M: What’s wrong, Sophie?
S: You don’t love me anymores
M: Why do you think that?
S: Because now all you do is spend time with Belarus… -tear-
M: You know that’s not true… She’s just new, she needs some time to get used to living here.
S: All you care about is her now…
M: Now you know that’s not true and I’m sorry that you feel that way…

M: But I made you this…
S: What is it?
M: Why don’t you see for yourself?
S: … Do I have to share it?
M: No, it’s just for you.
*rustle rustle rustle*

S: I think I like it
M: Am I forgiven now?
S: Well, I wish I could push Belarus underneath a bus…
M: SOPHIE!
S: Joking, honest…
M: No hurting Belarus, Sophie…
S: I’ll be good. (For now. *wink*)

S: I gots a new hat!
M: Yes, yes you did. Do you like it?
S: Yup! It’s much better than that dorky pink thing that Belarus has to wear, hehe!

B: I can’t believe you’re making me wear this… I mean, not only am I wearing non-vintage Skipper fashion, but what am I even wearing on my head? It looks like a bunny crawled up onto my head and DIED.
M: Don’t be so overdramatic, Rusy… At least you’re wearing clothes.

B: I like your dress…
S: You can’t have it.
B: Want to switch hats?
S: Uhhh, no thanks!
B: I’ll let you borrow my shoes…
S: I’ve already stolen your shoes. ^^

Sophie is wearing the Enchanted Petal stock dress and a yellow crocheted hat (by me).
Belarus is wearing a Skipper dress (from the 1988 Style Magic Skipper) and a pink crocheted bunny hat (by me).

I unboxed Belarus (Love Mission!) last night and I’ve come across some flaws to her that I never came across on Sophie. Now, the doll has definitely never been removed from the box. All the massive amounts of tape and wire holding her in were there, so I’m not concerned about the seller passing off a used doll as a NRFB doll, but she still has some flaws that I haven’t come across yet.

There’s this weird line on her face plate that is so incredibly difficult to capture in a photo. There’s also some lines on her right cheek that are very fine, I can’t feel them so I do think it’s just an appearance flaw. But… the real flaw comes with the back of her head. There’s several cuts into the plastic that are so easy to see and touch and to point out. I need to take a photo of those as well. She looked so perfect when she was still in her box and then I pull her out and inspected her and came across all these little issues.

I mean, I’ve wanted Love Mission for ages now. And I do love her, she’s a gorgeous doll, but there’s just all these little flaws that make her a bit different from what I expected her to be like in person. Sophie was easy. I bought her, I pulled her out of her box and she had no flaws. She had no scratches or marks or weird random hard-to-photograph lines on her face. And Sophie’s easy to love. Belarus… I don’t know. I love her, she’s pretty doll and I’m looking forward to swapping out her orange eyechips for some brown ones (so she’s more like a mini-me) but it’s still rather disappointing that she’s a doll that hasn’t been removed from the box since she was produced in 2003 and the box was flawless. The box was perfect. There’s was massive amounts of tape, the tape that was keeping the box close hadn’t ever been disturbed but she’s got all these little flaws… I think I just need to bond with her still.

Links to photos of Belarus’ flaws:
Cheek marks & line near her eye

She arrived at my house while I was at work yesterday – my eldest sister was home, so she gave me a call and went “Your stupidly expensive doll arrived, it’s in your room.” To be fair, they’re all “stupidly expensive”. But she’s mine!!

The ebay seller that I bought from giftshop-jp (who had the best price for her, NFRB – Never Removed From Box, and also had the cheapest shipping – even at EMS! Everyone else had comparative shipping prices, but it was regular air mail, not priority) included a little gift – it’s a plastic folder with the image of a custom Blythe doll – I thought it was a nice touch. And the packaging was great, there was bubble wrap and the shipping carton was awesome as well. I bought and paid for her on Sunday (August 26) and she was shipped on the 27th and arrived at my door on the 31st. I was rather impressed!

Ignore the stuff on the left and the right of the plastic folder and the box. Yes, I have pink scissors.

And here she is, Love Mission! She’s still in her box, I have a lot of stuff to do this weekend and I’m going to be hardly at home until late Sunday and most of the day on Monday, so I want to keep her in there until I get some time to enjoy her. I’ve decided (for now) to name her Belarus (like the country!). Maybe Ruse for short, not sure yet. But she’s gorgeous… I want to get her brown eyechips so she’ll really be a mini-me.