Miss Hanzo gets minions

Miss Hanzo examines her new minions, Ami and Rei.

The minions are, frankly, terrified.

It seems that my mother suddenly realized that she had not sent me all possible 12" fashion dolls from the depths of the doll cabinet and thought she ought to fix that, particularly as I was the one who introduced my family to Sailor Moon, which I used to watch at some ridiculous hour of the morning.


The minions are Sailor Mars (Ami) and Sailor Mercury (Rei).

Ami is glad to not be in dinky little skirts,
but Rei is unsure about the midriff-baring turtleneck look.

Their heads have been transplanted to extra Liv bodies. The original 1990s Bandai bodies had click knees but no arm articulation. . . and were downright burly.

Left behind... as a butterfly leaves behind its caterpillar stage.

It was after I got the head off the first Liv body -- managing to break the neck spike, damnit! -- that I discovered that Sailor Scouts have larger neck holes than Liv dolls. At first, I believed the answer was to put a rubber band around the neck. I don't have rubber bands around the house, as I last subscribed to a daily newspaper in 2007. Walgreen's turns out to sell rubber bands only in half-pound bags, so I will now be using rubber bands for all daily tasks and handing them out to passersby.

They do not work in the neck-stub situation. What does work, I learned from A Doll Affinity, is athletic tape, which I actually have because it's useful for taping down bandage pads if your minor flesh wounds cover a lot of territory.

So I taped around the neck stub, and that worked. The second Liv body, I didn't break the neck spike, so I taped around that, too, and that also worked. Neither Ami nor Rei can do much in the way of looking up or down -- but they couldn't on their original bodies, either, and at least now they have elbows.

We have elbows, and that is downright amazing!

Here, they're posing with a fountain at the shopping plaza between my bus stop and my actual office. At 8:30 in the morning, the only people around are down by the coffeehouse, so I have not materially increased my reputation for eccentricity.

Rei's head fell off in my tote bag, but the solution to that problem is to not habitually carry her about in a tote bag. It went right back on.

Either I have dandruff, or somebody spilled salted nuts in the tote bag.

Rei is scheduled for boil-washing next time her head falls off.

Short hair is soooo much less trouble, Rei!

Ami stakes out my work computer while awaiting her first mission. The boss has never asked about the dolls who occasionally show up for work. I figure he's afraid of what the answer might be.