You hate this piece of media because it's too "woke", I hate it because it's badly written garbage and the wokeness is actually hollow, we are not the same
The bear doll is flocked! I will need to do some adjustments and remove some of the buildup in the joints, and maybe add a bit of fibers in some smaller spots.
Last picture includes how the bear looked like when bald for comparison.
I found out that these doll are actually from an old line of Sekiguchi toys, called Teddy Bear Story (or simply Bear Story).
Again, I don't know if I'd really recommend a full re-flocking for a jointed doll, unless you are able to set up an electrostatic workstation (which I don't have the room or materials for).
I do think this hands-on approach for flocking works much better when fixing up small bald patches, or fully re-flocking a doll without joints (like a small Sylvanian baby).
Lad-flocking isn't turning out too bad, but it is taking a long time, and I don't know if the result is worth the effort, however I think it would work well on simpler or smaller pieces, so there is non-zero change that I will make some caterpillar Sylvanian babies out of clay, and then flock them
Somebody was curious about the notes I wrote down on paper while reading the House of Leaves, so I transcribed a few of them! Stuff that was too personal got left out.
The copy I read was "The Remastered Full-Color Edition", from 2000. I specify the date in which I wrote the note and which page I was on. Everything that is a direct line from the book is in quotation marks.
It's very "stream of consciousness" writing, and some of it may not make a lot of sense without the context of the page.
cw for mentions of suicide and suicide ideation (not anything graphic, but it might still be upsetting).
23/05/2026
Page 20:
“We all create stories to protect ourselves.”
We move, but we take our troubles with us. A crystallization of our thoughts. Stories, within stories, within stories.
Early on (in this book), it seems like they give you the answers. This could be misdirection, or perhaps this is just part of the layer.
The Layers
It’s almost like my mind is being drawn closer to the state it is when dreaming. Its feels like… there is some deeper truth, just at the corner of my eye. Is it just my imagination? Does it even matter?
Page 26:
Without meaning to, I predicted it. I think I understand you (in reference to Johnny saying there is something “behind him”). It is here (for me), but inside. If I could get it out, it would be frightening.
I do not find it very difficult to keep track of the two stories at the same time.
Page 28:
“Largeness has always been a condition of the weird and unsafe; it is overwhelming, too much of it or too big.”
Page 30:
I wonder what would happen if they demolished the house? I know that’s not the point, but I am curious.
The problem was always there, only now it is becoming visible.
What is the secret? What is being hidden?
Page 31:
“(…) but I’ve come to believe errors, especially written errors, are often the only markers left by a solitary life: to sacrifice them is to lose the angles of personality, the riddle of a soul. In this case a very old soul. A very old riddle.”
What do the additional inches (of the house) mean? What does the refusal of accepting them mean?
Even if the riddle is not real, and if I am answering only my own questions, I still look forward to it.
Page 35:
Perhaps we focus on the riddles of others, because we don’t want to think about our own. Is that what I am doing? With each question, an answer, and another question.
What is Navidson avoiding by trying to solve the riddle of his house?
24/05/2026
Page 46:
So an echo ultimately constricts the space, confirms it has boundaries. The uncannyness of the empty is assuaged by that same emptiness being limited by defined walls. But no echo means no limit. You shout into the void, and you have no reply.
Page 50:
"And where there is no Echo, there is no description of space or love. There is only silence.” Yes, exactly.
Page 52:
But love cannot set you free like that. It is a fantasy, the fantasy that love can allow you to escape from your demons. He (Johnny) admits it is a moment of passion, and I am not heartless enough to take that away from someone.
02/07/2026
Page 80:
I think it is about dread; the dread you feel when you are in the state of mind that the world is hollow. And I think you fear because you know your body and mind cannot contain it – and as such you will be crushed: it will be your death.
The knowledge of your own mortality and powerlessness cannot kill on its own, but it can incur in you such a fear that part of you will believe that the only way to escape it is death → and this brings you only more fear.
The body and mind will panic: they are horrified that there is a part of them that wishes for its own death, and incapable of coping, it will go mad: the blood drains from the head and the wrists, coldness and sweat accumulate in the forehead, neck and withing the elbow and knee joints, the throat and diaphragm constrict. The pulse quickens. Fight-or-flight is activated, but how can we run from ourselves? It is all us, but sometimes, we have to take it apart, that part of us that wants us dead, because we are afraid, we don’t want it to kill us. Begone, beast; begone, creature.
And yet this way we create a fantasy, and drift farther and farther away from reality and into our minds, into the corridors (hallways) that shift and turn and are rarely alike, because it is us, the inside of our mind, maladaptive daydreaming and dissociation, to desire and fear to be lost in an endless dream, where nothing hurts you truly, but where you can never escape yourself, even less so than before, helpless to move, only to pray that the parts of your brain that are activated during your sleep do not bring the creature with them – and at times this is what they do.
Taking the self, and compartmentalizing it, like rooms, like rooms in a house.
Page 84:
In the Myth of Theseus, he ventures into the labyrinth to kill the minotaur and retrieve the Athenians that were to be sacrificed. But the minotaur of the house is immortal (in relation to us). It will live as long was we live, because it is part of us. Our fragments will only die once we die as well.
Can we reconstruct ourselves so that the fragment that is the minotaur is instead re-shaped into something that does not wish us harm? If we cannot kill it, can we change it?
Finished House of Leaves and it sure was a Book. Maybe it's because I'm feeling sleepy today, but I don't have much meaningful thoughts about it at the moment. It's just a matter of time before I feel like unloading a thousand words about it, though.
Overall, I really enjoyed it, but it's a book that isn't easy to recommend.
Another little guy (gender neutral) that I'm thinking to put up for sale!
This is the first Maple Town doll I got my hands on. At first I thought that it was generally less sturdy than the Sylvanian and Forest Family dolls, but afterwards I got other Maple Town dolls that are pretty good, so I think it was just this specific doll that is more worn down.
I think that the fact that I can read House of Leaves and not have it trigger a mental breakdown is proof that, mentally speaking, I am not doing as badly as I thought.
I'm kind of in awe of this book, I don't think I would be able to come up with something like this. Without any background for this book, other than the book itself, I get the impression that Danielewski took a long time to get this all planned down and written. It takes a lot of imagination and hard work to combine what are at least 3 different stories happening at the same time, and coming up with all these fake references (and using real ones too), in a way that the text we get is a horror story about a fucked up house, a paper written about that story, and the stream of consciousness of someone reading and putting that paper together.
Caterpillars are just Babies. They are funky lil guys, and I wish I could pet them, but I don't want to spook them or get a skin reaction that will put me in a coma
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