Toys?

 Growing up I never really played with action figures. Instead, my entertainment came from three things: Legos, Super Smash Bros on the Wii, and playing outside. Also it seems like literally everyone on here is writing about Legos. Legos were a lot more popular than I realized. 

To me, Legos was a medium through which I could be creative. Although I followed those boxes with instruction books a couple of times, I much more enjoyed making other stuff with them. I was really into machines, like coin sorting or gumball machines. It was a lot more cool to me creating something that could be useful and wouldn't just be sitting looking pretty. Outside of Legos, I was also into building stuff in real life, like blanket forts in my room or a wood shelter in my backyard. 

Creation was always the most fun: Spending a lot of time on a project and then seeing it completed was really fulfilling. On the other hand, playing with action figures just seemed pointless. It was just like instant dopamine but in the long run it wasn't really rewarding at all. Kids at the time were playing with Pokemon cards, Skylanders, and later on, fidget spinners emerged. But for the most part, I never played with these toys, although at one point I did get a fidget spinner just because it was so popular in the school. But to me, these toys all fell into the category of not really being useful. 

Part of the lack of toys in my childhood probably comes from there just being few toys in the house. Maybe my parents thought it was a waste of money, or they wanted me to get outside, but I never bothered asking for toys that other kids were playing with at the time. Looking back now, I don't regret not playing with toys. Always creating stuff probably helped my brain development or something. But then again the childhood creativity didn't transfer into my writing skills.