#Because the people defending the work are so swayed in by these companies' crappy attempts at representation

[miss-rum-hee]

Because the people in charge don't give a genuine shit about diversity & inclusion in the slightest, they just want money BUT at the same time, they also want brownie points for having "representation". So they put it in there in the most shallow & inoffensive ways imaginable so that they can appear "progressive" & get a good number of folks willing to defend their shitty series to no end.

What’s up with this trend of rebooting beloved cartoons from our childhood and in an attempt to make it progressive and diverse they end up being more racist, sexist, homophobic and offensive than the og cartoon?

[mermaidsneedwater]

second chances | chapter four

series page

warnings: mentions of death/loss

The Drunk Dancing

“So, what’s your story?”

“What do you mean?” You asked.

“Everyone has a story… What’s yours?” Yugyeom shrugged casually.

As you walked together on the street, you watched couples passing by. You wondered if Chaeyoung and Bambam were acting like that as well, if they were then all this would’ve been worth it. You then wondered where you were headed, Yugyeom still hadn’t told you exactly where you were going.

“You first. It’s probably more interesting than mine.” You said walking by his side, you were unsure if you were actually willing to share with him.

“Okay…” Yugyeom said, shoving his hands in his pockets “Let's see, I’m twenty-five, a decent dancer but a terribly unpunctual person. I have a dog named Dalkyum, and I’m probably my family’s greatest disappointment.”

“Woah, hold on” You stopped him. “What do you mean you’re a disappointment? You were just signed to the best dance company in the city!”

“Parents wanted me to do something practical with my college degree, become a doctor or a lawyer, something stuffy like that. When they came to my graduation and realized I majored in Dance… well let’s just say that they weren’t too thrilled. I haven’t spoken to them since then.”

Blinking, you took in his explanation, “Well, yeah. But you also deceived them.” You pointed out. “Maybe you should’ve been honest with them from the beginning and set their expectations accordingly.”

Yugyeom registered your words, a bit taken aback. No one had ever pointed that out to him. “They wouldn’t have understood.”

“How do you know? You never gave them a chance.” You pressed. “I think you should invite them to your performance.”

“Maybe.” Yugyeom said shortly. “Anyway, that’s me in a few words. What about you?”

Letting out a shaky breath, you finally answered his question, “Well, I’m a twenty-five year old widow, working as a pathetic assistant for the bitchiest woman in the city.”

Yugyeom stopped in his tracks. “Wait, widow? As in–”

“I got married right out of college.” You confirmed.

“Do you mind me asking what happened?” Yugyeom said slowly appearing in front of you, his eyebrows knit.

“Car accident.” You said. “He died on the way to the hospital.”

Yugyeom watched as you recounted the story, instinctively placing a hand on your arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Moving your arm, you shrugged “That’s life I guess. The anniversary of his death was last Friday, it’s been three years.”

You watched as the pieces of the puzzle finally connected in Yugyeom’s mind. That's why you were so offended when he’d leaned in to kiss you, why you were so reluctant to come out, and why you often seemed lost in your own world.

He gave you a soft smile before changing the subject, “So who’s the bitchiest woman in the city?”

+++

“You need to get out right now!” You whispered nervously.

“Relax baby,” Jaebeom said with ease. “No one is coming.”

“They do random inspections all the time!” You insisted. “Oh crap, if they do a fire drill we’re screwed. I’m going to lose my scholarship, and over what? A boy!”

“What do you think is worse, the fact that you brought your boyfriend to your women only dorm or the fact that said boyfriend is a senior from SNU, your rival school?” Jaebeom pondered aloud.

“You need to leave through the window.” You continued spiraling, “I can hear footsteps.”

Sitting up at the mention of the window, Jaebeom frowned, “You’re not serious right? I could fall!”

A knock on the door had both your eyes widened.

“Go!” You pushed him off your bed and towards the window.

“Okay, you look like you need another drink.” Yugyeom said.

He signaled the bartender to make you another drink as you were shaken out of your recollection. “I can’t drink anymore, I’ll have a bad hangover tomorrow.”

“What! You barely had anything. We need to build your tolerance up.” Yugyeom insisted. He studied your face for a moment before saying, “You don’t really get out much do you?”

“I guess you could say that…” you agreed.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I guess I’m not really ever in the mood these days.” Correction, you hadn’t been in the mood to go out for the past three years. Feeling a sadness settling in, you switched the topic, “So what do you think Bambam and Chaeyoung are doing?”

“Probably screwing in the bathroom of the club,” Yugyeom said nonchalantly.

You scrunched your nose in disgust and rolled your eyes, “Is that really all you think about?”

“Yeah pretty much.” Yugyeom said, sipping his drink. “It’s not just me though, it’s all guys. I’d say it easily occupies 90% of our brain capacity.”

“Well that’s reassuring.” You said. You sipped your drink, taking in the strong alcohol flavor and coughing. “Jesus, this is literally all vodka.”

“Cheers, drink up.” Yugyeom held his glass, clinking it against yours and then downing the glass. As you both drank, you were startled by Yugyeom’s loud shouting.

“Hey! It’s my song!” He cheered.

You paused to listen to what he was talking about, recognizing the song as Chris Brown’s ‘Take You Down’.

“Of course this is your song.” You muttered.

“We have to dance, come on!” Yugyeom grabbed your hand faster than you could refuse.

It was odd really, the room was quiet and barely had any people in it. You and Yugyeom stood in the center of the bar, creating a makeshift dance floor. A few people in the bar looked on as Yugyeom danced alone to the song.

“Everyone’s watching us.” You told him nervously.

“Okay, if you can notice that, you’re not drunk enough,” Yugyeom paused from his awkward swaying. “We’re doing shots and then dancing.”

From the floor he signaled for six shots and brought you to the bar. The bartender prepared them and left them for you two drink. Wincing, you looked at the shots and then Yugyeom. Noticing your hesitation, he grabbed your hand and made you hold the shot. He then motioned for you to drink and swallowed the shot himself. The two of you repeated the action with the second shot, and then the third.

Banging his hands on the bar, Yugyeom hollered loudly. “Whoo! Dancing time!”

Feeling woozy yourself, you didn’t fight him when he led you to the center of the bar. As the song blared through the crappy bar speakers, you laughed as Yugyeom started swaying and grinding in a vaguely sexual manner. Feeling the beat, you swayed side to side, unsure of what to do.

Yugyeom danced on, but you couldn’t help but giggle like a schoolgirl. At this point his dance moves left nothing to your imagination, as he air humped the floor, you held your stomach as it hurt too much from your reaction. The feeling felt so foreign, you couldn’t recall the last time anyone beside Jaebeom had made you laugh so hard.

As he returned to stand, Yugyeom watched you laughing at him, a large grin appearing on his own face as well.

+++

You walked slowly into your office, hoping not to make any noise. Tip-toeing to your desk, you’d almost made it before you heard a voice yelling.

“Y/N, get in here right now!”

Groaning, you quit your attempt to be quiet and opened the door to Susie’s office.

“Hi Susie.” You said, offering a smile.

“Don’t you ‘hi Susie’ me young lady. You’re late.” She said, not looking up from her papers. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fire you right now.”

“Because I’ve worked for you for about a year and a half and this is the first time I’ve been late.” You reminded her.

Blinking, Susie glanced at you before setting her pile down. She looked up to the ceiling, most likely trying to verify if your statement was true. Finally realizing that it was, she spoke. “Huh, I guess that’s right. You better not make this a regular occurrence.”

“Understood.” You nodded. “I should get back to my desk.”

As you walked back, you heard the phone on your desk ring. Speed walking to catch it, you answered, “Icon magazine, Susie Park’s assistant, how can I help you?”

“My tolerance for alcohol has severely diminished.” The voice spoke. “I’m disappointed in myself.”

Your eyes widened at the voice, “Yugyeom?” You whispered, hoping Susie wouldn’t realize that this was now a personal call.

“I’m thinking that the next time we go out, we just go all out and get blackout drunk.” He continued.

“How did you get this number?” You asked, “Don’t you have a job or something you should be at now?”

“Hey, I don’t go into the studio until 11 am.” He defended. “And don’t call me a creep, but I looked it up.”

“You’re such a creep.” You whispered. “You could’ve texted!”

“Well, actually I couldn’t because I don’t have your number.”

“Oh.” You said. “I have to go but I’ll give it to you the next time I see you.”

“Wait, Y/N don’t hang-”

You placed the phone back on the receiver, shaking your head and laughing to yourself.

“What’s got you giggling like that?” Chaeyoung asked as she approached your desk, careful to avoid Susie’s line of vision.

“Nothing.” You said quickly.

“Well clearly it wasn’t nothing. I can’t remember the last time I saw you blush like that.” Chaeyoung pressed. “Was it a guy?”

“No! And I’m not blushing!” You denied fervently. “Anyway, how was your night with Bambam?”

Now it was Chaeyoung’s turn to blush, she glanced down “It was really nice, we’re going to see each other again on Friday.”

Your eyes widened as your mouth dropped. “Really? That’s great! I’m so happy for you Chae.”

“Thanks Y/N, honestly I can’t believe it myself.” She beamed.

“Less talking, more working!” Susie called from her office.

“Talk later?” You offered.

Nodding her head vigorously, Chaeyoung retreated to her work space.

As she left, you found yourself thinking about Yugyeom, you wondered what he was doing now. Snapping out of your ridiculous thought, you returned to your computer, desperate to distract yourself from him.

chapter three | chapter five

[keijogirl]

A Realistic Discussion about Recast BJDs and their Impact on The Hobby.

I completely get that this post is old, but it’s shown up like 3 days in a row on my dash so I felt a little compelled to respond.

This is really long you can tl;dr with just the bold segments its still long though lol.  I will attempt at being funny by adding more pics to keep this entertaining. I am sorry in advance.

Let me start by saying Good Job!

I think it’s awesome that you’re spending the time to make such a well thought out post for your reasons. It works. Its great that you make your own dolls through recast for experiments and gifts. Its awesome. I’m so glad you don’t sell them though lol.

I actually don’t collect resin dolls anymore, but do want to point out about the real problem with recasts. You’re right, it isn’t about the artists personally. No one really actually cares about if the artist ate last week or not as long as there are dolls for us to enjoy. Save for the few golden souls among us. The back end logistics don’t matter as long as we get what we want, right? Shit-tastic but true.

No one gives two fucks about who has what doll sculpt or how much they actually paid for it.  No one. Not even OOP. “Pros” conveniently miss that point every time.

I will laugh til I die at any petty bitch that really does care about that. That’s #PettyLaBelle and #PettyPaige levels of Petty.  #Renegade4life, #Fuckdapolice if that was the actual problem with recasts. I’d defend everyone’s reason to own one to the death if it was about people being classist or gatekeepers about only allowing certain people to own certain sculpts. But it’s not. That’s not why people argue about this so much, though it is often misconstrued as such.

The real problem with recasts is their quality.  Not that they are shit, but because they are almost flawless. Recasts are like counterfeit currency and they lock up the legit second hand market because of it and destroy the hobby’s economy unintentionally by devaluing the originals.  Yes, we have an economy *gasp* and this post is explaining those economics. We’re talking about MONEY!

A long time ago, I got a recast Soom tiny body on the 2nd hand really cheap for a floating head that I had. After I got it, I ended up leaving the hobby for a bit, and coming back I truly understand now why recasts are not good and why I won’t be buying more of them. The little recast body is flawless and perfect for my girl. Despite my new anti-recast stance, I can’t bring myself to throw it away because I legitimately feel like I am throwing away money. I might as well be tossing away the real thing. It is a perfect replica for a fraction of the original’s price and it serves the purpose of the real thing, there is no need for me to buy another legit body to replace it. I couldn’t justify it if I tried.

This is why recasts are so hazardous to the hobby. When I first got into dolls the doll hobby economy was strong. Dolls for sale at good prices got snapped up, especially in good condition and even poor condition or unpopular dolls were re-homed in a respectable amount of time.  Over priced ones just sat until either someone gave in or the seller dropped the price to a good one.

Before recasts became so popular, there was a flow of money throughout the hobby and people could buy First hand and if they didn’t like it or broke it they could sell it Second hand and then buy another. This allowed companies to thrive, allowing them to produce new sculpts, sets, concepts, etc.

Recast dolls block up that system worse than consuming 2 lbs of mild cheddar in one sitting.

Recasts give consumers an alternative that makes it impossible for the economy to work properly. Hobbiests are now having to be more selective about what dolls they bring home first hand. This is because, if it doesn’t work they’ll be bumping threads for years for that artist doll they bought on a whim. Broken dolls, less expensive companies and unpopular sculpts don’t stand a chance at getting re-homed because what someone would have paid for that broken or unpopular doll could instead buy a fresh, perfect replica or 2 of a more sought after fad sculpt, new resin smell included.

Not to mention the distrust in the community spawned from the asshats that try to pass off the recast dolls as legits. For old dolls that don’t have CoA or a way to prove that you got it legit anymore you’re screwed. I’ll probably never be able to get rid of some of mine. I actually tossed their CoAs with their boxes when I moved and they are original 2008 series Soom MDs. lol.

Fairyland, for example, is the most recast company out there, and now has QC issues where they never had them before and longer waits than historically.

For every legit MNF Chloe there are probably 10 recasts of her.  Admittedly, I’m pulling this stat out of my ass for example’s sake but it’s possible lol. That isn’t a good thing, not because of the Chloe flood, but the money spent on those 10 recast dolls would have stimulated the hobby’s economy. That money could have purchased a new Chloe, homed a 2nd hand one, or a different sculpt all together that wouldn’t have been homed otherwise.  Smaller companies or less popular ones without fairyland’s consumer base have shut down behind it, because the cashflow on the legit side is stopped up. More legit dolls from unpopular companies are sitting on wishlists rather than coming home.

Why? Because only fad or “in demand” dolls get recast. Less popular sculpts stay at their regular price and thus stay “expensive” with unattractive price tags compared to recast prices.  Its why “Pros” don’t listen when “Antis” offer up low cost legit companies.

I mean-- Why buy BBB or Mirodoll when you can get a new  “Fairyland” (which is what they actually want)  for the same price?  &B4 -- “It isn’t really FL...” The quality issue comes up where the replicas are just as good as the real ones. Morality isn’t always enough to pull someone back from crossing this line.

There is no doubt in my mind that the doll economy is why we no longer have Dream of Doll.  They were one of the oldest companies out there besides Volks, Iplehouse, Doll-Zone, BBB and Luts, with a small but steady fan base usually over shadowed by the bigger companies in popularity but always drooled after in the gallery. As the popularity of recasts grew, their waiting rooms trickled to a halt and a lot of their sculpts ended up on Wish lists rather than Saving for and Waiting. The companies don’t get paid and can’t create new content without taking a loss. Even re-branding attempts are a loss if it doesn’t fix the problem and increase sales.

It’s the same reason Patreon exists for media content creators, so they can create more, without having to worry about a day job to keep a roof over their head. Like it or not, this is undeniable and the effect of recasts on the hobby economy and the real reason why “Antis” are so up in arms about the prevalence of recast dolls, ready to fight.

Yes, some “Antis” can be zealots and out right fucking mean. I don’t support actual bullying.  Read that again, please. I don’t support ACTUAL bullying. Telling someone to burn their doll or kill themselves is stupid and really crappy just because they bought a recast or legit doll. Shame on anyone that does. Stating your stance that you don’t support recasts and do not wish to be affiliated with anyone that does is not bullying, but telling someone that they are “trash” for owning recasts IS bullying. Not wanting to be affiliated with those that do, is not bullying that is a preference. Encouraging others to shun that person is being a dick bully.

The hobby isn’t worth that kind of shit. People have real anxieties, not everyone has the “thick skin” or “spine” to stand up to the battering ram of people’s hate. If the internet is your only reprieve from flame thrower of real life and you’re getting fire from the internet; comments like that can make one feel trapped and make those issues worse. This hobby isn’t worth that and never will be.  I love our hobby even though I’m not actively purchasing resin dolls anymore, but it’s not worth that. That’s shitty and just makes the “Anti” side look terrible and pushes people to the recast side either because it looks safer or due to some petty sense of rebellion.  Yes, it’s still petty just admit it. “I’m going to buy only recast because people who buy legit dolls are mean.” Yes, it is petty and that’s ok, really funny to me, but ok. lol

Recasts are as beautiful as the originals, and it’s okay to admit that. However, they do damage the hobby we all love so much on a grand scale, and that is why people beg and plead with “Pros” to go legit.

Again, it’s not okay for someone to be bullied for their choice to buy a recast. Whether they care about the impact of it or not. What’s done is done. Its okay to try to dissuade someone from doing so, but after the fact, the doll isn’t going to unmake itself and it will not change anything. You’re not going to get someone to throw away their money that they chose to spend on a doll legit or not. It’s just not going to happen, let’s be clear on that.

At the end of the day,  I support education and dissuasion. I will try to sway you and help you understand the “why” before you make the decision, but after it’s done, it’s done.  I can still be friends after that if you’re not being an asshat on either side, or overly petty, see above.  

My stance is that I am Anti-Recast, and that’s ok. I want us all to be in the hobby, but I want us to do it the right way.

Cheers, Bitches. [cue most overused gif ever]