That Moni doll is very adorable! Honestly I wouldn’t blame you for playing with dolls, no matter how old or young you are. After all, who doesn’t like dolls these days?

That is so true!! When you think about it, avatars in MMORPGs are pretty much dolls that people dress up. So really, who doesn’t like dolls these days? =P

Do you remember my Vietnamese ex? I used to be embarrassed of my dolls because he was absolutely horrified of them. XD I remember how he used to refer to the American fascination with dolls as a creepy “white girl” thing. He’d point out how Barbie was an American invention and few Asian girls grew up with dolls. I assumed for the longest time that he might be right, since Victorian Europe was the height of doll collecting in the Western World. But then I learned that in East Asia there is actually an equally-colorful history of doll appreciation among girls. Japan even has a doll festival (Hinamatsuri or 雛祭り).

Jegan would probably hate to hear me say it, but when you think about it, action figures and model kits are very similar to dolls/doll appreciation too! I really think that doll appreciation in some form is popular among young adults and both genders these days, whether or not they want to admit it.

EDIT: BTW I’m so late with this, but I hope you had a Happy Lunar New Year! I used to go crazy for that Red Envelope Event in RO. Do they still do it?

Good point…in fact, the first G.I. Joes were designed to be like “dolls for boys” but they changed the terminology to “action figure” because the term “doll” sounded strange for an object for young boys to be playing with. I guess it’s likely that this change resulted from the “girly” stigma from Mattel’s Barbie, which was also popular at the time.

…I actually liked both action figures and dolls, even when I was a kid…Lmao. Don’t tell my parents. =x

About the Red Envelope event: iRO seems to change the events up every year. I wasn’t really playing actively lately, though. Looking back at the update notices, it looks like all they did for the “Celestial New Year” event this year was Lucky Boxes. You know, the ones that cost cash shop points and the outcome is random, containing either rare (heh, good luck) or common (waste of money) rewards. There’s a mini-event going on in-game for Valentine’s Day which will end on Feb 25th, and it doesn’t cost cash shop points, so at least there’s something going on at the same time that doesn’t require real money. I haven’t seen any Red Envelopes at all for this event, in fact, they aren’t even on that Lucky Box prize list. Sad, huh? T_T

Although I still pop in from time to time, I’m thinking I might’ve mostly outgrown RO. I’ve stopped paying for my accounts for financial reasons, so I just hop on Valkyrie to play instead. I’ve noticed a lot of new players there, many of them are young…like around 13-16. As with any group of kids, there can be 1 or 2 immature people here and there, but of course not everyone’s like that…in fact I’ve played with some very friendly, fun people there, and I usually just try not to create drama anyway. Maybe there’s a trend of playing the free server because they aren’t old enough to own credit cards and their parents refuse to pay for an RO subscription? I also think maybe Gravity shifted its target age group down a few years and maybe that contributed to my loss of interest in the game. Do you remember when lots of people like us, aged around 20-30 would play? I think some still do play on the premiums, but Valk has lots of adolescents so I can’t help but feel old and silly playing there.

Oh well! I’ve found other ways to satisfy my desire for kawaii awesomeness. I’ve felt pretty soft lately… well what else is new. I’ve always been a bit of a softie. ^_^

You’re right, everyone does play with dolls whether they want to admit it or not. Guys of course call them action figures or some other such thing. I used to have GI Joes, I have Master Chief and a Cortana action figure. I’ve played some of the cheaper table top games, and while rather small they’re still dolls in a way. My friends in Southern California have been working on Warhammer 40k stuff, and the attention to detail, the downright obsession my friend Donny has with painting those little figures is barely a hare’s breath away from being the same attention to detail some people put into dressing up any doll. I don’t have the patience for painting those little things though.

I will say that I think you’re absolutely right about MMOs in that sense. Playing FFXI and trying to figure out what my character should wear in town isn’t much different from playing dress up or cutting out paper dolls.

And those mobile suit models they have at anime stores…I think I’m lucky I don’t have more money…it’d all be gone…

Anyone who says your dolls are creepy has to be blind or insane! Why? Because they’re just so adorable!

I also never thought about it, but just how does a smoke bomb put a robot to sleep? Does it emit an EM pulse somehow? And how would the Repites even know about that? CONFIZZLING! The again, they did make teleporters in Chrono Cross…

Also, congrats again on getting that print. I’m not sure how I’d feel if that happened to me like that. My heart may have stopped.

Des

I think that there are actually quite a few boys out there who grew up playing with both! XD Whenever I get nostalgic about old videogames or toys with my girlfriends, Barbie inevitably comes up, and I’ve heard sooo many variations of the story about a younger/older brother who would always steal his sister’s Barbies to be the “girlfriend” or “damsel in distress” for GI Joe! Haha

Gosh, I totally know what you mean about RO. =( It is sad because when I quit RO, I kept all of my old gear, including some stuff that (at the time) was extremely rare and expensive. I had every kind of bow and whip for every type/size of monster (+10 quad composite), including the best +8 PvE and PvP armor for Hunter and Gypsy. I even saved up 270 mil to buy one of only 4 Kafra Bands that existed on the entire server (apparently it is now a common fort drop). The more I hear about RO the more depressed I get about ever going back to it, because what took me years to obtain in that game is worthless now.

I agree that Gravity has shifted their focus to a much younger audience and sacrificed the spirit of RO in the process. One of the things that made RO so appealing to me when I played was that despite its cute appearance, it was the most “adult” MMORPG I’d ever applied myself towards. The average player didn’t make it past level 60 and getting to the cap (level 99) took an extraordinary amount of dedication (on average a year of playtime). It required so much patience that most level 99 players you met were adults. Then WoE/Guild Wars were added and it required strong (level 99) players with good gear (dedication) as well as strategy to hold a fort; which further reinforced the adult playerbase. But now experience rates are higher, death penalty is lower, and rare drops are so commonplace. The difficulty was removed to accommodate the younger players and that killed the dedication for a lot of adults.

I remember when I first played WoW — it seemed like such a kid’s game compared to RO. Everyone in my guild thought that I was the most hardcore person they had ever encountered because I hit the cap level in a couple weeks without distributing any of my Talent points (because I didn’t know that they existed). I was playing casually at the time. If it had been RO, I would have only hit second job (around level 40 or 50) and still been a noob by the community’s standards. *L* How times have changed. =(

I guess that RO wasn’t a total loss though, since I met amazing people like you. =) Some of my most meaningful friendships came from RO and I’m so happy that they transcendeded the game when I left!

AOClaus

I’m embarrassed to admit that the only game-related figures in my collection (other than some one-coin figures) are Final Fantasy related. =X I’m not even much of a Final Fantasy fan! *L* I have a resin statue of Rikku from FFX and a Tifa action figure from Advent Children (which was actually a gift).

The DC Unlimited figures for Mass Effect 2 will probably change that though. They come out in August and I’m looking forward to pre-ordering a Tali figure as an early birthday present for myself. =)

I’ve always been amazed by the amount of detail that gets put into those little figures by Warhammer and tabletop RPG fans. The miniatures actually impress me more than the regular model kits because they require such a steady hand and even more skill/patience! I’m surprised that you were thinking of the mobile suit models too, because I was thinking of Gundam when I mentioned model kits! I know so many guys who collect/build the mobile suit models from that series. I think that mobile suits epitomize Japanese sci-fi for a lot of us die-hard science fiction fans because we first became introduced to that genre through animations like Gundam, Patlabor, and Appleseed.

I think I might get a mobile suit model as a boyfriend for my Busou Shinki one of these days. =)