Aderia

Aww, what a handsome boy. It sounds like you have him a wonderful life full of love from day 1, I'm sure he couldn't have asked for more. Sorry for your loss!

At the end of the day, there's not much right or wrong to what entertainment companies choose to do with the franchises they own. It's about money. Keeping some rights to produce Spider Man content is a huge money-maker for Sony, and frankly, it's nice to see how the Spiderverse puts more representation for people of color heroes and women heroes into the entertainment mainstream (as one of both). Two things can be good at the same time, and accepting that is much less tiring than the do-or-die false dichotomy your posts inevitably devolve into. My mistake for thinking this was actually a topic for anything else.

I went into seeing Into the Spiderverse with no expectations (neither high nor low, just a general Spidey fan), and I was blown away and thrilled and absolutely loved it. I'm not one to usually notice artistic style, but everything about it was "Wow!". Great soundtrack, got some genuine laughs, I really liked it. I'm also a sucker for old pixel-y fantasy RPG computer games, so I've played some of those on and off through the years. (Pokemon Insurgence, Pokemon Zeta, Aveyond, and some old Bionicle fan games from the archive here). Like others in this thread, I've been following MCU and Star Wars, although the MCU is getting pretty cumbersome to follow and I haven't seen much past Shang Chi. I also have picked up DnD and my husband is prepping to run his first homebrew this fall, so that's exciting IDK if baking, knitting, and teaching count as franchises I've gotten into, or just "real life", but the immersion into the craft feels analogous to how "into" the Bionicle universe I was, back in the day.

You know what? I completely forgot that this wasn't the same alternate universe where alternate Tuyet was in charge. What do you think stopped Teridax from taking over the Great Spirit Robot after Mata Nui's death?

Very dynamic poses, and I didn't expect to like the black and brown together so much - very menacing effect! Super cool!

I really enjoyed this. I thought your portrayal of each of the characters was well done and completely believable. Makes me want to go back and read the whole Island of Doom arc. I also liked the little bits sprinkled in about how the Matoran are each working through what returning to the forgotten Metru Nui means to them - that they have thousands of years of personal history in the place, but they don't remember it. Must be a bit trippy, and those were great details to add. Great work, and I'd love to read more from you!

Every time this artwork floats to the top of gallery forum again, I find a new little bit to love - amazingly detailed and I love both the art style and the wry humor used to work in all the references and easter eggs. Really stellar stuff.

Happy belated! You bring creative consistency and very sweet positivity to many members here, myself included. I hope you know how appreciated you are

I can't say anything new that hasn't already been said - I agree that the effect logically would be/should be temporary, especially that emotions are pretty naturally temporary. What jumped to mind with the wording of that power specifically was Axonn's ability to cure insanity. Although that's not a temporary effect, it seemed similar in that it regulates a state of heightened disequilibrium. Perhaps both provide a sort of jolt or emotional reset of sorts.

Hi Mushy! Beautiful work as always - I especially love how perfectly the blue matches Jasmine's blue! As someone who just got back from the arts and crafts store looking for a specific shade of fabric, I am amazed. That's an awesome dream of making your own extravagant bridal gown, and I'd say you're well along on the way to achieving that dream

Word. And I agree - if I could have expanded content on Lhikan's team and the Toa Hagah (pre-mutation), that would be sweet. I think Jovan's team and Lesovikk's team also would be interesting, both set in an earlier MU and the fact that they purportedly had non-traditional elements represented. But character-wise, I'd definitely like to see more of the Toa Mangai. And that said, now that I think about it, I'd also love more stories of the early Toa Mata on Daxia and in Karda Nui. I think there was a bit about how Dume chose to stay in ruined Metru Nui to slowly fix the city with his little Kiril while everybody else migrated topside. I think that says something, whether it be dedication to the city itself, or his idea of recompense, or dodging leadership responsibility, or what have you. I definitely agree that how he ran Metru Nui was very different than how the Turaga Metru had their Koros set up, but how much of that difference in lifestyle and governance stems from geography? Smaller villages of Matoran who are largely focused on survival and have limited technology and contact with one another seem easier to govern than the paragon metropolis at top of the world. I'll have to go back and read the story parts about the Kanohi Dragon and stuff, I remember really liking it. I know I'd like to interpret his refusing help from the Dark Hunters as a matter of principle and maybe common sense (the Piraka don't strike me as particularly savvy ambassadors to forge an alliance? but who knows, maybe Dume was just racist against Skakdi). Of course, how I'd like to interpret things only matters so much, and you may be totally right.

Chaotic Neutral half-orc Artificer (artillerist subclass), if I had to choose off the top of my head and with limited DnD experience. Maybe not the most efficient combination, but I think the Artificer class covers Avak's penchant for fighting with gadgets and weapon mods, and it gives him access to some spells, since the Skakdi species have eye beams and some kind of mind power that varies on individuals.

Thank you! Haha, I do plan to get back to finishing the entire story when life calms down eventually (hopefully?). Knowing that people are still finding the content interesting and ideally, entertaining, is really nice to know and good motivation to pick it back up

Absolutely loving the Mer-toran design. I don't think it's anything I'd tried imagining, and it's 110% cooler than anything I could imagine. I also like the story implication that the Mutagen effects are so dramatic that no wonder the Matoran down there had kind of lost all hope of going back to their old "normal". Love content like this, keeps the characters fresh and alive for us all

This is so cool! I've always liked the big franchise mosaic projects I've seen - to see this translated into a franchise closer to my heart is awesome! Thank you and best of luck keeping up the great work!

This round was so much more difficult! Jaller & Hahli are the only sets I have (Mahri & Matoran forms), so obviously I love them. But based on how they're bracketed (Nokama Metru/Jaller Mahri/the other one) Nokama always wins for me, no matter how cool I think the underwater Arthron is (and in my favorite colors, no less!) Reading in the Legends of Metru Nui books, when new Toa Nokama saves the day and rescues all the boys on her team who didn't listen to her in The Darkness Below was embarrassingly formational for me back in the day 😍😂

This is fun - I voted no based on the conlang project from outofgloom (see some of his work here on his blog) that expands Matoran into its own, functional language with its own grammar and such. While he doesn't use the circles and dots writing transliteration, it is a complex system of roots and stems and grammar that I've not yet learned. That said, at one point I did know the circles/dots transliteration for our English alphabets, but frankly, writing so many circles was annoying and very impractical, orthographically speaking. Writing that way is one thing, but reading fluently is another.

If I'm remembering correctly, Glatorian, Agori, and other inhabitants of the Spherus Magna system, probably including Great Beings, are much more organically based than the inhabitants of the Matoran Universe. There's a page on BS01, if you want to go by that, that says MU inhabitants, or at least Matoran, Toa, and Turaga, are typically 85% mechanical and 15% organic, while Agori, Glatorian, etc. are closer to 85% organic and 15% mechanical (BS01 source). The mechanical parts are mostly implants and metallic bones, etc. The page also states that they are mammalian in construct, and are capable of biological reproduction and born completely organic. Assuming their world and physiology works the same way as ours (roughly, as I'm also no expert in physiology or biology lol), it makes sense that organic matter ages/deteriorates faster than non-organic matter (ie, mechanical parts of a being). Being made up of primarily organic matter means you are affected more by that deterioration - the aging process. Deterioration, in this case, is a matter of hundreds of thousands of years. ---even more speculation--- Somewhat related, although it's not part of the original question - just some speculation on aging for species inside the Matoran Universe, since they were largely based off of Spherus Magna inhabitants. It's curious that, being only 15% organic, that they show signs of aging at all. Prime examples: 1) Turaga exist, and 2) Helyrx is described as ancient and frail. In my head, age for the Matoran Universe beings can be construed as having more to do with power expenditure and magnitude of that power, rather than just passage of time alone. Even more un-related, but the concepts of cognitive development, mental age, maturation as an individual in a society, long-term memory, societal progress, and collective memory in societies where denizens live hundreds of thousands of years is fascinating and puzzling to me. Within the Matoran Universe, which was largely granted sapience by the incognito Great Being, it makes sense that, wittingly or not, the societal and individual evolution within the Matoran Universe was always limited, since it was never designed to be fully sapient in the first place, and the high level of sapience granted by the Great Being in the Awakening was not the highest level, or never came to fruition fully, based on the original and largely mechanical design not allowing for it. As for the Spherus Magna inhabitants, or in this case, Bara Magna inhabitants and society, I guess we're saying that the Shattering was so cataclysmic that what we see is basically their post-apocalyptic existence, and progress/rebuilding was made much more difficult because all their plants and water were now separate planets. Still, it's just difficult to fathom lifespans that long and comparatively little cultural development from a human/human history standpoint.

These are fun little tales here, I definitely cracked a grin here and there. I enjoy that the humor in the form of the running gag on poor Hafu is also a joke that leverages technicalities in the storylines and sets - that is, uniformity in Matoran builds from era to era, and social repercussions of changing your mask. Clever and succinctly executed - well done

This is great to read! I picked up a creative writing hobby (mostly Bionicle fan-fiction) back in the day that was really brought to life by BZP, and I definitely learned a lot - about writing, finding what I like to read and how it can inform my writing, and do's and don'ts of being part of a writing community. From someone who was never able to break away from fiction - kudos! Awesome track record you've got, and it's definitely something to be proud of! It's always very satisfying to look at collected word counts. Keep up what I'm sure is great work : )

I love VNOG ^ _^ I think part of the reason is that I was too young to figure out how to play MNOG or the sequel when they were big, but when VNOG came out, I was in the right age bracket and was more into Bionicle, and able to navigate websites more on my own. Like, elementary (8-10 yrs) versus middle school (11-14) age difference. So that said, I can't speak to any comparison between the two. In VNOG, I did really like the exploration and figuring out the map on Voya Nui. Also, the mission in VNOG, freeing slaves from tyranny, always felt compelling. I also liked the ability to choose what stats to invest in as you increased your Toa's level. I also remember liking the music, hearing it again definitely brings on some nostalgia for me Obviously it's a tiny blip in the cosmos of all that is video games, but in retrospect, I think it was appropriate for the target audience of the day, and aided immensely by the contemporary sets and other media that were being published concurrently.

Player, for sure, I'm trying out a Gnome ranger to start. While the mechanics are fascinating and intricate, I have no desire to run a campaign.

Funny you should mention that, we just had session 0 of our first campaign (my first, other people's 2nd or 3rd), and got to do a lot of the character creation. It was so intricate!

We'll have to try Coup Rebellion - I think we have been swapping out our Ambassador with the Inquisitor from Coup Rebellion for a while, but just never played the full version. Hmm, maybe I just need more practice in the gambling rounds. We do enjoy getting into playing our characters for Red Dragon Inn, definitely enjoyable. And since so many of you are recommending Dominion, I'll definitely have to bump that up on my priority list (on top of the other recommendations!) Kind of a shame I'm done buying Christmas gifts at this point, but birthday season is in the spring, so this is helpful! Yes to both, we definitely gang up on the top threat completely out of spite. Haha but usually that just allows the underdog to win while we're all fighting 😂 Good times.

Yes, 110% recommend Firefly - we were very pleasantly surprised because it was one of those "go to the bookstore to see if there's anything cool, and hey look we recognize those characters on the box, wanna try it? yeah why not?" things 😂 Amazon keeps recommending Love Letter and a few others to me, I'll have to add it to a list officially! And yeah, I'd be willing to learn 7 Wonders again, but there's so many other options out there, it may take a while to roll back around to it. I also have heard good things about Pandemic - haha maybe we'll play with masks on for authenticity. I'll also have to look into your other recommendations! Thanks!