Bonkle

Bonkle writes a chapter after reading Faulkner; the formatting errors strike back

VII. “Why do you hate Corvec Ma?” He stands before me across the void arms impatiently folded across his chest and there is silence for what feels like a very long time “I only ask because it’s something we have in common.” I strain and pull and feel like something is going to snap somewhere I’m not sure where and then I learn how to speak “I don’t.” “Oh come on, Halak. Don’t insult me by lying. Memories alone might not tell the story, but I know emotion. Passion. I’m a Toa of Fire. It’s written all over you: You’re physically aggressive, you belittle him every chance you get. You torture him with your feigned ignorance.” The void between us narrows and he seems to loom over me and he smiles a smile like the one Corvec did in Rar-Kor that infuriated me so much and he says “You hate him.” “What if I do?” “Then we might have just become the best of friends.” I am silent he sighs but does not look irritated “Do you have a dream, Halak?” “You’ve been digging around my head like there’s a prize at the bottom, right? Shouldn’t you know?” He chuckles “No. You see, that right there is why I don’t know. I can see your memories in your head, but while I’m here I have no idea of what you’re feeling. Each scene remains as insignificant as the last. For a Matoran, your mind has a remarkable spirit and resistance.” “Thanks. I’ll remember that next time I’m in this sort of situation.” A pause “Do you have a dream, Halak?” “Do you?” “I do. One I will share in exchange for yours.” Before anything the cold black empty is gone and we are in the desert Arhet still standing in front of me watching me intently arms still crossed The Matoran around us pay no mind Rar-Kor goes on like it should like it always does here “Why did you bring me here?” “I didn’t do anything,” he says “You took us here.” This is not what Rar-Kor looks like now This is Rar-Kor before the fall right before I can already hear the slinking and chittering of their segmented hideous deformed black bodies I don’t know if it’s in my head in my head or in my memory in my head I close my eyes but I can still see everything every detail I know exactly how it goes and then the screams start in my head and then they start again I fall on my knees my head is pounding I feel the sand and it feels real I hear something break and then we are back in the void and something is rumbling ringing off the wall Arhet is silent but he moves closer and then sits next to me A red dawn on a ruined tower Halak What I know you’re getting tired of hearing me say this I know Davik I don’t have to do this But you want to But I need to There are others What gives me the right to walk away Then a day in the sun empty white clouds above So what is it you want to do Halak What do you mean For the future We can’t all become carvers I don’t know You do Fine I guess I wouldn’t mind chronicling Really Yes I’d like to visit Jen’lan and learn from them and then go everywhere I can maybe someday I’ll be the first to get to the other side of the canyons Very interesting for someone who just said she doesn’t know Shut up you won’t be making fun when I come back from Qital or somewhere and you’re still playing with rocks Screaming and the rattling of segmented bodies Where’s the Toa They were killed remember But where is the last one I don’t know Why won’t he help us now Halak It’s okay Ryban you’re going to be okay don’t Halak Don’t leave me okay everyone is going to make it out fine Halak please I’ll get you help friend don’t move Don’t take your eyes off the inner light you Rare predator bird knifes silently through the sky overhead violently red You don’t owe anyone anything Who would I be if I left now Davik No less than who you are now And who is that Void it’s ringing in my ears again but there’s nothing on my eyelids now Arhet turns and looks at me “That was your dream? Seemed more like a recurring nightmare to me. I meant a ‘dream’ as in an aspiration, a goal…” My eyes flare with hatred I stare him down and don’t stop “I was going to leave. I was going to be a writer. I dared to dream without being one of destiny’s children who can afford to, who are supposed to. Someone like you. I stepped out of line and when tragedy came looking for Matoran like it always does, because it seems that’s all we’re good for, it wasn’t just another day in the life for me. It was punishment. I tried to be something more, and so loss became something more than just a fact of life. I found something to hold on to, and after the Westings came what could I do but let it go?” “And this is why you hate Corvec Ma?” "He left me as less than a footnote, another face in the crowd in the background of someone else’s tale- and then he just disappeared.” My voice quakes and the walls rumble again “Why did he get to give up?” A long silence Arhet watches me closely but I can’t bear to look at him He’s thinking of what to say next “For a Matoran, you’re surprisingly bright, so I’m not going to insult your intelligence and say that you and I are not so different. But I must say, parts of your story sound remarkably similar to my own. As does your burning question. Why did he get to give up?” “In case it wasn’t clear earlier, I’m not really interested in hearing about your dreams.” My voice is sharp and harsh and biting I am in control again “Well that’s just too bad, then, because I’m the one who decides when we ship out of here. Anything else you want to show me in the meantime?” “I already told you, I’m not showing you anything.” “But you already have, my friend. I can say, ‘show me your memory of the desert’,” we’re in the sand “or your house,” we’re there “but I cannot string together a cogent narrative while we’re like this. That wonderful, if sloppy, presentation was all you.” I say nothing He stands “Come on, say something. I can tell you’re not a big fan of my work. But you have to admit, it felt good to tell, or show, someone all that, didn’t it?” I say nothing but I know he’s right this time “Okay. Captive audience, that’s fine. I will say, though, I truly did appreciate you sharing that with me, even if it was on some subconscious level. You’re about the closest thing I have to a friend, my friend,” and his voice is somber and I know deep down he is being honest right now “I apologize, was that strange of me? We’ve only just met. But I feel like I know you so well.” I strain against myself trying anything I can imagine to break out of this and wake up in the cave so I don’t have to hear him prattle on any longer I begin to miss Corvec’s stoic silence Nothing I get back on my feet “Hurry up and tell me your story, then.” He claps his hands together “Oh, I’ve been waiting for a chance like this. Corvec wasn’t particularly willing to listen.” “I thought you said the Matoran you’ve corrupted were listeners enough.” This time it’s him that meets my gaze and there is again a deep genuine sorrow in his eyes that baffles and frightens me “Do me a favor,” he says “Imagine, if you will, a pot of water.” I blink and then almost involuntarily before us in the void is a clay pot red and brown like the walls of the canyons it is simple no more than a hollow cylinder with a hole at one end the water line near the top “A little more simple than I was thinking myself, but it works.” I scoff and stare at it “This part I’ll do for you,” he says and the water rises until the pot overflows, spilling its contents down the sides He looks at me expectantly I throw my hands up in frustration “Okay, you win. I don’t understand your brilliant tale.” “I’m the water,” he says it like that should make sense to me and it just irritates me more “...Okay. Then what’s the pot?” “I am.” I kick it over and it shatters and the fragments disappear the breaking sound echoing “Rather, what you see before you is the pot. Inside I am the water.” “Just get to the point before I imagine a hammer to hit you with.” “Fair enough. I was simply trying to illustrate that every vessel has its limit.” “And?” “And I have found a way to reach mine. Or, I suppose I’ve been gifted with the knowledge.” “To what end?” “You mentioned destiny when explaining your distaste for life, Halak. I believe in destiny too, and that we all have one. Why are we here if not to fulfill some purpose laid out for us? The notion of providence is too compelling for me to believe the world is governed by blind chance.” “Am I supposed to clap? There’s only one person I know who doesn’t seem to believe in fate, and you just talked to him.” “Yes, that’s alright. But how would you define fate? You seemed to characterize it as vengeful, or spiteful.” “...I don’t know. It’s the driving force behind our lives. Sets us on a path we can’t break from.” “But it is simply a force acting on the universe? If I were to set the empty pot out in the rain, what is its fate?” “To fill, and eventually overflow. That’s your master plan? To stand out in the rain once you leave the desert?” “No! Because I think you’re wrong here. Without intelligent design, fate is just a fancy word for organized and highly predictable forms of chaos, and if so there’s no point in making a distinction anyways. True fate has an author.” He is pacing now, gesticulating wildly “So you’re saying that beyond any sort of deity that might affect our lives through action like any normal person can, just on a bigger scale, there is a being whose will is implicitly carried out through us.” “Yes! Why does someone set a pot out in the rain, or fill it with water at a river? They have a use in mind for it. We are all destiny’s vessels, set on a path that will fill us with knowledge and experience appropriate to fulfill whatever is required of us.” I let this settle for a moment “And what does this have to do with anything?” “Halak, what are you if not a sum of your memories and experiences? You would still be a Matoran named Halak, but that is nebulous and pedantic. A pot filled twice contains different water, with different flavor and trace elements however subtle or noticeable, each time. Your body is the inconsequential element with regard to who you are.” “Get to the point and get out of my head.” “To put it simply, I want out of here. Of this world. I am sick of the noise, the smell, especially the people. It’s nauseating, overpowers and dulls the senses. There is nothing here for me.” His face and tone darken in an instant “I intended to make myself useless to destiny. I will assimilate every single consciousness in this world into my own if that’s what it takes for this vessel to overflow. I will find the total sum of knowledge and experience in this world, and when I try to go beyond, there will be no choice but for me to spill over, out of this body and beyond this plane. I will pool on the ground fate treads. It will not pour me back in the river of being when it’s done with me.” Ears ringing again and I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time disgust not like the disdainful contempt I have for Corvec but utter revulsion that masks something deeper a primal fear that doesn’t understand how something like this could ever exist I try to shrug it off “Then that’s why all the Matoran acting strangely are mutilated in some way? A connection to your Westing grafts?” “Yes! Once again Halak you set yourself apart from the rest. I’m sorry to say I found no reason to be gentle in my operations. Small minds yield small thoughts and little experience, hardly goods worth handling with care. Beyond a certain threshold, I even stopped learning new things from them. But I have to be thorough! Wouldn’t want to miss something important!” He chuckles like we’re talking about the weather Walls rumbling now I am shaking too “Why only some of the Matoran, then? Why not take the whole city while you’re at it?” He gives me an incredulous and patronizing look “You think I have no plans to? I simply started with the ones who welcomed it, who had nothing left to live for in this broken place.” “And then?” “Do you think the sum of all experience is to be found only in this wasteland?” I follow up on my earlier promise He was so kind to make me aware I can just think things up There is a hammer in my hand before I know it I aim for his face But he grows and grows until he towers over me Again I see the sorrowful tinge in his features “Hate to say it, but that was stupid, my friend. You may know yourself better than I do, but I know my way around a head.” “What does any of this have to do with Corvec?!” I growl seeking an end to this torture He returns to his normal height “I hate him because I cannot understand him. Your hatred of him is personal, justified, but offers no answers. No Matoran’s mind has given me anything more about him than the basics that set me on his trail in the first place. I hate him because he is a zero sum that refuses to cancel. He is waterlogged with despair, saturated with cynicism and defeat inside and out. He persists when there is no reason to. I have plumbed the depths of his mind and found nothing. His experiences are nothing new to me. I need him because I must know why he is still here.” I think about the pain I saw in his eyes and what he said through Ratuk My head is throbbing and I’m shaking in a violent rage I muster all the venom I can and then in a tone that scares me I say “He’s you.” He falters for a half second and then I dreamed a dream I won’t pretend it was special but it was mine We wake up in the cave, recoiling from each other and gasping for air. Corvec’s mask clatters to the floor. Review Topic

Bionicle is gone, Minions have arrived, pretty sure that's two of the three signals of the LEGO apocalypse.

1/5, metal really isn't my thing especially that kind of brooding stuff. I can respect it's apparently based on a true story though (although I believe the lyrics of that would break the site rules, lol...)

A purple person. Maybe it's Shockwave.

A long time ago I got it into my head that Dino Attack is just the Lego embodiment of one of those light gun arcade cabinets from the late 90's and early 00's and it keeps coming to the front of my mind every few months, share this post with 5 friends or you will be cursed with this knowledge as well and condemned to buy only the lame European Dino 2010 versions

Was gonna say, lol. Just paint a red one.

Maybe it's a little less than half of a pie...

Just read through Chapter 1 and really enjoyed it, even more than the prologue I think. I really like how you've been able to weave in all the information about Metru Nui's politics and economy through individual character's lives and how it affects them instead of just dumping information on the audience straight up. I like Larker already, especially for his relationship with Subi. Things of note: I really liked the opening bit. I've seen so many scenes in sci-fi movies and shows that do the "training exercise made to look real" gimmick and I can almost always spot them ahead of time. But you really made me feel the danger for Tengi was real. "sullen 17-point turn", hilarious. The bit where Larker gets home felt really... well, real, to me. You captured the feeling of getting home after a long day perfectly, I could envision that scene vividly. A great moment solidifying this more grounded moment in Bionicle canon, at least compared to some of the later shenanigans Greg wrote.

Hey, thank you so much for the detailed feedback, this made my day. To address your comment about Halak, the next chapter will dive into her a little more - I'm not sure how clear it was but the last one ends with Arhet going into her mind, so the coming chapter will be in her head and we'll learn more about her. Originally the story was going to be 3rd person and not have Halak at all, but I realized it would be too melodramatic and brooding to just constantly comment on Corvec's disdain for life. She provides a sounding board for him and lets me piecemeal the information about his past. I'll admit her character wasn't as strongly conceived because of that plot-deviceish nature of her existence but there is more to her as we'll see.

Needs a CHUG figure

"A Lady of a Certain Age", The Divine Comedy

The OG MCU Hulk

"Where My Heart Will Take Me", Russell Watson

"16, Maybe Less" by Iron and Wine

Poignant

4/5 old buddy, it's been a while

Your last one was Edward Norton IIRC so that's who I'm seeing here even if it isn't actually him. Similar enough

Hey I tried writing something that isn't about Bionicle, figured I'd make a blog post about it too cause in a way it is just a post about my life, you might like it because it is more realistic than another exhausting Bionicle fic.

The K-Mart in my hometown finally closed down. I don’t live there anymore, so that doesn’t mean a whole lot, except for one little thing: the times when someone asks me where I’m from. Before, I’d tell them my town’s name, and when they inevitably said they’d never heard of it, I would reply with something like, “I wouldn’t expect you to, after all, it’s so small we’ve still got a K-Mart”. And then they’d throw me the laugh I was looking for so we could move on to the “nice” I’d give to whatever place they called home that I’d probably never heard of either. Now, I’ve got to say we had a K-Mart, and that we’re just another nondescript town among thousands across the country that are helping ease the chain into an existence only in the collective consciousness. But, on the bright side, I guess, if the person on the other end of the conversation is local enough, my town is now on their map, if only for the Dutch Bros. that cropped up seemingly out of nowhere, like it’s the one good scene worth slogging through a bad episode of some old TV show for. My town is also the “Cowboy Capital of the World”, a title more nebulous than it seems. With that information alone, one might think I live in at least three different American towns at once, across state lines. As a child I found this moniker, proudly emblazoned on welcome signs posted at either end of town (and in no one’s heart, truly), first enticing, seductive, and then ridiculous. Sure, we have the Cowboy Museum someone set up (which I have never set foot in to this day), and the Rodeo Weekend every year (one part parade, one part rodeo). Lonely train tracks run perpendicular to Main Street (F Street, but it might as well be Main). But these are fleeting, like the hordes of bikers I would watch rush by with my brother and mother, pulled over along 120 outside of town. There are no gunslingers, no abandoned mines full of dynamite and gold, no out-of-control stagecoaches. I remember more clearly the bitter, pathetic taste of a breakfast sandwich from the immortal Burger King, maintaining its keep at the edge of town, forever hypnotizing hungry passersby looking for something familiar, than I do the rodeo parade we were set to see that morning. This was eternally disappointing for a little boy who was, by all rights, in place to be the main character in a spaghetti western. I was the Mysterious Stranger, the Man With No Name. Even before moving, when I could honestly call my town mine, I lived ten minutes outside of it; a quiet little neighborhood nestled among the old trees and brush along the river. My brother was the only other swashbuckler around, and we made good on it. We were, in turn, pirates, Union soldiers, astronauts, and yes, cowboys, among other things. We wrestled in the dirt and mud, walked warily along the banks of the Stanislaus, one eye looking out for the forces of some malignant undead army, the other watching for the all too real threat of mountain lions. We stared at each other from opposite ends of the dust-choked field we called a backyard before our legs couldn’t take the stillness any longer and charged us into battle. A trip into town left us always somewhat unintegrated, like the piano stopping when we passed through batwing doors, an old man halting the gentle rocking of his chair to squint at us from his porch. A woman pulls her children close around her, a fierce glare in her eyes as she slams the door. No hostility, no hatred. Just unacceptance. In fact, there was nothing to be accepted into, though I so desperately wanted there to be. So we kept moving, kicking up the dust ‘round our ankles. It’s been years now since moving, albeit just a half hour away from where I still call home. Inside me roars the Mysterious Stranger, gung-ho gunslinger out to make things right like he never got a chance to before. These days he’s buried somewhere under layers pensive and remorseful, but maybe that’s just part of who he’s supposed to be. Clint Eastwood never talked much. Being on the other side of that town now, in more ways than one, I think it may have been more of a piece of the Old West than I gave it credit for. If you wanted anything you couldn’t find at the general store, that evanescent K-Mart, or at one of the little shops dotting the streets, always with the same face at the counter, you really would have to go to a Big City to find it, although there was no Sears catalog to order from. The deep, waspish roar of new, fast cars surrounded us in the quiet hours at dawn and dusk, but never passed through us. We were quiet, away, apart, traffic comparable to the days of universal horseback travel. The Bank was the most powerful entity, far from the reaches of skyscrapers and massive factories dotted with city slickers. In fact, a lot of the buildings along Main are the same as they were in the nineteenth century. Death, too, was constantly hovering along the periphery of existence, like a wayward cow skull in a stereotypical depiction of the American desert. I don’t know how many times my brother and I marched into raccoon bones and the remains of squirrels along the riverbank as we hunted dinosaurs. I heard about family members recently lost in that house, and stalked through trees with baseball bats, looking for branches to smash because the demons I was dealing with myself had no forms I could fight. Above all, in retrospect, it felt like a town waiting for something to happen to it, waiting for the sweet-talking mustache-twirler with the long coattails and black top hat to arrive and talk about buying land while secretly planning a devious exploitation. The quiet, smooth rhythms of life there seemed to beg for disruption on the grounds of their existence alone. And yet, as long as I lived there, nothing happened. And now, gazing again at that place I love, I feel my worst fear has come to pass. Throughout my life, painful and tumultuous as it has been at times, two riders have always been alongside me, their consistent presence providing order to my disarray: home, and change. My only hope was that they would never meet, and they have. Sure, there’s the Aaron’s that was a T-Mobile that was a Rent-A-Center that was a Blockbuster, maybe not in that order, maybe it’s something else right now that I don’t even know about. And it seems like the gas stations change hands on a weekly basis. But other than that, there was a persistent stillness to existence there, like things were untouchable. There were no big scandals, no horrific murder cases. Half the town wasn’t plowed away to put in condos. And as ridiculous as it sounds, the K-Mart closing was a sign for me. It, more than anything, was a symbol of constancy, the idyllic nature of life. There it always was, with the handful of employees I could recognize on sight because my father had made friends with them years before, with that one last pair of Nerf guns that had been gathering dust on the shelf for years (acquiring them would obviously bring the ongoing war between my brother and I to an entirely new level of brutality). Even when I was younger I figured out K-Marts were already a rarity, just by how infrequently I saw them around the state and country. It made town feel like a rarity too, like there was something just waiting to be grabbed by the horns. And though I was never truly part of that community I admired so much, I clung to that, even after leaving. But things are mortal there now, and I’ve had to accept that I’ve fallen away from a lot of things, from my brother, from all the half-forgotten friends I promised not to forget, to the core pieces of myself that have degraded with years of sorrow and loneliness. Sometimes I still imagine a cloudless summer day where Main is clear of cars because everyone is inside because of the intense heat or out having fun somewhere, maybe Knight’s Ferry. I am staring down a man in all black, spurs clicking as we come closer to each other but not too close. The leather holster, real, not like the spongy plastic one that held the cap gun I broke over a decade ago and still have somewhere, slaps against my thigh, heavy with the shiny revolver it carries. I squint despite the wide brim of the cowboy hat I keep in my closet that still barely fits. After a lifetime of reaching and grasping for purpose and for something to overcome, I’ve found it in the dark figure before me. But no one notices the things like that about our town, or worse, no one believes they could even be possible. Somewhere along the line in our little lives we forgot adventure and learned complacency, let things come over us instead of looking out for things to overcome. I love that town, but more than the town itself I love my memory of it and what I always wanted it to be, what it maybe still could be. I am willing to die on this hill, but no one cares enough to come and kill me on it. Maybe I’m no longer just the Man With No Name, with a gun on my hip and the right thing in my heart, caring for the town he never learns fully or opens to completely. Maybe I’m a little more tired, a little more grizzled, grayer around the edges; (in part) the man rocking on the porch, watching, trying to keep things out with my eyes, waiting for the right bad thing to let in.

The kid in me says Gunship but my heart says both of the others would be way cooler, lol.

1/5 who even are you

I went back and read your research post and was even more impressed, and now I'm even more excited to read more. There are a lot of great things going on here. And I definitely agree about the puzzle aspect of fanfic being a benefit. And thanks for reading mine, feedback is always welcome because I always feel I can improve but no pressure if you don't wanna.

Just read chapter 1, and definitely enjoyed it. So many Bionicle fics are same-y but this one, like some other recent ones on the site, thankfully, are working hard to stand out. The horror angle is great. I was genuinely disturbed by the description of the corpse. Typically when we think of zombies or skeletons we project certain personalities or attributes onto them that make them totally separate from living things, and when we are just dealing with a regular corpse its humanity is typically played up to convey tragedy. The way you described this body, however, and the way the Matoran reacted to it, was truly chilling. Even though clearly dead it still seemed like it would spring to life at any moment, and the whole scene was just so unearthly. That's the beat way I can put it.

Kill Ninjago for the love of all that is good. I'm so sick of it. Just give me a good new "yellow" theme, don't find something else to license and milk.