Poses and Piles

The planned post for this week is running a little longer than expected, so here's some pics around the house!  This is all the junk I have taking up every flat surface I can find (but not pictures of all of it, because that's only privy to my friends that have to wade through it when they come over).



So you think to yourself: "I need to sell things to make room for new things!"  It's a grand idea, but always harder than it sounds, unless you're a seasoned Ebay user.  Even then, you never know what will collect dust on Ebay.

Rather than make any effort, I just shove things elsewhere.  Unhealthy habit, I know, but did you know that effort is hard??  It's crazy!  You have to, like, do things.

So there are figures out and displayed in poses, sometimes, and other times there are figures in piles.  The Kamen Riders above are in a pile/pose, in that they're piled off to the side, but posed because it looks semi-better that way.  They're taking up space on the coffee table, because who drinks coffee?  I mean really?

...all the people?  Yeah, I guess I'm weird.

Behind them I have the Terraria Skull Boss and Yotsuba.  They're standing on the NES.  The NES and SNES are always out, though I haven't used them in a bit.  I just like to have some easy systems out for quick use - you know, systems from back when you shoved in a game and you played it.  Rather than have one of the complex innards of the new ones break, or wait for a million updates to load. (Just a tad bitter, thanks to my WiiU recently deciding to not connect to the big-ass controller it's forced to use at all times).

I'll spare you the rest of the coffee table (of which half really IS a pile) and we can move to the video game and movie cases.  Did you know the tops of those are flat?  I can put things on them!

On the far left of the video game shelves are two blind-boxed figures I got at Anime Central (Acen, a convention) along with a pixel Metroid in a container, also purchased from the same con; Acen has a section of the seller's area called Artist's Alley, which has tons of awesome custom work.  The pixel Metroid is from Pixel Visions, which has custom spritework items; some of them in 3D, like the Metroid (it's not just flat).  I love Artist's Alley, because you can't browse such a wide selection of unique items on a regular basis!  You'll always find something cool.

Next to them are a pair of Guilty Gear figures from my buddy Heli.  I didn't realize the pic was lookin' RIGHT up Jam's skirt until afterward, so there's a censor bar for ya.  I don't think Jam cares, though.  Most of the time, anyone lookin' up that skirt is getting twenty kicks in the face, so there wouldn't be much time to actually SEE anything beyond stars.

Ah, now these are tiny holy grails!  They don't make little collectibles of ships from side scrolling shooters very often.  When they do, I miss them, and then the tiny things go for big ridiculous bucks on the after market.  BLEH!  Luckily, I ran into these at an Acen a few years ago.

These are both from the R-Type series; a favorite of mine among SHMUPs (shoot 'em ups).  The red one is the original ship from the first game, called the R-9A Arrowhead.  It's normally gray, but I got super lucky by getting a red one (my favorite color).

The second one is the R-90 Ragnarok, from the SNES game R-Type III: The Third Lightning.  Try that game at your own risk - it'll kick your ass from here to Ass Kick City, which is not a good place to be when you've just traveled there by asskicking.  I'm sayin' it's HARD, but at least they give you one badass son of a bitch to ride in along the way.

The Ragnarok is called such because the game gives you three different Forces to chose from (a Force, in R-Type, is the thing attached to the front.  It gives you your special weapons and protects you from harm).  Each one is awesome.  All R-Type ships also have a charged shot, but the Ragnarok's charged shot is MASSIVE and takes out most of the opposition in the way.  Plus: You can switch to Hyper mode and change your charged shot into a rapid-fire buster that fires mini charged shots for a short period (with the penalty of a cool-down period afterward).

The R-90 Ragnarok is THE boss of the R-Type series; even considering some of the other ships in R-Type Final on the PS2 (which you should totally check out.  You can unlock a total of 100 different ships, including the Ragnarok with an upgraded charged shot that would clear out your colon if the ship were the size of the toy).

Whoops....devoted multiple paragraphs to R-Type.  Sorry.  Awesome games.  Love them.  Love them much.

Moving on.

Next to them is a little mini diorama from Chrono Trigger.  I'll spare you another bunch of video game paragraphs about Chrono Trigger, but if you don't know it, then you probably don't play RPGs.  At least, not RPGs in the way that I grew up with them.  I don't usually throw about "the best" very often, so I won't: Chrono Trigger will rock your socks off, which will then fly into the sun and come back to you as the fabled Nova Socks, which are more comfortable than any human could fathom.  You couldn't possibly disagree, because I'll have my hands in my ears while whistling Frog's Theme, because I'm a jerk and I'm always right.

PHOOOO.....anyway, look!  A collection of Zeros!  Pretty fancy for a guy who actually likes Mega Man X better.

This one you've seen in a recent Schwag Brag; it's Zero as he appears in the Mega Man Zero series, on the Gameboy Advance (and then in a collection on the DS).

And there are Zero's first and second looks, respectively.  The second one I won in a contest on the Mega Man Network for being funny with toys, as you may remember.

Next to them is Mega Man and Bass.  Did I mention they're all D-Arts figures, which I believe are all part of Bandai's S.H. Figuarts line, now?  Great little figures, though they are for collecting, so they aren't great for play (though Mega Man holds up a lot better than any of them).

Off the edge and to the right (on top of the movie shelves) is my little Mega Man X trio.  Mega Man X, his first armor (in white) and his Ultimate Armor (from X4).

These figures are little dreams come true!  Never before have I had such a solid collection of video game favorites.  The only thing that could make them better is if they were regular play-worthy toys.  These are fun for posing, but you're not gona get on the ground with a kid and blow away some Mavericks with them.

Further right we have the Tallgeese, which you may be familiar with from Gundam Wing - the show that may or may not have introduced you to Gundam.  This is a Robot Spirits figure of it, which I highly suggest, if you're a Tallgeese fan (and don't want to build models).

Behind and above the Tallgeese is good 'ol Sephiroth, from Final Fantasy VII (actually from the movie, Advent Children).  You don't need me to go into Final Fantasy VII, do you?  Even if you're not familiar with it: You're on the internet, which means you've heard of Final Fantasy VII and how it's either the best or totally over-hyped or not as good as Final Fantasy VIII (which is a downright dirty lie).

Blahblahblah FFVII here's Cloud!  He's a complicated man, and no one understands him but NO ONE.  He's also blonde (like me) and stick thin (like I used to be) and swings around a sharpened metal bench on a stick like it was made of paper mache (like I would if I had one, because I'm super strong and very cool).

And here's Spoiler Man, who spoils the game if you don't know anything about it.  His name is Zack, and his own game (Crisis Core) made me cry, at the end.  Sue me.

You've also seen this monster in the flames post.  It's Kamen Rider 1, but terrifying.  I can't help displaying this guy - he has to be out in the open.  How else will I scare off all those crows?

Because: why would he not be on the shelf?  It's not that I don't have respect for Gandalf, it's just that everyone can be improved with a guitar.  Even if they can't play said guitar.  Gandalf totally can play, though.  He could shred the face off a Balrog, if he had a guitar at the time.

If we go further right, we get to the TV.  On top of said TV is a Brain Slug (from Futurama) that my wife made.  It's long since starved, though, from being on my head.

I already said I didn't want to go through ALL the piles, so we'll end the general basement area with a small section of my wife's Lego buildings.  This is on a ledge by the stairs, which probably would hold fancy things, if this were someone else's house.  Here: There's Legos.  Ideally we would have liked to build a city street with these things (we already bought some other items for help with that idea) but I don't think we'll ever have the room.

Before we wrap up, I suppose we can take a short look at certain corners of my current toy room.  Just...not all of it.  I'm not proud of that mess.

This is a shelving unit that had flat space, so I put things on it (seeing a pattern?).  Originally it held only tools!  That just didn't make any sense.  Behind all that is a poster from Chrono Trigger, because of things already said further up.

On top of a bunch of plastic drawers are more cool things!  Raphael (from the recent and totally flopped collector's line of TMNT stuff), Evil Tiga (because I didn't want to put him away yet), a Zaku II (from Assault Kingdom), Spirit of Hordak (because he's clear and red), Hissa (it's Hissa, man), King He-Man (good god, this figure), and Sonic the Hedgehog (because he's gotta go fast?).

Okay...this is the Mother Pile.  The closet in the toy room.  When I need to shove something somewhere, it goes here.  Sorta.  I mean, many of them are displayed as well, but it's also a handy place to put things.  This is the topmost part of the closet - the shelves.  Eventually I'll do a full run-down and you can see the rest.  Maybe I'll have it sorta cleaner by then, too.  Anyone that knows me can probably respond accurately to that statement.

Alright, end of the line!  You've seen these letter robots before.  I set them up on top of a thick picture frame in my toy room, along with a few other items (most of them from my buddy Zach).  On the far left is a Savage Mondo Blitzer, which is the most 90's you could possibly fit into a single toyline name (not to mention the fact that it's a T-Rex on a motorized skateboard wielding an axe).  Next to him is a silver...robot man.  Dunno where I found that.  Above and to its right is a zombified Glyos guy, from OMFG (pretty much like M.U.S.C.L.E., but with more insanity).  Over on the far right are two more Gundams, which showed up in a Schwag Brag.

In the center?  On the "R"?  That is Rodney the Danger Horse.  You would think that carrying toys in your pocket would be a thing to stop in high school, but...nope.  Rodney stayed in my pocket for a portion of high school and was flicked all over the place.  Nothing could stop the Danger Horse.  Every time he was thrown at someone or something, I always found him again.  It became a challenge, of sorts.  I didn't want to lose him, but somehow this tiny thing never became lost, no matter where he was thrown.

Live on, Rodney the Danger Horse.  You've earned your rest at the top.