Do reintroductions count...?

Hi lovely people! I go by Shien on the internet, I'm thirtymumble, and I live in Australia.

I fell out of the BJD hobby circa 2017, although I think I was most active between around 2012-2015; at the time I picked up a lot of MSD sized girls, mostly for a fantasy storyline that never quite got off the ground. Between finishing uni, work getting nuts, getting wildly depressed at one stage and getting distracted by the photography aspect of the hobby rather than the customization, the BJDs got put into boxes and became a guilty thought of "Oh, I should finish those characters..." every time I dug out my crate of dolls and faceup supplies when I had to move house.

This probably would have continued indefinitely if I hadn't been idly going through my junk mail, saw a newsletter from Alice's Collections and happened to click... and saw Dream Valley's Sonata, and damn if I hadn't forgotten what it's like to fall in love with a doll with one click, after all this time.

After several weeks of agonizing - I'd bit the bullet and bought Sonata, then went a little nuts buying a body for my oldest and most patient girl (who's been a floating head in a sea of beautiful clothes she can't wear for over a decade) and then trawling through Yahoo!Japan spending an ungodly amount on more clothes after that. I also did what felt like the hardest thing - which was pull all my girls out of storage and inventory everything I had from the hobby, piece by piece, pushing through all the guilt I had about neglecting things for so long. One of my beloved old baked skin Bluefairy girls had yellowed quite remarkably, and although she's still gorgeous it breaks my heart a little. But otherwise everything has been patiently waiting for me.

It's been an incredible trip down memory lane... I was determined to pull receipts and provenance for every piece of doll kit and clothing I bought, but apparently a lot can change in 8-10 years with the world the way it is, a lot of the old BJD companies I used take for granted are no longer around, and a lot of the amazing faceup artists and friends that got me into the hobby are gone. I spent probably several evenings just pulling up old sculpts and companies on Wayback Machine with no small amount of nostalgia. But some of the sculpts and clothes coming out these days are incredible, and I'm glad this forum is still around.

Anyway, shoutout to anyone else who's back with a vengeance after they started earning real adult money and spending it irresponsibly! If you're still in this corner of the internet, feel free to drop me a line.