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C'mon BBTS pre-order!!!
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06-20-2016, 11:15 AM
SmokeBellew
Bill Cosplay
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Staying clear of knee-jerk nerds.
Posts: 5,914
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hellion42
Kaisugi... Glad to hear things are going well! You should totally read Irid's book. It's the least you could do for him. He took the brunt of my emo bitching this weekend.
Hicks... I envy the fact that you can spend so much time at work and still keep up the superficial appearance of sanity. I legitimately want to quit every time I walk in the door.
FD... Looks like you made the right call in not buying one of my Heli-Vipers. I bought too early (again) and last I checked singles could be had for less than 1/3 of my cost. Go me and my impatience!
Irid... I wish I could stay as upbeat about FP. Ugh.
Fogger... You're not even on this page. I forgot the last thing you said. *goes back* oh yeah, I replied to that already with some bitchy whiny stuff. Which reminds me...
SmokeB (who is most certainly not SmokeP) (and everyone else who cares to read really)... I know they're just toys. At some point they stop being individual objects and start being part of "the collection." When I first realized that 25th was going that way for me, I set down some ground rules (learned the hard way from pervious lines): No army building, only one of each character, stuff like that. I picked and chose my way through both retail and exclusives, and was pretty happy with how things were working out, even with all of the F5ing once a year. Between OG/IG and Night Force, the club stuff started getting out of hand. Prices for the show exclusives started getting crazy, but I got the figures I wanted without breaking the bank and/or via trades. I guess it was right around the same time (?) that the FFS came out, which effectively doubled my Joe spending. I subscribed each time because it would have cost just as much to cherry pick for the most part, and for a couple of runs I even came out ahead. But now it's degenerated into the at-con store prices being what the AFTERMARKET prices were just a few years ago. And all of this on top of the incompetency that has become FP's hallmark.
Meanwhile, "the collection" has gone from its humble beginnings to, I guess, a shrine of sorts to one of my favorite universes. It's by no means "complete" in the traditional sense, and it's nowhere near as large as many have accumulated, but it's mine, and I like it. What I don't like is what adding to it has become. Dealing with FP, and subsidizing the vacations of those well-enough off to be able to afford double digits of all the exclusives, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It would be a very simple decision to walk away if not for these things:
1. Figures are still being made that I want, and there's a place for them in the collection if they're made
2. As much as I dislike FP's approach, it equally irks me that the reach-around clique would turn me away from something that I like
3. Toy collecting is inherently irrational, so trying to apply rational thought leads me back to the same place: unloading, mostly making my money back thanks to a few choice pieces, and moving on. See #2 and multiply that by a few billion.
I fully realize that's a false dichotomy, but again, the collecting bug isn't rational. I don't think I could pull a Hicks and stop completely, and picking up retail here and there would be almost the same thing anyway. The collection would forever be "unfinished," and just as likely to remind me of why I quit than it would as to why I started. (There's better grammar for that last bit I'm sure.) I don't like that idea. I also don't like the idea of continuing as I have been. I'm not sure there's any in-between that would make a significant difference. I already pick and choose (via buy set/resell singles).
I'm saddened that something I used to enjoy has decayed so much, especially in the presence of an embarrassment of riches (Raptor and Shooter are some of my top comic wants). I see people cheering for the return of FP and can't help scratching my head. It's like FP and a small selection of the fanbase are two giant leeches stuck together in a loop. (And after some thought, I'm not taking that analogy any further.) I would rather not get Raptor than see FP continue. But if there is a Raptor, there's a spot in the collection for him. Denying Raptor that spot means the [insert generational villian]-ists win. Buying one means the [insert generational villian]-ists win. Is it even possible for me to win? If not, why play? Because I like Joes. Is that enough?
If any of this makes any sense to y'all, yay. If not, it's just some privileged white male yammering on about first world problems. There are bigger fish to fry in my life, but this is a Joe board. If there's a place for this kind of drivel, it's here.
Side note: I'm glad I proofread most of my posts. No idea how "wank" got substituted for "walk"...
I hear ya. This collecting thing is so irrational, it messes with your mind.
Maybe I got lucky somehow and was able to rationalize this collecting thing (for me) by defining exactly what it was in my life. That was the key for me. As soon as I defined it as "ancillary" and outside of the important shit to my existence, everything about it got easier. No club stuff, no outrageous prices, no clutter, no stupid shit, no muss, no fuss, no hokum, no fat chicks. It also helps that I keep the bulk of the "fandom" at arm's length. Outside of stupid kid's toys, I don't have anything in common with most of the pop-culture geeks out there.
That's what I mean by fucking this nonsense; define what your collection is to you, where it belongs and how much of this hokum you can stomach and then don't cross those lines.
SmokeBellew
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