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thestroyer

dee-the-red-witch

I HAVE FINALLY FOUND THE PAINT JOB I NEED ON MY CAR.

dragon-in-a-fez

driving my newly painted car down to my job at the children’s hospital

toastbutteregg

random-jot

Standing directly in the doorway to achieve peak mental health.

meowtalhead

tinybed

comealongphil

dawn dimmadome? wife of doug dimmadome, owner of the dimmsdale dimmadome?

punkrorschach

actually she took the dimmadome in the dimmadivorce

doomsday-dj

There was recently a copyright infringement case in YA and I need everyone to know that the following sentence was in the legal decision:

“Hot, sexy, dangerous boys, central to virtually all young adult romance novels, cannot be copyrighted.”

kuttithevangu

“Regarding setting, the court held that both works taking place in Alaska high schools was not protectable because Alaska is a public place and setting a teen novel in a high school is a common genre convention.”

Freeman v. Deebs-Elkenaney | Loeb & Loeb LLP

kogiopsis

I've read the entire decision (skimming over the purely legal precedent/definitions bit) and here are some of my favorite bits:

bemusedlybespectacled

“indeed, it seems that the Pacific Northwest (Twilight) is a common locale for finding vampires and werewolves at a high school” oh my god

chestnutroan

I think the 'Fruit Sniffer' will be big on here

the-big-mood

wizardshark

How do I explain Plato's allegory of the cave to my cat?

sexshopshenanigans

gato’s allegory of the fishtank

rowanclair

In an ancient forest, shallow pools reflect not the trees above, but a luminous city of elsewhere.

accessible-art

[ID from Alt: an illustration of a clearing in a dark forest with pools of water on the ground among the trees and vegetation. In the water is a reflection of a cityscape with skyscrapers in vibrant orange and yellow with a bright blue sky, contrasting with the murky blue-green colours of the woods. In the far distance an early sunrise can be made out through the trees. End ID]

boxturret

They Use Every Part of the Crab

Mata Nui Online Game is one of the most core parts of Bionicle for me, I'd even go as far as saying I'm more of a MNOG fan who is also a fan of the tie in action figures.

I think one of the most endearing things about it is its art style, its sometimes quite rough, but it just comes together to make some very evocative imagery.

One of the most interesting examples of the very economical way in which this game was made is, I think, the Ussal crab.

The Ussal is first introduced in the Onu-Koro chapter of the game, an area focused around a large mine, and in keeping with this there's a lot of machinery. A few years ago I 3d modelled a lot of them, which is where I first had the realisation that the bulk of them are actually reusing Ussal graphics.

Its something that's come up quite a bit since so I feel I'd like to have a document that covers it all in detail for future reference.

To begin with: this is the Ussal. Its a cute little crab. It has a little rubber band function that lets it do little punches. Even though it first appeared as a set in 2002 it was all over 2001, from MNOG, to the card game Quest For The Masks, to the video games Quest for the Toa and the cancelled Legend of Mata Nui, and its even one of the first creatures you see in the comics!

MNOG, being a flash game, constructed the Ussal out of several simplified collections of parts that could be animated separately. They then reused these parts, flipping them around, overlapping them, scaling them, all sorts, to make all the various machinery you see throughout the area.

So I thought it would be a bit fun to tear apart a couple Ussals for purely demonstrative purposes.

These are all the main usages that I'm aware of. Note these aren't 1:1, there's some scaling involved in some plus extra little bits here and there.

Small Lava Valve

Large Lava Valve

Lava Pump-aka Tower of Crab Corpses

Drill-This one also contains parts of Whenua!

Light Stand-As I recall this was the what made me finally realise the Ussal connection, the bent beam was confusing me until I worked it out.

Lever-Yeah every time you ride this thing you're grabbing an Ussal's eye.

Elevator Winch-its up there, looming out of the darkness.

This object also includes many parts seen in the ziplines.

And while that may be it for the Onu-Koro chapter the Ussal bits make one last surprise appearance in the little electric bug from the next chapter, Le-Koro.

This one is playing a lot with scale, and its using the back of a Kewa bird for the abdomen. it means that the little guy isn't really buildable, but I've tried.

These are all the usages I'm aware of, I'd love to know if anyone's found any others! I'd also like to quickly note where the Ussal was not used, as I find it interesting.

When the Toa Kaita fight the Manas, a much larger, treaded crab, they end up having to smash these large control towers. The towers are full of miscalaneous mechanical bits, but no crab bits.

And at the end of the game, the void features entirely Toa bits and tubing, so no crab bits there either.

I just wanted to make a note of that since it was something I once wondered when looking in to this.

In conclusion, I find it so inspiring how effectively they used their assets. Like, did you know that Lewa's head here when he gets the infected mask knocked off is just reusing the foot graphic?

Wild stuff. Its just very in keeping with the whole building system Bionicle is based on and I love it.

Hope everyone filed their taxes on time. Good night.

#bionicle

depsidase

its-not-a-pen

Im in the middle of waterless shampooing alex and i cant get over how dumb he looks fhfhfbvf my poor clean rat son

Bonus tiny blep

its-not-a-pen

Hddhgdhdjsjdhdv

its-not-a-pen

lmao are u kidding me this was at 200 notes last week what happened where did all these people come from

48squeakylizards

Bonus tiny blep

its-not-a-pen

bo unus tniny,,,,blep ;0;

important-animal-images

moniquill

'Borrowing the Tiger's Majesty' by Yuzu Kato

todaysbird

i think this is…actually the most extreme stupid dove nest I’ve seen.

video

kaiapraxidike

tartrazeen

Imagine you're coming home after a long day of hunting, and the first thing you hear is your seven shitty kids screeching at you for no reason, how pissed off would you be, I'd immediately fly away too

Imagine you're the oldest of seven and a fucking HOA member broke into your HOUSE and SHIT AN EGG and is BITING at your siblings, but your dad shows so you try to tell him the problem but you're very little and you don't speak English and he doesn't speak English either so you can't communicate that a fucking GOBLIN is in your HOUSE and the only reason he doesn't know is cause his ASS was on that bitch's HEAD and he must've assumed it was one of your brothers and sisters but it was actually that FREAK WOMAN who got in, and now your dad is flying away 'cause he has no idea what's going on

Imagine you're a parent and you've calmed down and gone to get McDonald's for your seven kids, and you come home expecting to get cheers because you know the D's are always a winner, but when you fly back in through the door the kids are all still screaming, and it's not even excited screams but you don't know what's wrong so you just look into the camera like you're Jim from the Office

Imagine you're one of the small middle children and probably the one that this HOA WITCH was BITING after she broke into YOUR HOUSE and SHIT an EGG and you tried to be a good host by cuddling with her to congratulate her on her egg but then she started BITING and taking over your ROOM and threw out all your GOOSEBUMPS books and your eldest sibling couldn't call dad so you all just had to wait, and then dad comes home but your STUPID FAMILY won't stop SCREECHING to explain what's going on so your dad leaves but then comes back and he's brought McDonald's which is like yay but there is an INTRUDER, and finally your dad looks around the house and notices BITCH BIRD KAREN IN YOUR BEAN BAG CHAIR, and you're like ok dad can handle this but then you learn he's more scared than you?????

Imagine you're a dad and you just got home with McDonald's and WHO THE FUCK IS THAT IN MY HOUSE but luckily you have seven children and the mean one is willing to fight this bitch and you're just gonna chill in this corner until this problem is resolved even if your other kids are straight-up judging you

Imagine you're Kevin McCallister and you're doing Home Alone except you're not home alone 'cause your dad is home too but he's not helping, he's just holding a bag of McDonald's, so you have to be the head of this house at eight years old 'cause you're home alone emotionally but this FREAK ON AN EGG isn't leaving so you decide to screech at your dad and he's more scared of you than she is

Imagine you're a dad and your child has publicly shamed you in front of your other kids and this ASSHOLE KAREN and you decide you're not gonna take this shit anymore so you tell your kids that you paid for this McDonald's with your hard-earned bird money and they're gonna damn well eat this, so everybody stop looking at that side of the house and just eat your fucking french fries but then that fucking MONSTER starts BITING your only child willing to go into battle so you recognize this is a lost cause and throw the burgers on the counter and you remember you're an ADULT so you grab your car keys and fly the fuck away

Imagine you're all seven children and dad left you with the pigeon again

thadeeliv

your honor i'm obsessed with her

#bionicle

eyecantread

hollenix

for the good of all mankind

radiojamming

There was one of those hyperspecific polls that had an option like “your grandfather told you war stories that he never told anyone else” and now I feel like I have to tell the story about how a spider saved my grandpa’s life in WWII and how my family doesn’t kill spiders because we owe our existence to that One Single Spider

radiojamming

So to set the scene, it's the height of WWII in France and my grandpa—a 6'3" 20 year old upper Michigan farm boy—has been separated from his company after their temporary camp was shelled. My grandpa (who, I have to add, was nicknamed 'the Suicide Kid' at this point because he worked in demolitions and bomb interception and kept taking the jobs no one wanted with the expectation that he was never going home anyway) is scared out of his wits, wandering around the French countryside alone. He has to move at night and sleep in barns and sheds during the day to hide from people who most definitely want him dead.

On one of these days, he finds a farmhouse of a very jittery couple who agree to let him sleep in the barn, with the conditions that he sleeps in the barn loft and if he's found, they disavow all knowledge that he was there. He agrees, because he's exhausted and will sleep in a hay pile if he has to. My grandpa manages to fit all six foot three inches of himself into a feed trough stored upstairs and tries to get some sleep.

However, right when he's half-snoozing, he hears motors outside and sure enough, here are some very angry officers of mixed Nazi and Vichy make confronting the couple saying someone up the road spotted an American soldier walking this way. They wouldn't know anything about that, would they? No, of course not.

All the while, my grandpa—now trying to figure out how to either escape the barn unseen or how to fight off six? seven? eight? people at once—freezes up and waits for the inevitable. While he does, a HUGE spider crawls next to his head and onto the loft railing. For one second, he thinks about swatting it away, but that would risk him being seen and killed.

So, instead, he lays there and waits to either fight to the death or get executed in a feed trough. And while he lays there, the spider starts making a huge web on the railing. My grandpa's transfixed by this thing. He watches her go around and around, building a solid web before plopping herself off to one side and waiting for breakfast. At the same time, the officers finally go into the barn.

My grandpa can hear them searching around, turning over crates and checking animal pens. Then, he hears one say to check the loft.

And then another say, "Don't bother. Look at the spiderwebs up there. No one's been there in a while."

And they leave.

Because my grandpa didn't swat the spider away and let her build her web, the officers thought no one was there and left him alone. They drive off and my grandpa immediately thanks the farmer couple and hauls ass out of there as soon as he can.

After this, my grandpa refused to kill any spider, and his kids did the same. Because if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't have lived and would never have had kids or grandkids. So we owe her one.

radiojamming