Fwoosh Toys/Articulated Icons - A Retrospective

Oh man, I've always LOVED your avatar! Kurt is my favorite X-Man by a wide margin, so I immediately filed it in my head. I had NO idea it was the "Ultimate" version though. You were always one of my favorites on the Fwoosh, and I'm so glad you made your way here!

I remember when you posted that long ago! Such impressive work!

I'm sure they have plenty of information on what went down, and have just avoided the topic to not get pulled into some sort of conflict with their former boss. It could also be an NDA situation. I can't exactly blame them for being tight-lipped...there may be some shit they don't want to be within 500 miles of.

I definitely think this was a factor, among other things. It seems to me that they just don't want the association at all with the Fwoosh brand these days. I get the feeling they saw the iceberg coming, and got off the ship as quickly as possible.
Thank you my friend! You were definitely one of the Fwooshers I interacted with the most.
 
I've always felt a strange loyalty to my avatar. Which is weird, because I've never read a single page featuring Ultimate Nightcrawler. I just liked the image & thought it made a striking avatar way back when. But I don't know if anybody really recognizes it, I'm mostly a fly in the wall around here! Still nice to have a place to go, even if I'm mostly just reading.

I made that avatar for you about 20 years ago now. I guess you liked the ones I made for me so you messaged me on the Fwoosh and asked me to make you one of Nightcrawler. I gotta admit, it did turn out nice. I used a program called Paint Shop Pro. I always feel a little nostalgic when I look at that avatar. I'm glad you're still using it.

Those were good days. Toybiz was doing some great stuff and I made some friends at DC Direct. Good times.
 
I used to pester the hell out of Jesse Falcon back in the day about doing Ultimate X-Men figures. He was always so generous with his time and would give me "You never know" type responses to a 17 year old enthusiastic, annoying geek. Every time. Never losing his patience with me.

I also had a buddy who fabricated the accessories for Toy Biz, so I got little sneak peeks here and there of (then) upcoming Spider-Man Classic bases, and the church that came with Nightcrawler in the X2 line.

To me, those were the days. It was the wild west of collecting-- where information was spilled freely. Not necessarily openly for everyone. But if you knew the right people, and they knew you were a reliable steel trap who wouldn't blab, they'd divulge. But just getting those little nibbles of information was half of the fun of collecting then.

If you are a youngin, you truly missed out. Not to be all "old man yells at clouds", but shit was different then. In a good way. We have all the access in the world to these people with social media nowadays, but it just doesn't hit the same way as it did then.
 
As someone who has spoken to or been friendly with Randy for going on two decades now before even getting the chance to actually meet him...

...the shit he catches is so undeserved. Yeah, he would give shit to people on Twitter. He gave people back what they gave him.

But overall, that dude is one of the nicest, kindest, most generous people out there. Genuinely. He did not deserve that.

I have my suspicions who did it, but they are legit two of the most psycho people I've seen in this hobby, and in the off chance they're here, I don't want to kick up that hornets nest.
Thanks for saying so. The conspiracy theories and undeserved crap this hobby gives him drive me crazy as someone who literally read every tweet he ever made and never saw what they thought they were seeing. This hobby definitely lost something when he stopped interacting, and even the shows aren't as fun without him now.
 
I'm sure they have plenty of information on what went down, and have just avoided the topic to not get pulled into some sort of conflict with their former boss. It could also be an NDA situation. I can't exactly blame them for being tight-lipped...there may be some shit they don't want to be within 500 miles of.
For sure. That's why I say I'd like to see it, not that I think they OWE it to us or must do it or anything. There's a dozen reasons why they might not even be able to, or why it might be disadvantageous to them. But I'd love to hear their side of what's going on and what they know that we don't.
 
At the risk of screenshot fuel for their next stream:

Wanted to see 3POAs take after J's, but the episode guest host (who claims he was banned on Fwoosh and holds a grudge) and community are not my speed. Homophobic comments from the crowd, the anger and vitriol and the bit I listened to didn't offer anything not covered.

Soon as Ethan Van Sciver showed up as a paid regular, I recognized this was not my crowd.
 
Agreed. I'm a freelancer who typesets manga for overseas companies, and I've signed... two? NDAs for companies before. In my case, if I leaked any confidential information I'd get fired from the company anyways, and if I leaked any copyrighted material I'd still get fired, and probably sued, even if there weren't an NDA. Maybe even blacklisted from the industry!
 
Excuse my short tangent: NDAs should be illegal. Nothing covers crooks, sex pests, and abusers like an NDA.

The problem is you can never make NDAs illegal as long as we cling to Capitalism, because NDAs can be really important for protecting sensitive proprietary information. The threat of being sued into homelessness is a lot stronger than the threat of never being hired again in that industry or sector. And the ability to fire and sue a person after the fact doesn't unring the bell of potentially millions or billions in losses associated with whatever thing is.

That being said, I'm in favor of getting rid of Capitalism and therefore NDAs. But I'm also, in the interim, in favor of SEVERELY limiting what you can ask someone to sign an NDA for.


Edit: For context: I've signed more than a dozen NDAs. There are things I have access to that I could sell for literally tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. The threat of losing my job is absolutely fucking trivial to the amount of money I could make with this stuff. And even the threat of being sued is only a speedbump more than a roadblock. The terms of the NDA make violating the trust a lot scarier than what these corporations could do to me without it.
That's not a defense of NDAs so much as an indictment against Capitalism.
 
The problem is you can never make NDAs illegal as long as we cling to Capitalism, because NDAs can be really important for protecting sensitive proprietary information. The threat of being sued into homelessness is a lot stronger than the threat of never being hired again in that industry or sector. And the ability to fire and sue a person after the fact doesn't unring the bell of potentially millions or billions in losses associated with whatever thing is.

That being said, I'm in favor of getting rid of Capitalism and therefore NDAs. But I'm also, in the interim, in favor of SEVERELY limiting what you can ask someone to sign an NDA for.


Edit: For context: I've signed more than a dozen NDAs. There are things I have access to that I could sell for literally tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. The threat of losing my job is absolutely fucking trivial to the amount of money I could make with this stuff. And even the threat of being sued is only a speedbump more than a roadblock. The terms of the NDA make violating the trust a lot scarier than what these corporations could do to me without it.
That's not a defense of NDAs so much as an indictment against Capitalism.
I think NDAs have their place. However I am vehemently against NDAs for financial settlements. I think they are the most insidious form of NDAs because they usually come from a place of secrecy to protect, at minimum, bad behaviour (at worst criminal behaviour).

In my previous life as a business owner I had a couple of government contracts that had NDAs built in to them. Of course there was really no need for them because the business was more important than any info I gleaned. However that is standard business practice. The funny thing is that the whole "food deliveries to the white House increasing during a crisis" applies to a lot of different scenarios. I had foreknowledge of certain operations because of that particular quirk. And yes I am being vague because it is only right not to be specific (even though it was years ago now).
 
As someone who has spoken to or been friendly with Randy for going on two decades now before even getting the chance to actually meet him...

...the shit he catches is so undeserved. Yeah, he would give shit to people on Twitter. He gave people back what they gave him.

But overall, that dude is one of the nicest, kindest, most generous people out there. Genuinely. He did not deserve that.
I'm getting uncomfortable at this being the second time you've vouched for someone being cool, when my first & only exposure to them was quite the opposite, because, as I've said before, YOU DO seem genuinely nice & kind & generous yourself, lol.

The first time I saw Randy talk was a Pixel Dan interview, where he was talking about how great "the chase" is, and "having something someone else doesn't have, really makes you feel special." Which I not only loathe the chase because I practically always come up empty, having wasted time & gas, but that second sentiment is SUPER FUCKING TOXIC to the collecting community. It's all those fuckwads who absolutely hated me on Fwoosh, who sobbed uncontrollably when a company would reissue an exclusive, because it meant their figure's value decreased.

I've only seen one other interview with Randy & Veebs, and he wasn't all that nice or kind to Veebs (who isn't my favorite person either, which sucks, because I LOVE Robo & wanna be his best friend lolol). He was very sarcastic & snarky, and that shit's only funny when you also display redeemable qualities with them. Brian Flynn may be one of the toy community's biggest pieces of shit, but he's still always super friendly on camera (which is jarring, when he says unhinged asshole shit in that tone, lmfao).

He should have never been doxxed, and that person who did it should be fired...from a cannon into the Sun.

But anyone who prefers this hobby to be EXclusive instead of INclusive...isn't nice, kind, and certainly nowhere near generous, I'm sorry, lol. 🤷‍♂️
 
I think NDAs have their place. However I am vehemently against NDAs for financial settlements. I think they are the most insidious form of NDAs because they usually come from a place of secrecy to protect, at minimum, bad behaviour (at worst criminal behaviour).
10,000%
 
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