showing you my plushies :3

i think it is a very sad thing to regard having plushies as an adult as childish or immature or overall bad. i never bought into the idea that beyond a certain age i should feel ashamed about having plushies and cuddling with them. i'm lonely. they are my little friends and they make me smile. who gives a shit.

yesterday, i did my once-in-a-blue-moon apartment cleaning spree and for the occasion also set up a nicer solution for the foot of my bed. here's the situation: my bed frame is very wide, like a bit of a sideboard all around the mattress, which is fine if you're a freak who doesn't need a headboard and likes their bed sitting in the middle of the room, exposed on too many sides to all kinds of horrors. but i am no freak, so this strangely wide bed frame is just kind of annoying. it's widest at the foot of the bed (like 30 centimetres) and i had collected a whole bunch of things on there. because in my house, if there is a blank space, sooner or later, i will use it as either storage or display space, or a combination of both. so this bed footer was full of stuff and now i thought ok. time to clear this up. so i did. and then i put some cardboard boxes there to construct what now is functionally a foodboard (as opposed to a headboard. you know). upon which now perch (most of) my fluffy little friends. i love a good cardboard-based solution.

anyway. here are they in no particular order order of how long they've been in my life, sort of:

my big old bear. he is a kind of grandpa-djungelskog. in that he is a large brown bear. he is very very old, i don't even know how old. older than i am, probably. somewhere out of my parents' childhood, maybe. his fur is kind of scratchy, but that's not the only reason i don't cuddle very much with him anymore (i used to sleep with my head on his belly as a kid. maybe that's why i am the way i am.) i should maybe completely gut him, wash his pelt and refill his insides sometime. he doesn't have a name i know of.

the flat boy. i've had him for as long as i remember and he's long been my most cherished plushy. he used to be one of those hot waterbottle plushies, hence the lack of core strength, but a few years back i turned him into more of a pouch. he always holds some kinds of items that i at the time felt should be kept safe. you can tell that he is old not only because of his scruffy fur but also his blind left eye (it broke a long while ago, so he was one-eyed for a few years until i found this white button that has the perfect size and put it in as a glass-eye. i think i still have the original eye somewhere though.) as a child, i called him Schnuffie, later i renamed him Mage.

another old boy. my mum and i used to go to this small kids second-hand store to buy my clothes and i always hated shopping, so i'd get to choose something fun as a kind of reward for putting up with it. one time, i found this big fella and took him home. he is a big ikea gosig golden, which i never realised until i saw his kin at the store a couple years back. he too is in need of some fresh stuffing and a spa treatment -- but i'll have to wait for the summer heat to do all that. i named him Rover.

another little friend that i've conducted surgery on. she was originally one of those plushies with a sound brick inside so she'd make noises when cuddled. but i never thought that hard plastic bricks made plushies very cuddable, nor that plushies should randomly make noises. plus, the brick was covered up with a little flap and a velcro closure, which was very unpleasant to have pressed into your skin. so i took that thang out, and now she's a very polite, cuddable little donkey. i got her as a gift from the bookstore where i did my 2-week internship in 9th grade. she doesn't have a name.

not much to tell about her. she is the jellycat truffles highland cow and i got her for myself around 2019/2020 maybe and paid one million euros in customs probably. but i love her. she is very cute and incredibly fluffy smooth to the touch. i named her Callie (or maybe the people at jellycats did)

the chan flesh png teddy bear! he is very bad and strange to cuddle due to his shapes but i love him regardless due to his fantastic design. i got him as a birthday gift in 2022 and later that year, milo named him Rocky, which i like very much. the name suits him. i love his long limbs and big head, despite the resulting low cuddability.

my small little sheep. i found her on the street in what must have been early 2024 and i picked her up, took her home and cleaned her up. i love her shapes and the texture of her fur and how small and lopsided she is (her lopsidedness doesn't show very well in this photo, but if you hold her in your hands and look at her straight-on, it becomes very clear.) she reminds me of my friend and of love and spring and comfort. she remains unnamed.

 

i was recently called a stereotype for owning a blahaj. ok. well, have you considered that i love him and that he has perfect cuddability? because i do and he does. tragically, this one isn't my first blahaj. my first shark was Dante and i got him for my birthday in 2023 and i loved him very much. he was with me until december of 2024 when i left him on the train on my way to get top surgery (which feels very pointed) and i never got him back despite immediately filing a lost-item inquiry. i grieved a little but simply had to again have a big plush shark, so the day i got back home after surgery and christmas holidays, i went to get a new one. this one. his name is Ari and it says so on the nametag i sewed on him, along with my email so that, if i ever lose him too (god forbid), whoever finds him can contact me about it.

frog. it is niall breen's frog plushy. i got him for myself in 2024 and i love him very much. he is so shaped and firm. he functions perfectly as a phone stand and i love that there is nothing going on inside his head. he is simply called Frog.

the icon. the myth the legend. the Maus. saw them at a store around christmas 2024 and simply had to take them. i love them. a piece of childhood with me for ever.

my duck that i kind-of-got-kind-of-took from my grandma. he'd been part of her household and decor for as long as i remember and this past november when i visited for her birthday, i saw him again and said. can i have him. and she said sure you can have him. so now i have him. i like very much his shapes and colours and integrity. he does not have a name that i know of.

★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶★⭑✴✦✸⋆🟊⭒✶

i have more plushies. as a child, i used to have way more plushies. but these guys are the ones i had around to photograph last night when i started writing this post. maybe one day, i will make an addendum.

i think that plushies are a wonderful thing. everyone should have at least one plushy. i don't trust people who don't. you don't even have to have them with you in bed if that's not your thing, but to completely reject the whimsy and sentiment of a fluffy little guy? have you no joy in your heart? let yourself be soft for a small, inanimate little friend. handheart