Suggestions

44 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I wasn’t suggesting that it was ok, only that societies differ on the subject of when someone is old enough to make certain decisions, and that we can’t actually pass judgement when places within our own society allow a 14 year old to marry. 

This is fair. Like in my state, it's illegal for an 18 year old to have sex with a 17 year old, but for some reason there's not a law to cover two 15 year olds having sex with each other? One of my math teachers went on a rant about it back in high school, it was an odd tangent that day.

Also Iirc there was a long LONG time in Japanese culture where younger girls marrying older men was normal, and in fact sometimes even considered a good match. That was the norm for centuries. Prefectures raising the age of consent is, relatively speaking, a recent phenomenon, and Japan doesn't have the US's puritan background or whole bizarre "save the children" movement, either. So to a Japanese audience, that age gap has a lot less squick than it does to a US one. Yes, you can still personally be put off by it, but it probably is worth remembering just how different their perspective on it is. I don't necessarily think they're endorsing it so much as just not questioning it as much in the first place.

Also now that I think of it, I wonder if what's-his-face is supposed to wait for Yumi, and have a non-sexual relationship until she gets older. . . it would parallel Hideki's situation with Chii, but with both parties being human. But given Chii's lacking arc, that might be giving Clamp a bit too much credit lol.

3 hours ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

Basically they started as canon characters and more or less became OC's because of your development with them, right?

I have characters that are like that. I've made them fully OC at this point, but they started as canon characters I was rping as, and then they took on a life of their own. So I totally get what you mean. 

 

But yeah, you're also totally right about Chii not getting a choice. CLAMP was aiming to talk about women being objectified and then wound up doing just that to their main girl... leaving her as just an object. It's kinda sad, really.

I mean I don't feel my dolls are totally OCs, but definitely not canon. Nanoha and Agatha are probably the furthest from canon, and Viktor and Yuuri are probably the closest. . . the later of which makes sense, since the Yuri On Ice universe is way closer to ours than the Nanoha 'verse or the Girl Genius verse.

Honestly Chii's arc is cut so short that I kind of wonder if the manga was supposed to go longer than it did? Regardless, to me Chii's arc pisses me off way more than any othet part, because it just undermines all the symbolism and poeticism that had run under the whole series. 

Call me weird, but I'm far more angry about the wasted story potential than anything else lol. 

(Though there's a plothole that always bugged me: the pastry shop owner's persocom wife. WHY DID THEY NOT HAVE BACKUPS OF HER DATA. I BACK UP MY PHOTOS WHY DID YOU NOT BACK UP YOYR FRIGGEN WIFE lol)

17 minutes ago, Poofiemus said:

 

I mean I don't feel my dolls are totally OCs, but definitely not canon. Nanoha and Agatha are probably the furthest from canon, and Viktor and Yuuri are probably the closest. . . the later of which makes sense, since the Yuri On Ice universe is way closer to ours than the Nanoha 'verse or the Girl Genius verse.

Honestly Chii's arc is cut so short that I kind of wonder if the manga was supposed to go longer than it did? Regardless, to me Chii's arc pisses me off way more than any othet part, because it just undermines all the symbolism and poeticism that had run under the whole series. 

Call me weird, but I'm far more angry about the wasted story potential than anything else lol. 

(Though there's a plothole that always bugged me: the pastry shop owner's persocom wife. WHY DID THEY NOT HAVE BACKUPS OF HER DATA. I BACK UP MY PHOTOS WHY DID YOU NOT BACK UP YOYR FRIGGEN WIFE lol)

Honestly the long and short of it is this: CLAMP kinda sucks with long-term writing. 

Like, I always liked the beginning of their works. They had interesting ideas that had a lot of potential. 

However the further they got into it, the more they lost sight of what the seemed to have had in mind in the first place or maybe they weren't sure how to properly execute it. Part of the problem may actually be that it was a team of ladies working together and there's a chance that they might not have been reading all of each other's writing before progressing. Or perhaps they had some trouble agreeing on things. 

At the very least, Chobits had an ending. Some of their works don't, from what I can remember. And those that do... well the endings usually feel really rushed and unfulfilling. 

I watched Chobits when I was younger, knew of some of their other stuff, and BOY was I big into Tsubasa. And you can bet that when they got to the end of Tsubasa.... I was pissed. I honestly couldn't stand the ending and was disappointed that THAT'S what they'd been leading to. 

I only minimally saw bits and pieces of CCS, and knew of X1999 but never watched it. But I did think it was weird that Tokyo Babylon seemed to have the same character but... looking different? The CLAMP universe is a very strange animal for sure. 

Like I kinda wanna go back and re-watch a bunch of their stuff. Oddly enough, I stared re-watching Chobits the other day. I'm only about 6 episodes in though because honestly Hideki's freak-outs and some of his behavior are too much for me to take in large amounts. 

So, first, legal age of consent and actual societal norms are completely different things. Did you know it's legal to have sex with animals in MULTIPLE states in the US? Even though it might be *legal* doesn't mean it's *socially acceptable.*

In the US, about 20% of youth have had intercourse by age 15.
The most recent data I could find for Japan was *less than 10%* at age 15, and I've seen some more recent studies indicating that it's been declining in recent years (although I couldn't get past the paywall to get the exact number -- but we can safely assume it's still under 10%).

So let's not even pretend for a hot, stupid second that underage sex is "normal" in Japan or part of their culture. It is TWICE AS COMMON in the US as it is in Japan. The creepy, skeevy folks with *shockingly high levels of child sex* happening in their country is the USA, not Japan.

Also, re: age gaps. In pre-industrial Japan (1650s to 1870s or so), women typically married between ages 14-25, with the average age being about 22 (which means those 14-yr-old marriages were pretty rare). In comparison, men typically married between ages 17-28. So yes, we see guys who are slightly older -- but "old man and young bride," sorry nope. That's a total myth. Your age gap was far more likely to be around 3 years.

Meanwhile, in 1870s US, the average age of marriage for women was 23 -- and for men, 26. Oh look, 3 years (again). It's like we're all humans biologically wired to pair up and start having kids at roughly the same age regardless of what continent we're on. Shocking.

Second, you know I'm going to defend Sailor Moon. Usagi is 14 at the start of the series, whereas Mamoru is 17 -- still an age difference, but not "a 13 yr old with a college student" age difference (and if you're going to point to the US dub -- that was because someone on the US side decided they wanted that age difference, not on the Japanese side). It's strongly hinted they don't actually consummate the relationship until much later, when she's 16 (and they've saved the world a few times together).

Also, re: Chibiusa... Small Lady is 900 years old when she first appears. She's just been physically unable to age or mature. When she ages up as Black Lady, it's not a 5-yr-old in an adult body, it's a 900-yr-old woman who has finally be able to access her adult body and adult self. (Still incest, which is still groce, but *NOT* child sex incest.) And if the English dub forgot to mention that: Again, that's on the US side that the skeevy child-sex implications are being added.

So. Basically. All of y'all, stop exoticizing Japanese culture or Japanese sexuality. 

RETURNING TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC OF CONVERSATION, I think Manaka as Chii would be really cute on either the DDS or the DDP. Based on how she's illustrated in the anime, I would say the DDS is probably the more accurate option (and likely easier to clothe because it's a more standard size).

13 hours ago, Cauldroness said:

Your age gap was far more likely to be around 3 years.

And there is probably an argument to be made that this makes for more equivalent maturity levels between partners, which may well be why that gap seems consistent over time. People figure out what works and repeat it. If we didn't, our race of near-sighted hunters would have died out long ago.

 

13 hours ago, Cauldroness said:

Also, re: Chibiusa... Small Lady is 900 years old when she first appears.

I totally forgot about that aspect of Chibi-Usa.

 

13 hours ago, Cauldroness said:

I think Manaka as Chii would be really cute on either the DDS or the DDP. Based on how she's illustrated in the anime, I would say the DDS is probably the more accurate option (and likely easier to clothe because it's a more standard size).

I think DDS has an advantage over DDP in that there is a lot more clothing that will fit Chii's style available. The MDD clothing styles won't be quite right imo. Chii's outfits were more like something a young woman would wear rather than a child's style. You could put a DDS in any of the Volks peach pink lolita outfits or maid outfits and it would probably fit Chii's look quite well.

Not sure if this will work size-wise, but her wig might be something that could find aftermarket. It has her hair beads built into the side tails, but I don't know if it's going to be 8 - 9" or 9 - 10"

They made her "ears" for the SD version, but I suspect those won't fit on DD. Dunno if anyone here has tried them out, but 3d printing may be the only way to get them for a DD head. Use the same magnets that people use for horns to attach them.

I saw a few people with SD Chii at the LA Dolpa, and her wig is impressive. For an SD sculpt used to create an anime character I thought it was a pretty good likeness too.

 

Edit:

13 hours ago, Cauldroness said:

Meanwhile, in 1870s US, the average age of marriage for women was 23 -- and for men, 26. Oh look, 3 years (again). It's like we're all humans biologically wired to pair up and start having kids at roughly the same age regardless of what continent we're on. Shocking.

One other thing I wanted to mention here. There was a study I read awhile back that determined that women are physiologically better able to have kids in their early 20s, rather than in the teens. In a woman's teens the odds of complications or death were higher for both the mother and the baby. That would seem to fit the idea of people being hardwired to start in their early to mid 20s.

The study mentioned something about bone development being better, which is obviously going to be pretty crucial for a woman in labor, but I don't recall the other details. Iirc the bone development wasn't just about the width of the pelvis; the strength and flexibility of the bone tissue is much better by 21 too.

 

whoa okay theres too much on here for me to reply to but this thread has evolved into something completely different from what i'd originally intended, and for that i'm sorry. thanks for the suggestions on bodies, i think i'll go with DDS in the end anyways and just get myself a mochi-ashi at some point down the line for my own ocs. 

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

ot sure if this will work size-wise, but her wig might be something that could find aftermarket. It has her hair beads built into the side tails, but I don't know if it's going to be 8 - 9" or 9 - 10"

They made her "ears" for the SD version, but I suspect those won't fit on DD. Dunno if anyone here has tried them out, but 3d printing may be the only way to get them for a DD head. Use the same magnets that people use for horns to attach them.

i've been looking but i'm absolutely garbage when it comes to wig/clothes/eyes/shoes shopping because i just check aliexpress and then buy stuff that looks like... nothing like the photos. are there specific shops/sellers/sites u suggest?

48 minutes ago, miraclelovely said:

this thread has evolved into something completely different from what i'd originally intended

<poor comedy> Trophy achieved: Accidental Firestarter. </poor comedy>

 

6 hours ago, finnleo said:

<poor comedy> Trophy achieved: Accidental Firestarter. </poor comedy>

 

yeah forreal! i just wanted to briefly clarify initially that i didn't support the weird way that clamp had gone about Yumi and her whole situation but it ended up becoming a legal debate. somehow sailor moon got brought up too, but at least now i know for sure that i should go with DDS body and have comfort in the fact that its okay to like a character from a series that you may not agree with.

7 hours ago, miraclelovely said:

are there specific shops/sellers/sites u suggest?

Best bet is to search Mandarake for Chii Chobits. They sell used Volks dolls and often have wigs and outfits from full sets separately. Right now isn’t the best time to find used doll stuff though, Covid seems to have caused stock to fall.