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ToM Dracone

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  1. ToM Dracone

    Crustaceans

    By ToM Dracone,

    I've had this idea brewing in my head for literally a year. And since Kohaku agreed with it, here we go:
     
    We should assemble a massive army of Bionicle crabs at Brickfair.
     
    Seriously. Think about how spectacular that would be. If loads of us BZPers who came to Brickfair or sent MOCs brought along a crab or two each, we could very quickly assemble an awful lot of them. People can build Ussals in various colors, bring Hahnah crabs from Jaller Mahri, and maybe even a few Rock Ussals from the VNOLG could make an appearance. At the very least my rock ussal will be there:
     

     
    I feel like including Pewku from 2003 would just be excessive, since all the rest of the crabs are small and cute and then she'd just be this ginormous behemoth and it would be bad.
     
    I think we should totally make this happen. Masses of little technic crabs. Just for the hilarity of it and the confusion it would cause on the other AFOLs' faces.
     
    Who's with me?
    ~ ToM
  2. ToM Dracone

    I Am God

    By ToM Dracone,

    Seriously. In my class's skit for Spirit Week next week, I play the role of God. I get to wear a white suit and a crown and sunglasses and it will be awesome. Those of you who know my last name will understand why this is particularly appropriate for me. :3 Our first goal is to be hilarious; our second is to avoid sacrelige so we don't get points taken off for that...
     
    And helloo again to all of you! I'm back. I have a variety of things to report on and a variety of things to show you all, like school and the yearbook and my own Avotoran and then Turaga Nuva. But those will all have entries nicely to themselves.
     

     
    For the moment I would love it if someone could tell me who or what this is. I got the idea completely out of the blue as usual and I'm still not quite sure who he is...
     
    ~ ToM
  3. ToM Dracone

    They Are America

    By ToM Dracone,

    Obama. McCain. Biden. Palin. You all know that the best ticket out there would be Stephen Colbert and Tina Fey. They'd know how to handle things as President and VP.
     
    (and so help me if anyone turns this into a real political discussion I will have to hurt you.)
     
    Also, the deadline for registering to vote is coming up! It's already there in Texas! Don't miss out if you want to vote!
    ~ ToM
  4. ToM Dracone
    Project Nuva lives again! Oddly, in the weekend before APs, but...
     

    (click for the full image, of course)
     
    Most of it is explained in the picture, except for one thing: the red lightsaber beams. I would have much preferred ice blue, personally, since it completes the icy look, but apparently red is needed to add a flare of color to the neutral scheme. And since he did have one red eye and one blue in MoL, I'm okay with it.
     
    What do you think?
    ~ ToM
  5. ToM Dracone

    Why

    By ToM Dracone,

    You may have been wondering what it was that spurred Project Nuva to life.
     
    Look at the front page. Now you know.
     
    When I saw the leaked pictures, the first thing I thought upon seeing the lime and orange Toa was that the former looked exactly like Lesovikk (lime chest and head with a distinctly Faxon-like mask – two out of three points of distinction), and the latter like a Toa wearing the Vahi. There's a big problem here when a new set is released that is instantly recognizable as an old character – but isn't that character, and a mask shape for four years (and one later book) defined as that of the Mask of Time is for some reason called the Kakama.
     
    I have discoursed at length in various other places why it makes no sense for Lego not to make re-released Toa Nuva that actually look clearly like their former selves (notice I did not say "exactly"). "Lewa" has only two similarities to his former self – the presense of lime green and the fact that he carries a sword, and as I've said that appearance immediately makes me think of Lesovikk. "Pohatu" has claws, and absolutely nothing else to make me think of the Toa Nuva of Stone. "Kopaka" bears the most resemblance, through at least having white and a shade of grey, but his mask has the eyepiece on the wrong side, and he lost the sword(s) and shield that defined him for so long.
     
    And I utterly and completely hate those airplane wings.
     
    I do not feel like attributing anything positive to these at the moment. When I do (and rest assured that I can separate my opinion of sets from opinion of sets in relation to story), it will be from a viewpoint purely of pieces, because I have seen nothing to make me think, at a glance, that these are the Nuva, and also see no reason that such a course of action should have been taken.
     
    This is my opinion. Unless you can provide me with a logical, evidence-based reason for Lego to have left almost no resemblance to the Nuva (and as yet no one has, so until someone does I will not see logic in this travesty), I ask that you allow me to keep it in peace.
    ~ ToM
  6. ToM Dracone
    :: ::

    BULK!



    Onua Mistika à la ToM. He actually has the bulk that Onua mandates, a hunch (neck socket plugged into the topmost hole in the redesigned Nuva armor), and also actual armor. None of which the real set has, except for the bizarre pauldron. Actually, it was looking at that thing that gave me the idea for the legs – I liked the idea of using the Bitil wing piece somewhere on Onua, and it occured to me to put it on his legs, since I had already decided to use Vahki legs. It resulted in awesome armor.

    Some notes, which you absolutely must read:The Matoro claw/jetpack contraption is acceptable here because my version of Lewa does NOT use them as his means of flight, so it's not reusing a winter set design. I considered using the new jet engine pieces from the Mistika (a pair of them to each shoulder) for the sake of using new pieces, but I decided that they looked far inferior to the Avotoran jetpacks. I chose green as his accent color because A, it works perfectly with his trans-green eyes, and B, it's a bright color without being vivid like the set's red is – therefore, it doesn't look peculiar at his back the way the red does, but fulfills Onua's bright-color-requirement. With the neon green lightsaber blade in his blaster. Dark grey Metru thigh armor isn't listed under "recolored pieces" because my version of Lewa uses them, so they technically aren't recolored on Onua. I've been debating giving him claws. The new Mistika claws would attach to the outermost pin hole on the Vahki legs he uses as arms by means of a perpendicular axle joiner. This lets them hang over his hands, but leave him with plenty of room to hold his blaster – because the claws can go upward if he needs more flexibility. Think he'd be better with them, or would they add too much clutter while holding the blaster?
    Now that you've read those notes and hopefully had some questions answered, what do you think? Any suggestions? Claws or none? (Remember that he has to hold his blaster two-handed.)

    I'll post some real life stuff and that MOC I mentioned soon, I swear – I've had a much busier week than I had anticipated...
    ~ Mona Lisa
  7. ToM Dracone

    Her Imperial Majesty

    By ToM Dracone,

    :: :: 
    Here's a guessing game for all of you guys. I've been doodling this figure for the past couple days in the edge of my history notebook, a human rendition of a certain Bionicle character, and I'm wondering if you can tell who she is. I started it while trying to get her face and hair right and doodling such all over everything, then it progressed to be a rough image of her battle armor (sans helmet).
     

     
    Brief information that won't help you at all: she's black, she has bright green eyes, she's rather short, her hair is quite long but she keeps it in cornrows for battle... And if I told you the color of her armor it ... actually probably wouldn't help that much. Those who have read my stories may remember certain bits of description.
     
    So guess away! I'm curious what people will say, and how long it will take someone to figure out who she is. No hints.
    ~ ToM
  8. ToM Dracone
    Fully colored in Photoshop, free of outlines. With a background. And printed at a large size. Now to finish it in the next five days or so...
     

    For freedom we rise Learn to fly, reach the sky,
    Legend will carry you thousands of miles...
    Take a stand, hold the land,
    Make sure that everyone's ready to win...
    Find the speed, all you need
    Team up for battle we rise...
    ~ ToM
  9. ToM Dracone

    Kumquats

    By ToM Dracone,

    » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «Briefly, they are what I think of when I look at the new Ignika. 
    Seriously.
     
    Small, round, oblong, and yellow-orange when less than ripe. All adjectives that most unfortunately describe the new Ignika (minus the ripeness part). Basically, it's been truncated, compressed, shrunk, rounded, and in other words made less interesting in every possible way. Gone is the dramatic, sweeping shape of the 2008 Ignika. Gone is the crescent at the back of the top, and now the three ridges there just curve very uninterestingly back into the mask. Everything's been flattened into a tiny, round shape only slightly larger than a Glatorian head. Which means it's really tiny.
     
    And boring.
     
    And yellow.
     
    Why not gold? Why not the old Ignika? It's gold in the movie. (So is Mata Nui, but that's for another entry) The Ignika's only supposed to be gold, silver, or black, anyway. I still don't see any reason why it -has- to be a new mold in the first place. The old version with a normal Metru head (I'd hope still ice blue eyes, of course) would be delightful. Heck, you could even orient the Glatorian head like an Avotoran one and it wouldn't be that terrible. And I can't help but think that it would cost Lego a lot less.
     
    Small fruit are not what the Great Spirit himself, given a set form after eight years, is supposed to be reminiscent of.
     
    We'll discuss the rest in a later entry, shall we? For the moment I'll say that I'm rather underwhelmed by the group as a whole.
    ~ ToM
  10. ToM Dracone

    Bionicle Stars: Hahli

    By ToM Dracone,

    This is what I've spent half my time not studying/doing end-of-semester assignments doing lately, and some time when I really should have been working on those.
     

    note: this picture is actually a link now. I feel stupid.
     
    As I said last entry, I think star!Vezok's set is extremely boring and disappointing for a supposed "Star," and that Hahli would be both much more deserving of a place in the last Bionicle sets ever, and would also look a whole lot more interesting.
     
    So, this is her. She has Gresh's armor (thus, two Stars with that armor and two with Tahu's), and she also has her Matoran color scheme. I like the idea of her Star form having the lime of her Mahri set, but I didn't do that for several reasons – one, we have two Stars with lime already; two, the only ways I could come up with to incorporate lime would either result in too much of it and thus a bad color distribution, or would be too much like Gresh. So she got light blue. And for her wings, after much debate, I went with Mata Nui's blades. They were the only pieces with the real volume I wanted her wings to have, and I decided eventually that that was more important than their slightly more limited flexibility.
     
    Since the wings would attach using these pieces into the pin holes on her back. And by the way, if someone could take a photo of the Avotoran torso and Mata Nui's blades in that arrangement, I'd be much obliged. (I'm very far away from my collection, so I can't quite do it myself.)
     
    Also, clearly she still needs a tool of some sort. Suggestions are welcome. (the 25 piece count includes a tool.)
     
    And, uh, yes, I did have great fun designing the background. I'm also really pleased with how the lineart turned out as well; I was pretty much making the style up as I went. But I'll definitely use this for stuff like this in the future. (I uploaded it over here, if anyone cares for it.)
     
    Oh, on the subject of things I've been doing instead of studying: banners! Feel free to take some. Well, only one at a time, please. But anyway.
     
    Off to do some more studying, which – along with papers – has basically been my life lately.
    ~ ToM
  11. ToM Dracone

    Photok Or Kirop?

    By ToM Dracone,

    A question to those who have them: which should I get?
     
    Photok has those glorious ORANGE TOA FEET, a mask that reeks of Kakama-ness, and as a very minor point, Chronicler's Staffs in the post-2006 dull silver color. Kirop has grey two-toed feet and the long Avotoran limbs in both black and grey. Kirop also has wings. Which isn't unique to him, but he's the only set with them that I'm at all interested in.
     
    Both have the wide-shouldered Avotoran body, but I'll be getting it in black with Bitil come summer, whereas Photok's the only one who has it in grey. That body's part of why I want one of them, since I have the thin one already in Tanma. I suppose the only reason I'm even getting one of them is the combination of wanting that piece mixed with the various other things each has of interest – otherwise said things of interest wouldn't be quite enough.
     
    I think I'm sort of skewed toward Photok to begin with, but Kirop is temptiiiing...
     
    *throws the nice-looking but annoying late-March snow at anyone who wants it* >>
    ~ ToM
  12. ToM Dracone
    I have decided that this book is so totally awesome that it needs an entry entirely to itself.
     
    (it should be self-evident that this contains drastic amounts of spoilers, if anyone reading this plans to read the book but hasn't yet)
     
    Seriously, The Amber Spyglass has just about every single thing I love in it. Evolutionary biology, mythology, gay guys, witches, familiars, forest scenes, mystical places (namely the rainbow valley), and – and and and – as many women as men in positions of authority! Probably the only thing missing from my list of favorite things is some linguistics.
     
    I just love everything about it. It works itself out so perfectly, too. I wouldn't have had Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter die any other way, and Pantalaimon and Kirjava's final forms are so cool and fitting for them. And then ... Lyra and Will. Saddest young love story ever. And yet it's so fitting and works so well.
     
    That's another thing I love about all three books, they're not just fantasy trips – they actually have well-thought-out plots and such deep and complex characters. Mrs. Coulter. Mrs. Coulter! She was -amazing- in The Amber Spyglass! Utterly impossible to tell her motivations until the very end. It's so suspenseful.
     
    And I must throw in a word about Mary Malone. She's so lovable.
     
    Oh, this isn't the place to discuss the religious aspects, but I do have to say that if you're Catholic it -totally- makes sense that you might be slightly miffed about the series as a whole. Like, when I was reading The Subtle Knife and got to the revelation of Lord Asriel's plans, I thought "WOAH OKAY now I understand why the Catholics are up in arms over this." So yeah. Displeasure over that is rather justified.
     
    But anyway, I love all three books so much. I could go on raving about all the parts I like for ages, since I like almost everything in all three. They're very very high on my list of favorite books of all time. They're -such- beautiful stories.
    ~ ToM
  13. ToM Dracone

    Onward

    By ToM Dracone,

    With the rest of them! Now, who shall we talk about first...
     

    » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «Dunno. I might as well discuss the group as a whole. I think what it is that leaves me feeling underwhelmed about them is that they lack flair. There are exceptions, but I feel like most of them lack dramatic bits and a certain distinction that the Glatorian, for comparison, did have. Gresh had his dramatic spikes and color scheme; Strakk his torso and shoulders; Malum his huge bulk and claws; Vorox was tan and had a tail; even Skrall had a unique build and his rather epic shoulder blades. Paraphrasing from DV, they were Inika clones who looked fantastic while being so. (Tarix is the exception.) 
    But when I look at these, it's their Inika-ness that I see more than the distinctions that they do have. Except for Stronius, the Glatorian Legends (is that really their name?) all have almost exactly the same body shape, at most a couple studs away from exact Inika proportions. With the Glatorian you had hunches and new body shapes and Malum's stocky bulk, and only Tarix and Gresh were left upright and seriously Inika-like in proportion. But there just isn't that variety with these.
     
    And because of that, their lack of dramatic distinction from previous canister sets is even more pronounced. Especially because they all use Thornax. I'm all for re-using projectiles or launchers, if there's something different about them (say, the Inika's Zamor magazines or the Midak). I mean, I thoroughly loved the spiked Zamor that were prototypes for the Thornax. But having -exactly- the same launchers for two series is slightly disappointing...
     
    Now, let's see... who shall we go with first... oh, why not Kiina?
     
    Kiina ~ I love her light blue. I also love the fact that -finally- Lego has made a female set that actually has female proportions! But what I don't like is that they sacrificed all aesthetic value of her torso to do so. Would it kill them to make Hordika necks in another color, like black at the very least? Or leave the 2-axles black for Kiina if no one else? And what about the technic triangles on her back; couldn't those be dark blue too? Sigh.
     
    Also annoying is that her body is tiny while all her limbs are really long. Her fin-pieces are interesting, if nothing else... I dunno. She seems very spindly overal, and my opinion on her is not settled yet. Seeing her with her proper mask color will help.
     
    Ackar ~ ORANGE. AND. BRIGHT RED. Plus ankle covers. Loooove. It's almost enough to overrule the fact that he is literally an Inika. Which is rather disappointing. It's a great design, and the ankle guards make it even better, but it just looks like he's missing something when the only thing that's unique to him is his sword, of all things. I'm okay with using Berix's mask (it really can go either way, fire or water), but after Malum I'd like to see some more fiery-looking pieces... maybe on his shoulders?
     
    He ranks very highly for me, just because I want that red and orange. Speaking of which, where were these last year when we had a Toa whose colors are red and orange?
     
    Gelu ~ He looks quite dashing and very sleek, but my main impression is "didn't we get half of this in Strakk?" And indeed we did. I love the white Inika chest, and through such he's better with recolored pieces than Strakk was, but I'm thinking I liked Strakk better. Partly because of how perfectly Strakk embodied the element of Ice. Gelu is cool, I like his sword, and the snowflakes on his arms are a nice touch, but there's ... not that much new to him. And I think the white Inika thigh armor is getting a bit old now. (Seriously – he has exactly four new/recolored pieces. Total. That's not much.)
     
    So yeah, he looks -really- nice, and like Strakk he has an awesome and unique color scheme, but also like Strakk an enormous majority of him comes in other sets. He's even worse than Strakk that way. I might end up just getting the white Inika chest on its own...
     
    Stronius ~ He's bulky and spiky and this is good. I think the only thing I really dislike is how big his head is. I'm not sure how I feel about the club yet. But I like him overall, though he seems a little on the simple end... Sort of hard to tell since most of the pics of him have the club in the way, and the ones that don't have the lighter, grainy prototype plastic. We'll see. I do like the fact that he looks clearly like a Skrall without being a clone of the winter set in the slightest!
     
    Mata Nui ~ I would be utterly in love with him if he were gold. What I had thought, from the leaked pics, was that he had gold armor over a yellow-and-black body – so his ankle guards, Inika legs, thigh armor, chest armor, shoulder armor, and Ignika would be gold, while his feet, hips, upper arm sockets, and hands would be yellow-orange. But because he's entirely yellow and has a new and far less appealing Ignika, I'm a lot less interested in him. I sort of think there's just too much yellow this way. It makes me think of a construction vehicle.
     
    But we discussed him and gold and how disappointing yellow is by comparison somewhat at length in the comments of last entry, so we don't need to here. I like his set's design a lot, especially the ankle covers, and the Mata Nui symbol blades are awesome and make great shoulder coverings (but they'd be so much cooler in gold). His upper arms, however, are annoyingly long. One could use a short double-socket and attach the blades with a perpendicular axle joiner just as easily.
     
    Vastus ~ The only word for him is awkward. His mask is goofy, his shoulder armor looks too organic to work with anything else on his body, the Inika thigh armor on his chest is awkward. And his color scheme is awkward. On his arms, it's lime over dark green, but then everywhere else, it's dark green over lime. It doesn't work very well. And then he has the eternally awkward Hordika legs. His staff looks awkward too. Sigh. The only things I really like are solid dark green Inika feet and the lovely clear-and-green Mahri tube – but even that pales in comparison to the absolutely incredible clear-and-lime tubes that Bunda got. Double sigh.
     
    He could be very interesting, if only he had a better texture. His mask and shoulders are organic-looking, and so is some of his staff, but then the rest of his body is all pistony and technical and the colors on his staff aren't so great. So he could look like this ancient jungle warrior if only the rest of his body matched his shoulders... his arms would have to be inverted, the armor and Metru legs dark green and the socket lime, then maybe another tube on him, and maybe Kalmah armor for his legs... Then he's have to have more organic, trailing stuff to look like vegetation, I think a few Piraka minifig spines.
     
    Hmm, this is fun. I do always enjoy making sets better, don't I?
     
    Well, at any rate, there are my thoughts on the canister sets for you. Opinions on some of them, like Kiina and Stronius, are not quite determined yet. And Gelu is too cool-looking for my own good.
     
    All of this will be resolved by summer, I'm sure. And I'm getting design ideas already, which is a good thing. Maybe I'll draw something in the next couple days. What say you?
    ~ ToM
  14. ToM Dracone

    Thoughts On 2009

    By ToM Dracone,

    This has nothing to do with recent occurances.
     
    I started typing this up while on vacation, but since I didn't finish I've just left it as a draft since then – a sort of rambling entry detailing my expectations for 2009 over the years, as we've learned progressively more about it.
     
    In 2006 and early 2007, we knew that '06-'08 was the Mask of Life story arc. I assumed (as I think many did) that the Inika would be the heroes for all three years, ending with the healing of Mata Nui and the death of Matoro in exchange. 2009 would then return to the Nuva, going on whatever quest was next for them in preparation to actually awaken Mata Nui.
     
    But then we learned that the Nuva were going to return in 2008, and that Mata Nui would die at the end of 2007. This changed things, and I had the idea that 2008 would be spent jointly between the Mahri and Nuva to bring Mata Nui back to life. (I have never ever liked that all Matoro had to do was fall into Karda Nui wearing the Ignika. No preparations or mysterious forces or ritualistic events involved. But that's a rant for somewhere else.) I don't recall what I thought of 2009 at this point, but I do not think I ever thought they would awaken Mata Nui in '08.
     
    Once that fact became clear, and it was stated that '09 would be starting anew, something simple, something old and new fans could appreciate, I began to dream up ideas for what this could entail. As I saw (and still see) it, there was infinite opportunity to explore the rest of the world. Without being constrained by using old characters (and thereby probably displeasing old fans with their new forms), you could completely start over – no need to create a transition, or some awkward and illogical explanation for a transformation.
     
    There are loads of places in the Bionicle world we've never been – take the mainland, for instance. It's huge, we've never been there; you could hardly have more opportunity waiting to be used. And there's a ready-made set of villains you could take advantage of: the Zyglak! Since their introduction in 2007 I've been waiting for a year where they were the canister villains. They'd work wonderfully for a simple, fresh-start storyline. Maybe a 3/3 split again.
     
    And the small sets? They could be anything. Smaller Zyglak, Matoran (but a change from them would be nice), or – dare I say it – the Nuva turned Turaga. I've long thought that the Nuva will have to give up their Toa power to awaken Mata Nui, so having Turaga 'Nuva' as small sets in 2009 would work wonderfully. And since there are plenty of Turaga in Metru Nui now, the six of them could easily travel together somewhere where they might be needed – like one of the Continents.
     
    I'm really rambling, but this idea amuses me greatly. It has endless potential. And you might even be able to get a bit of the old tropical island feel back, or something similar to how 2001 felt, if you did it right.
     
    So it has always seemed silly to me to switch to a whole new universe, when there's a ton of stuff begging to be explored in the original one. Does that mean I think 2009 will be bad? Not at all. We still know almost nothing about it, so I can't say. But there's a part of me that will always wish something like the idea outlined above had been done...
    ~ ToM
  15. ToM Dracone
    I have a problem.
     
    Lego has made a ton of absolutely stunning sets this year, nearly all of the most amazing in the expensive range, and I want all of them.
     
    The Agents' Speedboat Rescue and Mobile Command Center, the Troll Warship, the Dwarves' Mine (hey, it introduced this year's theme), the enormous Castle Chess Set, the Mars Mission Crystal Reaper and Hypersonic Operations Aircraft, and of course Axalara, the Jetraces, and Rockoh (to a lesser degree than the former two, er, three).
     
    And those are just naming the $40+ ones.
     
    Whatever am I to do?
    ~ ToM
  16. ToM Dracone
    Some fiddlings with pieces...
     

     
    First, Takanuva's new Power Lance. I've never really liked the set version; the head seems awfully big, especially with how short and thin the handle is. Just doesn't come together into a single, solid design.
     
    So I remedied that with Hewkii's shoulder spikes. Three of them together make a neat, solid shape, and are also the right size for a normal Toa to wield (or even the original Takanuva)... I know Lego wouldn't do this, because they technically don't fit together perfectly, but it makes for a nice MOC weapon.
     

     
    Second, I've had Gali's leg design lying around for a while, and last weekend I also had a Matoro claw around. This was the result. I think it would make an interesting idea to use on an MOC, since it provides a nice slope to cover the ankles without impeding foot movement... and you can do it with most types of legs, too. (Note: it looks better in real life, since you can see how it flows properly. If you have the right pieces lying around, try it.)
     
     
    Also, apparently Onua has silver Rahkshi legs. Who knew? I had assumed they were dark grey, given his body, which makes the silver yet another blow against an already suffering color scheme. Nice piece, though.
     
    And a belated happy Canada Day to all! I had meant to wish people that earlier in the week (like maybe on July 1st itself), but I kept getting distracted...
    ~ ToM
  17. ToM Dracone

    Back To 48

    By ToM Dracone,

    Alongside the incredible, amazing, and truly historic victory of electing Barack Obama President, an enormous triumph of the civil rights movement, that same movement suffered a defeat. In fact, three defeats.
     
    California, the second state to formally legalize marriage between same-sex couples, became the first to repeal that. It was joined by Florida and Arizona in banning gay marriage, though those two never formally legalized it to begin with. And that leaves only Connecticut and Massachussets, changing what I said a few weeks ago from "Three down, forty-seven to go!" back to forty-eight.
     
    But hey, I'm an optimist! Discrimination like this never stands, even if it takes decades to get rid of it. As Kate Kendall recently said, “We pick ourselves up and trudge on. There has been enormous movement in favor of full equality in eight short years. That is the direction this is heading, and if it’s not today or it’s not tomorrow, it will be soon.”
     
    And as Martin Luther King Jr. and many others said, "We shall overcome."
     
    And as President-Elect Barack Obama and many, many others said, "Yes, we can."
     
    We can what? In this case, end hatred of people who happen to be different than the majority. Establish equal rights for people whose only difference from everyone else is that they happen to prefer something different. They're not doing anything to you! Let them love! And, the harder thing for people to accept, let them enjoy the same rights as you!
     
    Because love is always better than hate, and I think we can at least agree on that, can't we?
     
     
    Now, the real question, should I leave this open? I would hope people could respect each other even if they disagree, but at the same time this is just slightly on the controversial end of things. Well, this shall be an experiment. Hopefully I won't have to close this, so don't make me (or the blogfolks) have to, okie?
    ~ ToM
  18. ToM Dracone
    If I made blog entries more often, I wouldn't have to stick a bunch of random thoughts into one all at once, but I never feel any one individually is quite worth it... usually, at least. So, off we go again!
     
    Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is an amazing book. I've never read anything quite like it, and I'm not really sure how to describe it. It takes some getting used to the dialect, and it's definitely a book you have to stick with for a while before you truly start to enjoy it, but once you're done you realize how great it really was. I should find more of her works...
     
    Took the SAT IIs today, in English (Literature), Biology, and Latin. English was okay, though as always some of the questions about passages and the author's meaning or the characters' motivations were peculiar. Biology was, for me, a complete joke, since I took the AP version thereof (a million times harder) last month. And I was laughing throughout most of the Latin exam. I had fun with it, as I usually do with Latin tests...
     
    I'm almost done drawing Onua Mistika, my version. I'll have him colored and up in a few days – my dad's recarpeting and repainting his office, so the scanner is unavailable at the moment. I came up with the perfect idea for his legs, and now I can't wait for the summer sets so I can actually build it. And I finally settled on his accent color – green, instead of the red he has now (see Lewa/Nuva/everyone else before '04) – and a design for the Pakari Mistika.
     
    I'm looking at Takanuva, Gali, and Bitil as canidates for the first Mistika I'll get. Takanuva is just cool by himself, cool enough for me to actually buy a $30 set myself; Bitil has the most pieces of the four canister sets I want, and thus most warrants the $13 price tag; and Gali looks pretty nifty, even if not at all Gali-like. Which say you.
     
    By the end of this week, I will finally have seen the Princess Bride. I've been wanting to for ages. I expect to start quoting it shortly after I finish.
     
    There actually will be an MOC posted by me tomorrow. Took a while, but I finally came up with a suitable, if slightly boring, head design...
     
    The Nui-Rama are truly wonderful sets. Truly. As you've seen, I scrounged up the pieces for the green one, and if I can wrest some more black from the clutches of my MOCs, I'll do the orange as well. *loves them*
    ~ Paradise
  19. ToM Dracone

    This One

    By ToM Dracone,

    The question of 'what Grievous?' was asked several times in recent and also not-so-recent entries. 
    This is the answer.
     

     
    I must say, it's an odd feeling knowing one's MOC was played with and posed by others before I got to...
    ~ ToM
  20. ToM Dracone

    2006 Revisited

    By ToM Dracone,

    So, Sméag and I and then Janus and I were talking about this the other night, and I figured I'd make a blog entry about it, because goodness knows I'm not going to get around to writing a story about this any time soon.
     
    Anyone remember back in 2005, when Greg told us that 2006 would be returning to a more "tribal" feel? And then how there was actually none of that at all in the 2006 story? I mean, sure, the Matoran lived in a village by themselves, rather than a city, but that was just about it. There was no culture to it.
     
    However! The Piraka looked distinctly tribal, especially in the early leaked photos we got of them (Reidak particularly more so in prototype, with his glowing third eye and longer tail). Their faces just looked deliciously like wild, scary, tribal masks, and then of course the spines added a lot more in the way of wildness.
     
    So I was thinking about this the other night, how tribal the Piraka could have been, and that made me think – what if the Piraka had been the native species of Voya Nui? They would have existed as a more primitive culture than the Matoran, hidden in the depths of the forests of Voya Nui or inhabiting the various mountains on it. I would see them as not stupid, but having a social system such that the lower Piraka were deeply, deeply obedient to the higher ones. These higher ones in the social system would be shamans of a sort, controlling the lesser Piraka with an elaborate system of myths and legends and cautionary tales to keep them in line.
     
    The Mask of Life, hidden in Mount Valmai but known to the Piraka, would be a deeply significant object of legend to them, something the Piraka would be willing to die to protect – it would no doubt be the center of all manner of stories, and probably be attributed the property of protecting the Piraka species from Mount Valmai's eruptions. That, then, would be why they fought so hard against the Toa Nuva when they arrived to claim the Mask of Life.
     
    And I guess that's where the Matoran come back in. The six we got would probably be the few who had actually dared to explore further inland, sneaking through the forests and finding out both the lay of the land and about the Piraka, and thus they would help the Nuva on their quest for that reason.
     
    But! The Nuva would still get defeated, of course. But not by some awkward scheme of "well the Nuva are the most powerful Toa in the universe, but we have to get rid of them anyway, so we'll just give the Piraka way too many powers and pretend they're strong enough to defeat the Nuva." Nothing like that. The Piraka would defeat the Toa Nuva simply by better knowledge of the land, by setting booby traps for them in the forests. They would separate the Nuva from each other and then capture them one by one by ambushes, sneak attacks, traps, and poison darts.
     
    And then the Inika come along as usual.
     
    And hey, even Vezon would make a bit more sense now. He'd be a lone daring Piraka who ventured into the heart of Mount Valmai to find the Mask of Life, and was rewarded by being made its guardian. Perhaps he himself would be legendary among the Piraka – either that, or everyone assumed he perished in the attempt.
     
    Gods, I'd have liked that so, so much more.
    ~ ToM
  21. ToM Dracone
    Avotoran life before the Brotherhood attacked was like Victorian Society.
     
    Really, after they cleaned up everything after the Great Cataclysm, they had about a thousand years with absolutely nothing to do. (Not that time seems to pass quite as slowly or years be as long in the Bionicle universe, but that's beside the point.) Naturally, they would turn to forms of cultural sophistication and artistic expression. Architecture, for instance. There must have been loads of interesting buildings, and with that much time with nothing to do you can be sure they lived in something more extravagant than huts. And then they probably had sculptures and such things everywhere... maybe of Takanuva...
     
    And oh my goodness, they had hanging gardens. Lots of them. Seriously hanging, given that they lived on top of fallen stalactites and had all that open air all around them. And then the bridges between villages would probably be all decked with vines and flowers and whatnot...
     
    But back to Victorian England rather than ancient Babylon, there must have been opera. Oh yes. In elegant theaters. Or, if the weather was good, the best singers who could project their voices the most probably sang in the open air so that the residents of other villages could hear them and their voices would echo throughout all of Karda Nui. It would have been amazing to hear.
     
    Some form of sport would have been developed, most likely, to make use of all the open air. Maybe an imported form of Akilini, or for all we know it was something entirely different. And of course they would have gone exploring, once they devised an adequate means of flight, so by the time they were attacked they'd have known everything about Karda Nui and its geography and the cave walls and what sort of plants are found on which ledges and which Rahi lived in the swamp down below. Then some of them probably vanished, never to be seen again, while exploring the caverns leading off from the main cave... and legends developed about them at the same time as Solek and others like her recorded and translated and such the old legends about the Toa, which were read aloud (because all legends are written in metered verse, and thereby pleasant to the ear) alongside epic poems and the like...
     
    Oh, and they definitely developed all sorts of aesthetic things to do with light, given their innate light powers. Art nouveau, things that looked like Lothlórien, etherial glows at night, decorative borders... extrapolations of lightstones... fireworks, maybe...
     
    There might even have been sky pirates, but that's just getting excessive.
    ~ ToM
  22. ToM Dracone
    Vezon is British.
     
    He lives with his pet spiders in this old, fancy mansion. His preferred décor is chains and glittering, spiderweb-patterned drapery. In his spare time he throws large, extravagant tea parties and amuses himself by trying different poisons of his own invention on the guests. He tests the slow-acting ones when he has many guests, so that only one or two of them actually die, and only when they're on their way out and thus out of sight of the rest. The fast-acting ones he reserves for individual luncheons.
     
    The whole mansion is booby-trapped. There are trap doors and concealed pits and falling nets and such all over the place, which is how he gets live subjects to experiment on. Because really, it would just be rude if he went out out and kidnapped people.
     
    He has a large laboratory somewhere. That's where he mixes his poisons and potions and tinkers with his more mechanical inventions. The basements and cellars have all been made into torture chambers, in which he keeps hidden recording devices so he can listen to the screams later and mix them artistically. The weapons room is lined with pictures of Vezok for target practice. There's also a greenhouse, which is filled with carnivorous, putrid, and toxic plants of all shapes and sizes (he prefers the ones that are large). And then there's a circular room on the second floor that's always heated and is filled with several dozen lava lamps so he can watch them when he gets bored.
     
    You know it's true.
     
    ~ ToM
  24. ToM Dracone

    Avo-matoran

    By ToM Dracone,

    (Because I refuse to use that linguistic collision of "v-m." It simply doesn't happen.)
     
    Before I begin, they're generally good sets – good designs, good color schemes (not so fond of Photok's distribution)... and no storyline inconsistencies the way the Nuva have, since they're all new characters. Being Avo-Matoran, they have enormous amounts of potential – but none of it was used. Their basic color scheme is white and gold, but none of them have gold and only one white, and although both male and female Matoran exist, the only female just happens to be the one who colored herself blue.
     
    Also, I'd really have liked to see recolored masks on them – Tanma's I like, and the Shadow Matoran's masks work with their designs, but I find Solek and Photok's very boring and the corrupted ones' more bestial than the rest of their designs allow to really look like Matoran. Plus, recolored masks are always a good thing!
     
    And they're so simple in pieces that I'd much rather they at least had a body-socket-Metru head construction for necks... with actual eyes, of course. If I were to go all-out, I'd make their bodies just an upper half, then use a (OO/+) piece attached to single sockets for hips (see the Mahritoran), with existing limbs for their legs. But that's just an idea, so don't pay attention to it during these. (Though it would make wide hips for Pohatu possible...)
     
    Tanma ~ I love him as he is, but to fit with the rest redesigned I'd make all his grey white, then give him a lime Great Huna. Or perhaps Lhikan's Hau, but the Huna is closer in shape... I actually like the mask he has better than the Huna, but one can't have just one with a new mask.
     
    Solek ~ She would definitely be female, to begin with, and all her grey would be made light gold. (Avo-colors!) Not only would that look totally awesome, there would finally be gold sockets and Toa feet! Oh, and a white Great Ruru for her mask. She and Tanma would both use yellow Metru eyes, too.
     
    Photok ~ Orange Toa feet are awesome. So, like Tanma, make all the grey white, and for his mask an orange Zatth is not far from what he has... Then either neon green or yellow eyes. (It was Takanuva's eye color, after all.)
     
    Radiak ~ Well, he looks quite cool in this picture, if not very Matoran-like, so I might go with a transforming thing for him... Instead of just the sockets for his back "feet," give him black Toa feet. Then stick one of these in the center of the foot so you can plug in the Mahri blade and he can go from bipedal with spiky weapons to quadrupedal. For his mask, definitely a trans-red Great Rau; it's the only one with similar side ridges... And orange eyes.
     
    Gavla ~ All I'd really change on her is her mask, giving her a dark blue Arthron. Swirled with silver at the top would look nice, but might be odd against no other swirled masks... Oh, also, her eyes would be trans-red, because that would look awesome.
     
    Kirop ~ I was looking at his mask a couple days ago and thought woah, that would work well as a Tryna. The slope, the bug-eyes, and even two of those pointy little things at the bottom... So for him, a solid black Tryna – with a trans-red visor. It would look amazing. He wouldn't actually need eyes under it, but for form's sake I'd make them red like Gavla's. Although making his arms and feet silver wouldn't hurt.
     
     
    ... It would also be nice if their wings were two separate pieces; that's probably the only real complaint I have about the sets. As I said, there's little wrong with the actual sets. I'm sort of indifferent to them – totally getting Tanma, maybe one of the corrupted ones, but otherwise...
     
    But things like these I would absolutely adore. Not only would you have a bunch of recolored pieces (Kirop's Tryna and visor... *dies*), but you'd also have the dichotomy of white for Light and black for Shadow between the two groups of Avo-Matoran.
     
    Although the result does look sort of like fruit...
    ~ ToM
  25. ToM Dracone

    Glatoriana

    By ToM Dracone,

    (because 'Glatorian' doesn't at all sound like a plural in and of itself and 'Glatorians' sounds inescapably lame.)
     

    » Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «I hesitate to go into any sort of great detail, because having seen the (very clear) leaked pics I might unintentionally talk about something that can't be discerned in the 'official' ones... 
    So I shall be brief: I like these so much.
     
    Delightful recolored pieces all around – even in the little ones! They have so many of them! And then there are a bunch of innovative designs on the Glatoriana, which alone would make them really cool, and then they have such wonderful aesthetics going on even besides that! They have fewer new pieces than past years, which is fine by me, since they make up for that with so many recolored ones. I'll go into more detail once legit clear pictures have emerged, but for now I'll name only my two favorites.
     
    Strakk. He may have no recolors, but look at him. He is the most perfect embodiment of Ice there has ever been in a Bionicle set. White over light blue and dark blue the way he has it – it looks absolutely awesome. And then his body, too, is such a simple but such an ingenius technique – I will rave about it at much length once it's properly visible.
     
    And Gresh is just awesome. Not only does he have a ton of recolored pieces, but his build is so awesomely spiky, yet also smooth! It's a perfect combination. As is lime over dark greeeeen!
     
    And Vorox. Tan. LOVE. <3
     
    That is all for now. Can you tell I'm excited?
    ~ ToM
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