Jump to content

JAG18

Members
  • Posts

    3,135
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    6

Other groups

Year 09

2 Followers

About JAG18

  • Birthday August 5

Profile Information

  • Gender
    he/him/his
  • Location
    Texas
  • Interests
    BIONICLE, History, Movies, Board Games, Music; favorite artists include: CHVRCHES, Grimes, Luna Shadows, Sasha Alex Sloan, Ava Max, MARINA, Taylor Swift, and Kim Petras.

Contact Methods

  • Discord
    JAG18#1250
  • YouTube
    JAG Gonzales
  • Flickr
    jageighteen
  • LEGO.com Account
    Toto1010

Recent Profile Visitors

11,873 profile views

JAG18's Achievements

Defender of Mata Nui Defeated

Defender of Mata Nui Defeated (148/293)

  1. "Hush" - Ricky Himself feat. Kailee Morgue.
  2. Feature photo is the art for "Meet The Commander". Above is art for "Meet V Squad". When I sat down to write the first draft of this post a couple of weeks ago I wanted to write something ten times more depressing, angry, bitter, and cynical, but I decided I wanted this to be a happy day since I'm supposed to be celebrating so here's a happier post instead. Seven years ago today, I wrote a little story about four stereotypes (cowboy, ninja, killer robot, and ex-military guy) saving a (not very competent) vampire hunter from a horde of vampires. The little piece grew into something much larger than I could have imagined and lead me down roads I also couldn't have imagined. When I wrote last year's Law Bringer Day post I wrote that I'd be sharing "Law Bringer" with the world soon. I didn't mean for "soon" to mean nine months, although technically I shared "Meet The Deserter" here in February. Either way, I had further to go after that, but I reached the midpoint a couple of days ago when I posted "Meet The Commander". Now is the hardest part to remain positive with. The part where I have to admit my greatest accomplishment after all this effort is a feeling of, "At least I did it." As for any future plans. I'm set to finish posting Season 1 at the end of March (taking a couple of breaks to post spin-offs I've posted elsewhere, but not on the substack), which means I'll publish the entire thing together as my first book a month or two after. I need to spit out the weird spin-off "Mors" next spring. Like write it in a month and revise in another one level speed. Then the fun begins. I can work on my prequel, which needs to be ten times more depressing, angry, bitter, and cynical than anything I've ever written before. As a bonus the social media content will create itself (wish I could say the same for Season 1), which might allow me to actually get an audience. Hopefully, I'll be done with that in late 2024, then the real challenge comes. I need to write the book that will decide the fate of all of "Law Bringer" forever, but I should stop planning past next year's Law Bringer Day. I'll send off with a quote from Mr. Nightmare, "You'll never know how far you'll get unless you try."
  3. Out comes "The Wheel of Time" series. In goes Lewa's Air Katanas.
  4. The cheese has returned to my sig! 

    1. Mushy the Mushroom

      Mushy the Mushroom

      Delightful!

      *oh christmas cheese, oh christmas cheese*

  5. "Made Me This Way" - Jasmine Clarke; Absofacto.
  6. I was thinking of reporting someone to the Bionicle inquisition, but when I stopped to think of what that would be I realized I couldn't and that therefore I deserve to go before it.  #irony  

  7. "all round me (Flyleaf cover)" - Maggie Lindemann.
  8. IT'S THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR. I also went as Toa Hordika Vakama once, but nowadays I mostly just dress up as a ninja and hand out candy. My favorite candies are York peppermint patties, Reese's, and anything chocolate. I avoid anything really sticky like Dots or Tootsie rolls because they're the worst for your teeth. :/
  9. Wow! Very cool. I was expecting a brief background cameo, but it looks like he might even get a throw line. "Is that really LEGO?" "You do not want to start that debate." I'm also impressed they made a BIONICLE reference that isn't the Toa Mata or Takanuva. Sure, Tuma was the main villain of 2009 and has minor role in the last movie, but he's not what most non-fans think of when you say BIONICLE.
  10. Oh man, I used to love hanging out in the status updates back in circa '14-'18.  #nostalgia 

    1. Mushy the Mushroom

      Mushy the Mushroom

      They're so easy to miss since the updates! A true treasure to see some! 😃

  11. Lots of interesting stuff here. I'm a bit surprised there's not more dislike for the serials since I've seen at least one person blame them for Bionicle getting overly complicated. Everything here has also reminded me of an article I read once, but foolishly forgot to save, but the main point of it being: "In the age of the internet the author is never dead until they actually are." Obviously, this isn't unique to Bionicle. I have a vague understanding that J.K. Rowling has been adding details to HP for decades and most of it the equivalent of the Toa Cordak/Mangai or which Makuta made what Rahi. The fandom I know where this is a big problem is the Ben 10 fandom. You'd think a canon consisting of four TV shows, would be relatively easy to understand, but the topic of so-called "crew statements" can be a divisive point in the fandom. Basically, a lot of people have worked on the shows over the years and some (usually show runners or art directors) answered fan questions on various forums. Many writers on the franchise did the same on twitter. The result is many arguments over canon can break down into people throwing crew statements at each other or trying to invalidate certain statements through a variety of ways. As you can imagine, the canon reached the point where a lot of fans choose what they want to be canon...but then again is that really uncommon in fandoms? Star Wars probably reached that point around the time of the prequels and honestly I'm sure plenty of Bionicle fans treat some of Greg's post-ending canonizations the same way. I don't know what the answer is here. If you weren't there, it's hard to keep in mind the internet was still young during Bionicle's first run and it was pretty cool being able to reach (some of) your favorite authors over the internet. Obviously, this isn't a super new phenomenon. Tolkien answered plenty of fan letters, although I don't enough about them to know what exactly he said in them or how they affect the LOTR canon (if at all). I know there's the (in)famous letter 192 in which Tolkien said Gollum didn't slip into Mount Doom, but God pushed him. Of course, before the internet such statements wouldn't have spread far, but today I can imagine if Tolkien tweeted something like that out it would spread across the internet in minutes.
  12. I've always been a little salty about how LEGO started handing out TV shows after Gen 1 ended. I understand it wasn't really something LEGO could have done in the early '00's, but still. I like your thoughts on the Barraki, but it brings up another point about what made Bionicle's story...not complex just a little weird. How the story would have to change to fit the sets. I get without the sets the story wouldn't exist, but sometimes it gets old there always has to be an explanation for why the Toa look different, why they have new weapons, or a character (usually a titan set) has to be shoehorned into the story because they're a set. Story wise, I like your idea of having the Piraka come back in '07, but I'd personally have trouble accepting that Hakann is now a squid.
  13. And if so how? Yes, I'm working from the assumption that the story was too complicated/complex. If you want to argue that point go ahead, but I wanted to get some opinions and viewpoints on this topic. Alright, that's what I wanted to ask. Feel free to ignore my stream of consciousness below. I'm just trying to sort this out for myself. What made the story so complex? "Bionicle made you work for your story." This is something I heard in a recent(ish) BIONICLE video, but I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner. I think it's fair to say Bionicle was trying to imitate Star Wars (ironic considering the role SW played in Bionicle's conception). In the late eighties to early nineties no new SW content came out (the so-called "dark time"), but that ended with the Dark Empire comics and Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. By the mid-nineties, Lucasfilms was organizing the official multimedia project "Shadows of the Empire" and afterwards a lot of people involved were excited to make another one centered around the "New Jedi Order" books. Then the prequels came out and threw a wrench into the plans. Either way, Bionicle came out right in the middle of this and honestly it did a good job of being its own multimedia project. That right there made the story complicated. True, any long running book series or TV show can produce a lot of lore, but at least it's easy to follow if you're willing to put in the time and effort to read/watch the whole thing. But, if you want the whole Bionicle story you need to jump between several different mediums. Most of it told out of order. I know you technically just need to read the comics and watch the movies and bam you got the entire story. Add in the books and you're even better off. Then it gets trickier the more you add on. The games? Only certain ones that you need to check BS01 to know which ones are canon or not. Add in the serials and of course Greg quotes and it starts to get complicated. Which brings me to... Canon Questions: Aside from having to work to find out what is and isn't canon (usually games) you also have to deal with two sources contradicting each other (how were the shadow Toa defeated?) This isn't unique to Bionicle. So many games and stories told the story of how The Death Star plans were stolen that eventually someone had to come down and say, "They each stole a part of the plans." George R. R. Martin had to deal with questions in the lead up to the show "House of The Dragon" about whether it was a separate canon from the source books it's based on or the "real" version. But there comes a point when it feels like you'd better off just reading a ton of BS01 articles to learn the entire story, which sounds a little ridiculous (and this is coming from someone who enjoys getting lost on a good wiki). Maybe the answer is just enjoy whatever Bionicle content you want. Play the games, read the books or comics, watch the movies and not really care if you get the entire story. As someone who followed the story pretty closely from '07-'10 I know it was hard to keep all this straight and I'm sure plenty of people at the time acted like that and just didn't care about this or that Greg quote. Bionicle's Legacy: Something I've been dancing around is, should I look at this from the perspective of someone who grew up in the time of Bionicle or someone born later who discovered Bionicle recently and wants to enjoy it now. I know it can be hard to do that for anything that lasts a long time and some things you just had to be there to experience, but I do think Bionicle is a unique challenge. But then, maybe that's not the point. Arguably pointless revelations like the Av-Matoran Bohrok connection seems pointless let alone every add-on canonization that came later, but I do think there were a lot of people at the time who wanted Greg to define everything so they could rush over to edit BS01. Maybe it's OK Bionicle was so confusing because at the time they were a lot of people who loved it for that. Most stories are lucky to have a huge and devoted fanbase during their run let alone to be able to gain fans years down the road. My Answer: Just have fewer extra-material things. Or in other words, Greg could have shown more restraint in canonizing things especially after Bionicle ended. I appreciate Greg spending so much time answering fan questions, but I do think that'd help the problem a bit. The bonus for this is it doesn't cut any actual Bionicle content. You can enjoy the serials, books, short stories, and more, but at least there aren't a dozen-and-one facts you'd only learn by browsing BS01. What do you think?
×
×
  • Create New...