Grave Considerations: Where Do We Go From Here?

This is begun at the end of a busy day, and a complicated unboxing of some really fabulous new figures, and in the first hours of the post-semester world, so there is a real chance that it will be rambling and nonsensical. Maybe.

I am very backlogged with things to write about. My wife and I are going to Germany the day after Christmas, and I have many figures to talk about, and I’m in the middle of a Mass Burial that I want to finish in the next week or so. Now that work is done, with only a little grading left to do next week, I find myself with some time to blog hard. And then, I got my Christmas present from my wife early, and I spent four hours tonight transforming TFC Toys Seacons. And that got me thinking.

Right now, there is a new line of official Hasbro Transformers starting to show up at retail, and I have no real strong feelings about it. I see some official images, and I think I’d like to get those toys; I see others, and I realize that my interest is very low. Dreadwing and Darkwind (or whatever they are altering the names to) are probable buys, but the rest, I can’t really commit to one answer or the other. My one real strong thought is that this may be a good time to break with Hasbro, and go full third party.

So I’ve started thinking, what do I want to do with my collection? Where do I go from here? The desk I am attempting to write this at is literally pouring over with third party Transformers and Star Wars figures, and the physical state of my collection has been at chaos point for a few weeks, as I’ve been putting away Titans Return figures in our apartments’ single large closet, but due to lack of time I have simply been putting those toys into the box that contains the Combiner Wars figures I’ve recently taken off my shelves, and so a box is overflowing with toys, and the closet is brimming with boxes from large, recently purchased figures, official and un, opened in the haste of a semester of nine classes and constant need. Earlier today I’d been thinking of all the cool collection related tasks I would be able to address in my two weeks of pre-vacation time; now I find myself contemplating a somewhat different set of tasks, some borne of the last few semester breaks more than any plans for this one. The last few periods between semesters, I have embarked on collection purges, and so, being the habitual neurotic that I am, I am presently trying to author a mental list of things in my collection that I need to unearth and eBay. But this time around, I’m not sure that I really want to do that, as it may be a reflexive thought after it having been an active one the last year and a half or so. But I’m thinking: what if I got rid of a bunch of stuff again? Surely I could dig through my collection and find things to rid myself of, reason unimportant.

And what do I want to do with my collecting in 2018? At this point, I am real invested in the unofficial Transformers scene, and there is still enough there for me to discover that I would not want for new toys. I read an article a few months back on TFormers.com that asked the question “Is the Third Party Scene Dead?” and I was like “No!! No, it isn’t!!!” the entire time. It’s not for me. A little while ago, I bought Titans Return Quake, and began wondering what the value of my G1Quake was now that there was a better one in my possession. I think I realized a long time ago now through unfortunate circumstances that the value of a collection is quality over quantity, and I have added much quality over the last two years. Many years ago, thanks to those circumstances, I taught myself that quantity could always be sacrificed out of necessity. But this is not a questioning of quantity specifically, or of quality even. As I sit at my computer on a Friday night, having had the incredible luxury of hours to fiddle with exciting new toys and trying to recover after having lost my mind with Deathclaw, enjoying a beer and piece of homemade chocolate, I get to spend my mental energies in total on my toys, and it feels terrific. I also did a lot of back work at the gym this week, so my back muscles are really sore, the only part of my body that I did not consciously feel unwind in the hours after we walked off of campus for the last time until January, as I came to the realization that a nine course nightmare had finally reached its conclusion. Forgive that completely random inclusion in what is otherwise a completely serious collection of highdeas so strong that they really do have me thinking deeply tonight.

Playing with Mentarazor for the first time, I once again had that thought that this figure in my hands was better than any Hasbro experience I’d had in a while. And I know I’m behind on them, but I did get a box full of official Transformers a few weeks ago, an article on one of which will be up on the Coffin tomorrow. I think that my taste has turned to these excellent and accurate versions of characters that fit what I want in my collection, and there have been some official toys that really make my tide rise, but not the same way. I bought TFC Toys’ Hercules, and knew I never needed Combiner Wars Devastator; I bought TFC Toys Ares, and knew I’d never need Power of the Primes Predaking. More than a month ago, I found some third party Superion on eBay for a good price, and knew that if I bought it, I’d list my Combiner Wars Superion as soon as I could. I did not end up with the 3P Superion, so it was moot in the end, but I can’t help but wonder what this means the future holds for my buying.

Part of me worries that a shift to third party stuff primarily or exclusively will mean I will wind up with fewer toys. And due to cost, that is true. But distribution is so bad at times that it will be months between my toy purchases from brick and mortar stores anyway, so if I were to just get high end pieces through etailers, how much different would that be that what I’ve been living with for like a year and a half now? Regardless, maybe it is time that I reassess my collecting. At least figure out where I stand with what I have, how I really feel about it, what I want to have it turn in to. I’ve generally thought of my collection as an extension of myself, that the figures I own say something about me as a person, again primarily because of my neurotic nature and personality that hungers for some greater meaning in everything I encounter and do. Months ago, I threw away boxes, and it was like a spiritual experience, and I’m not even a guy that generally keeps boxes. You can read about that elsewhere, but it felt pretty great afterwards. It felt like I had made some forward movement in my collecting, in my approach to collecting, in my relationship with my collecting. Maybe that’s what I’m searching for now: a return to that feeling.

While we’re talking about the future,  what do I want to do with the Coffin going forward? I have been trying to class the joint up on the fly, trying to establish more of a rhythm with my writing and presentation. The hard part has been finding time, as I end up hammering articles together during breaks in the work action, sometimes between classes or as a reward for finishing the grading of a class worth of papers, allowing myself thirty minutes to try and cobble together something cohesive on a toy I haven’t had the chance to hold in my hands for days. I take pictures en masse because the opportunity to steal two hours has spontaneously presented itself, so I grab this and that and that and this and take A-stance pictures that blow. In truth, I’m not very good at posing action figures, and when I do happen to get a decent pose for something, I don’t ever want to change it, because I know that this is an accidental victory. But I always want to get better with my photography, because it has been something I’ve been unhappy with from the beginning of this blog.

Well, thanks for listening, I know this was pretty rambling and unfocused. Suppose I just wanted to get some thoughts out while I had both the time and motivation, as it just felt like the right thing to do for a little while. I’ll be back with some new articles tomorrow, so hang in there. I know all of my sexbot followers on Twitter are just dying to know my thoughts on Titans Return Misfire, and I don’t want to keep them waiting much longer.