Dusk the Blahaj

Author: Doan-Viet Nguyen

Dusk’s Adorable Cosplay Transformations

I hope you guys like cosplay because this post is all about that! I love dressing Dusk up as various characters. It’s always so fun to see how I can convert my cosplay outfits over to Dusk, and they always look so funny.

The first cosplay is the featured image, with Dusk as Umaru from Himouto! Umaru-chan, one of my favorite anime of all time (as much as people judge me for it, haha). I got the hood for Christmas a few years ago, then I decided to cosplay as Umaru for Halloween a year or two later. It’s more of a gender-bent Umaru, but in the context of Dusk, Dusk looks really nice! It’s a fun outfit, and you can easily tell who they’re dressed up as!

Next up is Dusk as Hatsune Miku!

Dusk as Miku

You might have seen this a few days ago in the music post (which you can read here), but here it is again! And yes, I know the wig is messy, I was too lazy to brush it back when I got the costume, and Dusk and I suffered the consequences for it… But anyway, Dusk love Vocaloid, and they dressed up as Miku! I got this costume for an anime club event, and it was pretty fun to be Miku all day (even if the wig was messy as heck). If I had one thing I would change, though, I would try to get a microphone for Dusk to sing into…

Speaking of the anime club, now, we have Dusk as Akari Akasaka, the mascot of the Cornell Anime Club!

Dusk as Akari

Because Akari was a custom-made mascot, I had to make most of the cosplay from scratch, with help from my friend, Ama! It was a lot of fun getting the supplies and making it together, and it turned out great! Because Dusk has no arms, legs, or really any human body part, however, they only have on the wig and cute hat. But, still, Dusk looks just like Akari, but is twice as cute because they’re a Blåhaj!

And lastly, we have Dusk as Jean from Genshin Impact!

Dusk as Jean

Yes, I know the mask is terrifying, but be not afraid of Dusk! Truth be told, I haven’t played Genshin Impact at all. I only got the mask from an event that some friends went to because I wanted to tag along. But I think it’s really funny for Dusk to wear this mask because the eye holes are completely cursed.

Anyway, that’s it for this blog! If you want your own Blåhaj to dress up, you can get one here! And I should reiterate, that I’m not sponsored by IKEA, I just really like their sharks.

And I usually don’t like asking for donations, but if you can afford to give anything, please do it here! Every cent goes straight to the blog, and I’d love for the website to keep growing so that more people can see Dusk! Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on Dusk’s cosplays or if you have your own dress-up plushies that you’d like to talk about, tell me in the comments below!

June 20, 2025
Dusk’s Adventures with Lacey the Plushie

Next up on the saga of Dusk’s friends is Lacey! You might have heard of Lacey from Lacey’s Flash Games– a popular horror series on YouTube by ghosttundra. Well, this is the same one! After quite a bit of trouble with Makeship, I got an official Lacey plushie, and she’s been pretty good friends with Dusk!

As you can see from the above image, she’s the perfect size to ride Dusk! He might be way bigger than her, but her floppy legs fit perfectly on top of him, so Lacey and Dusk are perfect together.

A bit too perfect together, though, since Dusk has since developed a tiny crush on Lacey…

Dusk rizzing Lacey up

It was a noble attempt, but Lacey ultimately turned down Dusk… Maybe next time, though!

Anyway, that’s it for this blog! And if you haven’t noticed, I’m going to try to post on the somewhat consistent schedule of Mondays and Fridays at 9AM CST, so stay tuned for the next post! And If you want your own Blåhaj to play with your other plushies, you can get one here! And I’m not sponsored by IKEA, I just really like their sharks.

And I don’t like asking for donations, but if you can afford to give anything, please do it here! Every cent goes straight to the blog, and I’d love for the website to keep growing so that more people can see Dusk! Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on Dusk and Lacey’s friendship or if you have your own plushie friendships that you’d like to talk about, tell me in the comments below!

June 16, 2025
Dusk the Musical Blahaj Extraordinaire

Dusk is a musician, and a very fine one I might add. She loves Hatsune Miku, as you can see from the featured image! (Don’t ask why the hair is so messy, I was too lazy to untangle it when I got the wig). She can play a whole assortment of instruments, like the harmonica!

She’s a blue shark, so naturally, she loves playing the blues. Her harmonica was a one that she got for $10 from some souvenir shop. I got it for her since it was fairly cheap, but she loves it nonetheless, and she plays it all the time! If you listen closely outside at night, you might be able to hear her playing it…

But she plays other instruments too! Like the otamatone!

Granted, this is a more gimmick-y instrument, but she’s still pretty good at playing it! Sometimes, if she wants to sing a duet, but nobody wants to sing with her, she’ll use the otamatone as her partner! It’s surprisingly impressive, especially when she has to play it at the same time as her singing.

Lastly, she can play the recorder, and we actually have a video of this!

Dusk plays Kyoufuu All Back

Here, Dusk played the first recorder part from Kyoufuu All Back! It’s hard for her to play instruments like this since she doesn’t have fingers, but she makes it work (somehow…)! She has a lot of other instruments, but for now, I’ll end the blog post here. Maybe in the future, we’ll make another post about her other musical talents, and maybe Dusk will even cover a full song?

Anyway, that’s it for this blog! If you want your own Blåhaj to play music with, you can get one here! And I should reiterate, that I’m not sponsored by IKEA, I just really like their sharks.

And I usually don’t like asking for donations, but if you can afford to give anything, please do it here! Every cent goes straight to the blog, and I’d love for the website to keep growing so that more people can see Dusk! Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on Dusk’s musical abilities or if you have your own musical plushies that you’d like to talk about, tell me in the comments below!

June 13, 2025
Dusk: The Blahaj Chess Champion

Fun fact about Dusk: he’s actually really good at chess! In the featured photo for this blog, you can see him with a chess piece. My friend, Monky, gave it to me from her trip to Europe! The chess piece was for Dusk, the famous grandmaster, and he was so happy to get it. Every time he plays chess, he makes sure to swap out a white knight with this one, just so that he can play with Monky’s gift.

We’ve been talking about how good Dusk is, but he can walk the walk too!

Here, Dusk and I are playing a chess game together. It might be a bit hard to see what’s going on, but long story short, Dusk is about to checkmate me. After a long, arduous game, my king was in a bit of a precarious position. I thought I was safe because his queen was the only piece chasing after my king. However, Dusk suddenly threw his queen into my corner. He allowed her death but forced my king out. I was a few moves away from losing, considering that my position was now completely open and about to be swarmed by rooks, so I just resigned (see this game for more information!). It was an extremely impressive move on Dusk’s part, and he’s quickly on his way to becoming the world champion, so keep your eyes on your TV because one day, you’ll see Dusk on it! Dusk might beat me all the time at chess, but I still have fun.

Anyway, that’s it for this blog! If you want your own Blåhaj to play chess against, you can get one here! And I should reiterate, that I’m not sponsored by IKEA, I just really like their sharks.

And I usually don’t like asking for donations, but if you can afford to give anything, please do it here! Every cent goes straight to the blog, and I’d love for the website to keep growing so that more people can see Dusk! Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on Dusk’s chess skills or if you have your own grandmaster plushies that you’d like to talk about, tell me in the comments below!

June 9, 2025
Discover Dusk’s Amazing Powers

You already know who Dusk the Blahaj is, but you don’t know any of her friends! I’ll slowly go through her list of friends, but for now, let’s just start off with Pands!

Pands is a panda, of course, from the San Diego zoo. My buddy, Monky, got him for me, and he’s been chilling with Dusk ever since. He’s a funny little guy, but like with most friendships, things aren’t always perfect between the two…

After a long day together, Dusk and Pands both were tired. Living in the same room, every small issue that they had with each other were intensified a hundredfold. Eventually, they got into a heated argument which led to… well, you can see for yourself in the video below.

Dusk heckin’ MURDERS Pands in an act of vigilante JUSTICE using their secret LASER EYES SUPERPOWER!

Yeah, it was a pretty brutal fight. Fortunately, though, Pands recovered, so Dusk was released from prison! It’s all water under the bridge now, and the two are besties again!

Very wholesome ending all things considered, especially considering how Dusk revealed that she had laser eyes this entire time and pulled a Blood Debts ending on Pands, but all’s well that ends well.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the video! I made it a while ago, and it was a ton of fun! If you want your own IKEA Blåhaj, you can get one here!

And I usually don’t like asking for donations, but if you can afford to give anything, please do it here! Every cent goes straight to the blog, and I’d love for the website to keep growing so that more people can see Dusk! Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts on Dusk’s secret powers or any other powers she might have, leave them in the comments below!

June 7, 2025
Dusk Says to Donate Blood!

A bit of a shorter blog today: try to donate blood when you can! It’s always helpful, and you can get a lot of cool goodies from donating. You’ll usually get at least snacks and drinks, but depending on where you’re donating and how much they need blood, you can get a hat (like Dusk is wearing in the photo), socks, or others!

People usually only donate when they see that there’s a big disaster or something, but there’s almost always some demand for blood, so don’t wait for some event to remind you! Plus, according to some studies, there are some surprising health benefits to donating, like having a healthier heart! (Fun fact from the same article, though, apparently cis women and other menstruating people don’t receive the same benefit because having periods has the same effect as donating blood, which I thought was funny, but still, try to donate!)

You can find a lot of different places to donate without a simple Google search, like with the American Red Cross, or if you live in New York, I recommend the New York Blood Center, but there are plenty of organizations you can work with. It’ll take about an hour total to donate blood (with the actual drawing of blood, the wait time, and the paperwork), so it’s not too terribly long. If you have the time and energy to donate, please do- it’ll help a lot of people, and you’ll make Dusk happy too! Even he’s a proud blood donor, so if this stuff shark can do it, you can too!

So, if you have any thoughts on donating, share them in the comments! And if you’re scared of getting your blood drawn, maybe your own Blåhaj can help comfort you! Get one here, and I promise that it’ll make things less scary while you’re donating blood!

Note: I may be changing the frequency of posts to every two or three days, as I’ve recently realized that I don’t have enough photos to post of Dusk on a daily basis.

June 5, 2025
Dusk’s First Adventure Touching Grass

So, fun fact about Dusk: I really like taking him outside! Not that much, though, since it’s really embarrassing to carry a giant stuffed shark around- no offense, Dusk! So here are some pics of him going outside with me!

The featured image is Dusk touching grass for the first time! I think that this genuinely was the first time that Dusk ever went outside. When I first got Dusk from my friend, he was in her box for the entire journey back home, so even if Dusk technically was outside, he never actually saw the outside world. So once I realized that Dusk had never actually been outside before, the first thing I did was take him outside to take pictures of him in the grass. The sun shining down on Dusk, and the bright green color of the grass was such a nice experience for him. Then I immediately brought him back inside because I didn’t want him to get dirty- baby steps, right?

Dusk’s First Snow Day

A few months later, it finally started snowing. It snows a lot at Ithaca (where I went to school), so you know I had to show Dusk the snow at least once. Here, Dusk is just lying in the cold snow for the first time. It was a relatively light snow day, so I wasn’t too scared of the snow ruining Dusk or anything. He ended up a little wet because of it, but since when has a little bit of snow and water killed a shark?

Dusk on the Bus-k

Last photo is me and Dusk on the bus. I was going to a friend’s party, and I decided to bring Dusk along since I liked sending pictures of him to my friends, and he was a bit of a celebrity among them. The bus ride was genuinely so embarrassing. I’m not ashamed of Dusk by any means, but you gotta understand that carrying a giant IKEA stuffed shark around isn’t exactly inconspicuous, so people kept stealing glances at me when they got on or off the bus.

Still, though, I had a lot of fun bringing Dusk along, and he met a lot of other plushies (which I’ll show at a different time)! Everyone loves Dusk, and everyone loves snuggling up with him, so once I get past the embarrassment of carrying Dusk around in public, it’s a lot of fun.

So, anyway, the moral of the story? Go touch grass. If this inanimate shark mascot can do it and have fun, then so can you! Things might be a bit scary or embarrassing at first, but it’s worth it! Go outside and have fun with other people, just like Dusk can! And if you have any photos of your plushies going outside, feel free to share them! I’d love to see your stuffed animals having fun too, and if you want your own blåhaj, you can get one here!

June 4, 2025
Dusk’s Fun All Sauce Recipe
Let’s start off fun with a nice cooking recipe with Dusk. My friend, Ama, came up with this concoction a few weeks ago during some of my last weeks at college. While just trying to find the best tasting sauce, Ama decided to mix every sauce she had together, and our friends (including Dusk) have all tried and eaten it. We call it All because it’s made up of all of the sauces that we had at that moment.

I’ve had a lot of fun with All, so I’d like to share the recipe with you to see how you enjoy it!

So let’s set up our ingredients first:
- Any container: It doesn’t matter what size or what type of container it is. You just need to be able to pour sauces in it and stir.
- A stirring utensil: Again, it doesn’t really matter what size or what type of utensil it is. It could be a straw or a singular cold french fry for all I care. As long as it has the capacity to stir something in the container of your choice.
- Ketchup: Any ketchup should work fine. Go to your grocery store and buy a bottle of Heinz or go to your local McDonald’s and steal a few packets of ketchup if you want! As long as you have enough that’s about a quarter of the total volume of All that you want to make.
- Mustard: Like before, any type of mustard should be fine. Just be sure that you have enough that’s a quarter of the volume of All that you plan to make.
- Mayonnaise: Any mayo should work as long as it’s enough to be a quarter of the amount of All that you want to make.
- Barbecue Sauce: I think you get the pattern by now!
So, nothing too fancy here. Odds are that you have most of these ready in your kitchen or you can easily run to the grocery store to buy whatever ingredients you don’t have. And you can see that Dusk got his sauces from a wide variety of sources, so don’t be too picky about what you get. And don’t worry if you don’t have enough sauce to fill up your container. You can make as much or as little All as you want.

How do you actually make All sauce, though? That’s a great question, my dear reader!
1. Set up your container. Things might get messy, so you should have it in the kitchen and be prepared to clean up afterwards. For this blog, let’s just say we want to make a little bit of All, so let’s plan to make 36 grams of the stuff. However, if you want more or less All, then feel free to increase or decrease the amount of ketchup, mustard, mayo, and BBQ sauce as long as they’re all the same amount.
2. Once your container is set, get your ketchup out. The average ketchup packet holds 9 grams of ketchup, so if you have a packet, then empty that sucker into the container. The ketchup will be provide the sweet, tangy taste for All.
3. After the ketchup is in the container, then get your mustard out. Again, the average mustard packet holds 9 grams of mustard, so empty it into the container with the ketchup. The mustard will hold more of the tangy spiciness of All‘s taste.
4. Next, you’ll want to do the same with the mayonnaise. Unless you have a packet, you might have to weigh out 9 grams of mayo (or however much you want). The secret to All, however, is that the mixture doesn’t have to be perfect. You can just eyeball the amount of mayo that you want and put it into the container with the rest of the sauces. The mayo will be a bit sour and provide some of the more creamy texture of All.
5. With our last ingredient, barbecue sauce, you can probably figure out what I’m going to tell you to do. Get about 9 grams or however much BBQ sauce you want and put it into the container. The BBQ sauce will enhance the sweet and tangy tastes already provided by the ketchup and mustard.
6. At this point, you should have a roughly 25%-25%-25%-25% mixture with ketchup, mustard, mayo, and BBQ sauce in your container. Now, take your stirring utensil and stir everything together. There’s no trick or tip here, just stir until you can’t tell where the ketchup begins and where the mayo ends anymore.
And there we have it- All sauce! I know, I know, it doesn’t look amazing, especially in this paper container. But how does it taste? Not that great actually… But it’s the thought that counts! You can eat it with fries, or chicken wings, or just pour that baby down the hatch if you want! All is fairly versatile, so eat it with whatever the heck you want!

So, I hope all of you enjoyed Dusk’s All sauce! It was a ton of fun to make and write about, and I hope you’ll enjoy making it too (though you probably won’t like eating it too much if I’m being honest). Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask, but otherwise leave your thoughts on All in the comments below, and if you want your own blåhaj to cook with, you can get one here!
June 3, 2025
Meet Dusk: The Emotional Support Shark!

Hi, I’m Doan (not to be confused with Hatsune Miku)! And the little shark you see is Dusk, my emotional support shark. Dusk has been with me for a little less than a year now, but Dusk has genuinely saved my life. We’ve been through a lot together, and I’d like to share those times with the world (and I also need some projects on my resume, so…). On a daily (or near daily) basis, I’m going to post some photos of Dusk, and I’ll tell the stories behind them, like how we made a world-renowned sauce (not really) or how Dusk fights crime with his laser eyes (also not really). This is gonna be a fairly comfy blog, so snuggle up and get ready to meet Dusk! If you have any thoughts, feel free to ask them, and if you want your own IKEA blåhaj, you can get one here!

June 2, 2025