The Legend of Zara

Pretty much within a year of buying Kim, my first doll, I realised the scope dolls have for recreating real "people of desire". Fictional characters, celebrities, exes, and crushes. There are several threads on the forums about this.

Fictional Characters
Obviously fair game. As well as the named video game ladies manufactured by Zelex, you can get a Tifa Lockhart from Top-Cy, and a few other copies or near likenesses that are obviously not named that way. Folks with imagination have created a few similarities with mainstream dolls as well.

Celebrities
Mostly fair game; deepfakes are illegal in the UK, but styling a doll to resemble them isn't; indeed some, mostly porn actors, have licenced their looks to doll manufacturers. As it is, you can get an Emma Watson from SY, a Taylor Swift from SE, an (older) Anne Hathaway from IDO, a Selena Gomez from Fanreal, a Stefanie Joosten from Zelex, and a few other copies or near likenesses hacked up by other clever folks.

Exes
I've no idea how that would work, given the firestorm of emotions involved. It's bad enough when a stock doll resembles one; WM#418 (Bast) in STPE, with a wig instead of implanted hair, resembles a younger version of a woman I dated years ago; it didn't become serious, but even then it didn't end well and I wouldn't want to relive it; I suspect she wouldn't either.

So far so good, but the most obvious candidates are the ones who turned you down, the ones that got away, the ones you had no hope of winning, the ones you didn't at the time have the social skills to chat up let alone ask out, the ones you dated only very briefly, the ones who half liked you but messed with your head and repented too late, and probably a hundred other variations.

Crushes

While the same about deepfakes applies here, imaginings are legal and everyone has a right to fantasise about whomever they want; daydreaming of dates, romantic encounters, or even married life. But an exact physical replica of a real person that is not a celebrity crosses a red line; it would feel weird at best.

The subject's privacy would also be a factor; most of my crushes are now around my age and some likely widowed or divorced. If they are as fed up with dating as I am then it is possible, however unlikely, that they could end up on a doll forum and see their avatar; even if they took it well, it would be quite embarrasing.

What would work for me is to copy the style, the overall look, and the essential personal attributes that made them so attractive.

* Configure a doll, of the same or similar ethicity, build, height, and face.
Using stock options only, and no custom faces, avoids ethical issues.
Easy to do as custom faces are very expensive.

* Give them a name of their own and a sufficiently different backstory.
Not difficult in the crazy world of LT :D

* Dress them in similar clothes to those in your best loved memories.
But not anything custom made for them, if applicable; clothes have to be generic.

* Change things you didn't like.
Easy to do since dolls can be perfect
It adds an extra degree of separation.

Mei-Ling is a riff on an, at the time, real crush of mine, let's call her X; however, Mei-Ling is played for laughs rather than romance. X is a typical 'scatty aspie', kinda like me in LT mode, but moreso. She is a really lovely person; quite unconventional in some ways and quite conservative in others. X is about my age, but talking with her was like talking to a ten years younger version of me (modulo gender differences).

X as I remember her is about my height, slim build, and a bit of a gym bunny. She had dark brown eyes, long black hair tied in a bun, and wore glasses most of the time. I have seen her dolled up but much preferred the dress-down version; sweet and approachable, simple clothes and little make-up; very much the cute girl next door, a favourite theme of mine. IIRC, she did not ever mention having pets at home, especially not cats.

Mei-Ling, head WM#76, shares the WM175D with Bast. The D cup was a change but by luck; WM#76 as a free second head was an afterthought. She wears her hair long and abhors glasses. Mei-Ling's clothes are almost exactly what X wore much of the time, but in fact many Asians wear that style, so it's not unique to X. Mei-Ling means 'Beautiful Soul' and is for me a lovely name; it is a common name in Asia, though spelled variously in different countries.

Most importantly, Mei-Ling is a crazy cat lady, officially Bast's Prophet on Earth, and festooned with cat themed accessories, including the logo on her T shirt. Her tub-thumping biblical prophesy of Bast's return to Earth is a worthy analogue of some of the speeches delivered by X in my hearing 😀

When Elsa Babe did the 'Collection of ugly, crippled dolls' thread, one face jumped out at me; it was a prototype for head RHC005 and bore a striking resemblance to a much earlier crush of mine, especially with that hair style. Let's call her S.

In the UK of the 1980s, the World Wide Web did not exist and the 'text mode only' Internet was available only to staff and students of universities. Most businesses relied on electric, or even manual, typewriters, photocopiers, duplicators, dictation, stenography, and shorthand. Smartphones were the stuff of science fiction. Mobile phones were insanely expensive and the size of a brick. For all but the largest businesses, filing was done on paper or card indexes. Bosses never typed their own documents.

So aged 18 and a half, I was a student in the 1980s at a further education college (between high school and university). S was one of several girls studying for a working life as secretaries and PAs; she would have been nearly 17 at the time, her cohort had aged out of high school a few months earlier.

Those without summer jobs or rich parents recycled their high school uniforms, removing logos, not wearing ties, etc. UK school uniforms were very formal then and, logos apart, could easily pass for white collar office wear. This was just as well, as I later found out they were marked on dress. Seriously. They were expected to look smart at all times; it was almost like the military.

So one day I was between classes and disillusioned that, due to staying on to do more studies, the really good looking girls in my intake had all left and there was nobody worth crushing on. And then I saw her, sitting in the main lobby, obviously also between classes.

I wasn't sure exactly what I was seeing; S had a cute face and a (very!) good figure, a rare combination in my albeit limited experience; she could have wrapped most men around her little finger but didn't seem to have that 'look' about her; she was clearly a 'girl next door' personality.

Then she looked around, got up and purposefully walked off down the corridor behind me. That's when the lightning struck. Something about this girl was so familiar and at the time I couldn't figure out why, or why it made her so compelling. I couldn't help looking whenever I saw her over the next few months. Sadly, being autistic and having suffered from some family issues I had no idea how to chat up a girl from cold, nor was she in any of my circle of friends and acquaintances.

But then there was T, a girl the same age as my brother, both two years younger than me, both having been in the same high school class, both now studying at the college; I had been in the same class as her brother, two years ahead of them. So one day, the three of us were waiting for the bus to the city and the talk turned to dating and romance.

It turned out that T was also one of these trainee secretaries and knew S; not well, but crucially, she knew S' name and village. S had an unusual surname and it was a small village, plus of course back then, most families were listed in the public phone directory.

So I took a chance and tried to get her number. I'd never done anything like that before. It was scary as Hell. I did get the right number and we did talk a little. She was at least interested in meeting her 'mystery admirer', despite having a boyfriend at the time, which struck me as odd; maybe she was getting ready to give him the push, who knows?

It's all too cringeworthy to go into what happened after that; but in short, nothing came of it. What struck me though, was that she seemed almost as hesitant as I was; a girl as good looking as that should reasonably have had lots of dates and know the ropes.

Even weirder, a guy in one of the classes shared with my cohort told me a few weeks after that he'd met S at a function of some sort, even danced with her, the lucky sod. Then he dropped a bombshell on me: 'She wasn't all that much'.

What the actual Hell?! I fancied this gorgeous woman like mad, He'd been lucky enough to talk with and dance with her, and she 'wasn't all that much'? There aren't enough Darkseid related curses in the entire Cosmos for that one! Not even Matt the Cat knows enough swear words to adequately address it 😝

A few months later, though, it finally hit me. What made S so compelling. What, or rather who, she reminded me of. In part a female version of myself and, more so, a less neurotic version of my mother. I found myself thinking 'I wonder if this girl has the same wierdness my mother and I have?'

At that time high functioning autism, or Asperger Syndrome, was not known about in the UK; but both of my parents and their parents were eccentric as heck, mother more so than father. It seems I got a double dose of it. Gee, thanks mum & dad 😝

Having later in my life worked for a charity supporting autistic people, it seems obvious now, but back then I didn't have a name for it, and even now diagnosing it in girls and women is still fraught with difficulties. My former boss, who has extensive experience in neurodiverse support, once met my mother and afterwards confirmed that yes, my mother was as classic a case as I am.

If S is 'one of us', it would explain a lot. In particular, what the 'unbeliever' said :) He would have found the mental tics and social abilities of an autistic woman, even one as well adjusted as S, hard to read. Autistic women that I know have reported as much; one said normal men liked her but were freaked out by some of her subtle behaviours, even harmless or positive ones.

So in the end, who knows? But I never forgot about S and wish I'd been more able with dating techniques back then.She was such a nice sweet girl, with a great figure, and so damn cute.

S was around five foot three, slim without being thin, and I guess would in doll terms be 167E or 167F. The Elsa Babe 160, scaled up to 167 in medium or large bust would be a good match for her; sadly there's no such body right now. Of the stock Elsa Babe heads, RHC033 is a close enough match, given the right wig; it is one of the less Asian looking heads, so it could work.

With no suitable body type, I wasn't spending £2000+ on a doll for her; however, I noticed the newer design of WM#419 (Azrael) and in STPE does have some similarities, and though it worth doing a '30 day working prototype on breadboard' with her. This is probably the first time that S has been compared to the original IBM 5150 PC 🤣

For style, a short bob wig in 'small' cap size, to mimic the close cut hairstyles of the day; fitted Mei-Ling's brown eyes; for the 'uniform' that S looked, to my 18yo self, so good in, ladies' styles of the same outfit; conservative, but showing off many of her curves while hinting at that gorgeous figure underneath.

I really like smartly dressed women and blue is one of my favourite colours; however, just as S eventually developed her own style and fashions as she grew older, so the doll will; you'll see her dressed in sexier clothes and racier underwear, but gear that would still be fit for a 1980s office.

It'll be a while before shooting starts in earnest; as assembling authentic 1980s props takes a while; she has a genuine 1980s Casio desk calculator, some 1980s pop cassettes and posters of the bands the girls I knew as a youngster were into, and conservative underwear that at least that looks as if it came from that era. There is a boombox, an electric typewriter, and a crap MDF desk that will do for today.

Head WM#419 with body paint, in Tan, in STPE, looks vaguely middle Eastern or Arabic; Zara popped into my head on realising that, probably due to some long-forgotten book. Since S had an uncommon surname, Zara should too; after some research, I came up with Abdelmahkama, 'Servant of the Tribunal' (the 'Living' bit would make it too long-winded).

Nice little trip down memory lane :)

Yup very pretty lady. Unfortunately for me i went to an all boys school, so didnt have much to do with girls in my younger years. The only crush i had was on older women, female teachers and a younger Kate Bush

I guess I'm making up for it now though🤣🤣🤣

What Story said.
Also, congratulations on your new doll.