#walmart original trilogy

[softieskywalker]

Did you ever hear of the unused sequel outlines where Luke would have successfully restored the Jedi Order and Leia became chancellor of the New Republic?

every day ........ every day I poder the question what would happen if star wars was good actually

[scourgeofmyownbrain]

Only one guy on here has two eyes, and even then, they're fake eyes. It's big-tits-McGee, Mr. logic man extraordinaire, Geneva Suggestion Believer himself: Shockwave! Yep, all 12 of him, a reasonable amount of alternates to have, unlike some people... Shockwave Height Chart, everyone, fuckin wee.

Edit: I didn't like the old scaling I had so I changed it. The old chart is at the end of this post.

Quick Disclaimer, if any of the images look weird, it's because I had to stitch a few separate images together to create a full body shot of the character.

Here are links to my Bumblebee Chart, my Optimus Chart, my Megatron Chart, and my Soundwave Chart. Please go gawk at how many Optimus designs there are, sweet fuck, there are so many. For future reference, all these charts will be filed under my "Transformers Height Charts" tag and my "aka the adventures of a..." tag.

Explanations and Sources below the cut.

Unicron Trilogy Energon - ~14 feet 3 inches (No actual source, and Energon doesn't have any listed heights anywhere. For the uneducated, the Unicron Trilogy has given each of its 3 seasons separate names and 3 separate art styles. This is the design used in Energon (S2) though he only shows up in Energon. I was able to compare him to Optimus, and using Cybertron's listed heights, I got this number. I am in physical pain, it does not get better from here. Hilarious side note, his Japanese name is Laserwave, which contains the missing "wave" of Shockwave in this iteration's name.)

Earth Spark - ~15 feet (No actual source for ES, but using a barn door to get Bumblebee's height, then Optimus's, then Megatron's height, I was able to make a guess at Shockwave's. Shockwave comes up to about Megatron's chin; I lost the screenshot I used. It's so convoluted, I know, but it's all I have, also, tiny universe, everyone is so small)

TFA Longarm/V1 - 15 feet 2 inches (Animated has no actual numbers, but the lovely @phoenix-inanis has provided a frankly astounding resource with their own calculations for the heights of all the TFA characters. Go look at it, it's wonderful -> https://phoenix-inanis.notion.site/TFA-Height-Chart-f6ad2960ca8c4c5b859ee4958723aaa4?pvs=4)

Gen 1 - ~18 feet (TFWiki, uuuuh I've got nothing to add)

Netflix Cybertron Trilogy - ~18 feet (I have no source for this, other than assuming that because this design is identical to Gen 1, they are the same height. That's it, really)

Knight/Capel-Verse - ~18 feet (No source, and he never stands next to anyone I can measure him against, but because the TFOne director has said that this movie is both canon to the LA movies and its own separate canon, I am assuming the height I figured out for TFOne applies to this universe as well. Until proven otherwise. Capel directed the ROTB movie if you're wondering why his name is there)

One - ~18 feet (No source, I got this number by comparing him to Optimus. Now, I am aware of the TFO heights listed on the wiki, but I reject those numbers on principal. A: Those numbers are sourced from the Walmart Promotional AR Experience that came out before the movie. B: There are three decimal points, and that number does not convert into a whole number in meters (which is originally what I thought was weird about it). C: The director has said that this movie is both canon to the LA movies and its own separate canon, so I have elected to use the few given heights we have from KCV and worked from there. My Optimus post has slightly more context if you want it)

Cyberverse - 20 feet (This comes from a screenshot of this video which has the Cyberverse height chart everyone uses, though the quality of the screenshot is iffy.)

Aligned Cont. WF/FOC/TFP - 26 feet 2 inches (This number comes from Fandom and I completely believe it, even if they don't list their source, because the entirety of this universe is freakishly tall. Go look at my other charts, all the ALC designs are monstrous compared to the others)

TFA V2 - 29 feet 11 inches (Once again, phoenix-inanis did a fuck ton of work, go look at it, it's wonderful -> https://phoenix-inanis.notion.site/TFA-Height-Chart-f6ad2960ca8c4c5b859ee4958723aaa4?pvs=4)

Bayverse - ~30 feet (Ok, so I don't have a source for this one. There used to be one, BV Shockwave used to be listed as 40 feet tall bc of an article done to promote the movie, but that is no longer listed for reasons not known to me, and making some comparisons to Optimus, I have found them to be kinda close in height. It's very hard to actually validate any of this. Shockwave never stands normally next to anything I can use as a ruler at any point in the movie. He's always at a dramatic angle or partially covered by something in the shot. It's so violently frustrating. I am confident he is around this height though, I just can't figure out how much taller than Optimus he is)

And that's it. I didn't have to leave any designs out, all of them are included here (hopefully). It was so nice to work with a character where I wasn't drowning in 20+ designs across every goddamn universe.

Edit: Here are the different layers separated.

vvv Old scale vvv

[districtxii]

Thoughts upon finishing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Spoilers unmarked ahead as it's been out for a while and the title of the post warns for them.

As I've mentioned in my other few posts about it so far, I came into TBOSAS as a movie-only watcher despite having been a book-first person back when the original Hunger Games films came out.

I've got to say that when I heard the idea of a prequel about President Snow which included a love story, my tumblr-raised self wasn't particularly interested. I remember seeing the book display at Walmart when it first came out and not really having time or interest at the time.

However, the movie trailer caught my attention, and I'm really glad that it did.

I am happy that TBOSAS, while having a single POV character in Snow, switched from first person narration to third person. I remember reading meta years ago that I wholeheartedly agree with. While one can make the argument that the "blindspots" one gets in the original trilogy themselves make a point, having a slightly more zoomed out, third person point of view just feels better for the scope of the story. As an English teacher, I can't help but feel like it's a little more mature, too.

But without the movie, I still don't know if I would have ever picked up this book in audio or visual format.

Funnily enough, looking back on the first four Hunger Games movies, I actually don't like them as much as I like the books for the most part. The visuals are good in parts, but I do not like the casting philosophy that was used. I sort of hope that we are around long enough to see remakes as a prestige miniseries or something like that.

Back to thoughts on TBOSAS: I remember seeing a few kind of poorly produced (sorry lol) thinkpieces on websites like ScreenRant that were insisting that you weren't getting the full picture from the movie, that the movie made Snow too sympathetic, that you have to understand he's a monster because he views Lucy Gray in an objectifying manner or because he gets Sejanus killed.

I think that those takes have a point. However, I think that they also miss the nuance of the narrative, and I am not even suggesting that the prose is particularly deep or esoteric. Just that people love to be reactionary.

What I saw in Snow's character throughout the book was someone who was warring with various philosophical and personal dilemmas without having anyone he ever really trusted to talk through it.

There are moments with Lucy Gray and with Sejanus when Coryo almost opens up completely. When he has real conversations with them. But, like Katniss, he is a traumatized person who has a lot of baggage which makes him strategize and behave defensively with every decision he makes.

If anything, Coryo is LESS closed off than Katniss is at first throughout most of the story.

I couldn't source it, but I distinctly remember reading someone suggest that they believed that Coriolanus became irredeemable when he got Sejanus killed. However, reading through his internal conflict about the decision to snitch on him was one of the times when I found Coriolanus the most human and relatable. He was torn in every direction. He is someone who is deeply propagandized into a fascist regime whose family has a personal narrative of power and meaning within that regime. He also believes that the Capitol is necessary and better than the alternative. He wants Sejanus to survive and to change his mind. He wants him to stop putting himself in danger. He wants him to stop implicating Coriolanus by association. And yet, Coriolanus does feel responsible and tied to him, however much he hates it.

Coriolanus defends himself from emotional attachment and the cost of loving anyone, romantically or platonically, as a defense mechanism.

It isn't until he works himself into a frenzy and narrates what Lucy Gray must be thinking out at the lake in the end that he finds himself so utterly alone in his own head that he has no choice in his mind except to give into his colder side that he associates with his father, the Capitol, and ruthlessness.

Interestingly, a running theme throughout the book - without ever being explicitly stated in these exact words - is that Coriolanus is irreligious and doesn't believe in gods, rituals, or an afterlife. Every time someone brings up the stars or fate or performs some kind of ritual associated with passing on an even in the scene where Lucy Gray sings about the hereafter and therebefore, he can't help but internally scoff at the idea. He holds himself as more enlightened than those who believe in such superstitions.

But then, when he is all alone and trying to navigate his way back to District 12 with his father's compass, he starts to believe that there is some kind of spiritual guidance and blessing from his father, whom he never even felt close to except as an idea.

I think that Coriolanus's internal journey is an exploration of opposites and the divide that Lucy Gray describes and how evil is rarely even a boundary over which one cannot cross back into good from. It's just that, at a certain point, Coriolanus cannot bear the weight of his own guilt and misgivings if he ever turns back to a "better" path.

On the subject of Lucy Gray: I've got to say that I thought the book was effective in showing Lucy Gray as someone with dimension and depth that Coriolanus saw glimpses of but never really fully understood. Had he stayed with her and not needed "civilization" so much, I believe he would have learned to see her as more and more of a full person. However, the way she is written in the book, it is really hard for me to get a mental image of her at all.

Again, I think that this is perhaps intentional as a part of this format of the story. However, I find that I appreciate Rachel Ziegler's portrayal of Lucy Gray so much because without it, I'm not sure I would find that much to emotionally invest in. This is actually quite the opposite, as I like my mental image of Katniss far more than JLaw's portrayal lol.

Anyway, those are my wrap-up thoughts.

[wolfbearingroses]

So I reccently finished Tale of the Body Thief and it was a good read. Not quite as good as the original trilogy but entertaining enough and with some fun ideas. But the main thing I've enjoyed was the experience around the book.

Because I've been explaining it to people watching the series I've had to be really vague around major spoilers, so I've had to focus on explaining stuff like minor details. Instead of the David plot twist I've just been saying stuff like "Lestat loves Walmart", "Lestat goes to the toilet for 2 pages", "Lestat does not like spaghetti".

Great time, can't wait to explain Prince Lestat.

[siphersaysstuff]

LOCKTOBER!

It's "Locktober", a month entirely about Dinobot leader GRIMLOCK! I mean, what else could it be? So let's close in on some of the plastic toys of the Autobot warrior who simply won't be restrained in this month's batch of Patron-backed @tfwiki pictures!

Sadly, I don't have wiki-worthy samples of the first Grimlock toy, G1 or G2 (also I'd want all 3 G2 decos represented). But here's the Action Master, the fourth release of the character in the original toyline. He came with an "Anti-tank cannon" partner/drone (bonus pic!).

Robots in Disguise 2001 Grimlock, named to secure the Trademark, is one of the most awkward Transformers toys ever made. Them arms, man. This yellow deco was a Hasbro exclusive, released in a post-RID 4-pack of the entire Build Team on Black Friday 2003. Thank you for preserving the name.

The only Unicron Trilogy Grimlock wasn't even originally supposed to be in that series! The Energon Grimlock & Swoop toys (who can combine into Mega-Dinobot) were originally meant to be in the concurrently-running Universe line, but got shifted to the combination-centric Energon.

Grimlock was a natural choice to be in the very limited 2006 Classics line, though him being a Deluxe baffled many. Still, for my money this is a great redesign. I can just see him biting down on a Decepticon, pinning him to the floor, and transforming to stand directly on top of him.

Grimlock made a splash in Animated, though his role and number of toys ended up being pretty limited overall. Still, aside from the big Voyager toy, there's the smaller Activator version, with a partially-spring-loaded conversion activated by pressing the gold button on his dino-butt.

Shattered Glass Grimlock started as a brainless beast. But the pre-convention "prank" comic pages by @therobotmonster and myself portrayed him as highly intelligent and verbose, inspired by the Brain Gremlin from "Gremlins 2". Which went over so well that's how he ended up in later SG stories!

Weirdly, it took some time for Grimlock to show up in the Kre-O building-brick line. The first were Age of Extinction sets, including one with an inexplicable G1-based build and Kreon in the "Grimlock Unleashed" set! G1 Grim also showed up in the "Kreon Class of '85" San Diego Comic Con 2015 exclusive set.

Speaking of Age of Extinction Grimlock, one of the oddest toys of this version of the character is this Walmart-exclusive redeco of the ten-year-old Energon Cruellock mold! The "energon star" accessory has been glued into place to hide that the toy lacks its "spark crystal".

And speaking of weird Grimlocks, Angry Birds Transformers! The app's still going, what the hell? It briefly had actual toys, which included this Jenga-branded "Optimus Prime Attack Game" set with a Grimlock Bird Jenga frame! And yes, this thing is in the mobile game. In both, the goal is to knock out as many tummy bricks and pigs as possible.

The large "Hyper Change Heroes" 3-Step version of Robots In Disguise 2015 Grimlock is possibly the perfect-scale dino-mode toy compared to his teammates' Warrior-class toys (def a bit too big in robot mode)… but ooh, does he take a big hit in robot-mode posability and accuracy from the waist down.

Cyberverse "Spark Armor" Grimlock came with a "Trash Crash" dump truck that forms incredibly bulky armor for him. Interchangeability of the Spark Armors has not been extensively tested to the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge on the subject.

Of course, G1 Grimmers gets loads of merch. He's currently the only TF to have two wholly-different molds in Super7's ReAction retro action figure line, with both robot and dino mode figs. This G2-colored (but not G2-symbol'd, boo) figure was one of many, many Target exclusive ReAction figs.

Let's end on the "ultimate" G1 Grimlock (well, non-Masterpiece version, though one can argue which of those two is truly "ultimate"), Studio Series! He came with a semi-posable Wheelie figure, so when his price point was inevitably budget-cut, the "partner" fig could be dropped, a sacrifice so the later Dinobots could still afford AN accessory.

If you enjoy these stomps through Transformers toy history, you can help out by joining my Patreon at "gregstfwikipics". Every little bit helps get more pics out a month, plus at higher pledge tiers you can even pick a theme!

[brokehorrorfan]

Lionsgate will release five horror Steelbook Blu-ray sets exclusively at Walmart on September 12: Rob Zombie's Halloween set, Firefly Trilogy, Blair Witch set, Leprechaun collection, and Saw collection.

Priced at $24.96, Rob Zombie's Halloween double feature includes 2007's Halloween and 2009's Halloween II.

Priced at $30.40, Rob Zombie's Firefly Trilogy includes 2002's House of 1000 Corpses, 2005's The Devil’s Rejects, and 2019's 3 from Hell.

Priced at $24.96, the Blair Witch double feature includes 1999's The Blair Witch Project and 2016's Blair Witch.

Priced at $43.30, the Leprechaun collection includes 1993's Leprechaun, 1994's Leprechaun 2, 1995's Leprechaun 3, 1997's Leprechaun 4: In Space, 2000's Leprechaun in the Hood, 2003's Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, 2014's Leprechaun: Origins, and 2018's Leprechaun Returns.

Priced at $43.30, the Saw collection features 2004's Saw, 2005's Saw II, 2006's Saw III, 2007's Saw IV, 2008's Saw V, 2009's Saw VI, 2010's Saw: The Final Chapter, and 2017's Jigsaw.

Designed by Bond, the full Steelbook artwork for each release can be found below. Existing special features will be included.

[quiet-longing]

with apologies

i figure I've now posted enough unhinged shit for people to no longer wonder about my humanity. my sanity, on the other hand...

anyway, this is my vampire blog. for amc's adaption of interview with the vampire, specifically. i will refer to it as iwtv from here on out because i'm too lazy to type all that out. but that's what i'm here for.

to cry about and post increasingly deranged iwtv stuff.

notes: i am ride or die for devil's minion, armandaniel, armand x daniel, etc. i will always tag it with some variation of that. they're my heart and the amc version with old maniel and assad!armand is especially precious to me. like, i will fight you in the walmart parking lot about them. i just love them a lot, okay?

i also love - LOVE - the other characters. all of them. every. single. one. they are all (including all versions of daniel and armand) fucked up, toxic monsters capable of great love and pain (both feeling it and inflicting it). they're petty, they're romantic, they're mean, they're sweet, and despite what they would have you believe, they are incredibly human. i think of them as humans turned up to eleven. sometimes twelve. frequently fifteen. way past what that 1-10 dial was ever meant to handle. they began life as humans and no matter how alien(ated) they become with age, they will never completely lose that part of themselves whether they believe it or not.

that means i will cry over all of them and insist they've done nothing wrong ever while still yelling at them for being the cruelest monsters, the very worst of assholes in the same post. i'll love them and i'll hate them, but i'll always love them more than i could ever hate them. and that's as it should be with characters as complex as these.

other stuff:

have read the books. have blocked out some of them because i won't have it. i just won't have it. not in my vampire books. have pitched some of them across my room. frequently ignore later canon. my canon is pretty solidly based in the original trilogy and parts of totbt. the rest, i cherry-pick from to suit my purposes. canon and i have a combative relationship.

in this house, we multi-ship and we don't get mad at other people for preferring different ships or liking different characters than we do or interpreting things differently than we do. these are complicated characters and you won't find a singular villain; likewise, you won't find a singular interpretation that lines up perfectly with your own.

some things i always try to keep in mind when i analyse any piece of media or text (and things i just think are generally helpful for anyone to keep in mind) is that everyone is the hero of their own story and that an explanation is not an excuse.

an explanation is not an excuse.

that's for the people in the back who conflate the two.

that's pretty much it, i think. old maniel 4eva, devil's minion, assad!armand also 4eva, we love all the characters, we hate all the characters, they are all monsters and victims, no ship is better than another (except devil's minion ;) ), all the characters are rendered in shades of grey, you can have more than one interpretation; they can even be conflicting, no one's the villain, explaining why a character does something is not an excuse for whatever bad thing they've done, but understanding motivation is critical if you want to interrogate the text honestly and anchor your interpretation in something solid. of course, that's just my opinion and you don't have to like or listen to that, either. (i majored in lit and philosophy with a minor in psychology. you can imagine the intensity i approach this with; i think it's probably off-putting to some people, but i can't help it. this is literally how i learned to think about things. honestly, i am mostly just here to post goofy shit and have fun, but when i accidentally latch onto a thing, i get really into it is what i'm saying.)

anyway, welcome to my disaster blog, everyone. i'm sorry for everything.

[autism-purgatory]

WIP intro

Tales of the Sculpted Lands

Premise: A collection of short stories detailing the complex lives of those in the elusive Sculpted Lands. it’s a (sort of?) dark fantasy anthology. Its main inspirations are Berserk, Demon’s souls, Elden Ring, and The ICO Trilogy.

TOTSC will be 3 volumes each containing 10-15 short stories each (I’m still not sure which to keep or scrap)

What is the Sculpted Lands? It’s a landmass that was originally a lump of primordial clay surrounded by ocean. There’s also an island southwest of it called Yigdea. One day, a white haired man washed ashore. He named himself Cambrius before sculpting the lands with this strange clay. He made people, dragons, monsters, giants, the works, all individually made in his image with little flaws.

Some tales end happier than others, some don’t. It’s a complicated land full of complicated people with complicated issues, meanwhile Walmart Griffith pretends to be a god.

here’s some vague descriptions of my favorite ones I’ve written

-Gentle Embers: Two gay knights try to survive the apocalypse (and my favorite thing I’ve ever written)

-Call of the Siren: A deaf knight is sacrificed to a demon of a magic island, they fall in love and maybe commit war crimes together.

-Secrets of the Sand: A Warrior of a fallen desert kingdom delves into its ruins to find an heirloom while also pondering his own identity.

-Song of Wrath: About the end of the Sculpted Lands’s only war (possibly just one big Iliad reference)

I have so much more to say about my favorite WIP but this post is getting too long.

[callipraxia]

I am drowning in paper…I want to blame my addiction to back-to-school sales, but tbh…

1) I can only blame 3 of these on a back-to-school sale, and

2) I have a few more elsewhere, in odd sizes. (Not even counting the half-composition books I’ve decided to draft short stories in).

In my defense, I bought six of these (the purple ones on the far right and the first three red ones on the other side of the five pale blue ones) in threes on purpose; no part of FWJB perfectly fit a notebook (I wrote bits of two or three shorter pieces in the back of IV’s book, then tore out the perforated pages at the very back to donate to IE’s, which ran way, way over the length of the volume; the book for IG still has about 30 pages blank, as about half of it was only composed on the computer after I kept moving the order of scenes around, which made keeping them in a bound notebook…fun), but I got attached to the idea of writing in threes. Both the original three FWJB notebooks (3 is pictured in the foreground) and the purple ones are Leuchtturm’s; I got them half-price from a webshop that was no longer going to carry the brand, and this made them fall into the happy space between “nice enough to feel a bit special (and to handle the abuse of being lugged around in my purse for all that time), but not so nice or unique that I don’t feel like I can actually, y’know…write in them.” Four blue ones and four red/burgundy ones are from a Walmart brand, Exceed; same number of pages as the Leuchtturms, and share the fun trait of numbered pages, but a bit taller and broader and with heavier paper which is lovely to write on, even though they’re less than half the price of the Leuchtturms. Mostly got those on clearances too, though, as apparently I’m very odd in liking ruled notebooks and loathing dotted ones, so the ruled ones were cleared out. I don’t remember where the one with constellations on it came from, only what I had planned to use it for, but one of the two non-Exceed red ones came from a Tuesday Morning (a dumping ground for unsold upmarket materials at very low prices, like TJMaxx; I buy an odd amount of tea at those two shops, as they almost always have some of these really lovely English-blended Ceylons available, and I can’t find anything anywhere else quite like them). The constellation notebook was meant for a loose collection of short stories with Future Dipper that probably won’t happen; the purple ones were for another AU trilogy which also probably won’t happen…there’s 18 of them here. I wrote FWJB in about a year and a half, I think? So if I get back to writing at that speed again…geez, what, roughly ten years of workspace are currently in my kitchen? I gotta come up with another series idea…or, like, shake my head, point out to myself that the very idea of eventually writing 21 Gravity Falls novels is insanity, and dedicate myself to trying to write something original that I can at least attempt to make money with, but let’s be realistic, here. I’m probably a lot more likely to a) still be obsessed and b) still have an audience to inflict my obsession on when GF turns twenty than I am to straighten up and do something sensible. Not a terribly sensible person, me, as this hoard no doubt helps illustrate ;)

Moral of the story, though, kids: just because it is on clearance isn’t a good reason. Do what I was smart enough to do *before* I started my first trilogy, which was “only buy the notebooks when you have thoroughly committed to writing the book, have a plan already in place and etc.” Start thinking about the future and what you might do and next thing you know, you end up a) with a dragon’s cache of books to fill and b) eventually have an odd mood and decide confession is good for the soul and show said cache to the Internet at 11pm on a Thursday.

[maedivae]

Have you read the hunger games prequel, the ballad of songbirds and snakes?

What's your opinion about it?

What's the most shocking revelation from the novel related to the original trilogy?

What's your favorite character from it?

Do you plan to see the tbosas movie in theaters?

Thank you

@curiousnonny

Yep! I read it over the pandemic, kind of awful timing for it to be released with absolutely zero marketing. I was just searching for toilet paper in Walmart and saw it and was confused for a second that she'd return to the series after all this time.

Anyways, I'm due for a reread to fully have an opinion of it, but I'll say a few things. I think it could've been shorter and I was frustrated by the pacing, that's a common critique I see. There are chapters of little happening except for exposition which wasn't ever a problem for the original trilogy because every chapter would have a cliff hanger or at least something interesting happening. Even downtime chapters in Catching Fire developed characters' relationships and had more purpose.

Too many character names, way too difficult to keep track of them all. Side characters in the originals seemed to have more going for them in the little time they got. Snow's perspective is more detailed than Katniss's, and it's also in third person this time around, but I feel like it was a lot of fluff as I mentioned before.

I do like Snow in this though! As a hateable villain character, of course, I was never tricked into thinking he'd be anything different, but he's just so pathetic at times that I can't help but begrudgingly like him. Lucy Gray grew on me as well, though I did get secondhand embarrassment from her introduction, I remember that very clearly in my mind. Sejanus never stuck with me because I found his decisions to just be foolish and he often actively endangered the people around him or was super gullible. He was the most human character, however.

I really liked Dr Gaul, she's a real creepy old lady, and we get more from the sci-fi aspects of the series with the labs. Human experimentation and all that. I do like the Capitol setting.

Some of the easter eggs to the originals were a bit forced, in my opinion, hell, I wouldn't have minded if we went to another district instead of twelve again. The point where Lucy Gray and her family gather the potato roots and call them katniss had me rolling my eyes tbh. I'd rather her not be related to Katniss at all, just seems to take away from the point of the main series of Katniss being some random normal girl from the poorest part of Panem instead of a generational curse thing coming to haunt Snow.

It's my least favorite book in the series but I'll still see it in theaters. Just be cool to see how they adapt some stuff. Can't be as boring as the Harry Potter prequel movies and extended universe stuff, no offense if anyone likes them.

[nrhartauthor]

She was romantic about so many things … 🌙 Poetry and Pearls , a summer season @n.r.hart 🌸🌸🌸 Thank you for ordering Poetry and Pearls and sharing this lovely picture. 🙏🏻 Repost from @dawnmbrewerhunt • Love this poetry 💕 @n.r.hart Poetry and Pearls I & II paperbacks in full color 🌈 with all my original floral posters inside divided into the four seasons Winter Spring Summer Autumn because I feel there are seasons of the heart too.💕 They are packed full of poetry including my Beauty and the Beast, Soulmate & Twin Flame poetry. These books are beautiful works of art ✨✨✨ Love Poems to No One & Beauty and her Beast 👑 beautiful floral hard covers in black with all my original black & white posters inside divided into the four seasons Winter Spring Summer Autumn. The perfect little size to carry with you everywhere. 🍃🍃🍃 This is a trilogy series Book 3 The Last of the Romantics out now ✨ • Thank you for sharing my words and buying my books! Love, N.R.Hart ❤️ • All my books are available @amazon @barnesandnoble @chaptersindigo @bookdepository @target @walmart worldwide. link in bio ✨✨✨ • https://www.amazon.com/poetry-pearls-romantic-n-hart/dp/1512179272/ https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Pearls-Romantic-II/dp/0578428660/ https://www.amazon.com/Love-Poems-No-One-Romantic/dp/0578451166/ https://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Her-Beast-Romantic-Poetry/dp/0578616440/ https://www.amazon.com/Last-Romantics-Romantic-Poetry/dp/0692168591/ • #nrhart #nrhartpoetry #poetryandpearls #poetryandpearls2 #lovepoemstonoone #poetry #bookstagram #poetrybooks #typewriterpoetry #vintage #lovepoems #lovequotes #booksigning #bookstagram #bookshelf #oldsoul #empath #romanticpoetry #romanceisnotdead #hopelessromantic (at Connecticut) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl0P_nOuxrL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[frankenwolf1564]

Remember R.E.D.?

Remember the R.E.D. line? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t, it’s been almost 2 years since the last figures came out. Started as a Transformers equivalent to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends and other analogous lines, the “Robot Enhanced Design” line was supposed to give us screen accurate and highly accurate figures that sacrificed a transformation for aesthetics, but the whole line fell flat and did so in its first year. Let’s go over why!

Starting in 2020 as a Walmart exclusive, Transformers R.E.D. came in with the heavy hitters of G1 Optimus, Megatron, and Soundwave, and just. Immediately dropped the ball with that alone. We were already well into the WFC Trilogy at that point, and thusly had plenty of G1 inspired Optimus Primes and Megatrons to pick from. There were the Siege molds, their classic animation redecos, which were also Walmart exclusives just a year prior, the Earthrise figures, and the dozen other repaints and repackages those all got or would get, a fair share of which were themselves, Walmart exclusives! Soundwave came off as a little more desirable, but that was mostly due to his highly sought after earth mode Netflix release being hard to come by. He did still have his regular Siege release the year prior, like the other two. Granted, none of these were anywhere near as animation accurate as R.E.D. but like. They transformed. They still fit the general aesthetic. But fine. It’s the first wave, and these are THE Transformers. You have to do them, I get that. You can chalk up the release to poor timing or whatever, but even ignoring that they were still less desirable because they just kind of sucked.

As the name implies, the Robot Enhanced Design figures put a greater focus on the robot modes, trading transformations for… what, exactly? They’re painted… okay, they have fine enough articulation, but not much beyond what most mainline figures offer, and they’re made of this soft, rubbery plastic that just feels bad. The only thing they had going for them was a large number of accessories. That’s it. They don’t scale well with much, either. They were all designed in the six-inch scale, which means most of them only really match with each other, leaving them in a weird, separate bubble. At least the character choice got better, right?

Alright. Fine. Wave 1 was The Big Ones because it had to be. Wave 2 featured Prime Arcee and Beast Wars Cheetor, and one of these has an actual case for being in the line. Arcee’s model in the Prime cartoon was thin and at the same time, impossibly big for her alt mode. While the Robots In Disguise (the Prime subline not the show. Not that one. The other one.) figure she received when the show was still airing was fairly accurate, it’s literally impossible for it to be “just the model from the show” considering a lack of room to put stuff, so R.E.D. makes sense! Plus, it had been a good while since the show came out, so those original toys were getting harder to get a hold of. Cheetor was a… less compelling case. We saw with his Masterpiece figure that it was very much possible to have “just the model from the show” in toy form, but the real killer for him came from Hasbro themselves. Again. Running at the same time as wave 2 of R.E.D. was the Kingdom line, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of Beast Wars, which in turn meant that Cheetor was a front runner for the line. He was kinda a big part of the cartoon y’know? So why bother with the non-transforming version of the character made out of worse plastic when you could just go and get the Kingdom figure? Which was on shelves at the same time? But, okay. The R.E.D. figure was visually closer to the cartoon, but then there was Netflix Cheetor! The Kingdom figure got repainted into a more Beast Wars (the cartoon) accurate deco, and was also a Walmart exclusive!!! So even if you did go to the store just for R.E.D. Cheetor, you’d have probably seen the Netflix figure on the shelf at the same time! For the same price!!! Rendering any devils advocate-ing utterly pointless. This is, by and large, a trend that continued through the line’s limited run time. Arcee was succeeded by her Legacy figure, as was Knockout. Some even came out after the mainline release of the character, such as Galvatron and Optimus Primal. They did have the excuse of closer matching the animation, and this is especially true for the Prime releases, but it still felt pretty pointless. The lower quality wasn’t doing them any favors, either. The only release that really made any sense was Reformatting Megatron, since there’s not much point in making that transform, I feel.

Now, I get it. You need your big names to sell toys. Every Transformers line released over the past three decades has had some form of Optimus and/or Megatron. Some designs aren’t very toy friendly. But if you’re going to do a line of non-transforming Transformers characters, could you at least do one character that doesn’t transform? Autobot X? An Action Master? If we’re doing Beast Wars, why not Transmutate? Why bother forcing an alt mode onto the G1 Quintessons in Earthrise when you could have put them in R.E.D.? There’s only so many Scrimblo Bimblos and Glup Shittos, I understand, but not even one? The line was fizzling out anyway why not say “fuck it”? They didn’t even finish the seeker trio, that’s how hard this line bombed.

[scourgeofmyownbrain]

Good fucking day, Robot enjoyers! Gaze upon the updated semi-accurate height comparison of Bumblebee across the multiverse.

This is an updated version of a chart I made a few months ago. I had gotten some feedback and then TFOne came out and I kinda had to update it. I also added a Gen 1 Optimus Prime for scale, for fun... no other reason... (edit: slight adjustment made, just corrected a slight mistake in the order)

I am also working on at least two more character charts and one universe chart, so hopefully I can finish those soon (for some fucking genius reason I decided to do the characters that show up EVERY FUCKING UNIVERSE so I'm s u f f e r i n g)

*PST! Optimus, Megatron, Shockwave, and Soundwave ones are done now*

Listed Heights, Explanations, and Justifications below the cut, bc you couldn't shut me up if you tried and I had shit to say.

Gen 1 - ~10 feet (TFwiki says greater than 3 meters so I rounded up to the first whole number because round)

Netflix Cybertron Trilogy - ~10 feet (He looks identical to Gen 1 so... the reason his photo looks weird is because I couldn't find a good full body photo with him standing straight up facing the camera so I put two images together to make the worst looking photoshop job you have ever seen)

Earth Spark - ~10 feet (There is no confirmed height yet, but using this screen shot (see below) of him standing in front of a barn door, I was able to make a reasonable guess, bc I'm so smart.)

One V1 - ~13 feet (I am well aware of what the TFWiki says: 26.429 feet. And I fully reject that number. A: These numbers are sourced from the Walmart Promotional AR Experience that came out before the movie. B: There are three decimal points, and that number does not convert into a whole number in meters (which is originally what I thought was weird about it). C: The director has said that this movie is both canon to the LA movies and its own separate canon, and Bumblebee in both sets of LA movies does not exceed 20 feet tall. Ever. So, for sanity's sake, I have used the KCV numbers as my baseline. Bee grows when he gets his t-cog so shrink this one down a few feet. Look, I'm working on the Optimus chart rn, and one of the numbers from Beast Wars on the wiki was very observably wrong, and if I can dispute numbers older than me, I can dispute numbers 2 decades younger than me from fucking Walmart. Also, yes, his picture is 3 images sandwiched together)

Animated - 13 feet 3 Inches (There is no actual given heights, but in the comments of the previous version, @phoenix-inanis told me that they had done their own analysis of TFA heights and, gonna be real with you, I am blown away by all of their work and how detailed it is. Go marvel at how much work they put in -> https://phoenix-inanis.notion.site/TFA-Height-Chart-f6ad2960ca8c4c5b859ee4958723aaa4?pvs=4 )

One V2 - ~15 Feet (Please see reasoning above. Since this is as tall as we see Bee get, he's the same height as KCV Bee. Sweet fuck, I have put way too much effort into this shit)

Knight/Capel-Verse - 15 feet (No actual numbers, but Mirage is stated to be 15 feet tall (TFWiki), and he and Bee are like the same height, so... Capel directed the ROTB movie if you're wondering why his name is there)

Bayverse V1 - 16 feet (TFWiki. This is like the first 3 movies minimum, I don't remember when he hits his growth spurt. Also mr bay is king, we have numbers for nearly every character in BV)

Cyberverse - 18 feet (I'm gonna be honest, the only info we have is from a really shitty screen shot of a magazine. SO if any one has a copy of this book from the video below, a high quality scan would be greatly appreciated and I will kiss the ground you walk upon. Yes I found the video where the screen shot comes from leave me alone)

Bayverse V2 - 18 feet (TFWiki. Movie 4-5 I can't remember which one, I'm not re-looking this up. I fucking love the bayverse tho, this is the only universe with concrete and consistent this-character-is-this-height info)

Aligned Cont. WF/FOC - 20 feet (TFWiki/Fandom. Video game info screens you godsend, kiss me sweetly)

Aligned Cont. TFP/RID15 - 21 feet (These two designs are canonically identical, like in ALC canon, Bee has not changed visually at all...Ok, yes I got this number from fandom and they give literally no source for where they got these numbers. But, I can fully believe these are accurate. Just by looking at these characters on the show I can verify these numbers in my mind. Here, let's Compare.

This is Sam compared to Bee from one of the BV movies, I'm too lazy to check which one. Sam is average size for a human and we know Bee is 16 feet tall in the first three movies. Checks out. Let's now look at a TFP Character who is also 16 feet tall.

Jack is average size for a human, and the size difference is about the same. Can you see why I can't question the Aligned heights, even if they don't have a source??!?! They specifically made this universe to be full of freakishly tall robots for some fucking reason.)

Not Pictured: Aligned Cont. Rescue Bots and Rescue Bots Academy Bumblebee - 21 Feet tall. Look, did you want to see all 5 versions of ALC Bee? No, you don't. They're all the same height anyway; the back row would have just been a wall of redundant yellow. 5 different fucking art styles in one universe, why is that one my favourite.

Here's the front row and the back row separated into their own jpgs. I know it's kind of hard to tell which Bumblebee is which when they're all together.

[crimsun-n-clover]

i’m actually going insane like full on female hysteria shit i’m 95% sure this is a manic episode i’m paranoid and seeing things and people that aren’t there and breathing fast and im impulsive and feel like i’m being followed when i know i’m not and i need to change myself and cut my hair or rip my fucking skin off to be someone else or pick out the rotting parts of me because i hear people calling my name constantly and i can’t relax but i’m also swinging in and out of euphoria where i’m indestructible and stronger than god and older than time and an irreplaceable aspect of earth but i also smelled decay in the walmart cd aisle for a moment and then it was gone and there are cicadas in my skull and i can hear them crawling and screaming and my heart keeps locking up in my chest and it fucking aches and i just wanna claw it out with my nails and tear it to irreparable shreds with my teeth until it stops what do i do what do i do i’m stuck and i’ve slept three out of the last 24 hours and i feel clamps around my temples and i’ve read the same book three times in a row just to feel the connection and i marathoned the original star wars trilogy to try to remember what it feels like to love something and i’m on the floor shaking and i might die but we have guests and i shouldn’t disturb them but i tried to hex someone earlier so i opened my new tarot cards and pulled the two of cups which means that a new phase is coming and i’m scared of what that means because i don’t change i’m static and still in my values and the people i love and who could i ever be outside of what i am now because i’m not ever really gonna get better and i don’t want to get worse because right now i’m already so fucking far gone that i don’t want to talk to anyone i care about because they shouldn’t see me like this and i didn’t recognize myself in the mirror this morning and nothing can bring me down from this ledge and i’m cycling between the thrill of the risk and the fear of the fall

[lewmagoo]

not anon but ☺️

1. favorite scent?

2. do you have a comfort show or film?

3. which lew character would you want to be stuck on a desert island with?

i feel like my favorite scent changes all the time. right now i’m loving this perfume called mermaid vibes by op. i also like all the fall scents right now, i’ve been burning the fall farmhouse candle from walmart for the last few days and i love it

the original star wars trilogy is a big comfort thing for me. i also love the waltons, and little house on the prairie ☺️

hmmm…i feel like bob is the best answer for this because of his military training. i think he’d be very resourceful and reliable! he’s finding water sources, building a shelter, creating a fire to signal for help, etc.

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Monday, 23 January 2023:

Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars David Bowie (Parlophone) (originally released in 1972, this reissue came out in 2015)

Just as I am assessing my need, or rather my lack of need for any more Bowie boxed sets (after Divine Symmetry I am finished with purchasing those ‘book’ box sets; I will finish up his ‘career boxes’ as there can only be one or two remaining--two if they release a Tin Machine box, but I have no further need for an endless array of Bowie BBC Sessions or Bowie live sets which also means giving up buying the endless live releases that Record Store Day dishes out; likewise for the idea of alternate albums all of which is contingent on how tempting a ‘book box set of Low or any of the Berlin Trilogy looks), this album pops up in Walmart of all places!

I’ve never in my life seen a Bowie album at Walmart.  That doesn’t mean they don’t stock them, it’s I’ve been looking at their stock for at least five years now and I have never seen any Bowie.  I wasn’t even going to look at their record selection because I know they are stocking a certain album I’ve been chasing for years (and almost bought just recently) in mid February and I will snap it up on that day.  Knowing this, I knew there was nothing else I was chasing but still I checked their stock.  You can now buy Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison on some color of vinyl I’ve already forgotten what the color is. (If you go to Walmart’s site they have two variants of colored vinyl with a price of $103 per album!  There are extenuating circumstances for this ridiculousness, but I’m too bored to go in to the reasons.)  But that was the only new thing I saw on their shelves.  They still have about a thousand copies of the new Adele album that will still be on their shelves when she releases 64.

I’ve long considered going backwards and buying Bowie on vinyl.  Original releases of Bowie albums are now cost prohibitive and I’m not that huge of a Bowie fan to drop that kind of money, so reissues suit me fine.  For a very long time the only three albums I owned on vinyl from Bowie were shamefully ChangesOneBowie, Let’s Dance and the Ryko Sound + Vision box.  I still have two of the three (I long ago dumped Let’s Dance) but I carry no romantic vision of owning original Bowie albums.  I’ve long claimed I’m not a Bowie fan and that was true for an astonishing period of time even though I diligently bought those Ryko CD reissues but even that was half hearted.  The only Bowie albums I bought in real time (save for the three previously mentioned albums) began with The Next Day and moved forward.  That’s how little into Bowie I was. 

To be frank, I’m far more of a late era Bowie fan than an early years fan!  Early Bowie doesn’t do a thing for me.  I’m a bigger fan of David Bowie (on Deram) than I am of David Bowie (on Mercury).  As for The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory, well, let’s just say I like them as much as I like Bob Dylan’s fourth album and I love Bob Dylan.  Give me Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane but you can definitely have Young Americans.  I have all of that album I’ll ever desire on ChangesOneBowie.  For my taste, Bowie finally revs up into excellence with Station To Station and then I’m more than satisfied with his studio work (well, there are drawbacks, but then that is how a musical career as long as Bowie’s works, same with Dylan or Neil Young).  And as long as I’m talking foolish (or sacrilege) for my money Bowie’s greatest album is Blackstar (or maybe Scary Monsters).

Anyhow, when I saw Ziggy at Walmart, I didn’t even hesitate, I snapped it up and threw it into my cart along with the rest of the groceries I could find today.  You know as well as I do grocery shopping involves going to at least three stores before you can find everything you need.  Although today I hit up five stores and still can home without several items that just aren’t in stock (the bread I buy for example is nowhere to be found). 

So, will Walmart continue stocking Bowie albums?  I cannot imagine the day I’ll bump into any other Bowie album but Let’s Dance and I’m not in any hurry to own another copy outside of the CDs I have of his work.  (I like Let’s Dance just fine, I spent a lot of time with it when I listened to his Loving The Alien box, matter of fact I thought it was the best thing in that box.)

Above are the album cover and the back of the album.  Below you will find both sides of the inner sleeve.  The inner sleeve has a unique cut to it which I assume is just like the original version.  I like that companies are including a facsimile of the original inner sleeve and then putting the album inside a second sleeve that has anti-static plastic in it.  (And the other surprise about this album was the price!  Walmart generally always charges $27 to $35 per album but this was priced at $22, a pure steal from their normal price point.)

The last two photos are of both sides of the labels.  I have said it before but I shall say it again: I enjoy how record companies now do record labels by paying homage to the original label that artist was on.  For those unaware, the label here is a replica of the 70s RCA labels.