Coming back from my hiatus
It was really hard to leave at the time, but it was also for the best.
Aedyn's arrival, May 2016
I stepped away from the hobby in 2017, and I've never really talked about why beyond a quick exit post on Instagram, which I archived afterward.
The short version is that I joined the hobby in 2016, and it didn't take long to run into the side of this community that a lot of long-time collectors know about and either don't talk about much or try not to. The jealousy, the gatekeeping, the anonymous callout blogs on Tumblr picking apart people's photos, their characters, their whole presence in the hobby. I don't think that's unique to BJDs, either. Any community built around art and self-expression seems to grow some version of it, but knowing that didn't make it any easier to be in the middle of it at the time.
What got to me most was how it twisted something that's supposed to be so personal. Owning a BJD is a strange, wonderful kind of ownership. You're not the sculptor (or maybe you actually are), but the doll still becomes yours in a way that feels closer to authorship than collecting. The characters, the styling, the way you photograph them, it's all personal expression, maybe the closest thing to owning a piece of art while also being the artist. Watching that get turned into something people used against each other, in a space that was supposed to feel safe for exactly that, was heartbreaking in a way I didn't have words for back then. It's just sad to see artists attack other artists in the one place that was meant to be safe.
So I made a post and I left. I sold four-ish dolls and a few heads on my way out, kept my core crew, and went quiet. I didn't announce anything or explain myself anywhere outside of Instagram. I kept the hobby, and myself, private.
In 2021 I moved from LA to Chicago, and my husband moved from Belgium after a long visa journey. The dolls came along with me, but straight into storage. They stayed there for a couple of years, first because we were busy getting our home in order, and then in a storage unit while that took longer than we expected. It wasn't until recently, once we finally had room for them at home, that I unpacked them again.
I know that toxic side of the community isn't going anywhere, and it'll probably always be around in some form. But I'm really glad there are more spaces now where doll groups can exist quietly, away from all that noise, in something closer to a safe space.
It's taken me almost a decade to grow a different kind of thick skin, and to get back to something simple I lost sight of for a while: these are my dolls and my characters. Nobody else's.
There's more to it than this, but that's the gist.
Glad to be back. ❤️