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bonesiii

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  1. bonesiii
    Do they notice the irony?
     
    (Yes, I just complained about people who complain about people who complain about people who complain. So complain about me. )
     
    Seriously, if someone complains to start out with, why can't they stomach a little complaining about them? If it's okay for one, it's okay for the other.
     
    (Yes, I posted a random blog entry. I'm busy. Dogsitting three dogs and working heavily on the FCG entry. Two of the dogs hiiiigh energy. )
  2. bonesiii

    Taia = Matoran Universe

    By bonesiii,

    So, I have gotten to the part of my retelling where Makuta takes over, and I "discovered" (having apparently never consciously noticed) that officially, he nicknames the MU the "Makutaverse" at that time. I like the idea of him naming it after himself, but Makutaverse sounds hopelessly silly. For one thing, it's a fusion of both English and Matoran.
     
    I got to thinking, though -- what if I come up with a Matoran word for "universe", and mix THAT with Makuta?
     
    Looking into the Maori, I found a word for realm that is similar to (my shortened version here) Taia. Makutaia sounds cool, and even evokes his old lair, the Mangaia.
     
    Also, Taia is WAY more concise than "Matoran Universe" and also avoids the acronym which looks like a cow is yelling.
     
    Taia.
     
    Or, longer version, Matoran Taia.
     
    Likey no likey?
  3. bonesiii
    This is a continuation of a tangential in-depth discussion that started in the discussion topic for the new Bionicle Generation 1 Misconceptions project. That topic was not meant for extended debates or the like, so I'm asking participants to continue it elsewhere (by PM or topic is what I suggested... problem with a PM is it can't be viewed by anybody who's curious, and so far none of them have decided to make a topic... it would also be weird to have a bunch of quotes from a different topic in a new one... so I decided to do what we would often do in the old days and make it a blog entry).
     
    The proposed misconception to clear up was that Bionicle is sci-fi (as in pure sci-fi). Later I agreed we could kill two birds with one stone and also clear up that it's not pure fantasy either; it's a mix of both that has been called "science fantasy". Greg has called it this, and it shares common elements with other stories that have begun to be recognized as being in this relatively new genre, such as Star Wars.
     
    In the past I have pointed out that sci-fi, sci-fant, and fantasy form a spectrum that is within a category called "speculative fiction", or as I have called it, "physics fiction" because usage of physics beyond normal real-world uses are a major part of the plot.
     
    In sci-fi, while there's a variety of definitions, one common theme is that the details are explained or at least understood by the characters. Another is that the physics are generally our physics or close to them. In fantasy generally the "how" is not explained and it is treated as more mystical. Alternate physics in a different universe (as Bionicle has been suggested to have) is more of a gray area; Star Trek's speculative extra physics are usually seen as closer to the sci-fi end due to how they treat it in-story, while the Force is seen more as fantasy.
     
    Now, early in the topic, a quote was posted, which may have led to confusion, from Greg. He was responding to somebody asking about Bionicle's alleged shift in later story from a more mystical/fantasy story to what the questioner worded as "a sci-fi story." Adopting the questioner's terms and evidently narrowing the focus to the things that the questioner likely saw as the specific changes -- the giant robot, AI, etc. -- Greg pointed out that it had always been a sci-fi story.
     
    Some of the people in the discussion topic seem to have thought that meant Greg considers it pure sci-fi, and seem to have missed my pointing out that Greg himself called it science fantasy. Others seem to have had other issues. This blog entry will attempt to cover most of them raised there. At the time tons of posts were coming in and I was very busy with other things, so I had to skim most of it and only point out a few relevant details. Hopefully this will clear up any remaining confusion.
     
    As it's more convenient for me, and there's a limit to how many you can have (at least in normal posts), I'll be dispensing with quote tags in favor of quote marks. I'll be including who said what at least early on, but nothing personal is intended; it's just to be clear that it's not all spoken by the same person.
     
    [update after first draft completion: I got tired of that later on, though I did mention who the speaker was in the answers in many cases. Note also that I only had time to proofread some of this, and I spotted a few errors in a preview but don't have time to fix them. None that I saw so far interfere with understanding it. I may edit later if I find time for a full proof.]
     
     
    Yalda: "I've always disliked the label of "science fantasy", since it's just an excuse to set a plotline IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE and then proceed to blatantly ignore every field of science. But, then again, that describes BIONICLE pretty aptly."
     
    My reply in the topic covered this pretty clearly, and as it also answers things that people seemed to keep bringing up, it's worth quoting here:
     
    "It isn't meant as an "excuse" -- that presupposes a rule that all fiction has to worry about matching the science of the real world. It doesn't -- and not because science doesn't matter, but because science tells us that in different universes, the rules could be different. Also, when fantasy is set on the ground, people don't have this problem (actually most of Bionicle IS set on the ground!). But in a fantasy story, space exists... and normal physics generally exists alongside of the "magic" so people COULD make robotics, etc. The idea that the two can't mix... well, it's only emotional, not logical.
     
    (And even in science fiction, there's often a rule that Bionicle uses that the "magic" is just science you don't understand. Not explaining it is not "ignoring"... or at least not for bad reasons -- just because it shouldn't need explained, in part because humans haven't always known what we know now about real physics, but stories set in a world with those physics behaviors were quite possible.)
     
    Now that emotion can come from a personal taste, and that makes it okay anyways... but still, understanding why "genre fusions" like this actually make sense can help people enjoy it more easily. How our preferences react to things depends in some part on how we understand it. ^_^"
     
    After Yalda's post the topic began to explode when I didn't have time to read it all.
     
     
    Iblis: "Concerning Genre (Personally I think it should be ignored entirely."
     
    Genre does have relevance to an in-story misconceptions project, because the authorial intent on this subject will help explain why some details are included while others are not, and also help critics avoid the trap of assuming (for example) that it was intended as pure sci-fi, so that they would see lack of explanations of some things as a failing.
     
    "simply because the terms are ocmmonly defined in different ways"
     
    While this is true, few definitions of them are that different to where the basic idea isn't understood by almost everybody. And this could be applied to lots of things in life. An apple tree could be defined in a lot of ways but this wouldn't mean we should ignore apple trees (if the subject comes up -- and having one that drops rotting apples every spring and half of the tree literally fell down once, it's hard to ignore, heh).
     
    "Bionicle really isn't science-y, it has a lot of technological stuff"
     
    This is a rather odd differentiation to make, as technology is made via science.
     
    "it is set in space"
     
    Parts of it are, but the vast majority of the storyline has taken place on planets (namely Aqua Magna). And from the fans' perspectives, it seemed to start out on a tropical/mystical island.
     
    Quisoves: "Science-fiction is, by and large, a stylistic label. A few authors tell stories based on hard science, but the vast majority simply tell fantasy-future-history stories with utilitarian aesthetics. Star Trek and Doctor Who are prime examples of this. They are heavily invested in the science of their fictional worlds, but it isn't our science."
     
    This is a fairly good way to put it, although I would say that the label is not so much based on style (that's a part of it), but on type of content. Star Trek is called sci-fi generally not because of the style of its physics, but because the plot content focuses heavily on the practice of science by the characters. That's one of the easiest ones to categorize. Doctor Who is not so blatant, but the Doctor himself is essentially a super-brilliant scientist (alien, Time Lord, etc. but in terms of his talents, yes).
     
    In Star Wars, by contrast, while there's a lot of tech that is obviously the result of science, and they'll all have some level of tech proficiency (Anakin being probably one of the highest), the Jedi are more like wizards, not so much doing science as working "magic". They will study some aspects of the Force, and how it relates to people in that universe, which could be called a type of science loosely, but they primarily solve problems by willpower, focus, emotional calm, etc. used in relation to the Force. This is more like the kinds of "study of magic" that a wizard will do in a normal fantasy story than science. So Star Wars is thus better described as science fantasy.
     
    And in the typical example of Harry Potter, the magic is not explained at all, and although obviously it's studied (it's all about a school after all), it's in how to manipulate it, not in what makes it possible. It's more like a user of a computer who just studies the software and can type a mile a minute but has no idea how the hardware works, or a driver who is really skilled on the road but if you open up the hood, has no idea what to do.
     
    "I think calling Bionicle only fantasy would be sufficient, because it follows no rules of science to speak of."
     
    Actually, within a range of science factoids deemed to be understandable easily for little kids, Bionicle actually has had a pretty strong emphasis on science. The elemental powers are driven by a "magic", but how the elements behave once made tends to be understood well in fairly scientific terms by Toa, exemplified by Tahu heating air to slow a fall in the early comics. If you think about it, it's actually a clever way to teach introductory science in an enjoyable plot format without requiring kids to instantly know all the complex details of full science.
     
    This is popularly known as "comic-book physics"; some real-world physics is kept and focused on, while some is ignored in favor of magic (basically, but often not called that).
     
    Now at this point in the topic, the Greg quote was posted by Boidoh:
     
    ""1) BIONICLE was a mystical story that I turned into a sci-fi story.
     
    False. BIONICLE was always a sci-fi story - it was always about beings who were supposed to be (or were) living inside a giant robot. That was from day one. You just didn't know it at the start. And it was governed by a story team, I did not have the power to change its genre."
     
    Again let me emphasize that Greg did not clearly state "Bionicle is pure sci-fi". He just adopted the terms of the questioner. It reads like he is affirming that the sci-fi ingredients (in the mixture) were always planned, which makes sense as he's refuting the claim that those -particular- ingredients were added by him personally later. They weren't. Bionicle was in that sense a sci-fi mystery story, or to be more clear, a science fantasy mystery story ( ) -- in a whodunnit, the murder is planned from the start and the clues planted, and the truth revealed later. Bionicle is a whatizzit -- a sci-fi scenario was planned, and hidden, but clues (like the robotic appearance of the characters) planted, and it was slowly revealed over the course of the ten year plot.
     
    Iblis: "That a creator doesn't understand common definitions for a word doesn't a good argument make?"
     
    This appears to misunderstand Greg's quote; see above. Also, I'm not sure what Boidoh's point was, but I took it as either probably meaning (or should mean) that the misconception that it was never at all a sci-fi story even partially is debunked by that Greg quote.
     
    Regardless of what Boidoh meant, it's important to remember that (for good reasons like responsible time management), Greg has a strong tendency to give short answers that must be understood in the context of everything else he has said. To a question that I typically would take a whole blog entry answering ( ), or most would take three or four paragraphs, Greg will often just pick one issue in the question that seems to be most prominent, and answer onlyt that, often with a one-liner. Actually this is one of more in-depth answers as it has five sentences (if you count "False." ).
     
    It also makes no sense to suppose that after more than ten years writing for Bionicle, Greg would somehow have been living in a hole as to commmon definitions of the relevant genres!
     
    "[i still think the debate isn't that useful as regardless of how much as genre-labels are integral to a story; you get a better understanding from actually getting into the story"
     
    Au contraire -- I can't begin to count the number of times people who have followed the story in-depth have done so while having the false premise that it was trying to be either all (or mostly) sci-fi or all (or mostly) fantasy, and use their knowledge simply to list many examples to build a case as to why it failed to be those things. But somebody who doesn't know anything about it (OR somebody who has read the whole story ten times) can avoid this entire issue by knowing off the bat that it's intended as a mixture. You're not going to have Kopaka suddenly look at the camera and say, "Hey, kids, did you know Bionicle is science fantasy?"
     
    " & generally they aren't arguing the nature of the, say, hardness r softness of Bionicles magic or physiscs, but rather definitions. .."
     
    I'm not sure what experience Iblis has to say this, but it does not jive with my decade of following story discussion in S&T (and some other sites to boot ). In my experience, generally it's the issue I described just above. Defining sci-fi and fantasy almost never comes up... actually it probably should come up more often just so people don't talk past each other. Usually the misconception comes up because people are thinking something should or should not be in the story due to their mistaken premise about what Bionicle was aiming for.
     
    Which is understandable given that Bionicle tried intentionally to blaze trails somewhat; that means people won't be used to a lot of what it did, and will struggle to fit it into categories they are already accustomed to.
     
    Several posts after this got off on a tangent to the tangent, about definitions of what is sci-fi, perhaps because of misunderstanding that Greg quote, which I basically covered in the topic, so I'll be skipping that here. I'll just point out an issue with this:
     
    "Everyone in this topic is overthinking this. In the end, does it really matter what Bionicle's genre is? It's like arguing whether Star Wars is fantasy or sci-fi."
     
    This seems to have been an attempt to resolve the tangent-tangent debate, which is appreciated, but the method could use some work. It doesn't matter much, in the sense that people shouldn't be fighting over it... however, people don't really fight over most misconceptions. That isn't why a misconception makes the list. People fighting is a problem with ignoring our rules and not being polite; it doesn't make the misconception not matter at all.
     
    Also, the answer to the misconception can help stop the pointless fighting, both for Bionicle and Star Wars! Fans of both stories who debate them being one or the other genre are operating from a false premise that those stories were intended as pure one thing or the other. And issues like this are a large part of why many are now moving to recognize the mixture genre of science fantasy.
     
    At this point fishers quoted one of my old blog entries on the subject. I'll link to fishers' post here:
     
    http://www.bzpower.com/board/topic/15829-bionicle-generation-1-misconceptions-discussion-topic/?p=785152
     
    Mjol: "[replying to me: "Again, folks -- it's simple really. It's both -- it's a mixture or a fusion. Fusions are what Bionicle does -- robots plus tropical island... and tech plus "magic". So, not pure sci-fi, not pure fantasy. Simple, no?]
     
    No, it's not that simple - because "Bionicle is sci-fi" misconception is applied on worldbuilding level by Greg himself (what Boidoh wrote) and thus has leaded to numerous issues.""
     
    It does appear that this was the source of the confusion in the "tangent-tangent". I missed this part in the first read-through. Hopefully the above has cleared it up; Greg did not have a misconception about this. He was only commenting on the misconception that things like the giant robot weren't planned from the start.
     
     
     
    "Bionicle is not 'science fantasy'. It's a soft sci-fi with mystical elements. At least, that's how I'd categorize it if I were to shelve it in my bookstore. In any case, it belongs under Speculative Fiction, Sci-Fi, Children's&Teen's."
     
    I already dealt with this in the topic, but for context here it seems wise to repeat the problem with the premise here -- that you can support "a story is NOT" something by appealing to somebody else's definition scheme. That's not how things work -- that's the fallacy of equivocation. When Greg defined Bionicle as science fantasy, he was not talking about one store's or another's bookshelf arrangements, he was talking about the content of the story. While it's certainly possible (and even practical) for a store to do that, it's also subjective, and more to the point, it doesn't change the fact that a definition scheme exists in which it IS sci-fant. (So the "it is not" is not justified.)
     
    Also, "soft sci-fi" is just another way to say science fantasy. There's no point in arguing between synonyms like that; that's just semantics.
     
    Also, a minor nitpick in this part:
     
    "Bionicle is a fantasy story.
    Incorrect. Bionicle is a soft sci-fi with mystical elements. Although the beginning ('01-'03) appeared more fantastic, the series was planned from the beginning to be sci-fi, and revealed itself to be such from '04 onwards, culminating in the great reveal of '08, in which the (controversial, but planned all along) giant robot was awoken."
     
    The giant robot is not controversial. The reveal was greeted with widespread enthusiasm. That there are a handful of people with a personal taste not to like it is not relevant enough to warrant mention, as that is true for -everything-. And I only recall one or maybe three who were ever really vocal about it, and this was three years after Bionicle ended, hardly representative of the reaction at the time.
     
    A number of others have disliked the use of the term "robot" out of a dislike for sci-fi, but that is not essential to the giant itself. (And not really native to Bionicle anyways, as all the original characters were widely assumed to be robots.)
     
    "So:
    1) Advanced technology
    2) Set in SPAAACE!
    3) Central nanotech plot device.
     
    3 strong arguments in favour of Bionicle being sci-fi."
     
    Actually these are three major examples of the sci-fi -ingredients- in the -mixture- which overall is science fantasy. Appealing to these to argue against it being that mixture is illogical, as the "hypothesis" that it's a mixture would predict ingredients from one side being found in it.
     
    This is also subjective as to how to summarize the whole story. It also has a lot of heroes going around on islands using magical powers and so forth.
     
    "But why then Bionicle can't be defined as, for example, space fantasy of sorts?"
     
    This really wouldn't fit it well as only a tiny percentage of the story took place in space. For years in fact fans widely assumed it should never go into space (despite the skyhopping canisters having already done it in 2001), and saw it as an island story.
     
    The more generalized "science" fantasy is a better description.
     
    And in any case, sci-fi, sci-fant, and fant are overall categories. Space fantasy would be a subcategory of science fantasy anyways, and that is beyond the scope of analysis here.
     
    ""an attempt to make it gel with our physics" Is kind of a great way to go; is this based off of our physics + these possibilities (Sci-Fi)? Or is it a completely alternate set of a laws that govern the universe ([alternative physics / physics + magic on top] Fantasy).
     
     
     
    If it's set in a world with a completely different basis of laws governing it calling it Science Fiction is really a stretch because "fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances ..." requires a type of connection with the real world (the part about it being the future is relevant to present technology, so something set in the 'real world' but 500 years ago on a planet in another galaxy could still very easily be Science Fiction not Fantasy, even if they have better nano technology but there isn't magic) As Bionicle doesn't have a connection to the real world the label Science Fiction or Fantasy (or "Science Fantasy") only really serve as an indicator for how hard or soft a setting is; compared to the Rea World it is thus very soft, but the RW isn't as relevant as it is to say; the Chronicles of Narnia (where there is an established connection; even in a 'multiverse' kind of way) so whilst I strongly believe it's entirely wrong to stick the label Science Fiction on Bionicle, I see these particular genre labels as not very useful."
     
    This quote is from one of Iblis's first longer later posts, the ones I had to skim. Frankly, even without the constant changing of size in his original format, it's still almost impossible to follow any kind of relevant logic here, so I'm still largely at a loss as to what his point is. It gets similar in places to a question I keep anticipating that hasn't been raised clearly, but as I have a rule to not put words in people's mouths I'd rather wait to see if it's ever brought up clearly. (The answer for the misconception will mention it anyways.)
     
    Suffice to say to the final line of this quote, the answer I have already given explains the usefulness of knowing the genre is a mixture instead of one or the other -- that it avoids confusion by those who wrongly assume it has to be all one or all the other.
     
    My best guess as to what's going on in this quote is a mistake in making too much of the various subcategories of all three main genres, and "missing the forest for the trees." But we'll see if it gets any clearer later on...
     
    "Bionicle has never offered scientific explanations, so much as systemic magical explanations"
    This should be clarified -- it's not true that it NEVER does this, but that the things that count as the fantasy ingredients don't.
     
    Next up, in answer to the "why not space fantasy" quote from earlier:
     
    "Sci-fi has that covered. Science Fiction is the more accepted way of saying "fantasy based on scientific principles". It isn't literary fantasy, because that leans more on magic."
     
    Only in the false dichotomy view that tries to lump everything into only either sci-fi or fantasy. But Bionicle does not use that view.
     
    "I could accept "Science Fantasy" but by definition, once something is Science Fantasy, it is no longer Sci-Fi"
     
    This doesn't really work. It is not PURE sci-fi, but a mixture is partly one side of the mixture. And it's sometimes appropriate (as seen in that Greg quote) to summarize a part of the discussion as just one side, expecting the reader to hear it in context of it really being a mixture. The problem with saying "not sci-fi" is that that could be taken as an inverse statement meaning "pure fantasy", which Bionicle isn't either.
     
    "Science Fantasy could be considered a sub-genre of Fantasy, but not one of Sci-Fi."
    I believe I briefly answered this before too, but I think more needs said.
     
    This is an illogical dichotomy, as all it does is apply the fallacious "a mix can't be a subcategory of one side" reasoning inconsistently. If sci-fant can't be sub-sci-fi because it's not pure sci-fi, then logically sci-fant also can't be sub-fantasy because it's not pure fantasy either. Of course the real problem here is the false premise that a mixture can ever be not a subcategory of one side. In fact by definition, mixtures are always subcategories of both.
     
    That's seen most clearly in Venn diagrams, for example. The overlapping region is part of the circle for BOTH sci-fi AND fantasy.
     
    You can also see the problem if you correct the earlier statement to "science fantasy cannot be pure sci-fi", which is true, but if you then add the same correction to this new statement, you get nonsense: "science fantasy can be pure fantasy." So in order to get the second one to work, you can't have "pure" in it, which makes the argument equivocal (the definition of categories is being altered midstream, so that in the first one "pure" is taken to be implied, but in the first it's implied that "pure" can't be there).
     
    Now again Iblis follows with another of the confusing giant paragraphs:
     
    "Well technically, one could consider some Sci-Fi a sub-genre of Fantasy; but generally people prefer to consider them on a same hierarchical level; thus something that is truly Sci-Fi excludes the definition of Fantasy, so as to not make it redundant; "Science Fantasy" is invoked as a genre as it is more useful (specific) to identify some pieces of Fantasy as having Sci-Fi elements even though they cannot be Sci-Fi by virtue of the Fantasy (here; magical) elements. However ultimately Bionicle cannot be considered Science Fiction, although I can see the appropriation of unexplained science & other functional magic to give it the title Science-Fantasy; but really whilst it (Science Fantasy) may be a (pre-existing) genre it doesn't seem much more useful than say, a (Techno-)Fantasy in a Space setting; mainly because the Space bit is sort of a spoiler for many of the earlier years... although I don't think there are any rules against a genre (or theme, which the space bit is?) being a spoiler.
     
    Science Fantasy despite being a somewhat more specific genre than Fantasy or Sci-Fi doesn't really tell you much in the case of Bionicle as Bionicle is a very 'individualised' setting (almost unique?); so any genres we through on it are either going to be overly vague or an inaccurate or misleading appropriation (or an overly individualised genre...).
     
    Hence why I was against addressing it's genre in the first place."
     
    At several points here I almost thought it came close to an identifiable point I could address, but I'm still not sure. The end seems to mean that Iblis thinks he's established that addressing the genre is necessarily confusing, but it isn't -- it seems more like Iblis has trouble saying things himself in a way that isn't confusing. (I mean no offense, Ib, but you were later acting upset that I wasn't replying to much of what you said. So you should understand that while maybe you had something clear in your mind that you meant by this, you didn't get it across clearly at all, so there was really nothing to say.)
     
    Several of the least unclear bits of this also seem to contradict Bionicle -- like that space's involvement isn't REALLY a spoiler for the first years, as mentioned above. It's just that specific later uses of it were spoilers. If the rest of your wording is similarly inaccurate, can you see why it would be so confusing as to what you're trying to say? I could "translate" this one, but if you're doing that in everything you say, where it all is estimating something similar to what you mean instead of saying what you mean, I hope you get why that can quickly get impossible to follow.
     
    Also:
     
    "Science Fantasy despite being a somewhat more specific genre than Fantasy or Sci-Fi"
     
    Sci-fant isn't any more specific than fantasy or sci-fi. (And I have no idea why you would think it is; it's throwing bizarre claims in without supporting them like this that makes your statements so impossible to follow.)
     
    "Wikipedia calls it 'Science fantasy', Tvtropes categorises it as sci-fi. I will not argue any longer, since we are determined to muddy the waters."
     
    I don't know what this means either. Not sure who you are saying wants to do that, or whether they want to. I would say that recognizing the spectrum, with three overall terms in summary, is the least muddy way (the most clear way), so obviously is the best way.
     
    """It's a soft sci-fi with mystical elements."
     
    Which is summarized as "science fantasy." :)"
     
    On a pedantic note: but never the less; it would be a Fantasy with Sci-Fi elements"
    Just want to point out that this is not "pedantic". Actually I would say that pointlessly trying to resist the simple answer would be "pedantic". Notice that both of the erroneous statements here are just doing the same thing in opposite ways -- one saying it's under sci-fi, the other under fantasy. Avoiding nonsensical arguments like this is exactly the point of the "it's both!" solution, which isn't just to avoid the argument, it's also the obvious truth! It DOES contain ingredients of both! I see no good reason to ignore this and avoid putting a simple and easy to grasp label on it that recognizes this.
     
    What follows is yet another of those incredibly complex and unclear arguments of Iblis' -- sorry, but if you need that kind of argument to defend an "it's one side or the other, not a mix" view, that's probably a good indication (re: Ockham's Razor) that your conclusion is not a good one. Not that complex answers are always wrong (hey, I get accused of that myself) -- but if the needed chain of sound reasoning is lost in all that confusion, at the very least it can't be relied upon. The sound argument for it being science fantasy is so simple it basically can't be wrong -- it has identifiable elements of both.
     
    "once you layer magic onto Sci-Fi, it's now an underlying Fantasy + Sci-Fi Elements, it might seem counter-intuitive but the underlying reasoning is perfectly sound & it causes more problems to say Sci-Fi + Fantasy"
    Okay, this seems closer to anything yet to one of the myths that I suspected earlier, so lemme just go ahead and make the point "just in case." Bionicle has some normal physics in it -- normal matter (confirmed).
     
    However, even if that wasn't confirmed, we could not rule out a sci-fi side to the mixture. That's important to understand -- it seems like Iblis is making some sweeping assumptions that we can't support.
     
    No real problems are caused by saying that Bionicle is what it is -- science fantasy. As far as I have seen, any claim to the contrary is not sound. It seems to me that the biggest genre-related problem (people thinking there were failures because it wasn't pure one or the other) is actually SOLVED by pointing out that it was intentionally some of both.
     
    "that violates the definitions"
     
    This quote comes a little after this part of his post, which I presume is what he's talking about:
     
    "Sci-Fi: fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.
    Fantasy: a genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, especially in a setting other than the real world."
     
    Because of these two parts of this post, my later replies in the topic presumed that he was basing his arguments against science fantasy on this. Looking more closely at the posts that come before this, though, I'm no longer sure, and that might explain his annoyance in his later posts. I'm still not sure what to think, though.
     
    In any case, why he thinks that "science fantasy" "violates" these definitions, is not made clear. It seems like his logic slipped in his mind to where he forgot that in talking about a mixture as a potential subcategory of both sides, we're NOT saying that it's ever PURELY one side or the other.
     
    I also suspect (but still am not sure) that he doesn't understand that fantasy physics and real-world physics can and often do coexist. Back to the LotR example -- gravity was expected to work normally, and so was the normal matter. The fact that magic also existed in the world would not give any physical reason why for example a helicoptor couldn't be made in that universe. Obviously, Tolkien didn't, because he wasn't GOING for science fantasy, just fantasy, but Bionicle IS going for it.
     
    So... still not sure if that helps or not, but yeah.
     
    "It 'can' be called Sci-Fi, but with terms that loose they are hardly indicative of anything."
     
    They're indicative of things like robots, which Greg mentioned in the quote cited earlier when he adopted the questioner's wording of "a sci-fi story." Not rocket science here to see why he would do that.
     
    "As for "there is a misconception going around that it's supposed to be hard science fiction (everything explained) and it isn't." I'm not entirely sure whether you are referring to Science-Fiction or Science Fantasy"
    Although typos happen, in the context of this discussion which started by my agreeing I should address "Bionicle is sci-fi" as a misconception, I have no idea why you would think it likely enough to mention that this might be a typo for science fantasy here. But just to help you out anyways, it wasn't.
     
    "if the former; I agree"
    Then why are we even having this conversation about whether there's a misconception to address?? This was stated simply at the very start. Did you miss it?
     
    "but when it comes to things that aren't explained at all (at least not to the point that they are considered "Surreal" as a genre, although a story can always have points of that, as a theme [As far as other pieces go {not-Bionicle}; I mean you can have a murder mystery for an arc, but out of 30 arcs your unlikely to list that as a genre for an entire piece, so it might not exactly be a theme but things get a bit blurry when it was a greatly influential arc, et cetera] but that's another can of worms!)"
     
    Once again, I have no idea what the point of this is. No offense, Iblis, but you seem to have a tendency to begin a long sentence with something that seems to mean you're about to clarify something, but what comes after seems only to add more confusion.
     
    Seriously, you may want to try to write these things out as drafts and wait a day or two before you post, and read them back slowly later and see if you can understand what you meant. It seems you might need the help to get around the problem of what you mean being clear in your head so that you can't see that it isn't clear in your wording for others to get. >_> That might give you enough time to partially forget it, and you might spot your confusing wordings more easily that way, and correct them.
     
    I gathered from the open of this quote that you were going to talk about things being explained. But then it seemed to be about murder mysteries. And there were all these sudden and dramatic qualifiers like "as far as other pieces go" and "at least not to the point... although a story can always have points of that" etc. It's distracting. I think you're trying to say way too much, all at once. (A problem I have had myself, so I can relate. ) I know that that kind of complexity can actually be easy to grasp in your head (I feel that way all the time), but hard to express in the linear format of text. Just slow down and try to describe each part of your argument completely before moving on to qualifiers, etc. and trust that we won't miss the qualifiers later. (You can also warn up front that people should read on to see the qualifiers.) And don't chase after every tangent in the same sentence! Cover one idea clearly and fully, and then you can move on to tangents later if you feel it's relevant.
     
    "One needs to rely on how it was depicted & shown; its' style (genre: a style or category of art, music, or literature), & whilst the Great Beings have been described along the lines of being brilliant scientists, that's essentially equivalent to saying that they were systematic & had a great understanding of their, say 'magic'; it seems to me that in the case of Bionicle this is a great case of "
     
    I assume this was a typo unfinished sentence. I think I actually got what's here more than most of what you say, though, ironically lol. I agree here, but notice that the simple label "science fantasy" (and even science fiction) doesn't say whether it's talking about the PRACTICE of science or whether it's OUR science. I get the sense that you are trying to use an argument about it being different physics and not our physics, because that is a major part of the definition of fantasy, but don't miss the difference between a wizard's study of magic and a scientist's study of the natural physics of his world (which may be different to ours).
     
    Also, don't forget as said above that normal matter exists here, and for lot of things in Bionicle, especially protodermis, we don't know how much of it is just possible future scientific plausibility (even in our world) and how much might be the alternate universe's different physics. (And we likely will never know that, as the authors aren't intending to know HOW it works.)
     
    I would suggest that the PRACTICE of science (as I mentioned somewhere, I think, in the topic) is more relevant to the genre question than the type of physics. Star Trek frequently has tie-ins to universes alternate to its own, and its own physics are not quite the same as the real world, but all of these are treated as science fiction elements, not fantasy, mainly because of the approach of the characters to it all as science (I would say science of the multiverse here, not just science of one universe). Fantasy is fantasy more for the lack of study of how it works (in terms of what makes it possible versus how to operate it).
     
    Fantasy is somebody being given a computer and getting really skilled at how to use the software, sci-fi is somebody knowing how to build a computer. Science Fantasy is a little bit of both (which is probably most people ).
     
    (That's an analogy, of course, since computers DO exist... But the equivalent in a fictional world is what I'm talking about. Though again it's not necessarily that simple, and having alternate physics IS usually a big part of fantasy, if it's specified at all. Anywho, the misconception answer need not get into all of that anyways, and the point is that sci-fi, sci-fant, and fantasy are categories containing various versions.)
     
    "That Science Fantasy is a mix of the two genres isn't really relevant"
     
    No, as I've explained repeatedly, this is the most relevant part. Again, this is what helps resolve the common errors people make out of an assumption that it's meant to be just one or just the other.
     
    "it could be considered a subset of Fantasy"
     
    Yes, it COULD, but it's trivial (and it "could" be considered a subset of the other end too, as explained before). It doesn't make sense to me that you follow the previous quote about relevance with this. And the basic definition of science fantasy as a mixture of elements of both already implies this anyways, so I don't see the need to mention it specifically.
     
    I haven't seen anybody having any major misconceptions related to the ability to recatgorize it as a subcategory of fantasy or a subcategory of sci-fi. The major issues come from people assuming it's pure one or the other, and it's in that light that a misconception correction makes sense to do. It seems to me you're just bringing this up since the subject happened to come up tangentially in discussion here, just for curiosity's sake. Nothing really wrong with that, but it's still trivial.
     
    "in a somewhat similar way to Urban Fantasy being a subset of Fantasy"
     
    Somewhat similar, yes, but different in that sci-fi, sci-fant, and fantasy are all overarching categories, with sci-fant simply being a mix of the two at the ends. Urban Fantasy is a specific subcategory in the normal sense of fantasy. (There could also be Urban sci-fant or Urban sci-fi, etc.) We're not talking about specifics here, in part because Bionicle often does a variety of the specifics (for example, albeit not with Earth cities, it does have urban areas in some of its stories but also has stories set in the wild or primitive survivor-makeshift villages.)
     
    "Science Fantasy however, despite sharing many elements and tropes with Sci-Fi can not be considered a subset of it"
     
    This absolute negative claim is disproven simply by me happening to consider it a subset of both ends (as of course it logically is!). And again, it makes no sense to say that a mix can be a subset of one end, but not of the other. Why would you even want to? This whole exercise is frankly bizarre.
     
    As for tropes, this project will not be involving those, so please keep that in mind. Let's not overcomplicate things here. Leave that to TVTropes and the like.
     
    "a mix of it yes, but not a subset, for many reasons already stated, of which I have yet to see refuted."
     
    This statement (and a whole argumentative post before it) seem to be attached to the above idea (which is so off-topic to canonicity issues as to not even be worth discussing in the misconceptions topic anyways), but how exactly Iblis thinks he has given reasons backing up this claim, is not clear. I'm guessing it's the parts that were worded so confusingly earlier, but they weren't "refuted" because it's not clear what they're saying, or that they even intended to offer something up requesting refutation.
     
    I'm going to hope for now that my earlier answer covers this (that Iblis has apparently confused being a mixture-subset for fitting the definition of one end exactly, but only doing this for one of the two ends for some reason).
     
    This argument is very similar to a fallacy that we were warned about in that sci-fi and fantasy class I took that is out there. I could guess that Iblis got it from the people who promote that fallacy, but again, I don't put words in people's mouths.
     
    "People talk about Star Wars being Fantasy in space for good reason; it's a Science Fantasy, but that isn't mutually exclusive with "Fantasy in Space with Advance Technology""
     
    Correct... but neither is it mutually exclusive with "a mix of both sci-fi and fantasy" which is what it is. And it could also be called science fiction with pervasive "magic" (the Force). Actually, the latter is probably closer, but pinning down exactly where it falls on the spectrum is beyond the scope of this kind of project (or Bionicle). All that fans really need to know is that it's a mix, and I've seen the mistakes that this answer clears up happen enough to warrant it being included.
     
    For the record, in case this is what all this extended debating is intended to do, no amount of discussion is going to change that -- the project simply answers common misconceptions and arguing a lot about trivial tangents isn't going to change that it's common... and Iblis seems to agree it's a misconception anyways, so this all seems pointless by his own admission. Buuuuuut.... just because he seemed to want answers to much, here's this blog entry.
     
    It seems he is vaguely trying to argue about what the details mentioned in the answer should be, but I haven't seen any clear and simple attempt to provide a workable alternative, and approaching that argumentatively like this is not wise; instead he should have been simply making positive suggestions of things he thinks could be included. And I haven't even written a draft of the answer anyways, so why he seems to think he's arguing against a specific established answer is also unclear. I suspect as I said that it's largely based on actually misunderstanding that Greg quote that Boidoh posted, and this idea that a mix can be considered a subset of one side but not the other. (But this trivial tangent would not be worth mentioning either way, so why he's bothering I have no idea -- who cares about that? All they need to know is that it IS a mix.)
     
    "however Science Fantasy is just as accurate as "FiSwAT" although Science Fantasy is a more useful label for sizing constraints if nothing else"
    Exactly... so why all the early pointless objecting when I pointed out that "Science fantasy" summarizes all the various other ways that people say "it has some science and some magic"? (Or words to that effect like Regitnui's wording.)
     
    "It also serves to show that Science Fantasy is a subset of Fantasy"
    What "it" refers to here is not clear.
     
    "anyone that called Star Wars Science-Fiction though would be rightly derided"
    Derided, yes, but "rightly" depends on the circumstances. If somebody just called it that because they have, for example, a video categorization system that only has sci-fi and fantasy, all the spaceships and robots and stuff would almost certainly make it go under the sci-fi label. And if in a conversation somebody who didn't know about it asked, "Is it fantasy? Wizards and trees and stuff? Or sci-fi? Spaceships and lasers?" then if somebody said, "Sci-fi" (if that's all they had time to say, for example), nobody should really be deriding them because clearly the questioner wasn't asking about technicalities but just the basics.
     
    But there too you see why the simplicity of the label "science fantasy" helps -- even if you don't have much time (or you're giving short answers as Greg usually does, or both), "It's both -- it's science fantasy" fills the bill.
     
    "^(It might seem strange that (in these scenarios) something can be Fantasy + X, but something cannot be Sci-Fi + X"
     
    Problem with this logic is that the X in the first is sci-fi, and the X in the second is Fantasy, so by putting variables in instead, you're obscuring the illogic of your argument. If you translate this back to "clearspeak", you just said that something can be fantasy + sci-fi but not sci-fi + fantasy!
     
    The mathematical principle of commutation says that A + B is the same thing as B + A. Therefore, fantasy + sci-fi IS sci-fi plus fantasy!
     
    And this is so obvious that everybody gets this intuitively, I'd say, even if they don't spot the error consciously as easily due to your using variables (BTW, you should have used a different variable for the second sentence, since X has a different value than in the first), which would be why it seems strange.
     
    " that is because nothing in the definitions of Fantasy exclude Sci-Fi"
     
    The definition of fantasy is irrelevant here because we're talking about a mix! It does seem from this quote that I was right, that somewhere your logic slipped in your mind to forget that talking about a mixture as a subset is not talking about a purity.
     
    And as I warned in the topic, don't rely too much on one specific wording of a definition. There are multiple definitions for both genres, and a lot of debate about what is the best definition. Ultimately the best definitions are the labels themselves -- science fiction means science fiction, and anything that could fit those words could apply in some sense or to some degree. In any event, nothing in the definition Iblis cited says anything about a mixture being reinterpreted as a subset being banned. (Or allowed, for fantasy.)
     
    Iblis probably doesn't realize that those definitions are not prescriptive, but descriptive; listing common examples of things that have been done in existing stories of science fiction and fantasy, NOT limiting all possible future stories only to those examples. Really the basic concept of both genres is clear just from the names.
     
    "& in fact (almost) all Sci-Fi could very, very technically be classified as a subset of Fantasy"
     
    Two things here.
     
    First, Iblis has been repeating "technically" over and over here. This is part of why I suspect he's taking the definitions he cited as prescriptive. There's very little room for "technicality" on this subject, though they are often invoked by those who use the fallacy warned about in that class. Genres are not about technicality but about generality, so that stories within them have flexibility for originality and their own styles, etc.
     
    Second, this contradicts everything else Iblis has been saying in that tangent about subset-mix not being sci-fi. If all of sci-fi is a subset of fantasy (under a particular definition scheme), then obviously it's wrong to say that it's impossible for science fantasy to be a subset of fantasy.
     
    But for the record, I will not being using that (obscure) definition scheme anyways. Instead, normally science fiction and fantasy are seen a basically equals under the category of "speculative fiction" or as I have called it, "physics fiction." (as opposed to more real-world based fiction like CSI). Science fantasy is the mixture of both, with there really being a spectrum between the two.
     
    "however not all Fantasy could be Sci-Fi, thus Sci-Fi was given the attribute of excluding certain Fantasy elements (namely; magic), which can eb seen when one compares and contrasts their defintions and their uses..."
     
    There's actually much more to it here (relevant to possible definitions of magic), but it's mostly way too tangential to get into here. Except that it IS relevant that Bionicle uses the "science you don't understand" definition for the magic, which makes any argument that it can't be seen as a sci-fi subset especially weird. (But actually, ALL fantasy COULD be viewed in light of that definition, whether the authors ever confirm that as the intent or not.) Plus, Bionicle doesn't even use the term magic! We're just calling some of it that as an extrapolation since it does use the term fantasy. (Well, I suppose Greg might have used it in answers that aren't coming to mind, but I mean it's not like Once Upon a Time or the like.)
     
     
     
    bonesiii, on 23 Nov 2014 - 03:47 AM, said:
     
     
     
    """however if all of your reasoning was applied to Harry Potter it would probably be considered a Sci-Fi"
     
    ?? I'm not aware of elements of science fiction in HP."
     
    Of course there aren't any but some of the reasoning you use looks flexible enough that you could classify is as that if you wanted to debate it."
     
    What reasoning he means, or why, he doesn't explain. In any event, I disagree. (I can only guess that he's talking about the spectrum concept fishers quoted from me. My answer to this part in the topic went into more detail on why I disagree, presuming he was confusing any real-world physics for science fiction, or real-world tech, like cars. Still not 100% sure that's what he meant though.)
     
    "EXACTLY! ^([To be clear, I was pointing out how absurd your line of reasoning looks to me.])"
    Yet another clarification that seems to only add confusion. It looks like he's simultaneously agreeing strongly with me, and also calling it absurd. Huh?
     
    "But your over-classifying Sci-Fi by allowing magic into it"
     
    I can only guess at what's happening here, but it seems like at this point Iblis has lost all sense of perspective of the conversation we were having. I was not classifying magic as part of sci-fi. I was classifying it as part of fantasy and science fantasy. We only got into the hypothetical of if it was ever okay to loosely call the mixture a subset of both ends because of his own (no offense but bizarre) argument that you can't... for one end but oddly not for the other!
     
    I was answering that only because he seemed to WANT answers to it, and as a logician these kinds of thought puzzles interest me. It's not some basic thesis of mine, or something that would ever come up in a misconception answer. He's literally the only person I've ever seen raise the issue in all my ten years here!
     
    And since we're talking about an intentionally loose style of definition anyways (a mix isn't NORMALLY seen as a subset, we're just talking about if you COULD see it that way), I don't see how you can get "over" here anyways. It seems to me that would only come in if we were talking about the most reasonable definition scheme, in which case I wouldn't talk about it as a subset at all. I talk about it as a spectrum, since that's the most logical understanding.
     
    "the existence of magic in the Bionicle World ^([Who decided to actually call the Great Spirit Robot the Matoran Universe? They get no cookies from me.])"
     
    Now it seems we're off on yet another yellowbrick tangent... or possibly two.
     
    First, to the more noticeable bit here, Iblis seems to have missed the nonliteral, and perception-based point of "Matoran Universe." The term makes sense because the Matoran didn't know there was anything beyond it. And that's all it ever meant.
     
    Second, it's not fans that "allow magic in Bionicle", it's the story team, etc. But again I'm guessing that this is the same misunderstanding of that Greg quote as saying PURE sci-fi, rather than what it plainly means, that the PARTS of the story he and the questioner were talking about there were sci-fi. So hopefully he's clear on that now...
     
    "Maybe so, but he has said it was a Sci-Fi, which is patently not what he delivered"
     
    I quoted this in the topic too, but repeating it here to make it clear that this is the main part that makes me think Iblis didn't grasp that Greg wasn't saying Bionicle is pure science fiction in that quote. Somehow he also seems to have missed my pointing out that it was also Greg who called it science fantasy.
     
    "It's a Science Fantasy. Not Sci-Fi, Fantasy. According to the Wikipedia articles they blend into each other, but unless someone can show me why letting something in that has an alter-physics which aren't compatible with present understandings of the universe; it's what some of us call 'magic'"
     
    Several things here.
     
    First, is the "but" here meant to say that Iblis is disagreeing with the spectrum view?
     
    Second, he seems to be forgetting that it isn't meant to be our universe. Or else, I can't see where else he's going witht that part.
     
    Third, calling the different elements magic is hardly inconsistent with it being a blend!
     
    I would need those things cleared up before I could try to answer his "show me why". Also I think he left out an "is okay" or something in the grammar of his "unless someone can show me why [doing this] (is okay? Is reasonable?), [then] XYZ" wording.
     
     
    "(I've already talked about what specific type it is)."
     
    I have no idea what this refers to.
     
    "Sci-Fi can't have magic that isn't ultimately a sufficiently advanced technology with respect to the laws of our universe."
     
    This is irrelevant here since Bionicle isn't set in our universe, but just for accuracy's sake, this statement is erroneous as it commits the fallacy of the (unsupported) universal negative.
     
    It COULD work as an arbitrary definition scheme to apply for personal categorization purposes but that is not what a misconception answer in this project would do. The basic definition of science fiction is its name -- fiction about science -- and characters in another universe doing science is obviously fiction (partially) about science. Science is a process of investigation of the world you live in. That our science only applies to our world is true only because we happen to be IN this world.
     
    "Sci-Fi is about speculative technologies"
     
    Correct... like Star Trek's warp drive, or Bionicle's giant robot. Notice that as far as we know, warp drive is not possible, but Star Trek treats in in this sense: "If we make a future discovery enabling it, it works like that, but if we later find proof it is not possible in the real world, it's an alternate universe where it is."
     
    This is basically the idea behind speculative physics-fiction, both sci-fi AND fantasy; the distinction is primarily in that in sci-fi, the characters are trying to understand how it works (or things similar to this somehow or another, like "understanding it offscreen"), while in fantasy they don't. Sometimes it's just said outright (like with Bionicle) that some of it isn't meant to be like our world. Sometimes, like with Tolkien, even fantasy is said outright to be our world (with an alternate past in that case).
     
    "This shouldn't even matter as Bionicle doesn't offer any speculative techologies in it's universe"
     
    Another of those universal negatives, and frankly strange for a story that has been about apparent-robots from the start, and has a giant robot, etc.
     
    After this point, I brought up Iblis' apparent misunderstanding of that Greg post. He hasn't posted after that point, so not sure if he did or didn't, but it looks that way. I also decided in part in that post and a few posts after to move this discussion to here. Hopefully if anything still isn't clear, we can discuss it in comments to this blog entry.
  4. bonesiii

    Coming This Week!

    By bonesiii,

    I'm officially ready to post the first chapter at least of my Bionicle retelling. Ran into a new problem in reposting the end of my previous fanfic, The Perfect Cage (apparently BZP has drastically shortened the maximum post length since the latest software update, and the final chapter and epilogue got cut off). Will repost final bit of epilogue tomorrow. Then I will get The Destiny of Bionicle up.
     
    After posting the first chapter this week, I plan to post one chapter per week, at least until Chapter 10.
     
    Then, since I haven't actually finished writing the whole story yet (but I'm sure enough about where it's going that I don't need to delay launch anymore), if I haven't got it all written by then I may take a break until it's all done, then continue posting.
     
    ART STILL NEEDED:
     
    -Original form of Vorox & Zesk -- TOP PRIORITY; need this for early chapters
    -Avohkah
    -Karzahni plant
    -EP entity
    -giant jellyfish Rahi
    -Tahtorak on home island, Keetonguan riding
    -weird mutant scorpion
     
    Some of these and others from the previous entry about art needed may be being done by some artists, but as of yet I haven't seen them. The only one that is urgent for now is the Vorox/Zesk.
     
    Progress I have made on my own art for it since last update:
    -several (classified for now) Agori and Glatorian non-canon characters
    -Agori Alphabet (see BZP topic here -- and now includes sketch version!)
    -Spirit's Wish Gate (with name written in my version of Agori)
    -SM map sketch for locations in first 10 chapters (probably won't be displayed in the actual story but will be in the review topic firstpost, and later the appendix file)
    -An LDD small-scale interpretation of the giant robot, designed to show the Red Star booster rocket attaching, plus a slightly larger version of the head
    -a sketch of the Red Star based on the above
    -LDD interpretation of Tahu "Re-Mata'ed", with and without Golden Armor
    -something classified in LDD
    -And this likely won't actually be used, but the LDD Matoran HF Masks project (see BZP topic) showing all Matoran element color schemes
     
    One more urgent thing I need for early chapters is Annona, but I have requested permission for one on deviantart. So far haven't heard back. If I don't in time, I'll probably just slap together a sketch myself. I have figured out how to color sketches in GIMP now (two of the above are colored so far, not sure how many more I'll color), so if I do it I'll color it. And, if nobody tries for the Zesk and Vorox original forms in time I may try them myself too.
     
    But, I think I'll take a break from art for now and get back to writing the final ten chapters.
     
    Look for another blog entry before this week is over linking to the story!
     
  5. bonesiii
    Beginning of the intro comments copied from the review topic's firstpost:
     
    The Bionicle is the bio-chronicle, the records and legends of life of the Agori alien species and its various subspecies, and primarily the artificial sapient lifeforms known as Matoran and the other inhabitants of the Matoran Universe. One of the most important themes in the official Bionicle story is destiny. And such is the stuff of this story. I have sought to tell a brand new story with new mysteries, and yet blend this with a complete retelling of the canon story, chronologically from a point before the Core War.
     
    As always, any comments, questions, constructive criticism, and favorite details you want to mention in a review would be appreciated. I'd be especially interested to hear theories about the non-canon mysteries I've included. Please note, this story is entirely a standalone, unrelated to my other fan fiction, so there is absolutely no need to read any of my other stories first.
  6. bonesiii
    My retelling of the entire Bionicle history is fast approaching completion. I have only 15 (planned) chapters (of 90) to go now; the Toa Mahri are entering Mahri Nui for the first (rather unfortunate) time.
     
    The biggest hurdle left for my story is missing artwork for many things. I'm doing some of it myself, but continue to have some that I'm offering for any artist out there to do and send me. It'll have to be quick now as I want to get this posting soon. Here's the current (updated from previous entry) main wishlist:
     
    -original Vorox/Zesk forms
    -Avohkah
    -unidentified Order Agent (you decide, as long as male, titan) Done by Disciple
    -civil war scene? (probably not necessary)
    -Toa Naho
    -giant jellyfish Rahi
    -Matoro Mahri's death scene with quality Ignika
    -humanoid Miserix
    -Karzahni plant
    -EP entity
    -Tahtorak on home island, Keetonguan riding
     
    LOW PRIORITY:
    -Toa Chiara (unsure if will have room to include; if I do it'll have to be an epilogue only type thing)
     
    NuvaTube has expressed interest in doing some things from the list, so unsure if I should still list those on the main list or not:
    -Annona (peering out of a hole in the ground in daylight ideally)
    -original Glatorian form of Jungle Element Lord (ideally holding a mysterious-looking orb that has a plot purpose)
    -weird mutant scorpion Rahi from Maze of Shadows (your choice of interpretation)
    I think he or someone else also mentioned maybe doing the Avohkah, I forget, and I think the EP entity, but regardless, I have yet to be given any of these, so unsure.
     
    I'm now planning to do a few of the things from my original list myself, like the "young Xian mountain" pic. But there's a few more I might not have time to get to that maybe other artists could help with:
    -Toa Orde (I have asked an artist for permission for one, who appears to be inactive and I don't know how else to contact, so if someone else wants to try and beats them to it, I'll use that)
    -serpent forms of Piraka (have failed to find any; for now I'm just using some Rahi snake pics from, I think, the VNOG, to suffice, but they're pretty lame; I would need these just swimming in a stream or pond on Voya Nui for now (or leave out the setting), unsure if I'll have time to include "Zaktan in a fishbowl" later.)
    -buildings in Mahri Nui?? It seems to be the only location in Bionicle's main plot where you only vaguely see the Matoran buildings, although the huts of Karda Nui are only briefly seen too. Weird after all that emphasis on the huts and skyscrapers of Mata and Metru Nui, and thanks to the VNOG even buildings on Voya Nui are shown.
    -"razor crabs" (stated to be tamed guardians of Mahri Nui, as far as I know not pictured anywhere; they breathe water so live outside the giant bubbles, and live amongst some kind of thorny vine plant that also helps guard)
    -maybe another image of Karzahni the titan, in gold armor? There's one image already I might request for, but haven't decided (the chapter this would be for is already at the 20 page maximum I'm trying to impose, but I might make an exception -- this is when Jaller and company are going through; book says armor is gold, but most artists use green incorrectly due to the rebuilt intermediate form seen in the atlas)
     
    Anybody? Pretty please?
     
     
    While I'm at it, don't forget to check out the BZP YouTube Banner contest! Deadline for that is Jan 30, so it's fast approaching!
     
    If you want to do that plus what I'm asking for here, do the contest first, as with proofreading and everything I'll have more time for the "deadline" on art for the retelling. Now it looks like I might begin posting the early chapters in late Feb, or early March, if I can get enough art for that (Annona, the jungle Glat, and maybe original Vorox/Zesk are the main things I would need for that, plus a few spoiler things I'll have to do myself), regardless of the status of the final chapters.
  7. bonesiii

    Retelling Updates

    By bonesiii,

    Some quick updates about the progress on the retelling of all Bionicle history that I'm working on (The Destiny of Bionicle):
     
    1) Artists still wanted! Top priority is art that applies for the pre-Core War period up to the Shattering (first 10 chapters).
     
    2) That is because I have decided to try reeeeally hard to begin posting before February is up, whether or not I finish the entire story yet. Assuming I can get the needed art (I'm doing some myself, a few artists have expressed interest in doing some of the others), I want to launch the first ten chapters on a weekly basis from there. After that, we'll see if I need to take breaks to double-check everything, etc.
     
    3) Of the planned 90 chapters (which I'm now virtually certain won't be changed), there are only 10 and about a half left to write. I'm working on the point where the Nuva, Ignika, etc. have entered the Codrex, about to reawaken Mata Nui. Then, the other ten chapters will be devoted to the 2009-2010 plot.
     
    4) Just to give you an idea of what to expect, most of the story actually spends its time in Matoran history, expanding on things like the rule of the Barraki and the Matoran Civil War. Most of the main canon plot, starting with the flashbacks, goes by fairly fast, as so much has been written about it already. My main goal is to tell a fast-paced, engaging plot that connects all of it together in a new way but is true to 95% of how it happened canonically.
     
    Of the 2001-03, and 2006-2008 plots, in some cases there are only a few chapters per year (though most of those are at my working maximum chapter length of 20 pages). Karda Nui (2008) plot for example has proved to only take up three chapters. But by contrast, the last ten chapters will tell of just two real-world years of plot, in part because many people felt that was rushed canonically. I do show all the core events in each year. Also, I've tried to make this a clear framework for understanding the chronological order of events, so some things I don't have space to feature do get alluded to, so you know when they happened.
     
    One thing I expect to slow me down working on the last ten chapters, which will focus on Bara Magna of course, is what threads to include from the MU Reign of Teridax side of things. A ton happens there, but I may have to distill it down to just one chapter (probably told a bit out of order from Bara Magna; I have a handful of chapters like that but make it clear in-story -- I think my non-canon protagonist won't learn what was going on there until Tahu and Takanuva emerge).
     
    5) Art! Make art!
     
    6) Speaking of art, in addition to old art of mine that fits with this story (ex: Turaga Takanuva from my story Sacrifice is being repurposed for the Kingdom of Mata Nui), and things used with permission by other artists, here's a list of things I've drawn so far for the story (all on paper, not counting the Tren Krom thing I've already posted, so far none colored, but we'll see):
    -a protodite, as I imagine it would look under the microscope, based on the Protodax set but also meant as a coolification of that
    -a stylized version of the Adaptive Hau, intended for the time during the Makuta's reign
    -an interpretation of Tuyet's mask, based on one done by an artist who has already given permission for an image of Tuyet (Saronicle), for the Toa Empire Tuyet
    -my attempt of the Mask of Creation*
    -Mutran's pet rock, inside a box (as described in my story), long before it became the Mountain of Xia.
    -Miserix's Kanohi, meant to go with a part of the earlier story when he is in humanoid form rather than the dragon form
    -"Turaga" Ahkmou
     
    *Speaking of that, it looks like there's a clear winner in the poll I posted about the name of the Mask of Creation. Motara, of the Po-Wahi Motara Desert, and that people apparently want it canonized. Interesting turn of events, not sure if canonization will be feasible, but I think it has grown on me enough to use, at least, in my retelling. Unless the poll dramatically changes in the future, that's what I'm now planning.
     
    The justification is that since all mask names are confirmed to mean the English term for their power in Matoran, so "Vahi" means "Time", etc. that the Po-Matoran, who of course love making stone sculptures, decided to "think positive" and call it the Creation Desert (rather than like... the desert of death or something lol ). It can't be that they actually named it after the mask, apparently, as they did not know of it (the Turaga didn't -- maybe Whenua might have heard of a legend of it, but it's not necessary).
     
    Someone suggested that it wouldn't make sense to use a name from the 2001 map, because the others used like this for canonizations were all of people. But it seems to me this line of reasoning misses the point that part of the reason that stopped happening is it was getting old to use all of them for people. In real life, look at street names. Many are named after people, even people you might never have heard of but were once important locally, but then there's something that are named after trees that are or used to be in the area, and others after concepts (even the old "main" street type thing). So a variety in naming schemes makes sense.
     
     
    7) While the above things are drawn they aren't yet scanned. Been having troubles in that area which are allegedly fixed, but I still have to draw a few non-canon things, and maybe some canon-related things, for at least the first 10 chapters before I start posting, and figure I'll try to scan all of what I have so far at once then. (I may then print some to color the printout, something I've done before as using colored pencils on the original sketch, if you mess up, can ruin the image, and then re-scan, but it all depends on if I end up having time.) Regardless, I think I will opt to release each new part with its corresponding chapter rather than up front, maybe with one or two exceptions. If the scanner I think will work doesn't, there's some backup options I'll try, so don't worry, somehow or another I'll get them into the digital realm.
     
    8) I've also done two things in LEGO Digital Designer for the story; a non-canon Av-Matoran in standard colors (guess what mask he wears... yeah that's right, the only mask they have! lol -- that being the Hau) for 2008 plot, and a type of robot I have theorized may exist (as I've mentioned in ST before) explaining how Matoran work on the lands, like Metru Nui, causes repairs to happen throughout the robot including places they aren't even allowed to know exist.
     
    The latter plot element used in my story is fairly early on, I forget exactly which chapter, but 15 at the latest, so I should be posting a MOC topic for it on BZP soon. I designed them to resemble a fusion of a hovering pickup truck and a Bohrok (the theory is partly inspired by Bohrok, of course), and even came up with a tentative name for them, Bahkiril, or maybe Bohkiril, or maybe dropping the h (if anyone has a specific preference, lemme know ). The idea there is the theory that the GBs use B plus a vowel (a or o) for their robots, then plus a suffix. Ba-terra, Bo-hrok, Ba-hrag (notice too that "hrok and hrag" are variants of the same root idea too; g is the voiced version of k in linguistics). "Kiril" here is from the Mask of Regeneration, and as repair robots they are regenerating the giant robot in a sense.
     
    9) Da artserzorz!
  8. bonesiii

    Who Made Brutaka Mahri?

    By bonesiii,

    I realize this is a longshot, and unsure if this is the best place to ask, but I've been trying to figure out how to find and contact the MOCist/artist who made this image of Brutaka in Mahri Nui, for permission to use in my Bionicle retelling:
     
    http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Makuta7/Brutaka/brutaka2.jpg
     
    It's been very confusing; one person I asked told me he wasn't the originator, and doesn't know who was. (On deviantart.) Most other references appear to be on wikis, where the member who put it on the wikis is long inactive, some of them speaking only foreign languages apparently. I found one that mentioned "Bionicle Zone", giving me hope that maybe, just maybe, it was posted by the originator here and maaaybe someone remembers who it was?
     
    Anybody know?
     
    'Cuz it would be a shame not to include it.
     
    I also found it in one brickshelf along with that famous image of Brutaka Mahri on a fake LEGO box -- it appears to be the same MOC?? (The box pic is useless to me, but maybe someone instead remembers who made that... etc.)
     
    If by chance "Makuta7" (the brickshelf user name) is the creator, is that a member here by some other name maybe? There's no way to contact a brickshelf username as far as I know.
     
    In other news, artists, make sure to check out my previous entry: ARTISTS WANTED! Bionicle Retelling Art Wishlist Updates
  9. bonesiii

    Working RPG Link

    By bonesiii,

    fishers64 has found a working download link for my Bionicle Paracosmos RPG computer game, The Map of Mata Nui. A lot of people have asked me to get it back up, but turns out it's not necessary, as the old Software Library had one.
     
    LINK | ANOTHER
     
    Yes, I still plan to finish up the loose ends and post a new version. It's proving harder to get around to than I thought, sorry. But the whole main plot is in this version.
     
    Edit: And here's the walkthroughs, BTW:
     
    Paracosmos RPG Game: The Map Of Mata Nui -- Walkthroughs:
    From Beginning To Ko-Koro, by Master of The Rahkshi and bngi
     
    From Le-Koro To Storyline End, by Master of The Rahkshi and bngi
     
    List Of Paracosmos Matoran, by Zarkan
  10. bonesiii
    Wayback on the old forum we had a contest to decide the powers and appearances of the Tyrant species in the Expanded Multiverse (rulers of the volcanic planet Tanuuk). Someone asked in the discussion topic where the list of their powers is. Answer is it WAS in a topic in the archived S&T, which is now blank, and apparently we never put it up on the wiki (which is now offline due to webs.com no longer offering that function, but I couldn't find it in my backup of the wiki either). So I guess the only place we ever put it was in that one topic.
     
    Since I have to repost this info somewhere and thought it would be weird to use a new S&T topic, and it's too long for just another post in the discussion topic, I've settled on here. Yes, I plan to repost the others here eventually too, but the others had summaries on the wiki that I'll probably put up first in the pinned EM ref topic in S&T.
     
    (Note: the links to the entry posts obviously won't work until the archives are fixed.)
     
    Here 'tis:
     
     
     
     



     
    Finally, Tyrants full results are ready for your enjoyment and congratulations for the winners! (Appearance winners' names are in the MOC photos, Powers winners' names are in dark red font.)
     
    The results will be presented in Mini-Guide style, fusing both appearance and powers. The text for each entry includes summaries of the powers (with links to entry posts with the full text), and new storyline details (especially about the mutants) made up by the EM leaders (bonesiii, Swert, and Takuta-Nui).
     
    The main holdup that delayed the results announcement was that we had the "one win per member" rule (within each category; wins in both appearance and powers were allowed) for this contest, which presented a very complicated challenge to live up to in the Powers category, since many members tied or came close to winning many different polls. But finally we have worked out the details and have a full list of winners -- with one "Parawin." This is a concept of an "almost win" I originally invented for my own fanfic blog contests, somewhere between a win and an honorable mention. Essentially, the single "Parawin" entry will probably get Cipher Chronicles story mentioning briefly, while the actual winners will get more important featuring.
     
    Note also that Takuta-Nui abstained from final decisions in polls in which he had entered; when the entry period was open he had not been taken on as one of the leaders yet.
     
    Tyrants Mini-Guide
     

     
    This is the standard Tyrant species. Tyrants of all varieties rule the Expanded Multiverse planet of Tanuuk absolutely. The standard type can come in various color schemes, usually black with a color like green, orange, blue, red, purple, white, etc. as a secondary color. They can have any one of twelve superpowers. They tend to be clever, dangerous, and ruthless, and these traits have enabled them to hold onto rule over almost every person on the planet for roughly the full 500 years of history.
     
    The top single ranking ruler of all Tanuuk is the Tyrant King; he has been mutated in an unknown way as he keeps his appearance a total secret. He rules the rest of the government and specifically the central Tyrant city. At the beginning of history, he was known to have the standard appearance.
     
    The next highest rank is Duke (or Duchess). All currently alive members of this rank are Dukes and they are all of the standard species. They each rule one of five major towns and the surrounding territories. At least two Dukes and one Duchess have previously ruled and been killed; their basic appearances have not been established.
     
    Other smaller towns are ruled by Lords or Ladies. The female image above depicts Lady Sulmiris, ruler of a town in Duke Mokuun's northwest territory. About two-thirds of the Lords and Ladies are of the standard variety of Tyrant; the other third is of any of the mutant varieties other than Tyrannical Knights.
     
    All other Tyrants are always in positions of some manner of authority over all other species on the planet, most of whom are slaves, some of whom are mercenaries. Almost half of these Tyrants are members of a mutant species.
     
    The twelve standard powers are:
     
    Makuta of Xhini Nui: Tectonic Control
    Trigger volcanic eruptions and earthquakes or help prevent them. Danger of these effects can harm the user too if they get caught in a lava flow or under a collapsing building, etc. so it's rarely used.
     
    New info: Tectonic Tyrants periodically wander over mountains believed to house active slave refugee caves and tunnels, causing minor earthquakes in an attempt to collapse the tunnels. Slaves have as a result designed tectonic-energy reflecting weapons that can make this energy rebound and hit the mountain rock under the Tyrant, causing an avalance.
     
    These Tyrants also often live near volcanos that feed major lava rivers, ensuring that the volcanos remain constantly active so that the lava rivers don't run cold.
     
    Iranu: Heat Lightning
    Channel a reddish-orange fusion of electricity and heat energy. Acts like electricity, and can cause severe burns. Needs intense mental concentration and a natural heat source. Often used like a whip against slaves. Bolts can act like chain lightning to hit multiple targets.
     
    Axinian: Sensory Distortion
    Slows sensory processing in a target's mind, of one of the five senses at a time, for three to ten seconds. User's senses are all slightly slowed when active; excessive use lengthens this. Users tend to be guards, slave keepers, and sometimes assassins.
     
    TakanuvaC01: Thermal Absorbtion
    Absorb heat from environment, lava, etc. and convert it into energy, boosting a Tyrant's strength or extra powers such as tool or armor powers. Can also channel this boost power into another Tyrant. Takes total concentration while absorbing and absorbed energy dissipates over time if not used, and some is wasted during transfers.
     
    New info: Slave refugees often carry tools with cold energy radiating powers to counter this power and others that require heat such as Heat Lightning or Lava Telekinesis.
     
    Tyrants of this power are sometimes turned into Quadarm mutants.
     
    Skrilax: Dreamscape Manipulation
    Cast a target into sleep with a dream controlled by the user. The Dreamscape normally resembles actual reality, but the user has absolute control. It's all just a dream, however, and strong-minded people (and Toa of Psionics) can break the illusion. Users are immune from this power, but become tired with use.
     
    New info: Assassins often work in pairs, one with this power and the other with Sensory Distortion. Accidental would-be witnesses of their actions can be cast into a Dreamscape that mirrors what would have happened had there been no assassins. This is especially powerful against targets of the assassins themselves, who tend to be on-world influential or powerful refugees, off-world enemies who help refugees, or rarely other Tyrants engaged in a power struggle.
     
    Saiph: Nervejacking
    Control a target's motion, and "fuzz-out" mental activity, for a short time. Must compete with the willpower of the target. Can control up to around 7 people at once. Can be very mentally exhausting to use.
     
    New info: Can be used against small, dumb Rahi swarms to act as a mass Rahi Control power; such Rahi have far less willpower than a person so more can be controlled with less effort.
     
    Tyrants of this power are susceptible to turning into Tentacular mutants.
     
    TLhikan: Igatatu (Lava Telekinesis)
    Telekinetically control existing lava. Cannot create lava. Not as adept as a Toa of Lava. Mental connection with lava also often makes Tyrants with this power disoriented on other planets, so they rarely travel offworld. Tend to work on Lavaboats.
     
    New info: Tyrants with this power who have gone offworld too much often go insane and fail to return home, seeking out the nearest powerful source of heat to live by. They can often be found at furnaces, guarding them as if they were mere Rahi. A few who have held onto some sanity live in the rare volcanoes on other planets, especially on Promathus, the most-visited planet by Tyrants. Both levels of insanity are somewhat common on Ta-Clysmax.
     
    Tyrants of this power are also susceptible to turning into Cyclops mutants.
     
    Toa Nidhiki05: Quantum Energy
    Beam of quantum energy halts a target's motion, even in midair, and user can hold them in place or move them around. Often used to throw projectiles. Can be used as an energy bolt that halts a target for 10-15 seconds, but this is difficult and rare. Easily reflected or deflected by obstacles and Masks of Shielding or Forcefield Control. Tyrants are not immune, and users have a limited amount of energy at a time.
     
    New info: After use, this energy naturally recharges much like a Toa's elemental energy, from the quantum energy of the universe itself all around the user. Thus nothing can stop the recharging, short of the death of the user . It's rumored that even use of the Kanohi Vahi, should one actually exist in Aethion, would not affect this recharging. On the other hand, this also means it cannot be sped up.
     
    Takuta-Nui: Space Shift
    Freely rotate a bubble of space about 33 feet or 10 meters in diameter, including everything in it, in any direction. Slices anything on the edge of the bubble. Everything in the bubble freezes in place, immune to gravity, while the effect is on. Gravity immediately resumes the instant it's turned off. Careless users could be crushed by inverted land then, for example. Tyrant is frozen too except for thoughts and senses. Some substances and forces can null the edge slicing effect. Can't be used more than once in a few hours.
     
    New info: Tyrants with this power tend to be Deathwing pilots, since the power can be used in air too; Deathwings are designed to fit entirely within the diameter. This enables the craft to be supernaturally maneuverable, but only a single time per flight normally, so it is saved for emergencies usually.
     
    Shadow Destroyer: Death Swarm
    Briefly revive the dead to come to the users' aid. The walking corpses aren't mindless, and come back with the same loyalties they had before they died, so users must be cautious who they revive. Intelligence and power levels are weaker for the undead too.
     
    (Partially) new info: Depending on user's mental energy, and number/mass of dead targeted, a set time of temporary life ranging from one hour to several hours goes into effect the moment the dead rise. The user cannot cut this time short after that moment, though before it they can focus to make sure it is shorter or longer. Thus if they accidently raise an enemy, they must defeat the enemy naturally or escape to wait out the time, etc.
     
    Tyrants of this power are susceptible to turning into Skeletox mutants.
     
    Xander004: Natural Weapons
    Form nearly any melee weapon of a substance almost as strong and durable as protosteel, such as swords, shields, staffs, spikes, claws, etc. A limited shape-shifting ability; the weapon must remain connected to the user, and they can feel pain through it. Only way to get rid of it is to break it off; it disintegrates and then (new info) new energy to make another recharges over time.
     
    Aravagantos: Celestial Gift
    Trap anything above the planet's atmosphere with a forcefield, protecting it against entry friction and throwing it down. Heavier objects or more of them harder to move. Direction of fall can be controlled, unless Tyrant's focus is interrupted, in which case the shield goes away and it falls according to normal physics. Accuracy is difficult.
     
    New info: Most Aethion planets don't have orbiting rocks, but periodic, roughly annual violent volcanic eruptions do launch a significant amount of rocks into orbit of Tanuuk. Enough that at most times of the year, there is plenty for a Tyrant to cause an impromptu meteor shower.
     
    Note that they cannot affect, nor would they want to, their Cargo Star, since it has its own spatial motion system that holds it in place. Also, if they were to try to trap a robotic cargoshuttle or the like, they would need to see it with a telescope or such -- the rock meteor shower tactic works much more easily because the orbital rocks tend to cluster in a thin ring all around the planet, so the "net" of this power cast along that line will usually catch something.
     
     
     
     
    Mutants:
    All the nicknames for these mutation types were made up by me. All of these shapes come in a wide variety of colors as with the standard appearance.
     

     
    Mutated Tyrants who originally had the power of Igatatu (Lava Telekinesis). The mutation usually occurs when an insane Igatatu Tyrant uses his power, especially offworld. Thus Cyclops are the most commonly seen Tyrant on other planets, and many of them are insane and animalistic. It can randomly occur with sane Tyrants for unknown reasons, however. The ones on Tanuuk tend to be fully or mostly sane, and can remain integrated in society.
     
    They come in three power types; all three powers are variations on the common theme of transmutation. Note that this particular variety does tend to be colored in reds, oranges, or yellows, but there are exceptions.
     
    Skullkid: Magma Melding
    User turns into magma. Most commonly this is used to quickly travel through natural lava rivers and magma channels. Tyrants can also use it as a form of liquid intangibility, or to heal their wounds. Includes a strong, natural heat resistance. But if they stay in magma form in cooler temperatures long enough, they will turn into rock -- within a week, someone else could melt them and they would reform, but after that they would die. Also weak against Toa of Lava.
     
    New info: Magma Melders' hands usually turn to magma before the rest of their body.
     
    LewaLew: Self-Transmutation
    User can turn into any substance they project a ray of red light upon, with invulnerability to Toa of that substance or the like. They will retain the same shape and mobility as their normal form. Ray of light only reaches a few bio. They can't transmute into complex substances like organics. Only lasts a few hours at maximum.
     
    New info: The ray of light is projected out of the Cyclops's single eye.
     
    ~~Zarkan~~: Elemental Duplication
    Control energy that can mimic elements. User shoots it at a type of matter to gain a sort of faux power over that element. Doesn't work on Psionics or Kinetics unless they activate the power the instant an opponent attacks them. Can only copy one element at a time.
     
    New info: The bolt of energy is shot from the Cyclops's eye.
     
     

     
    Very strong subspecies of Tyrants. Come in two main power types; the first has a rare variation however. Have an unfair reputation of being dumb brutes -- but they promote that perception on purpose because an enemy that underestimates you is even easier to defeat. Actually tend to be brilliant on-the-ground strategists. Are often guards or bounty hunters. Origin of the subspecies is unknown.
     
    Shadow Destroyer: Acid Cloud
    Exhale toxic fumes, damaging lungs of a target or even killing them if they breathe too much. Can also melt solid objects. Tyrants are immune but their armor or weapons are not.
     
    "Parawin": Xander004: Acid/Fire Breath
    Hurl streams of intense fire or acid from the mouth. Proto-glass is immune to the acid. Overuse can damage the mouth.
     
    New info: Rare version of Acid Cloud.
     
    vorox-kal-nuva: Rage
    Anger and rage increases physical power, at the cost of mental control (without proper training).
     
    New info: Rage Skrall Trolls are often the most feared of any Tyrant, especially the ones who have trained themselves not to give into the rage too far, so they are super-strong and still very clever.
     
     
     

     
    Skeletox mutations occur rarely among users of the Death Swarm power. It seems to be entirely random, but many have undergone the transformation when reviving the dead bodies of Rahi they had hunted to the death, to serve as armies for them. This does not seem to be a requirement for the transformation however. Come in two power types:
     
    CBW Abc8920: Necrophagy
    Absorb powers from anything/anyone the user kills. Mutates user to have small physical traits of the victim, and their tissues look rotted. Rarely used.
     
    New info: If they absorb more than one power, both will be weakened. The gained powers can gradually fade away with disuse over time as well. Tyrants can choose to neglect a power they don't like, but they cannot speedily get rid of it at will. They can also choose not to absorb a power even though they kill someone. If they continue to use a power, they can keep it indefinitely.
     
    Another limitation is that if they try to absorb more than roughly ten powers, they would need to be using all of them almost constantly, and at such low levels as to be virtually useless, that they can just instantly lose them all and have to start over from scratch. As such they tend not to be indiscriminate killers as one might expect.
     
    Multivac'sEntropicDilemma: Corpse Evolution
    Reactive adaptation through death and reincarnation. The user can be killed any number of times, and revive with an immunity to that type of death. However, they are not immune to old age, and there is some randomness to the power. Tyrants could come back adapted to that method of killing at the expense of their mind, their mobility, etc. So Tyrants with this power usually avoid death like other beings.
     
    New info: There are rumors that some Tyrants with this power have died due to certain methods and have not come back. Whether this is true or what those methods are, none who tell the rumor seem to know, although some pretend to. It is possible they have mistaken incidents of reincarnation into things like mindless living rocks, for example, as total death, simply by failing to notice that the rock is anything out of the ordinary.
     
     

     
    Mutant version of Tyrants who formerly had the power of Thermal Absorption. This mutation is not accidental; it was accomplished by transforming those Tyrants to make them a more powerful version of what they were, via a mutagen that contains some Visorak venom. All Quadarms have the same power:
     
    MechaFizz: Megalomaniacal Gluttony
    Absorb energy from environment such as heat, electricity, or light, to increase speed, agility, strength, dexterity, healing, and senses. Also give off slight amounts of the energy absorbed. Heat is most commonly used. due to its abundance on Tanuuk, but is the most inefficient. User must be within several feet of the source of energy. Undisciplined users become consumed with desire to absorb more and more energy. If they absorb too much, they could explode.
     
    (Partially) new info: Quadarms who risk being suicidally gluttonous are known as Megalomaniacs.
     

     
    These Tyrants all originally had the standard power of Nervejacking, but overwhelmed themselves by trying to use it too much or with too many targets. As a result they receive one of three variations on the same theme of mind control as well as a body appearance that resembles a neuron (brain cell). They are often stigmatized by other Tyrants for their supposedly incurable lack of tactical self-control, a key factor in the Tyrant's successful hold on the planet.
     
    This is somewhat unfair, however, and in fact many Tentaculars learn from the mistake and gain greater self-control than the average Tyrant of other types. This is partially due to the fact that all three power varieties of Tentaculars can have even more severe consequences if they are overwhelmed, so they view their mutation as a second chance.
     
    Sometimes the stereotype is true, however -- it's just that Tentaculars who don't learn restraint tend to fall into comas, die of "mind rotting," or be killed by unruly Rahi. Thus there is usually no third chance, so these Tentaculars tend not to last long.
     
    Kahinuva: Infection
    Infect sapient species with sickness and control Rahi, similar to a Makuta's infection ability, but using a mental link that is similar to a wireless connected computer virus. Users can learn to focus to create specific illnesses, and more complicated Rahi commands. Requires concentration; difficult to use on more than ten targets, and an overwhelmed user risks falling into a coma. Easier to use on Rahi.
     
    Janaro: Mind Corruption
    Remove free will of a weak-willed being and influence their actions. Not full-blown mind control, slightly more powerful in females. Repeated use can "rot" the mind of users and targets.
     
    New info: Mind rotting tends to be a vicious circle; a rotted mind is less able to discern when they should stop using it, and severe rotting ends up in mindless hyperactivity, which usually results in accidental death. Only low levels of mind rotting are easily recovered from.
     
    :Yami:: Beast Control
    Most Tyrants have a low-level form of this, enabling them to more easily tame small Tanuuk animals and control large ones. This mutant variety gives them full control over 10-30 smaller beasts or 5-15 larger ones, depending on mental discipline and experience. High-level users' control sometimes slips, making target Rahi unruly and dangerous to other Rahi the user is controlling, other Tyrants, or even the user.
     
    New info: These three powers are very similar and can be mistaken for each other, so here are some differences to keep in mind. Beast Control is the only one that cannot affect sapient beings. Infection is the only one that creates a "permanent" bond (if not removed by some means). And Mind Corruption is sort of an in-between of the two. Also, Infection requires the most difficult, slower focus on the target, Mind Corruption is still a process but faster, but Beast Control is instant with most Rahi.
     
    Perhaps the easiest way to think of it is that Infection is like Makuta's infection of Rahi and sickening of the Po-Koronans in MNOG, Mind Corruption is like an evil version of the Noble Komau, and Beast Control is more like the Makuta's actual Rahi Control power.
     
     
     

     
    Tyrannical Knights are a subspecies who all serve as elite guards for Tyrant ruler palaces and such places of high importance. All Tyrannical Knights are trained from spawning to be highly adept at the use of all weapons, and martial arts. They all have the same power, but it can manifest as several radically different subpowers:
     
    Tomdroidser: Battle Song
    A musical power -- the effect produced depends on the instrument:
    *Drum: Increases fighting capabilities of individuals/groups to the point equaling Brutaka
    *Flute: Hypnotizes target, who obeys the thoughts of the caster.
    *Trumpet: Controls weapons
    *Bells/Chimes: Clears the mind of target, becoming friendly and agreeable
    *Xylophone: Healing
    *Guitar: The most powerful, it can control the elemental power of Sonics at Toa level
    Effectiveness depends on skill with the instrument. All except Guitar can be cancelled by Toa of Sonics.
     
    New info: The standard large sword of a Tyrannical Knight (pictured in the right hand over the shoulder) can be used as a rudimentary Drum and Xylophone, by banging on the flat of the blade or tapping on the smaller guards, giving small increases in fighting abilities and minor healing powers.
     
    The back of the left hand has a knife blade attached which can be banged on those parts of the large sword to accomplish these effects. And because this knife need not be held, it can still be used as a weapon at any time while the large sword is put away -- so both hands can be available to hold an actual instrument.
     
    Tyrannical Knights are the only known type of mutant Tyrants who existed at the beginning of time 500 years ago, already knowing what their job would be, and that they were indeed Tyrants, not a different species.
     
    All Tyrants have a strong tendency to be loyal to the tyrannical goals of the species, but this is especially so with Tyrannical Knights -- they are downright obsessive. And thus while they are not really the most feared unless you happen to be a palace robber, they are the variety most slaves would think twice about taking on more than any other.
     
    In fact, many have been known to take their obsession beyond palace guarding in their off-duty hours and work long hours tracking down refugees, but only in the local area so that they are sure they can return to work on time for their next shift.
     
  11. bonesiii
    [NOTE TO ARTISTS! Be sure to read the blue text at the end!]
     
    Wow I have a blog don't I?!
     
    Sorry for forgetting about this for so long. Been very busy.
     
    Updates:
     
    -Huzzah for Netflix! Have watched all kinds of things, like some episodes of Monk I somehow never saw, the glory of the original A-Team (etc.), Battlestar Galactica (both versions), in progress of watching episodes here and there from every series of Star Trek (never did get to see all the originals -- woot!), and most recently going through Doctor Who.
     
    -Some of the Dr. Who villains (and such) are so cool I've decided to do LDDE MOCs of them for the heck of it. Work in progress, I'll probably post 'em in a topic once I finish the series (new version; I'll go to the original show later). Some are modifications of (mini-fig scale) MOCs others have already made, found online (like the Dalek, but I've got an opened version too and both versions are a little more accurate. Anywho, wait and see ).
     
    -So, I finally realized what was up with the BZP profile feeds and "updates" thingamabob, which I'd entirely forgotten about. I've decided to use the "update" (the one thing that actually displays, one message at a time, on the profile main page) to report progress on my Bionicle history retelling, for those that keep asking me over and over. Here's my profile:
     
    http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showuser=5195
     
    I'll try to update this about once a week or maybe more.
     
    -I hope to get it done VERY soon 'cuz it's obvious a lot of you are looking forward to it, and I've had a lot of fun with it so far. Of course, realistically, "very" is defined as "sometime before New Year's".
     
    -No, S&T contest hasn't been forgotten about. It's just that for purposes of something in the entry I was working on judging last, it'll be best for me to go through all the 06 books line by line to check something and I've been putting it off till I need to do it anyways for the history retelling.
     
    -Shards contest -- I've been making gradual progress whenever I'm bored with other stuff. Sorry I haven't had the mental energy to put either contest at the top of the priority list. Soon(ish?) I hope to just take a break from everything else and burn through it real quick to get those polls up. (I'll be doing that first, then memoirs contest later.)
     
    -For the history retelling, I've got a rule that as much art as is available or possible should be included to give a clear sense of the imagery in each chapter. Where canon imagery is lacking (or hopelessly ugly ) I've been searching for quality fan art and have already gotten many artists' permission for a lot of images. But there's still a list of things (so far) that I've yet to find anything good for, and if any of you artists out there wanna take a crack at 'em, here's your chance (bold is highest priority):
     
     

    -Annona (peering out of a hole in the ground in daylight ideally)
    -original Glatorian form of Jungle Element Lord (ideally holding a mysterious-looking orb that has a plot purpose)
    -dark-robe-obscured GBs
    -best guess of original appearance of Vorox
    -same with Zesk
    -Avohkah (zappy elementals in Karda Nui)
    -Miserix original (humanoid) form.
    -a random, unidentified Order Agent (your choice of appearance, male, titan)?
    -maybe scene of Matoran Civil War?
    -Toa Zaria
    -Toa Naho
    -Toa Nidhiki (I've asked one artist for permission for a good one, but no response thus far)
    -Xian Mountain in tiny rock form inside metal box, multiple mouths
    -weird mutant scorpion Rahi from Maze of Shadows (your choice of interpretation)
    -Karzahni plant (woody vines coating wall of a cave)
    -EP Entity (Mask of Shadows form)
    -giant jellyfish (one of the First Rahi)
    -better interpretation of Bahrag in protocage??
    -Tahtorak on home island, Keetonguan riding?? 
    MOCs may work too if it's got a reasonable background (no tabletops or keyboards or the like visible please; the usual draped-sheet backgrounds work fine). Any takers? You'll be credited (in comments in text file version of story and review topic posts/edits going with each chapter, maybe captions if I can figure that out).
  12. bonesiii
    I have noticed that the most effective, simple cure for (normal) hiccups is extremely rarely known, and even when it is known, it's usually not explained properly. I figured this out over the years by simple logic from the explanations in the news of what normal hiccups are, and have been testing it successfully for years. So here it is (basics in bold for easy skimming).
     
    Hiccups are essentially muscle spasms in the diaphragm -- the muscle that forms the "floor" of the lungs and is one of two ways we breathe. Now, when spasms occur in normal muscles, the standard advice is simply to stretch them for a few seconds.
     
    So the easy solution to hiccups is to stretch the diaphragm for a few seconds. The trick is knowing how to do so.
     
    The key is that the muscles that surround our rib cage form the second method of breathing, and when used in combination with holding your breath, can increase pressure on the diaphragm, forcing it to expand downwards, stretching like a balloon under pressure.
     
    So, if you get hiccups, simply take a breath, and compress your lungs via the rib muscles.
     
    It's basically the opposite of sucking your stomach in; your diaphragm should move down, so your stomach should puff out (yes, it'll make you look fat lol). No need to be extreme; just hold it for a few seconds, and release. Now breathe normally. The hiccups should be cured; if not, try taking a deeper breath and holding it longer.
     
    The key is that using the rib muscles to compress stretches the diaphragm more than your control over the diaphragm itself makes possible. It's the equivalent of many types of exercise warmup maneuvers which will typically also bend the muscle more than its own inherent control can do.
     
    The partial version of this is fairly well known, but it's usually just explained as "holding your breath." (As cited on the Wikipedia page.) Just holding your breath is one possible indirect way of causing this, as some people when holding their breath will "accidentally" apply stretching pressure. But this explanation tends not to work because not everybody will habitually stretch their diaphragm when they hold their breath, so these people are left with the impression that holding your breath is just another urban myth akin to "scare me" nonsense.
     
    Actually, sucking in a lot of breath is really not necessary most of the time. Just hold whatever breath you have and compress downward, although the more air inside the better. A normal breathing in is usually enough.
     
    Incidentally, "scare me" sometimes works for the same reason; it will sometimes cause people to suck in their breath, accidentally stretching the diaphragm, but you may as well save yourself the trouble (and the sillyness) by just stretching it intentionally.
     
    To be clear, don't make a big deal about it. It's actually extremely easy.
     
    Sometimes when I've briefly tried to explain this to people, they look all dramatic and try to puff themselves up like, well, a pufferfish, and then think they have to hold their breath until they're blue in the face. (Probably because people are so used to the myth that hiccups are hard to cure, that they think all solutions must be used with gusto.) No, no. Generally just a few seconds will do, and if not, there's no real harm in pausing to take a breath and then stretch it again. It seems to work "cumulatively"; the time spent stretching adds up, rather than the whole thing collapsing so you'd have to start over (though this is hard to quantify just from personal experimentation, so I can't be sure of this part).
     
    NOTE: Wikipedia states on the hiccup page that some forms of hiccups are caused by more serious medical issues, so it's possible this method will not cure all hiccups. Basically, try it, and if it doesn't work, then try something else -- but I find that unlike most "home remedies" that carry that same advice, this one actually works every time I try it.
     
    Drinking water may work as a more long-term fix if water deficiency is causing the original problem, but to me the idea of drinking while your breathing is violently spasmodic seems dangerous, as you might easily take it in the wrong way and have to cough it up. If eating or drinking I try to hold whatever breath I have already and be sure to swallow before trying this.
  13. bonesiii
    Today the Bones Blog brings you a spoofish attempt to combine punny versions of Bionicle names with their trope functions in-story, summarizing the entire Bionicle storyline in a way that might help you remember Bionicle, might make you laugh, or might make you long for pie jokes. Enjoy!
     
    In the Time Before Microwaves, the Giant Sprite Bottle descended from the sky. His name was Matthew Dewey. Inside the Giant Sprite Bottle, many bionic Matthewians lived, working to keep Matthew healthy.
     
    But Matthew had been lulled into a false sense of security, and many other bionic beings inside turned against him.
     
    There were the fearsome “Zee-weapon-eez-ready!” beings, or Zee-ans for short. There were the violent Spikebackies, also sometimes mistakenly called by the name of a splinter group of them, the Pyraspikes. There were the bruteish Stuffedshirtians, one of whom led an army of the spidery Visual-rocks, so named because the brown ones could camouflage themselves as stones. And many areas were conquered by warlords called the Bad-wisecrackers.
     
    But the worst of all were a group of scientists who had many powers, especially Shadiness and Freaky Costumes – the Make-huge-toxic-beasts. They lived up to their name by creating the Raaaaaaring beasts. The worst of all went by the title Make-you-think-you-won. His name was Terrorbats.
     
    He made Matthew sick, and fall asleep as he was flying through space.
     
    Now, long, long ago, in the same galaxy, before the Giant Sprite Bottle had been made, many other bionic people named the Gladiators and the A-gory-sport-watchers lived happily on their green world, Big Ball. They had their own troubles – they had bestial cousins named the Voracious Eaters, and cunningly evil cousins called the Screw-yalls. There were also the Elementary Lord-it-overs.
     
    But their worst trouble came when they discovered an Energy Drink filling inside the Big Ball. They all squabbled over who should control the filling, and totally missed noticing they'd left the cork to the nozzle open, so the Energy Drink leaked out. Thus began the Cork War.
     
    Some secretive, clever scientists used incomprehensible magical science to figure out that the Big Ball would soon break into three big pieces if it kept leaking. Their actual name wasn't known, nor was anything else, so everybody just called them the Grandiose Let-Them-Be. They decided they must do whatever it took to stand up for what was right.
     
    So naturally they made murderous invisible robots called the Batty-terrors (some say Terrorbats was inspired by them).
     
    When that failed miserably, they decided to build the Giant Sprite Bottle instead, and.... send him off to study alien planets for a long, long time. Yeah.
     
    The planet split apart right on schedule, and Matthew Dewey left without doing anything about it.
     
    Most of the Big Ball became the Big Brown Olive, where most of the inhabitants remained. Its water was all lost to one of two other big fragments, the uninhabited Big Blue. And its trees somehow all ended up on the Big Side Salad, which was mostly populated by more Voracious Eaters.
     
    The Grandiose Let-Them-Be were too shamed by their apparent failures to stick around, so they disappeared for the most part, except for three. One was serving out a Life Sentence in prison. Another named And-they're-gone stayed behind. And a third disguised himself as a Matthewian inside the Bottle, named Vell-I-like-ya! It is thought that he was responsible for the Zee-weapon-eez-ready! beings.
     
    Matthew got so lulled into a sense that nothing was wrong by his adventures that he almost forgot he was supposed to put the Big Ball back together again, until one day he happened to look inside himself – no, he didn't pay attention to the actually intelligent bionic beings struggling against evil inside him, but he did notice a pattern in the ground made by the Sharp Moles that reminded him of the Big Brown Olive, Big Blue, and Big Side Salad.
     
    So, he was on his way back, when Terrorbats' sickness hit.
     
    He fell onto the Big Blue.
     
    A camouflage system inside him, that used some of the Energy Drink, leaked out, and created a crust over the bottle that made him appear to be a giant island.
     
    Just moments before this, in a big city inside the Bottle called the Big City (its Matthewians weren't very imaginative), Terrorbats attacked and imprisoned its leader, an elder who went by the title Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy, named Doom-and-gloom. Terrorbats put on a disguise that made him look like the elder, and began ruling the island.
     
    First he sent some of its elemental heroes off to their deaths. These were called the Toe-wahs, because they had a tendency to stub their toes and cry. Earlier one of the Big City's Toe-Wahs had fallen into evil – he was called Knee-deepey because he used to wade in water to try to make the pain in his toes go down. But an evil female Zee-an named Rude-awakener transformed him so he had four legs and stubbed his toes even more.
     
    Another Toe-wah, named Lee Candle, wielded fire, and remained alive in the Big City. He realized something was wrong with the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy and sought out six Matthewians to become heroes as well. In return, he stopped stubbing his toes so much and became another Too-old-to-be-wrong-guy.
     
    These new City Heroes were:
     
    Vacuumer, a clean-freak forger who wore the Canola Mask, Who's-not-there?, which made him invisible. He also specialized in making more Canola Masks, and had practiced whining a lot so he would make a good Toe-wah. He wielded fire too.
     
    No-comma, a teacher whose mask was the Wow-your-grammar-sux mask, which enabled her to mark up her students' papers for even the slightest infraction, but she preferred blue ink over red so she wouldn't scare kids. She wielded water.
     
    When-you-were-little, a gruff historian who loved mudslinging, and used his Read-at-night mask to learn as many embarrassing facts about his friends' childhoods as he could find time for.
     
    A-new-one, a carver who was even better than When-you-were-little at insulting people, and would always come up with new slights for every occasion. He controlled stone and manipulated people with his Come-now mask.
     
    Math-pow, a clever prankster and vehicle tester who loved to use technical know-how to come up with fast vehicles that often crashed, and also to concoct elaborate hoaxes and pranks that usually involved objects carefully balanced on the edges of half-open doors. He controlled wind, and his mask, the Mirage-key, enabled him to create illusions.
     
    And finally, Nudge-you, a scholar who didn't like to talk, and would rather get your attention by nudging and pointing at whatever he wanted you to notice. He also could move objects telekinetically with the Move-that-for-you mask. He wielded ice.
     
    Terrorbats first sent the evil Morbidstalk plant against the City Heroes, but they defeated it by collecting the six Wonderful Frisbees to slice it to bits. Then he sent out the robotic police of the Big City, the Vacuumies, but Vacuumer knew too much about them and was able to help the Toe-wahs dodge them. He also sent the mutated Knee-deepey and a brute named Creaky against them, both of whom now worked for the Shady Poachers organization, but they were outsmarted.
     
    Sadly, Terrorbats was able to fool the Matthewians long enough to command them to get inside little Psychodelic Cages, which made them forget their past lives. The cages also weakened them into Toe-bunglers, diminutive beings with big toes, so they would stub their toes a lot even without having elemental powers.
     
    Terrorbats had earlier hired Vacuumer to make a powerful Mask of Boredom, the Canola Yawney, which he believed would enable time to seem to flow very slowly for the Toe-bunglers so he could tell them a fake version of history that painted Terrorbats as the good guy. But Vacuumer didn't give Terrorbats the mask – so the villain tried to steal it, but Lee Candle blocked his attack, and was killed, giving the City Heroes a chance to trap him in an Ice Cube.
     
    It was at this time that Matthew fell asleep, and the bottle crashed, causing the Bad Shake. The bottle's lid cracked as the carbonated pop expanded for a while.
     
    The Toe-wah knew it was only a matter of time before the ice melted, so they traveled through one of these cracks to the crusted outer surface of the Giant Sprite Bottle, and named the land there Matthew Dewey Island after their fallen leader. Then they returned to the Big City to bring the Toe-bunglers up to this new land.
     
    But Terrorbats called out mentally to summon an army of the Visual-rock spiders, led by Rude-awakener and by a Stuffshirtian named Sillydoormat. The spiders' bites mutated the Toe-wah into Horrible bestial versions of themselves, but with the help of mysterious but wise Aha-guys and the powerful cyclops Keep-an-eye-on-you, eventually overcame the enemies and brought the Toe-bunglers to the new land. In the process, the Toe-wah became Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys and divided their people into six villages, each elder leading one.
     
    There was the icy Frozen Coca-Cola village, led by Nudge-you.
     
    The jungle village of Leaky-Rooves, led by Math-pow.
     
    The desert fortress of Poke-Aura, led A-new-one.
     
    The underground realm of A-new-kind-o'-Oreo, led by When-you-were-little.
     
    The all-female Gal Corner, led by No-comma.
     
    And finally the volcanic castle village of Talk-or-roast, led by Vacuumer.
     
    Terrorbats used Infectious Canola to control many Raaaaring beasts and send them against the Toe-bunglers, especially the Man-that's-big crabs, the Tail-jabber scorpions, the What-are-ya-called-again? dino-lizard-snake... things... the My-neck-can-reach-ya tigers and oxen, and the Buzzy-drama dragonflies.
     
    For a thousand years they warred against these beasts, until one strange Talk-or-roastian (who was really an Average Matthewian in disguise – that is, the original type of Matthewian who all the others were based on, of the element of light – but had forgotten this) Had An Adventure There And Back Again, and was shunned for it. His name was Take-you-along, because he was fated to bring an overcurious Toe-bungler named Tap-dance-happy along to his near doom.
     
    But on that first adventure, he brought six special stones to a Super-Value shrine, which had many mystical powers. This one summoned six more Toe-wah to the island.
     
    This special hero team was named the Matthew Heroes because it was their job to heal and reawaken the Giant Bottle.
     
    They were:
     
    Talk-huge, the tempermental hero of fire, who wore the How'd-ya-hit-me? mask that shielded him from any harm except surprise attacks.
     
    Golly, the friendly female hero of water, who could breathe water with her Kow-tow-to-fish mask.
     
    Poe-hah-too, the hero of stone who could make a joke even out of Edgar-Allen-Poe type horrific situations. His Car-Comet mask enabled him to zoom zoom.
     
    A-new-wah, the hero of earth who could make enemies find new reasons to cry with his Pack-a-real-punch mask.
     
    Cold-puck, the aloof hero of ice whose I-can-see-through-you mask enabled him to see even the most cunningly hidden enemies and artifacts. He also loved hockey.
     
    And then there was Louie, the airhead hero of air, whose grin-shaped mask, the Me-truefly, enabled him to hover, which when combined with his power over air enabled him to fly.
     
    After these heroes arrived, Take-you-along had other Adventures.
     
    At one point, in Poke-Aura, he encountered a sneaky salesman named Achoo, who sold special “No comment” balls for a popular sport of that town, Goalie. Later he met the ill-fated Tap-dance-happy, took him along, and lost him to the enemy – so he had to rescue him from a hive of Buzzy-drama, as well as Math-pow. He earned some respect from the elders and was assigned the honored job of Secretary, which he found boring, but tried to keep up with writing historical records anyways.
     
    Most importantly, he formed the Secretary's Cooperation, a group of Toe-bunglers that helped the Toe-wah fight Terrorbats's beasts. The Matthew Heroes fought their way past the Raaarings, and even turned into two fused beings of three each, forcing the Raaarings to give them the name Can't-eat-ya. Finally, Terrorbats Made Them Think They Beat Him. They all celebrated, but Terrorbats released a new threat onto the island.
     
    These were the Bugborg, unstoppable but very cute round robots that were tasked with cleaning off the crust from the surface of the Giant Bottle. The robots' secret power was their Brainyucks, living creatures in their heads that could clamp onto a face to mind-control them. They were led by the Bah-Humbug-Hags.
     
    The Toe-wah Matthew defeated the Bugborg by trapping the Hags in another Ice Cube, but they fell into a secret collection of Energy Drink, and were transformed into the Toe-Wah New Forms.
     
    Elite Bugborg Whoyagonnacall? were released, and stole the New Heroes' elemental powers, and made them share their mask powers too. They did this by stealing the heroes' Symbolism. And then they went to a Rubik's cube and started to try to solve it.
     
    But Vacuumer had given Talk-huge the Yawney, and he bored the Whoyagonnacall so that they fell apart before they could solve it. Only their Brainyucks remained, and these were thrown into a deep hole.
     
    Around this time, the Toe-bunglers were rebuilt into as close to the original Matthewian forms as the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys could manage, and took on the old species name again. Take-you-along took along a fire villager named Jolly, and his pet Us-yall-ride-it crab, Peekaboo, on a quest to follow the Flashlight Beam cast by the Mask of Light, the Canola Average-okeydokey. It was believed they were looking for a Seventh Toe-wah.
     
    By then Terrorbats had healed, and sent out his Rockstars to hunt down Take-you-along with their Electric Guitars.
     
    But this plan backfired when one of the Rockstars killed Jolly, and Take-you-along realized the error of his ways. He decided to change his name to Taking-you-back-home, and transformed into the hero of light.
     
    He defeated the Rockstars, and Terrorbats Made Him Think He Won – and in the process revived Jolly, who finally learned to live up to his own name. Taking-you-back-home helped take everybody back home to the Big City, so the New Heroes could start the process of reawakening the Giant Sprite Bottle.
     
    Meanwhile, the Too-old-to-be-wrong-guys told everybody of their history.
     
    They arrived at the city to learn from Doom-and-gloom that Matthew Dewey wasn't just asleep, he was dying – and they had to go on a big voyage, to an island named Big Voyage (its inhabitants had the same imagination problem), and retrieve the powerful Canola Ignoble-geekdom, the mask of Get A Life. It had the ability to give people rude awakenings, but of a more well-intentioned sort that could shake people out of their indifference... and revive them if they had just died, due to a pun-based glitch in its coding.
     
    So, the New Heroes went there, only to be promptly thwomped to utter defeat by the Pyraspikes, who wanted the Ignoble-geekdom for themselves – though they didn't seem to understand what would happen if they actually got it.
     
    Then Jolly, Taking-you-back-home, and five other Mathewians set out to try to find out what happened. But Taking-you-back-home was turned away by a special barrier, and had to take himself back home.
     
    Jolly's group went through a scary land ruled by the corrupt Cars-and-knees, a repairman who was supposed to fix cars and damaged bionic beings, but did a lousy job of it. They managed to find one car that still worked, and took it to the Big Voyage island.
     
    When they got there, a red star in the sky, imaginatively called the Red Star, blasted them with mysterious lightning, and turned them into the powerful Toe-wah I-need-geekdom, who could use electronics really well.
     
    They were:
     
    Jolly, hero of Fire whose mask was the Cool-luck-skill, enabling him to pull off really cool moves that took a lot of luck and skill.
     
    Hah-hah-hah, female hero of water, who was really good at friendly jokes, but had a nervous breakdown when the Red Star accidentally gave her a moustache and chronic headaches thanks to her Elderly-imitation mask, which was supposed to help her find the mask of Get A Life, but all it did was make her see ghosts.
     
    King-Kong-dude, whose You-tell-us mask let him read minds. He wielded air.
     
    Hulky, the athletic sharpshooter who wore the Sand-knock mask, which let him hit even a particle of sand with a projectile at long range accurately. Wielded stone.
     
    New-pair-o-boots, the earth hero, an inventor who could make new shoes out of anything. He was also famous for making Boxerboot robots, which could be worn like boots to control their feet, and also had punching arms to fight Bugborgs. He tried for a long time to make Spockflight boots, but gladly gave up the many disastrous attempts when as a hero he gained the Canola Glidin', which enabled him to fly.
     
    Most importantly, there was the hero of ice, who was purest at heart and most devoted to doing what was right, even if it would cost him his life – Made-oreos. He could turn snow into the most delicious cookies, making him highly popular. The only person who had a problem with him was Hah-hah-hah, because his mask enabled him to seem to be a ghost, the Canola I-dunno-if-I-saw-a-ghost-or-not.
     
    These Toe-wah tracked down the Ignoble-geekdom, defeating the Pyraspikes and the end of the 7,700,007-stair tunnel underneath the volcanic My-valor mountain. They had help from six Matthewians of the island – one of them being the disguised Grandiose Let-Them-Be, Vell-I-like-ya, as well as the powerful titan Ax-on-steroids. The Pyraspikes were aided by Brutalguy.
     
    But just as they collected the mask, it fled from them, diving beneath the water to a big marine place called Big Marine Place. The Toe-wuh I-need-geekdom chased, becoming the Toe-wuh Marine.
     
    They got six new mask powers:
     
    Jolly got the Get-yer-Arthur-on, which enabled him to resemble a medieval dragon... oh, and had a sonar power too.
     
    Hah-hah-hah got the Facts-on-animals mask, which enabled her to learn to imitate sea creatures and even copy any powers or abilities they had. It also had the wonderful benefits of not having a moustache, giving her headaches, or making her see ghosts. Plus, she got wings just to look cool.
     
    King-Kong-Dude got stuck with a Canola Splat, a mask that could enable random sea monsters to go all king kong on anyone nearby, including himself. He carried two projectile launchers to help defend himself against his own summoned creatures if need be.
     
    Hulky got a Get-real-heavy mask, making him even hulkier.
     
    New-pair-o-boots got a Volt-cloak mask, which projected a forcefield that made him partially invisible, and dampened sound as well.
     
    And finally, poor Made-oreos got stuck with a disturbing If-all-else-fails-try-necromancy, which enabled him to control corpses.
     
    Here the Marine Heroes ran into heavily mutated forms of the Bad-wisecrackers, the ancient warlords who had been cast into a prison but had escaped. After everybody ran around, grabbing the mask and trying in vain to Get A Life, Made-oreos finally captured the mask, and sacrificed his life. Matthew Dewey's life was saved. And in his last action, the hero of ice teleported his friends back to the Big City.
     
    Meanwhile, the New Heroes were busy working on various steps to awakening Matthew. They melted the Ice Cube that had trapped the Bah-Humbug-Hags, allowing the Bugborg to clean the crust off the Giant Sprite Bottle. Then they headed to the giant's most vital organ, the Big Heart.
     
    Here they fought several villains called Make-you-think-we-want-to-stop-yous, and were aided by Average Matthewians, and Ignoble-geekdom, who turned himself into a Toe-wah and then awoke Matthew. The Make-you-think-we-want-to-stop-yous were betrayed by Terrorbats, who allowed a Fizz Eruption to destroy them. But the Toe-wah and their allies escaped with powerful vehicles.
     
    But suddenly, horrible news came – Terrorbats had taken over the Bottle, and exiled Matthew from his own body, in the Mask of Get a Life, sending it to the Big Brown Olive planet!
     
    The good guys fought Terrorbats from within, as Matthew tried to organize the Gladiators and A-gory-sport-watchers to stop the Screw-yalls and take over an Empty Bottle. Several important characters at this time were:
     
    Ackbar – whose favorite expression was, “Itsh a trap!”... oh wait, wrong story...
     
    Greenish – a green Gladiator good guy.
     
    Can-ya-take-me-to-da-alienz? – a blue female.
     
    Malcontent – a red exile who was able to do a Crocodile Dundee mind-control trick on the Voracious Eaters.
     
    Meanstreak – a white gladiator that was willing to cheat.
     
    Certificate-of-death – a historical figure who is now dead.
     
    Terrific-skill – a blue gladiator who is good at fighting.
     
    Tumor-worthy-skill – a giant leader of Skrew-yall, famous for his pitiful one-on-one fight against Matthew Dewey.
     
    Click-here – a beetle that Matthew befriended, and awarded by turning into a lifeless shield that enemy swords would hit over and over again... and then occasionally back into a beetle, but inexplicably the beetle seemed to love him all the more for it.
     
    Run-you – the red leader of the A-gory-sport-watchers, who could honestly say to everybody else that he runs their country. He also led the village of Vulcans-R-us.
     
    Very-fix – blue junk scavenger.
     
    Attack-us-please? – rock tribe helper of the Screw-yall.
     
    Tardy-luck – a green adventurer who tends to find useful things but also tends not to show up for work on time.
     
    So-mad – the only known survivor of the disease-inflicted iron tribe. He's not happy about it.
     
    Met-us-halfway – a traitor who later got turned into a snake by the Mask of Get A Life.
     
    Eventually, Terrorbats came to the Big Brown Olive and fought Matthew, who had taken over the Empty Bottle. An army of villains also came out onto the desert world to attack, including Looks-can-kill Rockstars and a hunchback Spikebackie named Neckgone who also led many other Spikebackies who looked like clones of him for some reason. The Screw-yall also joined the fight, too embarrassed by the easy defeat of Tumor-worthy-skill to do anything else.
     
    Talk-huge escaped the Giant Sprite Bottle and used the Glinty Armor to destroy all the Rockstars. The Spikebackies and Screw-yalls surrendered.
     
    Meanwhile, Matthew started the process of re-forming the Big Ball, and a piece of Big Blue broke off and hit Terrorbats, killing him. The Giant Sprite Bottle broke open, and its inhabitants fled. Then Matthew used the Empty Bottle to finish the process, and the Big Ball was re-formed. Yay, celebrations, and stuff.
     
    Later Vell-I-like-ya started killing people, like the gelatinous Tryin'-not-to-seem-crummy, and Cars-and-knees. Cold-puck and Poe-hah-too traveled to the Red Star and Saw Dead People, including a Matthewian named Maverick, but were almost killed by beings who lived on the star called Can't-send-or-keep-ya. A new, highly mysterious being called Goldiflocks waved a hand and made a castle. Meanwhile, a team of people led by a Toe-wah, Order-in-the-court, went on a mission to the Big Side Salad region to try to find the Grandiose Let-Them-Be, and ran into trouble with the Voracious Eaters.
     
    As for Matthew Dewey, he stayed inside the Mask of Get a Life and left. Some said that he was lulled into a false sense that the bionic beings didn't need his help... others that he had learned not to be lulled into false senses of stuff and was actually going on an important mission. Still others think he was just trying to Get A Life, but the world may never know...
     
    Whatever the future may hold, such has been the Legend of the Bionic Lull.
  15. bonesiii
    So, my initial proofreading of my next Paracosmos story, The Perfect Cage, is finally done. My brother may be reading it if he has time first, and I should make some art for it and stuff, but otherwise should launch fairly soon.
     
    Don't forget to enter the S&T contest, everybody!
     
    Sorry I've been a bit slow in proofreading the ones some of you PMed to me, but don't hesitate to do that if you want. I will try to be very thorough and check as many details as I can, so it can take a while, but I usually do catch some things to fix.
     
    Has everybody seen LDD's latest version? The pieces are finally split up into more logical and numerous categories. Previously a lot of the minifig-related pieces were all dumped into two categories, which made finding the right part very tricky, but now they've got categories for bodies, head, hats, armor, weapons, animals, and more. Plus, I may be crazy, but it seems like there's a couple more Bionicle parts than I remember. And there's even more great HF parts and others.
     
    This past month I have started taking all my collecting-dust MOCs and making LDD versions of them, instead of worrying about getting an expensive camera, and taking the less masterful ones apart. Finally clearing up shelf space this way, and ironically it's got me wanting to buy more LEGO finally. LDD, having the opposite effect I worried it might, once again.
     
    I'm also categorizing my real plastic pieces by LDD-ify-able and non, so future MOCs can be guaranteed to be easily turned into digital form.
     
    Anywho, as usual there's plenty on here that's still on the to-do list. My next project is to put up the polls of the Matoran traits -- this is just for curiosity, but it's been on my list for a while and shouldn't be too hard, so I plan to do that quickly this week. After that I'll worry about the Shards contest polls, which will take more work to collect and sort everything, and when that's done, start on the EM Season 1 finale and the like.
     
    The first General Art contest on the new forums was very fun, and although we didn't get a ton of turnout, did get some great winning pieces out off it. So, this would probably be a good time to start throwing theme ideas at me for the next one. (Maybe to run around December-January or thereabouts.)
  17. bonesiii

    Goblin Sharks

    By bonesiii,

    I HAD NO IDEA THESE THINGS EXISTED!!!!!!
     
    They're awesome!
     
    Look them up. Cool.
     
    But how is it possible these things aren't all over Shark Week and school textbooks and the like, unlike Hammerheads whose alien awesomeness is all over the place?
     
    This must be corrected at once.
     
     
     
    In Other News:
     
    --Working half on taxes right now, and ten halves on writing the next Paracosmos story, The Perfect Cage. I almost have the theory that I write better when I'm supposed to be doing something else lol.
     
    --Yeah, I know, I know. EM is being neglected. I'll get to it.
     
    --Yeah, I know, I know, my RPG still needs uploaded / updated. I'll get to it.
     
    --Everybody who's even slightly interested should enter the art contest. Even if you don't think you can do a good job. You might surprise yourself.
     
    See below.
  18. bonesiii

    Artists? Yall Alive?

    By bonesiii,

    About one month left in the General Art contest, and zero, yes, zero entries so far.
     
    Are there people out there working on entries?
     
    Should I extend the deadline?
     
    What?
     
    ?
     
    Thoughts? I went for the contest after several people expressed interest in entering that theme, so... a little confused.
  20. bonesiii
    Firstly, the General Art contest, LEGO Battlescapes, had been extended by two weeks, to Tuesday May 8, at 11:59 PM EST.
     
    Enter!
     
     
    Second, still writing The Perfect Cage. The end is in sight now.
     
    Third, now that taxes are done I hope to start getting some Expanded Multiverse stuff back up later this week. Watch the discussion topic in S&T for updates. Not sure how much I'll be able to get to this week but what is needed includes putting up a saved copy of the wiki in downloadable format (a temporary solution), redoing the fanon collection topic, continuing the Shards contest, art for the next (finished) Cipher Chronicles episode, figuring out if I'll be posting that or the guest author, posting it, and working on the Season One finale.
     
    Big list lol, and I've probably forgotten something.
     
    Fourthly, I've been writing, off and on, a blog series I've been thinking of doing for over a year, basically expanding on my "variety is good for society" theory that I've summed up before. Obviously geared towards forum discussion, but a lot of it is applicable in many other situations. Because I've had trouble keeping up blog series that I wrote as I went before, I'm instead writing this whole series before I start launching, just as I do with fanfics, so it'll be easy to continue posting it until it's all up. So it might be a while before I launch it. And yes, I'll try (try ) to keep it more concise than my older entries.
     
    Fifthly, LOST still rocks.
     
    Sixthly, speaking of LOST, I think I've come up with a theory that explains what was really going on in the Season Five finale, which in my observation is the single most confusing part of LOST to most fans. Basically, I think the Lostaways really had to be at the Swan site to be teleported back to the future. In all the other time-jumps, energy was seen building up (due to the Orchid wheel being off its axle) before they "time-ported". Well, energy was building up at the Swan site too.
     
    So I think the nuke did NOT go off, but that finale tap of the bomb just happened to be at the same time as enough energy had built up, and they were timeported to the future. But the bomb DID need delivered, so Juliet didn't die for nothing; bear with me on this. As soon as the energy was channeled into the timeportation, the Incident's charge was released just like what would happen later with the pushing of the button in the Hatch. This gave Dharma the idea and bought them some time to build the hatch before it built up again. But they also built the safeguard system to actually set off the nuke.
     
    If I'm right, then when Desmond turned the key in the Season 2 finale, he actually set off the nuke then. And survived because he was farther away -- and he, Locke, and Eko were time-ported to safety too just before it went off, after the key was turned. This would seem to explain just about everything related to the Swan. But the bomb probably couldn't have gone off in the S5 finale, because Juliet was right next to it but she did survive for a while. Other theories are possible but they seem like more of a stretch to me.
     
    Also there's some loose evidence for this in the flash sideways, that the island was sunk but Ben and his father moved off the island, hinting that if the nuke had gone off in the S5 finale, Juliet and company probably would have died, or at least Juliet, instantly, but the island would NOT have been destroyed as Kate thought; the same thing would have happened as when Desmond turned the key. But perhaps the early destruction of the Swan site would somehow let the Man in Black destroy the island by some other means, before Oceanic 815 flew by.
     
    Of course, this is all an artificial construct in the afterlife made by the Lostaways to find each other, so it doesn't necessarily need to be accurate to what would have happened if the bomb went off, but it seems to fit.
  21. bonesiii
    Welcome to the Bones Drawing Guide, ready as promised. This entry is designed to rapidly teach the important basics about how to draw. The first rule is, don't assume you aren't capable of drawing!

    The art for these lessons was drawn on paper and scanned; it also applies for drawing vector art in Powerpoint along the lines of my previous guides (1, 2). The text was originally handwritten but is also typed below each pagescan in case you can't read my handwriting, plus expanded on a little.

    It is partly inspired by Bruce Mcintyre's "How to Draw", which is the text I learned to draw from, and I highly recommend. (Here's what the book looks like.) That book has tons of lessons and a system of important elements of drawing. So as not to plagiarize, and because I think his system is a bit incomplete, I've formed my own system that I think is more logical. But if you want a more complete collection of practice lessons, try to get your hands on that book or a similar such book.

    A very important point he made is that everybody learns how to write, but contradictorily, we aren't properly taught how to draw. If you're one of those people who always utters the cliche "I can't draw/I have no talent/etc.", ask yourself, can you write? You might not have the talent to become a "writer", but you can put a pencil to paper and draw letters that form words. Why? Because you learned how -- and because that helps you communicate. Or same with typing.

    Likewise, you might not have the talent to become a famous artist or the like, but you ARE capable of learning how to draw, so that you can communicate visual ideas. Or maybe you DO have the talent. You might not even know it yet.



    To treat this entry as lessons, I recommend spending a day drawing your own stuff based on each rule, then spending a day on each column in the examples category. Both draw the same things I showed and draw your own, with emphasis on your own. Or you can just read it or treat it as reference; I've designed it to be easily referenced.

    The main thing that you'll find lacking here is huge amounts of lessons -- this IS freeware after all.

    To those that would say "I was already taught how to draw" -- well, there are many bad methods being taught out there in schools (for example, the wrongway cube method; see below), and there's a lot of different things that I've compressed all into one guide. This also has a Bionicle focus you might find helpful. Even if nothing in this is new to you, it may still be interesting.

    Contents
    Rules - the logically organized rules for drawing
    A: 3D Shape
    1: Outer Shape
    2: Skeleton
    3: Avoid Flat

    B: Perspective
    1: Angle
    2: Floor
    3: Size
    4: Focus
    5: Wrapping
    6: Overlapping
    7: Foreshortening
    8: Vanishing Points

    C: Texture
    1: Lines
    2: Spots
    3: Nicks/Cracks
    4: Scales
    5: Bumps
    6: Indentations
    7: Letters
    8: Gravity

    D: Lighting
    1: Radiance
    2: Direction
    3: Shading
    4: Surface Shine
    5: Cast Shadows
    6: Multisources
    7: Reflection
    8: Metal Shading
    9: Refraction

    Examples - five pages of various examples

    1: Wrongway/Rightway cubes and cylinders, foreshortening, and vanishing points.

    2: Metallic shading, doughtnut foreshortening, etc.

    3: Facial expressions/emotions on a simple Bionicle-esque face, and Human/Toa proportions.

    4: More about vanishing points; parabolic fully accurate system, and skyscraper system.

    5: Various stuff to close out the guide, especially 3D letters.






    Rules

    NOTES:

    This section presumes that we're not dealing in abstract / heavily stylized art, but in realism. When you get into abstraction these rules can be bent or even ignored at will -- but it helps even there to know to draw in realism first so you know what to bend/ignore.

    Section also presumes we're drawing the shapes with black lines, either on paper or on the computer, rather than a more photorealistic no-line edge system (as with paint or the computer equivalent). It's the easiest way to draw, though no-line systems are more realistic. For the most part the rules apply regardless of this, just wanted to be clear.

    On paper, I recommend using something erasable (I prefer Papermate erasable black pens since you don't have to sharpen them unlike pencils). If you use pencil, try to get a real black pencil, not just the silvery gray school pencils, and sharpen it often, preferably with an electric pencil sharpener.

    On the computer, obviously I would recommend using Powerpoint (see the previous guides as linked above) or another vector program, instead of bitmap/raster programs, because the lines can be edited much more easily with vectors.

    Finally, I'm not dealing with color at all here. Just one bit of advice for coloring on paper -- I strongly recommending scanning your lineart WITHOUT color, then printing it, and coloring the printout. That way if your particular chosen method of coloring messes it up in your opinion, you can always try again. (And I'd recommend Prismacolor pencils for that.)

    Aaand without further ado...



    A: 3D Shape

    1: Outer Shape
    See in your mind the 3D outer shape, or a basic idea of it, before you begin drawing. Be able to rotate it in your mind. Think of drawing as a way to photograph your imagination -- you have a "camera" that lets you draw a picture of the 3D shape inside your head. NOTE that once you begin on paper sometimes you have adjust the 3D shape in your mind as you go as the pen does something different from what you planned, but you should still remember to form a(n updated) 3D shape to guide where your pen goes next.

    2: Skeleton
    Not all shapes have an inner structure, but keep the concept in mind. Organic (and biomechanical) creatures especially have a skeleton & muscles underneath that shows through. NOTE the bone structure of the "Tuskhop mouse" (ignoring that I ran out of room to make him as normalish as I wanted ) -- those are the same basic bone shapes, connection points, and angles that most mammals share.

    3: Avoid Flat
    Real objects are 3D. Keep that in mind as you draw "2D" art -- your paper is 2D, but it is merely a flat window into a 3D world. NOTE: avoid the "wrongway cube" technique that is sadly taught in many public schools (I speak from personal experience >_<) that has you draw a flat square and then magically have the rest of the cube appearing at a ridiculous angle behind it -- such a shape is NOT a cube. You CAN draw a house from the "flat" angle shown above, but the chances of your art "camera" actually aiming at a house from exactly that angle are slim, and it doesn't look realistic.



    B: Perspective

    1: Angle
    Your "camera" points at the 3D shape you're drawing from an angle. Choose the angle you want.

    Generally make sure that the angle is the same on all things in a single image. Exceptions are when you're close enough to things (or they're large enough) that the vanishing point system and the like is needed; see later rules on that.

    Also Ojh and I ran into the situation when making our RPG of a false angle system built into it -- the chipset "ground" tiles are forced into a pure top view, yet you usually see the sides of charset people/objects. So the angle system we used there was to always go with the angle that best showed the object, so in the same area you could have somethings topview, some angled sideview, and some pure sideview.

    Regardless, a big chunk of the artistry of an image is the angle you choose, so choose wisely.

    2: Floor
    Closer objects look "lower" on a floor.

    3: Size
    Farther = smaller (for two objects of the same size, and also for different parts of a close/big object).

    4: Focus
    Usually, farther objects/parts have less detail or texture density, and are drawn more lightly. Especially distant mountains due to atmospheric blueing.

    5: Wrapping
    Exceptions to the above Focus rule; curved textures look denser on the farther edges, where you're looking at the texture at a greater angle, like the tree bark, leaves, and wireframes above.



    6: Overlapping
    Multiple objects/parts overlapping can be tricky. Try imagining the lines of the shape behind (re: dotted lines). ALSO when drawing on paper, always start with the nearest overlapping objects first, then draw back (on computer generally do the opposite).

    7: Foreshortening
    At angles, circles (as in at the top of cylinders) become ovals, not circles with malformed thicknesses magically appearing. Slightly "football" shaped, too. And foreshortening applies to all shapes.

    NOTE with the cube that ALL parts of it must be foreshortened. The only way you could realistically draw a perfect un-foreshortened square would be if your "camera angle" was directly perpendicular to the cubeface, and in that case, the thickness would NOT be visible, so all you would draw is a square.

    Can't emphasize the cube thing enough, as you've probably had gradeschool art teachers that didn't know better. Try looking at an actual physical cube -- you'll see I'm right.

    8: Vanishing Points
    Most accurate way to foreshorten. Use especially for: 1) large objects, 2) closeup objects, 3) room interiors, 4) simple geometric shapes, 5) roads. NOTE especially that this applies to curved and complex objects, NOT just to rectangular ones, though it's usually harder to tell, hence the foreshortened circle inside a vanishing point grid.

    You may want to skip down to the larger illustration on vanishing points in the Examples section, then come back up here, as it makes this much clearer.



    C: Texture

    1: Lines
    Easiest way to create depth to objects, and applies to many real things, not just imaginary wireframes.

    Examples to take note of: pipes/tubes (note the use of this for a Kanohi tube in the Examples section), rocklayers (note in the above example the thicker and thinner varying layers as in real sedimentarily laid-down rock and in volcanic rocks often), and the wood/bark. With the first two of these examples, the lines are perpendicular to the cylindrical direction of the shape, thus curve around it, but with the bark, the lines are parallel with the branches. Also try crisscrossing diagonals and more.

    More examples: fur; notice how instead of using solid outlines on the two creatures above I made the outlines out of "//////" shapes for the rodentlike creature and interlocking curves for the horselike creature's mane. For things with wiry hair (like a mostly bald guy's forehead :-P) you would go and draw a solid outline and draw the wiry hairs coming off of it, but these things are rare.

    Also stripes, wrinkles, and on biological creatures especially mammals, underlying structure that shows through the skin and fur such as ribs, other bones, and muscles.

    2: Spots
    Note the infected Hau to show you that spots don't necessarily have to be cheesy polkadots. :-P Be sure to foreshorten. Also note the two dots on the shirt on the right shoulder -- not only must they be foreshortened, but they must also be curved to wrap with the curve of the cloth there.

    3: Nicks/Cracks
    A specific line texture technique that adds age to things, especially metal, stone, wood, plastic etc., while also adding depth. Usually you want to make sure each nick is at a very different angle from the others, so it's not confused with parallel or perpendicular line texture. Also for curved objects (like the biomechanical leg shown above) make the nicks more common on the edges (wrap).

    4: Scales
    In some cases like reptiles or rooves. With scales like the reptile's above (or like fish scales), draw the "frontmost" scales first; the ones that overlap the others behind it.

    5: Bumps
    Convex lines point out from "center" of surface/angle. I put center in quotes because on the bumpy bone-forehead of the reptilian creature above, there isn't an exact circular center. So more properly you could say angling outward perpendicular from the surface. Note also the atom-like bumpy sphere, where the bumps are angling away from a true center.

    6: Indentations
    Yes, I know the numbering is wrong starting with this rule in the image above. I don't have time now to fix. Basically this is the opposite of bumps, using concave lines pointing in towards the "center." Note the sandy ground texture in the lowermost image above, and that the footprints use indentations inside bumps, basically.

    7: Letters
    They must foreshorten and curve around textures. This may very well be the most difficult part of realistic art (on paper), as your muscle memory constantly tries to lure you back into normal 2D writing mode. See the Examples section for much more illustrations of this.

    8: Gravity
    Weight distorts texture, depending on what it is. This rule corresponds to the following things in the above image: the candlewax drips, the footprint impressions and pushed-up-and-out sand around them, and the greater amount of grass at the base of the tree, and the slightly higher ground there. The ways this rule manifests abound.



    D: Lighting

    1: Radiance
    Remember that light is radiating energy. It comes from a source, and whether that source is "onscreen" or off in the image your "camera" happens to "take", all lighting and shading and cast shadows and the like must take this into account.

    The paper version above is confusing on this one, so lemme be clear:

    With lamps and most similar artificial "terrestrial" light sources, the shadows and shading radiate away at many different angles, all radiating from the source. Even the two different sides of the shadow are at least a little angled differently from each other. Note especially the shadow of the lower-left cylinder in the image with the lamp. Also shadows of farther objects are often longer than closer objects (depending on height and yadda).

    With sunlight, all the light is mostly from one direction at a time, since the sun is so far away (and is bigger than Earth by a ton).

    2: Direction
    The three balls above cannot possibly be in the same image because the light direction differs randomly (barring weird atmospheric bending effects :-P). Choose your lighting directions carefully. By default I usually go with light coming from the upper left corner if I don't wanna bother figuring out where a source is (for when I'm just drawing an object and not its background just to illustrate the object itself etc.).

    3: Shading
    Refers to darkened surfaces of objects, opposite the light sources. Note the gradient fading effect of the shading on curved objects; realistically there is no definite linebreak between light and dark on them, unlike cornered objects. Exceptions can include nighttime shading and especially outer space shading (and simple cartoon styles).

    (For shading in .ppt I generally use layers of trans-black.)

    4: Surface Shine
    The opposite of shading; refers to lightened surfaces of objects, facing the light sources. On paper, 'tis the abscence of shading. On computer art such as .ppt, I generally use either layers of trans-white, or radial "shine" ovals (or both).

    5: Cast Shadows
    Refers to darkened area cast BY the object onto other objects, the floor, etc. Again, shading refers to the darkened areas of the object itself, which is not the same thing as shadows.

    In direct sunlight, the edges of shadows are sharp edges; not blurred at all. Shadows cast by lamps generally begin with sharp edges but gradually fade into blurry edges the farther away from the object and lamp they get. Shadows in partial cloudy sunlight are extremely blurry.

    6: Multisources
    In cases of multiple sources of light, there are multiple shadows, and the shading/lighting on the objects themselves are blended between the multiple systems too. When two cast shadows overlap, they are twice as dark (or to put it another way, where they don't overlap, they are only half as dark). I recommend doing all the shading for a single light source first lightly, then doing all of it for the other, then adding extra darkness to the overlapped shadow areas.

    NOTE that shadow edge blending is technically a case of tons of multisources -- one the original bright source's center, two all diffuse light reflecting off other nearby objects, walls, floor, through clouds, etc., and three the fact that close/large light sources have light coming from all over them, not just their point-centers.

    Direct sunlight can be treated as a point-center-only light source, as can distant streetlamps or sports stadium floodlights, etc. But a household lamp that is near the object in question has light coming from a wide area, from the top of the lampshade to the bottom, and from the left side to the right. So essentially it's thousands of multisources, times a bazillion when you factor in reflected diffuse light.



    7: Reflection
    Reflected images get complex fast. Basically imagine a dotted line perpendicular to the mirroring surface -- the incoming angles of light with respect to this line equal the outgoing angles. Do this for every point on the mirror inside your imagination's 3D shape, and you can come to a habitual understanding of reflections. Also just try holding various shapes in front of a real mirror and observe the real world.

    Explanations of the other text in the above cardscan:

    The image at the top shows the reflection of the tall rectangular box shape in a mirror that's at an angle. If you go to a shoestore, they often have mirrors against benches in this exact position. Study those mirrors and note how wacky the reflection is compared to the real objects.

    Or, to replicate that scene without going through the dotted line process for every point, you can follow three steps: 1) draw the exact flip of the original object in a mirror at a 45 degree angle to both the object and your "camera", 2) angle the mirror down, and angle the reflection down by the same distance. So the reflection is twice as angled as the mirror, and 3) Move your camera up, and angle the reflection so now you're more up than sideways. The ceiling will generally be partly visible.

    There's another even easier way to do that image, which I'll get back to. First lemme explain it for a simple puddle.

    With the cylinder above the puddle, notice two key things. 1) The upside-down base of the reflection is the base of the object, NOT the top of the puddle. Since the puddle begins a ways away, the reflection looks cut off. (Also I showed another cuttoff part of the reflection farther out where the ground rises out of the puddle again; so treat the reflection as if it's "behind" the outline of the ground; as if the ground is overlapping it.) 2) If you flip the image upside down, you're now looking "up" at the pillar in the water, instead of down at the original pillar. The top of the original pillar shows a foreshortened circle, but the top of the reflection does NOT.

    So back to the angled mirror, another way to draw it (and the way I used incidentally) is to mentally or actually angle the paper so the mirror looks "flat" to you, like the puddle, and then just draw the upside-down-flipped version of everything. If you get good enough you will be able to do this totally mentally without tilting your paper at all.


    Finally with the mountain lake scene, notice again the bases and the upside-down-flipped aspects. There are three different (basic) bases; the shore earth's base which is right on the edge of the lake, the bases of the trees, and the bases of the mountains.

    The shore base actually curves and bends, and where the shore juts out to the left, you see what could be considered a fourth base for that portion of the shore. Also, since the shore curves/angles away from the water instead of being perpendicular to it, the reflection is thinner.

    The tree base is the most complex. The tree trunks go into the earth higher up than the lake. So the reflection base is actually somewhere inside the dirt under the trees, not at the visible base of the trees themselves. So imagine that each tree is actually on top of a pillar of dirt inside the ground, and the base of the pillar is at water level (and that might very well be where the ground water level is). In addition to that, each tree's base is farther away, thus "higher" on the puddle's plane, so less likely to peek over the shore, much less the other trees. So the only trees you see in the reflection are the closest ones.

    The mountains are the easiest -- they're so far away the horizon line acts like their reflection base. The deviance from that line is too slight to worry about. NOTE that the middle mountain's reflection is actually not done quite right; there should be far less of it visible since it's the farthest of the three mountains judging by overlap.

    Now, look at that image upside-down (if you can manage that onscreen :-P) and look at the reflection. Doesn't it look as if you're looking up at the mountain scene through a hole in the ground? That's basically what you're doing.



    8: Metal Shading
    Metallic curved surfaces almost always have a bright edge on the farthest side from the light source (reflected light from the ground on their mirror-like surfaces, intensity depending on how reflective the metal is), more extreme contrast (gradient goes to pure white towards the light source and to pure black away from it before the bright-edge), and a leading edge darker area.

    For flat metal, use many randomly spaced diagonal gradient lines. All on one surface are parallel, but lines on the next surface align differently. This isn't pure realism here, but pure realism often makes it harder to understand as metal at a glance.

    Another technique for flat metal is to ripple and patchy-ify the lighting based on the slight ripples and bumps in the metal's surface, which I didn't happen to draw, but yeah.



    9: Refraction
    Even trickier than reflection. Usually water is all you need to worry about. It's another case where it's best to imagine the actual light rays. Also taking a college physics course would help. :-P

    Note most extreme angle does not refect at all but reflects down off the air back into the water. That's basically what fiber optics takes advantage of incidentally.

    There is a slight foreshortening of the whole shape, which gets more extreme the more extreme the angle of the "camera" is.



    Examples:

    This section shows some of the most commonly important concepts in art (with a Bionicle focus). Each of these pages basically goes down columns then up to the next column etc.



    To start this off, look at the wrongway cube that is sadly often taught in art schools. The two images below that show what that mangled shape would actually look like if you angled it different ways. It's NOT a cube -- it's a parallelogram prism.

    Note that the first example under Rightway cube started out too short so I gave it a base. The three examples below that show actual cubes, and below that you see the only situation in which you should actually draw a perfect square that isn't foreshortened -- here you're looking directly at one of the cube's six faces, and thus you do NOT see the other faces at all.

    Then there are some wireframe stacked cubes and such.

    Back up to the topo' the next column, note the wrongway cylinder, which is actually a... diagonally squished pop can? :-P Then note the rightway, and the top view.

    Third column shows some examples of foreshortening, under the vanishing point system.



    First column starts with metallic lighting. There's another example of multisource lighting with a metallic cylinder -- notice the multiple bright lines in the cylinder's gradient. Then some random stuff.

    Second column starts with a rounded cube. The shading is solid on the flat parts but a gradient on the curved. The doughnut and snakes show what happens when a tubelike shape is foreshortened. And the rattle cobra shows various snake features in one creature for the heck of it.

    Third column shows various stuff, especially letters.



    First column is devoted to facial expressions, on a simple Bionicle-esque face, and with VeggieTales faces.

    At the top of the second column is a geometric basic idea of a Toa Metru ish face, and then all the parts shown seperately.

    Below that is basic human/Toa proportions. Note that for humans the arms should be a little shorter; Toa arms tend to be longer. Basic idea is to use the head heighth as a measuring unit for the rest of the body.

    Also some general tips: Try drawing real plastic Kanohi and Bionicle/LEGO pieces, as your eyes actually see them. Try sketching lightly first then adding detail. Also try molding from clay or Sculpy or the like, then drawing that shape.

    Exact text (mostly), starting with the emotion column:

    Simple Bionicle-esque example face to show emotion.
    happy
    sad, angry
    scared, grin
    "that's weird", yawn, annoyed
    coolguy grin
    VeggieTales style emotes (satisfied/halfsmile, annoyed glare, "you're crazy" glare, super-scared, coolguy grin, insane, very annoyed, and singing uplook.

    Example Toa-style head, using simple geometric shapes.

    Human Proportions
    NOTE: Average 0nly. Contrary to popular myth, Bionicle characters do not need to be in human proportions, as they're not related to humans and are biomechanical. However, Toa tend to be close; same with similar taller beings. Matoran (and human children, by the way) tend to be more like 4 to 6 times the head, etc. And even adult humans vary.

    Total height of a proportionate humanoid is 8 times the head.

    Legs in proportionate humanoid equal half the body height.

    Arm length may vary in biomechanical/etc. beings.

    These arms are longer than a human's by about half or 3/4 of a head; about average for a Toa.

    (Human belly button at 3 times the head (down from top of head).)



    This page shows the Parabolic 3 Vanishing Point System, and the Skyscraper 2 Vanishing Point System.

    Note the lower left diagram, which shows that a fully accurate vanishing point system for all objects actually has 5 vanishing points; one for the distant horizon you're facing, two for left and right parts of horizon, and two for up and down.

    Example: if you look down at a cube or up at a skyscraper, the verticle lines should actually be slightly bent towards the corresponding up/down point. The skyscraper's top here bends in towards the up vanishing point because you are looking up at it.

    This applies for close/large objects. Small objects you're looking at from a distance don't necessarily need this.

    The above typed text says what I handwrote on the pagescan, but says it better, so I won't bother typing the exact wording of the handwriting here, except that the random building is shaped like a rocket from top view thus I've dubbed it the "Rocket Hotel". Reasoning being to show off the "knife-edge" style that many modern skyscrapers now have, instead of all 90 degree corners.



    And finally some various things to finish out this guide.

    Topleft is a reminder to add "thicknesses" to things like Kanohi masks or windowsills, etc. Only paper actually has no (noteworthy) thickness. That's a randomly coolified Miru there.

    Below that are four simple steps for drawing a plastic/metal/etc. 8-point star:

    1) Draw a foreshortened "paper" square.

    2) Divvy it up into four parts by cutting it in half with a line lengthwise and widthwise, and draw a verticle up from the center.

    3) Draw a circle within the foreshortened square and halve its sections with lines (giving you eight radiating lines from the center of the circle, all foreshortened automatically), plus another smaller circle inside.

    4) Draw the final lines between the points in question -- the center at the top of the verticle line, the outer tips of the star points where the eight radiating lines hit the outer circle, and the eight points on the inner circle exactly between the radiating eight lines. Voila.

    Then there are various things on writing 3-dimensionally. Here's the text of all that:

    ART. Practice this way of writing by making all your letters do these kinds of things for a while. Then add the boundaries.

    Or try writing normally, then tilting the page and drawing what you just wrote.

    Note the wrongway to tilt your letters; you can't just write at an angle, you must mutate the lines of the letters themselves.

    Note that in the wrongway, the verticle parts of letters are parallel to the verticle edges of the foreshortened square, and the horizontal lines are angled so they're parallel to the angled "horizontal" edges of the foreshortened square.

    Write on!

    Notice how even the parts of the same letter bend down, not just each letter being lower than the other. Notice the oval as the foreshortened letter "o."

    Avoiding wrong angles (in foreshortened writing) is tricky; may take a lot of practice.


    Next to last is a bending serrated tube. Note the (|) shape at the point most parallel to the "camera", and the scrunching of the foreshortened bands at the parts most perpendicular to the "camera."

    Finally, four common LEGO/Bionicle pieces.






    A'ight, there's the guide. Comments/questions/yadda?
  22. bonesiii
    Random updates:
     
    1) So it turns out there actually already was a seventeenth art contest, which simply wasn't listed in the archive, making the current one the eighteenth. Working on fixing that everywhere... [Edit: Should all be fixed now. Lemme know if yall spot an error still.]
     
    2) Since I just posted another Altacosmos, I was in the mood to review the previous two ones on the old forum, and discovered that apparently I never posted the fifth and final chapter of the second one, The Dynasty. I totally don't remember leaving it unfinished and thought it was all posted. No idea if the downtime interrupted me or what, but in any case I will repost it soon (in the same short epic format). Sorry about that folks.
     
    3) This week I need to work on other stuff, but next week I hope to go through files now archived on my new laptop (copied there) and figure out which file was the most recent RPG update, and upload it.
     
    As I had promised, if I was unable to revamp the RPG quickly for a new version, and I haven't had time for that. But I don't plan to post a new topic for the old file.
     
    4) Instead, once that is done I intend to revamp the RPG as planned and when it's ready post a topic about it.
     
    5) Still planning to do that standalone game I mentioned a while ago later.
     
    6) Plan to finish (before posting) Unseen and simply post it as an epic.
     
    7) The new Altacosmos, The Islander, I just posted was not the one I had planned to launch next. That one is to be the longest Altacosmos Chronicle yet, and is maybe about halfway written. So at sooooooooome point I also plan to finish that, but not sure when.
  23. bonesiii
    I've been wanting to say this for a while now, but had no particular place to put it, so here it is.
     
    There's been a lot of discussion lately about two major things:
     
    1) Reasons Bionicle got unweildy near the end.
     
    2) Criticisms and opinions of Ninjago.
     
    In my opinion, some of the criticisms of Bionicle's later years are right on, and I think Ninjago has so far been a highly refreshing reform of those problems. Hero Factory started out to replace Bionicle, but I think Ninjago has passed it by far.
     
    True, there is one key difference between Ninjago and Hero Factory, which is that Ninjago is half comedy.
     
    But I actually think that has helped, in its own way, get past those problems I was talking about -- which is that I think sometimes Bionicle (and its fans) took the characters too seriously and felt the need to always know what was going on with a character once he or she was introduced.
     
    That caused the later years of Bionicle to get watered down with all these side updates. That can be kinda fun to a point, but the great thing about some of Bionicle's early years was the ability to tell a story totally contained on one island or to one small group of characters. That allowed it to go deeper into just those characters.
     
    Hero Factory by contrast has been called "episodic" by many people, by which they seem to mean that there is no overarching story consistency. But Ninjago does have that, at least so far; the main enemy is Garmadon and now his son. There's at least that common thread to tie the plot all together, similar to how Bionicle always had Makuta to tie it together from 2001 to 2010.
     
    I also like how Ninjago mixes some epic themes with comedy, and even in the action sequences, the logic of what is really possible is not taken too seriously. Go to the Ninjago site and view the clip of Sensei Wu fighting shadows, for example. It manages to be funny and impressive, and doesn't worry about all the rules that Bionicle often carried along (which got really hard to remember).
     
    Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with theorizing about how something can be possible. I could explain the shadow bit easily with a bit of magical Spinjitsu-ish power, for example. It's a pet peeve of mine when some people try to take away others' fun of thinking about physics. But by the same token, people shouldn't misunderstand that I want a story to take rules too seriously.
     
    The one thing about Ninjago I don't personally enjoy much is the melodramatic kiddy voices, but it's no different than some of the Bionicle movie characters and we all know that little kids DO enjoy that, so there's nothing wrong with it. Most of what I've said above, though, was done well with Kung Fu Panda, without the kiddy voices, so Ninjago could probably have went that route. But it didn't, and I'm okay with that.
     
    Also, Ninjago in Lego Universe is awesome and I'm gonna miss it a lot.
     
    Another point I wanna make is that a lot of Ninjago's critics seem to be missing the point that it's supposed to be a fictional "science fantasy" genre universe, fusing technology, simple oriental designs, and magic all in one. I personally love science fantasy and I think the balance works wonderfully.
     
    Most of the criticisms seem to hinge around the idea of looking to the real world and taking things that are not together on Earth, and making that some sort of rule to try to squeeze Ninjago into. I disagree strongly, and it's very refreshing that LEGO has cast aside that kind of boring, over-serious attitude. LEGO's just having fun with it, and the fun is infectious!
     
    Keep it up, LEGO!
  24. bonesiii
    Hiyall and welcome to the list of links to my all-time favorite Bones Blog entries, from the very start loooooong ago. This entry will replace the messed-up and prone-to-disappearing sidebar archive and will be linked in my sig. I've listed slightly different titles here than what are in the actual entries in some cases for clarity's sake.
     
     
    Comedies & Cartoons:
    Interview: Evil Clock
     
    Interview: Evil Lord Survurlode
     
    Interview: The Chief Gremlin, Minion Of Survurlode
     
    Interview: Gollaga, Enemy Of Survurlode
     
    Interview: Orca Goblahk, Ex-minion Of Survurlode
     
    Interview: Lawyerahk Bob, Of The Dreaded Real Life Attack Wing
     
     
    Pet Peeve Winners!
     
     
    Bo Ring Cartoon Collection #1
     
    Bo Ring Cartoon Collection #2
     
     
    The Bones Diet
     
     
     
    The Gold Key To Nongu Award For Theories
     
     
     
    Art & Writing Guides:
    Bones Drawing Guide
     
     
    Vector Art In Powerpoint: Quality, Inexpensive, Easy
    NOTE: Now I use OpenOffice Draw, which is freeware, very different from Powerpoint in some respects, actually more powerful in most. With that, you can make vector art that is not only quality and easy, but FREE.
     
    Coolifying With Powerpoint Vector Art
     
    .ppt Face Contest Winners!
     
     
    Ruthless Elegance: A Visual Guide To Cool
     
     
    The Arena Method Of Writing
     
    Adventure Mystery
     
     
     
    Secure Password Method -- Bang (Strategically) On Keyboard
     
     
     
    Best Of The Bionicle Entries:
    Easy Makuta Powers Guide
     
    Science Fantasy = Bionicle
     
    Focus Groups: An Interview With Greg Farshtey
     
    Bionicle Ends Right Now
     
    Everybody Loves Teridax (His Name )
     
    Eight Years Of Toa Mata?
     
     
     
    Truthseeking & Debate:
    Good And Evil: Points Of View?
     
    Can Opinions Be Wrong?
     
    Join Petiton For Ban Bad Grammer Toady!
     
    Taste Reset Bars Exercise
     
    We're All Smart -- Brain Allocation Theory
     
     
     
    Off The Wall / Other:
    Ban Coffee
     
    Wacky Fanfic Elements
     
    UFO Theory -- Ionic Triangle Stealth Craft
     
    1-800-HAPPY-SMILE-KIT
     
    Transillumination
     
    Home Makeover A Block Away
     
    SUBTRACT
     
    Oonahvay Labble
     
    The Orange Fades
     
    Wise Guy
     
    Universe Swept Aside
     
     
     
    Paracosmos RPG Game: The Map Of Mata Nui -- Walkthroughs:
    From Beginning To Ko-Koro, by Master of The Rahkshi and bngi
     
    From Le-Koro To Storyline End, by Master of The Rahkshi and bngi
     
    List Of Paracosmos Matoran, by Zarkan
     
     
     
    Pet Memorials:
    In Honor Of Penny
     
    In Memory Of Esne
     
     
     
    Some other favorite banners from otherwise boringish blog entries:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
     
     
    There's a lot more entries I could link, but had a kinda of blah reaction to while looking over them just now, so didn't. Also, I'm not listing the MOC contest results entries mainly because the images don't seem to resize anymore and some are ridiculously huge. I'll work on a contest results archive later that will instead link to the powerpoint slides I made of them. Still have to pick the winners of one of them, I think... And as for Unseen, I'm going to finish writing it and just post it in Epics.
  25. bonesiii
    Hey, this is a super-quick entry simply asking someone to PM me the list of URLs, titles, and authors of the Key to Nongu winners (listed in a blog sidebar here), re-coded into BB code to be legible.
     
    I edited it yesterday and of course that made it disappear from my view, and editting it turned it all into a jumbled mess of HTML, and I don't have time to fix it now.
     
    Do so and thanks-cred will go in the post I'm going to add into the S&T One-Stop topic to include the archive instead of on my blog. (Since the sidebar glitch makes it impractical here.)
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