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s&t


Noxryn

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i never have and never will be in favor of canonizing every pebble in Bionicle G1 for pretend "world building"

 

the narrative's over and the book's done, but there's a lot of room for fan interpretation and expansion

 

filling in every little detail and hole will completely kill that and absolutely KO the story when everything's canonized to the point where there's no more room for imagination.

 

also forgive me if i'm a bit sour for having to take others' headcanons as official canon fact because they asked greg for permission.

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I never payed the canon version much mind. In my version, Lewa and Onua are a thing and Hahli discovered the secret to switching between Matoran and Toa for stealth missions. Also, Pewku is the secret eighth toa. I mean, all of the protagonists and villains are more or less humanoid. That's so boring, especially when they're given wings and insectoid looks.

 

Heck, it's LEGO. Even if something is canon, it's not gonna stop me from rejecting it and coming up with my own goofy version. That's what "Play well" is all about.

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i get that sentiment, but it's annoying regardless.

 

i liked being able to imagine things, i liked being able to have my own thoughts and feelings about x, y or z without other members basically just going to greg with their own interpretations and being all "nope you don't get to freely interpret this anymore, this is the canon fact and we won't let you forget it"

 

"oh you made art/story/moc featuring what you preferred well no sorry this is the canon fact. i know, i asked greg first."

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Haven't found an appropriate place for me to reflect on this without intruding on discussion, so why not here?

 

On a personal level, I'm rather confused by my own feelings on it. In four years, my role and position has more or less completely reversed. Kinda weird really...

I've never considered myself a proponent for it. I feel like I genuinely was pretty neutral - I never actually liked it all that much, but I generally took a more passive, uninvolved role and just tried to make sure it didn't get ridiculous. (By uninvolved, I mean I never actively participated in things like debates over what should be elements. There's no denying my recognized involvement behind the scenes of all that.) At the same time, I know I undeniably suffered from that elitist mentality of knowing everything with the story... They don't go hand-in-hand, I know, and I never did feel like I owned any part of it, but I'm sure I still rubbed some people the wrong way at some point because of it.

 

Now I don't like it, for sure. It's all about ownership now. It's all about the mentality that "we" have to write or fill in gaps. We have no right to do that. It is simply not "our" story at all and people need to stop treating it like that. For a while, it was because people wanted to keep BIONICLE afloat, so I continued to remain aloof and let that happen. But there's no reason now. And the level of detail being ironed out really is stifling and counterproductive.

 

TLDR: My perspective's changed a lot and I find that weird. But peeps, this ain't "your" story to write for everyone (do it for yourself and have fun with that though!), stop trying to make it so.

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It was the weirdest feeling seeing canonization polls in S&T in 2014, nearly five years after the story's conclusion. I thought we were done with this, but I guess we may never truly be.

 

It used to get to me a lot, but like Santa I realized that there is really no reason to take the 'officially official' story as doctrine. Let it be what you want it to be, what you love about it.

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I'm still really ambivalent about it overall, but I disagree with the way it's being done now. I just want people to think about what they're doing critically, and the very first thing they ask should be "is this necessary and/or meaningful".

 

Problem is that people still think of those two things as subjective, when there is, in reality, absolutely an objective amount of utility for canon, which I don't believe is being met these days.

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For the most part I ignore any of the nonsense that people request be made canon. If it was in a piece of fiction written and published by Greg then that's fair game. If it was suggested by someone on the internet then I turn my head away and sigh. I think it went from a competition or two, to people rushing to leave their mark on the Bionicle universe in some way.

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can i at least get one more in before g2 takes off and get trans girl tamaru officially canonized

i mean we already know its canon. but i want it said from greg

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I agree completely. There is literally no point to canonizing details of a completed story other than to DEcanonize other fans' individual interpretations. But unfortunately Greg doesn't agree, and since he's now the sole arbiter of the old canon and there are plenty of fans trampling each other in an attempt to make their mark on the old story, there's not much that can be done.

Personally, I've just been ignoring S&T for the most part, apart from the topics discussing the reboot. After all, that story has a lot more promise, and will hopefully be both less complex and much less malleable.

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...Why do people care?

 

I do not understand how this is an issue, because I understand neither side. Unless the individual in-question is going around trying to force their headcanon on people and treating it like the gospel truth, in which case I can understand the frustration, why do people give a rat's behind about what someone else has as their fanon? If you don't like it, just ignore it. You're not entitled to try and censor someone just because you disagree with them as long as they're obeying the law and, when online, obeying the rules of the site in-question. I don't like how many happy cheery things I love have grim, morbid headcanons and fan content floating around, but I don't try and destroy it, I ignore it. If you don't like it, just ignore it. It doesn't matter, it doesn't hurt you.

 

At the same time, the entire concept of headcanons is that they are information that either does not exist or is outright contradicted by canon. The very idea itself is ambivalent to established canon because it revolves around filling in and changing canon. A headcanon is not magically more or less valid canonically because of word-of-god, because it never has canonical value in the first place. That doesn't make it worthless, but something that is worth $0 cannot become worth less. A piece of information that is not canon is not suddenly even less canon just because the author says that X is Y rather than Z. There is no change. If Greg says X, which goes counter to Y headcanon, so what? Canon has never stopped fanon. Even on here canon only applies when convenient, just go look at the BZRPG to get a confirmation of that.

 

Neither side makes any sense to me. The people getting butthurt over the canon of others don't make sense, and the people who're hurt because their headcanon doesn't match with the canon don't make sense. And to the whole thing, why in the name of all that is good are you concerned with what is and isn't canonical in the storyline that accompanies a 13-year old children's toy as it relates to your fan-made aberration from that storyline? Why does this matter to either of you so much?

 

Heck, when did people suddenly start caring about what Greg says again? I remember after they released that whole "They're all robotic antobodies in mata-nui's body repelling an infection" twist or whatever it was that a ton of people got angry and proceeded to adhere to a fanon where that wasn't the case. When did Greg's word suddenly become so meaningful to people again?

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I don't think you understood the complaint. This isn't about headcanons, this is about people who have certain headcanons going to Greg and getting it Officially Canonized, as in, it becomes a BS01 fact and is going to be lorded over those whose headcanons and creative endeavors contradict it.

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I don't think you understood the complaint. This isn't about headcanons, this is about people who have certain headcanons going to Greg and getting it Officially Canonized, as in, it becomes a BS01 fact and is going to be lorded over those whose headcanons and creative endeavors contradict it.

(Which somebody literally did two days ago. So yeah, it does happen.)
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...So?

 

I still don't understand the issue. Why does it matter that John Doe got his made official and that his contradicts Jim Doe's headcanon? Headcanons by definition are not bound to obey the canon, and it's not like they're making a comic about Toa Donut Steel now. John Doe's being made official because the author liked it or whatever other reason doesn't stop anyone else. And if they're being a jerk and lording it over others and treating them as inferior because the author went "Hey I didn't think about that, but I like that idea, so lets do that", then I'm pretty sure they can be punished since that's against the rules("Respect your fellow members", as well as "Yelling at and needlessly criticizing other members" come to mind as portions that those actions would run counter to).

 

If they're being rude about it, they're violating the rules. If they're being respectful about it, then it makes no difference. I still do not see the issue.

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