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[voidaspects]

Slowly but surely building out my full Order of Mata Nui collection.

My remaining checklist is as follows:

1. Get the remaining pieces for Tobduk

2. Get the remaining pieces for Krakua

3. Think about how only Johmak specifically is entirely absent

4. Cry

5. Take solace in the fact that I already own Jerbraz

[voidaspects]

I think, in general, we as a community can be a bit too harsh on Greg Farshtey, and I think he’s someone who’s been placed in the unfortunate situation of being a writer forced to explain every detail and flaw of his work in depths to an audience, and we should cut him some slack a lot more

…That being said….

Greg why

There was a built in solution here why did you go out of your way to reject it

Greg please

[voidaspects]

Not to delve too much more into this topic, but I just want to take a moment and share this great article I found while exploring this topic a little bit ago. I admit, I lack the cultural knowledge to vouch for it’s authenticity, but the sincerity of it leaves me confident enough that I can comfortably add this to the conversation.

Tl;dr: this is a perspective of the opposite side of the coin; an exploration and introduction of Bionicle from a Polynesian perspective, which I think is something that’s really worth appreciating.

There’s a lot of interesting discussion that can be had about the nuances of morality when this topic is discussed, but discussing the topic in itself is also incredibly interesting, and really makes stuff like this worth appreciating for the perspective they give.

Get this into your thick skull: Bionicle addition

All of the names in bionicle that weren’t changed after the lawsuit, the Māori people ALLOWED Lego to keep. That means it is ok to use them. And even if there were names for new characters after said lawsuit happened that seem “culturally appropriative”, don’t you think that the Māoris would sue again? They didn’t. That means it wasn’t that bad. Also, I have proof that they SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED Lego to keep using the Māori names that were chosen for the toa mata (the main cast). Don’t you think since the Māoris had a problem with some of the names, if they had a problem with the toa mata’s names, they would have pointed that out first since the toa mata are the LITERAL MAIN CHARACTERS? A huge misconception is that the Māoris “didn’t catch” some things in bionicle, this proves that theory wrong! Even if they had missed some things at first, bionicle continued for less than a DECADE after the law suit! Don’t you think that they would have sued again if they found something they missed the first time?

The island from Moana is “Monte Nui”, the island from bionicle is “mata nui”. The island from Moana is not a bionicle reference.

The name “Jaller” does not fit in with the rest of the names in bionicle. It sounds soooooooooooo yankeedoodle! Even some of the characters who got their names changed sound more like bionicles than him. Maybe they were trying to make him an American stereotype? Like, his voice sounds like a dumb surfer dude. Even Tahu, an actual surfer dude, sounds like less of a surfer dude than Baller with a J over here!

If bionicle was that bad, it would be morally wrong to keep liking it. What a person likes dictates their character, but that’s only if you know the extent of what you’re doing and keep doing it. If someone got addicted to something bad as a kid without realizing how bad it is, it may be hard to move on from it as an adult.

in jaller’s name, they changed the “a” to an “er”, I think it might be a joke similar to the “clankers” thing in the Star Wars community.

the reason why Lego won’t bring bionicle back is because they fear backlash from twitter people, but considering that most people nowadays like bionicle, I don’t think they will get much backlash. They have even changed some of the names that the Māoris let them keep, because of how scared they are! Let them know they shouldn’t!

The matoran are not racist depictions of anything. Bionicle was inspired by christen Faber’s day dreams of the pills inside of his body fighting his cancer being actually alive. The depiction of antibodies as humans in media usually have them depicted as creatures rather than people. The concept of the matoran developed over time so they were more portrayed as humans than antibodies. Also, the previous names for bionicle seem a little iffy, but they probably didn’t know that voodoo was an actual practice, and the bone heads thing… probably either had to do with the fact that blood cells come out of your bones or since the bionicles were just literal animals back then, they didn’t have any problem giving them a funny name. Another candidate for a name was literally “doo heads” for crying out loud! 😂

[voidaspects]

Hi there's suddenly a ton of people seeing my unorganized blog here's a bunch of art from last year!!

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Still love how clean this piece looks. Was meant to be just a little extreme perspective exercise, but then... I got carried away :P

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Traditional art has been really fun to get back into!! Been liking the vibe of a lot of my new stuff!

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Here have some art!

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A certain serial killer was missing from my roster due to that whole non-canon model thing.

I will be rectifying her absence shortly despite this fact :3

Breaking my inactivity on this blog with a random post. Hyperfixations go!

Every… single… toa of water… in bionicle (G1) has been collected :D

I am… so proud…

Been looking at these two nonstop I’m so proud.

My collection of cool robotic water ladies is complete…

[voidaspects]

My personal hot take about the post-restoration bionicle story serials is that I'm very glad they exist, but also having them introduce foundation-shattering reveals and concepts, and then also being unfinished, was the literal worst combination of things they could've been.

I don't hold that against them, because like, obviously they weren't intended to be unfinished, but like...

imagine how much more seamless the whole thing woulda been, finished or not, if the serial killer murder storyline had just been a murder mystery story, and not a retroactive explanation for the concept of sentience itself lmao.

I know the topic has been talked to death, and there's a lot of opinions about those stories, but I just think about it a lot. like... having the basic foundations of the storyline restructured in a way that all lore will have to take it into account, and then also not having any closure on them, is like... the worst combination. which is super unfortunate! because I do still love that they even just exist, and I don't wanna take that for granted! but also now the concepts of mortality and consciousness themselves have been reshaped in a vaguely defined way oh no!

[voidaspects]

The real biggest mystery in bionicle is how many zamor sphere types there are because what the fuck.

Like... what do I do with this...

[voidaspects]

I wanted to do a project where I illustrate a grounded take on all of the Bionicle launchers, as they are implied to appear in universe as actual firearms and projectile weapons and stuff. I think it’d be interesting, because in terms of how they look on the figures, they really range from abstract shapes, to like… just actual gun designs that would barely need to be tweaked.

The main ones I’m finding myself unsure what to do with are, like… the Rhotuka launcher, because it’s just so abstract, and even when trying to look at how it’s been adapted, or how it’s described, it just like… is the one that is the hardest to remove from it’s context as a toy, I suppose? Adapting it authentically would be weird? Curious what people think about it, and how the launching structure should be depicted, and how much it should be seen as energy vs. being a seemingly solid object. What do they… fire from? What actually is the launcher part? There’s no real design there. I don’t like referencing the adaptations from the movies because I like coming at these things from the context of them being their own adaptations and not a source, but like… I guess I might have to a bit there. Idk, I’d figure something out.

…anyway the other one I’m struggling with is the squid launcher, because no matter how much I try to lean into the horror of having a lamprey mouth shooting at you, I’m finding it increasingly impossible to make it not the funniest concept in the world. The fact that it’s an actual projectile weapon and not just a release mechanism is just so funny. Like yes, hungry carnivorous squid thing surging towards you is scary, but like… they just fuckin launch those fuckers! The launchers are crossbow shaped! How do I not interpret this as the launchers actually working like a slingshot in universe too! How do I make this not funny as hell in a grounded setting! What was the Barraki’s thought process here!

You could tell me these squids were the most dangerous and vicious things in existence and it wouldn’t change the inherent comedy of the fact that the gun itself is the squid-punter 9000. The whole point of this project was to depict them as realistically grounded and to see what they’d look like when taken objectively seriously! But like Kalmah what the fuck dude!

[voidaspects]

Making an Addendum to this post!

First of all, I felt my full team photo kinda sucked, and I wanted to give a better look at all of the members in more clarity, so have this!

(Lariska once again by Gerou100)

Second, I wanted to bring up that Spiriah appears to be one of those combo models that has a different construction in his promotional photo than he does in the instructions. It seems to be generally accepted that the promotional photo versions of models like this are the more authentic ones, so I made some minor adjustments. They’re pretty subtle, but they’re still worth highlighting.

(Changes: Different torso leg pieces, hand piece on the gun arm is absent, tail construction is hidden in the photo, but tail-wings placement is altered, and construction seemed more compact, so I made an educated guess that the hand piece was moved there, hence the absence. Matoran blade piece is on sideways, which I do think is a deliberate choice because of the previously mentioned deliberate asymmetry with those weapons.)

Anyway, just thought I’d show this off! I also wanted to quickly mention, because I feel I may have over-explained it in my original post: a lot of my reasoning for the matoran being part of his model boils down to there just being no indication whatsoever that it shouldn’t be, full stop. The only reasoning for the conclusion is just the existence of the 2008 matoran fusion function. In a vacuum it’s not even remotely implied, and it’s entirely unprecedented for a model like this to have an additional thing like an extra character just sorta added without context. From what I can tell, anyway.

Anyway don’t worry I won’t keep rambling your head off again this time! Just a small update I thought y’all might wanna see!

A rambling defense of Makuta Spiriah('s design)!

Here’s a very long winded post about a bionicle side character that I suddenly have a lot to say about

I had no strong opinions of this like an hour ago and I suddenly have a massive rant to go on!

Okay, so, Makuta Spiriah, the 2008 bionicle combo model, is regarded as one of the ugliest combo models made for the series, from what I can see. It’s hard to deny that his model is pretty ugly and unremarkable, when you first see it. The colours clash, the construction is weird, and there’s a weird extra not-matoran guy included randomly? I won’t lie, I didn’t have a very good opinion of him either.

However

As of now, this past hour, I have built this figure, and felt compelled to make a defense of his design, because we’ve been far too harsh.

So, makuta spiriah is a pretty obscure character in the wider bionicle storyline, and would probably have just been a footnote in the story, were it not for the “Federation of Fear” story serial, in which he was a prominent member of the team. I probably wouldn’t have had an interest in building him, were it not for me wanting to collect every member. With all of the component sets for spiriah collected, my team is now completed (pic at the end). And I was immediately struck by how much better he looked in person? Like, don’t get me wrong, he’s still weird and janky, and his colour scheme is somewhat hard to adjust to, and all of the things you’d expect on initial glance (botar this is not) but I fully expected him to be ugly as hell, and instead he’s a pretty competent and cohesive model?

I think there’s a few reasons for this, but the biggest one in my opinion is actually the reason I felt the need to make this post, because it’s one of the main things I see people talking about with this model:

I am completely, intensely certain that the other model on his back is intended to be part of his construction, and it seems to just be accepted as a given that it isn’t for some reason?

So, the reason I feel so intensely about this is that pretty much every time this model is mentioned, without fail, there’s sort of a fun fact about how “Spiriah is canon, but the matoran-esque thing on him is non-canon”

This doesn’t seem to have a direct source, so much as it’s a conclusion drawn due to how this second model is perceived. Specifically, the conclusion is drawn from: “there appears to be a weird, slapped together matoran character on his back, to showcase the matoran fusion function from 2008” + “No such character exists in the story” = “this part of the model isn’t canon”

And see, this logic treats the interpretation that this is a separate character as a given. Like… it doesn’t seem to be questioned. And with this mindset, yeah, when you put the models beside each other as individual things, they both look awful:

You’re left with what seemingly appears to be a weirdly shaped antroz and some extra dude made from scraps. But in all honesty, I think this is just accepted as a fact due to spiriah already being accepted as an ugly model. I instead want to propose this as my first piece of evidence that this is not how this is intended to be seen. But my evidence doesn’t stop there.

For instance, another thing worth mentioning is the fact that there is not a single official depiction of the spiriah model that shows the two seperated, from what I can see. They are never once shown on their own in any capacity.

The one single exception to this is this part of the instructions, which tell you to construct the entirety of this second model as it’s own thing, before inserting it onto spiriah. However, this leads us to an additional point, being that this step is in the middle of spiriah’s construction, before you’ve even attached his arms. If this was intended to be a seperate model, why would it be attached during his body construction?

My final piece of evidence I want to propose, relates to the notion of this second model being “an extra little thing you make from the scraps.” I think this idea is popular because of just how barebones it looks on it’s own. Like a weird afterthought. People rationalize this idea with the explanation that this was just to show the matoran fusion function that was being heavily advertised in 2008. They just wanted to insert the-matoran-on-his-back function and threw this extra thing together, right?

Except, having built this figure now… I don’t think you guys realize just how many extra pieces are left. Like, no, this wasn’t a bottom of the barrel little extra thing. They had three mask option and kept the head bare. There was so much to work with.

(Also, fun fact, the matoran-thing has asymmetrical weapon pieces, but both of the chosen weapons have a second version available that wasn’t used, meaning it was a conscious choice for some reason. I don’t have a point to make with that, I just think it’s kinda weird and worth mentioning lmao)

Anyway, my point is, I strongly believe there is NOT some weird non canon extra guy with spiriah. Spiriah is, instead, a model that integrated a full matoran build into it’s construction as an actual design element. It uses the motif of the matoran fusion function, but the matoran instead fills out his figure, bulking him up to look more cohesive and complex.

Now, whether this is intended to be just an abstract way to construct his design, or he’s actually intended to look like he has a person melded into him or something, overtly, I’ll leave up to you. The makuta are weird and mutated enough that it honestly could very well be the latter, though it’d be an awfully weird thing to go unmentioned. But who knows, maybe some poor matoran got shadow-absorbed nidihki and krehka style. Or something. Your call!

Anyway, I’ll finish off this weirdly specific rant by just saying that I think this really changed the way I look at some of these models. I think the vast amount of criticism I’ve seen of Spiriah is reflective of the fact that on a glance, he looks super unappealing, to the point that no one really wants to build him, and therefore people maintain these opinions without ever seeing him in person? Not to sound like I know better or anything, I would never have built him if it weren’t for my love of the Federation of Fear story, and up until this moment I firmly believed Spiriah was one of the worst models of the line. Jarringly coloured, weirdly proportioned. I’d have no reason to believe otherwise, had I not done this.

I just think that’s neat, and I also think it’s neat that I suddenly had so much to say immediately after building him. I still don’t think he’s anything special, granted. He could absolutely be improved. But as he is? He’s still pretty dang cool! Cooler than I think any of us have given him credit for! And I think that makes me appreciate him more!

So shout out to the biggest failure in bionicle history. At least someone thinks something about you is a success!

(Lariska model created by Gerou100 (unofficial fanon contest winning model) (it’s canon in my heart))

[voidaspects]

A rambling defense of Makuta Spiriah('s design)!

Here’s a very long winded post about a bionicle side character that I suddenly have a lot to say about

I had no strong opinions of this like an hour ago and I suddenly have a massive rant to go on!

Okay, so, Makuta Spiriah, the 2008 bionicle combo model, is regarded as one of the ugliest combo models made for the series, from what I can see. It’s hard to deny that his model is pretty ugly and unremarkable, when you first see it. The colours clash, the construction is weird, and there’s a weird extra not-matoran guy included randomly? I won’t lie, I didn’t have a very good opinion of him either.

However

As of now, this past hour, I have built this figure, and felt compelled to make a defense of his design, because we’ve been far too harsh.

So, makuta spiriah is a pretty obscure character in the wider bionicle storyline, and would probably have just been a footnote in the story, were it not for the “Federation of Fear” story serial, in which he was a prominent member of the team. I probably wouldn’t have had an interest in building him, were it not for me wanting to collect every member. With all of the component sets for spiriah collected, my team is now completed (pic at the end). And I was immediately struck by how much better he looked in person? Like, don’t get me wrong, he’s still weird and janky, and his colour scheme is somewhat hard to adjust to, and all of the things you’d expect on initial glance (botar this is not) but I fully expected him to be ugly as hell, and instead he’s a pretty competent and cohesive model?

I think there’s a few reasons for this, but the biggest one in my opinion is actually the reason I felt the need to make this post, because it’s one of the main things I see people talking about with this model:

I am completely, intensely certain that the other model on his back is intended to be part of his construction, and it seems to just be accepted as a given that it isn’t for some reason?

So, the reason I feel so intensely about this is that pretty much every time this model is mentioned, without fail, there’s sort of a fun fact about how “Spiriah is canon, but the matoran-esque thing on him is non-canon”

This doesn’t seem to have a direct source, so much as it’s a conclusion drawn due to how this second model is perceived. Specifically, the conclusion is drawn from: “there appears to be a weird, slapped together matoran character on his back, to showcase the matoran fusion function from 2008” + “No such character exists in the story” = “this part of the model isn’t canon”

And see, this logic treats the interpretation that this is a separate character as a given. Like… it doesn’t seem to be questioned. And with this mindset, yeah, when you put the models beside each other as individual things, they both look awful:

You’re left with what seemingly appears to be a weirdly shaped antroz and some extra dude made from scraps. But in all honesty, I think this is just accepted as a fact due to spiriah already being accepted as an ugly model. I instead want to propose this as my first piece of evidence that this is not how this is intended to be seen. But my evidence doesn’t stop there.

For instance, another thing worth mentioning is the fact that there is not a single official depiction of the spiriah model that shows the two seperated, from what I can see. They are never once shown on their own in any capacity.

The one single exception to this is this part of the instructions, which tell you to construct the entirety of this second model as it’s own thing, before inserting it onto spiriah. However, this leads us to an additional point, being that this step is in the middle of spiriah’s construction, before you’ve even attached his arms. If this was intended to be a seperate model, why would it be attached during his body construction?

My final piece of evidence I want to propose, relates to the notion of this second model being “an extra little thing you make from the scraps.” I think this idea is popular because of just how barebones it looks on it’s own. Like a weird afterthought. People rationalize this idea with the explanation that this was just to show the matoran fusion function that was being heavily advertised in 2008. They just wanted to insert the-matoran-on-his-back function and threw this extra thing together, right?

Except, having built this figure now… I don’t think you guys realize just how many extra pieces are left. Like, no, this wasn’t a bottom of the barrel little extra thing. They had three mask option and kept the head bare. There was so much to work with.

(Also, fun fact, the matoran-thing has asymmetrical weapon pieces, but both of the chosen weapons have a second version available that wasn’t used, meaning it was a conscious choice for some reason. I don’t have a point to make with that, I just think it’s kinda weird and worth mentioning lmao)

Anyway, my point is, I strongly believe there is NOT some weird non canon extra guy with spiriah. Spiriah is, instead, a model that integrated a full matoran build into it’s construction as an actual design element. It uses the motif of the matoran fusion function, but the matoran instead fills out his figure, bulking him up to look more cohesive and complex.

Now, whether this is intended to be just an abstract way to construct his design, or he’s actually intended to look like he has a person melded into him or something, overtly, I’ll leave up to you. The makuta are weird and mutated enough that it honestly could very well be the latter, though it’d be an awfully weird thing to go unmentioned. But who knows, maybe some poor matoran got shadow-absorbed nidihki and krehka style. Or something. Your call!

Anyway, I’ll finish off this weirdly specific rant by just saying that I think this really changed the way I look at some of these models. I think the vast amount of criticism I’ve seen of Spiriah is reflective of the fact that on a glance, he looks super unappealing, to the point that no one really wants to build him, and therefore people maintain these opinions without ever seeing him in person? Not to sound like I know better or anything, I would never have built him if it weren’t for my love of the Federation of Fear story, and up until this moment I firmly believed Spiriah was one of the worst models of the line. Jarringly coloured, weirdly proportioned. I’d have no reason to believe otherwise, had I not done this.

I just think that’s neat, and I also think it’s neat that I suddenly had so much to say immediately after building him. I still don’t think he’s anything special, granted. He could absolutely be improved. But as he is? He’s still pretty dang cool! Cooler than I think any of us have given him credit for! And I think that makes me appreciate him more!

So shout out to the biggest failure in bionicle history. At least someone thinks something about you is a success!

(Lariska model created by Gerou100 (unofficial fanon contest winning model) (it’s canon in my heart))

[voidaspects]

Hey so like… I’m not sure if this is ever thoroughly clarified, but like… how exactly does the matoran language work, within the context of the storytelling of bionicle?

Iike, okay, it’s very soundly defined that words like “matoran” “toa” “kanohi” “rahi” and so on are definitive words in the matoran language, that makes sense.

And it’s also said that, within the realm of the story, the dialogue we’re reading that’s spoken by Matoran universe characters is actually the matoran language in story, but translated for our benefit. This immediately raises the question of what the words like the above are doing untranslated, but it’s not too hard to accept that some words are presented authentically for emphasis.

But then there are more complications. Like… most of those above words are not just stated matter of factly, they’re a designation and a specification. “Toa” is considered the matoran word for warrior/hero, but it’s not used as such, it’s a specific thing, and the words warrior and hero still exist. “Kanohi” is the biggest example. Not only is it super common to refer to kanohi as a mask, interchangeably, but a kanohi is also a specifically defined type of mask. Like, masks that aren’t kanohi, like Hydraxon’s, are not an abnormal thing. A kanohi refers to a type of mask and not masks as a whole.

It reads like matoran is a seperate language being used for additional terminology, like Latin naming, but within the text, matoran is just… the language they’re speaking?

Am I missing something here? How does the talking in bionicle actually work?

[voidaspects]

Got my hands on lesovikk today. Very exciting. I immediately did the meanest thing I could and took this photo.

[voidaspects]

…okay so like… a few questions…

1. Those things on Hydraxon are boomerangs?

2. Hydraxon’s boomerangs are explosive?!

3. Why on earth would you want boomerangs to be explosive?!

[voidaspects]

Fun fact: With Dagath and Qorvex being introduced back to back, being the first warframes who’s names start with D and Q respectively, there are now only two letters of the alphabet that don’t have warframes for them. Those two being back to back to close the gap makes me wonder how quickly we’ll get the other two

…eagerly awaiting the warframes for J and U, the only exceptions now…