bits that are most on show. And, being the original hands, they are a perfect resin match even though the yder body was more yellowed. It really helped to make the body feel like it belonged to him once I'd got the breakaway hands on (and there was me thinking that I was probably never going to use those hands )

 

I have a story to share here now! Still can't believe it.

I've been in love with the original Luts Dark Elf Soo since high school, but my parents wouldn't let me save for one and she was discontinued the year I turned 18 and got my first real job. Over the years, I'd kind of given up on getting her- I always thought my tastes had shifted away from the bug-eyed quasi-anime look. But every time I saw pictures, she still bewitched me. So I put out my WTBs about ten days ago and settled in to wait. The only WTB I've ever had answered took like a year, and my antique doll grail came to me almost ten years after I started looking in earnest. So I was prepared for the long haul, if still impatient.

This morning, I woke up early and decided to scroll the IG tag a bit for some eye candy. I spotted a sales post I hadn't seen before, from September, and decided to message on the off-chance she was still available. Someone else had left a "PM'd!" comment already, but she wasn't marked sold, so why not ask?

Turns out, the seller had relisted her TWO HOURS before I messaged- the previous sale had fallen through, and she was still looking for a home! And now, 16 years after I fell for her...she's mine.

 

I have three fateful BJD collector moments, two of which happened this year. I jokingly say that the doll deities smiled down upon me this year...
Angel of Dream 58 cm female body listed for something like $75 on Mercari (U.S.). I was a brand-spanking-new collector, terrified to take dolls apart and had only ever ordered full sets with company blushing. The seller (bless her) sent me the doll pieces in a bag (un-labled, natch), so I was forced to figure out how to string a doll. My obsession with hybrids began when I plopped the Dream Valley Z7 head on her and realized I loved it.


My two fateful purchases this year were a Dollmore Trinity Alicia/Elysia and a Magical Angel Iris 1:1 scale BJD. Elysia was at a doll show. I had zero interest in purchasing a Trinity prior to seeing her in person, and I knew how much those dolls cost, so I was still planning to walk away. Then the seller made an offer I just couldn't refuse. It is the one and only time I begged Spouse to lend me the funds to buy her. I pulled up a Trinity on Dollmore's website to show Spouse what she would cost new. (I have paid Spouse back, by the way.)

Iris - I met the seller, who happened to live very close to me, to give them an unrelated Obitsu chest part I didn't want/need. They casually happened to mention that they had a 1:1 scale BJD they were thinking of selling. I sat bolt upright and practically screamed, "SELL IT TO MEEEEEEE!" The seller was like, Are you sure? She's gonna be expensive... But hey, at least I won't have to ship her. "YES yes yes yes yes. Gimme gimme gimme." Grabby hands.
Side note: she was not that expensive, and since I didn't have to pay shipping, I think she was a bargain.
She's six feet tall. She towers over every other doll I own. I don't want another one - but I LOVE her.

 

Twice this happened.

Dollzone Vita: I thought she was cute with her pouty face, and she had just been discontinued. I saw her with the mechanical heart body for sale, but had to wait a couple weeks before I could get her. I figured she might get bought in that time by someone else, and she did.

Three weeks later and I am on eBay, there she is, being sold for what the person paid for her, they had bought her, the exact doll I was looking at, brought her home and decided that they didn't like her pouty face after all. So I bought her from them.

Doll Love Fuyumi: This is a strange story. Mint on Card was closing. I had just started collecting. They were selling off their display dolls. I got Dollzone Nina from them, but had also been looking at Fuyumi. I figured I would get her if she was still there, but she also got sold. My loss, someones gain... fast forward literally years later.

The very same doll was being sold, she didn't fit in with the other persons collection. I know it was the same doll because I talked back and forth a bit the the person selling it, they had debated getting it and bought it from Mint on Card just before it closed down.

I think it's kind of awesome, when you end up with the exact same doll that you missed out on.

 

I ordered two instock Atelier momoni pitusas, and after almost 4 months of no contact or updates I got a refund. And the same week Dodollsdream had their instock sale and I managed to get my grail that I missed during her preorder, Lullaby Clementine Lily in green resin! Cant believe how things worked out so well!

Ive recently started looking at Feeple60 Shushu that was an event head many years ago, and I missed one on the second hand market, but this weekend Denverdoll has their thanksgiving event and there she was! I bought an instock feeple60 ria for the body and got the Shushu event head as a gift!

 

I bought an Asleep Eidolon boy doll after I fell in love with one of their sculpts (Abyss). A few weeks after ordering him, I end up ordering another doll (Yukimi sp ) from AE (I’d fallen in love with his sculpt while browsing promo pictures for Abyss). Both were ordered on the AE-M-63 body.

Wellllll, not even a week after I order the second doll, AE releases a new 62cm boy body. I really liked the look of it (the hands in particular looked so beautiful and elegant compared to the ones on the old body). I hemmed and hawed about if I should reach out and try to get both their bodies switched to the new AE-M-62 or not. I really wanted both sculpts on the same body (I planned to put them in matching clothes and I didn’t want to fuss with differing measurements/fit); What if they could only change one order and not the other?
So, I decided to just order new sets of option hands that released with the 62 body instead of asking my orders to be changed (prettier hands was what I wanted most, so this was a fine outcome for me).

But, when they both arrived they had the new 62 body and I was SO pleasantly surprised!
In hindsight, if I’d known just how much I would love the body, I would’ve asked to have it changed. Now, I love their bodies almost as much as their sculpts! I’ve never been so happy to have a part of my order change without warning

 

I personally call it providence instead of fate. If things hadn't turned out the way they did, I wouldn't have been able to buy some of my dolls.

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One doll I was able to buy only through the kindness of a DoA member.

I'd fallen in love with this doll, it was a standard release. But I was going through a lot of flux and stress in my life -- including getting ready to relocate overseas -- and at the time I didn't have the capacity or confidence to order direct from the company. It so happened that this DoA member was also ordering from that company: she allowed me to do a group order with her for the doll head, then shortly afterwards she sold me a practically-new doll body from the same company on layaway -- so I ended up getting the new, full doll I wanted.

This doll has since become the favourite of my crew. If not for this person organizing the group order at that point in time, I don't think I could've brought this doll home at all. I will always be grateful to this DoA member's kindness and generosity to me.

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One doll waited for me on an auction for over 2 weeks.

I'd been looking for this small-artist head sculpt for some time, and finally found one head with a faceup, on auction on Y!JA. This doll is uncommon, not super rare, but it's an older sculpt that only had 1-2 releases and it doesn't appear secondhand all that frequently. I really wanted this doll with its faceup, but waffled because of the opening bid (which felt a bit steep), and I wanted to wait for currency conversion to improve. So I waited...

...for something like 2-3 weeks. I think the auction renewed around 3 times, without any bids. Currency conversion never improved, so I finally bit the bullet and bought it as the only bidder. Now that I have this doll, I think I was something of a fool to have waffled for so long, and I was so very lucky that no one bought out the auction from under me, or that the seller didn't take the listing down. Sure, this head cost as much as the body I bought for it (the high opening bid was probably why no one bid), but money is easy to earn back while regret is eternal. I love this doll a lot now, and have zero regrets over what I spent. I felt like this doll waited for me on the auction, and it was meant to be.

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One doll I asked for and received.

I initially missed out on this doll's preorder. Most of the time I can let dolls go, but found myself coming back to this one and pining for it. This small artist seems quite niche in style, tends to make small batches of dolls, and most of their works are one-off releases, so this doll would be fairly hard to find secondhand. About 2 months after the preorder closed, I decided to ask the dollmaker if there was stock available. This was around the time the preorder would be shipping to buyers, so I felt this would be the last chance for me to buy this doll, after which I'll make peace with never getting it.

I was quite prepared to hear a "sorry, no more dolls available"... but the dollmaker emailed back to say that they had one doll in stock that I could buy, and in a skintone that I liked. I really couldn't believe it - "ask and ye shall receive" actually happened to me! I feel so grateful I had this last-chance opportunity to buy this one.

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Edited - Oops, there's one more story!
I missed out on a preorder for an outfit, but ended up buying it secondhand -- in a better version.

This was a Taobao preorder for an outfit, and I attempted to join it through a proxy. The proxy placed my order so I thought I had put down the deposit I needed and everything was good. But I must've made a mistake somewhere, or not understood something, because when the preorder closed the proxy messaged me to say that my order was rejected, and my deposit was returned to me. I was pretty upset - I really wanted this outfit, and this tailor doesn't re-release outfits.

Later I was able to make a Taobao/Xianyu account, and the first thing I looked for on Xianyu secondhand market was this outfit. I wanted a specific colour (black) and size (68cm boy), but most secondhand listings were for bigger dolls. I think I watched XY almost daily for about a month. Then one day I saw this outfit, in the right size and colour -- and not just the black version that I wanted, it was the limited edition version in black-gold that was only available for a short time in the preorder. I couldn't believe my eyes -- and immediately submitted it to the proxy to buy on my behalf. It was probably the most nerve-wracking wait ever in my BJD hobby experience... but the proxy came through for me this time. I now have the outfit at home and it is wonderful. I feel very very fortunate that I found what I wanted secondhand... with a bit extra.

 

I'd say fate/Dolly Gods have smiled upon me several times over my hobby life.

My first doll was an AoD Chi in tan that I bought during a free head event. I asked for a Min head in NY as my free head. They sent me the Min in tan, which wasn't going to work for the character. Eventually I got the NY Min head but I now had this tan head and no idea what to do with it. AoD stopped casting tan several years later and re-designed the MSD boy bodies in a style I wasn't crazy about. I despaired of ever finding the head a body. Fast forward 12 years... I'm on vacation with some friends in the US. One of my friends is browsing DoA and spots a tan AoD body and the seller is in Boston. We're literally going to Boston for the final 2 days of our vacation. I message the seller and explain the situation and they agree to meet in person to do the buy. We ended up spending a couple of hours talking with the seller and I was able to hand over cash for the body (no exchange/fees!) and take it home with me on the plane (no shipping or Customs fees!) and the match was darn near perfect (99.5%).

When Impl released Miguel The Demon Hunter, I didn't have the money for him. He was limited to 100 pieces world wide. I needed him in grey to be the character I envisioned so finding him 2nd hand was going to be tough. His partner was a Unidoll Ark in WS (which I didn't own and couldn't afford at the time). Fast forward 8 years and I find a Miguel in the MP here for a vastly reduced price as his original owner had spray painted him black and his right arm from the elbow down had been replaced with a RD mech arm. I bought him and spent 24 hours cleaning him of the paint and then another 36 hours metal leafing him. 2 weeks after receiving him, I spot a Unidoll Ark in WS with the original face-up for sale. I couldn't afford him after having just purchased the Miguel (and because the Canadian dollar sucks *sigh) so I ranted to my friends about the Dolly Gods hating me by having the Ark posted when I couldn't afford him. One of my friends bought him for me as my birthday+Xmas present. The original characters they were supposed to be changed completely but they are still paired together.

I'd always wanted a Lume Zero but was never able to purchase one for a variety of reasons. I found one for sale on FB and bought him immediately. The seller called him a "mini zero" which to me meant MSD size. Only he was the tiny version! I had to scramble to find him a partner and that lead to me being able to purchase the literal last Vita Magica Itzel boy I'd always intended to buy (I hadn't known he'd been discontinued the year previously). He's an OOAK full-set made by the artist and the only one ever made in the colour I have.

I have a fair number of other fateful stories. Some of them aren't about dolls coming home to me but dolls I've found for friends that were looking for specific sculpts. One is about the face-up a doll ended up with that is utterly perfect for him. One is about a doll and mod I never thought would become reality.

 

My first doll felt like fate. She was the first doll I fell in love with. I'd look at her company pictures endlessly. But I knew I couldn't afford her. Then, like magic, a US based doll shop had her in-stock--and at a significant discount too!

 

I've had a few cases of BJD fate being in my favor.

The most notable being my Heartstrung Ruse. She was first released back in 2014, and I really liked her face, and her posability, being double jointed. For whatever reason I didn't manage to order one, and was sad I'd missed her when she no longer seemed to be available. I didn't look for her second hand, as mature tinies were pretty unpopular, and I had no interest in driving myself crazy. Then in January of 2021 I was scrolling through the DoA Marketplace not really looking for anything in particular, and saw her. With the original artist face-up and a mohair wig. I was shaking from adrenaline when I messaged the seller, who let me know she was still available. I have never bought a doll that fast before or since. DHL shipping also got her home to me insanely fast. She got to me from Mexico in 24 hours. I named her Tyche, after the Greek goddess of luck.

 

So many wonderful stories. It's so curious how little things and coincidences can make so great impacts on our lives. My resin family is small but still I consider two of my dolls to have arrived that way to my life, changing everything:

• My first doll was a disappointment for a lot of reasons, mostly my fault (a combination of tricky company pictures and ordering her without face-up and bald and having to wait 3 more months like that since she was finally complete), so I began considering this hobby wasn't for me and that I had made a mistake. One day I was reading others' sales post on a dolly forum I was part (so I knew what I needed to write on mine to sell the doll) of and I was frozen with immediate love when I saw a Narae 412 head (I never even knew Bimong back then) being sold within my country. She had no face-up so I could see her features perfectly. I bought it in a whim, came super fast and fitted the body of that first doll perfectly (I had researched that a bit before buying, but not nearly enough). She's been with me ever since, and that was 13 years ago.

• My second story is a simpler one but still cute. I was going to buy from Dollsbe and I had my eyes set on Grape to be my third doll, so I was waiting for the pre-order to open. I didn't had an account on IG back then so I didn't follow any doll makers to see what new sculpts the companies were releasing. The day of the pre-order came, I had my money ready, I entered the website and (O.o) they had added a new sculpt, Mango, to the crew. I forgot about Grape and could only look at Mango. In the promo pictures, it was a boy, but I knew that sculpt was going to look amazing as a girl, so I pre-ordered it. I was so worried while waiting... but Mango came quickly and I had everything ready for her. It was perfect.