Tea Party + Gershwin PJ Party + Stuff
(Pictures are at the end, for those who aren’t interested in reading.)
Saturday morning, Michelle showed up at my house at about 6:40 am, and we set out for Buffalo… where we met Mandy and went to the airport. We got our 11:05 flight to NYC, and we were on our way! The flight itself was non-descript… I took a picture of Armeleia-Pinky[St. figure] in the window, then as I was putting her back in into her baggy in my purse, her head popped up and started rolling up the aisle! Eeeek! Fortunately, it didn’t go far and I was able to just unbelt and snag it back off the floor.
We took a taxi from the airport to the Gershwin ($35 split three ways)… and people were already meeting up in the lobby and setting up their dolls. Lots of lovely dolls, and really nice people! We all milled around for an hour or so from there before walking down to FIT for the Tea Party.
At FIT, we got all lined up and waited. The tea started late… because I guess there was a problem with the catering? I heard that the catering place thought the event was at 4, rather than at 3. And they didn’t want to let us in without there being food ready for us. It’s sweet, but it was a long wait…. though I did spend a lot of time chatting and getting to know people who were in line around me. I got to talk to Emi! <3 Emi presented me with my Kate, a lime and tangerine colored multi-armed cat creature. I love her. As does my real cat, Smokey.
In the tea, they showed a short “exclusive” video with pictures of the different LE dolls and some footage of Tenshi no Sato and Dolpa. It was a really cute video, though a bit corny. The pictures were pretty, though… and it’s always fun to see the dolls. There was a clip from the Volks Cruise last year… I never knew that there was someone dressed up as Captain Cecile!!!! With a big Catain Cecile mask!! Whoa! After that, President Shigeta got up and gave a speech. I was impressed – he was reading it, but it was rather long for someone who didn’t actually speak English. He paused naturally and his intonation was actually quite good. Then he went on to tell the history of Super Dollfie. This was in Japanese. He would say a few sentences, then his daughter, Mikey (designer of many of the dolls) would translate what he had said. It was vey cute. The story itself was charming, too. Basically, Volks only used to have boys things. “Model kits, Gundams, and Godzilla” as he put it. Mrs. Shigeta told him “I want to have girls in the store.” So they tried to branch out to making dolls. They started out with the 27 cm dollfie line… and it was okay. Not super popular, but not bad. Then Mr. Enku made a large, hand-made doll for his wife… and she loved it. Mrs. Shigeta really liked the doll too, and they sort of realized the special connection with a doll that size. This became the first SD, and they started casting them and showing them at the Events. Naked. Because they were a company run by men, and they didn’t know anything about making doll clothes. Gradually, interest was built up, and they started seeing things online about how people “welcomed” (:adopted?) these dolls rather than “buying” them. I sort of zoned out a bit at that point…. I didn’t mean to, but I was very tired a bit overstimulated! It was really cute, though, the whole story. Sometimes Mr. Shigeta would give Mikey a really hard line to translate… and then he’d step back and do a little dance while she was trying to figure out how to say it.
After that, they did a presentation of Olivia and a tutorial about how to change her legs. I have to admit, that doll has an amazingly innovative body. Her normal legs have no ankle joints… and then she comes with a set of calves and feet that have an ankle joint and flat feet. You hear that and you go “Well, switching that must be annoying!” but the design is really rather brilliant. Basically, there are smaller, separate strings in her calves and ankle. And then you just hook them on at the knee. Also, the way her body is constucted… somehow she manages not to have most of the same visible slots at the joints. Especially her knees and hip. It’s really cool! I want to learn how to sculpt that way! Her body itself is very detailed and mature. She has beautiful fine-muscle definition, especially in her ribs, tummy and hips. Interestingly, the way her body is sculpted is appropriate for someone wearing high heels. The hips are thrust forward a bit, and the thighs are muscled like someone compensating for heels. Pretty cool details. I don’t personally want one… though I am tempted by her head for a boy head. I think she’d make a nice replacement for Knife… if I could ever replace Knife!
I also had the opportunity (as did anyone, really), to talk to Mr. Shigeta and Mikey. Both were very nice, though Mr. Shigeta doesn’t really speak English. I got to show Fug Marie to Mikey, and she said “Oh… you did her eyes with the putty?” I told her a little about it, and she was like “Oh! You’re really good!” I was so flattered. That is such a cool compliment from someone who basically designed all of the Volks dolls that I really like. I was really excited! It’s funny… Volks is a company, but they are a company that really enjoys what they do and take pride in it. They are also true nerds themselves, I think. Mr. Shigeta may be the True Otaking, I’m not sure.
The One-Offs were very cool. There was an F-6 girl (the one who looks like a mini Anais), then an Enn…. the Enn was cute. When you went into the Tea, you got a Bingo card, a copy of the Tea Exclusive FDQ and a slip to enter the lottery for the One-Offs. I really loved the One-Off Tsukasa… but I realized that if I got him, I wouldn’t want to keep him as he was anyway. He was so beautiful, but not any of my characters. What I really wanted was a blank Tsukasa. But weirdly, buying that One-Off would have been half the price of buying a nude, eyeless, wigless Tsukasa on the secondary market. Isn’t that insane? Regardless, I didn’t even have the necessary $1,028, so I put in for the doll that Mandy wanted so she could have another change in the drawing. Unfortunately, her name wasn’t drawn. But when the One-Off lottery was called, I was surprised to see that I knew most of the people who won (or had met them and spoken to them at some point during the tea). It was really cool.
After the drawing, we played Bingo. The possible prizes were postcard sets, wig sets, shoe sets, 7 Sei-tenshi, a Hewitt, and a Tony. Wow. Awesome prizes! Amazingly, Mandy, Michelle, and I (all sitting next to each other) won prizes. Mandy won the SD wg set, I won the SD shoe set, and Michelle (the freaking lucky moron) won the damned SD13 Tony!! Gorgeous doll! I didn’t really know anyone who won the Seitenshi. Unfortunately, the shoes I won were all girl shoes, so Mandy got two out of three pairs.
The nicest thing about the tea was how genuinely nice everyone was. There was a real sense of community… everyone seemed sincerely happy and supportive of everyone else. When people won One-Offs, there was a lot of cheering and applause. When people won the Bingo prizes, there was the same. It was a just nice. In Japan, doll owners aren’t really like in the US. From my experience (and general understanding), having a massive “community” is really unusual in the non-Western doll world. When I went to Dolpa in Japan, it seemed like people went with one or two friends and stayed together. At the NYC Dolpa, people really tried to meet each other… I really enjoyed it. In a lot of ways, it really reaffirmed my love of the doll community (as opposed to just loving my own dolls).
Rory went to see the Doll Doctor, too. I should have had him look at Fug, who had serious problems… but Rory is my baby, you know. I told him that sometimes his knees came out of joint when I bent them… and he looked Rory over completely, bent him around, played with him a little and posed him… then told me that Rory was perfectly strung and didn’t need any maintenance at all. O_O He said that Rory was in excellent condition… and the problem wasn’t really a problem. Just that there’s a “right” way to bend the knees and other locking joints on the new SD13 bodies. You’re supposed to pull the joints out a little when you bend them. Just a little. It saves on the wear and tear to the notches too!
After the Tea, we went back to the Gershwin. It was also really weird… all day, I was super social. I am really very very shy, but I was just really into meeting everyone and seeing their dolls. It was really fun! But I can’t maintain the perky front long… I get really overwhelmed by crowds, and very overstimulated. When we got back to the hotel, Mandy, Michelle and I crashed for about a half hour in the room. We were all like “….” O_O so tired! Then we lept back into the fray and headed back downstairs!
There were a bunch of people downstairs! I met a bunch of really nice people who I didn’t really know at all before. There was some trading/selling of wigs, eyes, and clothes… and just general mayhem as people played dolls. SO COOL. I got to see several dolls that I recognised from DoA too! Like Winter (Yder), Rhunei (F16), Kaige (F-16), Elijah Belle (4 sisters), Juniper Snowpea…. lots of dolls! I also got to see many who I’d never seen pics of before. It was wonderful to see how proud everyone was of their dolls, and how interested they were in others. There was also an amazing lack of drama. Just people playing and having a good time. There wasn’t really even very much complaining about anything.
There was a funny moment toward the end of the evening when Janne and Zalem were heading out… and we said, “Oh! We need to get a moderator picture!!” And some people sort of paused and said, “…how many mods are here? O_O???” Amazingly, there were 5 DoA mods there! Me, Zalem, Junkets, Janne, and Celtic Geekess. Bittenbefore had been at the Tea, but couldn’t make it to the Gerswhin after… :( But we all joked that we hoped nothing serious went down on DoA over the weekend… since there were so many of the active mods missing, we could have had a hostile takeover to come home to! Forum in chaos! Blood, guts, devastation! People seemed pretty interested in seeing who the moderators were in real life. Kinda fun.
As the evening tapered off, people started going to bed… and we stayed up super late talking to just a few wonderful girls. They were so sweet, and very funny. I really enjoyed being up late with fewer people… it was an awesome way to decompress from the day!
We were up till 2. Then got up at 8:30 to go to the airport. The trip home was a pain in the ass, I have to say…. I hate LaGuardia airport. The bathrooms in particular are ghetto as hell. Half the toilets are out of order, and the other half only flush half the time. The water makes my hands red… and it’s the only place where I’ve ever felt like my hands were dirtier AFTER washing them. I felt like I was smearing my hands with a mix of ecoli and agar instead of soap, then washing them in hard water. Nasty. We got off the ground an hour and a half late. UGH.
But in general, I had a great weekend. Thanks so much to the people I met for making it so fun, and thanks to Volks for planning such a fun event. :) I hope to meet people again at the next Dolpa! Or perhaps someday we can organize a DoA Con, so that alllllll the dolly owners can come. And so I can bring my beloved Knifeling!
I was so busy that I didn’t really take many pics at all…. only maybe 100. And then under the low light without flash… most of them are crap!
Here’s from the Gershwin before the Tea…
At the Tea…
At the Pyjama Party at the Gershwin… I forgot to mention that I got a long red wig in the swap. Rory wore it for the evening. I took a lot more pics, but most of them have a lot of people in them. I dunno how people would feel about having their photo posted, so I’m not posting those ones.
Since I got home, there have been a few disappointing revelations about the Tea. Someone who won one of the One-Offs (that’s a weird sentence!) has turned around and posted it for sale a day later with a $1,000 markup. I’m so disappointed. And honestly, disgusted. That was one of the most wanted One-Offs at the event. I’ve also heard that this person was asking at the tea which of the dolls was worth the most. -_- Most disappointing, I found out that one of the Sei-tenshi winners sold their doll AT the tea. For $1000. How mercenary is that?
Receive Fug and keep her for up to two weeks.
