Noxryn

well, looks like there arent alot of outsiders actually answering this.

 

BZPower is hated mainly because of its administration, who seem very elitist and disingenuous to alot of super casual easy going fans *think of the people on 4chan*

 

aaand i'd think that secondly, its the strict rules and "liberal bias" are things a few people arent used too either

 

so BZP just seems like a good place if you grew up with it, otherwise it doesnt look very appealing to newer fans, who want to have more relaxed discussions on stuff.

 

oi, ban me for disagreeing with everyone. :U

 

EDIT: and stuff Aurora said. :U

I don't see how the Administration is disingenuous, or elitist, in the context of Bionicle? Some individuals can be passionate about what they like to do with the building systems, though I haven't seen any of the Administration actively discouraging discussion, insulting users, or claiming they know of the only right way to do something? And, frankly, if your example of "casual, easy going" fans are the people on 4chan I think we have an extremely different view of "casual and easy going." But if you could give examples? I see this thrown around a lot, but I don't see it occurring. 

The site can be more left of center socially, if only because this website actively discourages insulting, belittling or demeaning members on the basis of their identities. If anything it's promoting to keep a child-friendly safe place for all fans and not just a small few who think they are inherently better than everyone else and can toss around slurs, insults, degrading remarks without care. But as for actual political discussion? That's not allowed on the forums. Either way, the only criticism I ever see in this vein are a bunch of whiny teens on other websites complaining about the "SJW's" because we don't let them come on the site and attack members, while we actively support and promote the members of the community those individuals deem lesser.

But, comparatively speaking, BZPower's one of the more comfortable websites I've been on in recent years. The Administration actively works to keep a tolerant atmosphere by removing those who would actively try to start flame wars, who would go out of their way to make other members feel uncomfortable, who would otherwise try to take the fun away from the toyline this place is all about just because they can. It's a lot nicer than signing onto other sites to come across a debate between individuals who hate/dislike or delegate any form of social activism to "those SJW's from tumblr" (when most of the stuff they talk about predates tumblr's existence, but I mean, who needs to look up facts when all you want to do is insult minorities?).

In my years here I've never seen anyone banned for voicing a civil opinion on a subject, though I hear horror stories from back in 2005 and before (I wasn't a member then, so I can't attest to them). I have seen people banned for disrespectful opinions, hateful opinions, racist opinions, and opinions and positions that only serve to belittle, deride, degrade and hurt other members to the point of making them feel uncomfortable on the website.

id be lying if i didnt say a part of me will miss the old canisters

but

the boxes are more environmentally friendly and it contributes to less clutter in my own personal space, so overall im kinda happy about it.

What are all your thoughts on amiibo? I'm personally not interested at all, as they look gimmicky to use, and all the "realistic" characters (Link, Marth, Ike, etc.) look hideously deformed.

I don't own a system where they'd be useable, but if they're reasonably priced I'll likely get the ones that represent my favorite characters and just have them as cute desk warmers.

I never really talk about my future plans much, mostly as any plans I have can change rather rapidly and unexpectedly. A lot of prior plans have, actually.

But, currently, I want to be a high school English teacher in roughly three/four more years (maybe five, pending how things pan out). Partially as I do like English and literature and have always wanted to pursue a career that included it (journalism, writing my own novels, freelance writing, short story writing, etc...), but also because I'd like there to be more teachers and professionals in education who are easier to approach and put the students before the work itself. Additionally, being able to serve as a resource for LGBT+ kids and having the ability to work towards making the area safer for them is a large contributor, since there weren't many instructors who took such initiatives when I went through high school (there were a lot of posters torn a part, threats, slurs, and openly homophobic/transphobic individuals in the classes I was in, such as students who mention harboring a desire to murder people like me, which doesn't contribute to a safe and comfortable learning environment). As a personal anecdote, I was actually reported by parents to my instructor over an article I wrote in favor of marriage laws changing to encompass all people, though my teacher sort of laughed it off and agreed with me when I may have muttered something unfavorable about that complaint (I did receive an award for my article, as did others who contributed to that page).

Plans might change over the course of college. Psychology interests me a lot and, in the past, I did consider the possibility of working as a therapist and getting the proper training and education for that, or for doing social work which the school I'm at has some programs and work study positions available for. I'm passing my current Psych class with an A and that's basically by doing nothing, but it's a rather easy course I mostly remember from high school. More interested in the next part, which talks about gender identity and the like.

Anything else I don't plan. Relationships sort of come and go, family is an up and down affair, and anything else sort of depends how successful my own counseling and time with the LGBT center at my school plays out. Mostly just whether I can overcome anxiety attacks and find the tools to help deescalate them, as well as becoming more comfortable with expressing my gender identity in real life. Traveling in an urban area, often at night, after there've already been some assault related crimes on campus sort of makes that idea particularly daunting.

Either way, I'd still like to finish a book I've been sort of working on, on and off. It's only 20,000 words or so in, but keeping up with the muse to continue writing, especially with all the work from classes and the pressure to find a solid and safe part time job sort of takes away from it.

I guess, ideally, down the road I'd be a financially stable person. Marriage, eh... maybe? I don't dwell on the thought of kids, which would likely only happen if I married someone down the line.

may the milk company never find ye
 

happy birthday~

I'm still only sitting at 12,000ish for the month so far although most of the distractions are papers I need to write for my classes... well, and some video games, since I use those to reduce stress and such. Only three chapters so far, the newest one proving a pain to write on the basis that I'm just meh with dialogue (to be fair I'm sort of ignoring how well everything flows together, the speech and vocabulary differences between characters until I finish, since I can go back through and edit that rather than get disheartened after reading the same paragraph forty times and ultimately deleting it).

Or maybe I'm just biased and I prefer writing about the harpy instead of the currently human-appearing duo.

(to be honest I really just want to start writing about my dorky deities)

Kids don't need to know about the first generation of Bionicle if they don't want to learn it. A lot likely won't want to learn about it, but with other franchises who have long, convoluted stories and side stories and so on and so forth, some kids will likely take it upon themselves to learn about the old story if they feel enthralled by the new story. Even then, there'll be kids who'll read about it on a wiki if they're trying to incorporate it into creative works, I know I've spent my fair share of time on wikis for series I didn't want to watch (due to how long it'd take) all because a RP sounded interesting to me (Notable examples: Naruto and Bleach. Not a particular fan of either's story or plot elements, but it was worth figuring out the world and the canon in order to play the RP's I wanted to, since the stories there were quite heavily improved over what was being handed out in canonically).

But they don't have to know anything.

Generally speaking the people I see railing on BZPower are a pack of individuals who think throwing around insults, slurs and casually insulting people for who they are or taking screenshots of personal statements or harmless statements to mock the poster and quite frankly they don't deserve to be on the website, anyway.

I'm happy they hate BZP, means they'll stay away. Although some join it in some sort of tsundere "I love BZP but I need to look edgy and cool by hating on it around all the 'cool' kids" or in poor attempts to troll, but whatever.

They aren't exactly remarkable people whose opinions really matter.

i had the original onua claw embed itself in my hand once and no other piece has done that to date so those things

nixie

i'd also want her to still be an astronomer.

from a really old teaser in... i think either -in- or slightly before 2001. like i remember seeing Lewa and being all "that looks really cool" and being let down that the waist piece wasnt an actual accordion-esque thing that was moveable, but it was before the official launch since i remember waiting and going to the Mall of America (back when my family lived in MN) the day it launched (after we went to the aquarium)

i had to have been like five~sixish at the time

Look, I can see that you two are trying to get me into a debate about binary vs. nonbinary genders. I'm not getting into that debate, because I believe something on this subject that this board will consider intolerant

No, I wasn't. But good to know that your views about other community members would be deemed intolerant on this website.

But I'll reiterate: You're wrong. Period. Women are not defined by a set of physical characteristics, but I guess you don't actually care about those women if your views of people who identify as a different gender than the one they were assigned would be "consider[ed] intolerant." That's my final word in responding to you.

And what I'm saying is that you can't call something "female" without associating any of the characteristics of that object with femininity. Therefore making a female MoC is, in your point of view, sexist and wrong.

 

At the extreme of your argument would be "genders are arbitrary". In this case, they are because I assign them to them, but I do so based on genders that exist in real life, which aren't arbitrary IMO - they are what they are. But just because I assign something arbitrarily to something doesn't make me evil.

 

And the extreme of the "genders are arbitrary" argument is that genders don't exist. Because if they don't have characteristics, then they are invalid categories. All of us know that genders exist and have characteristics of themselves. You're basically saying genders are evil because they have characteristics that distinguish people. And that means that we should have no categories to distinguish people, because that's evil...and so on until everything is arbitrary. And if everything is arbitrary, it shouldn't matter if I decide to arbitrarily decide to assign characteristics to a nonexistant category that doesn't affect anything. Right?

 

Your argument doesn't add up to sound logic. Truth is, genders do exist, they are valid categories, and they do have characteristics. The amount of characteristics in these categories is probably larger than most people think, but they still have characteristics in and of themselves. The only difference is whether you choose to acknowledge these characteristics or not. And if you choose not to acknowledge them, you are living in denial.

 

Genders in humans have inherent characteristics; genders in MoCs have what I assign, and such creativity is not wrong.

Sorry, but gender has less to do with a set of physical characteristics and a lot more with the mental perception of the self. It's a form of identification, it's a form of finding out where you fit, who you are and, for a lot of people, their gender doesn't match what they were assigned at birth. For a lot of people, their bodies don't match the social image of what a particular gender is or should be and, want to know what this can cause? Depression, dysphoria, discomfort. To be frank, it can also occur to cisgender women who don't fit the societal paradigm of what a woman "is" and can bring forth a multitude of other issues for all these people. By saying "this is a feminine set" is saying "you are not female if you do not fit within this feminine set" unless that is precisely your point, and if so I will block you because anything you would have to say past that point holds no relevance to any discussion on this subject.

Frankly, your argument doesn't add up to sound logic on the basis you are incorrect about what of a person defines that person's gender.

Which is my point.

Which is: You can't physically feminize sets because if they are referred to as female, if the character identifies as such, then they ARE FEMALE regardless. I mean, sure you can choose to reinforce the harmful paradigm that exists for how a woman should look and be, but why would you want to? Why wouldn't you want to teach a new wave of kids that women are so much more diverse than that? That they can look like Onua if they please? They can look like Tahu, they can look like Gali, they can look like Kiina, they can look like Pohatu or whoever else? Why not support them, rather than try to pull the biology card and then proceed to incorrectly define gender, ignoring all the outliers that exist and shouldn't be discounted because they are human beings and not just statistics?

I know there are female body builders. I have yet to see one that has a body as wide as she is tall. This exaggerated build is generally reserved for male figures, though I guess I could see where you are coming from. If it can be given to males, it can just as easily be assigned to females.

 

For those that are saying to not include any feminine characteristics, if you see a stranger from the back, with no view of the facial features or any other major characteristics, how do you identify their gender? Their clothes, their hair? If you do that, you are bound to make mistakes (and it could be a fairly sexist way to look at them). By looking at proportions and comparing to others you have seen, you can make much more accurate guesses, though there are those that are a bit more ambiguous and could be either gender. The purpose of the topic is to determine what your eyes are subconsciously picking up on, and porting that over to sets to give them a recognizably feminine or masculine build.

You don't identify their gender. You ask, politely, what pronouns they may prefer because not everyone who your particular schema dictates as female is female, nor male. There are people who fit with other pronouns and genders, there are transgender people, there are people who are not cisgender in existence and a lot of my arguments are sort of coming from that point: body type and structure does not define someone's gender, and it's a bit of a disrespectful move to assert so much that it does. Yes. Even for toys that are representative of people.

Women can look like anyone. They can be tall. They can have broad shoulders. They can have massive muscles (I've seen it, I've seen a woman take a pan and roll it up like it was made out of paper). Are they "not feminine" because they have those features? Who gets to dictate what is and is not "feminine" when the term feminine refers to traits women have? Or is it only to reassert the common portrayal of women as what is "feminine" which completely ignores huge, huge swathes of people who simply don't fit that one incredibly narrow perspective?

Point is: Women can look like anyone. This means you don't need all these limited traits that supposedly purport what "feminine" is, as those traits aren't inherent in all women. It'd be better for Bionicle and people in general not to fit women into such narrow views and builds, it'd be a boon to see some actual diversity without trying to force any specific schema of who or what a woman "is". At least then kids might think "wow, women really do look diverse and have a wide range of forms and body types and personalities" rather than "women need to be represented with sleekness, small shoulders, big hips and slender, hourglass bodies."

I just meant don't give them Onua's build, which would be fairly recognizably male. Give them builds that you would see on human women. Give them petite builds, larger builds, just something that you can look at and think "that could be a girl." Something more distinct than the clone build that all the males use.

I'd be happy if they gave a female character Onua's build. Because, you know, women can have builds like that.

Everyone can enjoy it, that's a given.

But the line itself is aimed at young kids, this line aimed at young kids who would be new to it. It's not aimed at adults, it's not aimed at young adults, it's not aimed at teens. I imagine if something seems fun for children, but hurts collectors, Lego will go with the fun thing for the children.

Unfortunately, physical characteristics and gender are inextricably interlinked. Women look different to to men even if they're both broad shouldered. Broad shouldered actually has different standards depending on gender.

Not really, there are a lot of women who do have the same proportions as men. So forcing proportional differences on a toy, when those proportional differences don't actually account for 100% of cases in the real world anyway, isn't doing anyone any good and such a practice is going to exclude a wide array of people who wouldn't get to see themselves presented in a story they may otherwise enjoy.

And "broad shouldered" might have different standards on a societal level, but like I said, there are women who have broad shoulders on par with men and to exclude them and constantly trying to remove them by basically stating they aren't feminine enough is really kind of mean.

One possible reason is that many picture Toa as having the "Heroic" or "Ideal" proportions. The men are tall, broad shouldered, and well muscled, while women have longer legs, smaller shoulders, and an hourglass figure. It wouldn't make as much sense for robotic warriors to have stocky or even fat figures. I have seen MOCs and art that are a bit stouter though.

On the first point, a counter example is:

Pohatu was not tall or broad shouldered. In fact, Pohatu was slightly hunched due to the orientation of his body piece (which also brought his shoulders more tightly in than his hips, which were wider to accommodate the kicking function). So, not all toa need to have this "ideal" build of what a hero looks like, because from the first cast of them we can see that heroes come in multiple shapes and sizes and body structures (namely Onua's build, Pohatu's and then the rest who had their own differences, be it in limbs or be it in chest pieces and pins).

Honestly, I would hope the designers don't listen to feedback that's in this thread. There really isn't a necessity for more petite, slender, small shouldered, hourglass women with large hips in media -- the fact everyone here chose those traits to engender what femininity is speaks to the prevalence of it in media already.

If anything, a line like Bionicle should really present heroes with multiple builds and body types, various personalities that are written uniquely, with different and relatable struggles and faults. The line should be telling kids that what they look like doesn't matter: they can be who they want to be, they can strive for what they want, they can become who they want to become regardless. Plus, making the characters more relatable on more fronts would be a bonus to a lot of kids who lack a character to relate to -- there are a lot of real life, breathing and living, girls and women who have things like broad shoulders, small hips, who are tall and not particularly elegant or "sleek" and they should be able to see themselves in female characters created for Bionicle, rather than more of this "ideal" feminine form that only serves to undermine confidence.

I guess my point is: A woman doesn't have a set of defined looks, there is no specific formula and to say there is one undermines those who don't fit into that formula. So, Bionicle should continue creating characters with that in mind, without trying to force out a standard female that looks the same every single wave because "that's how all women look right."

you're all well aware women can have (and in a lot of cases do have) broad shoulders, right

and can have slim hips, can be tall, can be muscular and don't all have to have small shoulders, wide hips and a petite stature

like you're all aware of these facts, yes?

because if so why is everyone so fixated on female warrior constraction sets having small shoulders, wide hips, appearing petite and sleek when none of those things are inherently feminine and women come in all shapes, sizes and variations and not this specific set of traits that's being purported as the ideal of femininity in this thread.

i dont really care either way, if it comes up it comes up and i dont make any efforts to hide it

there's more important things for me to think about and actively choose to share than an interest in a lego line, which, tbh, is kinda what put it into perspective when i was younger and when i was a lot more private about my hobbies 'n stuff

Gali, after that I dunno.

Teridax. 

 

Well, okay, he would find it, but then he would give it to one of his most upstart minions, and when it backfires heavily on them and they die, he would examine why they did. Then he would go through as many minions as necessary to figure out all the ways it could backfire, and create contingency plans for each one. 

 

That is, if some Toa didn't steal it before that. In which case he would probably try to destroy it until a lone rogue Toa tells him that if he does that he will destroy all power in the universe, including his...

what a boring villain

i hope he doesnt come back with that attitude

Okay-the majority of you won't like this, and I frankly don't care.

 

This is bad.

 

The gist I'm getting is that nobody ones to point the bad parts of this video/summary is because that would be biting the hand that feeds us: we just got BIONICLE back, and saying anything negative would detract from the fact that our wishes have been fulfilled.  

 

However, I have no such fear.

 

This does not have as strong of a base as the original 2001 story, and I have a nasty feeling that it won't improve to the point it was in 2010.  I want to justify this as forward thinking, but the more I try to convince myself of the fact, the more I realize I'd rather have the original story continued than new sets.

tbh whether or not Bionicle's story "improved" through to 2010 is an incredibly subjective statement a lot of people could argue the other way around 

but otherwise, this story basically is the 2001 story... like... in almost every way, just Makuta and his brother aren't opposing spirits/concepts. 

oh

and they're both sleeping

A Room of One's Own -- Virginia Woolf. 

I seriously do not understand this "head canon" business at all.

Why follow a story, just to ignore it and make your own thing from it.

Whats the point in that at all?

 

I follow Bionicle because I love Bionicle. That means I love it for what it is.

I can understand fans make "head canon" to explain things to make better sense of loop holes or things that are generally left unexplained.

I cannot consider somebody a true fan of something if that person is just changing the story to suite him/her better.

The fans who make headcanons to suit their own preferences for the story are no less fans than you are, assuming otherwise is simply putting down these fans' creative efforts for no good reason. Either way, it's a Lego line. Lego puts an emphasis on this thing called "imagination" and, if anything, people who are reimagining Bionicle to fit their liking are acting completely within the bounds of it. If you don't like creative endeavors, works, art, story, retellings, and only think the hallmark of "true fans" is memorizing and categorizing everything, then, I don't want to be a "true fan" by your definition as that sounds incredibly dull.

Swapping character genders isn't meaningless, either. Some people actually like feeling as if the line includes them, but I guess they can't be a "true fan" if they don't accept the 300+ male characters as "100% always canon" in comparison to the 30~ or so female characters (or the 0 or so non-binary, agender characters).