Subversions

I hate toys. I hate them as they spread all over every surface in my house, I hate them when they bleep and chirp and blare at me from hidden corners, I hate them when they embed themselves in the soft flesh of my foot at five o'clock in the morning. I hate them to breadth and depth my soul can reach. Sadly, like an unstable pelvic floor they come as part of the 'having kids' package, so over the years I have found ways to subvert them for my own amusement. I have given myself little windows of adult pleasure* to stave off the insanity that this mounting tide of plastic carries with it.

It started small. Just mild changes in how each set was put together. This is now the couple who live in our Playmobil house with their daughter. This little change made me happy. 

In fairness to Playmobil they do already offer a pleasingly diverse population of toys and is reassuringly gender neutral without trying too hard. I'm sure the makers had every expectation that there would be plastic gay couples living plastic lives in their plastic houses. 

But it wasn't enough. I've started making up little scenes of my own once the kids have gone to bed. Sometimes my couple don't get on very well.

Sometimes I imagine one has been left, heartbroken and bereft, so she ended it all, only to be eaten by her beloved pets.

Others are just impossible to avoid, just like this bus.

Playmobil was just the start. 

Making a not-so-human centipede out of those puppet books is immensely satisfying and also an excellent way of storing them. 

Look at Dudley's eyes. It's like he understands. I don't know why this makes me happy but it does. 

As a busy mum I don't have time to write slash fic so sometimes little scenes like this will suffice. 

There was something very pleasing about reenacting the final scene of Fatal Attraction using bunnies. 

Honestly people, this is an excellent way to make the constant tidying of minuscule pieces of plastic bearable. Now, where did the kids put Thor's hammer? I feel a scene from Misery coming on...

*not like that. (Well, sometimes like that. Falcon really does have an exceptional arse for a piece of plastic.)