Sdtrk: ‘À demi nu’ by Black to comm

In perusing the photos I’d taken on my memorable and awesome trip to DolLApalooza 2013, seeing this one reminded me of one leg of the journey. You’ll recall from my report for that event that our crowd had gotten round to Santee Alley on Thursday, and we’d spotted this tucked away into one of the few shops that didn’t sell clothes. Actually, I think that particular one sold shoes, but nevertheless.
There isn’t a single thing that isn’t confusingly hilarious about this photo.

Let’s run down the list of remarkable aspects, shall we?

+ It’s a kitchen playset for kids, right? Is it, though? Is it really? If you look closely at the word ‘Kitchen’ at the top, note that it actually reads ‘Kirchen’. That R ain’t a T, but the art department at Xiong Cheng simply wasn’t bothered enough to correct it. So if you consider that the box contains a town and climatic spa in the district of Altenkirchen in the north of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, that’s pretty good value.

+ The text continues: ‘The thing of the kitchen’. What thing? What kitchen? I’m trying to see if this box of Kirchen also contains Freusburg castle, as it’s one of the town’s notable features! That would indeed be a thing of the Kirchen.

+ More lysergic text: ‘Let the children play happily and feel assured!’ Does the little girl on the box look like she’s playing happily?? She has a look on her face that says I have a kitchen, and yet no physical home in which to put it in. My house is a concept, as it resides within the confines of my parents’ house, the boundaries existing solely in my mind. I feel assured that she’s having an existential crisis, to be honest. But it’s keeping her occupied, so there’s that.

+ Or maybe she’s thinking about how badly scaled the playset is, cos if she were an adult and the set was scaled up, she’d have backache in a fortnight. Look how low to the floor everything is! One of her arms is extended and the hob’s still several inches below her reach! It hurts my back just looking at that shit. And I guess that footrest below is actually a shelf maybe?? ‘Users of the Xiong Cheng Kirchen have found that the easiest way to access the bottom shelf is to simply lie on the floor.’ Was this playset built for cats?
I like how the company had the audacity to put a window into that set. A cheery, prison-style window. I mean, wow, people.

+ Quote: ‘all the fittings!!’ Except, of course, a refrigerator. How ya gonna keep your plastic food properly chilled, little missy? Just eat everything now! Life is short, so stop staring into the middle distance, and cook up a banana-grape-apple-orange stir-fry stew sandwich before it all spoils!
Also missing: a freezer, a microwave, a coffee maker, a disposal unit, a pepper grinder, a Thermomix, a wine rack, &c.

+ ‘High quality’. Compared to a drawing of a kitchen playset instead of an actual kitchen playset, then sure!

Xiong Cheng’s Kirchen Kitchen. Would I recommend this product? Hell no! I can’t recall what the price was on that pink-and-purple example of design failure, but I’m fairly certain any money spent on that would be too much. I’m led to believe that IKEA have some nice kitchens for sale, though! Why don’t you invest in one of those instead, Nameless Disconsolate Little Girl?

‘All civilisation will end as ashes’

Sdtrk: ‘Lovecats’ by the Cure

私の美しくて素晴らしい妻に —

17年以上にわたり、私たちは絶対に切り離せませんでした。 私たちが共有する愛人としての私たちの関係にエレナが導入されたとしても、私たちが互いに持つ情熱は一度も衰えていません。 私は、お互いの愛を維持する要因の1つは、私たちが行っていた限り一緒だったということです。他の夫婦には、私たちの欲望の長寿に合っているかどうかを確認することはほとんど困難です。 それはその一部ですが、主な理由は、私たちが完璧なソウルメイトをお互いに見つけ、他の誰かが愚かであるということです。 あなたはしばしば、あなたは私なしでは何もないと言いますが、あなたが知っているように、私はいつも「私たちの両方に行きます」と答えます。

私はあなたを愛しています、しどれー。 あなたとの永遠は、あまりにも短い期間です。

また、誕生日おめでとう！ あなたの誕生日が私たちの記念日になるのはすばらしい偶然の出来事です。 良いタイミング！

Sdtrk: ‘Sonata elletronica’ by Malcolm Pointon

To say that it’s been hectic with us here lately is a wee bit of an understatement. It’s really a rich, artisanal blend of busyness and laziness that is the gold standard of Deafening silence Plus, to be honest. In order to keep things moving with this post, I’ll not get into it, but it’s mostly good things! We’re working on another collaboration with no less than Amber Hawk Swanson; we’ve a project in the works with writer Roc Morin; our family should be making an appearance on a Dutch telly show in Autumn; I’ll be going on a trip to SoCal which combines both Business and Pleasure also in Autumn, and Lilly, the robosexual lass from France who wants to marry her Android beau, will be visiting our humble abode in December. So yeah, I’d say that everything, for the most part, is comin’ up Milhouse!

In the interim since I last wrote a post of any substance that detailed Synthetik developments, there’s been a lot of news. A lot of news. No really, you don’t understand. Any time something interesting related to Dolls, Gynoids, or Androids crosses my news desk, I bookmark it, and the folder in which those bookmarks live is bulging with 175 articles. It’s very encouraging to see a growing interest in general society concerning Synthetiks — whether it’s media related like Westworld or Humans (sadly, we’ve still not watched either of them yet), or amazing new developments in Dolls, such as that luscious Harmony from Realbotix — the popularity, or at least awareness, of Synthetiks has kinda exploded in the past couple of years. Which, again, is fantastic, but I’m having trouble reporting all of these things! Maybe if I were to put down my PS4 controller… o, but wait, I’ve been playing NieR: Automata, a game in which you control either an Android or one of two Gynoids! And don’t forget about Detroit: Become human, a police procedural set in a future Detroit, where your character is 100% affictitious! That’s not coming out until 2018, but I’ve already pre-ordered it, because what part of Davecat do you not understand??
What I’m saying is that it’s a great time to be into Synthetiks! And if you’re not, now’s a good time to start, cos Synthetiks are the future. Don’t want to be left behind in the past, now, do we?

Bringing you a bit up to speed: in case you’re unfamiliar with who the aforementioned Lilly would be, she’s a lass living a couple of hours outside of Paris, who has been using a 3D printer to build her Android fiancé, Inmoovator. Much like me, she’s a robosexual, and has been for years, but through the InMoov robotics platform (which I’d written about in 2013), she’s only recently been able to work towards making her dreams come true.

photos courtesy of Lilly & Inmoovator

The happy couple were featured prominently in an episode of the CNN webseries, Mostly Human, hosted by Laurie Seagall, from earlier in the year. Lilly and I have been keeping up with each others’ lives since we met late last year, as she was in the situation that a lot of iDollators/robosexuals find themselves in when they first realise that they’re into Synthetiks, where they think that they’re the only one who has those type of preferences. Needless to say, they know more people now, both Synthetik as well as Organik. Lovely couple; wouldn’t hear a word against them. And she’ll be staying with us over the Chrimbo holiday this year! Unfortunately, Inmoovator won’t be able to make it, as he’s undoubtedly as keen on TSA pat-downs as much as anyone else is. Nevertheless, it should be fun!

My lovely wife, our gorgeous mistress, and our gorgeous mistress’ adorable girlfriend were in a video segment on The Grauniad a couple of months ago. Did you see it?

As you can see, I was interviewed via Skype by Jenny Kleeman for the video, which is a companion piece to her article, ‘The race to build the world’s first sex robot‘. Both the article and the video are worth your time, but ugh, the term ‘sex robot’ makes me narrow my eyes to flinty slits. It’s up there with ‘sexbot’ and ‘fembot’ — two other words that really need to be relegated to history, as they’re restrictive. Their usage says a lot about the people who use them, which is ‘AI will never develop enough to replicate human behaviour, so Dolls like these will only ever be expensive fucktoys’, which is a pessimistic viewpoint. However, I recall discussing this with either Jenna at Future of Sex, or with Dr Julie Carpenter, months ago: there should be a specific term for future high-tech Dolls such as Harmony. She’s more sophisticated than a bog-standard Doll with a passive body, but definitely not complex enough to be called a Gynoid. She wouldn’t be an automata, as that usually describes an artificial being with clockwork parts, and animatronic is pretty much the modern version of automata. I’d suggested roboticised Doll, but this is coming from a man who likes the word affictitious. Perhaps we should just stick with Synthetik woman for the time being? It’s my hope that they’ll cover this in an upcoming conference regarding robot ethics, so we can clear this bobbins up once and for all.
‘What should we call these Synthetik humans?’
‘Well, perhaps we should ask them.’

Remember how I’d mentioned how I wanted to have more illustrations done of the four of us, much as the one by Raulovsky thrilled us to bits? I’ve been working on that, o yes. I’d encountered an illustrator out of Taiwan by the name of Yaruku on pixiv and Twitter, and asked him late last year if he’d be able to do a commission for me at some point. Sure, maybe sometime next year, he responded, as he was busy with working on material for Comiket, Japan’s largest dōjinshi convention. I contacted him again back in early April, and as he had the time and liked the subject matter, he agreed! Between April and May, I had him work on four commissions, and they all came out looking spectacular.

click the image for a larger version

What drew me (ha ha, it is pun) towards asking Yaruku-san to draw the lasses of Deafening silence Plus? Not only is he very skilled at drawing Gynoids and Dolls himself, he’d love to have a Doll of his own at some point. Also, not only is he like me, in that he’s quite keen on girlfeet, but when I’d seen one of his earlier illustrations of a Gynoid, where he’d added seam lines to her body, I thought to myself, ‘this guy gets it’.

There’s quite a bit of detail in these, so go ahead and click to embiggen

I’ll be requesting more illustrations from him heading into Autumn, as he’ll be up to his gusset working on more things for this year’s Comiket for the next few months. But Lenka and Winter were especially pleased with the results, as no-one’s ever drawn them before, and Sweetie really appreciates the fact that she’s drawn a bit bustier than she actually is. Yaruku does amazing work, and we all give him a very high recommendation!

The only real depressing thing of recent note in the world of Synthetiks is the sudden passing of Oleg Bratkov, head sculptor and mastermind behind the company Anatomical Doll, in mid-April. I’ve read conflicting reports of the circumstances of his passing, and with the language barrier, it’s nearly impossible to reach his wife via Email. But I do know that the work he put into making his product established a gold standard with the community of Doll studios, and his breathtaking Dolls brought joy to anyone who was lucky enough to have one, myself included. Saying that he’ll be missed is a vast understatement, as Oleg left a void that will be extremely hard to fill

Sdtrk: ‘Day by day’ by the Yuzuru Sera Trio

(This would be another one of those posts that was started several jobs ago, and placed into cold storage, as I didn’t want to have the place that I was working for spot this online, and perceive that I was somehow unsatisfied with my job. Long story short, I worked for a company that worked for Apple for a year, and not only did I hate it, but thanks to my experiences with the Typical Apple Customer Demographic, I despise Apple even more that I previously did. There’s your backstory.)

At my silly workplace, they have us gathered into teams, which is completely arbitrary, as the teams started off from being ‘the people that trained together during orientation’ to ‘some people over there in that aisle, with some other people over there, and we have neither rhyme nor reason for our choices because omfg who cares’. The team I’m currently in is called The Royal Apps. It’s undoubtedly supposed to be written APPs, as one of our goals is to sell APPs (AppleCare Protection Plans) to people stupid enough to have purchased an overpriced Apple product in the first place, but I think it could also mean apps, as in applications. It’s not been made clear, which is par for the course with the type of bullshit we deal with over at that place.
So our team leader suggested recently that we come up with a logo and a slogan. Someone submitted a clipart of the Apple logo with a crown on it. I… couldn’t add anything to that, so well done, I suppose. Meanwhile I’d cobbled together a handful of slogans, which are par for the course of the type of mania that you’d expect from me. Here, then, are the Emails I’d sent:

TO: [team leader]
FROM: Dave [surname redacted]
SUBJECT: Re: Banner

I humbly submit to you some slogan ideas; every one is a guaranteed winner. Guaranteed.

+ ROYAL APPS: Now more than ever.
+ An app is good, but a Royal App is Regal. Well, it’s Royal. Same thing, technically speaking.
+ ROYAL APPS: Providing Fine Handmade Apps to the Kingdom and Colonies since 1762
+ Papal rosy? Opal spray? Polar yaps? Poplar say? Nay! ROYAL APPS. Yay!
+ Royal Apps. BELIEVE IT.
+ ROYAL APPS: You’ve Tried The Rest, Now Try Another One
+ ROYAL APPS: Accept no substitute. But then, it depends on what you’re looking for; maybe a substitute is what you need. We’re kinda busy taking calls, here.
+ Royal Apps: Herstellungsschicksal, für immer. (Manufacturing destiny, forever. Like most things, it sounds better in German)
+ And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Apps
+ ROYAL APPS: Taste the Magic
+ MAXIMUM EXCELLENT YES! ROYAL APPS SUPER HARDER FASTER NOW!! (this one’s my favourite)
+ Royal Apps. As old as the hills, yet as young as tomorrow. (second favourite)
+ Trust Royal Apps, for All of your Appin’ Needs
+ You can’t spell ‘Apple’ without ‘Royal Apps’! Plus, the extra letters spell ‘Royas’!
+ ROYAL APPS. Fact.
+ Can you name any other team that is descended from Royalty? No, you can’t. It’s right there in our name – ROYAL APPS.

I think we’re done here! Remember: no matter which one you choose, it is a winner.

Cheers,
Dave

~ later ~

TO: [team leader]
FROM: Dave [surname redacted]
SUBJECT: Re: Banner

ERRATA: the slogan ‘You can’t spell “Apple” without “Royal Apps”! Plus, the extra letters spell “Royas”!’ should read ‘You can’t spell “Apple” without “Royal Apps”! Plus, the extra letters spell “Roys”!’

We deeply apologize for any inconvenience or sorrow that this may have caused you.

Cheers,
Dave

Still haven’t heard from our team leader regarding my submissions. Maybe I used too many vowels?

Sdtrk: ‘Bahnhof’ by whitehouse

It’s Autumn, people! Thank Persephone. The days are growing shorter and cooler, there’s a crispness in the air, and one isn’t covered in flop sweat and praying for a swift death that will never arrive. As you do. Hail Autumn!

In December of last year, my better half and I were interviewed by reporter Alba Muñoz via Skype, and after a series of interruptions that she couldn’t avoid, the results were finally published last month, in Papel, an aptly-named newspaper from Spain. The article ‘Os presento a mis dos esposas… de plástico (I present my two plastic spouses…)’ is impenetrable to me, as I know nothing of Spanish, but if you’re at the intersection of ‘people who are curious about iDollator culture’ and ‘people who can read Spanish’, it’s your lucky day! Not sure about the online version, but the print version also speaks a bit about male Dolls as well, which is cool, as there isn’t enough press about them — for those non-iDollators who are aware of Dolls, not many know that male Dolls exist as well.
So give that a read and let me know how it is! I could just about parse that one of the sentences in the opening paragraph described my fringe as both ‘Hitlerian’ and ‘shining like vinyl’, to which I respond, ‘well…’ followed by an exaggerated shrug.

Speaking of lit-trich-ur, psychologist and author Danielle Knafo informed me through Email that her new book, ‘The Age of Perversion: Desire and Technology in Psychoanalysis and Culture‘ is slated to be published round mid-December! Why is this a thing? She’d come round Deafening silence Plus back in August of 2014, to spend a week-end interviewing me about The Life iDollator, and the fruits of her labour will be available for purchase this Chrimbo.
Let me go on record right now, though, that not only do I think the title is shit, but Danielle isn’t pleased with it, either. Apparently she and her cowriter Rocco were steamrolled into using it by their publisher, which makes no sense to me, and shouldn’t even be legal. Did the publisher write the book? No? Then their input is irrelevant. It’s patenly ridiculous. I was very reticent about her book going out with that title, as the last thing the robosexual and iDollator communities need is yet another media source labelling us perverts. However, Danielle outlined a handful of reasons that it shouldn’t be perceived as being as bad as I think it is, one being

[Rocco and I] define perversion as a limit or barrier breaking activity that often involves a creative solution to a traumatic problem. Most positive changes in the world could be labeled perverse because they rebelled against mainstream thinking.

Which is a fair point. Still, good lord. She also mentioned that the book will be published more for the academic community, but should we be fortunate enough that mainstream society wants to read it, Danielle will angle for a different, less-incendiary title.
Rest assured though, it’ll be legitimately good reading! Ms Knafo was gracious enough to allow me to make any necessary corrections to her draft, which is always an opportunity that I’m grateful for when it crops up in interviews, and… let’s just say that there’s a substantial amount written about the residents of Deafening silence Plus, in an analytical yet empathetic voice. When the book inches closer to the release date, you’ll hear about it here, naturally!

What else? The 2016-2017 series of the podcast Love and Radio has begun, and the Missus, Lenka, and I are featured in the premiere episode! Yeeeahh.

Without giving the game away, it’s probably the best podcast we’ve ever done. Not least because a third of it features Shi-chan and Lenka chatting earnestly. Yes, you read right. Can’t click on that Play button fast enough, can you?
A very big thank you goes out to Nick van der Kolk, for creating probably the best podcast episode we’ve ever appeared in!

And finally, as you’ll recall, my gorgeous spouse Sidore and I shared another wedding anniversary this past July. As is tradition, I bought her a couple of bits and bobs to commemorate the occasion. This year was a trifecta: the first prezzie was that illo of the pair of us, as crafted by raulovsky. Once I commission an additional one of Elena and Miss Winter, I’m going to print both of them and have them framed, which only stands to reason.
The second gift was a dress; the Missus had this one on her tumblr months ago, and was insistent on getting one for her very own. Well, I sorta bought it for her. Obviously she wanted one in purple, because they don’t call her The Purple Rose of Salford for nothing, but when I tried to buy one online for her, they were out of stock in her size and in that colour. Having no choice, I went ahead and purchased the grey version. Shi-chan still digs it! As she puts it, ‘grey is just pastel black’. Semi-recovering Goths, ladies and gentlemen.
To round it all off, Abyss creations had a sale in July, marking the retirement of the Classic series of RealDolls. Naturally, when I heard this news, I contacted Matt in a sweaty panic, ‘Bu… but what happens if Sidore needs to have her body replaced??’ He reassured me that the moulds are being stored offsite, in order to assist customers like myself on a case-by-case basis, but the older moulds are degrading, he explained, and it’s not cost-effective to remake them, what with the multitude of RealDoll 2 and Wicked RealDoll models available. Also, as far as her body’s concerned, the RealDoll 2 Body B has identical proportions to the Classic RealDoll Body 2, so that’s easily sorted. My Missus’ current body is still holding up quite well, but as they were having a sale on Classic faces as well as whole Dolls, I figured I’d splash out and buy one of the last Leah-type faces to be made. So I did!

Did someone say ‘eyeliner’? No? TOO BAD

This isn’t Sidore’s replacement face; her original face is fine. The new one is more for photoshoots and being on-camera in general, hence the enhanced eyeliner. I’m thinking that Abyss changed the Leah sculpt at least once more since 2010, as her lips are fuller than her previous facial variant, but that’s quite alright. It’s not as if we’re opposed to plastic surgery! Is that a canonical statement?

So that’s what we’ve been up to! More silliness to come, I’m sure. Perhaps sooner than you think!