Noxryn

*She's, but generally when I talk about something I do know of it, at least a little bit.

TPBM enjoys flowers and understands they are both beautiful and fascinating (and may or may not be pursuing a career in botany)

Guild wars 2 because I'm a massive dragon fan and I'd love to see the Elder Dragons and their lieutenants made into sets. Plus, asuran technology is pretty neat aesthetically and would help toss more purple into the mix.

This is why I said 40 million feet sounds like a "insert huge number here". Of course, I don't get why the GSR size is such a sticking point. It's a big robot, people. How big it is doesn't really matter.

I think a lot of the argument is that, in scale and comparison to everything else, when you make something this massive in fiction and have it interacting with planets and the denizens on those planets, then the size does matter because a scale the planet itself cannot support or would create massive change in the environment/ecosystem if introduced (and doesn't in the canon) is jarring and takes the reader out of the immersive aspect of the story.

Essentially it's bad writing.

They thought they could fly.

They could not.

Gali for Okoto Leader 2k15

Because water douses fire and ice is a ripoff of one of the primary elements known as water.

 

 

Honestly, fairness aside, I think smaller, more frequent MOC contests alongside the big BBCCs would be fantastic, however they're structured.

We have (approximately) bi-monthly Flickr contests that fill that void.

 

That's true, but the Flickr contests don't have themes or special restrictions; they're just general contests. That's fine, but I guess I just want more BBCCs, haha .

 

A lot of work goes into setting up contests in general on here, so like every mini-BBC would likely take as much staffpower to create and hold as any of the regular sized BBC's (And there's a reason BBC's aren't super duper incredibly frequent, because it takes a bit of time to think of a theme, get people to help with the contest, write up the rules, restrictions and set up the topics).

I like the idea? But all I can think of is if the Flickr contests were more advertised (first time I heard about them, but maybe I just miss the announcements?). Honestly, it could be interesting to have some of the limits you mentioned in the smaller Flickr contests rather than the full blown BBC (Since BBC is largely "Build THIS the best you can with your collection" and the Flickr contests could be tuned more like MOC Challenges? Like "Only MOC with this amount of pieces" or "use this or that color" or something... not exactly what you suggested, but it made me think of the Art Squad offsite and some of the older Writing topics where those challenges existed to help get people to go outside of their creative comfort zone to, overall, become better at their chosen artistic medium).

I just watch GameGrumps or Markiplier for game content. Otherwise I just jump around at random, years ago I used to watch Tobuscus? But I think I only really watched his Amnesia playthrough and literal trailers when they were really popular.

OH! And WoodenPotatoes for Guild Wars 2 lore videos, and there was someone I used to watch for World of Warcraft and Dark Souls lore but I can't recall their channels.

They do have a Friends series, but it's more of a miniseries like the LEGO Hero Factory one than a full series like LEGO Ninjago or LEGO Legends of Chima, and it airs on Disney Channel rather than Cartoon Network (from what I hear, Cartoon Network is not anywhere near as supportive of girl-oriented programming as Disney Channel).

 

I've only watched the first LEGO Friends TV special ("Welcome to Heartlake City"). It was okay, but I wasn't a huge fan. As with LEGO Legends of Chima, I hear it gets better, but I'm just not emotionally invested enough to find out for myself.

 

The LEGO Elves TV special, which I liked a lot more, also aired on Disney Channel. But again, it is shaping up to be a miniseries, not a full series with a new season each year.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that! Honestly I haven't been looking it up, but with a lack of advertising for any series (unless I missed it all), I figured they weren't doing one. Either way it's nice it's getting it's own mini series, at least, even though it sounds it could be a bit better.

I don't know, I like General Grievous's design a bit? It looks like him and fits the character, though Obi Wan's head looks a little off to me, personally. I don't think I'll buy any since I'm only marginally into Star Wars, but from a glance that's just my thought. :B

...when friends fans get to the foruming age...

There are a lot of fans of the line who are the foruming age, I'm one of them. o/

Well, would be more of a fan if I had more disposable income at my fingertips. But I really like the theme, it's aesthetics, the colors and characters. I can't say if the theme itself is widespread in popularity or not, but if the stats provided earlier are any indication then it's as large of a theme as any other -- sans those two outselling it. Admittedly I don't know how much money the shows like Ninjago and Chima actually bring in to the company versus the cost of having those shows produced, so I can't say whether they would continue to go that route with something like Friends (And if they did, they would need to get CN on board with it).

I actually don't have a lot of complaints with the system? It's pretty cool and versatile, and I like the sleeker designs and smoother surfaces (barring the Toas' masks for the most part). The parts, from what I see, come in a wide range of colors and sizes -- I guess my complaint is that I don't own more of them? And that I'm still in the very beginning stages in terms of using them for proper MOC's and stuff, haha.

I hope you took swimming lessons :I

To be honest, the only thing I could imagine is saying "People who won recent contests/finaled in them, enter here and people who are entirely new/never placed enter here" but at the same time there's a lot of complications with breaking things up like that. Personally, I feel that yeah it's a little on the unfair side for someone new to come in who's rarely ever MOC'd before, but that's the point of the contests -- to improve your MOCing capabilities.

Like, yeah you won't win if you're completely new and someone like DV enters. BUT you get to see all these designs, all these styles of building and inventive manners in how they think and put their models together, that you can assimilate to improve your own work -- and eventually, through practice (like the practice they've done), you can probably place (if not win). And if not win, there are other sites that I believe may have a bit of an easier competition? As in people more on the beginner tier who are newer to the overall community-- I'm not sure of what communities, but they must exist?

It sucks to lose, yeah, but every time you lose the point's to learn from it and improve for next time. Not so much to have the bar placed lower. (Of course I do like age-based things when it's verifiable, but online? It's not something you can verify easily and it's a bit unrealistic for BZPower to do).

To be honest? I'm not sure. BZPower was my creative outlet when I first joined and I wrote a lot of terribly written fan fiction that I hardly recognize anymore, well I was also in what, 5th grade? But being here helped me get into creative writing as a full time hobby -- I wrote a lot of fiction, I read about writing fiction, I experimented with writing styles and read a lot more back then and gained a massive appreciation for not only fanfiction (there were some amazing writers back then I looked up to -- there probably still are, I just haven't been active in The Library for years).

So that's where I developed my passion for writing, it's how I wrote so often and so much that I could type at nearly 110 words per minute in ninth grade and finish assignments designed to span multiple days in a half hour, lol. And it's a huge component in how I decided on my major (English).

Additionally I roleplayed a TON on this site like in 2008 - 2011ish. Doing that was massive in terms of not just developing writing skills, but developing lasting friendships and for myself to branch out after some time -- I went to some other RP Sites (all are gone now :c ) where I met amazing and wonderful people who became incredibly close friends of mine. Without them, their support and help, I have no idea where I would be (very realistically a hospital).

Then when I made a tumblr account I eventually ran across many old faces from here on there, we followed each other and I think grew a bit closer overall? But not only that, I became much more aware of problems and issues around me (and even how I unknowingly perpetuated different problems that exist), and that was huge in just gaining a sense of self and understanding different situations I might not even be aware of. It's also where I started, more thoroughly and on a very personal level, exploring my gender identity. Before then I often explored gender identity through RP characters (whom I sorta lived vicariously through WHOOPS), and I had a lot of problems with depression/frustration because I had no one to speak to until I ran into all of them and they started posting and providing a LOT of resources and advice. (And NOW, after reading and absorbing all of that and going to a LOT of counselors and therapists, I'm actually so much happier, so much more comfortable, and well on my way to a lot of really wonderful things in the near future c: ).

But yeah! For the nine or so years I've been here, this place has actually been immensely helpful with shaping a lot of who I am today, and helping me gain the confidence in real life to get assistance with some issues/problems when they came up.

probably world of warcraft because i discovered death knight is fun

Ideally, someone could put in the work and effort to create the Bionicle G2 BZPRPG and have it run alongside the current BZPRPG that follows the G1 story and elements, more or less. But to scrap one for the other would ruin a lot of the investment many players have put into the game, into their characters, into their stories, profiles and plans they may have had to interact with the various constructs within that RPG.

To take all of the things members have created and to reduce it to 0 only to restart the TBRPG in a setting we still don't know much about, then a lot of players are simply robbed of the creativity, time and effort they invested to tell their character's stories in the first game and they're left with a setting that most can only really speculate about -- it's hard to create characters, stories, plots, and the like in a setting that's current underdeveloped and can change so much within a very short time frame, which the RPG would end up needing to find a way to adapt to or divorce itself from.

If you want to see it, then you can make it yourself and enter one of the contests (I think the RPG forum still does those?) and see how many other people are genuinely interested to play in a RPG set on Okoto in the first place.

Have a happy birthday!

Y''know what I like T1S? That you will make up a science to make yourself right. I love how you ignore the fact that not only do sociology and psychology speak against your points, but so does biology and anthropology and findings and discoveries in archaeology. I really adore how you think "being binarist" extends to citing two scientific fields and not every single scientific field -- should I include chemistry, too? What about geology? Surely a geologist's input is just as valuable than a biologist's, or an athropologist's, or a psychologist's. Surely your made up science trumps all of them.

But want to know what really gets me here?

Is how ridiculously far you three go to basically tell NB people that they are not welcome here. That they are not welcome in this thread. That they are not welcome to headcanon or think of characters as they find relatable. That you're sitting here policing these members, these people, and what you believe should be included under the purview of this topic. You three are acting like intolerant moderators who want nothing more than to make the conversation fit your personal comfort square, pushing others out of it and then citing your made up sciences, then citing fictional characters for their ~valuable~ input, and you're all essentially saying that if you're a statistical minority then you don't get a say in anything, including the fandom and including headcanons and including input in topics like these. Want to know what? That's abhorrent. That behavior is absolutely mind bogglingly disgusting.

Don't even pretend anyone posting here was being absolutely serious and decrying TLG for not having NB characters. Don't even bring up that red herring. All three of you know exactly what this topic is and was about -- "How would YOU make the original six Toa gender-equal." Your input, all three of your input, has absolutely no value to this discussion when all you are doing is decrying people for how they would do this, saying the genders they would include are non-existent, invalid, are not worth having, and by extension making this topic and this website an unwelcome space for those people, who barely have any welcome spaces to begin with -- how selfish and self-centered do you three have to be?

I'm absolutely tired of this sentiment on BZPower, I'm tired of this sentiment everywhere else that isn't a transgender safe space, or a LGBT safe space in general, or that isn't around half decent human beings who can at least understand that they should treat other people how they ask to be treated. (I mean, do you all misgender people too and start arguments with them over their NB gender like this?)

The fact I was called out for having a superiority complex earlier utterly astounds me in the irony bleeding from those words -- have any of you seen what you have written? Have any of you understood the implications, how it actually makes NB members feel if they were to read this? Or do you trump "economical sense" and statistics over them, over actual human beings?

There is no debate to be had, that's why I'm not actually debating with any of you and more calling out your intolerable behavior. Hoping, at least, some of you would have realized what you were doing and then ceased it, but this petulant desire to be right when you are objectively wrong is just telling me that all any of you three care about are yourselves and statistics over actual people, our actual members, our actual community members.

And I'm tired of it.

If someone posts about NB characters... let them? None of you are experts in your various claimed fields, that is beyond painfully obvious, so your input is absolutely worthless on that front. This topic isn't about whether or not NB genders are valid or deserve to exist and be respected, but you three made it about that because none of you can respect people and all three of you feel uncomfortable with their inclusions and hide behind dated science and made up science (fictionology or whatever that was?) in order to shout them down, insult them, degrade them, dehumanize them and I am not going to stand for that. I will speak up against that because it's abhorrent. And all three of you seriously need to rethink how you interact and treat people, on top of understanding what makes for an actual academic debate (because this is not it).

Have you considered the possibility people might be more willing to listen to what you say, if you didn't have a blatant superiority complex?

 

Nobody on this topic has been shouting people down, and has attempted, with a remarkable amount of civility which has, in fact, stunned me. But in each post you've made, you've shoe-horned in passive-aggressive commentary, and selectively hand-picked certain points to discuss. And then, for your last great act, you've went with a post meant solely to call out other members, but under the pleasant guise of not targeting anyone by name; a tactic commonly used for the purposes of dehumanizing the opposition in a debate, I might add. Retired staff or not, this is completely uncalled for.

 

That being said:

I'm sorry if I'm more than a little tired of hearing people erase and try to debate the mere existence of nonbinary genders (Absolutely constantly on this website). I'm very sorry if my passive aggressive undertones offended you as you, among others, talk about how this is a valid debate and that the true and real existence of such people don't matter in the scheme of this story and how they don't belong. Forgive me, truly.

Let me put it this way: This is not a debate. There is no debate to be had over the existence, validity or inclusion of nonbinary gender identities inside the Bionicle universe for such people, real human people who are not you, to relate with and enjoy. It's absolutely rude, demeaning and dehumanizing, inherently, to even act like this is up for debate at all.

So, sorry if I don't treat every point as legitimate in a discussion designed to insult and degrade other people.

 

(I'm not even going to start with T1S -- first off, Great Beings aren't real).

Ah, so you agree that this whole discussion is flawed from the get-go. We're talking about something that only exists in-story (you'll notice that it's hard to give a small pile of plastic a gender, so we'll focus on the storyline implications), which happens to include the Great Beings. That's the point I was trying to make.

 

Correct. The Great Beings do not exist. The Toa do not exist. The Matoran do not exist. So what are we even talking about here? We're talking about a story. It's a story about robots who were created by a fictional alien race to save a planet.

 

I feel like you missed the entire point that Bionicle is a series written by humans, for humans. The toys have gender. The characters have gender. The people reading and relating to the characters have gender. The entire point of this topic is just talking about making equitable ratios between genders, which people were posting just fine until some posters made mockeries and stinks over nonbinary identities being included, which is flat out rude.

But if you think the story has no relevance, no point, no purpose, no affect or rhyme or reason to exist then why even post on a website, or in a forum, dedicated to it in the first place?

I'm admittedly not in tune with the psychology of gender, buy these are robots. They don't have any physical reason to be male or female. Judging by canon, they're all monogendered asexual. Cisgender fails to have meaning, as does trans. LGB all fail when sexual attraction is taken out of the mix, because platonic friendships form regardless of gender.

 

I'm genuinely interested though. Taking the variables of physical gender, sexual attraction and romance out of the human perception of gender, how many possibilities can there realistically be, or can be realistically differentiated?

Gender doesn't rely on physical or sexual attraction, so I'm sorry to say but that entire argument you wanted to start holds no value in any discussion at all. Even so, the characters obviously have gender and gender expression -- the books refer to them all as he/she and brother/sister in various contexts throughout. And, whether canon or not, the movies AND books gave various characters romantic undertones towards each other (like Matau's nice little nest-making comment towards Nokama, or his flirtatious behavior towards her in the second movie).

And there is and always have been various gender expressions ... ? They've existed long before the internet, they've existed in various societies ancient and modern, so of course creatures with sentience, sapience and a paradigm for gender will develop various other identities individuals and groups feel more closely aligned to and feel more accurately represent who they are.

So, um, what's your point other than trying to poorly refute that nonbinary identities don't belong here?

(I'm not even going to start with T1S -- first off, Great Beings aren't real).

I think we've lost the point somewhere along the line here. This topic wasn't "Gender diversity in BIONICLE:Gotta include them All". This was a simple question asking of the original six, who would change to make the team equal in gender? That's easy, since as mostly robotic beings, the Toa could only exist somewhere between the two binary extremes. Romance doesn't exist in canon, so out the window goes LGB, and the lesser known sexual orientations declaring what you are sexually attracted to. Gender is only mental, so we don't have the problem of someone's mental gender not matching their physical sex.

 

In short: Biomechanical beings can only be mentally gendered, so male/female & (arguably) nongendered are the plausible options.

There's plenty of identities outside of those three choices you deemed the only acceptable options, most of the discussion came from people mocking, or outright denying the existence of those identities which falls in line with the purview of the topic as it's about equitable gender representation in Bionicle.

Some people used romance or popular shipping options as reasons why they'd change this or that, but any other argument was because some people can't get past the concept of non-binary identities and felt the need to shout them down for no apparent reason.

You make a good point about giving children a character they can identify with, though from my personal experience, I'd say that might be a bit of a stretch. Both while younger, and into the present, I've been able to identify with both male and female characters. After all, basic rules of writing dictate that a character is better defined by their personality than any other measure. This topic, and the fact that so many people have differing views on which characters "fit" each gender, proves that better than anything else.

 

(Also, removing all male characters seems more like creating a new problem than solving one, so you have me stumped their.)

It's not personal experience that matters here. There simply isn't a lot of media where a lot of kids of varying genders, expressions thereof, and so forth are represented in. Removing people from existing in media makes it seem like such people don't exist in the first place, effectively erasing their importance in the eyes of the majority and, when you realize you aren't represented at all in what you enjoy, it can give a blow to a lot of kids' self confidence and sense of self-worth. Just because you didn't experience that doesn't mean people do not, it's fallacious to even present the argument.

And yes, characters should be defined by who they are, but when every "defined" character is a male there is a bit of a problem there. Since you're effectively removing women and other genders from the equation entirely, when doing so does nothing other than ostracize them from the franchise. Why not make some of those male characters of other genders if, to you, gender is merely an unimportant footnote? Why argue against it? Is there something that needs protecting? Because there isn't.

And no, removing all the male characters would not create a new problem synonymous with the old. Women and other gender expressions are a massive minority in media, men take the spotlight most of the time and across most acclaimed works. Most summer blockbusters are full of testosterone, many books have nearly full male casts (Lord of the Rings, staring really hard at you).

Giving a handful of candies to the person with a third of what the person next to them has does not jeopardize the amount of candies that other person already has. It just puts both of them on a more even scale.

Unless, of course, you see what's wrong with skewed gender ratios and representation and that's why you brought up the point, since it's a massive issue in the old series and so far looking to continue in the new as far as main characters are concerned.

(I'll also reiterate: any reinforcement of a binary is bunk science)

Disregarding the utter bunk a lot of people like to post about the binary being "scientifically accurate" (seriously, take a biology course? A psych class?)

- Gali/Lewa/Kopaka as female
- Tahu/Pohatu as nonbinary individuals
- Onua can stay male I guess, though if I had my way Onua'd simply be female and we'd have a year of no male sets or characters to start balancing out the massive problem that existed in the first series.

I'm not even going to hear the "oh wah, they're robots no need for genders anyway!" because that's a terribly written cop out argument meant to do little more than say "it's either my way or no way." 

(Also, yes, it's totally Politically Correctness that makes people like to identify with and relate with characters in a franchise they enjoy, no other reason at all lol)

Maybe time for a purge then? Not that that would ever happen. Probably be a very good idea though. Make the numbers actually mean something again rather than the statistic it seems to have become judging by this topic! 

Why purge accounts when people do come back? We've had a lot of members late last year who returned after 3+ years with their accounts because of the line receiving a reboot, it would be a little rude to do that to the other accounts who have people who may return at some point in the name of statistical accuracy. Granted, they wouldn't be able to find their friends if any stayed active as easily due to their friends list being gone; they would lose any archived messages, PM's, that might've held some sort of importance; they'd lose any topics they posted provided they posted on the new boards; they'd lose their title; their active years and member group if they were a Premier Member or a OBZPC.

I don't care if 50k people are logging in on average or the 1700 users who logged in through December 2014, it's more of a "cool we hit this milestone" than a "yep we have 50k active users actively posting and actively making topics."