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believe victims

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  1. believe victims

    Teridax

    By believe victims,

    I've been thinking a lot about Bionicle lately. I've been thinking of the potential it had, the joy it brought me, but sadly, also its decline into something I had a harder time appreciating right up until the unsatisfying end.
     
    One thing that bugs me the most, though, is what happened to Makuta.
     
    In the early days of Bionicle, everything was much more spiritual, much more mystical, much more intriguing. Obviously, as Greg's "Sizzle and the Steak" thing was all about, it couldn't remain that mystical forever, because some things needed to be answered, such as the true nature of Mata Nui. However, as time went on, it seemed as though more and more of the mystical things had an explanation shoved into them. Masks got their powers from being crafted from Kanoka disks. The legends of Mata Nui were all made up. I think Greg, in all his talk of sizzling steaks and twelve-foot cockroaches, needed to realize that not all sounds are sizzles, and not all doors need to be opened.
     
    I feel this hit hardest with Makuta, especially with how unsatisfactory his explanation was: he was just an angry janitor.
     
    Okay, that's oversimplifying it a little. However, my point is that when Makuta lost his spiritual side, his role as the spirit of Darkness and Destruction, he also lost a large degree of what made him interesting. With his powers restrained by the limitations of needing to be an actual creature instead of a spirit, and his motivations changed from a drive to destroy to simply a jealous bid for power, he became just another generic villain.
     
    And worst of all, he became a Planner.
     
    A Planner is, to me, a villain type that is rarely written well. They're easily recognized; they always have a Master Plan, and everything that happens goes according to it. This includes any victories by the opposing side, any uncontrollable contingencies, anything down to a butterfly's wingflap.
     
    And it's so dreadfully boring. In small doses, the twist of "it was all my master plan" is tolerable; it can pull the rug out from under you when you least expect it. However, the problem with Makuta is when he became a Planner, it was at the expense of eight years of story. Eight years and at least two defeats of Makuta had to be explained away as "all according to keikaku*". The more it happened over those eight years, the less surprising it became, and the more infuriating, because there wasn't even a character anymore. Just a cardboard cutout that says, "All according to plan."
     
    This is all very disjointed and not all of it is really worded the way I want it but basically, I loved the way Makuta was written from 2001-2004. He was a spirit driven by his very being to destroy, to conquer, to consume. He was intimidating and awe-inspiring in a way that he just WASN'T from Time Trap onwards. I can barely even read his words in the same voice as he had in the movies past that point, because it's so dramatically different. The movie voice is that of a spirit of destruction; it just doesn't match the words of a mere politician.
     
    *Translators Note: keikaku means plan
  2. believe victims
    I was initially going to write a recap each day, but I turned out to not have the energy required, so here's just an overall recap.
     
    First things first: I am never riding the bus again. It's noisy, the bus rattles like it's being shaken apart, and some dude vomited in one on the way home. There was nothing pleasant about this experience.
     
    The convention, meanwhile, was quite enjoyable. One of the first things I purchased was a big bag of Galidor parts, and boy did I have fun. I even won a MISB Gorm in the silent auction! (I hate collectors, though, so I opened it. Not like its value can go down. )
     
    Admittedly, I took my Galidor jokes too far, for which I apologize. I am, unfortunately, not the best at knowing what's taking a joke too far.
     
    Metalbeard was nominated for the Best Bionicle - Humanoid Brickee and ended up winning! Even if I don't (Fiddler was nominated for non-humanoid, but lost to Kayru's Kayru.)
     
    Speaking of Fiddler, this was its last con. I'm not one for keeping things together, and I haven't had its parts available for over a year now, so it was time to let it go. Next year, though, don't be surprised to see a new crab on the convention circuit.
     
    I spent a lot of time with friends/acquaintances I never got to meet before, and certainly had a good time with them. Admittedly, it was quite jarring how different people's real voices are from the voices I read their posts in online. Still, I got to see a side to some of the staff I've never seen before, even if it may have just been because I hung around Andrew because we roomed together. Fun!
     
    I was pretty awkward, what with all the newness, and I ended up having a meltdown on the final day because I was convinced everyone hated me because of something stupid, but overall it was a positive experience. Who knows? Maybe I'll try coming down again next year. I certainly have plenty of plans for MOCS!
     
    (P.S.: Despite what I was told, I made it through the entire weekend and still say it "em-oh-see". I am unbreakable.)
  3. believe victims

    Victorion

    By believe victims,

    Whiny fans keep blaming Hasbro for Victorion having two helicopters.
     
    She's a fan-built bot. People voted for her limbs. People voted for two helicopters, not Hasbro.
     
    Sure, hate the helicopters. (I don't; I think they give some nice symmetry to her.) But don't blame Hasbro for following the fans' votes.
  4. believe victims

    Reclaim the Word

    By believe victims,

    For too long the word "dinosaur" has been used to mean "something old and inferior", and it's time this stopped. Dinosaurs did not die through any design flaw of their own; in fact, they were in their prime when they went extinct, with some of the biggest and most powerful members of their current clades emerging within the last few million years before their demise. (Tyrannosaurus, for instance, may have had the most powerful bite of any creature.) Rather, they were unceremoniously terminated and replaced with inferior creatures.
     
    This is the new meaning of "dinosaur" I recommend: "something perfectly serviceable that is nonetheless replaced or followed by a far inferior copy". For example, Windows 7 is a "dinosaur". The first two Shrek movies were "dinosaurs". It just makes more sense.
  6. believe victims
    Not a good look at much, though that didn't stop me from catching things that rub me the wrong way.

    Horned tyrannosaurs? Two-headed pterosaurs? Yes, we get it. They're robot dinosaurs, you're Michael Bay, and you get to do whatever the heck you want in the name of Rool of Cule. Whatever. It's stupid, but whatever.
    Is that flapping metal on Crosshairs or whatever? Really? Flapping metal, just to give cool "trenchcoat"? You could at least have TRIED making it conceivable.
    Is that Megatron? Again? There's only so many times you can kill him and bring him back to life before it stops being believable, you know.
    Busy, busy, busy. Everything is busy. This is nothing new to the franchise, and that just makes it even more annoying.

    It seems a bit early to be passing final judgement, but this looks like another Bay trainwreck to me. All action and explosions, no substance.
  7. believe victims
    okay I promise you this isn't just more complaining about the T. rex skeleton from the lab set. Or, at least, not quite.
     
    see, Izaak told me he would only consider my complaints valid if I could build a more accurate skeleton with a similar number of pieces. I was intending to do so anyway because I wanted to prove to myself that my claims weren't empty, but he fueled that fire. And so that's why I created this:
     

     
    Now, it's not perfect, I'll admit that. I'm second-guessing the cheese slope on the neck, and the legs are somewhat rough and ill-proportioned. But this is, in my opinion, aesthetically better than the skeleton we received in the final set, while only using a few more pieces. The reason for more pieces is primarily because sadly, I could not preserve the tail build; it was simply too curved for this more horizontally-structured skeleton. However, slimming the skull helps make up for that. Also, while this image doesn't have the stand, that is only because I couldn't get the pieces to align right in LDD to make the stand work. Ideally, it would also have a chest stand for support.
     
    idk, I can understand the draw of the original, I guess. It gives you that recolored piece, and it has its own sort of charm. It just annoys me with its wonky proportions that feel less like stylization and more like odd building choices.
  9. believe victims
    It should come as no surprise to anyone if they try to recapture the setting and mood of 2001-2003. After all, sales were at their highest then; if they want to make this go big, they're going to go back to what drew people in in the first place.
    I've said it again and again, but it's worth repeating: a reboot is absolutely going to happen. If it doesn't, I still won't think it isn't the best decision, I'll merely question LEGO's decision, because a continuation or soft reboot/time skip are far too risky with very few rewards.
    It's not the end of the world that Greg isn't doing the writing. Sure, the guy's an okay writer, but he's not J.R.R. Tolkien or Kurt Vonnegut or anything. He could easily be replaced by someone who is as good or better at writing than him. It sounds harsh, but it's true. Greg is replaceable.

    I feel like I had more to say, but for now this is all that comes to mind. Feel free to discuss, but I've had a lot of time to think about these things, and I'm pretty certain about them.
  10. believe victims
    I will cotton to being a bit of a curmudgeon, I suppose.
     
    But the more I see of this movie, the more I hate it. How could the company that made Finding Nemo then go on to make such bland, uninspired animal designs?
  11. believe victims

    I apologize

    By believe victims,

    I realize I came off as confrontational and rude, and I now see the error of my ways. Ninjago is not, in fact, as bad as I said it was. I watched
    , which made several excellent points (and I highly recommend you all watch it as well), and concede that I was wrong.
  14. believe victims
    Best Pursuit Theme: Ace Attorney 1: Cornered!
     
    Best Objection Theme: Dual Destinies' remastered Objection! from Trials and Tribulations
     
    Best Announce the Truth Theme: Either Ace Attorney 1 or Dual Destinies; it's a tough call for me.
     
    Best Questioning Theme: Dual Destinies
     
    Overall Ranking: AA1>>>>>>>>>AA3>AA5>AA4>>>AA2
     
    There are exceptions to that ranking besides the above bests, though. Justice For All has a far better Announce The Truth than Trials and Tribulations, despite Trials and Tribulations being superior to it in nearly every other aspect.
     
    The overall ranking coincidentally aligns with my opinions on the games themselves, though i might actually let Apollo Justice edge over Dual Destinies simply for being more..... filling than it, for lack of a better word.
  15. believe victims
    Okay, so birds are flying dinosaurs. Dinosaurs have had their chance at flight and took it, and became wildly successful.
     
    What we have just learned, however, is that dinosaurs made another foray into flight that looked decidedly more ridiculous.
     
    Say hello to Yi qi, the bat-winged theropod. Look at it. It even has feathers and isn't even bothering to use them to fly. What a weirdo.
     
    (The fossil did come from China, which spawned the infamous Archaeoraptor that idiots continue to insist proves all feathered fossils are hoaxes, so I'm wary, but for now, let's laugh at this ridiculous theropod.)
  16. believe victims
    In Mask of Light, there is one line spoken by Makuta that seems like it sets up a mystery. He says, "Sleep spares him [Mata Nui] pain. Awake, he suffers."
     
    That's interesting. Nobody ever thought there could be a reason for Makuta to put him to sleep besides a power grab. What pain does sleep spare him? What else happened to Mata Nui to cause this pain?
     
    But nothing happened. Nobody ever alluded to that line, no pain of the sort mentioned comes up. (I suppose Mata Nui's worsening condition could count, but that wouldn't make much sense for him to allude to, especially since he was dying BECAUSE he was put to sleep iirc.) They slapped that mystery on the table and future story turned its nose up like someone had just cracked a rotten egg there.
     
    If bonesiii was asked about this line, he'd almost certainly handwave is as "makuta lies" (and if he sees me call that handwaving he will almost certainly give me a diatribe about how it's a fallacy to call it handwaving because he cannot be wrong) and if you asked greg, he probably wouldn't even remember the line, and likely either say makuta lies, or even strike it from canon. Which would make sense, because canon did jack diddly squat with it anyway.
     
    I wish they had done something with that line. That had the potential to pull Makuta from the depths of Angry Janitor With Lazily-Written Plans Land and maybe even dropped him into the Domain of Interesting Characters.
     
    But they didn't. Oh, dear.
  18. believe victims
    tomorrow is my birthday. im turning 19 years old, which is to say, pretty darn old. im not ready to be even more adult than before.
     
    proving im not ready to be an adult, i'm about to splurge on a bricklink order as a birthday present to me. im probably going to look for pieces in colors like medium blue and orange in order to give myself pieces i can MOC with that aren't neutral colors with red highlights.
  22. believe victims

    Lunar Lim(onua)

    By believe victims,

    I've commented a couple times that I wished Onua's silver armor was gold to make his colors more cohesive, but I hadn't actually thought to do a test to see how that would look until now.
     
    Honestly? I'm impressed. Replacing the silver with gold makes his colors have a decent spread and layering. By cutting out the silver, his colors really are more cohesive as a whole.
     
    I understand their reasons for not making the piece in two colors when it's only used in one set, but I think it's unfortunate we got large silver shoulderpads that break up the color scheme rather than large gold shoulderpads that enhance it.
  24. believe victims
    I have said many a word of how Jurassic World seeks to bring dinosaur science of the 1980's to the public. I apologize, for I have spoken in error.
     
    They're going back further than that.
     

     
    That's right, it's a tail-draggin' dinosaur, right out of the early 1900s, for your viewing pleasure. Mind you, this tail posture is impossible for Stegosaurus (with one of the most compelling reasons for this being that its cloaca would be crushed), and has been known to be so by palaeontology since the Dinosaur Renaissance (the very revolution in thinking of dinosaurs that the original Jurassic Park brought to the big screen), and even a one-minute consultation with almost any palaeontology expert would be enough to keep something like this out of the film.
     
    Honestly, at this point, just stick the sauropods in the swamps and put heat lamps in the exhibits for the cold-blooded creatures. While they're at it, they can lay off their palaeontology consults, because clearly they're being paid for absolutely nothing. There is nothing in this film so far that shows they did any research beyond watching the first film. It is, quite frankly, pathetic.
  25. believe victims

    Jewelry Idea

    By believe victims,

    Okay so you know the LEGO scorpions?
     

     
    Ok, so you take two of those, and you put an eyelet screw in each scorpion's stud hole.
     
    Then, through the eyelet screw, you hook an earring hook thingy.
     
    Ta-da! scorpion earrings.
     
    just a little idea i had because i've been ordering a bunch of scorpions off Bricklink on impulse. I haven't actually done it yet, though.
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