How did you interact with dolls or action figures as a child?

[ancusmitis]

I did not play with dolls. Later on I inherited my sister's plastic dolls whose name begins with 'b'. I found um, creative ways to dispose of them involving twine, knives, small firecrackers, stick boats and a resevoir lake. Mia you sound kind of like me as a child. I made carefully constructed ( ) stick and rock houses and put my brother's toy cars and action figures inside them, if he had them out there where I was playing. Otherwise, I just built the structures and found it satisfying. Much Later in life, when my son had Legos, I could play for hours alongside him.

My apologies to those who enjoy those b dolls.

I laughed when I read this! This does sound like the few times I did interact with such toys at all. In early childhood I never touched them, preferring toy cars and stuffed animals, but a little later me and my female cousin saw the movie George of the Jungle, and we kind of reenacted the only memorable thing about that movie: "Watch out for that tree!" She had a porch at the time with a tree next to it that was absolutely perfect for this purpose.

 

[Nisk]

Oh I was always just determined to figure out how they worked. As I got better at it I would pick up the broken stuff people would discard and either scavenge parts off the or fix them.

 

[Laughingowl1975]

I had Transformers which I mostly just enjoyed transforming them back and forward I seldom used them as a toy to play with, I was actually more interested in the part of the box that had all the details about the character (personality, strengths etc.) or Tec Specs as they were called. I never took my Transformers apart (I still have them) but I did dismantle some toy cars and planes that I was given (they had little interest for me).

 

[Nitro]

I was given discarded appliances and machinery to disassemble to learn to use tools, see how they were made and why they failed. My Father would determine that they needed replacing and would hand them over to me in the garage as a part of my education for mechanical work and salvage. At age 13 I wanted a gasoline powered minibike but was forbidden to have one by my mom. I salvaged a scrap frame for one in a trash pile and began assembly from junk I had accumulated from dismantling broken machinery. I machined a throttle assembly from steel that weighed about five pounds when it was finished by copying one from a friend's bike. Because I was not supposed to have a bike,asking for a $20 automatic clutch was out of the question,so I copied the design of a riding mower's belt clutch for a manual one.
All the other kids wanted to ride mine because it had a manual clutch and theirs didn't. My Miss Cranky Pants sister got in some serious trouble and busted on me for having it to try to add misery to me and draw attention away from herself. My parents demanded to see it immediately and my mom ordered it to be destroyed.My Father told her he had nothing to do with it as it was all my own creation and saw no reason it should be. He was proud as any peacock of it and provided a better designed part where it was prone to failure the very next day.
A year later,I crafted an offroad woods buggy from a combination of the front of a Volkswagen beetle and the rear drive section of a Chevrolet Corvair. Instead of having the 50-60 four cylinder horsepower the rest of the world was using,the final draft having a 180 horsepower flat opposed six cylinder with four carburetors and four speed transmission from a factory high performance Corsa model.
I have always been a motorhead and my toys have always required wrenches and engineering

 

[SignOfLazarus]

Mostly, I made them act out Les Miserables. Other than that I didn't really have a whole lot of use for them. This is how I knew the music from it before I ever saw it though.

 

[Beverly]

To me dolls were to be dressed, have their hair styled then, be placed in a box by themselves because playing with them, or leaving them out would mess up my efforts to make them look nice. Baby dolls were annoying and, quickly found their demise in the fireplace or wood stove for some crime such as crying or peeing in the new clothes I made them wear. I preferred to chase about with the goats or, ride the real horses. Dolls were either decorations for my room or, annoying pieces of fire wood.

 

[ExplosiveTMT]

I would set up epic battles with my toys, usually ones inspired by scenes I saw in movies or games.
I usually worked alone.
I would sometimes let others join in, but would get annoyed if they didn't follow the script I set up.
And I usually had a teddy as the main protagonist, because teddies are awesome.

 

[Myron]

I don't remember much about playing with dolls, but according to my mom, when she gave me barbies, I would cut off all their hair and take off all their clothes. I do remember being very disturbed/creeped out by baby dolls, so I never got one (thankfully).

I did have some action figures of Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell from FullMetal Alchemist in my early teens, and my brother and I played a game where we pretended that Edward was the host of a talk show and Winry was his co-host. Winry would always goof off while Edward was the "straight man" who tried to keep the show going.

The one type of toy I loved the most were stuffed/soft/plush animal toys. I amassed a large collection, and my brother and I would play pretend with them. We made up an elaborate, Simpsons-esque world with them. Each toy had a name, personality, and role in the story. I now view it as the apex of my playing pretend days, and I often get really discouraged that I lack that type of creativity as an adult.

 

[SameStars]

I played with Barbies, dressing them and the like. But I usually played with animal toys/plushies (all the plushies were in my bed, to the point that I slept all cramped up). I even used marbles and gave them diffirent personalities to play out stories, because our carpet had patterns that looked like the outline of houses.

 

[Carnelian]

Oh god. I'm pretty sure I played this game with my dolls where they got kidnapped and the animals had to rescue them.

The bad guy would hang the little kid barbie doll (Kelly?) and then I would wait until the Kelly "almost" died from asphyxiation for the animals to save her.

Man. Disturbing child play there.

 

[ChrisC1983]

i didn't.... i wanted a bunch of stuff, and i got a lot of it. but i didn't want to open any of it. i just wanted to keep it exactly how i got it in the box and never open anything. ideally, when i picked out a toy for myself.. i tried to find the package in the best condition or a figure with some oddity to it (like a factory defect or rare variant)

my father didn't get it.. so he would open my toys, which just upset the hell out of me...... eventually, because i didn't "play" with the toys, he would throw a guilt trip on me until i gave my stuff away. so i don't have most of my stuff anymore and every time some kid played with the toys i did keep, they broke them so i didn't want them anymore....... basically, on a long term view, it was pointless to give me anything since it was just going to get destroyed anyway and i wouldn't be allowed to enjoy it in the way i wanted

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

My mother was horrified to discover that, at 2, I threw all my dolls into the garden and used the doll carriage to haul bricks. When asked why I did that, I explained I needed to build a house.

Dolls have always kind of bothered me, I think for the same reason that my cats don't like them. Dolls blink even less than we do.

 

[ChrisC1983]

not to go off topic..... i sell antiques with my uncle so i see a LOT of different dolls. and i must say...... they creep the hell out of me lol. they're right up there with taxidermy for me. some of them are tolerable but any of the "good" ones i run across are damn near traumatic

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

I never played with dolls, but I did play with cuddlies. I sent them on adventures, acted out day-to-day social situations, lost them in the garden, made them mud pies for dinner, and during my doctor phase cut them up, sewed them back together, and wrapped them up in bandages.

 

[watersprite]

not to go off topic..... i sell antiques with my uncle so i see a LOT of different dolls. and i must say...... they creep the hell out of me lol. they're right up there with taxidermy for me. some of them are tolerable but any of the "good" ones i run across are damn near traumatic

A while back I inherited a boxful of 100+ year old dolls. Gave them away, due to their absolute nightmarish creepitudinosity.

 

[ChrisC1983]

A while back I inherited a boxful of 100+ year old dolls. Gave them away, due to their absolute nightmarish creepitudinosity.

If that ever happens again, I'll buy them. They may have had little value but those are the ones that potentially reach hundreds or thousands each. Even in bad condition

 

[watersprite]

If that ever happens again, I'll buy them. They may have had little value but those are the ones that potentially reach hundreds or thousands each. Even in bad condition

It can't happen again. Whoops - could've used the money. But they felt so awful to me that I didn't want any part of them 'sticking' to me, even in the form of money. If that makes sense. I gave them away to someone who I like, and who I hoped sold them.

 

[Maelstrom]

I made my own toys and toy solder dolls, didn't like store bought stuff, made my own models from scratch. I had yarn men solders, with castles, ships, and western towns. I made full nights armor, swords, little bamboo bows with tooth pick arrows with felt feathers, maces sheilds, all kinds of carved guns. The swords were made out of broken scroll saw blades and unused rivits hamered into any shap you could think of snaky cris blades, Arib scimatars classic knights swords rapiers you name it I probable made it at some point. Wars were fought stories were made up, and then I went off to 4 years of boarding school Hell, things were never the same after that. Grown up NT land isn't much fun.

 

[Lena_C]

dolls....I wasn't really into them.
When I was a toddler, I used to hold them upside-down and put their feet into my mouth.
After entered the kindergarten, I inherited the "b" dolls box from others (not sure if they belongs to my cousin before) and I messed up everything.
I like to put them into a strange pose and investigate their body, so their arms, legs, even their heads, was pulled out and leaved their body.
It may sounds horrible, but I enjoy lift up the toy dress and look at the pubic area, expecting their pubic area is as same as mine!!
I also noticed their breasts without nipples.
My mother taught me how to comb their hair and I just use the toy comb to torture them.
It annoyed me when their hair got stuck in the comb, so I just throw them on the floor.

 

[BIMOG]

I didn't have dolls as a young child. I had soft toys, including my personal favorite, a fifty year old bear that a relative gave to me, I still have him. I started to collect Tommy dolls as a teenager, because I liked the novelty value of owning boy dolls. I never took any of them out of their boxes though. I still have them all. Since then I've occasionally acquired other dolls that have appealed to me, including one small vinyl person (he doesn't like the term doll) who collects marbles and who is my main companion.