presiding-over-nothing asked: What the fuck kind of pizza rolls are you eating that they're that inconsistent? I've never had a single plate where they weren't all about the same reasonable temperature, and I've eaten like six of the big bags this year.
Anonymous asked: Old cars had little to no ability to absorb impact. Because of that, it was not unusual for minor accidents with old cars to be fatal because most impact would be transfered to the people inside while the car itself would be just fine. Hit a tree in an old car at even a moderate speed and odds are your neck is getting snapped. Newer cars on the other hand fold like soda cans when impacted but the odds of the people inside suffering serious injuries are greatly diminished.
I’m sure that’s what the companies say and I’m sure they have junk science or anecdotes to help sell it but I don’t buy it at all. If I’m slamming into stuff I’d rather not be inside something that crumples like a soda can. I think any stats showing injuries going down as cars get more fragile has more to do with the advancement of safety features and less to do with how brittle the cars are.
Putting Myself In Traction To Own The Car Companies
This is the first time scientists have directly observed a bacterium using a pilus to effect gene transfer; it’s a mechanism that has been hypothesised for decades.
SLORP
At last, we’ve found that bacteria have the power to vore DNA.
Except no that’s not what happened, that’s not why he sued, he sued because when he went to ask for more napkins, the staff started racially harassing him, all over fucking napkins. As for the amount, ut was probably exaggerated by the lawyer so when the court shrinks it, McDonalds would still have to pay at least something.
There are no such things as frivolous lawsuits made by individual people.
McDonald’s (and most businesses) have insanely good pr departments. The woman who sued McDonald’s for being burned by their coffee was turned into the face of “people will sue over anything” because suing over coffee being hot sounds ridiculous, right? Except for she was literally burned to the bone. The pictures are nauseating. What she went through was horrifying.
If you ever find yourself ridiculing an individual on a company’s behalf you’re probably just repeating pr propaganda
Exceeept that “racial harassment” amounted to the manager possibly muttering something about “you people” which is at best incredibly vague. So…yeah, no, unless I’ve missed something this is a lot of bullshit.
presiding-over-nothing asked: Where's that one /lit/ thread where the person is complaining about their writing being bad, and then they post it and it's almost complete gibberish and everybody makes fun of it?
white women and white LGBT ppl and whites in general should stfu about non white religions forever
no matter what you say, it’ll be some racist nonsense covered up with some feminist bullshit or some fake ass LGBT activism.
shut up.
this is ok to rb, especially if you’re white. ive seen too many white people use feminism and LGBT activism to cover up their racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia
“Non white religions”
That’s…not a thing. Religion is an ideology, which has nothing to do with somebody’s race. But hey, anything to excuse the Muslims throwing gay people off buildings and brutalizing women in their own majority countries where they hold the power, thus rendering “Islamaphobia” irrelevant, right?
one of my least favorite moments was when they were trying to shit on Jeff Gerstman for giving Fallout 4 a bad review while they were all wearing those dumbshit actual pip boys bethesda made to go with that dumbfuck limited edition
Well, as an (increasingly former) fan of RT…well, mostly just a fan of AH, honestly, that’s very disappointing. Ugh. Guess it’s true what they say about having heroes…
presiding-over-nothing asked: So if most Transformers series are bad...what about the toylines themselves? Any particular favorites/dislikes over the long and storied history of toys that can turn into different toys?
Boy, this is a good damn question. I was actually lying in bed ready to curl up and go to sleep when I saw this question on my phone and I wanted to answer it so bad that I got up to type it out on my computer.
Largely, the Transformers toylines are very good. That’s why we like ‘em. It’d be easier to list the toylines I thought were bad since the list would be shorter, but that’d also be no fun. So instead, I’m gonna list every major Transformers toyline and give my thoughts on them all.
Generation 1: The one that started it all. A lot of the toys in this line don’t hold up well, especially most of the earlier ones, but a lot of them have a lot of charm even for someone like me that didn’t grow up with them. Initially the line used figures repurposed from the Japanese toylines Microman and Diaclone (with a couple of odd Macross toys thrown in for flavor), but after 1986 (when the movie came out) they had to start making original toys for the toyline. This period, referred to by fans as “Late G1,” is where Transformers really started to come in to its own in my opinion. Post-86 toys were really chunky and weighty and had a really aesthetic to them. The toyline started experimenting with different ideas too, like the Targetmasters and the Headmasters where Transformers had little partner robots that turned in to their guns and heads respectively. It was a lot of fun.
Generation 2: The “sequel series” to the original, this toyline mainly consisted of recolored rereleases of the original 1984 lineup of toys. For example, the 1984 Sideswipe toy was red, the 1993 G2 Sideswipe toy was black and green. This line also had a lot of fun original figures, and most of these original toys were REALLY good. Some of them even still hold up to this day. Laser Optimus Prime, Dreadwing and Smokescreen, and the Cyberjets are stand-out toys for the line.
Beast Wars: This one’s my favorite! This is when things got really weird and experimental, and I feel like there’s always some new thing I’ve never seen before waiting to be discovered from the Beast Era. My absolute favorite thing from this line were the Fuzors, which transformed from robot to animal-hybrids. Robots like Air Hammer tranformed in to a hybrid of an eagle and a hammerhead shark!
Beast Machines: This toyline was… not great. It had some good toys, but was mostly just really bad. All of the best toys were from the bad guys, the Vehicons. See, this show had a Nature vs. Technology theme where the good guys all turned in to animals and the bad guys were all cars and tanks and jets. Thing was, all of the Vehicon toys were way better than the Maximal toys. The Maximals were all just super ugly and really awfully designed. Tankor is probably the best toy in this line.
Robots in Disguise (2001): This toyline was super fun and weird! It was also the first toyline I experienced as a kid! Basically, after Beast Machines flopped, Hasbro rebooted Transformers wholesale and brought back Autobots and Decepticons (and Predacons). The toyline was mostly rereleases of older figures in new color schemes with new names, with figure designs plucked from all of the previous eras of Transformers. G1, G2, Beast Wars, they all got figures plucked from them to create a new cast of characters. The toyline also had some original characters and toys, but most of the new creations weren’t very good. My favorites from this line were Scourge, an evil clone of Optimus Prime, and the Commandos, a group of Decepticons that combined to form Ruination.
Armada: RID was the line I first played with, but Armada was the one I remember the most. Armada had transformers return to its roots in a lot of ways, with the toys being far simpler and chunkier than Beast Wars and RiD’s offerings. Parts counts were lowered, articulation was lowered, and engineering was simpler. That’s not to say that the toys were bad, though, they were just simpler. Every toy in the line also came with a smaller toy, a Mini-Con partner. The Mini-Cons could attach to the larger Transformers to unlock special action features like hidden guns or sound effects, which I absolutely ate up as a kid. I absolutely adore this line and have loads of fond memories of it. Beast Wars is my favorite line, but Armada is the one I’m most nostalgic for. My big favorites from this line are Demolishor,Galvatron,Tidal Wave, and Jetfire.
Universe 2003: Running concurrently to Armada was a fun line called Universe, which continued the “recoloring old toys as new characters” concept from RID2001. I absolutely adore this line and consider it my third favorite. All of the new color schemes we got in this line were so unusual and unlike anything else we’d seen before in the series. The line also had a LOT of purple, which made me very happy. My favorites from this line are Skywarp, which repurposed a Beast Machines toy, Whirl, Soundwave, and King Atlas, which both repurposed a late G1 toy.
Energon: I have nothing good to say about this line. This line was almost universally bad, and it was universally reviled. The line’s main gimmick was that most of the toys could combine in some way, with one figure forming the upper half and another forming the lower half. The gimmick was rarely well executed and the line suffered for it. There were a couple of good toys in the line, like Divebomb, but they were diamonds in a big ‘ol poo pile.
Cybertron: This is where the toys started being universally good again! This line’s gimmick was the Cyber Planet Keys, little plastic “keys” that you’d pop in to slots on the figures to unlock pop-out guns and such. Kinda like Armada’s Mini-Cons, but done a bit better. This line had a lot of variety thanks to the different “colony worlds” that the fiction introduced. You had normal Earth vehicles, alien Cybertronian vehicles, a subgroup of alien race cars, a planet of Zoid-like robot animals and dinosaurs, a subgroup of construction vehicles that came with Armada-style Mini-Con partners, just a whole lot of variety. I’d place this at fourth-favorite. This was the line that made me decide that I was gonna be a proper Adult Collector of Toys because everything in this line was just too cool to stop experiencing. Standout favorites of this line would be Crumplezone,Shortround,Scrapmetal,Cannonball,Leader-Class Optimus Prime,Cybertron Defense Scattorshot, and Cybertron Primus.
Movie 1: Man, this line. This line wasn’t amazing, but it has some fun memories regardless. The hype surrounding the first movie was momentous, and people were REALLY eager to get their hands on the toys. It was fun to see Hasbro trying to translate the on-screen movie designs with Cybertron-era engineering. Unfortunately, the majority of the toys were mediocre at best. Still, there were a couple of standout good ones. Incinerator, Landmine, and Stockade stand out as some of my favorites from this first line.
Classics: Hoo boy, this is a biggun. “Classics” is the catch-all term for the “G1 Redone” line, where Hasbro makes modern versions of classic characters. This line started in either 2006 or 2007 and has continued uninterrupted since then. It’s had a couple of name changes (it goes by Generations, now), but everyone still calls it Classics. Some people call it by the acronym “CHUG,” short for Classics Henkei Universe Generations, but… don’t call it that. Naming favorites from this line would take all day since it’s lasted for a decade. I can say though that recently, it’s gotten a bit on my nerves. See, the last two entries in Classics were Combiner Wars and Titans Return, each of which having a unifying line-wide gimmick. Combiner Wars was exclusively combiner teams like the Aerialbots and the Stunticons, and Titans Return is homaging the Headmasters by having every toy have a detachable head that turns in to a robot. These novelties were fun for a while, but I’m personally sick of it and would really like to see the line return to normal gimmick-free updates of old figures. There’s a lot of G1 that hasn’t been remade yet, especially a lot of the Late G1 stuff, and I’d like to see the line reach that Late G1 Weird Stuff without having to compromise for some dumb line gimmick. Complaining aside, though, this line has maintained a fantastic quality level over its decade of being around. Even during the dullest movie line, Classics has stood tall with fantastic engineering, paintwork, and plastic quality.
Movie 2: Revenge of the Fallen/Hunt for the Decepticons/Reveal the Shield/TF2010: These lines kicked ass. Hasbro made a billion dollars off of the first movie, so toys that came out during this time were over-budget, over-engineered, inventive, and awesome. Loads of super fun stuff came out during this line and my hazy sleep-deprived memory couldn’t possibly do it justice. These lines’ Scout-Class figures were notable in that they were universally beloved by fans. My standout favorite from this line was Hubcap, a little scout-class retro roadster. Other gooduns were Seaspray,Stratosphere, Ransack, Breacher, and Breakaway.
Transformers: Animated: The cartoon show was brilliant, but I wasn’t a fan of this toyline. The toys were poorly engineered and were often plagued with terrible quality control issues like awful paint and cheap plastic. The line managed to balance itself out in some of its later waves, but for the most part the line was very mediocre. Leader Megatron was probably my favorite toy from the line.
Movie 3: Dark of the Moon: This toyline sucked. The toys were made of cheap plastic and barely painted, every toy had a budget-sapping spring-loaded “Mechtech” weapon that nobody liked, the toys clogged the shelves for months, basically it was all awful. The only good toy in the line was a Bumblebee toy affectionately nicknamed Murderbee, and people only liked that because they thought it was funny.
Transformers Prime: This line was a big mixed bag full of high points and low points. The initial lineup of figures, called Prime First Editions, were all really good toys. They had solid engineering, great paintwork, and were super show-accurate. First Editions were also stupidly hard to find, because only Toys R Us would take the line and Toys R Us can’t distribute exclusives to save their fucking lives. After that, the mass-retail release line was called Prime: Robots in Disguise, because that’s not confusing. This line, dubbed PRID by fans, was… okay. Just okay. The quality of engineering and paint was significantly lower than the First Editions. The toys weren’t BAD, they were just a lot simpler and cheaper FEELING than the First Editions. Voyager-class figures came packed in with DOTM’s shitty Mechtech weapons for a while, but they stopped with that in later waves. A third subline, called Beast Hunters, introduced Predacon figures to the mix. Predacons transformed in to made up alien dragons and for the most part the toys in that subline were really bad. So yeah, TF Prime’s toys were a mixed bag. When they were good, they were REALLY good. When they were bad, they were terrible. My favorites from the line include both First Edition and PRID Arcee, PRID Wheeljack, First Edition Starscream, and First Edition Bulkhead.
Movie 4: Age of Extinction: This toyline also sucked. It sucked even worse than Movie 3. The only good toy in this line was Scorn. End of discussion.
Robots in Disguise 2015: A sequel toyline to Prime, and the THIRD time Hasbro has used the RID name for a main line. Dumb name aside, this line’s pretty good! Well, for the most part. It’s got a much lower age demographic than most Transformers main lines, so most of the toys are overly-simplified chunky gimmick things for littler kids. The toyline DOES feature the lovely Warrior class, which has 14 dollar “big kid” toys of the main cast of characters. These Warrior class toys are really nicely designed and have a good heft to their plastic, and the line is really good for the most part. Unfortunately, figures in this line often get shafted in the paint department, especially the Autobots. Decepticons get painted well enough, but the Autobots in the line often get released missing half of the paint details that they have in the show. That’s why I wound up importing my RID Strongarm and Windblade toys from Japan, because they actually got painted over there. Standout toys from this line would be Thunderhoof, Blastwave, Fracture, the Japanese version of Windblade,Bisk,Paralon, Skywarp, Scatterspike, Soundwave, Stormshot, and Legion-class Springload.
Movie 5: The Last Knight: This line is honestly fucking pathetic. Most of the first two waves of figures are just re-issues of figures from previous movies with the prices jacked up stupidly high. Most of the toys aren’t painted either. The only good toys in this line are Voyager-class Megatron and Barricade. It’s super obvious that the current Classics line, Titans Return, is getting the budget focus while this line is left off to the wayside. Hasbro doesn’t care about this line and neither should you.
One thing I wanted to include in here that I couldn’t find an appropriate place for: If a line has shit paint or is generally bad, it’s usually because the current-running version of Classics is sucking up the budget. So if I list like five bad toylines in a row, it’s important to remember that Classics is running concurrently with that line and that line is where all of the money is going.
So yeah, there you go. A long, comprehensive list of my worthless
thoughts on Transformers toys. Have fun! I left off a few lesser toylines like Machine Wars and Platinum Edition, but there’s not much to say about them. I think I knocked down the biggest pillars.
I’m not proofreading this.
Holy shit, that’s extensive. And seems to match up a lot with what I’ve heard of the lines…
Wait, where’s Masterpiece? Or does that not count?
