Thread by @M1STERRYAN

alright let's talk about bionicles

The year is 2018, I am participating in a seasonal drawing challenge focused on line art. Let’s call it, Inkuary. Rather than using a prompt list I decide to use my memories of the Legend of Zelda series inspiration for my daily drawings. I have a lot of those, so it went well.

It is 2019, and Inkuary is around the corner. Again foregoing the usage of a prompt, I look to something else I have enough knowledge and memories of to do 31 drawings of.

That would be Bionicle, something I have a PhD in

keeping all of my drawings in one twitter thread, i chronicle the events of the first generation of bionicle. it is 307 tweets long, with a lot more drawings than a measly 31.

it is my favorite thing i've done on this website and you can read it here threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178883…

it is August 2020. amidst the chaos and fear of the pandemic and how the leaders of the world handled it (or lack thereof) the man most associated with Inkuary, Pake Jarker is revealed to be a plagiarist, as well as some weird things about the ownership of the word Inkuary

seeing an opportunity to talk about Bionicle again, without the shackles of all the discourse of traditional vs. digital art in a line art challenge, i said that october was #BionicleMonth

now i will be associated with bionicle month and when i do something bad you will go on and make october a new month

but anyways, it is still 2020 and i make a new bionicle drawings thread, chronicling the second generation of bionicle. it was a bright happy highlight for me in a year devoid of such things

you can read it here threadreaderapp.com/thread/1311528…

the thing about gen 2 of bionicle is that at two years long, it was a lot shorter than it's decade+ long predecessor. so chronicling the events of that generation was a lot quicker and easier, and left me with a couple of days with nothing to talk about

so aside from showing off the bionicles i had made at around that time, i made sort of a wishlist of things that i would like to see if they were to bring back bionicle yet again.

it is now today, October 1st, 2021 and i have expanded that wishlist into something that if you're being very generous, is an informal pitch with concept art, but is more or less just wishful fan fiction

so let's begin

a lot of folks who like bionicle really don't like gen 2 of bionicle, and that is putting it very nicely.

i understand that though. without getting my tin foil hat just yet, there's probably a pretty big handful of reasons why gen 1 worked for a decade, and gen 2 didn't

as one does when they have a PhD in Bionicle, i've been thinking a lot about what made bionicle Work when it first came out. and i think it can be boiled down to two obvious but distinct things. the story and lore, and the toys.

and these distinct things have some obvious aspects that make bionicle what it is.

now when i talk about a "truly alien world" the maori stuff that was appropriated and then slightly renamed to not be as appropriating doesn't count. made up weird names that don't step on any toes are more than enough for bionicle

and while this game in particular is guilty of using these appropriated names, the mata nui online game is the best usage of mystery and exploration and a weird world. obviously bionicle uses familiar topography, but the matoran have unique architecture and technology. sometimes.

the unique bizarreness of bionicle only grows as it goes on, though the metru nui saga, taking place in an overcast blade runner city, is a slight stumble. once you get to mahri nui and The Pit and all the weird lore start piling up, you're reading an alien's history book

that's not to say that the metru nui saga was bad. the 6 districts having their own specified export for the whole city as well as a topographical flavor was a great little thing

now let's talk about the toys

what do you mean it's not spelled collectibility

you already know how i feel about the 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 of the g1 masks and how tapping into that Gotta Catch Em All mentality, while adeclaration of war towards completionists, was a great way to make your own little collection you have feel more special and Yours

this is my special little collection so far. those kaukaus are gonna be the end of me

compatibility is one that early bionicle didn't quite land and that's because you had to use a lot of brainwork to get those parts to mesh well with classic lego system parts. however, later on there'd be new parts to fix that problem, especially with the advent of the ccb system

customizability is the cornerstone of lego as it is, so making custom bionicles is a given. however, tying into collectability, a huge swath of different colored masks not used by the main cast means your own fan made bionicles can wear those masks instead

As an example, if the Kakama mask only came in brown because it’s Pohatu’s mask, Bopha here wouldn’t have that beautiful dark turquoise kakama and probably wouldn’t exist at all

there is also, one extra aspect of bionicle that makes it what it is that falls under both the lore and the toy category, but much more the lore side of things. and it is the robots hanging out in nature

to recap, my wishlist pitch that i've been thinking about in my spare time since august of this year has been made following this thesis:

(i'm not much of a toy designer yet so i suppose we could just get that part out of the way before moving on to the stuff that's much closer to my wheelhouse)

i don't think i'm smart enough to design an entire building system to introduce for yet another bionicle reboot so let's just pretend it's the ccb system or some kind of iteration of it that incorporates new and exciting parts.

maybe something like this

i am not going to claim to know how product creation works behind the scenes at lego so this is all going to be pipe dream stuff here that i would gladly use the rest of the monkey's paw for

in a perfect world where dark samus is real and is married to me and we have three kids and a dog...

as well as the main 6 dudes for the year, the next reboot of bionicle has a small focus on lego system sets with minifigs to help flesh out the setting of the story

that's not to say that just taking your bionicles outside and saying "look it's ko koro" is a bad thing, i do it all the time

https://twitter.com/M1STERRYAN/status/1356707395863478274?s=20

knights' kingdom 2 did something similar to this and i adored knights' kingdom 2 but knights' kingdom 2 only lasted a couple years so perhaps having that many sets wouldn't work out well.

but hey maybe in a perfect world it would

I’ve already talked about what i think would make a good Bionicle minifig so I won’t reiterate that. It’s mostly just a specific headgear piece

https://twitter.com/M1STERRYAN/status/1321953711955083267

oh yeah also there should be blind bagged masks just bring them back i miss them

the original mask pack polybags were the perfect way for bionicle fans to make their own dudes, which i see as maybe the most important thing that bionicle should focus on

this is now your opportunity to drop your cool bionicle dudes you made in the comments

damn,

if youre reading this in the future and are unable to check my retweets from today, there’s lotsa people who made a massive variety of different Bionicle dudes, and that variety is allowed by creativity and skill, and the wide array of colors of Bionicle parts that were offered

It should also be noted that a lot of these custom creations were made using digital programs like stud.io

alright enough of the plastic stuff lets get onto the reason for all this

before i begin i want to preface the naming conventions here. gen 2 of bionicle dropped a lot of the older names to either make it feel less niche and nerdy, or, those names were appropriative and they didn't want to have that problem

for this exercise i'll be juggling between using old names to keep the familiar trope they're associated with, putting nice sounding vowels and consonants together, and just not having a name for it yet

but anyways. this island i don't have a name for yet will be the primary setting

i've mentioned before that metru nui, the main island for "season 2" of generation 1 of bionicle had a good thing going with the purposefulness of it's districts. i think that aspect could be pushed forward with the toa being beacons of the purpose of those districts

so based on these descriptions you might be asking some questions about the logistics of how the island works and the toa's relationship to it and hopefully i'll be able to make this concise

in this reboot, a toa is something that can be achieved through intense training and practice and attunement to nature. i guess you could consider it like pokemon evolution if you wanted to but that wasn't my thought process going in.

since it's so hard to become a toa, there's a lot of protectors who are still striving for that achievement, or have accepted their positions as support for their toa commanders

(i really don't like the name 'protector' but it's just a placeholder)

some preliminary scribbles of the little guys that i didn't wind up going with but i liked the ball joint belly and the various accessories a dude could wear

focusing on attunement to the elements can have a toa master a more particular aspect of that element. like a toa of air becaming a toa of sound due to his appreciation for music and his experimentation with vibrating the air around him

I was hoping I’d have a name for him by the time Bionicle Month rolled around but sadly I did not get around to it

https://twitter.com/M1STERRYAN/status/1417320701237899269

this mf wrote becaming

ekimu, the first toa, washed ashore thousands of years ago and spent those years building the island into the bustling trade port it now is. in that time, he mastered all of the elements and his island-wide craftsmanship made the legendary mask of creation manifest before him

hello and welcome back to Bionicle Month

it's been a while and the smoke is clearing from the metroid dread shaped crater in the ground, so let's recap:

i'm haphazardly pitching yet another bionicle 3 reboot, just for the fun of it

Ekimu became the first toa and was rewarded the powerful mask of creation for his efforts to create civilization, but he didn't do it entirely alone. he had assistance from two other beings who would also become toa

here is definitive proof that i have been planning this since august

https://twitter.com/M1STERRYAN/status/1428138284505501696?s=20

although i had the idea of makuta being a toa much longer than that

https://twitter.com/M1STERRYAN/status/1321971190022524929?s=20

three little guys uniting to create a civilization is the creation myth for this story, and if there was going to be a comic or book or game telling that story, it would be very quickly told at the beginning, just to set up the three strongest players, and the mask of creation

the mask of creation would be a blessing and a curse though. it allows for ekimu to create the observatory in the center of the island, and the lighthouse on it's peninsula but at a a great physical cost. ekimu, being a master of all elements, could barely manage that cost

but that's all backstory stuff. the main story would revolve around at least one protector on their way to becoming a toa and dealing with the personal and external struggles that comes with. i don't have a name or concrete design for them yet but i don't want it to be takua

the key thing is that the protagonist is a smaller part of a much larger world. their heroic exploits shouldn't be a surprise, but it should also not be a rarity

the toa command a group of 6 or more protectors who help out with the smaller problems of the island, even so small as saving a pet from a tree or organizing celebrations. these groups answer to a captain, who answers directly to their toa.

so the main story begins makuta training a group of rookie protectors, which include protagonist, who i still have not named.

while sparring, makuta has a vision of a massive sphere approaching the island and is distracted long enough for the rookie to knock him off his feet.

being the first and only protector to ever beat makuta in a sparring contest, (however much of an accident it was) the rookie is given some slight notoriety and is stationed in the merchant district of the beach, to test their ability to handle more unique problems

since the beach market is a place where danger ranges from haggling-based fistfights to hapless pirates, there's no need for a toa to oversee it. instead, the captain of the elite guard is the "steward of trade"

not sure if the name is appropriative but he's competent Ahkmou

the grasp has not loosened

but anyway where was i?

after a boring day of overseeing merchants, the rookie and the shadow guard captain, who for now i'll call ahkmou, are accosted by a pirate looking for very particular loot: spare parts. and if there aren't any, he'll make them himself

the rookie jumps into action, eager for a fight. ahkmou, showing off his connection with shadows, uses the shadow cast by the rookie's disk to grab the pirate's leg and hold him still

the pirate escapes from ahkmou's grasp by removing his own leg. too annoyed to further deal with anything else, he gets on his boat and sails away

probably asking too much for robot dismemberment but

meanwhile, makuta and ekimu have a private discussion about the vision makuta had earlier.

now that the rookie is in the epicenter of where all the districts of the island interact, they have the opportunity to hear about the problems going on elsewhere on the island.

and so the story follows them helping the 6 main toa and those respective districts.

as an example, the cooling unit in one of the volcanoes in the forge district could go haywire and they have to stop the volcano from erupting

another example could be astronomers in the tundra are attacked by a giant beast, and have to safely relocate their temporary laboratory so they can study the full moon that night.

some other examples i don't want to draw:

-sports game in the desert
-jewels get stolen and have to be recovered before the thieves escape the caves they stole them from
-the rookie goes to the lake to deliver some pottery to paint and ponders why the moon is hollow with gali.

quick aside, i made the rookie's mask with a blue hau in mind and thought to myself tonight "hey i should make a little rookie for myself, that would be cool to show off"

i don't have a blue hau and from the looks of things i will not have one any time soon

but anyway

in the dead of night, under the cover of darkness, a giant monster erupts from the ground near the observatory

the beast ravages the observatory and the strongest beings on the island who could probably easily stop it are nowhere to be seen. it takes the 6 strongest toa and their protectors all working together to just slow it down

suddenly, a one armed makuta crawls out from the rubble and constricts the beast in massive tendrils of shadow, and effortlessly launches it into the sky

the dust settles and rescue crews haven't found either lhikan or ekimu. makuta, now the de facto leader of the island, orders the toa back to their districts in case of another attack. while a medic replaces his arm, a shining silver shard forms in makuta's hand.

never got around to really thinking about what a medic/healer guy would look like so here's a first pass at it. the mask looks like it has a surgical mask on it, the hands are colored to look like surgical gloves, and the red markings are supposed to be like a stethoscope

over the coming days, smaller beasts begin attacking villages and causing havoc. they're much more easily defeated, but they're still dangerous even to a toa.

they were one of the earlier things i scribbled up in preparation for this, with the larger beast as a combiner

if there was a comic or show or something telling this story, this is where i would put a "filler episode" or two to show the slow creeping chaos that the island is dealing with.

while the toa are fending off the beasts that are attacking the island, the Mask Hunter would make landfall and the rookies would have to fend him off.

wearing armor made of the masks of his fallen foes, the Mask Hunter can switch them on the fly to make use of their powers

this guy's another reason i want ccbs compatible masks. he could be a great spot to put any extra masks you have

but anyway the mask hunter gets away so he can be a recurring pain in the butt for the heroes

meanwhile, Toa Lhikan wakes up in a place he's never seen before

one day, while there's a brief moment of peace from the attacks, the merchant district resumes business as usual. during this unusually calm day, a gukko bird brings Ahkmou a notice from Makuta to go to the side of one of the desert's mountains

on that mountain's side is a circular ring carved into it with a seam down the middle.

in ahkmou's presence, the seam in the mountain opens up into a cave

the rahkshi's first and only order is to destroy

it goes to the least protected spot on the island, a place where it could destroy as much as possible with as little resistance.

the merchant's district. where the only person there to oppose it is the rookie.

the rookie is capable in a fight, but is no match for a being made solely for destruction

you may recall from last year's Bionicle Month endeavors my criteria for a fight scene in bionicle.

i will indulge in that criteria by having the rookie's tool get destroyed and they have only their fists

it wouldn't just be a fist fight though. the rahkshi used it's most potent weapon: the shadows it commanded back when it was the captain of the elite shadow guard. and it controlled those shadows with vehement power

but the rookie would not yield

just when the battle seemed over, and the rahkshi began to envelope the rookie in tendrils of shadow, a bolt of fire screamed through the air

help had arrived

the cloud citadel looms over the island, draped in the light of the hollow moon

the citadel silently lurches higher into the night sky.

the rookie gradually sees more of the the sea, and the other islands that sit upon it

it climbs through several layers of atmosphere until it reaches its destination:

the archipelago of the sky

the archipelago is home to scholars and astronomers and the librarians who document their findings.

and their protector: takanuva, the toa of light

updated rookie appearance

in a twist of roles, the toa ran support for the rookie protector

it would not be a proper Bionicle Month if i didn't use this image at least once

also the rookie gets one last design change

meanwhile, a gukko bird closely watches the reconstruction efforts

Makuta puts the Mask of Destruction on.

energy surges through his elongating body. massive talons erupt from his fingers. painful chains of steel and energy wrap around him and burn into his body.

Makuta had become the Toa of Death

Thank you for joining me once again on another Bionicle Month journey, we can all begin counting down the days until next year now.

I will leave you with a toa of hot chocolate I made a while back