bonesiii

It is very cool. You've gotten quite good at this.

Jaller, Yeah I agree.

Dakar, I agree with that as well.

...

 

Gadunka?!? O_o

That is always the reaction with truly great sets.

I think someone raised a reason not -- so as not to confuse people.

No more confusing than an iron grey and yellow Toa being Hewkii, or a four-legged, spiky, bat-winged set being a Matoran, the Rahaga formerly having been Toa, or the tubes on the Toa Mahri being gills instead of the diving equipment one would expect them to be... If you want to break from tradition, or the expected, you have to confuse some people.

 

Of course, said confusion could be made less if color schemes more Avo-Matoran-like were used... Anyway, again, there's nothing canonically wrong with any of these, it's just so much potential unused.

 

I would be curious to see people's initial reactions thereto.[/color]

You got me curious too; wanna make a poll?

And I don't at all buy the logic that varying color schemes in one element would be anywhere near as confusing as changing the "blue Matoran = female, others = male" rule, because varying color schemes in one element has also been established since 2001. There's no fundamental change there by making Pohatu orange or the Av-Matoran a little different too.

And the male/female thing would be more confusing to anybody, regardless of age, because with that there's always the "pronoun question". When you, for example, are visiting somebody's house and they have a pet you don't know, you often have to ask the gender. With Matoran it would be the same way. As it is, the problem doesn't exist.

Things like the Shadow Matoran being Matoran or the Rahaga being former Toa are more story geek facts than basics. The old "Oh, the blue guy is a she?" thing is a lot more basic.

But if you tell them "This blue Matoran is male; this white Matoran is female," they'd be confused, because chances are they will have heard from me many a time that "blue is female. Everything else is male." I've had trouble convincing people that Roodaka is female, I dare say that it might take some good convincing to explain how the Av-Matoran are an exception to pretty much every rule that has been preached over the years.

Heh, exactly. And Roodaka is visually obviously female -- with Matoran there is nothing else. It would be purely a storyline factoid only. Kids would call her "him" even more than they already do with blue sets.

Now, I'm not saying it would necessarily mean "Don't ever do it", but to say that it wouldn't confuse people more than other things is, I think, incorrect. So that is a reason to at least be cautious with the idea.

I have to ask, how old are these kids to whom you are referring? If my own memories of being the age serve, I think it would be a severe underestimation on Lego's part to assume that the target audience, 9- to 11-year olds, couldn't grasp that a new type of Matoran could be both male and female...

I think you're forgetting that most in the target audience don't know all the little obscure factoids us story geeks know. The color coding gender thing is a basic and clear system that's been in place from the beginning. Why throw a wrench in that system?

Besides, Lego decided to make the Matoran of lightning female; wouldn't that be as much of a problem as a few female Avotoran

Apples and oranges, IMO. Lightning is a totally different element, and also one we have yet to see in set form. Av-Matoran aren't naturally these colors anyways, it is just being done so as not to completely risk the tradition. Don't forget that that is already a level of confusion that will probably be out there -- "What? These guys aren't really stone, ice, air, etc.?!" Hopefully the idea that they're light-Matoran will make that less confusing, because light has to do with colors as kids do know. To add a second level of confusion at the same time?

? — Of course, that question goes hand-in-hand with the facts that one, all of these are virtually the standard six types just by set design, and two, we don't have an official color scheme for lightning yet. The solution to both of these is, of course, to introduce a new color scheme – i.e. white and light gold for Solek – and then have her be female, unbound by the marketed gender of Ko-colors. Since I assume a similar thing would be done for Lightning, whenever Matoran/Toa of the element are released.

Yes, but since that hasn't been done...

Again, no matter how justified it is for only Gavla to be female, there's no denying that the fact that Avo-Matoran are both genders (a truly wonderful thing) comes to absolutely nothing from a set design/gender point of view. Finally the potential is there for a non-blue Matoran set to be female, but it goes unused.

Let's not forget that the whole Av-have-both-genders thing is a nod towards us older fans in the first place. Be careful not to treat that nod as something to be ungrateful for and overly demanding of. This is something I think is better left to fanfics -- to make up your own male and female Av-Matoran with whichever colors you feel like.

Is it an understandable decision? Yes, I have to admit it is, but it's an extremely unoriginal one.

I don't think that's the issue we've been debating, though, whether it's "original". Originality can, after all, only go so far. Keeping Kanohi around is "unoriginal," and keeping Toa around is "unoriginal." There's plenty of us who wouldn't mind these going bye-bye at all to be replaced by something new. But they're kept because the sense is that they help hold Bionicle together and keep a consistent framework behind it.

The other examples were to illustrate things that are unexpected or unprecedented: a Toa in an entirely new, unseen color scheme being an old Matoran with a completely different one (people were very confused by that, as I witnessed)

There was a market driving force behind Hewkii's color change. The change you're suggesting lacks that driving force. The only motivation would be to please older fans and "not bother much" the target audience. Big difference there.

In essence, LEGO had little choice with the yellow/orange move.

sets one would definitely not expect to have been Toa in the past

Yeah, but everybody including little kids that I've heard have always reacted "Cool!" to the Rahaga having been Toa. They like funny little mutants. Changing color/gender isn't that kinda thing. Gender at that age seems a lot different from how it seems to us old fogies.

something one would assume to be exactly what it looks like canonically being entirely different...

Maybe I'm losing track here, but wasn't the next thing on your list the Mahri tubes? How are those "entirely different"? Both are underwater breathing apparatus. The only reason we in real life don't have a machine that does the same is that we just plain aren't advanced enough yet (at least for it to be affordable). To us, tubes mean air tubes to a tank. But the Bionicle world isn't limited in that way. I fail to see how gills are that much different from air tubes. Especially in biomechanical beings... That's still a "Ooh, cool!" thing.

And how else could it work, really? If they were air tanks getting air would have to become a major part of the storyline for the Toa too, but it was already being done with the Matoran. Methinks it would get a little old. Gills are more economical.

Besides, that's a very obscure factoid. I know what you're trying to say, but none of this changes the fact that the gender change you're suggesting would be a much more radical, fundamental change with much less reason to do it coming from the target audience.

and Radiak, who speaks for himself.

Why? Mutants are nothing new to Bionicle, as you stated with the Rahaga.

If people can deal with all of those, they (meaning the target audience) can deal with a non-blue Matoran being female, really.

Sorry, but this is still a non-sequitar argument. That conclusion doesn't follow at all from the things you're pointing out. Remember it's not whether they "can deal" with it, but whether it's worth doing it compared to how much it will confuse them. After all you said, these facts still remain:

1) No evidence the target audience wants that change.

2) Gender is very different from whatever other story whatevers you think up.

3) All fundamental 2001 "rules" have remained consistent, including varying colors in one element, "blue" being female, and the six standard elements "appearing" each year (in this case, appearing only literally speaking; not actually being fire, etc.). Your suggestion would change one of those rules as far as the marketing "appearance" is concerned.

4) The Av = both genders thing is a treat already given to us older fans. Why demand "more more more"?

To be super clear, I would also love what you're suggesting. Anyone who's follow my fanfics knows I completely abolished the gender rule within them (though I have a fundamental story reason for it, too, that is still a mystery to readers). However, having done so, I've actually realized that things are waaaaay more confusing that way, and almost wished at times I hadn't done it. For example, in my RPG, there's quite simply no way to tell the gender of a lot of the extras, unless it happens to be mentioned in passing. I always have to adjust the storyline to be sure to use the word "she" for every Ta-female and "he" for every Ga-male. In official storyline, I really do think it's best to stick with the blue=female rule.

BTW, though, if it's worth anything, remember there was some blue in MNOG Le-Matoran, and in Ko-Matoran. And Takua, obviously. So some exceptions already have existed (but in each case, it was only a secondary color). Perhaps a compromise along those lines would have been okay.

On the elemental prefixes, the Onu-prefix wasn't chosen for reasons at all like that – it's like that because all Bionicle names were originally based on, or taken from, Maori.

Do you have quotes to confirm this, or is this simply your personal theory? I don't think you can just brush aside all those reasons when in fact, if they were called "On-Matoran", it would have the mentioned problems. You don't think LEGO thought of that?

And in Maori, things always end with vowels

LEGO changed tons of things in terms of how they were using the Maori language -- question is, even if that's true, why did LEGO choose not to change that part? That doesn't come close to ruling out what we've been bringing up.

(which is the overriding rule here), and you rarely have two consonants next to each other anyway. (ng and wh are the only ones to my knowldge.) Plus, the elemental prefixes were taken from the Toa's names, so Onu- was a given. Given that, Avo- would work the same way.

Yet again, even if that's true, it's an argument against your suggestion, because Maori is something LEGO is now trying to actively avoid.

Since then, of course, the Matoran language has evolved to include a frighteningly wide variety of sounds and styles (to some extremities of which I have always disapproved), so in today's standards there's nothing wrong with Av-Matoran, but placed against the other six it sticks out immensely.

Why frightening? Especially to speakers of English, which already has a wide range of styles? (Though not really of sounds, compared to things like German.) I think you're making the mistake of "grounding" your sense of Bionicle linguistics in Maori, when in fact it is now grounded in English, and also for good reasons; most fans speak English.

Dude how do you use gradient on bzp?

Just make different letters different colors. Typing in the color RGB code manually.

What did Firefox ever do to you?

Tabs. And messing up on basic javascript stuff.

Just upgraded to IE7, grudgingly, as nothing else was working to fix 6. I still hate the tabs, but at least they can be turned off....

As long as I don't have to get Vista, I'm good... I hate that even more. I just hope this "virus" or w/e won't mess more things up, 'cuz not even Norton is finding the problem so might just be IE6 went nuts cuz it got old or whonot.

There's nothing wrong with a topic about articulation, is there?

 

Yeah, that's mine. Are these good topics or bad topics?

They're not either/or. I'm not passing judgement on them one way or another in such simple terms. As I said, they can help Bionicle, and even if the opinion is 'wrong', they are learning opportunities. And it sorta depends on who you ask; a lot of people can't stand them at all, but those who enjoy debating don't mind them

As I recall, I posted in that particular topic agreeing with the complaint.

Some of these topics scare me, but I'm glad to see you've gotten around to compiling them in an entry. Tell me, are you planning to distinguish between dead topics and living ones? That might be a helpful touch.

It would, but it would be too much work to keep it updated.

Is the MNOG pic an edited screenshot or did you change the dialogue files?

~D

Edit.

So, concluding, I think I hit all the Vahi points. What you really need is a second half-mask (after the Vahi) to establish the shape as not-necessarily-a-Vahi; but I think the "Kakama" is far too close to the Vahi.

Well, don't forget that the original Kakama resembled the Vahi already.

As far as the visor goes, it's pretty clearly part of the Kanohi, conceptually, is it not? Sure, it might be made with two pieces, but it's no different than the Kaukau's visor as far as whether it's part of the mask or not. That visor could easily have been done with two pieces too. Just as a Toa Metru leg is still just as much a leg as a Toa Mata leg is even though the Mata one is one piece and the Metru is more than one.

What is part of a "Kanohi mask" is the concept of it, not the technicalities like whether it is all one piece or not.

What I meant about reversing my argument was that I was talking about the Vahi in relation to the shape that made it different from all other masks; you reversed that by applying that argument to the feature that all other masks (but the Garai) had in common.

I thought you meant that I was somehow misrepresenting what you had said. Am I correct to interpret this as saying, no, you simply were talking about the point I was making?

If so, then isn't it obvious that a counter-argument will be in some ways reverse to an argument lol? But anyways, I think there's been plenty said on that already.

Hopefully we can at least agree that the Kakama Newva is similar to the Vahi, but has differences also, if we can't agree on whether that's too much/not enough, etc, along these lines:

Similarities:

Lower-half is only opaque part.

Orange.

Similar in shape to Kakama Mata.

Differences:

Different details of design of lower half.

Visor upper half.

Whole mask closer to Kakama than Vahi.

To me those don't really seem debatable, although whether it's too much is still debatable. And the way I'm looking at it, the third similarity argues against it being "too similar" to the Vahi, BTW. Since it is supposed to be a Kakama.

Can we agree on those things?

The orange visor Aanchir suggested is one such means, though normal trans-orange would work with normal orange much better than trans-dark orange would... That way, the visor would look much more like a part of the mask because they'd be effectively the same color.

What did you think of my orange opaque frame suggestion for around the visor?

Too small. Those sets look decent but I can't tell cuz pic too small! GR!

On that linguistic rant, that is precisely true – not only do we say a sentence as effectively one single word, but b, v, f, and m are all very similar sounds. Hence why in Hindi b and v are the same sound, if I recall correctly (I'm no expert in Asiatic languages), or, on a different note, r and l are the same sound in Japanese. Or in Greek omicron and omega, and epsilon and eta, are short and long o's and e's, espectively, but transliterated into Roman characters they become simply o and e because we Anglophones don't differenciate vowels by length.

 

But anyway, the "vm" combination seems completely unnatural. You mentioned the brain processing things. "Have much," as you said, poses no problem, because the phrase is registered as two words, but a single combination of "vm" within a word doesn't occur in English. (Unless there's a word I can't think of.) And as such, the brain (my own, for instance) stumbles over it because it's never seen like that, working out how such a thing would be pronounced. As a result, one attempts to overcompensate for the V sound by stressing it, and the outcome sounds ugly.

 

Of course, all that's only initial dealing-with; after some practice (or, as you mentioned, the comparison to such phrases as "have much") it's perfectly easy to say, just like any combination might become.

 

I concede that the combination of sounds happens, but I do still think "Avo-Matoran" flows off the tongue much more naturally to one familiar with Bionicle nomenclature, especially given the precedent set by Onu-stuffs...

Good, I think I can agree with that.

Couple nitpicks -- "sound" isn't quite the right term for things like the Japanese r and l, though I know what you mean. Can't remember if the fancy schmancy term is "phone" or "phoneme", but perhaps "phonetic element" would be a fair approximate.

And I personally don't have the slightest trouble combining v and m, but I'll assume I'm a very rare exception given that I invent alien language (basics) all the time and I usually don't have trouble with new sounds where others do. (For example, I mastered the German ch and r right away while my brother still can't do the r even though I've explained over and over how it's done.) No, I can't think of any vm words in English either.

Also, as said before, Onu really isn't relevant to this, since as mentioned before there were other bigger reasons not to call them "On-Koronan". On, and Encore, being the reasons...

And my guess is the reason you haven't seen anyone else objecting to the combination "Av-Matoran" on the grounds you brought up is that most of us have grown familiar with the sound "Av" for whatever reason as working as an elemental prefix already. Because we can't ignore that this term has been around for a long time, and pretty much everyone has been using without any stated qualms.

Off on a tangent again, the "ask" to "axe" comparison isn't really what I was talking about; as I said, English doesn't actually have rules like that. I was thinking more of Greek, where the future of peithō (I persuade), which ought to be peithso by the standard formation, becomes peiso because the "ths" sound is an awkward one, so the sigma overrides the theta.

Well, yes and no. Yes, I know what you mean by that, but when you say "English" doesn't have rules like that, I'm not sure what you mean by rules. One of the things linguists study is the subconscious "rules" that do govern a particular dialect's pronunciations, and those do exist as "rules". It simply usually takes a linguist to figure out what they are, as most people don't consciously realize why it happens. In the African American dialect, there actually is a rule that is causing that phenomenon.

But it's not the kind of rule you can look up in a grammar handbook.

Skakdi is another similarly annoying word – certainly pronouncable, but you have to work your tongue around it for a while because it looks so unusual.

Yep. That one actually gives me trouble too. Not that it looks unusual though. I want Bionicle words to look unusual.

My point exactly. You have the opportunity to, for once in the storyline, so why on earth not?

I think someone raised a reason not -- so as not to confuse people.

So is this one of those

Ever had one of those moments where you think you just passed into an alternate timeline? This is one. ()_o

moments?

Cuz yeah. It's been "emoticon" forever man.

Is this a new debate technique, eh? Can't see why you wouldn't agree, though... 'tis very simple. Superficial = subjective = not universal.

 

 

-Ikk

It's more like an "I should be writing an essay but I wanted to come here real quick so I don't go insane but don't have time for lengthy debates" technique. Those words were randomly chosen to get the idea across that I wasn't here to talk about the entry. So not gonna bother debating if they fit. Color technicalities aren't interesting to me at moment sorry.

Bones ~ I get your points indeed, but in one word next to another any collision can happen naturally (though in many languages (not English), if a word ends in a sound incompatible with the next word's starting sound, something in the two will change). I'm talking about within a single word, or in this case a hyphenated phrase. And I resent the word "attempted" being in there.

 

It would also seem more natural that the Avo- prefix would follow the same rules as the Onu- prefix, since the two are identical in elements. (Vowel, consonant, vowel...)

Yes, but it is hyphenated. Which is basically the same thing. You write it "Av (space) Matoran", not "Avmatoran." The dash is simply one way of writing a space; and really wouldn't be needed because: what I was testing you on was the fact that linguists have proven that there isn't actually a pause between words for fluent speakers of any language; we simply mentally "pretend" that there are pauses, because in the processing of the speech, we need to seperate the word components to comprehend.

I've seen the graphs; looking just at those, you can't even tell where exactly one word starts and another ends; they sortof blur together. This is why many people erroneously think that foreigners blur their words more than we do -- we actually do the same if we are fluent in English, but our brains can "filter" the blur.

In other words, there's no distinction, linguistically, between two seperate words and a hyphenated word. So my point stands -- it does occur.

Technically there wouldn't be a functional difference if it was just "Avmatoran", though you'd tend to perform the blur faster that way.

Also, in terms of mouth part placement, v and m are actually very close compared to other more "standard" sound combinations. For example, the letter "x" is usually pronounced "ks", which is requires the tongue to rapidly move from the far back of the roof of the mouth to the far front. However, v is done by placing the teeth on the lower lip. All one needs do to make m is to close the upper lip.

In addition, v is a "soft" fricative sound and m is a stop; those can go together much more easily than many combinations of two stops that are frequently done in English. (Like the word "Captain".)

Anyways. You can ignore me if you feel like it; I just love linguistics too much to pass up an upportunity to rant bout it.

And for the record, English does have some less common examples of what you mentioned. Perhaps most obvious is how some say "Ax" instead of "ask". The sound "r" in some American English accents also changes sometimes like that.

That does make sense... the way I see it, the only reasons they would have done that for Onu and not Av are that 1)Onu without the U wouldn't appear to sound the same and 2)O-N by itself looks just like a real word, "on". And who knows; maybe it's less trouble for Danes, and they didn't realize the difficulties it could pose a native English speaker.

Yes, that was my assumption as well. Also, remember the original word wasn't "Matoran" but either "Tohunga" or "Koronan". (Pretty sure the prefix always went with Koronan, and there were alternate spellings of even that.) So it would have been "On-Koronan" which sounds like "encore". Given that the combination "Av-Matoran" flows fairly freely, there really wouldn't be any reason not to go with the automatic two-letter prefix.

All that is basically a fancy and technically-backed-up way of saying that your statement is more about personal taste than any linguistic science itself. Which is fine; but let's be aware of that. Or we could ignore me cuz I'm weird.

And I resent the word "attempted" being in there.

I will assume you're joking, despite the lack of emoticon. If not, aw, come on, man, lighten up. Life be boring without some sense of humor. I would hope that you are past the need for resentment as we hopefully cleared up in past discussions. Again, never mind if I missed the joke.

I thought I said I wasn't here to discuss that.

Sorry that I'm not here to discuss your actual entry, as it's mostly color scheme stuff which is pretty superficial/subjective, plus I'm in a hurry. Just a nitpick about your attempted linguistic comment in the opening.

Avo-matoran

 

(Because I refuse to use that linguistic collision of "v-m." It simply doesn't happen.)

Some of us are blessed with enough money to live moderately well on. But there are people out there who don't have much.

Just so you know.

If you truly are a linguist, you will understand two vital points above, my friend. Whoops, three there.

[Edit: Make that four.]

No, no, you misunderstand me – you said I was going too far by making my assumption; I disagreed because I didn't think I was going too far at all.

I see. So the surprise has registered already? I wasn't sure if you had caught what I meant the first time; apparently you did.

You're also reversing my argument. For seven years the Vahi was the only mask to be only a lower half, so that was what made it distinctive against the... oh, dozens of other mask shapes we've seen throughout the years. That feature was a trademark of the Vahi, so after seven years of "full" masks (as it were), a second mask that's only a lower half automatically bears a distinct resemblance to the Vahi.

I'm not sure how I reversed anything, since that's basically what I asked if you were thinking:

And never in Bionicle has any such rule been stated. It seems like maybe you've sort of assumed one?

Not that you said "rule" actually; I know what you mean. But what's I'm saying is, I don't think of it as a "trademark" just because it's been the only one for seven years. "Trademark" seems a lot stronger a word than "distinctive," if that makes any sense.

Though as you say, this may just be me since I design masks myself.

But part of what I was trying to get across was, because I design masks a lot, with an eye towards variety, I know that eventually you're going to get bored as a designer making only the standard both-halves design, and you're going to want to fill up some other categories too with some variety.

So that's a point I don't think that can be brushed aside just because it's easier from my perspective to see it -- we are talking about choices mask designers made here. So the kind of perspective they probably see from is important to pay attention to.

You also include a visor in the shape of a mask. I don't; if I look at Pohatu Phantoka's head I see a Vahi and a visor, not one mask made of the two.

Well, I know you're talking about taste here -- but I'm not totally sure how you would arrive at that conclusion. After all, Toa have had Kanohi masks, not Kanohi + visors, since 2001. Gali Mata, to an extent, Nokama Metru, and most noticeably of course the year just before the sets in question; many of the Toa Mahri. It seems odd to, at this point, mentally seperate the visor from the mask when no visor before has been seperated.

I understand, of course, that this is the first (I think) visor that's not "framed" by other plastic, and like I said, I still think an orange plastic "frame" around it would be better in this case. But yeah, it would still be part of the mask, just like a top-down convertible's windshield is part of the car.

The thing about the eye colors, to me, is that they're all green, but green really doesn't match well with ice, fire, or stone. Green eyes feel more unique to Earth, IMO, and they can fly with air or water too.

I'm hoping we all realize that the reason for this across-the-board-color is to save money on a tiny part of the set, BTW. Most of these arguments are just "it used to be X way so it should stay that way" which isn't a serious argument if it doesn't address the cost-benefit issue. I can't see the point in demanding six different eye colors, in light of this.

Personally I would like... well, pardon me sounding biased ... orange eyes on all of them. Orange contrasts nicely to me with just about every color. With water especially well, and ice, earth. With fire, it fits the color scheme, and with the new stone yellow or orange, it fits too. The only doubtful one is air, but IMO orange looks okay with green too. Possibly yellow as an alternative.

Or, have two different eye colors each time. One for half the sets, the other for the other. Orange for some, blue for others, etc. Could be a workable compromise, that fits with some other pieces that have often come in two varieties in a set of six.

Bones ~ I disagree – it has the same shape[...] so I would be extraordinarily surprised if anyone didn't think of the Vahi when looking at it.

There's no room to disagree with my statement -- I'm just saying; you said this:

I don't think anyone can dispute that, if shown Pohatu Phantoka's mask without any prior knowledge of it, they would instantly think of the Vahi.

I can dispute it, because I didn't have prior information when I saw it, and I did not think of a Vahi. That's just what my reaction was, so I don't see how you can disagree about what it was. I had no clue what power it was, and as I said, definately did not know it was supposed to be a Kakama. In fact, you're really the only person I've seen who has said they instantly thought of the Vahi.

Everybody else seems to be saying they can see the resemblance, and I can too -- but I'm saying, that particular statement is too far.

So, I guess, go ahead and be extraordinarily surprised.

Especially since in all preceding seven years of Bionicle, the Vahi has been the only mask to have only a lower half.

It may be because I design masks as a hobby, that this fact is irrelevant to me. There's been tons of masks to have upper halves, and when I see a new mask with an upper half, I don't assume it's X past power, for example. Or better example, if I see a forehead shape like a Miru on Kongu Mahri's mask, I don't assume it's a Miru (and in fact, it isn't). I have, in fact, designed some other lower half only, upper half only, etc. mask shapes myself, and I don't see why there should be a special rule that says the Vahi can only use that particular basic concept.

And never in Bionicle has any such rule been stated. It seems like maybe you've sort of assumed one? And again, the visor is an upper half.

But anyways, that's mostly nitpicky stuff. I am already on record saying that I think this Kakama should have had some orange plastic going up on the sides of the visor at least, to make it more recognizeable as a Kakama. If it was a new power, I wouldn't have any issue with this shape at all.

BTW, got to check out Pohatu's head pics in the instructions PDF. Yes, too many colors all in one area. The red +bar especially does it. Although, I note the colors chosen are my main colors; orange, blue, green, and red, that I use a lot on BZP and also in the RPG. XD So personally it doesn't clash all that bad.

But I think yellow eyes would have been better, and the black +bars seemed to work fine before; I'm still not sure why those have turned red. (The blue pins I can understand, but the black ones were recognizeable enough by their shape already, IMO.)

Pohatu's mask being orange means that it being anything other than the Vahi is simply not an option to me. I don't think anyone can dispute that, if shown Pohatu Phantoka's mask without any prior knowledge of it, they would instantly think of the Vahi. (Whether you can see the Kakama in it or not when told it's not the Vahi is a different matter entirely.)

I'll agree that it resembles the Vahi, but the claim that everybody would automatically mistake it for the Vahi is going quite a bit too far. I had assumed it was a new power entirely. It didn't occur to me when I first saw it that it resembles the Vahi, because the resemblance is at best passing (especially because I've never seen the Vahi portrayed with a visor). I'll give you that I didn't expect it to be a Kakama, although it does bear resemblance to that too, though.

Not much else to say as a lot of that is your tastes. I do agree about overuse of different colors all in one Toa. The red eyepiece with Kopaka especially irks me. Color just doesn't belong on him. Not sure what you meant about Pohatu though; guess I'll have to recheck the pics...

I'm not sure why I just read an essay about dams, but it was interesting and well written.

Giant screens/grates long before the turbines... I wonder if something like that could solve the pressure problem... Meaning, to direct the fish towards a way around...

Since I wasn't sure if you were joking or if you misunderstood me, Leviathen, lemme quote myself to make sure:

Also, we get a lot of international members who may not speak English as a first language -- remember this is one of the hardest languages to learn in existence. IMO we should be a lot more forgiving of simple mistakes.

What you're saying is one of my main points of this entry, but maybe I could say more about it. Yes, the sentiments you're expressing are the kind I've seen a lot of international members saying, and it's very true.

(Sorry if I ruined a joke there. )

I am a native speaker of Norwegian and proud that my skills in my native speech outstrip my english skills.

Yeah, that's something I think too many of us just don't even think of, and the obsession with perfect English does come across as insulting a lot of times because of it.

Oooooooo.

I got used to it the second it was in there. Never was sure why it wasn't.

Why can't people just state things without acronyms?

 

Seriously, It took me a while to figure out "OGD" stood for "Official Greg Discussion". Is it too much to ask that people not abbreviate every single term, name, and idiom?

 

Anyway, on the subject of "OGD", why not just have a Greg discussion sub-forum? It would make things a bit more organized, wouldn't it?

 

 

 

 

-Gakurak

1) Everybody knows what OGD/OGDT stands for. It's been called that for centuries.

2) Perhaps, but then perhaps not because that's more clicks to load each topic. But as is it's not that organized, I agree. We've tried various methods of archiving it but nothing seems to be manageable in terms of updates. The best thing I can think of is if there was a public database where anybody can input their answers and it automatically goes into a database with a search by keywords. But the problem wouldbe that spammers/flamers/etc could so easily mess it up.

Can I continue using smilies as full stops?

Yes.

Aanchir, do you mean basically piston shapes in pieces for decoration? Not sure "practical pistons" is the best term for that if so; more like "decoration pistons". But yeah, that would be part of the design of the pieces, and I'd count it as a key part of the Bionicle style, so more "central" than extra.

Saya -- it's interesting that you bring up Lhikan in that way, as I was just speculating in another topic that maybe he sold better because of his death. I guess we'll have to ask about Matoro's sales later.

And I just got the comic on Friday, and wow. IMO it's the best one ever, and I don't say that lightly. Greg definately did do an excellent job, and same to the artists!

*forgot about this entry*

Great work from you guys in the latest comments! Lessy -- I like the first of the three you posted best, probably because it has 3D thickness. Good eye effect on the Kawaah though.

Icy J -- that is spectacular. Looks like a bug alien.

BD -- Thanks. I hope you enjoy it.

*glances at image*

*notices better knees*

*cheers*