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I've wanted to recreate this Little Mermaid cover with Hahli for a long time and I finally got around to it, I hope you like it! ^^

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I got a reply from Lego concerning a comment I made in their Contact Us form about the Masks Of Powers cancellation and it's uuuuuh... Just bland corporate talk

"We have to protect our intellectual property. You know, the one we're not using?" Also my originally message wasn't even explicitly about that, it was more questioning the sudden change in opinion on Lego's part, which isn't addressed in this. Honestly quite saddening, I guess we're really not likely to get any satisfying answer or development on Lego's end of the issue.

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>Introduced as a wise old mentor who knows all the answers. >Also he can turn invisible.

>Role is like 50% dispensing exposition and 50% bonking Tahu on the head to tell him to stop being a jerk.

>Randomly has a mask that can control time. For some reason. He lends it to Tahu so he can stop six very aggressive roombas.

>Also one time he casually defeated a giant kaiju monster that the Toa Nuva were struggling with and told it that he knew it could remember his voice, I'm sure that's nothing.

>Oh actually it turns out that he's been lying all this time.

>He's not even old, he's like the equivalent of being 35, he just peaked at 26 and had a very stressful week.

>He used to be the leader of the previous generation of Toa from the cyberpunk dystopia city in the past.

>Also he was just. Made of anxiety. Like so much self-esteem issues up in this boy.

>Not to mention the traumatic nightmare visions of the future.

>Spent most of his career as a Toa on the run from the horrifying police robots #acab

>Turns out he made the Mask of Time. For the record, the other two Legendary Masks were made by literal gods, and this schmuck Toa with Gifted Kid Burnout made the last one.

>Him making the Mask of Time has nothing to do with the visions of the future BTW

>All but single-handedly defeated Makuta.

>This was around when he fought the kaiju.

>Also he got turned into an angsty robot werewolf for a bit.

>He turned evil because a lizard dominatrix said so, don't worry, it was the werewolf hormones talking.

>He turned back to normal later and went to fight Makuta again over the Mask of Time.

>He accidentally a war between Makuta and the mafia.

>He played reality-destroying chicken with Makuta in order to abscond with the Mask of Time.

>Then he turned into a pensioner at the ripe old age of 30 (relatively).

>Seriously most of the 'child' characters are older than him by millennia.

>Continues dispensing cryptic advice and having traumatic nightmare visions forever.

Truly the character ever. Of all time.

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Considering the existence of Melding Universe Teridax, there's already the needed component for the good old AU selfship of Tumblr Sexymen

What Bionicle character, with the exceptions of Karzahni (the being), Vezon, and Krika, could be a Tumblr Sexyman?

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Why Masks of Power was Cancelled:

It got too big, and would create too much demand for Bionicle

Been thinking a lot about Masks of Power's cancellation these last few days, and I am BUMMED about it. Team Kanohi put so much work into it, and it was looking to be an incredible game that could've given Bionicle the tribute it deserved!

...

And that was the problem (I think)

This game has been getting crazy amounts of hype, not only in the Bionicle community, but outside it! IGN and other major gaming journalism sites have several articles talking about it. I've seen big influencers with no interest in Bionicle checking out the trailers and getting interested. Some of them seeming to not know that it was a fan game, and thinking it might be official. Team Kanohi themselves speculated that Lego's reasoning was that the quality and popularity of the game made it hard to distinguish from an official product.

There's some speculation that it got C&D because Lego has their own Bionicle comeback in the works. And as much as I would love that to be the case, and as much as I hate to be a killjoy, I genuinely think its the opposite. I may be wrong, and I hope I am! But I think that Lego killed it because they have no plans to bring Bionicle back.

This game was on a path to become crazy popular. In addition to a great Bionicle tribute, it also just looked like a great game! If its development had this much hype, then its actual full release may very well have been stratospheric, and launched Bionicle back into mainstream popularity.

But that would also mean there's a lot of hype and demand for a product that Lego isn't selling, and has no plans to sell. And that would be a big problem, Lego would be in a tight spot having essentially a huge commercial for a product no one would be able to buy, it'd be like the Rick and Morty McDonald's Szechuan Sauce incident, but possibly worse, since its not a meme but a genuinely good game.

Bionicle isn't profitable for Lego, nor is it compatible with Lego's current toy production or story writing philosophy. They would not be able to capitalize on it, even if they bought the game to make it official. Making Bionicle again would likely lose them money, even with additional hype from the game.

It also would mean the mainstream public perception of the Bionicle IP is completely outside of Lego's control. And while I and many of us think this is a good thing, from a corporate IP standpoint, this would unacceptable. The ability to control public perception of a brand is literally the main motivation behind Intellectual Property Laws.

At worst, it could even cost Lego their trademark on Bionicle products, since trademark disappears if it is no longer associated with the trademark holder. And they've clearly become much more jealous about their IP lately, between this, the DuckBricks concept art scandal, and the numerous Roblox asset takedowns in recent months.

And this isn't to shield Lego from criticism, I am FURIOUS that they did this. But we also have to understand that the state of modern IP laws may have pressured them towards this. IP law, as it currently stands, is fucked up. It gives way too much power to corporations and strips actual creators, both fan and original, of autonomy to make their art. We need to change the law around IP.

But what do we do now? Well first, we support Unmasked Games and Project Rustbound. I'm very excited to see what they make. Next we MUST proceed more carefully with Bionicle fan projects. Things like The Mangai Project, Bionicle Iliad, and Myths and Legacy need to make sure they do things very carefully. Thankfully, none of them seem to have the kind of mainstream hype outside the fandom that would cause Lego to worry.

And finally, out of both love for the series and spite towards Lego, we need to KEEP MAKING BIONICLE STUFF, particularly Fair Use content. Grow the fandom, make Bionicle popular! Bring about our dream and Lego's nightmare, keep this thing alive. We will probably never get it back in an official capacity, but we deserve to continue loving this series even if there is nothing official coming. Stories and culture don't exist to be consumerist products. The myths of Heracles didn't persist because people were hoping for a new drop! They persist because people loved them and passed them on to others. And that is what we will do because that is the Way of the Bionicle. Take care my gathered friends.

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On the LEGO Group issuing a C&D to Team Kanoho, it's worse than Nintendo, like, hitting yet another fangame with the banhammer, or whatever, right? To me. Because Nintendo has active IPs, with active fans, and are actively releasing product for people to buy. Unlike Pokémon, Bionicle is just dead. Fan projects like this are the only way to keep it alive and if people can't make them, that's it. And just like when Nintendo does it, this now sets a predecent going forward: This Could Happen To You. This is going to kill a lot of hope people might have in the future of Bionicle.

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Honestly, for as much as the Masks of Power situation sucks, what frustrates me the most has to less to do with the project itself and more how this could impact future Bionicle-related fanprojects down the line.

So for a bit of background context, I'm a life-long Nintendo fan, and if you know anything about Nintendo you know that they're rather...draconian when it comes to copyright. In particular, they tend to be rather harsh with fangames, taking down games left, right and center. This has led Nintendo to gain a rather infamous reputation amongst transformative content creators: every time a notable Nintendo-related fanproject comes out people make "witty" comments of how said project will be C&D;d. Watch out, the Nintendo ninjas are going to get you, that sort of thing.

Thing is though, for as much as we meme on Nintendo being trigger-happy when it comes to fangames...that isn't exactly true. DGMW there's definitely precedent for this with how they have taken down notable projects such as AM2R, Pokemon Uranimium and Pixelmon, but said takedowns aren't as common as the reputation may lead you to believe. Nintendo doesn't take down every single project that may exist, they only take few and far in between.

But even if Nintendo's banhammer is greatly exgarrated, that doesn't lessen the impact it has in the minds of people. Whenever a notable project such as AM2R or Uranium gets C&D'd it sets the precident for other fangame developers. This could be happen to you if you aren't careful. Is it any wonder then thatt so many Nintendo fanprojects eventually shed their skin to become something original, as they fear the wrath of the big N taking away their hard-earned work.

So, with LEGO C&D:ing Masks of Power I dread it setting a similar precedent for Bionicle fans as it has for Nintendo fans. Heck, I already have seen people making Nintendo-comparasions in spite of the fact it is the first time something like this has happened regards to LEGO (there was the whole Duckbricks situation but I'd consider that it's own separate thing). So with that I wonder...could this kill the ambitious projects as whole? If something like this can happen to Masks of Power, arguably THE biggest and most popular fanproject, what abou any other project that reaches it's level? What does that say of other ambitious projects like The Mangai Project or Illiad, could they encounter a similar fate? What about projects that haven't beeen made yet, will this diccourage them from being made? It is a scary thought how this one situation could demotivate creators both old and new and that is scary. Especially since unlike with (most) Nintendo IPs that have been C&D'd in the past, Bionicle as an IP is pretty much dead. Ambitious fanprojects are one of the ways we keep it alive and if we stop making them, that will seriously damage the community down the line.

Of course you can just do what many nintendo fans have done, shed the Bionicle IP and do something original: the ex MoP devs are planning to do just that with the Rustbound project born of MoPs ashes. And I think there's merit for that, there's good in original spiritual succesors as there is with fanprojects honoring the legacy of the old. But that can't be the only way. Again, fanprojects are what keep Bionicle alive, and without it, the series is as good as dead, especially given how uninterested LEGO seems to be to revive it. That hole is something only fanprojects can fill, not spiritual successors.

There's also the fact that...not everything can be turned into an original story, no matter how much spiritual of a successor it is. Projects such as the Mangai Project, Illiad or Ide's Journey rely on the fact that they are transformaive fanprojects and can't be erased from tthose roots. Their core identity and appeal comes from their connection to Bionicle and how they play with that IP. Shredding those ties would just make the whole project pointless and lose a lot of it's depth and nuance, especially with the more intertwined or metafictious projecs. So while the "remove serial numbers and turn it to an original IP" may work for some projects, it may not work as well for others.

Admittely this whole situation scares me. One of the major reasovs I love the community as much as I do is how we keep Bionicle alive through these high-effort fanprojects. And for years, LEGO seemed if not supportive, at least neutral to our existence. So to have hat peaceful co-existence be broken could spell the end of the Bionicle fandom as we know i and I really don't want tht to happen. I love this community for being as ambitious and passionate as we are, and I don't want that passion to go away like it did (to an extent) with Nintendo fans.

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Well this week sure wasn't a good week to be a fan of Bionicle and Kingdom Hearts

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Honestly that would be even better in my opinion because then it wouldn't run the risk of going End Of Service and being left with a barely playable brick like KHUX

But with how game dev works, it'd cost more to rework it than kill it

Which hurts so much, I've been fascinated by Brain-era Scala since that KHUX ending, and I just want a *playable* KH game where I can make my own character again

just rework it into a lower-cost (AA game) single-player console experience guys for real

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I never even got to play the Missing Link Beta

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And here I was looking forward to playing another Kingdom Hearts game where I get to make my own character to play as instead of playing as Sora again

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The idea of seeing Zenos in modern clothing do his whole dramatic speech about the thrill of the hunt before hitting Donald Duck in the face with a foam bat is hilarious

I’ve decided the funniest possible way Zenos could be in Kingdom Hearts is if he were just some guy in Twilight Town who was way into Struggle tournaments

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I'm genuinely living in fear of the day my android will die and I will lose my KHUX save

At least there's the YouTube playthrough, but it's not the same as seeing your own keykid go through the story

Man every so often I get really sad at how bad offline KHUX is. Like I wish we could at least have had a freeroam of the maps or anything so that I could walk my Keykid around Daybreak town

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Lil introduction : this Tumblr is/will be my side account for me to ramble about my myriad of OCs and hyperfixation universes.

I'm generally a sucker for creating character sheets and minecraft maps, so either of those may pop up on this blog as I write more on it

Universes you may expect to hear me talk about will include :

Final Fantasy 14

Bionicle

Kingdom Hearts (especially Union X content)

Artix Entertainment Games (also present in my other sideblog @cyraen-ae)

Star Wars The Old Republic

(more to add as I hyperfixate on various stuff)

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I made a favorite character template!!! draw your favs or just put screenshots :] share it with me or tag me if you use it I wanna see!!! White background or transparent background for your use~

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Man every so often I get really sad at how bad offline KHUX is. Like I wish we could at least have had a freeroam of the maps or anything so that I could walk my Keykid around Daybreak town

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Bionicle: "Collect the the 48 marketable Krana!" "Sand Bats have another, very long name, but people get killed before they can finish saying it!" "Oh, awkwaaaard! Jaller just interrupted Hewkii and Macku having a cute moment together!"

Also Bionicle:

You could also substitute that screenshot with the entire contents of Biosector's page on the Toa Empire universe.