Despite the name, I’m not entirely sure what order this entry will go (you may be in for a mixed bag), but I kind of wanted to talk about it anyway!
When I’m not playing or streaming games or writing about games, one of my favorite things to do is collecting. Besides my recently made when Mega Audino ended up being leaked collection…:
(look, I even have a cute Collector button: 
that I made myself >>)
I’ve always collected quite a bit of things. Some of my collections include:
-Dolls (I have so many Barbie Dolls from when I was younger, a complete set of the McDonalds ones they had a tendency to do in the 90s, a few BJDs, several Pullips, an American Girl (Samantha!) and then various dolls of other brands such as Monster High and Liv Doll)
-Plushies (I really can’t go full into what I have here as there really is just that many, but I have a whole bunch of Beanie Babies plus Duffy from Tokyo Disney, 3 UniBEARsity Bears (though, only one is here–two are on the way!), and a Pink Disney Bear from before Duffy became Duffy)
-Cards (Besides a complete set of the Beanie Baby cards when they did those, I have every Pokemon card from the first series (so essentially the Kanto gym leaders are the last set I collected) as well @-@ I still have some random cards to this day–when I stopped doing full sets, I tried to get a lot of Promos and yeah…)
-Rocks (All kinds–I’ve never been too big on jewelry, but I love rocks and gemstones of all varieties.)
-Seashells & Bottled Sand
And of course, Amiibo is just one of the many things I’m collecting right now as well. While I’m not collecting all of them, I still have quite a few I want. I’m happy I managed to preorder the Peach & Toad Mario Party 10 Amiibo–I just need Rosalina and then I’m set for Wave 3… Though, my fiancé has several he wants from the newest wave. @-@
One thing I’ve always enjoyed doing is buying cute creations by various artists on Etsy and DeviantArt and similar websites. I love plushies a lot along with cute sculpted charms and I have so many things from various artists over the years.
The one thing that always surprised me about it though is when it came to OOAK (One of a Kind) products. For me, it always seemed surprising as if the person who made it enjoyed making it and a lot of people liked it, why wouldn’t you want to make it again? Obviously, making other stuff is a given (not many people want to just make the one same thing over and over), but I never really understood why people didn’t want to make things for more people.
I suppose it comes down to those things being worth more in a way–not only just supply and demand, but someone feeling they have this super special thing because they are the only person with it and for me, unless it’s actually a person’s OC, that has never really been something I felt.
I have a lot of things in my Mega Audino collection along with various Custom Pullips that are OOAK. But if the artist decided to make more of it, I wouldn’t be upset. It doesn’t make my item any less special, you know? But that’s something I’ve noticed most people do not think like that. It becomes a huge issue on websites too as I find it incredibly frustrating to be halted by some item limited to such a tiny amount on a website with so many people and I guess I just always look at it that way. Why should more people having something ruin the specialness of yours? I know if I ran into something and fell in love with it and knew it’d be out of my hands forever, I’d be sad. I wouldn’t want someone else to feel like that.
Moving on, commissioning people is always a hard process for me. Partially because I’m really shy and I dislike bugging people, but also because I have a terrible time estimating prices and I don’t want to say no if something is too much because I don’t want anyone to feel bad. It’s not that their prices are too much–it’s just not something I can afford at the moment.
Similarly, after being snapped at for correcting someone, I have a hard time telling someone something is wrong. I’ll love it even with mistakes, but its something I really need to get over at some point. The one thing that frustrates me the most though is when I’m given no updates at all. I’m a very patient person–as long as you keep me up to date, I will wait. I know things can come up, but I think even one message a month or maybe every couple of weeks if I can see the person still being active isn’t that hard.
For example, I commissioned something in August 2013. I received something very similar to it and bigger that I commissioned later by someone else before this was done. Contact has been random and constantly getting worse and despite having finally seen it done earlier this month, it still hasn’t been shipped for whatever reason despite being told so.
If I was just told “Sorry, there’s a shipping delay. I’ll be able to try and ship it *DATE*”, I’d be fine, but at least respond. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but it is easily the worst I’ve had to deal with.
And when it comes down to it–I don’t want a refund. I want what I paid for. :( It can just be kind of disheartening. And this kind of stuff plus the rarity of Amiibo is probably why I will never end up being comfortable sending any off to customize which stinks as I’d really really really like to.
But yes, I shall end this here. I really enjoy collecting–I just wish it didn’t always become a competitive mess or a endless wait :(