#restoring

2 days ago me and my brother were trying to find something to watch and we found the first Toy Story movie in our Disney+. It was more like a "lmao let's watch it again?" but then I got done it simply took over my brain

I literally couldn't sleep tonight due to hyperfocus. It's 06:30 am, help help help help help

I have a tendency to like hyperfocuses from my childhood. I mean, my 2000's- 2010's childhood. No, really, almost every single thing I like are stuff I liked when I was five. My room is full of collected stuff from my childhood because now I'm for example part of the Monster High fandom, or Sofia The First fandom, or Barbie Movies, or Ever After High, Undertale, the list goes on. When I did that "let a bot analyze your Instagram" trend the bot literally said "you seem like you're stuck in the 2010's" AND WELL MAYBE I AM

I have a big history with Toy Story, really huge, I grew up with it. I think it's the first hyperfocus I remember having, I was obsessed (as a young girl, in case you didn't notice, just a detail). My favorite character was Woody, but honestly I knew all the characters' names and I watched the movies over and over again, especially 2 and 3. One day my dad traveled to São Paulo for work (I live in Brazil, São Paulo here would be the equivalent of New York in the USA), he said he was coming back a few days later, and my mom stayed home with me to take care of me. I watched movies on her old laptop, and watched Toy Story 3 several times. It was on one of those times that I was watching when my dad came home from his trip with a gift, without warning, just gave me a huge Woody doll (it was the size of a toddler). My mom said that she had never seen me so happy actually

I carried that Woody everywhere with me. My mom even said I tried to bring him to the shower cuz I simply just couldn't stay away from him for a minute. I think I really took the "toys are alive" thing seriously. Actually I always took very great care of my dolls and that's why I can put my MH/EAH dolls in display in my room, they're very well cared. And my Woody doll is here too, I just don't want to take pics rn because it's very late, my room is dark and I'm lazy to take him off the shelf (I wrote this at 05am). If you call him ugly I'll rip you off in pieces, don't treat my son like that (got these pics from the internet)

You know that trend where people say "you look like your childhood toy"? my childhood toy is this Woody here. Some people I know made jokes about him being ugly/scary etc but I'm not scared of him, he always treated me very well lmao. He's a very nice fella

Some years later I got a Buzz Lightyear doll, but I mean, the ACTUAL Buzz doll. From the movie I mean

I live in a small town in Brazil. There was a lady (an old lady I mean) who sold products imported from the USA here in my town. In general they were household items, at least most of them. My mom used to buy us (me and my brother) toys by surprise, like, went out to do something and suddently came home with gifts, and that lady sold north american toys for a very cheap price. I THINK they came from thrift stores, because they arrived in plastic bags and they were random most of the time, like, clearly second hand you know? My mom once showed up with a full bag of polly pocket sized pets and playsets, the bag had the size of a trash bag, like, really big actually. And we weren't rich. Recently, due to me restoring this Buzz doll I spoke to my mom and she said that the prices for those toys were around 20 brazillian reais. You know how much 20 reais would be in dollars? 4 dollars, or less, because were talking about the mid 2010's.

Well, I got that Buzz doll. Among other three action figures of Buzz, Woody and Jessie, but they were smaller, fully plastic and didn't had the same appeal as the movie ones... but still, I liked them when I was young. When you pulled Woody's string, his legs actually moved like he could walk (but he couldn't). Jessie I can't remember. And Buzz, I found out that the action figure I had of buzz is called "laser blast Buzz Lightyear", and that's him

But well, my Buzz doll! The actual movie doll! At the time I didn't minded a lot about Toy Story anymore, even though I still loved to play with my Barbies/MH/EAH, so this Buzz was my brother's, and my brother was a small child when he got it. We got him fully working, pratically new; he could talk when pushing the buttons in his chest, his wings opened when pressing the red button, his laser worked, his helmet did a funny gas noise when opened, even the panel in his wrist had a sound effect, the guy was an amazing toy, truly amazing, and barely used.

Well, my brother and I played with him so much that we didn't think much about his fragility. We took his wings off and put them back on frequently, pressed the buttons non-stop, and after playing he was just thrown back into the toy chest, so he kept getting scratched, got dirty with play dough, dust, broke his wing, broke his arm, and so on... at least we played with him for a very long time. My brother didn't played with him anymore and I got Buzz for me (I didn't stole it, the toy was ours, it just had my brother's title in it and he didn't played with it anymore lmao), that man dated so many Barbies I swear. Funny fact: sometimes I would make blanket forts and put toys with flashing lights inside them, organize the dolls inside, put on music and call it a party, and Buzz would always be there flirting with everyone lol

But yeah going back to the subject, we played with him so much that he broke. Actually I'm surprised by the fact that Andy didn't broke them by the third movie. Time has passed, I restored my Monster High dolls and went on with my childish interests, but Toy Story wasn't something I really cared about revisiting. We moved into a new house and my brother put most of his toys in our "mess room" (basement), and so did I, except for my barbies/barbie sized dolls that are in a toy chest (the MH/EAH are in a shelf). Somehow this Buzz doll appeared again and I decided to put him in my barbie toy chest because I thought "huh I could restore you later actually"

And that's when this week arived, after 4 years living in this house. I'm rewatching all the movies and shorts, because of nostalgia and because I remembered how good those movies were, and I finally decided to restore my Buzz Lightyear. I'm recording the whole process and I'll post it on my YouTube channel. Honestly, I don't think I'll be able to fix everything and make him brand new. For example, the laser arm was ripped off, and even if I find the missing piece, I think it'll be hard to get it working again, especially because I don't know how to maintain the electronic part of the toy and my father, who knows, certainly won't help me with that. Besides, his helmet is very worn and I think it'll be hard to get it back to its previous shine and transparency. And his wings? Not even in my dreams, they have problems opening, problems with the lights, they don't have their "protective cover" outside anymore and the wires are exposed, forget it. What I want to do is bring dignity to the doll and restore him in my way. This means that even if he won't work again, or if he doesn't appears in perfect, what matters most is the fact that it was fixed and is in better condition. I want to treat him well, that is.

The kind of "fixing" I'm talking about is not making him work again completely, but for example taking his broken arm and putting a bandage on it, so we can pretend he broke his arm and he's healing, you know? I'll repaint him, glue his parts back together and... put him somewhere in my room. In a shelf

I know you're probably curious about what Buzz this is, and after doing some research I found out: "Buzz Lightyear Blue Cloud Thinkway Toys from 2009"

Probably collectors reading this are having a heart attack? Maybe. I'm sorry for breaking a very nice item :/

799,00 dollars is a good amount of money! Thinking about the fact that my mom bought him for 2-3 bucks... when talking to my mom about the price for a new Buzz doll that is just like mine (bad word choice: I meant, "how much a new doll of this type costs today"), she said surprised: "and thinking that these toys were junk, no one wanted them to the point of ending up here where we are and for such a cheap price. No one wanted them!" Which I found quite an interesting observation. How did a second hand, perfect, no sign of use, every single interaction working, clean, brand new Buzz Lightyear ended up in a (supposed) thrift store???

This is my YouTube channel:

My videos are in portuguese so I would advise to add captions :/ I'm planning to make a video about this process and I hope I will (if my depression allows me)

I'm currently pretty much hyperfocused in this again, but I think it will be for a short amount of time. I don't love my other interests less. Buzz is now my favorite Toy Story character btw, sorry Woody. Ummm I kinda unburied from memory that Buzz had a TV show and I took a small look at the pilot but didn't watched it yet (it didn't caught much my attention but maybe I'm judging the book by it's cover). I saw that this cartoon has a fandom here on Tumblr but it's more focused on Buzz' crew then in Toy Story for itself. Anyways it's very nice to know that this fandom exists

Now it's 08:00 AM I'm so tired but now I can't sleep anymore