You tell the people who are against the contests to come here, even though discussion about cancelling them is repeatedly discouraged and shot down. There just isn’t any actual means of telling TTV we don’t want them to continue without a proper poll.
…That’s been known since Orde. The gender choices for each element are just factory settings chosen by the Greg Beings, but nothing says that setting couldn’t be changed.
Since gender is merely programming (as opposed to being directly linked to their elemental power), is it hypothetically possible to build, say, a Matoran of fire with female programming?
The Great Beings could have done that, had they chosen to, yes.
Here’s a topic for official feedback. Wherever you are in the community, you can come here to speak your peace, no matter your stance or affiliation. TTV is not required to care about anything outside of it, but what is here, they are required to listen to.
You want to make your voice heard? A discord poll is not the way to do it.
Glatorian would desire to disagree… Although no, nothing about character appearance changes. It’s just the biggest rule in Bionicle being casually revoked.
Definitely not an equal comparison, I’ll admit, between determining the appearance of Artakha’s hammer and rewriting the rules of the universe.
Have you not changed your mind about the Ask Greg topic and its rewriting of canon in greater leaps and bounds than the canon contests could ever achieve? This is character appearance and the design of a few masks; that is Greg reshaping the most fundamental aspects of how Bionicle has worked thus far.
I will repeat: it’s a little hypocritical to argue against the canon contests when something with incredible potential for upsetting headcanons exists and has been more or less approved by everyone not only on the site, but in the Bionicle community as a whole. Yes that’s hyperbole.
I apologize as it was not the intent.
As for defunct, the canon contests weren’t defunct even though there was a six-month pause. Greg has answered questions during that time, if not necessarily lore ones, so it’s not like he’s abandoned the forum. Plus, he’s taken breaks like this before.
Because the answer is always the same - “Cancellation poll NOW” - and TTV has already made the decision to host it after the Lariska contest. I’m not saying everyone needs to come and have a debate over the contests, I’m saying it’s hardly too much work to casually post about how you are more or less opposed to them. It can be done quickly, politely, and there’s no prerequisite to stick around and get in heated debate.
They’ll end up making accounts to vote in the poll, so why not do it a few months in advance and provide some feedback TTV is guaranteed to care about?
You mean the one-time scenario which was done by the Great Beings before the MU was completed and the result of such was to genderlock the element?
Also, the Greg quote is further proving my point about how much more potential there is with the Ask Greg topic. It’s the exact same scenario, except earlier. What’s stopping it from happening again?
Aaaaaand since ad hominem was brought up, it’s my time to go. I’ll be back most likely after the final polls open up for the Hagah. Stay cool everybody
I distinctly remember there being an option in that poll to vote for cancelling them. I tried going back beforehand to find the poll, but couldn’t.
Again, they haven’t. Eljay has only said they’re open to it. That’s not confirmation.
Yes. If they did it once, they can do it again.
Except the first quote was from 2010 when the story was still going. The thread you posted was from 2017. If Greg had only stated that different genders for an element are possible in 2017, you would have a point (and I would argue it wouldn’t be canon due to contradicting his previous answers), but he didn’t.
I can imagine that a surviving great being could have given MU’s Tribes more freedom of choice.
Remember, Angonce saw Toa and other MU’s tribes as new species. Of course love is not canon, so love is impossible
I don’t disagree with you from a technical POV. Point is, there are reasons people won’t post here. I’ve mentioned a few before, but another could be that people don’t know they can come here to do so.
I think what Dag did was a very effective way to get voices heard, to be honest. If he’d posted those polls and done nothing with them, they would be much more likely to not reach TTV. But he posted them here, for everyone including TTV to see. So in a roundabout way, Discord polls were the way to do it, in lieu of an official poll.
I think this is where we disagree (or at least anti-contest people would disagree with you). I think it’s much more likely that people will care about how characters look (or at least that they look good) than things Greg tends to confirm/debunk, which tend only to affect fanfic writers. To paraphrase myself, significance is a matter of what people care about most.
As a canon-compliant writer, Greg’s answers do cause massive headaches sometimes, and I know they do for RSG’s writers too. But I’ve chosen not to get into this here because I think visual appearances are what people care about most. Also, I’ve since moved off the ‘headcanon bandwagon’, so talking about Greg quotes has lost its relevance for the time being.
That’s fair. It just doesn’t really feel necessary to argue against it at the moment. From what TTV has said about Greg’s aloofness over email, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t return to answer questions at all.
I’m inclined to agree with you here. I feel like part of the animosity towards the anti-contest crowd comes down to the fact that its most vocal advocates sometimes sound impolite and, for a lack of a better word, ‘entitled’. Makes it easy for us to be scapegoated. Feel free to lump me into that category but I do try not to be.
Again, some of the frustration from anti-contest people is that they haven’t promised this. They’ve just said they’d consider it. Which I believe they’ve said before and have still delayed it.
I’d argue it’s the fact that Greg quotes deal with canon facts, whereas the contests deal with appearances. And as I said before, I think most people care about the latter more.
I think strawmanning would have been a better word for me to use. That’s what it felt like, at least. Because I haven’t been arguing that the headcanon argument was compelling enough to demand that the contests end outright, which is all the Greg quote argument would really be useful for. And if many months ago I had made that argument, I have since been convinced otherwise.
To argue on Ghid’s behalf since he’s taking a break again: Greg could easily have said Turaga can’t make Matoran of the opposite gender even if they tried. Whether his answer enabled more creative freedom or not is somewhat irrelevant.
Why don’t people like the canon contests? Because they set one appearance for a character and nothing else is valid anymore. Why do those same people not mind Greg’s statement on gender locking? Because it does the exact opposite, saying that gender bent Matoran are possible.
Ghid argued that those who don’t like the canon contests should also dislike the ask Greg. But his example is one that those who dislike the contests would want Greg to say. Therefore, it’s a bad example that goes against Ghid’s point.
Fair enough. I thought you were arguing why Greg quotes are a good thing. But yeah, not the best example Ghid could have used. It just happened to be a question that I asked Greg, which was why it felt like he was straw-manning me.
and Before the story was interrupted, I think Greg tried to show something about gender of the MU species, in the yesterday quest .
I think chiara and Orde’s characters were a device to show that aspect.
In Zaria’s case, I think him learn about true freedom and responsibility, away from the programming obligations granted to Toa.
