As noted in the previous entry, I've been a BBC moderator for three years as of today. I've seen a lot of MOCs in that time. It'd be madness to try and work out how many (though it would be a fun rainy-day project). I've seen a lot of not-so-fantastic MOCs, but I haven't turned to the System-side philosophy that 'nothing good can come of Bionicle parts' in the least. I've seen an incredible number of generic humanoids-with-weapons of every quality, but I haven't given up on the imagination of the general building populace yet. Generally, I have remained as optimistic as I was three years ago.

But, oh, there is one chord that drives me insane every time it's hit. Contest #30? Oh, oh, oh. And it hasn't healed since. It's only grown worse. Thus, the following plea:

Please, please, please, use anything but Nuva shoulder armour for the breasts of female MOCs.

This is not because they are shaped incorrectly. Indeed, if positioned at the right angle, and placed on a MOC of appropriate scale, they are possibly the best option in such a scenario.

However.

This hasn't happened yet.

Instead, there's MOCs with Toa torsos (and the more custom torsos as well) of all makes with 'em mounted on there, in all sorts of ways. You've got 'em mounted like a big silver watermelon. You've got 'em with the flat tops pointing out and forward, which actually bears an ironic resemblance to male pecs. You've got 'em stuck on there like a Toa Nuva stood in front of her and folded their shoulders in to their chest by ninety degrees. Sometimes, in this last case, they may be tilted a bit.

None of these work. None.

All you get is a MOC who looks like she's patronized the fine med grads down in Beverly Hills on one (or more) occasions. They (or in the case of the watermelon, it) just sticks out like a pirate at a ninja convention. Unfortunately, this tends to prompt some rather inappropriate comments from the folks replying to the topic. Fortunately, neither I or the rest of the BBC staff are willing to put up with this. So, that's one thing we can directly deal with.

(And I will freely admit that I have done this for some of my MOCs in the distant past; however, you couldn't pay me enough to do it on a non-joke MOC in the past two years or so. I learned. It's possible.)

However, there still remains the issue of the shoulder armour. That isn't so easy. I can't exactly make it a rule: yeah, there might be a thing or two wrong with that. I can't go to each of your houses and pry the pieces away from you before you make such a placement. Really, the most I can do is ask you to seek out other options, and frankly, that's the only route I'd take, even if the others were open. This has to be a voluntary thing: you have to be willing to find other, better options.

You don't have to have each and every point of the curve defined. You don't need to differentiate between left and right. Just build something that fits the MOC. In so many cases, that isn't Nuva armour. That isn't a mask for each one. It's something else. It's something smaller. I don't know about individual areas, but the D-cup isn't the average size.

Please, please, please give this a shot.