The twins’ grand entrance

Aaahhh, I’m so excited!!! o(≧∇≦o) Yesterday arrived my Dollfie Dream Kagamine Rin & Len dolls~ (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ When I found out that Volks was gonna release Rin & Len as DDs, I was super psyched – out of the Crypton VOCALOIDs, Luka and Rin & Len are my favourites~ ♡ฅ(ᐤˊ꒳ฅˋᐤ♪) And I also like Meiko a lot. I’d almost lost hope on Volks ever releasing VOCALOID dolls other than Miku, but now there’s a small chance for more. Maybe someday I’ll get my queen Luka as a doll too?! (ू′o‵ ू)*✲ﾟ

But yeah, the wait for photos of the dolls was a loooong one. (,,꒪꒫꒪,,) Initially I thought that maybe I’d be satisfied with Len only, since buying two fullset DDs at once is quite an investment (especially with our hellish customs fees) and I already have a couple of girls at home, so I could maybe hunt down Rin a bit later. But when the photos were finally available… well, all my reason went out of the window because they were SO PERFECT! (੭ ˃̣̣̥ ㅂ˂̣̣̥)੭ु Totally cute and just perfect, how could I NOT get them both?! (;*△*;) It would’ve been criminal to separate the twins, for sure. But haha – like a lot of others, I was convinced that Rin & Len would be pre-order dolls, like Miku has been. But nope, Volks decided to make them lottery dolls. (」゜ロ゜)」I was so bummed to find out about that, because my lottery luck has been terrible as of late – I lost out on DD Shijou Takane as well as MDD Arle. (´;︵;`) And my luck in general is terrible anyway. But well, I thought that I’ve still gotta take part in the lottery because they’re Kagamine Rin & Len, even with the risk of getting disappointed. ( ´•̥ו̥` ) I really, really wanted them. Although, Volks also offered them as a pre-order at Nagoya Dolpa and they apparently received more orders than they had anticipated, because they ended up shipping them in two batches instead of one… that made me nervous because I had this nagging feeling that what if they’ll have less dolls available for the lottery, because there were so many pre-orders. ∑(;°Д°)

The wait for entering the lottery was long. And then the wait for the results felt even longer. _(」∠ ､ﾝ､)_ I was in agony and stressing out so much, I would’ve been devastated to lose these two, because I adore the characters and dolls so much. (๑′̥̥̥▵‵̥̥̥ ૂ๑) And when Volks announced Idolm@ster girls as pre-order dolls, it felt a bit like adding insult to the injury – because in the past all Im@s dolls had been lottery dolls, and now they’d been chosen as pre-order dolls over Kagamine Rin & Len, which seemed like a bad business decision considering the international market. (ーー;) Because I’m pretty sure Volks’ international customers are more familiar with VOCALOID than Idolm@ster. But well, Volks does what they think is best. After the initial annoyment had passed, I was able to come to terms with the whole thing. Although, I’d still be pretty disappointed if I didn’t end up getting winning emails for Rin & Len. (´；д；`)

Thankfully on the day that the results came out, Volks was really early with the emails – when I won DDS Mariko it took well until the afternoon to receive my email. But now when I woke up on that day and went to check my email – there was the winning email for Len!!! ∑(ﾟﾛﾟ〃) I was in disbelief at first, but then I got super excited, at least Len would be coming home to me yaaaaayyy!!!! (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o))) And lol, actually I’d asked Yenna to participate as my Len back up and she also received an email. (･∀･；) I thought that heck, this would have been perfect if I’d won Rin, I could have gotten both. Aaaand then I also received an email for Rin! Σ(･口･) I was so happy and so confused, like, how the heck did I manage to win them both???!!! (ﾉﾟοﾟ)ﾉ But when I checked the forums, there were lots of winners so it seems like Volks prepared A LOT of dolls for the lottery this time! Yaaaaay!!! Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ Lots of Rins and Lens for everyone, it was so awesome! (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ My back up Len ended up finding a home at my friend Turre‘s place, too, so everything worked out just great! (人*´∀｀)+ﾟ:｡*ﾟ+ At that point I definitely let go of whatever remaining pieces of bitterness I had about Rin & Len being lottery dolls, haha. Either it was Volks’ plan all along to manufacture a huge batch of the twins OR their popularity at Nagoya Dolpa made them realise that there are lots of people who want to buy Rin & Len, so they upped their game. Well, whatever the reason – I’m super grateful because I was able to have my twins~ (*≧∀≦*) ♥ ♥ ♥

When I won Mariko, it took only a couple of days for her to ship after I’d paid. But with the twins the wait was around a month. Understandable considering how many winning notices there were – not to mention that not all doll owners are members at doll forums nor post on social media, so it’s pretty much impossible to know how many people actually won the dolls. But well, at least it was easier to wait now that I knew I’d eventually get the dolls, as opposed to waiting for the lottery results. ヽ(･∀･)ﾉ

Originally Volks said that they’d start shipping out the twins on the 28th of October, and then on that week they wrote in their DD blog that shipping would start on the 29th – so imagine my surprise when I got shipping emails for my twins already on the 27th! (ﾟoﾟ〃) Obviously they weren’t taken to the post office until the 28th, though. But it was pretty awesome to be among the first people to receive shipping notices, especially since sometimes it can take up to a week for an EMS package to arrive to Finland. And within Finland there’s some more delay due to customs and general slowness of the postal service.（−＿−；）This time the packages arrived in Finland pretty fast – BUT even though I paid the horrid customs fees (I could have bought a 1/3 scale doll with that sum of money ughhh) first thing on Monday morning, it took until Tuesday morning for them to confirm the payment and forward the packages. (；¬д¬) Thankfully the packages went into sorting Tuesday night so I was all yaaay, I should get them on Wednesday morning unless something unusual happens…

… and OF COURSE when it’s something that I’m really eagerly anticipating: something unusual happens.（；¬＿¬) I live in an apartment building that has its doors locked and we don’t have a buzzer system so that we’d be able to open the door from our apartments, so… I always have to go to the door so that I can physically open it. For a while I had to battle with the postal service’s customer service all the time, because a lot of times they didn’t even try bringing the packages to me because “the door is locked”, so even though I was at home and I was outside waiting for the mailman, I still wouldn’t get my packages. (●o≧д≦)o Now they’ve learned to come and see if I’m waiting outside, so I get about 90% of my EMS packages delivered home. I just have to hang out by the door for sometime (depends on when the mailman comes) between 7:20~8:15am. Thankfully most packages are delivered between 7:30am and 8:00am, but sometimes it can take until 8:30am, even. During summer it’s not that bad hanging outside, but during the colder seasons… not that fun. (-∧-；) Yesterday the wind was really cold and strong, and while I went inside every once in a while to warm up, I couldn’t stay away for too long because I was afraid I might miss the mailman.

I’d gone outside at around 7:20am again, and was hoping that the packages would arrive at around 7:40am like the last time. I wait, nothing. Wait some more, nothing. It’s 8:00am, nothing. (~_~;) I wait some more, nothing. Then it’s already 8:30am and still nothing. (; ･`д･´) I was starting to get a bit annoyed, and at 8:32 the tracking finally updated with “item is being delivered to the recipient” and was all yay I hope they come soon!!! ヾ(*´∀｀*)ﾉ So I wait and nothing… and at 8:50 they update with an unsuccessful delivery attempt. WTF! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ I’d been outside the whole time and I hadn’t seen a glimpse of the mailman! So then I went into my apartment, pretty damn annoyed at the situation, and contacted the postal service’s customer service complaining that I’ve been at home all morning and no delivery attempt has been made!! ٩(๑`^´๑)۶ Thankfully this time the customer service person was a friendly one and contacted the department that handles deliveries, and in a couple of minutes the mailman calls me and says he can bring my packages in about 15 minutes if I’m at home. Yay!! (๑>ᴗ<)و So, I did end up getting them delivered at home after all. I would’ve been pretty annoyed if I’d had to pick them up from the post office, since EMS shipping is expensive enough as it is – and I think that if I pay for them to be delivered to my door, they sure as heck should arrive at my door. ヾ(｀ε´)ﾉ The mailman was very apologetic when he arrived, but at that point I was no longer upset because I was just SO EXCITED that I had the twins’ boxes!!! I thanked the mailman and hurried inside. ε=┏(*`>ω<)┛

Well, the good thing about a late delivery was that it had gotten more light out, so I was able to take the box opening photos in natural light, ahah. But maybe I’ll finally start adding some photos here because this entry is already a mile long… (( ´∀`;))

 
 
A bit later I built a quick set for some test photos. They’re brand new so the vinyl is still soft and both have really loose ankles, so posing was a bit of an issue, ahah… (( ´∀`;)) but I did get a couple of nice shots. Too bad it got gloomy and dark so soon, these photos needed a lot of editing and I’m still not very happy with them… （−＿−；）

 
And that’s it for the photos. I’m sooo happy with these two, they’re super cute and look true to their characters, in my opinion. ｡ﾟ✶ฺ.ヽ(*´∀`*)ﾉ.✶ฺﾟ｡ My only complaints are the awful wigs and their eyes – I was expecting them to be blue, but they look very turquoise to me. Just like Miku’s eye colour. Disappointing. (｡•́︿•̀｡)

But well, I do plan to repaint them and switch their eyes (I’m looking to get Lizanna Dandelion series in Sapphire as soon as I can afford them, I think those would suit Rin & Len well) but that will have to wait for a while. I want to get photos of them in teir default looks first with my friend Petunia‘s DD Hatsune Miku~ I’m sure they’ll look super cute as a group!! I really can’t wait! *。ヾ(｡>ｖ<｡)ﾉﾞ*。

But yeah, I’ll be sharing their custom looks here in the blog once it’s time for the change~ ☆ヾ(*´▽｀)ﾉ They’ll be pretty much like my Sheryl, Suiren – my original characters so that I can change their face ups, eyes, wigs and clothes without having to worry about if they’re being true to Rin & Len’s characters or not. BUT I’ll keep the look close enough so that they can dress up as Rin & Len, when I feel like having Rin & Len around. Just like Suiren occasionally gets in her Sheryl gear, too. But yup, Rin will be eventually known as Yuuri (nicknamed Yuurin or RinRin) and Len as Yuuya (nicknamed Yuu-kun or Yuukyun lol). ╰(✿´⌣`✿)╯♡

Now I’ll get back to admiring my new sweeties, lol! I’m completely smitten with them~ (●♡∀♡))ヾ☆*。