Monk Giatso

Monk_Giatso
Alias(s)	Monk (to friends) or Monkey (Derisively)
Clans Involved With	M.A.W. Inc, New Soviet Core, Irish Citizens Republic and more.
Leader Of	M.A.W. Inc, Irish Citizens Republic and more.
Status	Inactive

Monk_Giatso was a long time clan leader, most associated with M.A.W. Inc.

History

Monk_Giatso's statement:

"I started playing LBP when around 2009, I fell in love with the game and spent much of my free time building things in create mode, but rarely publishing anything. Mainly I enjoyed building 'Bond villain' style volcano lairs. It was around this time that I created what would become my longest running and 'most successful' clan, M.A.W. Inc. Initially it began with a costume of a facially scarred scientist and a logo with the initials MW, all in a signature green and white colour scheme. Eventually I would create uniforms, recruitment levels and some simple but fun vehicles. I would even help my friends set up their own clans with costumes, logos and bases, but only for my own enjoyment.

It was when LBP2 was released that I was properly introduced to the clan community. I wasn't a very skilled creator and I had very poor social skills, yet this didn't prevent me from making some good friendships on LBP and even some impressive early alliances for M.A.W. Inc. At first I created a new recruitment level and members only base, as well as updating the clans technology and look to adapt to LBP2. My earliest alliances were with JRMC, Red Skull Republic, Black Skull Empire and a few other smaller clans, not all of which I can remember now, my most important alliance being with JRMC.

My introduction to JRMC as well as my friendships with LEGOMARSTER and Matthewbroberts would be my introduction to socialist imagery, Soviet history and politics in general. I tended to look up to Lego in particular and I enjoyed the roleplay of his Lenin-esque cult of personality which was the subject of a bit of mockery and parody (including a poster depicting me as a trained monkey with Lego holding a banana over me). I also became good friends with JRMC's Gfrj who taught me much more about the games mechanics and helped me become a better artist, a better engineer and taught me how to make great music (at least in-game). My other notable friendships (that I remember) include SergeantPepper, Truluvneverdie42 , X_X-Owned-, DanielOak24, Ollie440, Huntsman007, Eliteshadow90 and Jukewannabe.

Despite M.A.W. Inc. never gaining more than a few members at a time and rarely any good builders, at some point during the era of LEGOMARSTER's New Soviet Core, he requested a merger between M.A.W. Inc. and NSC, describing it as my clan becoming one wing of his clan and collaborating closely. During this period in M.A.W. Inc. history, the clan was redesigned to be a darker more gritty clan in line with NSC's aesthetics, but lost a lot of its charm and individuality in the process and I eventually dissolved the clan and decided that I needed a fresh start.

My next clan was a short lived retro space age 1960's soviet clan with a clean and toy-like aesthetic, but I soon got bored of it and started over again. Being a young nationalistic Irishman, my next clan was the Irish Citizen Republic, a socialist alternate history themed clan based on groups from Irish history, this clan had maybe one member but dissolved almost as soon as it was finished.

Throughout my time playing LBP, my favourite hobby was always creating clans with or for other people, which I did dozens of times, even simply publishing the concepts for clans which I had no intention of forming myself. I realised later that I didn't really enjoy the cringy, headache inducing rp of clan politics, I just enjoyed making clans, and so the next couple of clans I created were only ever meant for me and I never really made any attempt to recruit members, but merely built things and gave them away.

The last levels I published on LBP 3 were a museum/gallery of my clan history as I remembered it at that point as well as a giveaway level, releasing every item i still had saved on my account, then I left for university and I haven't played LBP since.

As of writing this in 2021, the LBP servers have been taken down, LBP.me has disappeared and along with it, some great albeit cringy memories. Although literally nobody wanted it, I felt compelled to fill in my little bit of LBP history for the sake of posterity, for the sake of my fading memory and because everybody else got a bio and I wanted one too.

Love, Monk xx"