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JRRT

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Everything posted by JRRT

  1. That is what I call a fitting end. Now you see, this is commonly referred to as "leaving the door open for the continuation of the story in a couple decades." Get it? JRRT
  2. Well, in light of the recent announcement, I thought it would be appropriate to write an entry about the End of Bionicle. Be careful, I may wax poetic here... As a fan who was there at the beginning, who watched the dawn of Bionicle and reveled in its mythic light, I can say that I am fully satisfied as it comes to an end. Bionicle has had a long and excellent run, and its tenth anniversary is a fitting time to bring things to a close. I look back over the entirety of the universe that Lego has created for us, and I can say that all the little things that irked me in the past cannot shine as bright as the things that enthralled and inspired me. There was a time when I spent a great deal of effort and energy raging against the great problems and failures and mistakes that I perceived in the storyline of Bionicle. It bugged me. I wrote books of mental criticism in my head about how the storyline should have happened, how it could have been done better, how the magic of the first years of Bionicle could have been preserved! But no! The story team was too callous--they didn't listen. It was all ruined, and I had to just move on. But as time passed, I realized that all these things that had built up ultimately did not matter. They didn't take away from the underlying themes that drew me to Bionicle and kept me there. In fact, they were mostly all superficial, and even if they were a part of the "official" storyline, they didn't have to be a part of my imagination. That is what has kept me an avid fan for nearly a decade--the fact that, as a fan, I don't have to follow the canon absolutely. This is a pretty simplistic idea, that one can simply ignore those elements of the storyline that one dislikes. But the thing that truly brought this home to me was the realization that the "foundations" of Bionicle that I love were not touched by these "bad things", even if I don't ignore them. The themes are still there. The same themes of Good vs. Evil, the same cosmic struggle of powers, the same inner struggle within an individual: to give in to the flawed evil within us all, or to follow Morality. And, most importantly: the struggle to regain the good that was lost through deception. The Toa strive to awaken their Great Spirit and return their microscosmic universe to its original, if flawed, state and purpose, while in the macrocosmic universe Mata Nui must ultimately seek to repair Paradise: Spherus Magna. What is the reason for pointing out these things? Perhaps simply to illustrate why I am not one of those fans who will inevitably say "Oh, I'm glad it's finally over." Those who have been jaded by all the "problems" that they perceive. Honestly, I've seen enough of that tripe written here, and it annoys me to no end. As if the people who say such things are so high up on their pedestals as to look down on the thing that they enjoyed so immensely in the past and say "Good riddance!" Really? Is that really what you want? How pathetic. What is your motivation? I don't deny that there are certainly missed opportunities galore in the Bionicle storyline, but these pale in comparison to the bigger picture. But enough of that. The real reason for this entry was to look back over the entire body of the Bionicle storyline and remember all the aspects that attracted me at the beginning, and to marvel at how I will remember the good far longer than any of the bad. It is remarkable that the truly mythological elements--that mysterious atmosphere that drew me and so many other fans to the line in the first place--is ultimately preserved if one goes over the storyline in summary form, perhaps because that feeling was never actually gone. I suppose it's also fitting, then that this announcement (and thus, this entry) comes at Thanksgiving. Thanks, Bionicle. Thanks for a decade of memories. I'm glad I'm still here, here at the end of all things... ...Sorry, I just couldn't resist. JRRT
  3. But... Old English is so much more than a British accent... JRRT
  4. Because if you used he or she you would be accused of sexism. ...and it would just sound really strange. JRRT
  5. The way that they captured the sense of epic scale in the picture is what I really like. All the other pictures of Mata Nui fail in this regard. JRRT
  6. This picture summarizes all the reasons why I have remained a fan of the Bionicle. JRRT
  7. Words cannot contain my excitement. It will be mine. JRRT
  8. JRRT

    Lolwut

    As far as I know, that's just a member whose account has been deleted. JRRT
  9. JRRT

    I Wonder Why...

    Because loan used to mean "gift," rather than...er...loan. You know what I mean. And "loanword" is actually borrowed from the German Lehnwort. Go figure. JRRT
  10. I'm not putting it back at 1892, guys. :P

  11. A side project. The sprite on the right is the old one (I hope you could kind of tell ) and the left one is a revamp. I'm glad to know that I've improved a little from the olden days. Oh, and hue-shifting is very fun. On another note, last college final was Wednesday! It was linguistics, so it wasn't all that hyper-stressful. And now I'm free to do what I will for the three+ weeks of Christmas break. We're planning to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon with some relatives around New Years. There will be snow (you know--that white stuff that falls out of the sky? It's like so weird!). I've been to the Grand Canyon once before when I was around seven years old. My only memory is a long rusty railing and a concrete observation point. I'm told this is because I was restricted from *cough* "exploring" after trying to climb over said railing and giving my parents gray hair. Ah, memories. JRRT
  12. No, Mandos was just in a good mood.

  13. Taking a look at one of the names for the Matoran Language that I've come up with: Matoranoro, cmpnd. the Words of Those Who Speak [Derived from the two elements matoran, literally "Word-Master Beings, Speakers", and oro "word(s)"] Matoran, n. lit. word-master being(s), generalized as "speakers", “those who speak” [From older matoroan; formed from the older compound mator(o) “word master” and the suffix -an “being, individual”] mator(o), cmpnd. word-master, a master of words [From the two elements ma(t) "master (of)" and oro "word(s)"] ma(t), n. user of, master of [Complete etymology uncertain; it is believed that mat first originated as *maa but this is not definitively attested; also appears as man] oro, n. word(s) [Complete etymology uncertain; possibly descended from a stem *hro] And in other news, I'm thinking of putting up a "sponsored kits" content block to help encourage some better spriting in AII...it's really gone drastically downhill for too long now. JRRT
  14. Phantoka means "Spirits of the Air", Mistika means "Spirits of the Mist", and neither one has ever been etymologically translated, with its elements separated. For all we know phan could mean "air/sky", mis could mean "mist/fog", and toka/tika could mean "spirit, form, shape". The story team never went any farther than the basic English translations. And, like I said, this is just my personal take on the language anyways. JRRT
  15. Two entries in one day...isn't that against the rules?! ------------- Well now, anyways, I've been working on this little project here and there for a long time now, and I think it's starting to come to a complete enough stage that I can post it. As a whole, it's basically my take on the form and history of the "Matoran Language" (in dictionary form). The language itself is called Matoranoro, which is "The Words of Those Who Speak" and also Kuitoronui, which is "The Great Speech". Right now I plan to post a short series of excerpts from it describing the etymology of certain Matoran words and names, and eventually to post the entire dictionary of it. Of course, I'm not really expecting many people to be extremely interested in it, since it's mostly just the long-winded and complicated ramblings of a linguistically obsessed geek. But we shall certainly see. I guess I don't care all that much one way or the other--it's my hobby, after all. And it's really fun to do. So, first "excerpt": a complete etymology of the word kanohi. Much of this stuff is actually given in a silly little SS I wrote called The Time. kanohi cmpnd. Mask of Power [Formed from the element ka “power, ability” and from the word nohi “face, mask” (see entries)] ka n. power, energy; ability, (creative) potential [Complete etymology uncertain. The word could have theoretically developed from a hypothetical form *kae; also spelled cah or ca (using the old orthographic letter c); also realized as aka, akha, kan, kar, khar and, in very rare cases, as the prefix gah- (separate from the elemental ga-)] nohi n. (outer) face, mask [used by mask-makers to refer to the powerless Matoran mask; nohi comes from the ancient form noehii, which, in turn, is formed from the ancient element noe, the elemental word for the substance of Protodermis and from the suffix -hii “thing, object.” Thus, nohi may, historically, be rendered as “thing of Protodermis”] ------------ And there it is. JRRT
  16. My reaction to the end of the first true arc of the Bionicle storyline and the beginning of the next: » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «When I first found out about the ultimate resolution of the Toa Nuva's quest, I actually felt quite let down. It happened to be on another website where there were no Bionicle Legends#11 spoiler warnings, and I didn't necessarily intend to spoil it for myself before reading the book. But it happened anyways. I first felt kind of shocked that that was where it ended. I remember thinking "so after all this waiting, this is how it ends up?! I waited seven years to see Mata Nui wake up and Makuta finally destroyed in some epic manner, and this is what we get?!" Yes, I was rather ticked off. I also remember thinking before I had seen the spoilers that even if Mata Nui was awakened, I probably wouldn't stay with Bionicle on into 2009 because I would get what I had been waiting for since I was ten. I mean, the Great Spirit was originally going to wake up at the end of '01, then it was postponed to the end of '03 (Vakama even says it outright in MoL, no less!), and then we forgot about it ever happening while we took a detour into the past to give the story some history (no, I'm not complaining about '04-'05, Metru Nui was awesome), and then we get back to present time and Mata Nui needs to be saved from death--not awakened. So finally at last after all that time we get to 2008 and back to the Toa Nuva and at last the most climactic moment of the entire story is supposed to arrive...!!...but no. It doesn't happen, and it turns out that it was all for nothing. Biggest initial let-down so far (initial, these are my initial reactions--it turns around later). However, after hearing now about the next arc of the storyline in Bara Magna and having all these little clues about "the shattering" dropped, I began to change my opinion. After all, if Mata Nui had simply been awakened, and Makuta, in the final stages of his plan, was thwarted and utterly destroyed, that would really be the end of Bionicle. Or at least, I can't really see how there could be anything else after the happy ending, unless we waited for five years and "re-started" in the future with a completely new plot. So now I actually start to see the wisdom in what happened and the genius of the story team in engineering it this way. We're back to a single Makuta--The Makuta. The Great Spirit is hurtling through the cosmos on his way to a new, shattered world and some ultimate renewing of the universe, vowing to one day return to his Universe and overthrow his usurper. It's an epic new plot rising out of the ashes of the previous. I've been a Bionicle fan since the first, tiny promotional image of Onua in one of the 2000 Lego Magazines, and I've survived till now, never expecting to remain a fan past the awakening (supposed awakening) of Mata Nui, and now I find that I've been unwittingly hooked into 2009 and the "greater universe" from which Mata Nui himself originated. So what began as extreme disappointment and frustration has now been miraculously reversed into renewed interest and anticipation of what is to come. Well done, Lego, I applaud you. JRRT
  17. » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «Except that now he can go on to conquer other worlds in the universe at large, being a planet-sized, nearly indestructible giant robot and all. It's got its perks. JRRT
  18. » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «1) All the Makuta in Karda Nui have died, either through treachery or because of the energy storms. Greg has confirmed that any remaining Makuta in the universe will be killed by the now-omnipotent Teridax (we're back to The Makuta! Yes!). All the Toa Nuva are alive, while Toa Ignika sacrificed his body to awaken Mata Nui. 2) Teridax is the only real big player now. And thus far Greg has said that he doesn't intend to kill the Toa right off the bat, since he doesn't consider them a threat anymore. 3) The inhabitants of the universe are pretty much helpless to do anything as of now (or at least until Mata Nui can return to oust Makuta). They can't "go on strike" because then Mata Nui's/Makuta's body will die (taking them with it), and Makuta can't necessarily just kill all of the Matoran because then he would cease to function (although he can still make their lives pretty miserable). So it looks like they'll just have to suffer through it until Mata Nui gets finished with whatever he runs into on Bara Magna and beyond. ----- Also, Greg has said that Makuta can now basically do everything that Mata Nui could (alter/designate destinies, control nature and the elements, create, destroy, etc.). He can be aware of everything that is going on in every part of the Matoran Universe as well as focus on what is happening in the "greater universe" around him. JRRT
  19. JRRT

    Linguistics

    Actually, I think it would be pinyin /c/ that corresponds to Japanese /ts/. /q/ is, as far as I know, (which isn't much in terms of Chinese ) an "alveopalatal affricate", meaning that it's a bit farther back along the roof of the mouth than the "alveolar affricate". Fun. JRRT
  20. JRRT

    Linguistics

    Japanese phonology, eh? ...or Chinese...or whatever other languages include alveolar affricates... I love my field. JRRT
  21. Section sign? What?

  22. JRRT

    Back To 48

    Hm... I'll say only that I voted for Prop 102 here in Arizona. I voted on my deep convictions and moral belief in the sanctity of traditional marriage. JRRT
  23. It's not Elvish, actually: it's my "version" of the Matoran Language. :)

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