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mk7.13

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Everything posted by mk7.13

  1. It's 6AM in my corner of the world, and by all accounts I should be asleep because it's a Saturday morning and I have no reason to be awake right now. It's really nice to have some downtime to be nostalgic, though, and to take a short trip down memory lane. The weird part is that "memory lane" was literally only a few years ago. I'm not sure what prompted it, but around this time in 2013 I thought it would be a great idea to start up a comic series - something I hadn't done in years - and it prompted a return to BZPower in a way that I wasn't expecting. I was involved again, and it was a lot of fun. And then in 2014 I just got busier and busier, and never really slowed down. My last status on here was in September 2014, and I haven't posted anything since. Part of it was that feeling you get after being away for such a long time and you're not sure if you're even welcome back, while the other part of it was just being so busy doing other things that you don't have time for your old hobbies. The hardest thing about time moving the way it does is that you are never the same person a year later. So many things have the potential to change. The biggest thing for me is that in March of this year, in order to make some bill payments and at the insistence of my then-girlfriend, I sold my entire Bionicle/Lego collection, save for two McToran. It was really the end of an era, for me. From that point onward, things were never the same between me and the toys that really changed my life. I don't want this post to end on a down note, though, so here are some happy thoughts. The beautiful thing about memories is that nothing but freak circumstances can take them from you. Your old toys may get sold, or you may move to another city, or you might just grow up and graduate from college in a few months, but through all of that, those good childhood memories will stick with you forever.
  2. Well I guess the one advantage of not being around for a while is coming back to a whole slew of new comics! I need to catch way up, but season 2 is turning out to be really awesome so far!
  3. If you're not careful, months will fly by before you realize it.

    1. Ghidora131

      Ghidora131

      Months have wings

       

      I never knew

       

      I thought it was just moths

    2. Durahk

      Durahk

      *Mind blown*

  4. Wow, life got busy. But it's cool to see some new comics! Something about screaming in a foreign language just makes it way funnier.
  5. Sorry I haven't been around lately, I've been seriously busy these past few months. But what an awesome way to make an entrance. And it's just like me to procrastinate like that.
  6. That Spongebob reference was awesome. Did you know that the "sailing stones" are actually a real thing??
  7. At this rate, everyone is going to be a cat soon! Is there an antidote?!
  8. Oh man. I hope he finds his way back, soon.
  9. I haven't entered one of these contests in years. I'll see what I can whip up, or if I'm still any good at MOCing!
  10. Trying to find some time to do this next comic, but don't worry! I'll get something up before too long!

  11. More kitty-MK! I wonder how long he'll be stuck like that?
  12. Ooo, foreshadowing, perhaps? Does Shadow get his very own dragon? That would be cool. And "Snow Day" sounds really exciting!
  13. Awesome! Kitty-MK is probably the most adorable thing I've ever seen!
  14. I really like the way the stakes were raised in '02 with the Bohrok. In all of the supporting media - the MNOLG, the flash animations, etc. - you really had a Matoran-driven story, but in terms of the Bohrok invasion there was this real sense of danger and potential loss. The Bohrok animations that were serialized on the Bionicle website were such a neat way to develop these characters further. The Bohrok were really presented as this legitimate threat that had to be dealt with creatively. I've built a lot of MOCs in my time, and most of the ones I build easily dwarf the original Bohrok, but in comparison to the Toa/McToran sets, those things were huge. And in the context of the Bionicle universe, there were thousands of them. And they were seemingly invincible. But I really can't pick one single favorite storyline. Each of them has its moments that just really captured my attention. I don't have time to sit here and list exactly why each year was amazing to me, otherwise this post would be massive.
  15. YES! Man, I've missed these stories! I remember being so excited with each new chapter of Makuta Island and reading through all of the Toa biographies. Such fond memories from my childhood/early-teen years, and I'm so glad to see they still exist. I'll have to block out some time to go back through them all!
  16. mk7.13

    Growing Up

    I figure I may as well do something with this blog, since I have one. I've got a bunch of views, so far, but no posts to merit those views, which I don't understand, but okay. I never really had much to talk about until recently, though. I think I've settled on a theme for this blog, or at least for this post, but I think it's going to have something to do with the fact that things are much different now than they used to be. At first glance, that statement might sound a bit negative, but I just mean that things aren't the way they used to be. 5-10 years down the road, everything will be different. That's just the way life goes. More specifically, my relationships with LEGO and BZPower are significantly different than they were 10-11 years ago. When I first joined the site back in 2003, I was still a youngster. By that point I had been following the Bionicle story fervently; I knew all the characters' names and powers, I knew about every single Rahi and Kanohi, and I was intimately familiar with the island of Mata-Nui, even though there were still many secrets I had yet to discover at that point in time. I was also very interested in MOCing, piecing together MOCs from my piles and piles of pieces I had been collecting ever since my grandmother bought me my first Bionicle sets in 2001. I stumbled onto BZPower after hearing about it on the Bionicle message boards on LEGO.com. There were a few active posters on the boards, but a few would always sign off as "So-and-so from BZPower." One day, I decided I had to figure out what this "BZPower" place was. I knew it had to be related to Bionicle in some way, but I honestly had no clue what I was about to discover. To my 10 year old self, finding BZPower was like me at the age of 21 discovering a $500 check I had forgotten to deposit - basically, quite possibly the best thing that could ever have happened to me at the time. I was greeted by a wealth of information related to this universe I had fallen in love with, complete with references and helpful links. Then I entered the forums and my entire life was changed. I discovered there were other kids like me who loved these toys and this story as much as I did, sharing similar interests outside of the toys, too. Writing fan-fiction, building MOCs, making comics - this place had it all. So I joined without hesitation. I was never a user of much status, save for the few times I posted a particularly impressive MOC or started up a comic series that I lost interest in before the second comic was published, but I was always around. There wasn't a term for it back then (or if there was, it wasn't very popular) but I would have been categorized as a "lurker," or somewhere who visits often but doesn't contribute content or discussion. Plenty of online communities have those - and to this day I'm still somewhat of a lurker in many places - but back in the day if you didn't post, you weren't on the radar. Even now, if you're not making content or replying to topics, you're just another name. I did my fair share of posting, though. I knew the unwritten rules of each forum I frequented and whatever acronyms they had. BBC and Comedies is where I spent most of my time, however. I was utterly fascinated by the hilarious spins on the main storyline and the other stories people came up with, and I spent a lot of time honing my building skills and creating some impressive stuff (I go back through my old Brickshelf folder from time to time and gawk at the creativity of my younger self). I knew how to critique other users' MOCs and how to write my own chapters of comedies - I even had a few of my very own, but they were mostly just spin-offs of a comedy written by an old BZP friend of mine, Takiris. Speaking of Takiris, of all the people I had met on BZPower, he was probably the one I knew the longest. Ever since I commented in his comedy "Matoro Gets Kidnapped" (which has since been deleted due to the Dataclysm of 2011) he and I were constantly collaborating on a variety of projects. We often guest-starred in each others' comedies, and I would guest-author a few chapters of his and vice-versa. We both realized I was the better MOCer of the two of us, so the responsibility fell to me to depict him when I could. Our fictional characters were inseparable friends, and he and I were pretty close IRL for a while. To this day, Takiris has a PGS spot in any work of Bionicle-Based Fiction I write. Even so, the winds of change come blowing. Now, BZPower isn't quite the hub of activity it used to be, especially since the toyline it existed to discuss has been cancelled. I haven't kept up with Takiris (who now goes by a different screen name) in years, and he hasn't been active on BZP in a very long time. I'm not much into MOCing like I used to be, even though my current picture comic series is based on my MOCs. Things are very different now. I have different priorities in my life - school, work, and church, mostly. I'm also active on Reddit and currently am very heavily involved in a growing community over there. My interests have changed a lot, too. I will always have a place in my heart for these story-driven pieces of plastic, but I'm not 10 or 15 anymore. I was gonna try to write about how things are different now a little bit more than I did, but then I got carried away with reminiscing. I may try to cover that in a later post, though. Thanks for reading! -MK-
  17. Season One has come to a close! Thanks to all my readers! I'll be working on some Season Two stuff very soon, so be ready! :)

  18. And after a long, long, long delay, here's Chapter 13, the Season One Finale! Thanks to all my regular readers for keeping up with the series so far! And for those of you PGS's who've yet to appear in a comic, your time in the spotlight is coming up very soon! I don't know when I'll have the first chapter of Season Two up, but it shouldn't be very long. I've got some interesting stuff in the works for the next season, so stay tuned!
  19. mk7.13

    TCMII: Bluefire

    Resurrection! I once PGS'ed in a comedy and all of its sequels many years ago, and the author's character died in either the 2nd or 3rd installment. Then got resurrected in the next one, I can't remember the exact details. Point is, resurrection is always the answer. Fantastic job on the comics so far, I'm really enjoying them!
  20. I wish I felt it was appropriate to spam "hahahaha" because seriously, that was amazing. Protip: never stick your head in a box, unless you like surprises.
  21. As someone who frequents Reddit, when I came back to the forums it was kind of tricky to get used to not being able to upvote posts that I didn't necessarily have a detailed response to. At least with an anonymous upvote system like this, now I have some way of saying "Hey, I saw your comment, but I don't really have much else to say in turn." All the debating about whether or not this system will turn things into a competition is in vain, in my opinion; one of the subreddits I actively participate in (it's the only other online community I've ever actively participated in/generated content for, after BZP) has an "upvotes only" system in place. We also have a lot of strict rules to guide our content creation. BZP, by its very nature, has a lot of restrictions on what kind of content can be produced: we're a website dedicated to children's toys* and most of our content has to center around or be derivative from those toys and the storyline surrounding them. I also tend to agree with Rayg on the issue of "fake internet points ---> good content". It's encouraging to see that people like your content, but without a system that allows people to do nothing more than express their simple appreciation, a lot of times the content author has very little tangible audience enthusiasm supporting their work. Your topic might be garnering lots of views, and some of those are from regular viewers who may or may not have posted in it, but unless they leave a post saying "I like this!" then you have no way of knowing for sure that they actually liked your stuff. With "upvotes," at least you have some fake internet points to fuel your creativity; you're not just creating content for the three or four people who always reply to your topic, you're creating content for a much larger audience - an audience you can at least catch a glimpse of with an upvote system. Speaking as a content creator, it's easy to feel like people are just viewing your topic and moving on to other things. With a system like this in place, you may not know who liked your stuff, but it's nice to know that they did, and sometimes that's enough to keep going.
  22. Finally got chapter 12 up! Next chapter is gonna be super-sized for maximum awesomeness to close out the season, so keep your eyes peeled!

  23. Finally I can get Chapter 12 up! I ran into some technical difficulties recently; apparently the newest iTunes update wasn't working on Windows PCs, and I couldn't access my iPhone through my computer so I couldn't upload the pics. But I think I found a fix, so hopefully I'll have the last chapter of season 1 up and ready to go before too long!
  24. mk7.13

    PIRAKA COMICS

    Oh my gosh, this is awesome. I like the really tight casting decision, too; it's so much easier to keep track of characters when there are fewer of them! And adding onto what Stroxx said, I would love to see some longer arcs develop! Keep at it! I can't wait for more!
  25. mk7.13

    TCMII: Bluefire

    The suspense is suspenseful! I dig it. I can't wait to see what Toa Kayn has under his sleeve!
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