Alexandrina

I may have misspoken. The church in question is primarily of Norman construction, on the site of a Saxon church and with Celtic foundations. Its main point of interest is a Sheela na Gig, which I understood to be a pre-Norman feature but on further research is apparently an element common in the early Norman period. In any case, my intention is specifically to make a MOC inspired by this specific church, rather than a typical church of any period

Is it possible you've combined in your head two techniques that happen to work together? Perhaps you've seen the arches/baseplate configuration used in 6081 (as @Fuppylodders noticed) and also seen the bars underneath the arch separately - but over the years both have stood out to you, and resulted in a combination.

Good spot. In the scene where she's identified by name, she's got her back to the camera (and it's a wide shot). I was too young to see CoS in the cinema (I remember seeing the trailers when I went to see The Magic Roundabout and begging my mum to take me, but to no avail) so I've only ever seen it on VHS and later on a tiny little TV - so I've never been able to see what she looks like. That makes it tough to identify her in the background of other scenes! If her face is visible, it's definitely possible we'll see her in minifigure form one day. Especially since there's a dearth of named Ravenclaws, and she pairs well with Percy, who we also haven't had. Perhaps a Moments set next year?

Penelope Clearwater is in the Chamber of Secrets film (Nearly Headless Nick greets her and Percy outside the Great Hall) but she never has a line even in the deleted scenes, doesn't get petrified, and to my knowledge doesn't even have a shot of her face

Unless I've missed something, it's too soon to say for sure that Mrs Norris won't be included. She'd just be a cat, so I wouldn't have thought she'd be listed among the minifigures

At last! Now all I need is Ernie (and a cheeky Fay Dunbar please, Lego)

This seems disingenuous to me. There were thirty themes in the vote, and twenty-nine of them were system. Just because it's easiest to find the numbers for people who only wanted Bionicle doesn't mean that there are more Bionicle-only fans than no-Bionicle fans. I won't show up in the figures for people who voted for any specific theme - I spread my votes around three diferent themes, all of them System, because while I have my preferences I'll probably buy a System set that looks good no matter what the theme is, and unless I find myself out of money altogether I'll be getting the 90th Anniversary set if it's a System set. So Lego could pick twenty-nine of the thirty themes and get my money. I would not buy a Bionicle set, because I don't like the theme and have no use for the parts therein. Now, it's not all about me. I'm one of millions of Lego fans, and if the Bionicle set is what comes out then so be it. You can't have everything. But I'm willing to bet that there are at least as many people like me who would never buy a Bionicle set as there are people who would only buy a Bionicle set. If the poll had been run with other Constraction themes (Hero Factory, even Galidor if they were feeling brave) some of those 6,586 users who voted for Bionicle would have added their voice to one of those themes. It just happens that Bionicle was the only theme in that system included in the poll, so non-System fans could easily coalesce around that single theme and have nothing to spread their vote around to. As it is we can only speculate, but I can't see past one of the System themes winning. The theoretical audience is just so much bigger - and that'll probably be the deciding factor, when it comes to brass tacks.

Yep, I'm lucky enough to live somewhere that has plenty of resellers active on Bricklink, and therefore I can usually find what I want listed somewhere (although certain parts/sets never seem to be available even at an extortionate price whenever I look for them). If you don't have so many people in your country selling, and thus have to use international shipping all the time, I can definitely see that it would be more expensive than it's worth. As for recommendations, I can't help you, I'm afraid! It's probably bad form on my part, but I never pay particular attention to who I'm buying from - I just find the best listing for my purposes and then pay.

In my experience most people aren't too bad (in the UK). The vast majority of my purchases have been small orders that fit in a second class large letter. That doesn't cost an exorbitant amount - and if a seller is charging more than is reasonable for postage, I just won't buy.

True, and that makes it doubly bad. Not that anybody should be stealing packages (I hope he gets things sorted nice and painlessly, and is compensated by the at-fault party) but generally here in the UK you breathe a sigh of relief when you find out DPD is the courier because you can trust them to be reliable. I suspect they'll be cooperative on this matter, even if for no other reason than to preserve their reputation here.

It's funny how a courier can have a different reputation in different places. In the UK, DPD is 100% the best courier. They give you a one hour window, offer live tracking (though that seems to be not be working recently) and rarely give you problems. Compared to someone like Hermes they're a ray of light here. Obviously not in this case, though...

I'd need to hold one in my hand to be 100% certain, but I have a few ideas brewing just from that picture.

It's worth bearing in mind that Booker isn't open to general customers - you've got to have a membership, which I believe requires you to be a business. But yeah - it's the place to go for food and food-adjacent stuff at less-than-retail price!

Those plastic boxes that come with Chinese takeaways? They're an excellent solution for the majority of parts. If you have access to Booker Wholesale, you can buy boxes of one hundred 500ml containers for a tenner - and it's surprising how quickly one hundred containers get filled up!

What a monster! How tall is it, all told? I love the use of two different chandelier techniques, neither making the other look out of place. I'm curious about the map Dumbledore seems on his way to check out. Does the door under the clock lead to a restricted section, perhaps?

Lego are also surely aware that sharing old MOCs like that is going to generate speculation among the AFOLs. It would be a good misdirect if they don't want people guessing the real sets from the wave

Mine arrived today, along with a few smaller sets and the GWPs. It's gone straight to the back of my wardrobe until I can clear my backlog - if I set myself the precedent for skipping sets up in the order, I'll probably still have the Herbology Moments set in a sealed box waiting for me to get to it when I'm eighty! If I hide the Blacksmith, I won't be tempted. It is a gorgeous looking set, mind. The black packaging definitely suits it, imo.

If Lego sent emails to the addresses associated with every Ideas account that took part in the final vote, in the same style as their announcements for big D2C sets, specifically tailored to tell people that the theme they voted for won, that could sow some chaos. Double points if they emailed all Bionicle voters an announcement that one of the System themes won, but emailed all the System voters an announcement that Bionicle won. Probably kill all trust among AFOLs for the rest of time, mind, but the uproar on the day would be a spectacle to behold.

You'll want to find the subforum most relevant to your MOC. Since it's an arcade, unless it's based on a license I don't recognise I guess the Town subforum would be the place (though no doubt someone will correct me on this). Then just start a thread there - make it about the MOC, of course. You might need to have at least ten comments to start a thread (and thus be ranked as a Vassal) - I can't say this for certain, as I passed that threshold well before I tried to start a topic. As for hosting the images, I'd personally vouch for Imgur. If you upload the images through your account, you have the option to mark them as private, so they wouldn't just show up for random people browsing the Imgur homepage without context.

I'm braced for an influx of Planet of the Apes MOCs later on in the year, looking at those minifigures!

I've been having the same issue - no trouble navigating to the parts listing, but once I'm there there's nothing. No prices/sales info, no option to select colours, no images either (though when I'm on a set's inventory the individual parts' images are loading just fine). It's come at the worst possible time for me, I had a joblot arrive yesterday and I'm in the process of sorting through it/adding it to my Big SpreadsheetTM to see just how much of a deal I got - hard to do when I've got no clue how much a certain part is seling for!

That doesn't surprise me! Especially since Lego themselves don't always seem to know that a part's out of commission until they want to use it in another set (see: the goat)

I just want it in a more usable colour than glow-in-the-dark. Yellow would be ideal, but I'd take fleshie too

Mine's coming too. Honestly, it's inconvenient it coming too soon. My usual backlog storage is still filled with the Skull Sorceror's Dungeons and Ship in a Bottle sets, the loft is filled with sandwich bags full of old half-sorted sets, and I just had a big job lot arrive today from eBay that I need to sort through before I have room on my desk. First time in my life I've been exasperated by Lego delivering too quickly!

I'm sad to learn that the Community set was unsuccessful. Ah well, I can put the money I'd have spent on that into other things. Neither of the winners hold any appeal for me this time round - but then you can't have it all, and there have been a fair few recent Ideas winners that have grabbed me.