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Set Review: 41505 Shuff


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well i've got bad news

 

according to the mixels website (which i can't link to because i can only view it in mobile), both shuff and seismo are referred to with male pronouns

 

which kinda stinks because the concept of mixels having better gender ratios than bonkles was kinda growing on me

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well i've got bad news

 

according to the mixels website (which i can't link to because i can only view it in mobile), both shuff and seismo are referred to with male pronouns

 

which kinda stinks because the concept of mixels having better gender ratios than bonkles was kinda growing on me

 

yeah but the sets are the only good part of Mixels (well, them and their combiners) so id say we have reason enough to buck the reins of "canon" and make these rad little buds whatever we want

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well i've got bad news

according to the mixels website (which i can't link to because i can only view it in mobile), both shuff and seismo are referred to with male pronouns

which kinda stinks because the concept of mixels having better gender ratios than bonkles was kinda growing on me

 

yeah but the sets are the only good part of Mixels (well, them and their combiners) so id say we have reason enough to buck the reins of "canon" and make these rad little buds whatever we want

oh yeah i kinda forgot the story is nonexistent

 

i guess these things grow on you when you've dealt with about fourteen years of lego lines with butchered stories

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well i've got bad news

 

according to the mixels website (which i can't link to because i can only view it in mobile), both shuff and seismo are referred to with male pronouns

 

which kinda stinks because the concept of mixels having better gender ratios than bonkles was kinda growing on me

yeah but the sets are the only good part of Mixels (well, them and their combiners) so id say we have reason enough to buck the reins of "canon" and make these rad little buds whatever we want

 

I wouldn't say that. I've been enjoying the cartoons. Well, some of them, at least. Some of them left me completely underwhelmed, and some were decent but not laugh-out-loud hilarious, but I LOVED "Cookironi" and "Mailman"

 

Shuff is definitely a really cute character, both in the cartoon and the set. I'll agree with other people that the lack of gender diversity in Mixels is a disappointment. Their genders aren't really important to the slapstick antics they get up to, but in that case why CAN'T half or even just a third of them be female instead of male? Maybe some of the ones coming out later in the year will be female, but I don't have high hopes.

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Serious question here—if we're going to disregard the canon genders for the Mixels, can our headcanon NOT have their genders organized by tribe? I feel like that's a part of Bionicle's legacy that's just as worth abandoning as the skewed gender ratios themselves—the idea that the ones with a certain character trait or element must be female and the ones with other traits must be male.

Personally if we were to assign new genders for the Mixels then of the current set I'd see Flain, Vulk, Volectro, and MAYBE Shuff as female. But I would have been happier if they were all genderless in the first place (while recognizing that the direction they took the cartoon, with talking Mixels, may have necessitated assigning them genders).

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Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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Personally if we were to assign new genders for the Mixels then of the current set I'd see Flain, Vulk, Volectro, and MAYBE Shuff as female. But I would have been happier if they were all genderless in the first place (while recognizing that the direction they took the cartoon, with talking Mixels, may have necessitated assigning them genders).

 

The problem is, the "genderless" argument can backfire hideously. People try using it with Transformers for why they're against fembots, which of course just highlights the issue that people assume "male" to be the default. So in theory, making them all genderless could work, if the cartoon made an attempt to give them more "androgynous" voices. But with the cartoon using exclusively male voices so far, if people try to call them "genderless" it just "others" femaleness more.

 

I definitely agree about not wanting it to be by tribe, though. I thought that was what Bionicle was going for in 2009 but apparently that was jsut an excuse to release even fewer female characters.

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All the Mixels are girls.

 

All of them

 

All of the problems are solved. You're welcome.

 

Please send your thanks in the form of monetary notes.

 

But Makaru, if all of them are girls then it's unequal because there are no men in the Mixels and theres definitely not a truckload of media out there with exclusively or predominately male casts that for some reason dont matter as much to me as an all-female cast :((((((

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But Makaru, if all of them are girls then it's unequal because there are no men in the Mixels and theres definitely not a truckload of media out there with exclusively or predominately male casts that for some reason dont matter as much to me as an all-female cast :((((((

 

james_van_der_beek_cry.jpg

 

But no, I'm all for mix(el???)ing it up. I just like the idea of this group of literal punk rock girls in the Lego universe.

Edited by Makaru
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20383310448_7d514f8ffa.jpg

 

Spoiler Alert

 

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Personally if we were to assign new genders for the Mixels then of the current set I'd see Flain, Vulk, Volectro, and MAYBE Shuff as female. But I would have been happier if they were all genderless in the first place (while recognizing that the direction they took the cartoon, with talking Mixels, may have necessitated assigning them genders).

The problem is, the "genderless" argument can backfire hideously. People try using it with Transformers for why they're against fembots, which of course just highlights the issue that people assume "male" to be the default. So in theory, making them all genderless could work, if the cartoon made an attempt to give them more "androgynous" voices. But with the cartoon using exclusively male voices so far, if people try to call them "genderless" it just "others" femaleness more.

 

I definitely agree about not wanting it to be by tribe, though. I thought that was what Bionicle was going for in 2009 but apparently that was jsut an excuse to release even fewer female characters.

 

I agree completely with that statement. The main issue with trying to make them genderless would be the fact that they, like Transformers, talk, and that we associate voices with genders naturally. My desire for them to be genderless is from very early on, when for all we knew they might be treated as non-talking animals like Pokémon. Since they took the line in a completely different direction than that (with talking Mixels as individual characters), I recognize that trying to portray them as genderless would be futile, and that the genders they wound up with (featuring all male voices and pronouns) leaves a heck of a lot to be desired.

 

My concern was mainly that we didn't attribute gender solely by tribe, as Bionicle did. I don't think treating them all as female works either—as a thought experiment it does well to highlight the ridiculousness of the all-male cast Lego has decided on, but if you're actually interested in developing a story or narrative then an all-female cast is just as problematic as an all-male one. And that's regardless of the predominance of all-male casts in media—two (or in this case, far more than two) wrongs don't make a right.

 

And as a final note, I recognize that since we're talking headcanon, everyone is well within their rights to portray the Mixels or any characters or sets however they want. But I'd much prefer if at least in frontpage reviews, BZPower could decide on how to deal with Mixels and stick with it so that the editorial policy doesn't look to be all over the place to outside viewers.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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My concern was mainly that we didn't attribute gender solely by tribe, as Bionicle did. I don't think treating them all as female works either—as a thought experiment it does well to highlight the ridiculousness of the all-male cast Lego has decided on, but if you're actually interested in developing a story or narrative then an all-female cast is just as problematic as an all-male one. And that's regardless of the predominance of all-male casts in media—two (or in this case, far more than two) wrongs don't make a right.

I think you're missing the point. The problem isn't that all-male casts exist, it's that they are, as you said, predominant. Ideally we'd have all-male casts, all-female casts, and mixed casts (and we do, just not as often as we should).

Edited by Sinclair
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hopelessly drifting, bathing in beautiful agony

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My concern was mainly that we didn't attribute gender solely by tribe, as Bionicle did. I don't think treating them all as female works either—as a thought experiment it does well to highlight the ridiculousness of the all-male cast Lego has decided on, but if you're actually interested in developing a story or narrative then an all-female cast is just as problematic as an all-male one. And that's regardless of the predominance of all-male casts in media—two (or in this case, far more than two) wrongs don't make a right.

I think you're missing the point. The problem isn't that all-male casts exist, it's that they are, as you said, predominant. Ideally we'd have all-male casts, all-female casts, and mixed casts (and we do, just not as often as we should).

 

I understand that. But I don't think all-male OR all-female casts are appropriate in works with a cast of characters as large and diverse as the Mixels unless there's some kind of in-story justification. There will be 27 unique Mixels by the end of the year. But I don't want to dwell on a sensitive topic like this; the longer I do the more likely it is that I'll say something that can be misconstrued. It's just a personal opinion and not one that matters all that much, since we're talking about our individual headcanons for a theme that's light on story in the first place.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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Shuff is the best Cragster, I love him and even find him entertaining in the cartoon (Mailman was, in fact, pretty great) I agree with the review in that the build was a bit of a surprise in how complete and compact it is. It's pretty great.

 

 

(I'm referring to Shuff as male because, as stated above, I actually enjoy his portrayal in canon and as such I'm inclined to just roll with it. Most other Mixels I don't necessarily care about in the show, so I can go about headcanoning different genders and personalities and whatever on them all I want, but I'm cool with Shuff. Also Zaptor. Zaptor is pretty cool.)

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