I have a friend whose favorite series is a•t, which, Yknow, I am trying so hard to be polite about having extremely different tastes. but I cherish & support her and when it comes to bday presents I’m either waiting for someone to express a need/want for smth during any time of the year & just buying it & going ‘happy early/late birthday’ OR I’m planning months in advance (& sometimes collaborating w/ folks) for The Perfect Present but I can never bring myself to get something I’m halfhearted on… I’ve been on & off scrolling thru mercari/ebay/amazon/aliexpress and feeling very Eh abt the quality/size/price and was almost close to just getting two small cheap but cute plushies (13 cm & 10 cm :/), then on ebay I saw smth that was 20cm (good size) and actually very cute, but it was like $50 for the plush & $20 for shipping and while I cherish my pal I am not dropping $70 on a plushie (AND ESPECIALLY NOT ON A•T MERCH). so I do a exact match search of the specific brand and find one (1) online store selling it for $20 (incl shipping) (they’re having a 20% off sale). which is suspiciously low so I made sure to look up reviews outside the site & it looks legit, so I’m gonna buy it & hope that even if it’s not legit it’ll be an acceptable quality bootleg, and if it isn’t even that then I still have a month and a half to get one of my backup plans. in a week we’ll see if I get a Perfectionism Win.