Lyichir

For a theme reaching the end of its run, "cancelled" and "retired" mean pretty much the same thing—deciding not to continue it. Since "cancelled" has a more negative connotation I would generally tend to use that term for instances where a formally announced product release, movie, or TV season got aborted before launch (such as the cancellation of Galidor before the final sets, which had even appeared in catalogs, had been released, or the cancellation of the movie "The Billion Brick Race" which had been formally announced but never left development), rather than something like Nexo Knights where, despite plans for further sets and story likely existing internally, ended with all of the sets that had been expected released and the story concluding, albeit in a massively scaled down magazine comic rather than a full TV season like previous story arcs got.

Personally I don't really see the problem with the belt and tanks being connected. I guess if you wanted the belt on its own or with a different neck accessory it'd be a problem? Otherwise there's not much problem with using the belt if you want the tanks, since there are pretty few alternative "hip accessories" that it'd get in the way of. And if you want a belt on its own the Batman utility belt would probably still be adequate for most purposes, unless you have a very specific look you need to imitate. Then again, I do fewer custom figs than I used to try to do. So I'm probably less in tune with the needs of customizers than I once was.

According to @Bob De Quatre's review of the Heartlake City School set, the shield pieces that are used (with stickers) for the tragedy and comedy masks in the drama room are glow-in-the-dark! Certainly not a traditional color for shields, but could lend itself to some interesting uses. If nothing else they could make for interesting armaments for the classic glow-in-the-dark ghosts!

OMG Lady Bone Demon fig pics! She looks great (love the hairpiece), though it's a shame this probably means we won't be getting a fig of the more subtly creepy version of her possessing a child. Hopefully it's not long before we get pictures of the wave of sets she's from.

Two outstanding episodes this week!. Another Macaque episode that absolutely lived up to the high standard of the one from last season, and a Sandy episode that gave him some long overdue action scenes and character development (as well as, surprisingly, even some character development for Huntsman). Next week we're getting the last two episodes of season two: "72 Transformations", in which Monkie Kid will apparently learn Monkey King's power to transform, and "This is the End", in which Lady Bone Demon completes her bone mech and unleashes it. Of course, I personally hope that despite the title (which evokes a similar sense of finality to the S1 finale "The End is Here"), this is NOT the end. There's still plenty of unexplored potential surrounding both the story set up so far this season as well as the current wave of sets, so much so that I'm hoping we might even get a third season before next year (sort of like how Ninjago's second season began the same year that the first season based on the 2012 sets came out). It's not totally implausible—the current season is drawing to a close only a week or two after the one-year anniversary of the Monkie Kid theme's announcement, potentially leaving room for more episodes to be ready later in the year. Of course, there's sadly still no news on when the TV series will debut in Europe or America. The longer the wait, the more I worry that Lego might not have even secured a distributor for those markets yet. I don't really have any idea what the hold-up is, and it's certainly frustrating—but until a Western release is secured, fans on this side of the globe have no options but to "keep circulating the tapes" (as Star Wars fans used to say about the creator-scorned Holiday Special) to keep up with the show. The Google Drive I've been using had to take down the episodes there due to exceeding some maximum allowed number of plays, but they've put up links to newly hosted versions here.

Oh these are so fun! I love the Aquanauts one in particular, which takes advantage of some newer parts to make a small yet suitably enclosed vehicle that evokes a small fish!

Yeah, so far the genres that haven't gotten stages include: Tropicon Monster Metal Fantasy Folk ETDM (Extra-Terrestrial Dance Music) Genre Containing Discowboy and S2 Cowgirl, unsure whether it has an official name revealed yet Genre Containing Red Panda Dancer, Samurapper, and S2 Mermaid (among others), unsure whether it has an official name revealed yet Of these, the first four are technically represented in the Boombox stage, though obviously it'd be great to get a more "themed" stage dedicated to each of them. The latter two haven't even been named yet as far as I'm aware so it'd be great to get more representatives for them and potentially their own stage as well. There's a lot of options for the sorts of stages they could go for. Tropicon could probably have a beach party vibe, Monster Metal could do well with a castle or graveyard aesthetic (as you mention), Fantasy Folk would probably do well with some sort of woodland aesthetic, and ETDM could go all sorts of directions (maybe something that blends the ideas of a flying saucer with a set of DJ turntables?)

Lego already makes Harry Potter. :P And I've probably already complained enough about that for a lifetime. But when somebody posts homophobic speech, I'm absolutely going to call that out for what it is. I may stop short of calling them a homophobe personally (since it can be hard to judge intent on the internet), but when it's the same three or four homophobic talking points that have been endlessly debunked (LGBT people not being "family friendly", handwringing about a slippery slope toward whatever type of diversity the person in question finds scariest, whataboutism about the religion and military bans, et al, ad infinitum), it doesn't advance the conversation any. It's just the same warmed over bigotry that's been served up toward LGBT people for decades, and if the people who are spouting it aren't aware of why it's bigoted and incorrect, then by pointing it out I'm doing them a favor. And as a bonus, being vocal about that sort of thing makes it clear to the unapologetic bigots (the ones who typically have no reservation about insulting and stereotyping minorities) that things like that won't go unchallenged. There's a lot of people who would feel safer and more welcome on sites like Eurobricks if they had the assurance that petty bigotry wouldn't just be laughed off or ignored.

I've seen a couple people arguing for this but there's some decent reasons to not include that. The first is that, even if some of the marketing plays a little coy about it (possibly to get around bans in some more conservative countries), this is explicitly an LGBTQIA+ set. That's not to say a wheelchair would be inappropriate for that purpose (intersectionality between LGBT rights and disability rights is absolutely a thing), but it is tangential to the specific type of diversity this set is meant to celebrate. The second reason is that, for the specific aesthetic and layout this is going for, a wheelchair could present challenges. A fig in a wheelchair would sit at a different height than the other figs and require more space, breaking up the "rainbow" of figs and requiring the set as a whole to likely have to be made bigger and more spread out. Since the figs in this set are faceless and don't represent specific people, I don't think the lack of a wheelchair is meant in any sort of exclusionary way. The figs here are more symbolic, I think (hence the similarity in height and lack of accessories, among other things). Despite symbolizing diversity abstractly, there's not really any presumption that they represent the entire breadth of human experience.

While the Island sets were certainly light on villain vehicles, personally I feel like the catamaran was a pretty excellent one (fitting for the faction, able to deploy smaller boats, and very distinct from anything we'd had before). It's a little hard for me to conceptualize what sort of other vehicles might have worked for that particular faction. As for Seabound, it feels like a case where the air-breathing ninja have much more need for vehicles than their aquatic foes. Perhaps it could have had more brick-built sea creatures as antagonists like the Aqua Raiders or Atlantis themes to compensate, but then again having other large antagonists like that might have detracted from Wojira feeling as much like such a large threat. I certainly wouldn't mind a few more villain-focused sets in the Legacy theme to balance things out a little, though. New takes on things like the Garmatron, Great Devourer, or Nindroid Mech Dragon could be great. And if Legacy continues to move forward, it might be hard to properly represent a subtheme like Skybound without doing some of the villain vehicles, since that subtheme had the opposite problem of being quite light on vehicles for the ninja.

A lot of people are tired of their identities being treated as such a hot-button political issue that they never see identities like theirs represented in their favorite media or hobbies. Better that Lego take a firm stand in favor of diversity and against oppression (an unambiguously positive stance that is 100% in line with their brand values and should not be controversial) than cower from a bigoted worldview that is more and more in decline. It will be sad if there are markets where this is not allowed to be sold, but I'm glad that didn't keep Lego from releasing this in markets where it will be accepted and could make a difference for people who feel accepted in return.

It's slightly rubbery like most of the hairpieces in Lego Friends.

To be honest, I'm quite new to this Discord thing... I think you might need an invite? And I'm not quite sure how to go about that. The Discord I'm in is certainly a change of pace from Eurobricks, with a lot of younger, more "fandom-y" members, if that makes sense. Sometimes it's even a bit too meme-y and fast-paced for my blood (especially right when a new episode airs and everybody is geeking out over it), but it's worth it to see the energy of people a little closer to the "target audience" for a show like this genuinely enjoying it. Oh, also, last week after the episodes aired Sarah Harper, one of the directors/producers on the show, held a group art stream with some of the other show staff on Twitch. It was a good time for all involved so they're planning to do it again after this week's episodes air in Australia.

Oh dang, Potomac Mills or Tyson's Corner? I'm also in Virginia and there's a few of the sets I haven't gotten that a discount would definitely make worthwhile.

I just finished my copy of the Spring Lantern Festival (it finally arrived Friday after I had ordered it on backorder several months ago). A really lovely set. For anyone who plans to display it over a long period of time, is anyone planning to try and customize the large ox/bull lantern to represent other zodiac animals from year to year? Could be a challenge, but maybe an interesting one.

Wow, lovely! The layout of this is really fun and has quite a distinctive look. I love the latticed shades/trellises over the outdoor dining area. The interior also looks great, although if I had one concern it's that the kitchen looks awfully small for a restaurant with so much seating!

It's quite possible! There was something like that in a recent episode of the show! To be honest, I wasn't necessarily expecting it (or the Pigsy mech/tank it almost faced down with) as a set, but if this panda mascot from the same episode is going to be an actual fig, then maybe it will be a set after all!

It's been airing for a couple weeks in Australia (up through episode 6, so far). It's been pretty good, in my opinion—a little more continuity driven than Season 1, with a number of the episodes setting the stage for the Lady Bone Demon's master plan. But I've been discussing it more on Discord and Twitter than here, since sadly there don't seem to be a ton of people who are that interested in discusssing the actual story here. A summary of what's happened so far (spoiler warning):

Brickset and New Elementary have posted reviews of it as well, if you're interested in a closer look at all three models.

From the way the article describes the new wheel and its attachment points, I think the old wheel covers would probably still be able to attach (since like other parts in the 1x1 plate family, they have a similar diameter around the "anti-stud")—but because the inside radius of the new wheel is wider (allowing full 2x2 round parts like the radar dishes to be inserted instead of being slightly too small for them), there'd be a noticeable gap between the edge of the wheel cover and the inside rim of the wheel.. Personally I think bringing the width of those wheel covers "in system" and allowing more existing parts to fit as well is a pretty worthwhile trade-off.

You could also probably make a pretty strong case that the use of those dinosaur parts... wasn't necessarily that accurate to actual elephants. The "hips" and "shoulders" of real elephants don't actually protrude outward from their torso like that, nor was their stance so bowlegged. The new elephant is definitely simplified compared to a real one (like other Lego animals such as horses), but overall its shape and stance is much more authentic than the old one.

It'd probably be safer to at least hold off on stockpiling a whole bunch of that set until later this year. While nobody wants to miss their chance in case this sheep pulls a goat and never appears again, this set will likely stay around at LEAST until we start getting rumors of what's in store for next year's sets. For all we know Lego City could return to a farm theme and the sheep could appear in a cheaper set (or in a set in greater quantities), making investing heavily in this pricy 4+ set just for one sheep per set possibly risky. There's also a strong likelihood of the sheep on its own being cheaper if it shows up on Bricks & Pieces.

From New Elementary's new interview about the new road plates: In other words, there are no current plans to stop producing studded baseplates, so we can probably put those rumors to bed.

I think so. And if I had to guess at their contents, I'd assume that at least one of them (if not both) is meant for flipper storage (there seems to also be a separate rack for three of their helmets/airtanks and clips on the inside walls for their harpoon guns).

Thank you for the link! This'll be very useful until Lego uploads the official pics themselves! For those who are wondering, I'm assuming the lever on the back automatically deploys/retracts the fins that fold out on the engines (which have a sliding mechanism connected with a string piece).