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swingset

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People complain about how Teridax loses his mystique and horror after 2003 (and even in MoL he's already begun the 'decline').

While Makuta in MNOLG is very cool and what he says is amazingly written (I am Nothing etc), I feel like it serves the greater narrative for him to not be so cool.

The point being, almost everyone's problems result from, for lack of a better word, 'humans' who think and act like they're deities. The Great Beings, the Makuta, the Barraki etc etc etc. It's sort of a warped idea of destiny, that they are convinced they're destined for greatness and don't realise that the point of destiny in Bionicle is how you fit into a greater whole, hence why it results from unity and duty.

I don't want to make this about destiny; I just wanted to say a lot of the mysterious characters from the beginning (Mata Nui, the GBs, Makuta, even the Turaga to an extent) become much less mystical than they seemed initially and that is the point.

I feel I've gone off topic so I'll stop here. But yeah, you're right about Teridax and I don't think it's bad that he's that way

Thinking again about how Makuta Teridax tries to present himself as a cosmic horror entity- a primordial force of destruction, uncaring and inevitable, to whom the lives of lesser beings mean nothing.

But in reality, the opposite is true. He’s a maliciously petty little bastard who gets incredibly hung up on holding grudges and making people suffer, often to his own detriment. And that can be it’s own kind of horror on occasions, but also this man is literally too petty to function sometimes. Just… wretched. Absolute disaster villain.

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guys…. what the hell happened….. a whole month has passed

anyways uh i’ve been busy with 4 commissions thats why i wasnt drawing. im trying to avoid art block again so i have a couple doodles from my legally mandated break time.

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Trying to keep up with him

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I've changed my mind: Celestia was already a turaga but Luna wasn't until the toa stones were used. Celestia used up her power to reawaken the Crystal Ponies from their 1000 year memory-erasing sleep caused by Makuta Sombra.

My Little Toa: Unity is Magic

I know it would seem to make more sense for Celestia and Luna to be Mata Nui and Teridax equivalents, but given their later roles, I think they shouldn't be. Instead, they're two toa, with Luna having gone rogue. They were both toa of light but Luna had her light drained and is now a toa of darkness who calls herself Nightmare Moon.

Celestia and her original toa team sealed Luna in crystalline protodermis.

Luna was freed somehow (need to work on this) and then was going to free Makuta Sombra, Makuta of the Crystal Empire (our Teridax equivalent).

Twilight is Celestia's right hand matoran and is sent to ponyville to help with festivities for the celebration of the defeat of Nightmare Moon (no one knows she's Luna because of collective amnesia). Twilight witnesses NMM break free and with 5 other wacky Matoran she goes into the Everfree forest to stop her.

The rahi in the forest are all controlled by infected kanohi. Fluttershy knocks off the one worn by a Kane-Ra who turns out to be really sweet.

The Mane 6 find toa stones in the Castle of the Two Sisters that were left there by Toa Celestia and Toa Luna. They transform into toa, rendering Luna and Celestia turaga. Luna gets purified of most of her darkness somehow (random Klakk?) but still has some residual darkness powers.

Celestia has a kanohi Avohkii (duh). Luna has a mask of intangibility (not sold on this but it'll do).

Celestia tasks Twilight with learning the three virtues (unity, duty and destiny) and says she must write to her about her lessons.

Dear Turaga Celestia...

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Clark and his cat Miette go to Paris to fulfil their dreams of becoming musketeers

I don’t have the time to check individual things that I think I might have stolen it from. Is there something pl-wise with a cat named Miette that Clark talks to.

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(via angelbellelc2, professorlayton)

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Bad news about your future, Vakama...

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He's wearing buttons in NWOS so I suppose he must have recovered by then (but it is cute to imagine Luke taking on some of his administrative tasks to help out)

One particular headcanon of mine is that the So Jolly Injuries gave him a perpetual hand tremor. Affected a lot of things post-coma (with the additional strain of recovery) that he had to rely more on wearing sweaters and slip on shoes. Buttons, shoelaces, etc were too time consuming and difficult to be worth it so he kind of abandoned his old style

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Toa stones and Turaga

I was just thinking:

The Toa Metru make toa stones, right, and if they had been used, they would have become turaga.

But they instead used their toa power to awaken the matoran... so do their toa stones still work? I'd say yes, because the power is in the stones, but it's like... if they gave up the power to put it in the stone, why are they still toa? And if they still carried it in themselves and the stone just taps into it, then does it still work when they give it up in another way?

And as a follow-up: Lhikan made six toa with his toa power. Has there even been a set limit on the number of toa one toa can make? (I assume six because that's the special number in the series)

And if you only make one toa stone, presumably if it gets used you transform into a turaga and can't make more. But does that mean the one matoran got 6x the toa power the Metru goot? Or does the extra toa power get lost? Is toa power even quantifiable?

I don't think any of these things are specified in the story, so I'm not after Word of Greg or canon stuff, I just want to know what people think. (though if Greg did answer it, that would be nice to hear too)

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My Little Toa: Unity is Magic

I know it would seem to make more sense for Celestia and Luna to be Mata Nui and Teridax equivalents, but given their later roles, I think they shouldn't be. Instead, they're two toa, with Luna having gone rogue. They were both toa of light but Luna had her light drained and is now a toa of darkness who calls herself Nightmare Moon.

Celestia and her original toa team sealed Luna in crystalline protodermis.

Luna was freed somehow (need to work on this) and then was going to free Makuta Sombra, Makuta of the Crystal Empire (our Teridax equivalent).

Twilight is Celestia's right hand matoran and is sent to ponyville to help with festivities for the celebration of the defeat of Nightmare Moon (no one knows she's Luna because of collective amnesia). Twilight witnesses NMM break free and with 5 other wacky Matoran she goes into the Everfree forest to stop her.

The rahi in the forest are all controlled by infected kanohi. Fluttershy knocks off the one worn by a Kane-Ra who turns out to be really sweet.

The Mane 6 find toa stones in the Castle of the Two Sisters that were left there by Toa Celestia and Toa Luna. They transform into toa, rendering Luna and Celestia turaga. Luna gets purified of most of her darkness somehow (random Klakk?) but still has some residual darkness powers.

Celestia has a kanohi Avohkii (duh). Luna has a mask of intangibility (not sold on this but it'll do).

Celestia tasks Twilight with learning the three virtues (unity, duty and destiny) and says she must write to her about her lessons.

Dear Turaga Celestia...

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We also had a puppet rabbit called Mixy M. Toasus (named after a disease introduced to cull the feral rabbit population)

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

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//GHOST TRICK AND PROFESSOR LAYTON SPOILERS, BE WARNED//

I def rushed this one but still fun LOL

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(Spoilers for Prof. Layton games 2, 3 and 4)

The UK/European Layton game titles are better than the US ones:

Pandora's Box/Diabolical Box:

Now, some might think conflating the legends of two different boxes is bad, and I admit the fact there are two names to the box in game is a bit annoying ("the Elysian Box, also known as Pandora's Box" was such a confusing line to hear as a child, especially because the Elysian/Elysium connection didn't click (and I was at my peak Greek myth period too)), but I like it. Firstly because it's more attractive to the potential buyer since you think he's discovered the real Pandora's Box of myth, and then it's just clearly a parallel with the myth. The other reason is that in the legend of Pandora's box, the only thing left in the box is hope. And it's the hope that Sophia will receive Anton's letter, the hope hers will get to him and he will forgive her, that the box really carries. Also it's a play on the fact Elysian is also from Greek myth (i.e. the heavenly field the good go to when they die), so it makes sense that the people who nicknamed it were thinking about Greek myths.

Lost Future/Unwound Future

The future Layton and Claire had was lost. Simple as that. Also it makes her farewell speech sound better: "Our shared past and our lost future". The American version just sounds silly. Unwound works ok because it also works for the 'future London' being a future where things go wrong, but yeah, if Claire has to say the title, it has to be Lost Future. Also it sounds more dramatic. Plus lost still works in the sense things went bad because they 'lost' (i.e. didn't win) or they got lost (in a moral sense), like things are so bad it can't be rescued (so they had to go back in time to fix it).

Spectre's Call/Last Specter

The fact Last Specter and Lost Future sound so similar bugs me but most players outside Australia won't have both titles in their collection so anyway. Why is the spectre the 'last' one? It is never called the last spectre, so why name that game like that? There's clearly a spectre's call though and it's an integral plot point. The only thing I can think of is that 'last' is a reference to Loosha being the last of her kind, but I feel that's too confusing a connection because it's not clear until quite close to the end. It made me think I was missing something, or had misheard Descole's story in the opening. Also Spectre's call sounds more ominous, though it's a pretty close one here, unlike LF/UF where one clearly sounds more serious.

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Miracle Mask was very clearly an attempt to bring a lot of novelty to the franchise, particularly given it was moving to a new console, hence a lot of the features are considered odd. There's the horseriding minigame, the 3D sprites, the 3D cutscenes, the whole Akbadain ruins section, etc. Even the location is the most distinct at that point, no longer being a quaint town or London.

But I also wonder if they also wanted the mystery to be different compared to the other games. Because it's quite notably the least weird mystery, with no crazy explanations other than stage magic and a bit of amnesia. Combined with the flashback scenes, I feel you were really meant to work out that Randall was the Mask Gentleman. Unlike the typical game, where Layton reveals a crazy solution in the last ten minutes, in this one the player can work it out entirely on their own. It's probably the only one where that is truly possible, because often they outright hide evidence from you to keep up the shock till the finale (looking at you Last Specter).

I need to replay this one to remember it properly, but I also feel like the real twist is that Descole is Angela. And I feel that's harder to see coming, because I'm certain I didn't work that one out till the end.

But yeah, I can see why people dislike the changes and want a 'classic' Layton game, but I also like that Level 5 took the chance to mix things up a bit. Because the major complaint from reviewers was that the games were too similar, so they were just trying to address that. I don't think a predictable mystery is a big deal because it's nice to see the pieces fall into place even when you do know what happens, and it makes the flashback scenes more poignant.

I think I'd rank it as my second favourite game in the series, or maybe tied with Pandora's Box (with Lost Future as my #1).

miracle mask is so good when you don't have someone in your ear complaining about how the twist was obvious

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I do have more ocs to post, but I wanted to do an interlude with my all-time favorite pony Wysteria. (Who is also unsurprisingly flower-based)

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Today on Random DS Games I Really Love:

Age of Empires: Age of Kings

I love strategy games. I was really into knights and the middle ages as a child. Of course I like this game.

But it doesn't end there.

See, game where you set out to conquer and defeat your opponent on a battlefield are plentiful. But I specifically like turn-based ones. I like to sit and plan, like in chess. The PC version of AOE was good, and while I always liked playing it at my friend's house, I feel I enjoy this version more. AOE:AOK, I think because it's a DS game, is turn-based so it gets points for that.

But Ok. TBS games are also plentiful. What about Wargroove (great game, 100% recommend if you like these sorts of games or cute dogs)? Yes, but aok has technology upgrades, you can build buildings with villager units, you have unit type advantages (like pokemon but it's spears beat horse beats archer)... it's more complex than Wargroove but it never gets crazily complicated like perhaps Civilization (I've never really played it, but I tried the 1st one on like an emulator and it was just so confusing and hard to manage things).

The only two things I wish it had are a custom mapmaking ability (Wargroove wins here) and maybe the ability to form treaties/alliances. It also has some bugs but they're not that big a deal (except when the computer illegally moves past your units).

It has a campaign mode with five different historical figures (Joan of Arc, Minamato Yoshitsune, Genghis Khan, Saladin and King Richard the Lionheart), each with varying difficulty levels (they're listed in increasing difficulty order). And an 'Empire Map' mode where you just fight the computer (up to 3 computer opponents), either starting with just a villager, your hero (one of the five aforementioned people) and a basic infantry unit, or (in a few maps) a set army.

I've gotten very good at it because I just replay it a lot. The computer, even on hard, is pretty easy in the Empire Map mode unless you're playing 3 on 1, in which case it's rarely possible to win since you're severely outnumbered. As a result it can get a little boring, so I have begun to do some campaign missions with weird strategies to challenge myself.

There's also a 'library' option in the menu which has actual history and information about the middle ages, explaining the technology you research, the units, the heroes, but even unrelated info like how feudalism worked. Fun fact: I was the only person who answered the 'when was crop rotation introduced?' question correctly on a high school history test thanks to this game, because it's one of the techs in it.

I have a lot of strategy opinions and thoughts on each mission but I think I'll save that for another time.

Anyway, I love this game. It's also pretty easy to play on an emulator. It is the best turn-based '4X' game I've yet played. And it's stuck on the DS.