BJD storytellers - are they still around?

LavilyDay on youtube has some older videos about her doll backstories. She has a pretty cool channel overall

 

I love @dolls_and_griff on instagram, their storylines are so well written I actually didn't know that it was a whole genre of youtube and stuff I eventually would like to try it, I certainly have enough characters and stories to share :p

 

I am glad the focus went a bit back in terms of storytelling and more into aesthetics in fact that is the only reason I'm considering keeping some of my dolls and the fact that fashion doll community moved into posting stories all the time (after those jointed fashion dolls made their appearance) instead of beautiful mirage looking shelves full of dolls made me quit and sell most of those but I think bjd's will always have some storytelling. Personally I hate reading stories if I want to read a story I read a book with good critics most of them I read are classics and bad litterature is irritating to me so to avoid it I stick with the classics but people like stories and I understand that not everyone wants to read the miserables or unkle vanya so there is a demand and also offer there is a thread about having a doll webside of your own and I'm sure storytellers will post there if they have a site with stories so maybe it worths a bit for you to check it /threads/do-you-have-a-blog-or-website-just-for-dolls.566734/

 

^well damn
There's some awful writing out there, but genies spell book did a good job of explaining her characters and their world - I really liked her style.

 

Current social media doesn't encourage it. I had a lovely convo with a doll artist that started just by complimenting their doll. I got a while back ground and enjoyed it thoroughly. Many of mi e have storied background, some with a character in mind, some with a completely new concept that I enjoyed so much I put it in the stories. Do I share it? Not really.

Point being, you might find what you're looking for by asking

 

I absolutely miss this side of the hobby, and it's also a big reason why I also waned out of the 'public eye' so to speak... Pretty pictures are great and all of course, but if there's no heart, no soul... then I fail to see the appeal.

That being said, I'm taking my own advice at the moment and I'm just starting to share story snippets over at my Instagram (shiroi.bungaku). I am making an effort to tailor my online experience to what I actually want it to be and surround myself with the things that really matter.

Also I sincerely hope that no one, not a single person that wants to tell their own story, ever listens to anyone saying that their 'bad writing' isn't worth to be created or shared. Everyone starts somewhere; what's important is putting pen to paper and committing to it. Everything else is tertiary.

PS: if you post stories, or are interested to talk about stories and doll ocs do hit me up either here or on instagram! It's literally my favourite thing!

 

Haha I instant-followed you on IG for that! I love talking about doll stories, even though I’m soooo inactive on insta most of the time!! Please feel free to DM— I’m @indifferent_red

 

I absolutely love storytelling through BJDs — it’s my favorite part of the hobby. I wish I would do this more often for myself, using photostories or short text.
While beautiful aesthetics are captivating, for me, the character concept and the story behind each doll are truly the “soul,” that inner light that makes each one unique.

P.S. Here’s also an interesting link within DOA: /threads/serialised-photostories-a-database.268479/

 

I don't know if I'd be considered a doll storyteller or just someone who has a lot of character stories who just happens to have dolls of those characters?

I love creating characters and stories, and shelling my OCs as dolls is my main goal in the hobby. My doll collecting is pretty much entirely character-focused -- I won't buy a doll unless it is either an existing character I like (like limited volks collab DDs or resin character collab dolls) or a sculpt I can turn into a character doll based on an OC of my own.

But when I think of doll storytellers I mostly think of people who post picture stories and such! Which I don't really do ever, I just take non-lore-relevant pictures focused on aesthetics.

I enjoy reading others stories and I really like seeing other people who love their characters to bits so much that they make a whole little doll of them.

Personally I think I'm a storyteller who happens to be into BJD, not really a BJD storyteller specifically, because my characters and worlds existed first, and the dolls came after because I really wanted physical manifestations of my characters. But I would love to try and put together some series of backstory-related pictures maybe, I guess I just never really thought about it.

It could be fun to try to make the things they wear or use in their stories (clothes, props) or recreate a little corner of a room from places they go to in the story, and take some pictures. Maybe a bit too ambitious though!

Where do people tend to post doll story stuff nowadays anyway? Would love to know. I have various character profiles and illustrations of backstory stuff posted on other websites but haven't used the dolls themselves for anything story related yet.

I think making a blog is a great idea! It's pretty easy to setup simple websites nowdays with google sites, carrd, wix etc and you can mix writing and photos too. I'd love to check it out if you make one!

 

I consider myself a story-teller as writing is my main hobby and the thing that led me to explore BJDs in the first place, so I completely agree with wanting to see more of that type of content. The doll community in my country used to be very active in that field like 5 or so years ago with people creating together even, role-playing their dolls and all, but I think it all was washed away as forums and blogs lost momentum and the social media took over. Still, I count myself lucky I follow a couple of doll owners on IG who post snippets or short stories alongside their gorgeous pictures.

I also remember following some doll-owners on YT who did box openings and dressed their dolls or simply held them while telling their stories or talking about their plans, but the ones I knew disappeared or moved on to other platforms and I lost track of them. Still, I love the idea of this type of content, though I'm too shy to even think of doing it myself and I'm not even sure if my crew would be interesting enough as the people I remembered doing this had big collections of very different dolls so they could continually create videos talking about different characters and doing different stuff.

Maybe this also applies to other story-teller doll-owners but, in my case, the main thing that keeps me away from posting my stories in a doll-related site is my lack of dexterity and props to illustrate the stories with my dolls' pictures. Instead, I relegate the few pieces of fiction I'm brave enough to put out there to sites as AO3 and such. Many times I have thought about making a proper blog to also post the stories there and also keep the profiles of the dolls and some pictures, but the amount of time and will needed in order to not give it up while knowing that probably no one would even look at it makes it completely not worthy.

 

I'm not crazily into doll photo stories but I used to love reading snippets of fiction that some of my favourite doll owners used to post, back in the days of deviantart.

I don't know if this is the case for anyone else, but I do have elaborate back stories for many of my dolls - I've literally just finished a 180,000 word novel about my JID Tatiana! But I'm so shy about sharing my ideas and writing, I pretty much never talk about their stories. I just keep it to myself. At least one of my dolls has a back story that I worry I would be judged for. When I first started the hobby as a teenager back in 2008, I didn't worry about that the same. I felt a lot more... freedom then?

 

@Haven_Of_Dolls336 - Hey that's me! Omg coming across this totally made my day!!!! I decided to use the name Silabear over here because I named my first bjd Silas and I like bears. Fun fact, the 'griff' in my IG name stands for Griffin, a mythical creature. Please tell me your IG name! I wish I could figure out how to do stories over here too!

 

I would've tagged you directly if I had remembered, oopsie! But I'm glad I brightened your day I'm also @simp_4_all on IG if you're so inclined I love all the fun facts too

 

Thank you again so much!!!

 

I have an ongoing story on Instagram it's about the only thing I post on there.
I've been having to rush at posting it to get season 1 finished by the end of the year.
I have it completed at home, but miscalculated how often I had to post to get it all up.
I have a lot of plans for season 2 as well.
I do it for my own enjoyment.
It's just fun to make stories with my dolls.

 

I am glad to find other doll story tellers! I have been doing the photo stories for a bit on IG as @dolls_and_griff. First I did off topic 12" dolls and then I switched to BJDs. Now it's a mix of big and little.

I had another doll lady who does photo stories tell me this "we tell these stories for ourselves." That's what I do, I just tell the stories that come to me from these dolls. I don't start out with characters. I fall in love with the doll and then when I get them, they tell me who they are. I grew up on Hallmark cards and Harlequin Romance Novels, so it's all pretty predictable, but I'm ok with that. I just take my pics with my phone and sometimes a ring light. The BJDs in my icon here, Silas & Reina, are my BJD king and queen over there.

Sometimes I over think it, but I think people enjoy simple pictures. I agree that everything doesn't have to be elaborate.

 

Please wait warmly. I'll be ready to share in approximately 10 years! I didn't realize how much planning was involved and it feels like I'll never be able to even start

 

It sounds interesting!

 

this is definitely the case for me now-- writing stories about my dolls' characters became a little mini hobby of its own, and there are entire novellas attached to most of the dolls in my collection, but i very much keep those to myself. i've never shared any of the stories with anyone, online or irl. i am also WAY too shy for that, especially since the stories i come up with always end up having themes and elements in them that are super personal to me and in a couple of cases were written as a way of processing things in my own life. i know that's true of most writers to one degree or another, but to me it just feels way too much to plop out into the world.

when i started the bjd hobby in 2013, i just wanted one to sew for. she had no particular character, no story-- i just thought it would be super fun to make clothes for such a big, articulated, realistic looking doll. i saw a lot of people talking about elaborate backstories they'd created for their bjd, and was convinced that would not be my thing. and then i found myself imagining a bit of a personality for her as i made clothes for her, and designing her wardrobe around it-- just vague at first, but over time she got more and more specific, and then the dolls i added after her started to develop characters...and a couple years in i ended up having so much story floating around in my head that i'd imagined through designing and dressing my dolls and having them turn into characters in the process that i started to write it down.

so now i am definitely the person i thought i was not going to be, with elaborate, detailed stories for each doll, but the only way any of that shows or gets shared is in the fact that each doll's look/clothing is very specific to their character and story. i'm not super great at photos, but i do like the idea of taking pictures of my dolls that would be isolated moments from their stories that might be fun to set up and capture-- almost like film stills. that's probably the absolute boldest i'd ever manage to be at sharing their stories, though-- i'd never be able to bring myself to do full on narrative photostories, or post my writing anywhere, etc. definitely too chicken for that. i'm glad not everyone feels that way, tho-- i really enjoy seeing other people's doll stories

 

Stories of my dolls are the cornerstone of my hobby. It wouldn't make sense without that. If you don't mind using a translator, I would like to welcome you to my WordPress or Rei's blog.

 

Arengil said it perfectly - stories are the cornerstone of the hobby to me too. Behind all my doll photos is their ongoing story.

But I've found that I tell stories differently with my dolls vs. say, writing a novel (which I've done in the past for events like NaNoWriMo). Dolls lend themselves really well to a visual storytelling method, so I find myself wanting to tell wordless narratives through photos. So my doll photostories are implicit and usually single scenes from the bigger story, or completely figurative tableaus, and I find that I'm not interested at all in putting words or explicit narrative to any of my photos. I guess it's the whole "show vs tell" thing, and with dolls, all I want to do is show pics but leave everything else unsaid except maybe in snippets.

 

I used to do photostories in my early enthusiastic years as a dorrie owner back in LiveJournal, especially after establishing the final character of my first dorrie. It was really fun, especially when incorporating them with the introduction of my next three dolls.

Now with me older and pretty busy with work and life, I want to go back to those days again, hehehe. In the future maybe, now that I have two new big dorries completed.

 

New to the hobby, but been debating setting up a blog or something for my dolls when I start collecting them proper... I'm a professional writer, and it's the one skill I never fall out of love with.

I've been eying the community since I was 16 (now 23), and I've been worried that by the time I get my first OC dolls, the RP community will have been entirely dead. While I love storytelling in general, it's so fun to do little "non-canon" (or, if you REALLY get along with someone, making it canon...) stories with others.

I'm also someone who has OCs and might turn them into dolls, though I'm hoping to turn dolls into OCs, too. And storytelling/roleplaying is some of my favorite stuff to do in my other communities/hobbies.

 

I love putting lots of thought into what personality and backstory my dolls might have. It really connects you with the doll on a personal level, and I can’t help but love them more after learning more about them. I like to imagine that every doll has a story to tell, and I just need to find out what it is. For some dolls, I’ve given them characters I had already made that I believed fit them well. For others, I’m building it as I go when I find things that interest me or things that suit the look of the sculpt.
As someone who enjoys storytelling, I love listening to people yap about their OCs. Hearing how passionate and excited they are to tell their stories inspires me to write my own. I will definitely be looking at these different recommendations!!

 

Storytelling is one of the main reasons I got into the BJD hobby. I love BJD photography, but creating in-depth characters with their own backstories and intertwining them with my other dolls is also very important to me. When I was a kid, my friend and I used to do this with Bratz dolls, and now, as an adult, I find myself doing it with my BJDs. I guess I never really grew out of it.

Several years ago, I discovered a few BJD owners on DeviantArt and Tumblr who wrote detailed stories for their dolls. It's sad to see that many of them have been inactive for about a decade now, and it makes me even sadder that fewer people seem to be writing doll stories these days.

Since I joined the hobby, I have been writing and piecing together my own doll stories little by little. This past month, I’ve been focused on organizing my ideas, adjusting the timeline, and writing out specific scenes. I have parts of my dolls' stories on their profiles here on DOA. Those profiles will be updated soon, but eventually, I plan to find a platform to share the full story. I’ve heard that some people write doll stories on Wattpad, but I personally don’t like that site. I’ve also heard good things about FictionPress and AO3, although I remember someone mentioning that you need an invitation to join AO3.

 

I had never really followed the story tellers. But now that you mention it, it tempts me to start being some doll stories myself. A couple of my dolls have quite extensive backstories. Maybe I'll make an Instagram for them someday

 

I had hoped there was a forum section dedicated to the sharing of doll characters and their stories. We have journals for the crafting aspect and I know we have doll profiles for a little bit of backstory. But what can we do about wanting to talk in-depth about our doll characters? And especially when their shells are still works in progress?

There are several people on this forum who made mentions of published stories and having shelled many of their OCs. I'd love to glimpse at those stories while admiring their dolls--perhaps even support their works directly.

Anyway, the most I can share about my OCs on this forum is my avatar. I cannot bring myself to start screaming into the void of any social media.

 

Yeah I'd like to figure out a way to share more of my fics I have written about some of my dolls. At the moment, my Archive of Our Own account fics are all locked to members only being able to read and comment so that they aren't used to train AI. Unfortunate since I was relying on non-members to help my fics get more attention. Any in progress fics I have I generally work on very privately when I have inspiration and that is slow work. Some day I swear I'll release more.

 

I've done photostories on my blog on and off for about ten years - more off than on lately, sadly. I need to make time to get back into it. I have a mix of BJDs and way off-topic dolls.

 

I don't know if I count as a story-teller but I just can't live without writing. It was my first hobby, far before dolls. Now I write about my doll OCs, my stories Kirakira Boys and Tears of the Golden Moon are both on Wattpad, I just wish I had more time to update them more often. I also like the stories of Jean (Jennky here on DoA) - the characters are well-developed and the story is really gripping.

 

I've never really written out or shared a whole lot about my dolls or their characters though, partially because I don't think other people would be interested?

Though I really like reading and listening to other people tell stories about their dolls, and I find it way more interesting than box openings or reviews. I mean I like those too, but those don't bring dolls to life in quite the same way. The story-telling aspect of this hobby brings out a whole different passionate side from their owners, you know?

I think my favourite way to experience this through their dolls is when they share it on youtube. If I had to listen it person it can be hard for me to follow if I am unprepared, but in video form, when I can listen at my own pace while doing something else, it's the best.

Edit: I would actually love it if there was a story-telling subforum on here, outside of photo-stories, since that's only one way of sharing stories about dolls. I mean a place where people could share stories or videos of their dolls, with a focus on stories or their character. Maybe a photo or a vid of the dolls involved would be required? Anyone else feel similarly?

 

i actually think this a super cool idea! i would love to see this

 

Yeah!! Like the only reason I had no plans of sharing stories when I get my dolls on here is simply because I don't see any forum it would fit in.

 

This kind of info would either be teased in photoshoots or shown in photostories, but most of the work was off site on either a personal website, deviantart, livejournal, or something of that sort. You could see if it's okay to add a thread to the brigadoon, but character work is no longer BJD discussion. There are a few character related threads under BJD games though if you want to participate in those.

 

I would love to talk about my doll characters/stories somewhere. It'd be nice to have discussions about different aspects and how/where to post stories. I found this thread from back in 2018, but I'm not sure it fully encompasses what everyone here is wanting, as it's just a dump thread, not really discussion. I could try to make a thread, if folks want? Or someone else can do it, I'm not picky.

As for writing, I'm currently doing little flash fictions for each of my doll characters, hoping to post them on a neocities website made for the purpose. I'm not sure I'll go further than that, probably depends on how I feel after I'm done. I don't currently plan to write any novels or anything about my dolls, my "real" writing is separate from this hobby (not that everyone else's needs to be).