I have owned my Fairyland LittleFee Lishe, Ianthe, for 4 years - I bought her new and blank from Fairyland and received her in August of 2009. She was one of my very first dolls - I'd purchased her and Isis from Fairyland before I received any dolls. Technically, not including purchase order, Ianthe and Isis were my 3rd and 4th dolls. I was a newbie and had only just started collecting at this point. Not long after I received Ianthe, I handed her over to a friend of mine to get a face up. By the time this story begins in 2013, Ianthe had been faceuped twice (to compare, by the same point, Isis was up to face up number 4).
I was slowly going through my dolls to update old face ups - I had my MNF Scar BA, Vulcan done; my Delf Lishe, Sirona; my VE Lishe, Nemain; my Tan MNF, Magna Dea; my F70 BA, Aeron; and because my favourite face up artist AngelToast was having a tiny face up discount sale, I decided that it was time that two of my tines - Ianthe and Isis, had their face ups renewed.
I sent them off and settled in to wait for the unveiling, I will admit to feeling a considerable amount of trepidation since I knew I would be experiencing some Ianthe and Isis-withdrawal, simply because they'd been two of the dolls I'd had since the beginning and had often been my companions when I went out.
When I received my photos from AngelToast, she included a comment which I found rather strange, particularly because I wasn't expecting it.
Here is the direct quote: "Little Lishe’s faceup is not quite as smooth as I would like it, since she’s been heavily modded and the resin is a bit uneven in places. But I did my best!"
I admit to reading that comment about three times. Heavily modded? My Ianthe? She'd never been touched. I wouldn't have had her modded, hadn't had her modded, and I could think of why she would be even considered to be modded. So I asked the question, since I'd bought her new...
AngelToast then replied: "And yeah, there has been some work done to little Lishe. There are dents on her lips and the tip of her nose, and what looks like sanding around those areas as well as on the brow area between the eyes and nose. I’ve seen a lot of dollie faces, and if I had to make an educated guess, I would say she took a nose dive onto something hard at some point, and was possibly sanded to mitigate the damage. Did she ever fall?"
I read this a couple of times too. I could not remember a single time when Ianthe took a dive onto something hard that had damaged her that badly in my presence. This is something I would have remembered, especially since I was a newbie at the time I got her, and I'd had her for 4 years. It would not be something I forgot happening to one of my oldest and first dolls.
AngelToast was fantastic enough to have a look at some old shots of my girl and after I'd commented again (basically outlining that I honestly couldn't remember her taking a dive at any point), with this: "I had a look at some of your pictures of your LTF Lishe – I think the flattened/white nose tip is evident with the first faceup, if you compare her to the blank head. The lip dent is harder to see with the old lip paint, but I think I can pick it out in a few pics. Overall it’s not terribly terrible, I just see those things at first glance these days and thought you would have been aware that she’s not completely mint. >.<"
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| Ianthe blank - and with face up 1 (bottom right) and 2 (top right) |
I would have thought I would have been aware she wasn't completely mint too. But unfortunately I wasn't, and I think I can explain why - I hadn't owned Ianthe very long before I handed her over to have her first face up. I was very new to the hobby and very new to my Lishes and honestly, when she came back, I wasn't experience enough to notice damage through a face up and I wouldn't have had enough experience to see it in photos from before she was faceuped. She was first faceuped in 2009 and since then she has been my only LTF Lishe, so since the damage has been there I wouldn't honestly have ever noticed. Now that it's been pointed out I can spot it in photos.
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| The nose damage (I still haven't quite located the lip damage, although it looks present in this shot.) |
I also now have another LTF Lishe and it's more than obvious.
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| Selene and Ianthe |
I suppose there is a chance, small as it is, that I may have dropped Ianthe onto tile or concrete or something and forgotten that I'd damaged her to the extent that she now has a snubbed nose. It however seems slim - I can't quite figure out if I was the culprit, how I would have forgotten something as dire as dropping one of my dolls like that, face first onto a hard surface.
That's not to say I've never dropped my dolls - I have, frequently, onto carpet. Occasionally I've had a few that have taken a dive when I've been doing full lineups, but I always carefully check them and have mini freak outs until I can see that there hasn't been any damage to them.
Newbie as I was and meticulous as I am to track the dates of arrival and carefully charting in as much detail as possible lists of wigs, face up artists, eyes - with details of styles, companies and all the rest, and I keep careful track of mods that I have had done - how would I miss damage like this? It would have been written down from the moment it happened and every other description I would have done would have noted that Ianthe was a "modded/damage" LTF Lishe.
But I haven't done that anywhere. So what other choice can I make about the circumstances of when the damage happened? What other choice have I got than to come to conclusion I did? What I can't quite understand is, that if what I think happened and someone else had my doll when she took the fall that damaged her face, why did I not know about it?
